I think we're getting bogged down into arguing over the same issues, and that's not what I was looking for. I guess I'm looking for more thought provoking issues that arise out of the traditional language problems. For example, what place if any does Wittgenstein's idea that not understanding the logic of language cause problems. Maybe some of you don't think much of the problem, and that's fine, but why?

No. I think failing to adequately reflect on its meaning (the reality it indicates, which I take to be a measure of change), is the source of problems involving time. Once you have a clear meaning, applying it consistently resolves any confusion. Then all that is left is different beliefs about the facts. — Dfpolis

I agree with much of what you're saying, but they're are many definitions (I would say uses) of the word time, that cause confusion. And the way I define it is similar to your definition, it's simply a measurement of change. However, sometimes we look at time like it's a stream, i.e., something we can get in and out of, and it's these kinds of time that can cause confusion.

The idea that any of this could have been resolved through supplying an appropriate definition, or impeded forever by supplying inappropriate definitions, is really far off the mark. It was mostly worked through by people hashing it out, and was enabled by the civil rights movements for people of colour and women. Political problems don't arise or go away through the analysis of language, they arise and go away through targeted change of social systems and behavioural change on a large scale. The analysis of these problems and the activity of addressing them concerns real social systems, not words. — fdrake

These kinds of problems sometimes get solved in other ways besides the ones that I might suggest.

I hope that you don't think that I would suggest that a definition correctly understood would somehow solve the problems that Wittgenstein is referring to. I would suggest that some philosophical problems do go away once one understand some of Wittgenstein's points. And even in the example above one could apply Wittgensteinian methods to help clarify concepts.

Question: is the philosophy of language the philosophy of languages? It seems to me that movement from one to another language changes meaning and message. Is it commonality underlying language, or that that is distinctive to a language that you're looking for. (I wouldn't be asking if you had defined your topic above. — tim wood

I've written heavily on this subject in many of threads (e.g. A Wittgenstein Commentary), but yes, I can see how someone might not understand what in particular I'm talking about.

Wittgenstein was looking at the problems between thought or language, and the world. Questions like: "What is the function of language? What is the structure of language? How is language related to the world? How is it that we can say anything about the world and mean something? What is meaning? These are some of the questions, and there are many more related questions. But not just these questions, but how not understanding how language works causes philosophical (I'm using philosophical in a broad sense to cover all philosophical thought - which is wide and diverse) confusion.

I understand, but surely you're not so hubristic to think that your version of 'significant thought' is going to be universally understood? That's why I was wondering if you were hinting at something more objective (like academic qualifications), but that's cleared the question up, thanks. — Pseudonym

I was very hesitant to put down very specific qualifications because I didn't want push people away from the discussion.

Talking about that goes even further away from poor Sam26's thread topic. Which, I imagine, is supposed to be a series of vaguely Wittgenstein influenced confessions of how the analysis of language has changed how we think about philosophical issues. Emphasis on the specifics, like 'How reading Wittgenstein made me an anti-theist' or 'How reading Austin turned me off Chomsky's approach to language'. — fdrake

Yes, this is definitely what I'm looking for, but I'm also interested in how you think about philosophy of language, viz., its shortcomings and its benefits.

It seems to me that the analysis of most problems don't turn on the analysis of language. To be sure, being a careful reader and writer is useful for understanding and contributing. — fdrake

For me, most, if not many of these problems are about the concepts used. However, that's not to say that there aren't problems that are not part of what we normally think of as language problems. Let's take for example, the concept time, it seems to me that many of the philosophical problems, and even possibly scientific problems, arise because of the misunderstanding the many uses of the word, and the confusions that arise as a result.

Don't you think that depending on how you define the word creates many philosophical and maybe even scientific confusion?

Just hoping I haven’t joined in without proper qualification. Presuming you yourself intend to take part in this 'higher level of discourse' perhaps you could let us know what level of qualification you are so that we know the target we're aiming for? — Pseudonym

I'm looking for people who have given significant thought to the issues, but I don't want to keep people out of the discussion. I say this to give some guidelines for what I'm looking for. There is something to be said for studying these ideas at length and coming to a conclusion, but sometimes even then one wonders about the quality of the thoughts or conclusions.

Ya, it would be interesting to divide the problems up into various kinds.

Sure, but I'm skeptical that analyzing language is some sort of cure for philosophical problems in general. — Marchesk

You won't get much disagreement from me on this, but I do believe many problems are clarified or dissolved, many more than people realize. The question is, which or what philosophical problems are we talking about.

If you don't understand this point, then you don't understand the difference between a claim to knowledge, and having knowledge. One's claim is not equivalent to, or amount to knowledge. So l don't follow your reaction.

"Not my idea... Actually against the position I've been arguing for..."

Then I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't think anyone else does.

I do not agree with Sam regarding what counts as justified belief. It does not require being argued for(the act of justification) on my view. — creativesoul

As I've explained before, this is not quite accurate, i.e., that I believe that justified belief is what's argued for. What I disagree with Creative about has to do with justification being a pre-linguistic concept. Justification can happen in several ways (linguistic ways), argument, inference, and proof is just one of those ways. Justification is used in other ways, viz., through sensory experience, linguistic training, testimony, and it can be tautological. So to say that I think JTB only happens through argumentation is a misrepresentation of my epistemology. When I use the word argument, I'm speaking in terms of logical argumentation. However, for me justification goes beyond logic. That is to say, logic is only one way of justifying a belief.

As I understand Creative he wants to say that knowledge is something that can occur apart from language, i.e., that prelinguistic beliefs can be justified. It happens in our metacognition according to Creative. However, this makes no sense to me. It's akin to saying we can have a private language, which is nonsense, at least from my perspective. Epistemology is a linguistic endeavor, not a private endeavor. To see this one need only look at the role doubt and skepticism play within our epistemological constructs. It happens necessarily in a social environment.

I don't disagree that there is a metacognitive reality, I just disagree about what's going on in that private world. Creative wants to bring in things that only happen within a linguistic and social context. Specifically he wants to bring in the idea that rule-following, which is necessarily linguistic, and necessarily part of epistemology, can happen privately. This follows from what he says because of his idea that justification can happen to prelinguistic humans.

Knowledge 'ought to' be true, but often it is not, because of the mistakes we make in our understanding of the facts. — Cheshire

You're conflating one's statement that something is true, or is a piece of knowledge, with the definition of knowledge. When someone states that he or she knows that something is the case, as in JTB, someone else may come along and ask, "How do you know?" - and it's at this point that you demonstrate your knowledge. If it turns out that you cannot demonstrate, i.e., justify your claim, then it's not knowledge. This is why justification is important, because people sometimes think they're claims are knowledge, but when examined closely we see that they're not.

So the idea that people make mistakes as you say, is built into the idea of what it means to have knowledge. Doubting or being skeptical is built into the language of epistemology. If it weren't, then we could infer that someone has knowledge simply by their claim to knowledge. So when someone claims to know that such and such is the case, we want to know how they justify their claim, because people often do make factual mistakes.

So epistemology does in fact account for error. The definition is quite different though, viz., it says that a belief that someone claims is true, in order for it to be knowledge it must be properly justified. There is no error in the concept, only in people's claims. Again, the two are quite different.

A thing that is knowledge can exist as the content of a book. The book does not have to believe it or justify it, only contain it. So, knowledge may exist without being believed or justified. — Cheshire

Knowledge is made up of beliefs, they are particular kinds of beliefs, viz., beliefs that are true and justified. A book may contain beliefs that fit this definition, so in that sense a book may contain knowledge, but only in so far as the book represents the beliefs of someone.

Knowledge is a success word, it accomplishes a purpose, that of being true. Knowledge is not a matter of simply saying something is true, it requires that the belief be correct.

Epistemological statements occur with in a rule-governed activity, viz., language.

Here's an interesting NDEs...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK73CZKfWFE

What I see is pretentiousness, as in three generally vague statements devoid of context, presented in an art show pretending to have significance. It's what happens when mediocre minds have nothing to say. They say nothing and stand around and pretend like they said something. — Hanover

I agree with Hanover. You can make these kinds of statements mean whatever you want without context. Apart from a context, they are just words. So what happens is that people give these words their own context, i.e., a subjective meaning based on their private context. We do this with art, and that's fine, but trying to make something significant out it as though there is some deep meaning to it, is silly.

Yes, they can exist in two forms, as propositions/statements, or as something prelinguistic. When they are prelinguistic the beliefs manifest themselves in our actions, i.e., our actions show that we believe we have two hands.

Obviously you have have propositions apart from beliefs, i.e., as a statement standing alone, which is why I said that it's a belief if I assert it as something I believe. You can think of a proposition as an object of belief, and it has the property of either being true or false. It may or may not be justified, i.e., it may be like an opinion, I just believe it. However, if it's a belief for which you have good reasons or good evidence to believe, then it's justified. My own view is that if it's justified, then it's more than a mere belief, it's a piece of knowledge. I can then say that I know that it's true, or at the very least you may just say there is evidence to support it. There are varying degrees of support for some beliefs, it may be strong or it may be weak support, as in an inductive argument.

We make the content of a proposition a belief if it's something someone believes, something someone asserts as true or false. One has to act on the proposition for it to become a belief. If I read a statement that asserts that X is either true or false, I have to to do something in relation to the statement for it to become a belief for me. So I may assert that it's true, or I may assert that it's false, then it's my belief.

I repeated myself for emphasis. Beliefs are an interesting topic. There are other kinds of beliefs that are pre-linguistic.

I neither believe nor disbelieve this as the evidence and arguments presented so far are equally good on both sides. Pyhrro and Sextus made this into a philosophy to live by where all belief was allegedly suspended — Marchesk

Maybe I could word this a bit better. All propositional claims that something is or is not the case, i.e., that someone asserts as either being true or false, are beliefs. One can assert a statement without believing it however, but that just means that it's not a belief that you subscribe to, but that someone else subscribes to. You may even, as you pointed out, suspend your belief, but then it's just not your belief.

I think we do suspend belief in everyday matters. I may come to a fork in the road not knowing which way to turn; and as I listen to two of my friends give equally good arguments for turning left or right, I may just say, "I don't know, which is correct," thus I suspend my belief. Either assertion is not something you believe. They are propositions, it's just that you don't subscribe to either.

Some of these questions seem like homework questions. Just wondering.

By the way, I'm not judging either way whether or not Witt himself held that hinge propositions were beliefs. It seems that he would have. I'm bit baffled why you would think that I've suggested otherwise. I merely pointed out that I cannot remember any of his notes including "hinge beliefs"... — creativesoul

I guess the problem happened when you said the following: "It is also my understanding that Witt never found what he was looking for(a single hinge proposition). He called them "hinge propositions"... not hinge beliefs." In this quote you seem to suggest here that hinge-propositions are not equivalent to hinge-beliefs. All of Moore's propositions are by definition beliefs. If you were simply saying that he never used the phrase "hinge-belief," then I agree. It just seemed strange that you would say that if you weren't pointing out some difference between the two. For the most part they're equivalent.

Also, something that I forgot to say in reference to your statement above. You said that it was your understanding that Wittgenstein never found what he was looking for, viz., "a single hinge-proposition." His point was that all of Moore's propositions were hinge-propositions, which was why he thought there was something strange about using the word know in reference to his hands in response to the skeptic.

Where at in OC does he clearly call Moore's propositions "hinge propositions"? — creativesoul

If you want a specific passage, there is none, but the implication is so clear that virtually no one that I've read thinks otherwise. His whole effort in On Certainty has to do with the special nature of these propositions/beleifs.

What I clearly remember is his description of bedrock beliefs, and talk of the spade turning up. This fed into his expression of not being able to get beneath language. If hinge propositions are bedrock, and the spade turns up here, then given that propositions are existentially dependent upon language, it would seem that we cannot get beneath propositions(language). He then goes on to further bolster this notion by pointing out how all examples are linguistic/propositional. — creativesoul

Yes, but bedrock beliefs is just another way of talking about hinge-propositions, another way of describing their special nature. He also implies they're pre-linguistic as I pointed out in a previous post. I don't find your interpretation of Wittgenstein to be accurate on these and other points. I've already stated, it's not just that you're coming up with an interpretation that goes against my interpretation, but you seem to be going against much of what's said about OC. It doesn't necessarily make you wrong (although I do think you are), but it should make you suspicious of your own conclusions.

I don't know why you're emphasizing JTB in reference to OC, because it's not the main thrust, at most it's a very small side issue.

he could not conceive that simple, rudimentary beliefs are not existentially dependent upon language. — creativesoul

This is another of your points that doesn't follow from the text. I already partially pointed this out earlier, but there is much that contradicts this idea. The mere fact that beliefs are shown, as Wittgenstein points out over and over, demonstrates that these (hinge-propositions) beliefs are pre-linguistic and not dependent upon language.

I've asked at least twice where you came up with these ideas, but you don't seem to want to answer the question. The reason I ask, is that I was wondering if someone besides yourself wrote about these ideas.

In many ways, religion is everything philosophy could hope to be. — Posty McPostface

I think there is an important misunderstanding going on here. Religion is a kind of philosophy (a religious world view), any kind of world view, be it religion or otherwise, has at it's core a kind of philosophical thinking. There are many things wrong with this kind of religious world view, just as there are many things wrong with many non-religious world views. There are philosophical world views that put forth the contention that and truth is a matter of subjective beliefs. I find this just as appalling.

The point is that one can find philosophical confusion no matter where you look. The biggest problem is in epistemology. Religion and many other world views are confused about what it means to have knowledge, i.e., how is truth acquired and defended. Most of the arguments are about how we justify our beliefs. Many Christians believe that the Bible is their primary source of truth when it comes to spiritual matters, and again, this is partly an epistemological problem. This problem spans every world view, so it's not limited to religious belief.

Finally, religion for the most part, is an example of a philosophy that's poorly done.

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Now we might very well take issue with those positions, but it does show how you can go about disputing the empirical, and thus the hinge propositions. — Marchesk

There are many different skeptical arguments that find their way into the thinking of people, some are justified, some are not. I don't think many of these arguments have much force.

In everyday life, they dissolve our skeptical worries, but that wouldn't sway someone like Parmenides. You would have to attack his argument directly, instead of pointing out that he's writing his poem with one of his hands. — Marchesk

Ya, it wouldn't do much good to tell him he can't doubt the proposition because it's an undoubtable empirical proposition that he has hands. His argument can be attacked very easily, but I'm not going to deal with his argument directly. I've already dealt with it indirectly.

The one question that is important to ask, is if it makes sense to doubt propositions like "I have hands," or other propositions that have already been mentioned. Doubting these kinds of propositions makes no sense, i.e., there aren't good reasons to doubt. I'm not saying that there aren't good reasons to express doubts in some contexts, obviously there are, but in Moore's contexts there aren't.

Although I think we agree on some things. In terms of Wittgenstein and what he's saying, we are very far apart, especially on the idea of what hinge-propositions are, and their relationship to epistemology.

I did much on my thinking about OC on my own, and what I find interesting is how well it matches up with many of those who have studied Wittgenstein. Obviously there are other interpretations of Wittgenstein's thinking, but I think much of my interpretation fits rather well with what's being taught, and with what some of his former students have written.

The problem with what you're claiming is that it doesn't fit with the common ideas gleaned from his writings. For example, that "...all other thought and belief are grounded on hinge-propositions," he certainly didn't say that. It's true that hinge-propositions ground epistemological beliefs, but some hinge-propositions (beliefs) are bedrock, they have no ground except as our inherited background. In that sense they are the ground. And this notion that hinge-propositions aren't beliefs is about as far away from what Wittgenstein is saying as you can get. Moore's propositions are expressed beliefs, i.e., Moore makes the claim that he knows he has hands, and if this is not an expressed belief, then what is? Wittgenstein goes on to demonstrate that Moore's propositions/beliefs are hinge-propositions. It seems odd to me that you would suggest otherwise.

Where did you get this interpretation? Is it something you came up with on your own, or did you get it from what others have written, or both? It's a very different take, and of course there's nothing wrong with thinking outside the box. I did some of that myself.

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We just disagree here Sam. Do you have any evidence from posthumous works that support the idea that Witt did not follow the conventional notion of JTB? It is my understanding that hinge propositions were meant to dissolve the issue of justificatory regress. It is also my understanding that Witt never found what he was looking for(a single hinge proposition). He called them "hinge propositions"... not hinge beliefs. — creativesoul

First, OC is not meant to support the notion of JTB. That's not to say there aren't examples of JTB in his notes. I don't know of any interpretation of Wittgenstein that thinks his writings are conventional in this sense, do you? Most interpretations think that Wittgenstein's writings are unconventional, and for the most part original.

Second, one could argue that Moore's propositions are examples of what many would consider propositional knowledge. Yet Wittgenstein is going against this notion, demonstrating that these propositions aren't propositions in the ordinary sense, which is why he calls them hinge-propositions. Hinge-proposition aren't epistemological at all, they are arational beliefs. Again, not just my interpretation, but the interpretation of many others who have studied OC.

I don't see how you can possibly think that hinge-propositions aren't beliefs. Wittgenstein starts out by critiquing Moore's propositions, which by definition are beliefs. My ideas of hinge-propositions go beyond what Wittgenstein said, in that I talk about prelinguistic beliefs. Wittgenstein stays within the bounds of language for the most part. There are many hinge-propositions that are linguistic, starting with Moore's propositions (I know this is a hand), are you saying this is not a belief? Wittgenstein's arguing that they are a special kind of belief, beliefs that fall outside the conventional understanding.

Two passages that I believe show the idea that hinge-propositions are beliefs, is the examples given in OC 284 and 285, but that they are beliefs there is no doubt. There are too many examples to list. Wittgenstein never denies that they are beliefs, he denies that they are pieces of knowledge, and knowledge goes beyond mere belief, in that they are beliefs that are justified in some way, according to particular language-games.

It's true that hinge-propositions solve the problem of infinite regress, but that's not the thrust of OC. His main goal is to come to grips with the nature of these kinds of beliefs, and this he never finished. My theory is that they are prelinguistic, and when language comes into the picture they become foundational beliefs that everyone swallows as part of reality.

By the way all propositions are beliefs. Thus a hinge-propositions could very well be called a hinge-belief. In fact, that may be a better way of talking about them.

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The answers you get from people on this forum are probably going to reflect their bias toward a particular interpretation. I would read as much background information as you could on Wittgenstein, and how he developed his ideas. If I were you I would read Ray Monk's book Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Duty of Genius, it is widely regarded as one of the best book on Wittgenstein.

Does this mean that a human being raised by wolves couldn't come up with the game, or does it mean that the last survivor of an apocalypse couldn't play the game? — Marchesk

Yes, any language by definition is social due to the nature of rule-following, which is part of the point of Wittgenstein's private language argument. So the correct and incorrect use of a word is something we do together, and this is an important logical point about the nature of language. However, don't confuse this with the idea of the private use of language, i.e., once I've learned a language, then I can use it privately, but that is always subject to the rule-following nature of language, not the other way around. The point is that you cannot develop and language which is completely private. This is difficult for some people to swallow, but I think that's because some people confuse having a private language with using a language privately.

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The thing here is that people have often used subjective criteria for knowledge. The Christian will probably say they know because their experience of God gives them evidence just like perceiving seeing the sun lets us know the sun exists.

They will probably reject the idea that knowledge is limited to the empirical or the deductive. The gnostics explicitly advocated for a kind of subjective relavatory knowledge. — Marchesk

It's true that many people make claims to knowledge based on subjective criteria, but that doesn't make it knowledge. If someone claims to know X, you have the right to ask how it is that they know. Surely knowledge isn't simply a claim to know, otherwise any claim to know would be knowing. That would be weird to say the least. If you make a claim that something is true, I may express my doubts by asking how it is that you know, and my doubts will not be satisfied simply because you repeat your subjective claim, that would tell me nothing. This is why it's important to appeal to objective evidence that supports the claim. My doubts about your claim would then be satisfied. Of course sometimes people aren't satisfied even after seeing the objective evidence.

I would claim that their subjective experience of God is not the same as our sensory experience of seeing the sun. The latter is objectively observed, the former not.

I'm saying it's necessarily both. Consider that humans wouldn't have developed pain talk if we didn't feel pain, just like we wouldn't have a color vocabulary without eyes. — Marchesk

I agree there is a connection between the pain we feel and how we learn to use the word pain. However, note that in order to learn to use the word correctly, both the sensation of pain, and the use of the word are done in social contexts, not privately. So although it's true that without the sensation of pain there would be no talk of pain, that's besides the point. The point is that learning to use the word that is connected with the sensation, again takes place in language-games. This is seen most clearly in Wittgenstein's discussion of having a private language.

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Temple Grandin was of the opinion that animals thought in pictures instead of words, and that a lot of people have a hard time with this because they're thinking is so dominated by language. But she calls herself a visual thinker who has to translate pictures to words in order to communicate with others, being that she's a high functioning autist. — Marchesk

We definitely use visualizations, but I'm not sure animals do, maybe. I'd be interested in the evidence that suggests that animals use visualizations. The only reason I have to doubt this, is that our minds do much more than an animals, although they might do more basic kinds of visualizations.

Witt worked from the conventional notion that all thought and belief is propositional in content. It is my strong opinion that that served to stifle his genius on this matter of belief. — creativesoul

This just isn't true. In fact, there is much in Wittgenstein's thinking that is just unconventional. Hinge-propositions are not propositions in the conventional sense. In a sense they're not propositions at all.

You see Sam, this is actually quite contentious. Following the same logic, my chickens believe that they have beaks.

This harks back to the issue I'm raising. We must first have some notion regarding what a belief actually is, and more importantly what belief is existentially dependent upon and/or what belief consists of, prior to our being able to observe and correctly attribute belief to another. — creativesoul

It's only contentious because you're allowing a particular interpretation to take root. While it's true that actions reflect belief, it's not true that all actions reflect belief. Many living things act in some way, but that doesn't mean that every action/behavior reflects a belief. It's also true that some actions are more difficult to ascribe a belief to, but that doesn't mean that particular kinds of actions don't reflect beliefs. There are also involuntary and voluntary actions for example, certainly involuntary actions don't reflect belief.

I think for the most part we do know what a belief is, we use the word all the time in ways that show what a belief is. One use of the word belief in reference to actions is the following: There are many instances in courts of law where we can reasonably infer what someone actually believes by their actions even if they're lying. So if someone says, "No, I wasn't with my sister at 9 am on Sunday morning the 5th of August 2018," and there is a video showing him with his sister at that time, then we can reasonably infer that his actions tell another story. His actions reflect what he really believes. In some respects actions are a more reliable indicator of what someone believes.

It's the way you're using the word belief that's causing the confusion.

Behaviour alone is inadequate justificatory ground for positing any particular belief. There are also clear actual examples that serve to falsify that claim, placing it into the "some" behaviour shows belief category... clearly not all. — creativesoul

Again, not all behavior equates to a belief. I'm not sure why you would conclude this. I sure don't believe it, and I'm fairly certain Wittgenstein didn't believe it. It doesn't logically follow that because some actions or behaviors reflect beliefs, that all actions or behaviors reflect beliefs.

You're right to say that positing pre-linguistic belief is not gratuitous. I'm mistaken to say that, now that I actually think about it. My apologies. However, to say that belief consists of actions while also asserting that action shows belief renders the language use incoherent. — creativesoul

No need to apologize, it's easy to make mistakes, or to write something that we later see as an error, or even a typo.

In response to your last sentence - I think it's only incoherent based on your interpretation. Hopefully my writings directly above clear up some of this.

This leaves out the part where we also feel the pain and learn to associate our sensation with how other people are talking and behaving. — Marchesk

You're conflating learning to use the word pain with feeling the sensation of pain. We don't learn to use the word pain based on our private sensations, but we learn to use the word in association with others. This is closely related to the idea of rule-following which is not done in private. Learning a language is necessarily social, so in that sense it's not dependent on what you feel. I'm not saying it has no connection with your sensation, I'm saying that how we talk about pain is necessarily social and not private.