I take schopenhauer1's point to be that the limits of Wittgenstein's philosophical inquiry should not mark the limits of philosophy. — Fooloso4

Sure, but what strikes me as absurd is that the admission of the limits of Wittgenstein's inquiries are then called upon as a critique of them; as if one were to say: "what I say does not apply to X"; only to be responded with: "Ha, look! What you say does not apply to X!, therefore, what you say has nothing to say about X!"; To which one can only reply: of course you fucking imbecile.

---

I've nothing to say about Witty and Schopenhauer as their relation doesn't interest me. I do recall a well known remark by Witty on Schop though, though I mention it only for trivia's sake, and I make nothing philosophical of it: "One could call Schopenhauer an altogether crude mind. I.e., he does have refinement, but at a certain level this suddenly comes to an end and he is as crude as the crudest. Where real depth starts, his finishes." (Witty, Culture and Value)

And this is exactly the point at issue in the essay. — Wayfarer

It isn't because you believe in some bullshit equivocation between observation and consciousness which is pure, pseudoscientific excrement.

He's right on both counts, but not in the way you misread.

Are you aware of the philosophical implications of the 'delayed-choice experiment?' — Wayfarer

Yes, and the results of the experiment add yet one more piece of evidence that 'observation' at the quantum level is irrevocably determined by the apparatus of experimental set-up, insofar as it is the position of the shutters on the photodetector which erase the which-path information (open or closed), that 'determine' the appearance of the interference pattern or not. 'Consciousness' again has no part to play in any of this, no matter what woo-sayers like to peddle; As some Quantum Eraser experimentalists put it: "In conclusion, our results corroborate Bohr's view that the whole experimental setup determines the possible experimental predictions" (Herzog et. al, cited in Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway). Barad herself comments: "the atom is not a separate object but rather an inseparable part of the phenomenon (that includes the micromaser cavities, the photodetector-shutter system, the double slit diffraction grating, and the screen among other elements)".

Wheeler’s ‘papier-mache’ comment is just an elaboration of the consequences of just the ‘decision’ made as to how one sets-up one’s physical experimental apparatus. Hence the line that immediately precedes the papier-mache comment: “By deciding what questions our quantum registering equipment shall put in the present we have an undeniable choice in what we have the right to say about the past”: the ‘choice of question’ of course, is nothing other than how one configures a physical set of measuring equipment. It's worth noting that even your article is in concord with this: "According to the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of Niels Bohr, for example, the wave function has no reality outside of the interaction between the electron and the measurement device."

Beyond the topic of beating this mutilated, dead, horse however, it's worth noting that just because some tiny corner of physics has no tuck with some fuzzy notion of 'lived experience', this says nothing about the engagement of science with areas in which 'lived experience' is in fact pertinent. The distinguishing mark of the empirical is to follow where the evidence takes one, and not simply play the paranoiac and lament that lived experience has no place in science tout court. QM just happens to be a place where wannabe woo-peddlers like to make their bed because few people understand it, and it's one of the few places they can get away with the bullshit they do. Like in this case.

The Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments is a fun one.

Sophie's World is pretty cool too.

At the time, I pointed out that immediately prior to Wheeler's statement that "consciousness has nothing to do with the quantum process", he says "Useful as it is under everyday circumstances to say that the world exists "out there" independent of us, this is a view which can no longer be upheld. There's a strange sense in which this is a "participatory universe".' — Wayfarer

Correct, these lines preceed Wheeler's unequivocal declaration that "consciousness has nothing to do with the quantum process": that consciousness has no such role qualifies what he says of the participatory universe: it is explicitly a caution he adds so that the participatory universe thesis is not interpreted according to your misreading. Which is to say: this is exactly not what 'is at issue in the debate' because Wheeler explicitly rules it out of the running as a way to understand the thesis. More than that, he rules in exactly what he means: "we are dealing with an event that makes itself known by an irreversible act of amplification, by an indelible record, an act of registration. Does that record subsequently enter into the "consciousness" of some persons? ... That is a desperate part of the story, important but not to be confused with "quantum phenomenon". (my emphasis)

That you take what Wheeler explicitly calls a 'separate part of the story' to be 'the point at issue' speaks to either your utter illiteracy at best, or your wilful attempts at distortion at worst. I think its quite obviously the latter. Having put this rubbish to bed, one can only wonder what any of this has to do with anything other than your propensity to bring up irrelevant nonsense in place of actual argument.

That we’re not apes? — Wayfarer

A nice deflationary answer, if only what motivated it wasn't a claim for human exceptionalism as being beyond or above nature altogether.

Re the Wheeler quote - if that’s taken in the context of the paper in question, it is simply the modest claim that 'what the scientist is thinking' has no outcome on a particular experiment. But the whole point of 'the participatory principle' is, indeed, participatory, as distinct from 'objective' and 'physical'. — Wayfarer

Quote this supposed context, verbatim. I dare you. Liar.

I could trot out the rather explicit quote by Wheeler that consciousness has nothing whatsoever to do with QM, but you'd ignore it, as you always do. In any case, how it is that some long-winded irrelevancies about QM in any way addresses your constant need to present only the most vulgar picture of science is a total mystery.

Also, what's your issue with being a moderately intelligent ape on a watery rock? By any measure that's fucking amazing, without the need to invoke any of your woo. But I forget: you hate nature, you devalue and denigrate it, so you need more, always more.

By reacting against this reductionist model you are actually perpetuating it, because you see only the "either/or" of (necessarily reductively materialist) science versus some kind of idealism. A painfully facile approach! — Janus

:point: Yep. Rather than point out and engage with the myriad of places where these concerns are being addressed in science - and not necessarily by means of science - the bullshit dichotomy between bad science and equally shitty spiritualist hot takes is simply perpetuated. It's in Wayfarer's interest that science remain a shitty, reductive undertaking: he feeds off it.

Sure, sure, ape.

It's funny how the opposite of human exceptionalism is the boogeyman of reductionism. How fragile those are who are denied their special little place in the universe, that the entirety of the universe itself must be deflated so as to elevate their small, terrified, egos.

Hacks most certaintly like to appeal to authority rather than actually address objections raised though, that's for sure.

Lol when someone calls Witty an empricist what is one to do but throw one's hands up and laugh; "The limit of the empirical -- is concept formation" (RFM). And all of Witty is an exploration of how concepts take hold; an exploration of the limits of empiricism. It'd be like if one were to call Plato a materialist. How much more idiotically off-base can one get?

I guess the first thing to note is that the abortion debate is not the same kind of debate as the metaphysical debates that you and James discuss: James' whole point is that we ought to pay attention to practical consequences regardless of the apparent underlying theories - but the abortion debate already is about practical consequences. This is not the kind of case available to the kind of strategy employed by James with respect to Free Will and Materialism. If the approach to the latter has the form: 'regardless of X or Y, these are the results', the abortion debate has no 'regardless of...': it is already situated at the level of results. There may be more refined pragmatist approaches here, but in general terms, the abortion debate is not 'just' a metaphysical debate, it is always-already a 'practical' one. There's no (obvious) metaphysics to do away with: it's raw practicality from the get-go.

The debate, where it exists, largely turns upon how to understand the significance of actions (taken or not taken).

I don't think this is contrary to Wittgenstein... I don't see him as a conventionalist either regarding math or logic (or, I should say, especially regarding logic): "it has often been put in the form of an assertion that the truths of logic are determined by a consensus of opinions. Is this what I am saying? No". — 2019

Good luck getting through to Schop on these points.

Science tells us that everything, including life, the mind and consciousness, can be reduced to the behaviour of the smallest material constituents. — Article

The most depressing part of this - for me anyway - is that Thompson, one of the authors of the article, has done more than most to show that science does not tell us this. On his own, his writings are supremely senstitive to the fact that the above picture is not just wrong, but decisively so on account of 'what science tells us'. I fear that @andrewk is exactly right that Thompson has sold out his own philosophical sophistication to all the better make a big splash on a widely-read platform like Aeon.

And the truth of course is that woo peddlers like the OP need science to be this reductive boogeyman all the better to leave breathing room for their own two-bit idealisms. Nothing is more terrifying to them than to learn that science itself repudiates these shitty reductive takes on science, least their own space of intellectual manouver is shrunk to nothing. Idealisms live on the transfused blood of reductive science - they sustain and support each other, and it is in the interest of each to nourish the parasitic life of the other. The OP and the article it champions is just another in a long line of dialectical tactics to shore up idealism by pushing the most vulgar of science as the most authoritative. Without doing so, it'd die the ignominious death it deserves.

:up:

Oh boy, wait till you read up on it - I think you'll hate it, haha. The paper from which the book is drawn:

http://www.dan.sperber.fr/wp-content/uploads/2011_mercier_why-do-humans-reason.pdf

A reading list in place of specific sciences - because there are so many - too many - relevant ones:

Alicia Juarrero - Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex System
Scott Kelso - Dynamic Patterns: The Self-Organization of Brain and Behavior
Andy Clark - Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind
Andy Clark - Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again
Jesse Prinz - Beyond Human Nature: How Culture and Experience Shape the Human Mind
Donald Merlin - Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition
Antonio Damasio - Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
George Lakoff - Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind
Evan Thompson - Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy
Evan Thompson - Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind
Dan Sperber and Hugo Mercier - The Enigma of Reason
Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson - Relevance: Communication and Cognition
L. S. Vygotsky - Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes

As a note of principle: you can't study the mind if you don't study the body; definitely study the basics (and more) of neuroscience, but if you're not studying evolution, anthropology, and culture alongside that, you'll be doing yourself a disservice.

§138, Boxed Note

Witty's boxed notes are always obscure, and this one is no different, but my sense here is that he's suggesting that while we understand words in this way or that way, we don't, except in exceptional cases, wonder if we understand a understand a word at all. Another way to put this is that we are always in the 'sphere of meaning': even if we misunderstanding a meaning, what we misunderstand is a meaning, and not, say, a mere sound (we neither understand nor misunderstand noises). This once again as to do with our 'grasping meaning at a stroke': this grasping is not a 'two step' process, where we first ask (1) Is there meaning?, and then (2) What could it be?: when it comes to meaning, both steps are condensed into one,: (1) What is meant? (What is the use to which those words are put?).

§138

§138 finally brings out, I think, why any of these previous discussons matter at all in the context of the PI. That is: what does it matter whether or not propositions are intrinsically truth-apt or not? Why is Witty discussing this at all? - other than as a critique of his previous position in the TLP? If that critique functions as an 'external' motivation, what is the 'internal', philosophical motivation for engaging in this discussion.

§138 makes it clear: it's because meaning is use! It's only in the case where meaning might be anything other than use that we can speak of a proposition 'fitting' it's truth-aptness, and not belonging to it; Recall §120:

"People say: it’s not the word that counts, but its meaning, thinking of the meaning as a thing of the same kind as the word, even though different from the word. Here the word, there the meaning. The money, and the cow one can buy with it. (On the other hand, however: money, and what can be done with it.)"

Just as, if you can't, for example, buy things with money, it just wouldn't be money, so too that if a proposition were not truth-apt, it wouldn't be a proposition. This is why Witty here speaks of 'grasping meaning at a stroke'; there's no inference that needs to be made from sentence to meaning, for a sentence wouldn't be a sentence did it not have meaning: were it not used in a language-game or another.

Also, as an aside, I've been reading Sara Ellenbogen's Wittgenstein's Account of Truth, and there's a passage in there I really like, and though it relates more to the sections we already finished covering (§88-§133, on 'theories' and philosophy), we're close enough to thsoe sections that I feel comfortable posting this. It's a passage on why we cannot construct systematic theories of meaning:

"Wittgenstein ... would have rejected the thought that language should be capable of systematization. Hence, he would have denied that we can give a uniform account of what it means to treat a sentence as assertible which can be applied across the board, in a uniform way, in all the contexts in which we use “is true.” As he argues, the notion that meaning can be explained without reference to anything other than use arises from the fact that “in our discussions, [we] constantly compare language with a calculus proceeding according to exact rules” (B.B., p. 25). And we are inclined to say that the meaning of a word must be fixed and precise in order for it to be intelligible (cf. P.I. #79).

But we should remember that “in general, we don’t use language according to strict rules—it hasn’t been taught us that way either” (B.B. p. 25). In practice, we do not always use names with a fixed meaning—we may use the name “Moses” without a predetermined sense of which descriptions we are willing to substitute for it. And this does not detract from the usefulness of the name in our language (P.I. #79). Similarly, we may say to someone “Stand roughly there,” and the inexactness of the expression does not make it unusable (P.I. #88). The person we are addressing will know what we mean and what he must do to satisfy the request. Examples such as these should suggest to us that what determinate meaning requires is not conformity to a universal standard or model. Rather, it requires an understanding of what is needed by those concerned in a given context.

....When we try to construct a systematic theory of meaning, it appears as though there is something outside of language by reference to which we can explain what meaning is. That is, it appears as though there is something independent of our actual use of words in language which bestows meaning on them—and which does so in a uniform way."

§137

This one's a bit oblique, but as I can make out, it tries to address an objection posed to §136. The objection works by trying to draw an analogy between ascertaining the subject of a sentence (what a sentence is about), and determining if a proposition is truth-apt. The idea is that a subject of a sentence might always be otherwise: in the sentence, "Bob is funny", Bob is the subject of the sentence. But in the sentence, "Alice is funny", Alice is the subject. The subject then is not (what I called) analytically related to the sentence in the way that truth-aptness is related to propositions. So might it not be the case the the truth-aptness of propositions are related together in the same way as the subject of sentences?

Witty's response to this is the comparison is valid only if it is recognized that it works when trying to distinguish propositions from non-propositions (what Witty calls 'other expressions'), and not 'truth-apt propositions' from 'non-truth-apt propositions' (the distinction is not internal to types of propositions, but 'external' between propositions and not-propositions). It's only in this sense, says Witty, that one can talk of truth-aptness 'fitting' a proposition.

Stellar post. I think the focus on necessity is exactly right, and is missed by many who take Witty to be just engaging is some kind of linguistic anthropology.

BGE is a particularly tough work because of its disjoint composition; it's hard to say what the book is really about - not because it isn't about anything, but because it's about so many things. One way to read it is as a book of diagnosis: of why philosophers are wont to think like they do, and what motivates them to proffer the theories they do. Nietzsche sees alot of philosophy (and in particular, what he calls 'morality') as a kind of pathology, or a self-defence mechanism, trying to deny or look away from the vivid realities of life, in all its pain and joy. And alot of BGE is looking at how these denials take place, and what form they take in the different doctrines he critiques.

If I were to offer one recommendation it would be to start with a different work actually: the Genealogy. I think it's one of the more gentle of Nietzsche's works, and it's composition - three interlinked essays - are alot easier to follow a thread of thinking though. Alternatively, try The Antichrist or the Twilight of Idols (you can find both books together sometimes), which are slimmer and also quite accessible and funny(!), good reads. If you're going to stick to BGE, read it with the above in mind: why do philosophers do as they do, what are they 'hiding' or afraid of when they construct their edifies? These are the kinds of questions Nietzsche puts to philosophy, and then answers for it.

I've no clue what ernestm is on about, and suggest you - and anyone else in this thread - ignore him entirely.

Yeah, Cavell finds Witty attentive to the threat of scepticism, as something that always looms and that sometimes comes to the fore; but he sees scepticism more as something lived through rather than something thought, something that bears on our existential situation (our lived relation with others and the various 'worlds' we live among) moreso than our (mere?) knowledge of things. It's a very interesting take on scepticism, and brings out the 'lived' aspect of Witty's thought in a way few other commentators do.

§136

@Luke is exactly right to say that the distinction between fitting and belonging is what organises this section, and I'll only add that the thought that came to my head was the distinction between analytic and synthetic: that a proposition is a truth-apt statement just is what a proposition is, analytically so. It is not that there are propositions on the one hand, and truth-apt statements on the other, which are then brought together in some act of synthesis. Rather, there cannot be propositions which are not truth-apt, in the same way that there cannot be bachelors who are not unmarried.

This way of putting things may or may not be confusing issues since the analytic-synthetic distinction usually involves questions of experience and its role in knowledge, but I find it helpful regardless.

This is true. Better abolish sexed bathrooms.

I hope so. The next step would be to dismantle the equally silly distinction between ontology and epistemology that's supposed to apply to Wittgenstein here as well.

Ew, ew, ew. Why is anybody here talking about 'mind' independence (or dependence) in relation to Witty? As if one of the virtues of Witty's work were not to undo the very idea of such a lame distinction.

Well it generally helps to have a basic mastery of the grammar, at a bare minimum, of what it is you're trying to critique. And it's hard to tell if it's tragic or cute that an appeal to actually read the text you're critiquing is somehow seen as asking too much. As if your laziness is the issue of others.

Not even 'all is lanaguage-games' makes sense; nor language-games 'limiting' anything. No one, least of all Witty, would say either. The grammar here is senseless.

Why can't "merely" be used? — schopenhauer1

Because it tries to insinuate a stupid distinction between 'language-games' and 'scientific realism' that is senseless and inattentive to what language-games are. Substandard ideas deserve substandard replies.

Everytime 'language-game' is equated with (just/mere/only a) convention, a small kitten dies. This thread is a feline mass grave, and all of you are kitten murderers, in particular the OP.

Lol the US has never given a shit about privacy, as a certain set of Snowden leaks will tell anyone. And yes, if you refuse to give them passwords they can simply refuse you entry into the country.

Yeah I agree, I was just trying to point out that the problem is even worse - quantifiably doubly so - once suicides are taken into account.

One thing to note about gun deaths in the US is that by far the majority of such deaths are not caused by homicide, but suicide, which account for almost double the fatalities in comparison (source). And the ease of access to firearms is a likely to be a big contributing factor to those deaths, without which they would not take place (source).

This is exactly the kind of answer Socrates rejects in response to his "what is" questions. — Fooloso4

:up: Yes, great point. There's an anti-Platonism here right at the level of questions asked, which is just where it ought to be.

Back to regular programming after a bunch of senseless bullshit -

§135

If §134 casts doubt on the idea of a 'general form' of the proposition, §135 essentially asks: well, does that mean that we cannot have a concept of a proposition at all? And it answers: well of course we can, in the exact same way we can have a concept of a "game", previously defined in terms of 'family resemblances'. Worth recalling here a few of Witty's remarks on games and boundaries from before; For fun, and comparison's sake, I'll substitute the word 'proposition' for 'game' in §68:

§69: "We can draw a boundary a for a special purpose. Does it take this to make the concept usable? Not at all! Except perhaps for that special purpose."

§68: "What still counts as a proposition, and what no longer does? Can you say where the boundaries are? No. You can draw some, for there aren’t any drawn yet. (But this never bothered you before when you used the word “proposition”.) “But then the use of the word is unregulated” —– It is not everywhere bounded by rules."

Anyway, back to §135, where he says one can say what a proposition is by way of examples: which is nothing other than Witty's procedure for showing family resemblances. At the end of §135 he asks that one compare the concept of a proposition to that of a number. Well, here is Witty on numbers, for comparison:

§69: And likewise the kinds of number, for example, form a family. Why do we call something a “number”? Well, perhaps because it has a - direct - affinity with several things that have hitherto been called “number”; and this can be said to give it an indirect affinity with other things that we also call “numbers”. And we extend our concept of number, as in spinning a thread we twist fibre on fibre".

Ah yes, why isn't anyone talking about America's long-standing disembowelment problem? To say nothing of its disporportate rate of beheadings!