Hi folks. It’s an argument in two parts. First I argue time has a start, then I argue eternalism (believe that past, present and future are all equally real) is true. — Devans99

I think it's contradictory to say that time had to start. I say this because change is analytic to time, i.e., time is simply the measurement of change. There would be no "starting" without time, that is, there would have to be some type of change to start the mechanism of time. In my view time is eternal, it's a necessary part of reality, this reality or any reality. The flow of time may be different in different places, but still there could not have been a time when there was no time or change.

You can think of statements as if they are pieces of a puzzle, they will only fit where they are meant to fit, and if you force them into places where they don't belong, then you distort the picture, or should I say, you distort the meaning. There's probably a better way to say this, but you get the idea.

Agreed, which is why I distinguished between suitable and unsuitable contexts. — Luke

Yes, I believe we are in agreement.

My view of OC 348 is that statements get their meaning from correct context, that is, not just any context, which is why, it seems, Wittgenstein said, it "...stands in need of such determination." The correct use of the phrase "I am here" is driven by a certain kind of situation. If you hear someone say that context drives meaning, this isn't quite right, if it were, then any statement would have meaning simply because of context. Remember that incorrect uses take place within a context. The statement fails to have meaning unless it's in the proper context. The logic behind the correct use of this phrase will not work in just any situation or context. Hence, again, the need for Wittgenstein to say that it "...stands in need of such a determination."

I didn't claim you did. I said, your exposition is littered with caveats which are not present in the text. 109 says we must do away with all explanations. — Isaac

This is why I said that "some" of what I said pertains to 109,110, and 111. I'm looking at what Wittgenstein says from a wide range of his texts, not just what's in those particular quotes. I try, unsuccessfully or not, to look at his writings from beginning to end. And I'm sure all of you are trying to do the same thing.

Wittgenstein does not claim that explanation must be mostly replaced with descriptions. He does not say that philosophy discovers some new facts, just not that many. — Isaac

Where did I say any of that?

We have to be careful, which I fell prey to in some of my analysis of On Certainty, that we don't turn the exegesis of the PI into the kind of analysis Wittgenstein is fighting. I believe that if we understand the general ideas of Wittgenstein's methods this will go a long way to help clear some of the confusions that arise in philosophical discussions; and it will go a long way in helping to understand his general points. We have to be careful not to stress this or that point to the exclusion of the overall picture.

This is some of what I extract from PI 109, 110, 111.

We get in a muddle due to our need to be precise, that is, we want to turn our philosophical ideas (expressed in language) into a kind of science, as if we’re doing a kind of mathematics. This kind of philosophy, which Wittgenstein fell prey to in the Tractatus, is very attractive, and can hold us within its power. We think we’re doing something empirical, that is, we think we’re extracting something from language that must be dug out through a logical investigation - as if the meaning is something hidden. Language has a kind of mystical quality due to the inner workings of the mind, but much of the confusion is simply “grammatical illusions.” Why? Because we tend to misinterpret the forms of our language, as if there is something deep within, but it’s simply (at least some or much of the time) a chimera, we tend to chase shadows. Wittgenstein’s method helps dispel these shadows, not all, but much of what passes as philosophical problems. Understanding the method is the medicine that dissolves some of the problems that hold us captive.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t genuine philosophical problems, it just means that we should be careful of our analysis, which takes hold of us as if we’re doing an empirical investigation. And even when we’re doing an empirical investigation these philosophical problems, some of which are chimeras, can invade and confuse the investigation.

I wouldn't go as far as Banno, although I do think much of philosophy is just bulls***. It's true that Wittgenstein told many of his friends who were inclined to become philosophers, to not do it. He would rather they pursue something else - something more useful or productive.

Yes, but does he not go on to say "It is clear that I know what I mean by the vague proposition", I think the one-to-one correspondence is part of the aim, and I would probably say that makes a significant enough difference. — Isaac

If you're asking this in reference to the Tractatus, the answer is, I believe, yes, that is, even a vague proposition in the Tractatus had a very precise nexus to the world of facts.

Tractatus Wittgenstein saw language as the screwdriver, Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein sees it as the stick. — Isaac

In the Tractatus Wittgenstein sees language in very precise terms, that is, there is a one-to-one correspondence between the names within a proposition and the objects that make up facts. So, he sees propositions in very exact terms in the Tractatus, that is, it's more of an a priori investigation. His aim is to justify the vagueness of propositions (Nb p. 70), which is also his aim in the Investigations, although the method in the PI is more of an a posteriori investigation. His goal is the same, but the methods are very different (to repeat).

It's probably the case that teaching children in the early 20's helped him view language in a much more pragmatic way. We know that children have understood a word by how they use the word in a variety of situations and contexts.

I very much dislike readings of Wittgenstein which equate him with saying that language is a 'rule governed activity'. There is a sense in which this is the case, but it's a sense that must be so heavily qualified and so massively underwritten by conditionals that I think it does far more to obscure and mislead than clarify the issues. One of the things Witty does in the PI is to expose the differential nature of rules, the fact that rules can and do play different roles in language (e.g. §54), so to say something like "For using words in speech is a rule-governed activity" is not so much wrong as simply empty - this says nothing in particular. Furthermore, Witty's constant refrain about rules governing rules ad infinitum (e.g. §84, §86) - and the ridiculousness of such an idea - also shows, to me anyway, what little stock he put in the idea of rules 'governing' language. — StreetlightX

Good point Streetlight. This is why it's difficult to develop a theory that fits Wittgenstein's ideas, that is, there are too many variables involved. To say that language is governed by rules, is like saying chess is governed by rules. It's tautological, and it doesn't tell us much about the game itself. There is much more to a good move in chess than just understanding the rules. One must be careful not to turn Wittgenstein's words into dogmatic jargon.

Even when we do an exegesis of Wittgenstein's writings the tendency is to interpret his words in a way that violates the very things he is fighting against. In other words, our analysis of what he's saying tends to be the kind of analysis that Wittgenstein is criticizing, not always, but much of the time. We tend to look at his thinking in terms of - is this true or false, but there is a sense where it goes beyond this kind of bipolar thinking.

Sam...there was a time when almost everyone alive on the planet...from every culture, context, and experience...would have "offered testimony" that the Earth was a pancake flat object in the center of the universe and that the sun, moon, and stars circled 'round it. There was a time, ONLY A HUNDRED YEARS AGO...when most scientists would have offered testimony that our galaxy was the entirety of the universe. — Frank Apisa

Almost everything you believe was arrived at through the testimony of others. When you read a book that's testimony, when you sit in a class that's testimony, when you listen to the news that's testimony, so testimony is the primary way we learn things. Of course not all testimony is good testimonial evidence, and in another 100 years what we believe today will be overturned. There are ways of evaluating testimonial evidence, and it's very similar to evaluating an inductive argument. To reject testimonial evidence as a primary source of evidence would be to reject much of what you know. You sure didn't do the scientific experiments involved in quantum physics, you rely on the testimony of those who have done the experiments.

Much of this depends on what it means to know, so it's an epistemological question. As such, it depends on what you count as good evidence. Many people limit their knowledge to science, but there are plenty of ways of knowing apart from what science tells us. In fact, one of the main ways of attaining knowledge is through the testimony of others. And while it's true that testimony is the weakest way of knowing, it can also be very strong depending on the number of people making the claim, the consistency of the claims, whether the claims are taken from a variety of cultures, contexts, and experiences, etc. The way we evaluate the claims is similar to the way we evaluate a good inductive argument.

Besides good evidence or reasons for such a belief, one must also take into account psychological factors or causes for belief. Psychological factors can and do override the best arguments. Furthermore, most people have a difficult time looking at evidence objectively, that is, they tend to be wed to a particular world view.

Neither religion or atheism are good world views. Both of them are incorrect, and both tend to be too dogmatic about their beliefs. Moreover, both views rely on fallacious thinking. I'm not going to say why I believe this in this thread, because I've written about it in other threads, and other forums.

In my studies of NDEs this subject comes up frequently. People often report that they are aware of living other lives. I do not like the term reincarnation because it carries religious baggage. People also report choosing to come here, i.e., to live a human life. The body seems to be more of a receptacle. Once you leave this life your memories come back, it is similar to waking up after a dream.

If she was genuinely fearful for whatever cause or reason that doesn't amount to racism. However, there is no way to know what's going on in her head. At the very least her fear is unfounded. Many on the left love labeling people they disagree with as racist, not that that is what happened here. Anyone can be racist, power has nothing to do with it.

Russel thought we could build a faultless language could be based on sense data. Wittgenstein I thought it could be built from names for simple objects. Davidson thought we might translate English into a first order language.

SO, could it be done? — Banno

Wittgenstein never thought that there could be a perfect language. Russell thought that Witgenstein was trying to construct a perfect language in the Tractatus, but Wittgenstein commented somewhere that Russell misinterpreted the Tractatus. Any language for everyday use will have some of the same problems that our current language has. I'm not sure what you meant by faultless, I interpreted it to mean perfect.

Whose head can you get into at any time? No one but your own. That's why doubt is justified. And, no matter how high one's IQ is, we all make mistakes, and sometimes it's the person with the low IQ who points out the mistake of the person with high IQ. It's just a matter of how we see the same things in different ways. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ya, and if we look throughout history it's the people with the low IQ's who have corrected the Newton's, the Beethoven's, the Einstein's, and the Plato's of the world. Even on something so obvious as this your wrong. What a silly thing to say. And of course everyone makes mistakes, that's obvious, but according to you, you know so much more, right, MU?

If we think of this in chess terms, it's like comparing a 1600 rating with someone who is rated 2700 or above. We don't have a clue. We think we do, but we're stumbling in the fog. You may have a few opening moves that you memorized, but the middle and end game eludes you.

It's interesting that even Wittgenstein couldn't remember what he had in mind in certain passages. So, the fact that we can't quite grasp what Wittgenstein was saying in a particular passage isn't anything unusual. Wittgenstein's IQ was probably somewhere around 190, so to think we can get into his head all the time is a fool's errand. And for anyone to think, as MU does, that he was wrong about this or that thing, is just silly. I don't think any of us can keep up with his thinking. It wouldn't surprise me that we're wrong about 50% of the time, in terms of paraphrasing his thoughts.

If we can just grasp bits of his method, I think that would be progress.

There is a kind of foundationalism in On Certainty, but it's not traditional foundationalism. It's a foundationalism driven by language-games and context. So, if we were to look at chess as an example, the rules, the board, and the pieces are foundational to the game. One doesn't need to justify the rules, no more than one needs to justify the statement "This is my hand," it's just part of the background in which we act. There are many foundational statements in our language. One can generally spot them because knowing and doubting are for the most part senseless in relation to these kinds of bedrock statements.

Is Wittgenstein putting forth a theory of foundationalism, of course not, but it seems to follow from many of his thoughts. Many philosophers have interpreted Wittgenstein in this way, but they're careful about how they frame the idea. There is no doubt, at least as I interpret Wittgenstein, that Moore's statements
do fall into a kind of foundational thinking. Whether a statement is foundational depends on the context, and in Moore's context, viz, "This is my hand," it is foundational.

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It seems like this thread is just an argument with MU.

What I'm saying is that use in itself doesn't always determine meaning. If that was the case, then how would we be able to determine that someone was incorrectly using a word? What we would have to say, is that their use is so far outside the boundary of correct use, or so far outside the rules normally associated with correct use, that its lost its sense or meaning. However, what if a group has been incorrectly using a word or concept for years, how does one correct that, or does one correct it? Or has the meaning of the word evolved into something else? But what if the meaning of the word as they define it, is associated with some mental object - that would surely be incorrect, even if they had been doing it for years.

So all I'm saying Banno, is that examining use is not necessarily going to resolve the problem, again what if it's an incorrect use? I do agree that generally use gives us the correct sense or meaning, but can we say that dogmatically. Can every case of incorrect use be resolved using Wittgenstein's method? Would Wittgenstein himself say such a dogmatic thing? I'm not sure. I'd be interested in what you and others think.

I'm not saying that there aren't problematic ideas within Wittgenstein's thinking. No method, not even Wittgenstein's, will solve every problem, but his method comes as close as you can to solving linguistic problems of the sort he's talking about.

The way you talk about rules seems confusing to me.

I think Streetlight, Luke, Fooloso4, and myself are pretty close in our interpretation as far as I can tell, but your interpretation seems a bit off. Wittgenstein isn't exactly the easiest to interpret, but it's not beyond our reach either, at least generally.

On the whole I think the thread is going well. I hope we don't give up on it like so many other threads.

MU, what you're saying goes way beyond what I'm saying, so don't equate the two.

I know that most of us agree that Wittgenstein wants us to see meaning or sense in terms of use, but I think it's a mistake to say that meaning equates to use (at least dogmatically). I've said it myself, but we have to be careful, i.e., if meaning equates to use, then it would follow that anyone, or any group who used a word or concept incorrectly, could make the claim that their use of the word is the correct use. So, use must be seen in the wider social context, but even here it can be difficult to say that one use is correct over another use. Especially if we're acknowledging that words (sense or meaning) don't always have clear borders. Moreover, given this, there can be genuine disagreement over a particular use of a word.

If you think Wittgenstein is incorrect, then it doesn't apply.

I think it's important, as we think about what Wittgenstein is saying, to think about how we as individuals make these kinds of mistakes in our own thinking. So, where have we gone wrong in our thinking by making the mistakes that Wittgenstein points out. It's one thing to grasp what he's saying, but it's another to actually apply it as we do philosophy.

§69
Wittgenstein keeps saying the same things, only from different angles. It seems that philosophers and others get hung up on the form of the proposition/statement, as opposed to the function of the proposition/statement, word, or concept. Clarity of thought is not about some very precise definition, which as it turns out is generally impossible. This is clearly observed in our use of the word game, which doesn't have clearly defined borders. On the other hand, clearly defined borders may be drawn if we're talking about a particular kind of game, say chess. However, the tendency for philosophers is to look for unifying principles, or some theory that sums up the concept in some neatly defined idea.

As Wittgenstein points out, someone might say that before we come to understand these unifying principles or theories, we didn't have a very exact definition or an exact measure, but then the problem raises it's ugly head again, what do you mean by exact. So, the problem continues because we aren't seeing the social nature of language in the stream of life.

There are similarities in the Tractatus and the PI in that Wittgenstein is still trying to mark out the limits of sense. In the Tractatus he sets out the limit of language, but in the PI he speaks of the limits (plural) of language, which are found in how we use language. These limits (in the PI) are seen in the various uses of propositions, words, and concepts, they are open to view. They are not hidden, as in the Tractatus, but open to view in the stream of life.

Another similarity between the Tractatus and the PI, is that Wittgenstein is still trying to understand the function of language. In the PI there is no absolute method of determining sense from nonsense, no formal boundary as he set up in the Tractatus. Something only makes sense (in the PI), or is nonsense in a particular language-game. Even the term make sense is vague, just as the term game is vague. Just as the word game would alter its meaning from context to context, so making sense would alter its meaning from context to context, or from language-game to language-game.

This is an expanded version of PI 69, pulling together a general overview.

In my Wittgenstein Commentary thread I start out by talking about the Tractatus in general terms. You can read some of my comments there.

We can always start a thread on the Tractatus.

It is not simply a matter of how propositions connect with the world but of the logical structure of the world from simple objects that make up the substance of the world (T 2.02 - 2.021) that combine in determinate logical ways to form the facts of the world (T 2.01). — Fooloso4

I don't find anything to disagree with here, at least not in this statement. I'm very familiar with the Tractatus and what it says.

I still think it is important to emphasize that the rejection of Tractarian logic is as much a rejection of an ontology as it is a rejection of a view of language and the activity of analysis. — Fooloso4

Yes, but it depends on what you mean by his ontology. If you mean his analysis of how propositions connect with the world, and the limits he puts on language, then I agree. Although, in the PI he still believes there are limits to what can be said, it's probably where I disagree with Wittgenstein.

Logic, according to the Tractatus underlies and is the scaffolding of both language and the world.

In the PI logic is not prior to, independent of, or determinate for the language game. — Fooloso4

I'm not saying that it's the same method or the same kind of logic. His understanding of the role of logic in language is much different in the PI.

It is not the logic of language but the logic of the language-game, different games different logics, that is to say, different grammars or rules. — Fooloso4

Your point seems to be a distinction without a difference. When I speak of the logic of our language I'm talking about grammar, rules, use, and finally meaning or sense, which would obviously include how words and concepts are used in language, and thus language-games. This expression is used not only in the Tractatus, but in the PI (PI 93, 345,).

§66
This paragraph reminds me of the courts trying to come up with a definition of pornography. A definition should be seen more as a guide than some absolute measure of meaning. Although, many definitions try to show how a word is used in a variety of contexts. However, most people use the dictionary as some absolute arbiter, and in some sense it can be used as an arbiter. And although there are not always clear boundaries around the definition, as seen in W. idea of family resemblances, there are still uses of the word that fall outside normal usage. This in turn may give rise to the idea that there is some way of setting limits, or of being more exact in our talk of games. This desire is so powerful that even after understanding what W. is saying, we are still drawn to the idea that we can describe the game more precisely.

§68
It's interesting that even the concept number, which we tend to see as more rigid, is not necessarily bounded. It too can have uses that are unbounded, just as the concept game has unbounded uses.

The question is: Why does this trouble us? It seems to be our desire for exactness, but even the concepts of being exact or being precise is not subject to a strict boundary. So, it seems we are fooled into thinking a certain way due to our lack of understanding of just how language works. Hence, Wittgenstein's method of showing us the way out of this kind of thinking.

Finally, although there are rules that govern the uses of concepts, concepts are not everywhere bounded by rules. There seem to be just enough rules to allow us to say this or that is correct or incorrect, but also enough elasticity to leave room for expansion or growth in terms of what we say, and how we say it.

We don't learn concepts of types, like "game" through ostensive definition. There must be some other form of rule, other than a rule of definition, which is at play here. — Metaphysician Undercover

He's not saying that you can't learn how to use certain words by referring to things or objects. We teach children all the time by pointing to things (cups, houses, trees, etc). He's saying that meaning or sense is not derived in this way, i.e., not by pointing to some object. So, ostensive definition can be part of the learning process. Learning meaning or sense involves a wide variety of uses that may include pointing to this or that in social contexts, but is not dependent on this or that object.