Yet political correctness exists — ssu

There are various things labeled political correctness, all of them were called something else in the past.

For example Stephen Pinker argues that freedom of speech is important and universities and science shouldn't make censor findings that seem politically incorrect — ssu

There has always been censorship and various reasons why something is censored. Censorship in the name of political correctness is only one form. It is not as if those who are anti-PC don't practice their own forms of censorship.

Pinkers arguments do show that this isn't just an invention of the American right. — ssu

People have always had standards of acceptable speech and behavior. It is not just those who are labeled PC who censor. The problem is that the condemnation of censorship spills over into a condemnation of PC. This is a more subtle and sophisticated form of censorship. Whatever someone who is labeled 'PC' is dismissed because they are, well, PC.

Nice post!

Few believe these conspiracies, yet these kind of even more outrageous ideas naturally lead to accusations that critical comments of the PC culture etc. are just 'disguised' attacks from racists. — ssu

From the wiki article on political correctness:

The previously obscure far-left term became common currency in the lexicon of the conservative social and political challenges against progressive teaching methods and curriculum changes in the secondary schools and universities of the U.S. Policies, behavior, and speech codes that the speaker or the writer regarded as being the imposition of a liberal orthodoxy, were described and criticized as "politically correct".

...

After 1991, its use as a pejorative phrase became widespread amongst conservatives in the US. It became a key term encapsulating conservative concerns about the left in culture and political debate more broadly, as well as in academia. Two articles on the topic in late 1990 in Forbes and Newsweek both used the term "thought police" in their headlines, exemplifying the tone of the new usage, but it was Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus (1991) which "captured the press's imagination." Similar critical terminology was used by D'Souza for a range of policies in academia around victimization, supporting multiculturalism through affirmative action, sanctions against anti-minority hate speech, and revising curricula (sometimes referred to as "canon busting"). These trends were at least in part a response to multiculturalism and the rise of identity politics, with movements such as feminism, gay rights movements and ethnic minority movements. That response received funding from conservative foundations and think tanks such as the John M. Olin Foundation, which funded several books such as D'Souza's.

...

During the 1990s, conservative and right-wing politicians, think-tanks, and speakers adopted the phrase as a pejorative descriptor of their ideological enemies – especially in the context of the Culture Wars about language and the content of public-school curricula. Roger Kimball, in Tenured Radicals, endorsed Frederick Crews's view that PC is best described as "Left Eclecticism", a term defined by Kimball as "any of a wide variety of anti-establishment modes of thought from structuralism and poststructuralism, deconstruction, and Lacanian analyst to feminist, homosexual, black, and other patently political forms of criticism."

PC is the face of the conservative battle against progressivism. For more on the history of this as well as the influence of dark money on politics, culture, and society see Jane Mayer's Dark Money.

With this in mind one seriously could ask why someone would get so emotional about it, really. — ssu

Because there is more to it. Some people feel that their way of life is being threatened by those who are going to tell them how to live, what to say and do.

I think there is some truth to this. But the world is changing and that can be threatening.

Actually, this shows perfectly the agressive PC attitude (contrary from the polite PC stance). It's starts from the idea that debate is only a power play — ssu

First of all, my attitude is not PC. This actually illustrates what makes so difficult the kind of rational debate you think is the solution. Not everyone who wishes to discuss the problem without automatically condemning PC is PC. Second, I do not think that debate is only a power play. As with all political speech, however, power is an issue. Third, this does not divide along us versus them lines. It has been my recent experience on another philosophy forum that any rational discussion of such things is impossible there because of a group of rabid anti-PC members who are too emotionally involved and convinced of the truth of their caricatures.

Yet the truth is that people on both sides of the political divide are annoyed by the victimhood tactics and crybullying of the agressive PC people. — ssu

I agree. But if one looks beyond the annoyance factor, it is not the PC who are controlling the discourse.

I find the Supreme Court "Citizen's United" ruling most instructive. First, because the citizens in question are a small faction of the ultra-rich. Second, because the Court saw fit to rule that money is speech. Big money, big enough to buy university departments and the new buildings that will house them. With all the noise of PC as a cover, the real control of discourse occurs in places we are not allowed to enter.

Here is a question that is not often asked in these discussions:

Does nature conform to our ability to comprehend it?

Put differently:

What is logic a reflection of?

We cannot comprehend how something can come from nothing. My claim is that this points to a human limit rather than to some truth about the world.

A lot of PC people think of it like this about the struggle part. It's a power play: you exert power by getting people to adapt your discourse or ideas by arguing that they are otherwise against minorities etc. — ssu

Of course its a power play! Politics is always a power play. We need to pay attention to how it is being played. It is not just those who are accused of being PC who are playing. The term itself has become a way to suppress discourse and ideas. This was a key play. A way of dismissing what runs contrary to the way one thinks things should be.

One problem is that the way things have been framed pro free speech is seen by many to mean anti-PC. If you are anti-PC then you will be against all the things the PC are defending and promoting. All you need to know is that is is PC and you can dismiss it without a second thought. Every "progressive" change that has been brought about in recent years in the move toward equality has been labelled PC.

It trivializes the issue if one thinks it is just about what words shouldn't be said or what jokes should not be told. By doing so one misses the power play. One is pushed to take sides. As if a myriad of complex issues is reduced to a label.

Otherwise, customs and language naturally change by time. — ssu

Yes, they do, but political change is rarely a peaceful and harmonious transition. It does not take place on its own without social and political action. The direction of that change is what is in question.

Sure, etiquette is only part of it. I never said that it's the whole story, did I? — S

It is not about you. You expressed a common sentiment.

In answer to the question of how we're going to live together, I would say preferably without so much politically correct bullshit. — S

What alternative do you favor?

Breaking down social norms must be a bad thing? — S

No. The problem is living without them may be. I do not have high hopes for everybody trying to figure it out for himself.

Repairing them must be a good thing? — S

I think so but I also think that it is an inevitable thing. People figure out how to live together. Just what that might look like is anyone's guess.

Political correctness is the right way of doing this? — S

No, as I said, it is a symptom.

Social norms aren't the be-all and end-all. — S

It should be pointed out that we are not at the point where social norms no longer exist. They are in transition. What they will be is what is in question. That they will be is also in question.

As to whether we can do away with them, I don't think so. We are a socially organizing organism facing the question of what the organizational change we are going through should look like, how it should develop. It is going to be a bumpy road with excesses and mistakes, but I am hopeful that it is not the end of the road.

I'll do what I have to get by, but I'm not going to just pander to the status quo. — S

One of the points I am trying to make is that there is no status quo, only a struggle over what will become the status quo. And in time it too must be challenged. But first it must be created. This is where we are.

Fuck etiquette. — S

I think etiquette is a safeguard against people who are too stupid to get along. — DingoJones

This misses the bigger picture. It is not about etiquette, although etiquette is certainly a part of it.

It is about social norms, which include but are not limited to behavior. They include values, allegiances, and our relations to others. In short, how are we going to live together?

We live in a time in which social norms have broken down. We are in the process of making repairs. PC is one means by which we are doing this. The extremes, which tend to get the most attention, do not tell the story. What deserves our attention is not the extreme answers but the question they attempt to answer: what should our social norms be?

I will have a look at Grayling.

I like Alan Bloom's translation and commentary. Between the notes and commentary one has a much better chance of understanding the text than with the use of poor translations and second literature that does not hold as fundamental to the art of reading Plato Plato's art of writing.

A few quick comments:

The noble lie is central to the text and operates not just within the city but in the text itself. In other words, Plato is not presenting a philosophical treatise or doctrines or theories. Where they appear they should not be taken at face value. Plato is lying to you - but it is a noble lie, a beneficial lie for both the soul and the city. But behind the lie of truths is the truth of our ignorance of the truth. And so we find elaborate constructs of truth - a realm of Forms known only via noesis, something which Socrates admits he does not know.

Nothing in the dialogues are merely decorative, stylistic, or superfluous. Who says or does what, when and where, and to whom are all important. Socrates spoke to what he saw as the needs of his interlocutors; he uses the analogy of a drug, suitable only when one suffers from a particular illness.

There continues to be a great interest in Plato and an enormous amount of literature being published each year. As with any philosopher, there are various interpretations. As helpful as one might be another might be as harmful. But this hinges on what one hopes to find in the text. A misguided commentary may be beneficial to some readers who are not so much interested in understanding Plato on his own terms as with finding something in the text that is of interest or value or use.

Political correctness is a symptom of a much larger and more serious problem - the lack of coherent social norms. We are in a struggle to establish social norms.

Us versus them is one of our oldest stories. The problem is that now some of the boundaries that have divided us no longer exist, and so they must be maintained "in principle", most often along the lines of religious and political ideologies, and framed in terms of freedom and rights, (although not always for all).

There is talk in some places of unity , but such unity is nothing more than us unified against them, and who is or is not one of us is ever changing. And so, some of the objection to PC comes from those who object to criticism of language that does not exclude those they want to exclude. But this gets buried under the excessiveness of those who do not want to exclude or offend for any possible reason.

PC is an attempt to control the discourse, but often appears in the guise of its opposite - anti-PC. Restrictions on what can and cannot be said and how it should be said or not said does not change people's attitudes and actions. At best it leads to the increased use of euphemisms and code (and also accusations of code where none was intended). At worse it leads to an attitude of hypersensitivity to offense and intolerance in the name of tolerance.

Suppose our everyday language is inadequate to answer the questions asked by philosophers. We might consider constructing a new language in which to set out such issues with complete clarity.

But how could such a language be constructed, except in using our existing language? — Banno

I think that there is another issue here having to do with the limits of language. Why is it that one can't put certain things into words? But just what is it that one wants to put into words? Are they already understood with complete clarity without words? Can we do that? Can something be thought clearly and not said clearly?

He is not referring to those ethical and aesthetic experiences of the Tractatus that cannot be put into words, but to philosophical questions that only arise because the language is misunderstood. It is not a matter of the inadequacy of language but of a philosophical assumption about a metaphysics of meaning.

This is a grammatical joke. Suppose I wanted to say something but could not find the words. I make them up. What do they mean? That thing that I had not been able to put into words. And what is that? There is no connection between the words and anything else except something in my mind that I still have not been able to convey.

Sorry Luke, I can't even begin to understand what you're saying about "explanation". — Metaphysician Undercover

Sorry MU but I found Luke's explanation of different kinds of explanation clear and correct.

I am not going to argue the point.

Debating definitions of certainty I think is deserving of its own thread, especially since folks here want to get on with their analysis of Wittgenstein. — javra

I agree.

I agree, except that I don't actually think that it's a problem either way in the broader context of what this discussion is supposed to be about, because the text would continue to have meaning, in my sense, either way. — S

The question of what this thread is about has been foremost in my mind from the beginning. I still haven't figured it out. It may be there is no figuring it out. It may all be a dance of the defensive. I think I stepped into an ongoing argument and will step out.

We've been over this already. I gave argument. You ignored it. You offer gratuitous assertions. — creativesoul

Okay. I think this says all that needs to be said.

Fooloso4, apparently you can't understand a text without reading it or knowing the language, and reading it makes you a user of the language. — S

The last point is the problem. It depends on the meaning of 'use'. I use it in the same sense that Wittgenstein does - use in practice. Reading a text is not practicing a language. A dead language is by definition no longer practiced.

And yet they're still meaningful. And that's the problem with interpreting "meaning is use" in this awful idealist way. — S

Wittgenstein is often implicated but is not guilty by association.

But, like you go on to suggest, you can take away the "for us" and there's still a meaning. — S

I think creativesoul agrees with this but thinks it requires an argument to demonstrate its truth. But then again, although I am a "user" of English, whatever it is he thinks he has so clearly stated evades me.

Thus, the Rosetta Stone is not an ancient text written in a language that had no users. — creativesoul

Who writes in hieroglyphs? Who writes or speaks in Demotic or any form of ancient Greek? There are a few people who know how to read these languages but no one "uses" them. They are dead languages. Their use is ancient history. Unlike living languages the meaning of the terms are fixed by how they were used when they were used.

Knowledge of a language, however, is not the end of the matter. What a particular text means does not become apparent when read by someone who knows the language. Just what it means may yield no final answer. We continually debate the meaning of texts. Thus the problem of meaning extends to all texts.

There are texts that no living person knows how to read. They are for us meaningless. If someone were able to decipher the texts, however, then some sense of their meaning would be understood, unless they never had a meaning to begin with. The marks might be practice in writing the letters or words, but a series of letters or words has no coherent meaning as a text. Someone might unwittingly attribute meaning to this, but whoever wrote the marks may have meant no such thing. Or what was written did mean something to the author and its readers, but has come to mean something else. And this might mean different things - misinterpretation, giving significance to things did not have the same significance for the author, meaningful to us because it gives a glimpse into the world of the author.

Someone who understands or, you might say, uses English, does not thereby understand the meaning of meaning, even though he uses the term in a meaningful way. He is not thereby aware of the extent and differences and problems associated with the question of meaning or what 'X' means. And, once again, there is no such thing as the meaning of a language. The language is used to state things that have meaning, or, at least, are intended to have meaning.

We're discussing an ancient text. Ancient texts are examples of language use. It is impossible to understand the language use without knowing the meaning, and vice versa. — creativesoul

Knowing the meaning of what? The language or a particular text? If it is the former then it is no different from my example of English. If you mean the latter then it is only by understanding the language that you can understand the meaning of a particular text written in that language. If, on the other hand, as was the case with the Rosetta Stone, you understand the meaning because it was also written in Greek, you do not thereby understand the hieroglyphics.

I agree. That is precisely what needs argued for. Do you have an argument for that claim? — creativesoul

Why does it need to be argued for? I think it evident. Imagine some time in the future that English becomes an ancient lost language. Two pieces of paper are found. One had a clear meaning when it was written but the other one did not, it was the result, say, of a child banging on the keyboard. Now if someone were able to decipher English, the meaning of the first would be recovered but the second would remain meaningless. Knowing the meaning would require understanding the language, but understanding the language does not mean that a random string of letters is meaningful.

Gratuitous assertion is unacceptable here. No matter how many times you state it without an argument, it's still needs argued for. — creativesoul

You may not believe the Rosetta Stone has been deciphered but to demonstrate that it has not requires more than a poorly stated theory. Do you know how it was deciphered? Here is a brief description: [url=http://]https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/archaeology/rosetta-stone3.htm[/url]

The Rosetta Stone was written in language that is still in use, and was when found. — creativesoul

The hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone is not still in use. Demotic is not still in use. It was noticed, however, the Demotic was similar to Coptic, which is not still in use either, although scholars can read it and used this knowledge to decipher the Demotic. The Greek on the stone is not still in use although there are scholars who can read it.

The use throughout time of current langauges is precisely the ground upon which we can certainly conclude that the meaning of a text can persist through time. — creativesoul

What is the time of us of current languages? Languages change over time. Someone who can read modern Greek cannot read ancient Greek. In addition, someone who understood Koiné or Hellenistic Greek (the Greek the New Testament is written in) is not likely to have understood Classical or Attic Greek (the Greek Plato and Aristotle wrote in).

If you know English you do not automatically know the meaning of a particular text written in English. In fact, there may be various interpretations of its meaning. A string of words may or may not have a meaning. Then again, one might impose a meaning on a random string of words.

The point I'm making is that it is impossible to understand the language without knowing the meaning and vice-versa. — creativesoul

What is the meaning of English? If you know English you can, but may not, understand something written in English but this is not knowing the meaning of English. It is only what is spoken or written in English that has meaning.

You've drawn a distinction between the two, and there is no difference to be had. — creativesoul

See above.

That presupposes precisely what's at issue here. Do you not see that? Whether or not the meaning of a language is existentially dependent upon it's language users is precisely what needs argued for. — creativesoul

You seem to be confusing meaning and knowledge of the meaning. To the extent it is possible to understand the meaning of an ancient text that meaning must exist. If it is just scribbles or random letters or words the text has no meaning.

There are innumerable people throughout written history who claim to have deciphered some ancient text or another. I'm not denying that many people, most I would say, think/believe that it is possible to decipher an ancient text from a long dead civilization.

I'm refuting that thought/belief. — creativesoul

If you read the information in the link on the Rosetta Stone you will see why scholars are confident that it has been properly deciphered.

In order to even be able to do that, the meaning of the text would have to be able to persist through time, despite the fact of it's users all having long since perished. — creativesoul

And that is exactly the case. That is why I pointed it out. It may go against your ill-conceived theory but look at the evidence and not at what you think the evidence must show based on your theory.

Here's a question...

Upon what ground does one claim to have deciphered an ancient language into our own? — creativesoul

Again, read the link or other information on the Rosetta Stone. Your answer is right there.

I mean, even when we have a case of two well-known languages, it is often the case that the meaning of certain expressions in one language are quite simply incapable of being accurately translated into the other language. — creativesoul

The problems of translation and interpretation go hand in hand. Translators may differ not only with how a passage is to be translated but what the passage means.

Understanding the language is knowing the meaning. One cannot understand the language a text is written in unless one knows what the marks mean. Knowing what the marks mean IS understanding the language... — creativesoul

Do you imagine that this is not so obvious that you have to state it?

The meaning of a text is not dependent upon anyone at time T actually understanding the language, for at some later time the language might be deciphered as is the case with hieroglyphics.

How can an ancient text from a long dead people be of great interest depending upon the time or author, when in order to know what the time was or who the author was, the text would have to be already understood, and the text itself would have to state the time and author in the language of the text. — creativesoul

There was a great deal of interest in ancient Egypt long before hieroglyphics were successfully deciphered in 1822 after centuries of attempts: [url=http://]http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/rosetta.html[/url]

There are other ancient languages that have yet to be deciphered but there is interest in doing so: [url=http://]https://www.livescience.com/59851-ancient-languages-not-yet-deciphered.htm[/url]l; [url=http://]https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/6-lost-languages-and-scripts-that-have-not-yet-been-deciphered/[/url];

Although it is a common term Judeo-Christian is a misnomer, originally a mishmash Judaism and paganism, in time the Judeo part was demonized and cut from the root. By the time of the writing of John the Jews were the enemy. Early Christianity was characterized by pluralism and the indwelling and witnessing of spirit. The self-appointed "Church Fathers" systematically destroyed this and all but those who ascribed to the vision of a single unified and codified Church were branded as heretics, ostracized, and discredited. Jesus would have been appalled to learn that he had been made a god. Paul, who was already troubled by the fact that the promised end had not come and by the schism he had created, would not know what to make of all that came to be, all that was so contrary to his vision.

You posted this right before I finished asking if you had seen it. My post was originally longer but I decided to edit out comments about the discussion getting bogged down.

Now I see that you have posted again before I finished this.

I think you captured most of 109: look without theorising. — Banno

Right. Elsewhere (115) he talks about a picture getting in the way of seeing.

"looking" - already implies a theory... — Banno

Are you referring to the Greek idea of theoria? The term has undergone an interesting historical change. If you mean theory in the contemporary sense of explanation, I take Wittgenstein's point to be that this stands in way and occludes what is to be looked at. If you mean "seeing as" it is not that looking implies some set of assumptions or practices by which we see something as this or that, that does raise some interesting questions about whether we can ever simply look at something without some sort of framework or context, and whether we can ever simply see something rather than conceptualize it.

Banno, did you see my response or did it get lost in all the noise?

I support your attempt to try and move things forward.

↪Fooloso4 Apologies, I mistook carelessness for plagiarism. — SophistiCat

Well there is the carelessness of not using the preview function and not seeing that the quotations were not set off as such, and the lack of care and regard for another person that leads to the accusations you made. If it had been my intention to plagiarize I would not have included the links that if one follows show what was said.

It would be good if you could post the link to the PN forum discussion if possible.
A comparison might be interesting. — Amity

Sure. A link to the Philosophy Now forum post:

https://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=25670&p=388307&hilit=fooloso4#p388141

I'm not sure if this links to the specific post or the thread but I use the same username.

In fact, in a private message to someone I said: " It really is nothing more than what a few minutes of online research will yield."
— Fooloso4

And I hope the someone replied that it was a bit more than that ! — Amity

That someone did! I will have to ask her whether she thought I was doing more than posting the information I found, as if I was trying to pass it off as original journalistic investigative reporting.

That cat really ain't so sophisticated

Fooloso4's post - a catalog of American liberal grievances with a tenuous relationship to the OP - was a careless copy-paste job from various online articles. I am pretty sure that not a word of it is original. — SophistiCat

Yes, online articles that were linked and referenced. I originally posted this on another forum but when I reposted it here the quote function did not copy. The spacing and ellipsis show parts of the articles that are missing.

If anyone thought that this was original I apologize. That was not my intention. In fact, in a private message to someone I said: " It really is nothing more than what a few minutes of online research will yield." I just edited the post to make clear that I was quoting. If anyone cares to see the original it can be found on the Philosophy Now forum.

The irony here is that I actually read the article and quoted relevant points. You on the other hand seem not to have read the Wiki article you linked to. If you had you would know that the history of the term is not one of simply mockery and derision.

So, what you are asking is whether a text has meaning if no one understands the language?

If so, then I would say yes. It may be that the language can be recovered. It has happened before. Once the language is understood the meaning can be discovered. But if the text had no meaning then even if the language was recovered the text would have not meaning.

Of course not! The two are not one in the same. The ancient text no longer has users. Current texts do. Current texts are still used, and that is precisely what grounds the certainty of answering in the affirmative when asked "Can the meaning of any text persist through time?" — creativesoul

What does it mean for a text to have users? The user of a text may not be the same thing as a reader of the text. There are plenty of texts that I have read and in so far as I have understood them they have meaning but once I have read them I might put them aside and never think about them again. Have I used them? Were they useful?

There may be, on the other hand, texts that have been lost and thus not read or "used" for thousands of years. If such a text were found it might be of great interest depending on the author or time at which it was written. It might prove to be extremely useful to those with an interest since it fills in gaps or gives a new perspective on the subject.

I've thrice tried to summarise §109, but find it opaque. — Banno

It was correct that our considerations must not be scientific ones. The feeling ‘that it is possible, contrary to our preconceived ideas, to think this or that’ a whatever that may mean a could be of no interest to us.

This refers back to the Tractatus. There he claimed that on the propositions of science which picture or represent the facts of the world could be thought.

What he means by the pneumatic conception of thinking? Pneuma means breath, and by extension, soul, life, spirit (spirit is Latin for breath). In other words, the pneumatic conception of thinking is one that presupposes some condition that makes thought possible in the way that breath or soul makes life possible. In the Tractatus Wittgenstein though that logic was this condition. Invoking Kant, he called it "transcendental" (it differed significantly from Kant's conception but that is another story).

In 108 he says:

The preconception of crystalline purity can only be removed by turning our whole inquiry around. (One might say: the inquiry must be turned around, but on the pivot of our real need).

This too reminds us of Kant, the Copernican Revolution. Rather than the turn to transcendental conditions, however,he turns to language in practice, language in its role in a form of life.

And we may not advance any kind of theory.There must not be anything hypothetical
in our considerations. All explanation must disappear, and description alone must take its place.

He draws our attention to what we say and do with language. If we attend to how language is actually used rather than trying to discover something yet unknown about it, something still hidden from us, then we can untangle the tangles philosophy has become entangled in through the bewitchment of language. To be clear, it is not language that causes the entanglement but the misguided activity of philosophy generated by a misuse of language.

Now the question I've been asking is why does Wittgenstein appear to persist in this misguided objective, to find the principles which exclude the possibility of misunderstanding, in On Certainty? — Metaphysician Undercover

He's not. He is not arguing that it is possible to eliminate doubt but that the role of certainty in our lives and language is not the certainty that Descartes and others sought.

And even here, at 85, where he says that the sign-post "sometimes leaves room for doubt and sometimes not"? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because sometimes we have no doubt when following the signpost but other times we might. That, he points out, is an empirical proposition. We might, for example, see a sign in symbols for the men's room and one for the ladies' room and there is no doubt which is which, but there might be a case where we are not sure how to read the sign. Here there is room for doubt. But if someone gives us an explanation of the symbols and we know what they mean then there is no longer room for doubt.

... then why does he proceed in that text, On Certainty, as if he is seeking these principles? — Metaphysician Undercover

He is not:

139. Not only rules, but also examples are needed for establishing a practice. Our rules leave loopholes open, and the practice has to speak for itself.
140. We do not learn the practice of making empirical judgments by learning rules: we are taught
judgments and their connexion with other judgments. A totality of judgments is made plausible to
us.
141. When we first begin to believe anything, what we believe is not a single proposition, it is a
whole system of propositions. (Light dawns gradually over the whole.)
142. It is not single axioms that strike me as obvious, it is a system in which consequences and
premises give one another mutual support.

152. I do not explicitly learn the propositions that stand fast for me. I can discover them
subsequently like the axis around which a body rotates. This axis is not fixed in the sense that
anything holds it fast, but the movement around it determines its immobility.

305. Here once more there is needed a step like the one taken in relativity theory. — On Certainty

Wittgenstein is saying that we should replace the picture of knowledge as what is built on unchanging foundations. There is no fixed point or ground:

166. The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our believing. — On Certainty

The point being that if there is a possibility of misunderstanding, then some degree of doubt is justified. Therefore doubt cannot be completely dismissed as irrational. — Metaphysician Undercover

In an earlier post I pointed to the parenthetical remark in §84 regarding doubt whether an abyss did not yawn behind it when we open the door. We have no such doubt, but he adds parenthetically:

... and he might on some occasion prove to be right. — PI

There are a couple of interesting points here. The first is that Wittgenstein thought it possible that there could be such an abyss. This goes further than the epistemological problem of causality. That things could be radically different from one moment to the next does not seem to be something he rules out. I take this to be part of his mystical attitude which he expressed in the Tractatus:

5.1361
We cannot infer the events of the future from those of the present.
Belief in the causal nexus is superstition. — Tractatus

The second is that despite this he does think it irrational to doubt such things in practice. From On Certainty:

558. We say we know that water boils and does not freeze under such-and-such circumstances. Is it conceivable that we are wrong? Wouldn't a mistake topple all judgment with it? More: what could stand if that were to fall? Might someone discover something that made us say "It was a mistake"?
Whatever may happen in the future, however water may behave in the future, - we know that up to now it has behaved thus in innumerable instances.
This fact is fused into the foundations of our language-game. — On Certainty

A key to understanding On Certainty is his quoting Goethe:

402. In the beginning was the deed. — On Certainty

In order to understand language Wittgenstein does not begin with logic or thinking.

475. Language did not emerge from some kind of ratiocination — On Certainty

He begins with behavior. A language game is an extension of primitive behavior (Z 545) Instinct first reason second (RPP 689)

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. — On Certainty

The importance of this is far reaching. It reverses the order that has long been held and cherished by philosophers. Logic is arbitrary. It does not stand independent of language and thought, imposing a necessary order on all things, or on determining truth.

The logical rules or grammar are derived from within the lived context of the language game.

Yes. The so-called interlocutor's concern is a concern which Wittgenstein had about his description of rules, or else he would not have brought it up as a concern. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a continuation of the problem he addresses in 81:

All this, however, can appear in the right light only when one has attained greater clarity about the concepts of understanding, meaning something, and thinking. For it will then also become clear what may mislead us (and did mislead me) into thinking that if anyone utters a sentence and means or understands it, he is thereby operating a calculus according to definite rules.

We do not need or employ a calculus according to definite rules in order to use language. We do not have to remove all doubt in order to understand.

The question in 87:

“But then how does an explanation help me to understand, if, after all, it is not the final one? In that case the explanation is never completed; so I still don’t understand what he means, and never shall!”

The questioner is misled into thinking that if anyone utters a sentence and means or understands it, he is thereby operating a calculus according to definite rules. Wittgenstein himself was misled in this way. In the Tractatus he assumed that language was built on names of simple objects and that underlying them was logic, that is, the rules by which objects are connected and propositions operate. It was an image of perfect clarity. But it was wrong.

Language does not require perfect clarity. It is not built on a fixed structure of logic or rules. Misunderstanding is always possible, but this does not mean that understanding is impossible. When misunderstanding arises we attempt to correct it by an explanation. That explanation too might be misunderstood. But this does not mean that an explanation that leads to understanding is not possible. We cannot, however, eliminate the possibility of misunderstanding. No matter how precise the language, no matter how hard one attempts to anticipate where someone might misunderstand what is said, there will be someone who does misunderstand it. This is simply the way things are.

Would you like freedom fries with this? PC is not just a left wing abuse.

See the Disinvitation Database compiled by the Foundation of Individual Rights in Education (FIRE):
[url=http://]https://www.thefire.org/resources/disin ... -database/[/url]

It list speakers from both the right and the left who have been disrupted or disinvited.

According to a FIRE report from February, although a majority of disinvitation attempts come from the left against the right, a greater proportion of attempts to shut down speakers are successful when they come from the right than from the left — 55 percent versus 33 percent. The sheer quantity of attempts to limit speech on campus would suggest that left-wing political correctness is more prevalent, but right-wing PC is more effective.
…
At issue here is not whether you agree with any of these positions. At issue, rather, is that while we assume the most dangerous thing you can say on a college campus is something like "There’s no such thing as rape culture," the consequences of doing so — of defying left-wing political correctness — pale in comparison to what happens when someone says something like mass shootings are perpetuated by "the white supremacist patriarchy." At Drexel University, George Ciccariello-Maher was placed on leave after receiving death threats, and eventually driven to resign, for saying exactly that.
([url=http://]https://www.chronicle.com/article/Poli ... un/242143[/url])
Conservatives were completely outraged last week after "Saturday Night Live" cast member Pete Davidson mocked then-candidate — now Congressman-elect — Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) for wearing an eye patch as the result of an injury he sustained as a military service member.
The National Republican Congression Committee condemned the joke, saying: "Pete Davidson and NBC should immediately apologize to Dan, and to the millions of veterans and military families who tune in every weekend — because they're not laughing." Fox News' Laura Ingraham lashed out, saying of Davidson on Twitter: "How long do you think this 'comic' & the writer responsible for this disgrace would last in @us_navyseals training?"

…

Trump has frequently demonized NFL players who kneel during the national anthem — which is a quintessential example of trying to enforce a certain form of "political correctness."
[url=http://]https://www.salon.com/2018/11/14/politi ... t_partner/[/url]
But a data analysis from March by the director of Georgetown University’s Free Speech Project suggests that this “crisis” is more than a little overblown. There have been relatively few incidents of speech being squelched on college campuses, and there’s in fact limited evidence that conservatives are being unfairly targeted.

...

The raw numbers here should already raise questions about the so-called political correctness epidemic. According to the Department of Education, there are 4,583 colleges and universities in the United States (including two- and four-year institutions). The fact that there were roughly only 60 incidents in the past two years suggests that free speech crises are extremely rare events and don’t define university life in the way that critics suggest.

Moreover, there’s a consistent pattern in the data when it comes to conservatives — one that tells a different story than you hear among free speech panickers.

“Most of the incidents where presumptively conservative speech has been interrupted or squelched in the last two or three years seem to involve the same few speakers: Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Shapiro, Charles Murray, and Ann Coulter ,” Sanford Ungar, the project’s director, writes. “In some instances, they seem to invite, and delight in, disruption.”

What Ungar is suggesting here is that the “campus free speech” crisis is somewhat manufactured. Conservative student groups invite speakers famous for offensive and racially charged speech — all of the above speakers fit that bill — in a deliberate attempt to provoke the campus left. In other words, they’re trolling. When students react by protesting or disrupting the event, the conservatives use it as proof that there’s real intolerance for conservative ideas.

The other key thing that emerges from the Georgetown data, according to Ungar, is that these protests and disruptions don’t just target the right. “Our data also include many incidents, generally less well-publicized, where lower-profile scholars, speakers, or students who could be considered to be on the left have been silenced or shut down,” he writes.

Examples include Princeton professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s commencement speech being canceled after receiving death threats for criticizing President Donald Trump and the president of Sonoma State University apologizing for allowing a black student to read a poem critical of police violence at commencement.

...

Jeffrey Sachs, a political scientist at Canada’s Acadia University, put together a database of all incidents where a professor was dismissed for political speech in the United States between 2015 and 2017. Sachs’s results, published by the left-libertarian Niskanen Center, actually found that left-wing professors were more frequently dismissed for their speech than conservative ones:

...

Some campus free speech critics, I suspect, aren’t operating in good faith. For them, the entire debate is a way to attack universities as hopelessly and dangerously liberal — to undermine higher education for nakedly partisan reasons.

Indeed, four Republican-controlled state governments have set up new rules for political speech in public universities in response to concerns about free speech. At least seven other state legislatures are considering doing the same, efforts that the New York Times reports are “funded in part by big-money Republican donors” in a “growing and well-organized campaign that has put academia squarely in the crosshairs of the American right.”
[url=http://]https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... georgetown[/url]


Most right-wing critiques ... are far more apocalyptic—some have unironically proposed state laws that define how universities are and are not allowed to govern themselves in the name of defending free speech.

…

At Texas A&M, Tommy Curry, a black professor, was driven from his home with his family after his controversial remarks on violence and race drew the attention of American Conservative columnist Rod Dreher; singling out left-wing college professors is a frequent source of content at Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick cannot find employment in the the National Football League after his protests against police brutality. A police union in St. Louis urged members to bombard a local store owner with calls, after he accused some officers of misconduct, one of several recent examples of police unions attempting to intimidate critics. Black Lives Matter activists protesting the lack of accountability in lethal shootings of black men by police are routinely attacked as terrorists.

…

During the debate over the Iraq War, the Republican chairman of the House Administration committee was so triggered by French opposition to the ill-fated invasion of Iraq that he directed the cafeteria menus to substitute “Freedom Toast” and “Freedom Fries;” his Democratic colleague Barbara Lee, who voted against the war, received boxes of letters calling her un-American, treasonous, and far worse. In the years following that conflict, liberal and left-wing critics of the war were frequently called treasonous; in 2006, President George W. Bush told campaign crowds that “the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses.”
…

GOP lawmakers have used the state to restrict speech, such as barring doctors from raising abortion or guns with patients, opposition to the construction of Muslim religious buildings, and attempts to stifle anti-Israel activism.

…

Trump’s threat to tax Amazon because its owner Jeff Bezos is also the owner of The Washington Post, which has published coverage critical of the president; the White House’s demands that ESPN fire Jemele Hill, a black on-air host who called the president a white supremacist; and Trump’s attempt to chill press criticism by naming the media an “enemy of the people” have all drawn cheers from some conservative commentators.
[url=http://]https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... es/541050/[/url]



Some history of the use of the term:
Until the late 1980s, “political correctness” was used exclusively within the left, and almost always ironically as a critique of excessive orthodoxy.

…

But soon enough, the term was rebranded by the right, who turned its meaning inside out. All of a sudden, instead of being a phrase that leftists used to check dogmatic tendencies within their movement, “political correctness” became a talking point for neoconservatives. They said that PC constituted a leftwing political programme that was seizing control of American universities and cultural institutions – and they were determined to stop it.

…

In truth, these crusaders against political correctness were every bit as political as their opponents. As Jane Mayer documents in her book, Dark Money: the Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, Bloom and D’Souza were funded by networks of conservative donors – particularly the Koch, Olin and Scaife families – who had spent the 1980s building programmes that they hoped would create a new “counter-intelligentsia”.

…

PC was a useful invention for the Republican right because it helped the movement to drive a wedge between working-class people and the Democrats who claimed to speak for them. “Political correctness” became a term used to drum into the public imagination the idea that there was a deep divide between the “ordinary people” and the “liberal elite”, who sought to control the speech and thoughts of regular folk. Opposition to political correctness also became a way to rebrand racism in ways that were politically acceptable in the post-civil-rights era.

Soon, Republican politicians were echoing on the national stage the message that had been product-tested in the academy. In May 1991, President George HW Bush gave a commencement speech at the University of Michigan. In it, he identified political correctness as a major danger to America. “Ironically, on the 200th anniversary of our Bill of Rights, we find free speech under assault throughout the United States,” Bush said. “The notion of political correctness has ignited controversy across the land,” but, he warned, “In their own Orwellian way, crusades that demand correct behaviour crush diversity in the name of diversity.”
[url=http://]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... nald-trump[/url]

This post was edited to make clear that I am quoting the sources that are linked.

I understand all this as saying that logic does not set out the rules of language, but that rather we choose a logic that suits what we are doing with language. That's the "...turning our whole examination around..." in §108. — Banno

It is not that we choose a logic, as if it is out there existing on its own. The rules of a language game, like the rules of other games, is determined, so to speak, by playing it. The grammar does not come first, to be followed by application or use. The grammar develops and changes as the game is played.

The first thing you should do is send the landlord a certified letter listing the problems, how long it has been going on for, what he has done to try and rectify the situation, and when those actions took place.
Demand that the problem be addressed immediately by a certified pest control company.

Depending on where you live informing your landlord that you are going to withhold rent and put the money in escrow can be effective leverage. I did this many years ago. Once I did that the repairs were made quickly. I did not even have to go through the process. Informing them that I was going to was sufficient. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-rent-withholding-works.html

In your case it might be better to get out of the lease, which the landlord might be willing to do rather than deal with the local rent withholding compliance.

Did the landlord use a certified pest control company or just spray? It may take a while to get rid of fleas and if you have animals that must be addressed as well. Bedbugs are much more difficult to eradicate. If you are going to move make sure you do not bring them with you.

90. We feel as if we had to see right into phenomena: yet our investigation is directed not towards phenomena, but rather, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena.

In the Tractatus Wittgenstein replaces Kant's transcendental conditions of the possibility of phenomena, that is, mental representation, with the transcendental conditions of logic and ethics/aesthetics. Here he drops all talk of transcendental conditions.

By way of explanation he says:

What that means is that we call to mind the kinds of statement that we make about phenomena.

And:

Our inquiry is therefore a grammatical one. And this inquiry sheds light on our problem by clearing misunderstandings away.

To justify this assertion, you ought to address this section of the text, and show me where I've been mislead by Wittgenstein's words. — Metaphysician Undercover

I could but what would be the point? Despite your talk of uncertainly you seem certain that you have understood Wittgenstein, and that his epistemology is incoherent, and that those who do not agree with you have not been paying sufficient attention.

Has it not occurred to you that Wittgenstein only appears to be incoherent to you because you have not understood him?

The irony is that you have not "been mislead by Wittgenstein's words". It is not the words that are misleading. Like the signpost, someone can always interpret it in the wrong way, but that is not the fault of the signpost.

When I come to stop sign I do not wait for a go sign to appear before proceeding. There is no room for doubt, but someone who does not know what a stop sign is might never go any further once he has seen "stop".

insinuating that I have misunderstood what Wittgenstein has said. — Metaphysician Undercover

Let me make it clear: you have misunderstood Wittgenstein.

Where does it say it is divine ? — Amity

The definition of the term places it in the realm of the divine, although there seems to be no consensus as to exactly where. For more see Liddell and Scott A Greek-English Lexicon: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2323243&redirect=true

And if only felt as such, the perception could be wrong, no ? — Amity

I cannot recall anywhere where Socrates says it led him astray.

It could be a sign of mental disturbance ? Auditory hallucinations?
Or more commonly, a sense of conscience ?
A gut feel that the consequences of a proposed action would be bad.
Or a quick fire judgement, based on experience. — Amity

I don't know.

That would explain why the daimon never gave advice as to what to do. — Amity

Socrates' daimon in Xenophon does give advice. What the significance is of this difference I do not know. Whether Socrates, or Plato, or Xenophon believed in such an entity or whether its use was rhetorical, I do not know.