Thanks, Srap.

I think I agree.

But I walk away from "perception" because it is seen as private. Seems to me that form a Wittgensteinian perspective, perception as a private experience drops out of the language game.

That is, roughly, that if what counts as a block is constituted by the language game, then so is what is perceived as a block.

Neither the block nor the perception of block are outside of the game.

Not as clear as I'd like. This is not to say that there is nothing more than language. There certainly are blocks.

Pointing already is a language game.

It's only a block so far as it participated in the game of building.

This is of course quite contrary to the view that there are already blocks outside of the language game.

You think there is a right way to philosophise, right? — Skalidris

Very much, no.

But there is bad philosophy.

And Picasso went to art school. Picasso’s early training at formal art schools like the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid gave him a strong grounding in classical techniques: anatomy, proportion, perspective. But rather than remain within those bounds, he systematically took them apart. His innovations—especially in Cubism—can be seen as a radical deconstruction and reassembly of that academic foundation.

but i'm personally interested in how you get from "stuff" to "blocks" without already playing the game? — AmadeusD

To play the game is to move blocks and apples around. What counts as a block or an apple is constituted by the game, as much as prior to the game.

Ok, so how would you proceed?

Sure, the world is sometimes not as expected. But we can see this only becasue overwhelmingly it is coherent. Chairs do not turn into cats, chalk is not democracy and so on.

The point being made is that doubt takes place against a background of certainty.

If I've misrepresented you, show me how. Is what I've said above, wrong? How?

And I agree with you that sometimes we are surprised or mistaken. My point is that this can only take place if we are usually unsurprised and correct.

The Gavagai thought experiment is of a linguist attempting an interpretation of a language. The point is that the linguist doesn't need to decide the referent of "Gavagai" in order to participate in the form of life consisting partially of the hunt and the feast.

We don't need determinate meaning to get on with the language games nor with the forms of life.

We assume we are similar forms of life. — Hanover

I don't think that quite right. We might participate in a form of life or a language game, without sucha n assumption.

Hence my reference to the Gavagai example. We don;t have to assume that Gavagai means "un-detached rabbit part" in order to participate in the hunt and the feast.

Seems to be pretty much the question I asked here:

that not all language games involve justification. — Banno

However, language games are embedded and make use of stuff in the world - apples and blocks and so on. Hence they presume the world is a certain way - that it contains blocks and apples.

So I think the general point remains, even if not all langauge games are explanations-justifications.

What do you think?

Could dolphins have a form of life so different to our own that we could not understand it?

If so, how would we recognise it as a 'form of life"?

for example, demonstrating how our methods of justification apply across various language games within our form of life. — Sam26

My OP on two ways to do philosophy is along these lines.

Explanation - or justification - requires a contrast between what is explained and the explanation. For an explanation to function it must take what is being explained as granted - an explanation as to why the wasabi plants are thriving grants that the wasabi plants are thriving. The explanation explains and accepts something external to itself.

What our explanations - justifications - have in common is that there is something to justify. What our language games have in common is that they are embedded in the world, and together they make a form of life.

It's not clear that there is a decline in creativity in philosophy.

It won't do just to assert such a thing. It certainly is insufficient to base such a far reaching statement on "what I've seen".

But further, an undergrad in engineering or archeology, learning the intricacies and methods of their specialisation, would be misplaced in thinking that all there was to engineering or history was stuff already done, and no creativity. An engineer without a background in engineering would not be a good idea.

Especially if they are being creative.

Better that they understand the methods of engineering before they get to design a bridge.

It would be a mistake to think someone unfamiliar with engineering principles is in a better position to design a bridge simply because they are "unburdened" by past knowledge. Quite the opposite: without an understanding of load-bearing, stress tolerances, and material behaviour, their creativity is not just useless—it’s dangerous.

Criticism is the wellspring of creativity, not the undoing.

We criticise to question assumptions, reframe issues, and make space for alternatives. The most original thinkers—Plato, Kant, Wittgenstein—were relentless critics of the traditions they inherited. That’s not the death of creativity; it’s the engine.

Folk want the world to be unpredictable in order to suit their heroic philosophical narrative, but predictably go to the shop to buy their sausages.

They type on their device fully expecting a reply from Banno, and sometimes get one.


There's a truly extraordinary lack of self awareness in complaining on the internet about "the elusiveness of the real".

A foundational performative contradiction.

Perhaps a form of life can be understood via Witt’s description of a family of resemblances, which ties together discrete games on the basis of commonalities that are intertwined but not reducible to a single shared thread: — Joshs

Yep. Quite agree.

Here are all the mentions on PI:

19. It is easy to imagine a language consisting only of orders and
reports in battle.—Or a language consisting only of questions and
expressions for answering yes and no. And innumerable others.——
And to imagine a language means to imaginea form of life.


241. "So you are saying that human agreement decides what is
true and what is false?"—It is what human beings say that is true and
false; and they agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in
opinions but in form of life.

i
One can imagine an animal angry, frightened, unhappy, happy,
startled. But hopeful? And why not?
A dog believes his master is at the door. But can he also believe his
master will come the day after to-morrow?—And what can he not do
here?—How do I do it?—How am I supposed to answer this?
Can only those hope who can talk? (only those who have mastered
the use of a language. That is to say, the phenomena of hope are modes
of this complicated form of life. (If a concept refers to a character of
human handwriting, it has no application to beings that do not write.)

And from OC:

357. One might say: " 'I know' expresses comfortable certainty, not the certainty that is still struggling."

358. Now I would like to regard this certainty, not as something akin to hastiness or superficiality, but as a form of life. (That is very badly expressed and probably badly thought as well.)

So not synonymous with "language game", but more the ground on which they take place.

You're not saying anything relevant. — AmadeusD

So the topic is "On Matter, Meaning, and the Elusiveness of the Real", yet you claim that pointing out that what is real is right there before you is irrelevant.

How are we to make sense of that?

How can you see the forest?

It's extraordinary to have someone use the internet to deny that the world is coherent and predictable.

That's just not so.

I don't know what more to add. The fact that you replied to me shows that the world is pretty much as it seems.

Spot on - see hereabouts.

"the Elusiveness of the Real" is pretty much exactly wrong.

Far more instances of that assumption failing that otherwise, as I see it. — AmadeusD

Are you perhaps dropping too much acid?

Overwhelmingly, the world appears to do much as advertised.

Yep. One would presumably describe what the interactions involved in what one does, rather than list a series of acts. Your somewhat literal interpretation might miss the point that what a city is like is dependent on what one chooses to do in that city.

Perhaps we could look for a point of agreement that would allow a rest.

Do we agree that one can coherently say "I don't know"?

I had the same thought...

Seconded.

Wouldn't it have been better if I had never existed at all? — Truth Seeker

Well, if Granny Weatherwax is right, we can't possibly know what the world would be like if you never existed.

It just is as it is.

I suppose the upshot is that choices are about what happens next, not about what happened in the past.

Perhaps the hardest part of living with disability is the constant struggle to improve, to advocate for oneself, to find better ways of doing things. Every small step is so very hard. Sisyphus had it easy in comparison, at least he knew what would happen next.

Stuff that those not living with disability can never grasp.

Seems to me that the key is other people. Keep reaching out. And keep in mind that while you don't know what will happen next, sometimes things get better.

You are welcome to PM me.

philosophical detachment seeks its goal through self-transcendence rather than by bracketing out the subjective altogether. — Wayfarer

Sure.

Supose that someone claims to have achieved "self-transcendence". How could we check?

A way this thread might have gone would have been to consider hinge propositions and such. Is it that some things must to be held certain, in order to get started? It seems so, and this relates to our conversation about what "counts as..."

That would be a far more edifying approach than the present woful mess.

Becasue none of that explains the mystery of how you could suggest something so distant from what was actually said.

Which you continue to do.

Most puzzling.

You should understand that you are not alone in any of this. Not that knowing this makes it any easier, but it might take away some of the stigma.

I very much like the approach set out by Terry Pratchett in Lords And Ladies. I've mentioned it a few times hereabouts. The witch Granny Weatherwax meets her one-time lover, the wizard Mustrum Ridcully. Ridcully is full of "might-have-beens"...

‘Do you remember—’
‘I have a … very good memory, thank you.’
‘Do you ever wonder what life would have been like if you’d said yes?’ said Ridcully.
‘No.’
‘I suppose we’d have settled down, had children, grandchildren, that sort of thing …’
Granny shrugged. It was the sort of thing romantic idiots said. But there was something in the air tonight …
‘What about the fire?’ she said.
‘What fire?’
‘Swept through our house just after we were married. Killed us both.’
‘What fire? I don’t know anything about any fire?’
Granny turned around.
‘Of course not! It didn’t happen. But the point is, it might have happened. You can’t say “if this didn’t happen then that would have happened” because you don’t know everything that might have happened. You might think something’d be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can’t say “If only I’d …” because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you’ll never know. You’ve gone past. So there’s no use thinking about it. So I don’t.’ — Terry Pratchet

Pratchett, Terry. Lords And Ladies: (Discworld Novel 14) (Discworld series) (pp. 162-163).

Counterfactuals are recondite. You can’t say “if this didn’t happen then that would have happened” because you don’t know everything that might have happened. In your case you can't say how things would have been had you followed your parent's advice, any more than Ridcully could be sure that if he had made a different decision he would have lived happily every after.

More likely, you would be equally discontent but with a different set of issues.

"You can’t say “if this didn’t happen then that would have happened” because you don’t know everything that might have happened."

if I live in St Louis, should I move or stick? And the same if I live in Kansas City. — Srap Tasmaner

Nice. This remains unaddressed.

Perhaps it's particulars that decide the issue - a new job, a cheaper house, being near family.

And here maybe the analogy breaks. Not sure.

In fact, the Pāli texts repeatedly describe the Buddha as having abandoned all views — Wayfarer

From this perspective, he does not occupy a standpoint but has relinquished all standpoint. — Wayfarer

Disinterested doesn't mean not caring. — Wayfarer

To care is to adopt a view.

Further, how could one ever know that one sees

“things as they truly are.” — Wayfarer

Perhaps I see things as they truly are, now, without the years of meditation - who's to say? SHould i take your word for it?

Moreover, doesn't your view require that our point of view is always situated, always subjective? I the Buddha's view then, still subjective?

Take pity on us - can you see how difficult it is to reconcile your account with logic? Presumably, the logic must be in error...?

But being unsure is not the same as being utterly in the dark, or forced to act at random. — J

This seems to be the key. From what Tim has said, he does not agree. I supose he might say that you need to know what you are looking for before you go exploring. But why?

"If you don't tend to one another, who then will tend to you? Whoever would tend to me, should tend to the sick.” — Wayfarer

Then he was not disinterested - wanting someone to look after him.

See the problem?

, I picture language games as more or less discreet, seperate enterprises. The examples are things like the builders calling for a block, buying an apple, and so on. A form of life is an aggregation of these.

So, not synonymous.

And calling for a block or buying an apple would look more or less the same, in various different cultures.

Consider Quine's Gavagai as a language game. Identifying the referent of "Gavagai" perhaps doesn't much matter, provided you participate int he hunt and get your share of the stew.

I haven't been following closely. — Tom Storm

You haven't missed much. No, I won't presume to summarise Tim's views. And yes, the thread is drifting into the culture wars, which is a bit of a shame. But perhaps my point has been made and carried.

From this perspective, he does not occupy a standpoint but has relinquished all standpoint. — Wayfarer

The view from nowhere? But don't you object to that?

They hold that the Buddha is perfectly disinterested: having eradicated every trace of craving, aversion, and delusion, he sees without distortion or agenda. — Wayfarer

To be disinterested in the suffering of others doesn't appear all that admirable.

The world pretty much seems to have an “in here” and “out there.” — T Clark

Since Descartes.

Why not start with the premise that the world is pretty much just as it seems to be, and look for evidence to the contrary?

A valiant attempt at bringing some reason into the discussion.

The moving cities analogy is interesting. I think we can take it a bit further. Let's consider the question, "What's it like to live in Kansas City?" This frames the issue as if there were only one way to live in Kansas City. but of course what it is like to live in Kansas City is not a thing, but a series of choices and interactions - do you stay in your flat, or do you go out and explore the parks? Do you join a choir, or a bike club? Do you get to know your neighbours, or keep to your old relationships?

The analogy holds when we consider changes in fundamental beliefs. it's not about what is the case, so much as what you do next. As such there is no answer to "What's it like to live in Kansas City?" apart from what one choses to do in Kansas City.

There's another aspect that is quite interesting. I would like to go back to this:

Are you seriously advancing the epistemic position that no one is ever wrong but that the two options would be: "yes I agree," and "I don't know?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Assuming this is honest, it shows how very, very far Tim is from understanding what I have been suggesting. It would be somewhat extraordinary for someone to suppose that I would argue that "no one is ever wrong", given that almost all my posts are about how folk are wrong! I think many would see it as my modus operandi!

How can Tim be so thoroughly mistaken? Do we supose his case is different to others here, who display less intelligence but more ill-will and aggression? Is Tim in the position of someone in St. Louis trying to describe what it is like to live in Kansas City? Is he just saying that there are better Jazz clubs in St Louis? (Never having been to either, I'm guessing...)

If you are not interested in Jazz clubs, such an observation is irrelevant.

Which city is preferable depends on what you are doing.

So it appears that Tim wants to do something fundamentally different to @J, @Moliere and I. Perhaps he's building from what he supposes are firm foundations, rather than looking around to see how things are.

But our differences might not be about what is the case, and so not the sort that might be brought out by logical analysis. They are rather differences about what we want.

@Tom Storm, more along your lines of psychology rather than metaphysics.

No. As I’ve said previously in this thread, it’s useful to be able to know the difference between a rock and the pain you feel when you drop it on your toe. — T Clark

If there is no rock, only "sensations-of-rocK", as some are prone to supose, then is there is no difference between the pain and the sensation-of-rock, no?

Why not start with the premise that the world is pretty much just as it seems to be, and look for evidence to the contrary.

How can they do that? — Richard B

Look around?

Who "constructs the ladder from their senses"? It's easy enough to understand which stick is straight, which crooked.

Maybe you're overthinking the problem.

Now you have added "imaginable". So now you are doing modal logic?

There is a difference between following some god-given principle and trying things out to see what works.

You appear to advocate the former, I advocate the latter.