This is an odd and questionable use of the term 'inherit'. While it is true that we live in a world with mountains, lakes, and clouds, they are not ours to be transferred from person to person. — Fooloso4
There's a pinch of truth in saying language games do not reflect the facts, since the facts, being truths, are a part of the language games around truth. Better perhaps to say that the games are embedded in the world – so the builder's game inherently involves slabs and blocks and cannot be played without them. — Banno
There's also the ill-informed supposition that language games only ever involve language, which even a cursory reading will evict. — Banno
For me it seems misleading to refer to the background, consisting of those things which are necessarily involved in our everyday lives. like hands, feet, legs, arms, ears, eyes, mouths, hills, valleys, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, fish, clouds, sun, stars, moon, human technology in all its forms, architecture, music, painting, poetry, philosophy to name but a few in a list of countless numbers, as a system of beliefs. — Janus
These things are not beliefs but intimate and inevitable elements of human experience. — Janus
What are we to do with that proposition? What rests on it? — Fooloso4
I consider the claim that there are mental states of knowing as a metaphysical claim. Do we have a particular mental state because we know or do we know because we have a particular mental state. Does knowing cause the mental state or does the mental state cause us to know? Is there a different mental state for knowing I have hands that differ from the mental state of knowing I have feet or fingers?
It is not clear to me whether you are accepting or rejecting an appeal to mental states. — Fooloso4
From it seeming to be that there is this queer and extremely important mental state it does not follow that it is so that there is this state. It arises from the misuse of the expression "I know". — Fooloso4
I don't think Moore's claims that he had hands is a bedrock proposition and do not see how it grounds or plays a role in epistemology. It may have its place in his attempt to refute skepticism but it most contexts it is odd and out of place. It is an example of philosophers being puzzled by the puzzles they create. — Fooloso4
Moore must think sceptics are idiots. As if they;re going to read his argument and go 'Oh yes, I have hands, I hadn't notice that before'. — FrancisRay
I interpret this differently. Wittgenstein is drawing our attention to the fact that philosophers treat claims of knowledge and certainty as if they are metaphysical claims, and this leads them to confusion. Both the skeptic and those like Moore who argue against skepticism suffer from this. They put demands and requirements on these terms that do not exist outside the puzzles they create. — Fooloso4
While he shows that Moore's use of "know" in "I know this is my hand" is problematic, I suspect Wittgenstein pretty much agreed with the argument Moore presents against idealism. "Here is a hand" shows that there is stuff around us to be dealt with, providing a foundation, a certainty. Again, there have to be slabs in order to engage in the builder's game — Banno
Apparently you’re not a fan of Kuhn and Feyerabend. — Joshs
Maybe it's this presumption that I have trouble with. It makes one seem "above the fray". Come into the pig pen, my dear Witty! — schopenhauer1
s it that Wittgenstein rejects Moore’s language-game or that he is showing Moore what a language game is? Does the idea of rejecting a language-game make sense? — Joshs
What pray tell is the error he has shown? Neither his language games argument nor his "silence" argument (from Tractatus), necessarily precludes providing context, connecting with other ideas, etc. — schopenhauer1
.Wittgenstein asks questions, but avoids trying to answer them
There are two parts to my understanding of language: i) words have a use in the language game and ii) the language game has a use in the world. Wittgenstein deals with the first part, but ignores the second. Wittgenstein is like a mountaineer who buys all the ropes, crampons, thermal weatherproof clothes and tents but then never goes to the mountain, justifying himself by saying that the actual climbing of the mountain is a meaningless pursuit. — RussellA
It will be interesting to see what Sam26 has to say. — Banno
Although it makes no sense to say that I am in pain but I do not know it or I am not conscious that I am in pain, that I do not know that I am in pain is a grammatical claim. I think you are reaching into the wrong issue. — Fooloso4
Something that does not think cannot be deceived, and only something that can think can doubt. I cannot be deceived about or doubt that I exist unless I am a thing that thinks. — Fooloso4
That I am in pain can be talked about in the language game. That I am in pain can also be known by others. It is just something that I cannot know. I don't learn of, or doubt, or know my pains. I have them. — Luke
To be clear, the "something" in question at §304 is not a meaning or anything linguistic, but a private sensation; a feeling. However, I assume this is what you meant. — Luke
As Wittgenstein pointed out in PI 258, there is a problem talking about the accuracy of private sensations, he says towards the end, “But in the present case I have no criterion of correctness. One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we can’t talk about ‘right’. — Richard B
What goes wrong with some much talk of private sensations is it borrows so much from the language of the public shared reality that words begin to loose their sense, like “right” “accurate”, “judgment”, “remember”, “something” etc… How much do you cut off a tree where it is no longer a tree but a stump? — Richard B
What could “accurately” mean in such a case of private experiences/sensations. — Richard B
However, I'm not sure whether there is much left to say if W is correct in saying that the private sensation is "not a Nothing", but "a Something about which nothing could be said." — Luke
I understand now that language categories are listed for searching similarities instead of differences. — javi2541997
But your analysis betrays you. You are inferring a cause (<Mary believes there is a chair available to sit in>) from an effect (<Mary sits in a chair>). The belief is not the effect, and our everyday language reflects this. If someone asks you, "Do you know any of Mary's beliefs?," you would not say, "Yes, one of Mary's beliefs is sitting in a chair." According to everyday language this response wouldn't make any sense. A belief can be inferred from an action, but a belief is not an action. A belief is a state of mind, or as Searle says, an intentional state.
You want to focus on this relation between beliefs and actions, but it seems that in the process you have actually conflated beliefs and actions. — Leontiskos
It is legitimate to describe what belief does as a way of understanding what belief is. To describe an effect is not to describe the cause. That's the problem: ↪Sam26 says "beliefs are..." What he ought to say is, "the effects of beliefs are..." He is not talking about beliefs; he is talking about their effects. — Leontiskos
