If it is something we construct, then we can doubt the appropriateness and/or utility of the construction. We can't doubt the triggering sensations, but they were not (in Wittgenstein's use) 'pain' in the first place, they're just physiological activity.

Image you've six physiological signals (a, b, c, d, e, and f) you generally model any combination of four or more as 'pain' (by model I mean things like a tendency to use the word 'pain', a tendency to say 'ouch', a tendency to withdraw from the perceived source...etc). The six signals are obviously not themselves 'pain' (again, in the way Wittgenstein is using the term), so it must be the model. — Isaac

You're implying that there are no natural human expressions or reactions. How are a tendency to say "ouch" or a tendency to withdraw from the perceived source [of pain] not natural expressions or reactions, but merely "something we construct"? Don't most animals tend to withdraw from perceived sources of pain?

Such general facts of nature (PI 142) are pivotal to Wittgenstein's work, especially his references to form of life and "shared human behaviour" (PI 206), or that we teach children sensation words on the basis of such shared behaviour (PI 257).

But if it's the model, we do doubt it because those six triggering physiological signals overlap with some of the triggering physiological signal for other state/emotion models. Just as we might say "I wasn't hungry, I was just nervous" (misinterpreting the overlapping signals from the digestive system in those two models), we might be able to say "I wasn't in pain, I was just cold and cross". That we don't actually say that is not necessarily a reflection on what is the case so much a cultural artefact of the belief that things like emotions and pains are natural kinds (a belief I believe modern cognitive sciences shows to be unfounded). — Isaac

It's "not necessarily a reflection" that pain is a natural kind, but there's very strong evidence to support it. Why else do you think we don't actually say "I wasn't in pain, I was just cold and cross"?

Roughly speaking, to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing at all. — TLP 5.5303

You don't get it.

Clearly, he is implying that since he has dismissed the law of identity, in favour of the vernacular use of "same", there is now no rule governing his use of "same".

253 In so far as it makes sense to say that my pain is the same as his, it is
also possible for us both to have the same pain — Metaphysician Undercover

You quote Wittgenstein saying that it is "possible for us both to have the same pain", but it could not be possible if there were no rule governing his use of "same". You seem to think that "same" must mean identical per the law of identity, otherwise it can have no meaning.

If I use the word 'pain' and I'm understood by a reasonable community of language users, then I am 'actually' talking about pain. There's no objective definition, that's why I brought up the standard one, to show it's ambiguity, not to set it up as a gospel. — Isaac

Okay, but you're no longer talking about the sensation of pain, like Wittgenstein is.

No, because anaesthetic acts differently. It might reduce conscious awareness of pain, reduce memory of pain (amnesiac effects) , it might reduce the signalling of pain at the nerve ending, or it might reduce the transmission of those signals at the brain stem or thalamus. At each point in this chain we can sensibly talk about 'the pain' and be perfectly well understood. If I say, "the pain reaches the thalamus but the the drug interferes with the communication between neurons from there on", no-one says "what do you mean 'the pain' - the patient isn't in any pain because they're anaesthetised? I've no idea what you're talking about". It's perfectly clear what I'm talking about. — Isaac

You're not actually talking about pain. You are talking about the physiological functions that are known to be correlated with pain, and calling it "the pain" as shorthand. There is no "unpleasant experience" in these examples, so you are arguing against the definition of "pain" that you provided.

You literally decide if you're in pain. — Isaac

That's beside the point. It only matters that we are either in pain or not.

I might not use the expression 'in pain'. It sounds messy "they're in pain but they don't know it". — Isaac

Well, that was the question I originally asked you.

But something like "their body is being wracked by pains but they're unaware due to a malfunction of the thalamus" seems to make sense to me. At least I don't think I would be met with baffled failure to understand if I were to describe a person in those terms. There a condition in which increases the availability of 5-HT at the 5-HT3 receptors at a nerve ending, this results in a sensation of pain (or discomfort), but the rest of the pain pathway is absent. Some talk about this as not being in 'real pain'. Personally, I should stress, I disagree with that use of language, I think it undermines the felt pain of people who suffer from such a condition; but the point - as far as this discussion goes - is that people know what they mean, my disagreement is a psychological one, not a failure to understand what they mean. — Isaac

This reasoning would commit you to saying that patients under anaesthetic are in pain (or equivalent), whereas the entire reason for anaesthetic is to eliminate pain. I think it is a matter of you using these words incorrectly. You have not addressed the point I made about the definition you provided: you completely ignore that pain is defined in terms of an "unpleasant experience".

Yes, I agree. But Wittgenstein was not privy to modern understandings of cognitive psychology, so whilst I'm completely on board with the idea that if something could not 'come to be known' there's be no sense in doubting it (The insight Wittgenstein is qualified to espouse), he's wrong in his examples of those somethings, simply because he didn't know then what we know now about how we come to judge the causes of our sensations, including interocepted ones like the activity of nociceptors. — Isaac

What are you claiming Wittgenstein is wrong about? He says (at PI 246): "it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself."

I don't agree that the law of identity is a useless statement. I agree with Wittgenstein that there is no criterion of identity by which we say that two things are the same. The law of identity states that one thing is the same as itself. It is not a criterion for judging two things as the same. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then why did you say:

There is no criterion of identity (rule) by which we say that two things are the same. Luke supports this above with the quote from 216, the law of identity is a useless statement. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think you understand PI 216 or much of anything that Wittgenstein says.

There is no criterion of identity (rule) by which we say that two things are the same. Luke supports this above with the quote from 216, the law of identity is a useless statement. — Metaphysician Undercover

You agree with Wittgenstein that the law of identity is - as you call it - "a useless statement"?

Then why do you also say things like this:

These sensations are only said to be "the same" through that sloppy use of "same", which follows from the absence of a criterion of identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

On the one hand you agree that the law of identity is useless, but on the other hand you complain about "sloppy" uses of the word "same" that do not conform to the law of identity.

“A thing is identical with itself.” — There is no finer example of a useless sentence, which nevertheless is connected with a certain play of the imagination. It is as if in our imagination we put a thing into its own shape and saw that it fitted. — PI 216

Technically, maybe. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as: “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.” If a person were to be shown to having sufficient excitation of nociceptor fibres to elicit a report of pain in most humans but for some reason they were oblivious to that state, I don't think it would be nonsensical to describe the situation as their being in pain but without knowing it. — Isaac

You would say that they were in pain even if they had no "unpleasant experience"?

When Wittgenstein rhetorically asks what it would even mean to doubt here is one hand, I don't think he's claiming to have discovered a fact about the world, but rather a fact about our culture. That "I doubt I'm in pain" has no meaning is a cultural artefact, it has no meaning to us, not in general. As our culture changes (with things like advances in neuroscience), expressions which previously had no meaning may start to acquire one. — Isaac

I think Wittgenstein's point is that having a pain (or other sensation) is not something that one can come to know or to learn of, and so it does not constitute knowledge. In order for it to be (learned) knowledge, one would need to be able to guess or speculate whether one was in pain and then be able to confirm or disconfirm it. If it makes no sense to doubt whether you are having pain (when you are having pain), then it makes no sense to be certain of it, either.

It can’t be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I’m in pain. What
is it supposed to mean — except perhaps that I am in pain?
Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour — for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them.
This much is true: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself. — PI 246

Could you be in pain and not know it?

Likewise.

we now have a situation in which pain-talk is superficially like phone-talk; but we have seen that this is an error. — Banno

“Now”? Following from what?

I did, and I think you are mistaken to read §244 as making a distinction between "I have a pain in my hand" and "I have a phone in my hand". I'll grant you that he might make that point elsewhere.

A common philosophical error is to assume that a grammar implies a state of affairs. In the phone example, the similarity of grammar is taken to imply that pain is some sort of individual, or thing, and so leads to questions of observation and identity and so on, all of them misplaced, all of them the result of not noticing that the grammar hides a distinction. — Banno

True, but that's not the point of §244.

Both are expressions. As opposed to names. — Banno

Obviously both are expressions. Wittgenstein asked: "How does a human being learn the meaning of names of sensations?" He suggests that it's via an association with their expression (e.g. pain-behaviour).

You're putting a lot of emphasis on the word "refer". Do you view reference as being restricted to a particular class or something, e.g. only to real world objects? Otherwise, I don't understand your concern here.

Yes, I read it. It does not support your view.

He goes on to ask how we learn the names of sensations (e.g. "pain"):

But how is the connection between the name and the thing named set up? This question is the same as: How does a human being learn the meaning of names of sensations? For example, of the word “pain”. — PI 244

He answers:

Here is one possibility: words are connected with the primitive, natural, expressions of sensation and used in their place. — PI 244

You take from this that the expression is the sensation. But he clearly distinguishes pain from its expression at §245.

A child has hurt himself and he cries; then adults talk to him and teach him exclamations and, later, sentences. They teach the child new pain-behaviour. — PI 244

Adults teach the child linguistic expressions (e.g. "I have a pain in my toe") to replace the natural expressions of pain (e.g. crying). This does not imply that the pain (sensation) is identical to the pain-behaviour (expression).

Wittgenstein is saying that the child learns the names of sensations by being taught new expressions of pain. The child sees that words are connected with the natural expressions.

“So you are saying that the word ‘pain’ really means crying?” — On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying, it does not describe it. — PI 244

Saying "I have a pain in my toe" is an expression of pain; a pain-behaviour, not a description of the pain-behaviour. "Pain" does not mean crying.

Indeed the more I re-read this the more convinced I am that pain talk expresses, but doesn't refer. — Banno

How do words refer to sensations? — There doesn’t seem to be any problem here; don’t we talk about sensations every day, and name them? — PI 244

Well,we all have universal principles of language and grammar in our instincts. — Ambrosia

Having an instinct for language is not the same as having a language.

Do not most people learn language at home in dialogue with their parents? — Ambrosia

Yes.

And all people have an instinct for language. They are not strictly learning from scratch,but expanding their language instincts. — Ambrosia

People may have an instinct for language (although I'm not sure what that means, exactly). However, nobody knows English, or any other language, without being taught it.

No English teacher I have ever known has attempted to teach me the correct use of a word. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nobody taught you how to speak English?

Right, it's impossible to ever know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the correct use of a word. — Metaphysician Undercover

This must be hell for English teachers. Why is it impossible?

Let me start with the admission that my comments on intention were my own and are possibly not in accordance with Wittgenstein's views on intention. I did not mean for my comments to be taken as an exegesis of Wittgenstein's view on intention. However, I stand by the rest of my comments on Wittgenstein's philosophy and purpose in the PI.

Having said that, I find that I disagree with your reading of the article:

This is a classic example of how the desire for certainty forces a picture on us that we then try to intellectually solve. It starts out okay by breaking the bad news to "neuroscientists" that intention does not come down to a physical process. Unfortunately, it does not stop there; but why? Why are we driven to continue? The problem is that they want to have our explanation of intention be "normative" or, be subject to "explanation, prediction, evaluation, and regulation". This is their desire. — Antony Nickles

Of course that's their desire; they're scientists. We should not admonish scientists for attempting to explain, predict, etc.

In the essay Must We Mean What We Say, Cavell takes the air out of the desire to find some intellectual normativity by pointing out that something is normative to the extent the practice is normative in our lives. Intention is just not like promising--each concept has its own implications, consequences, or none; you can say whatever you like, but only some things will be considered, say, instructions, or an excuse. — Antony Nickles

I don't understand the distinction between normativity and intellectual normativity. I take it to mean it's not the mental (intellectual) which is normative; it's the social practice. Yes, and the social practice includes the use of the word "intention".

But the author plows forward claiming that "we need to answer the question: what makes the ascription of an intention (by others or by oneself) legitimate?"(emphasis added) But, again, what is this need? He completely misses the point of #641, taking the phrase "the most explicit expression of intention is by itself insufficient evidence of intention”, to signal that: there must be sufficient evidence of intention out there somewhere! — Antony Nickles

Isn't that precisely what Wittgenstein signals here? Otherwise, what does he signal with this statement?

The author quotes the same passages I did (#581-583), but they take the "situation"(#581) or the "surroundings"(#583) to be what is happening with the person, their "pattern" over time. Intention not being mental, they would have it be behavioral--"ascribed" to the person--as if to push causality into them externally. But when Witt says an expectation is "imbedded in a situation" (#581), he is saying the context is what makes expectation here even possible (with a bomb about to go off). Only "in these surroundings"(#583) is there any significance (meaning) to "expecting". — Antony Nickles

I'll just point out that an intention is not an expectation. Also, it's "embedded".

The same applies for intention; it is not a cause, it is an unanticipated part in a situation — Antony Nickles

How do you account for PI 647: "What is the natural expression of an intention? — Look at a cat when it stalks a bird; or a beast when it wants to escape." - This is not about "an unanticipated part in a situation."

It is the (cultural/personal) expectation that makes the discussion of intention even possible, not the occurrence or lack of someone's "intention". — Antony Nickles

Are you saying that "the (cultural/personal) expectation" is an intention?

Intention is part of a discussion, not an action, nor a person. — Antony Nickles

Consider:

370. One ought to ask, not what images are or what goes on when one
imagines something, but how the word “imagination” is used. But that
does not mean that I want to talk only about words. For the question
of what imagination essentially is, is as much about the word “imagination”
as my question. And I am only saying that this question is
not to be clarified — neither for the person who does the imagining,
nor for anyone else — by pointing; nor yet by a description of some
process. The first question also asks for the clarification of a word; but
it makes us expect a wrong kind of answer. — LW

Imagination is also part of a discussion and is not an action nor a person. It's not a Nothing, but not a Something either. See also PI 305.

Incidentally, I came across these passages recently, which supports my view that Wittgenstein's focus is on language and its grammar, rather than on the world and morality:

654. Our mistake is to look for an explanation where we ought to regard
the facts as ‘proto-phenomena’. That is, where we ought to say: this is
the language-game that is being played.

655. The point is not to explain a language-game by means of our experiences,
but to take account of a language-game.

656. What is the purpose of telling someone that previously I had such and-
such a wish? — Regard the language-game as the primary thing.
And regard the feelings, and so forth, as a way of looking at, interpreting,
the language-game!
One might ask: how did human beings ever come to make the kind
of linguistic utterance which we call “reporting a past wish” or “a past
intention”? — LW (original emphasis)

The picture you have of how language works creates the picture of intention as present during speech. — Antony Nickles

I came across this neuroscience article (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6499020/#sec3title) which I think has a good discussion of Wittgenstein on intention. I note it's quasi-conclusion that Wittgenstein "solves the problem of causation-by-states by positing an equally contested form of causation-by-agents." However, since it still involves causation, I'm not sure you would agree.

Let's try an example, say, the concept of justification. I can be justified if I was right in killing another, in the sense of absolution. But I am also justified to kill another by right, as by authority (by rule, law). Now we say belief (opinion) can be justified. Now based on these first two uses of justification, this could be that my belief has authority (I am right), or it could be in the sense of removing me from any need to stand behind what I say (letting the justification absolve my responsibility). — Antony Nickles

I don't understand how a belief/opinion "could be in the sense of removing me from any need to stand behind what I say (letting the justification absolve my responsibility)". How is that a belief/opinion? By not understanding this, I don't understand the rest of what you say here.

If a police officer, who has the authority to kill someone under certain circumstances, does so under those circumstances, we could say they had justification, but we might be left with the feeling that is no justification, that here, there is authority without absolution. These were two senses/two uses that we could be said to be familiar with, that were applied to a different context (belief), and then both brought to weigh in on their original context in reasonable but contradictory ways. — Antony Nickles

Who is "we" in this situation? If "we" feel it is unjust, then why do "we" say it is just? What role do "our" feelings play here?

Whether or not the killing is just does not affect the two different senses of "justification" (or "just") here.

What will you say to the poor sod who continues to demand further justifications for why we write '1002' after '1000' when we are told to add 2? How will you avoid "repressing" them during this "crisis"?
— Luke

A. No one is going to ask why; we don't need a justification; and what they say is just condescension; and
B. That’s math! All I've been talking about is how the ideal of mathematical concepts affects the rest of our concepts. — Antony Nickles

As Baker and Hacker point out, there is no ideal such that one learns every possible mathematical outcome in advance. Instead, one learns to apply a technique; to follow a rule. It remains to be shown that language is any different to mathematics in this regard.

Try imagining justifying (the rules of?) the concept of justification in the two uses (senses) in the case of the police shooting above — Antony Nickles

These rules of the concept of justification are simply the two different uses (senses) of the word "justification" that you have described; the rules for using these words with different senses. There is no need to justify the existence of the different uses/senses of our words.

Maybe the law (the rule) represses the sense of what might be just, and a righteousness (based on a moral law) would seem to undermine society's ability to assert its authority. — Antony Nickles

The sense of the word "just" is already established; you already know what it means. Are you saying that the law could repress or change the sense of the word? Okay, but so what? Maybe it doesn't change the sense of the word, and it only changes our views about what acts or events we would classify as being just or unjust. Anyhow, I'm not sure I see the relevance.

If grammar are rules, then in what way is the grammatical rule--that expectation is a state--about the way to use the word expect? — Antony Nickles

As I said earlier, supported by the SEP article on Wittgenstein, the rules of grammar encompass both how we use words and the criteria of concepts. "Grammar, usually taken to consist of the rules of correct syntactic and semantic usage, becomes, in Wittgenstein’s hands, the wider—and more elusive—network of rules which determine what linguistic move is allowed as making sense, and what isn’t." (SEP) That expectation is a state is part of the criteria of the concept.

And the question is actually how do we judge someone being in the state of expectation, not just whether we have said expecting correctly. — Antony Nickles

Instead of "how do we judge someone being in that state?", I would say the question is more (or equally): what are the grammatical criteria of the concept of "expectation"? That state, and our judgement of someone being in it, are what we call an "expectation".

Wittgenstein gives an insight into his grammatical investigation in the next section. You could easily substitute "expectation" for "opinion" at PI 573:

572. Expectation is, grammatically, a state; like being of an opinion, hoping for something, knowing something, being able to do something. But in order to understand the grammar of these states, it is necessary to ask: “What counts as a criterion for anyone’s being in such a state?” (States of hardness, of weight, of fitting.)

573. To have an opinion is a state. — A state of what? Of the soul? Of the mind? Well, what does one say has an opinion? Mr N.N., for example. And that is the correct answer.

One should not expect to be enlightened by the answer to that question. Other questions that go deeper are: What, in particular cases, do we regard as criteria for someone’s being of such-and-such an opinion? When do we say that he reached this opinion at that time? When that he has altered his opinion? And so on. The picture that the answers to these questions give us shows what gets treated grammatically as a state here. — LW

This is the crux of the matter. I claim that Wittgenstein is giving us a way to treat a notion like ‘correctness’ that doesn’t depend on the reproductive representation of an alleged ‘essense’( the essense of what cases have in common). Correctness would not be conformity to a categorical essense, but the fresh generating of a resemblance that produces the possibility of agreement, among other things. — Joshs

I had planned to edit my post to remove the word "correctly", which is extraneous. As I noted earlier, one can either follow a rule or not follow a rule; it makes no sense to speak of following a rule incorrectly. (Maybe that will teach me not to write a quick response on my phone in the car.)

However, you could substitute the word "follow" for "correctly" in your comments on 'essences' above, I suppose. In either case, Wittgenstein explicitly rejects essences in favour of family resemblance, as you have noted. I would only dispute that this also forces him to reject conventional uses/meanings, such that our words must have new or different meanings on every occasion of their use. If that were the case, then I would think it impossible to teach anyone a language. See PI 223-227.

As Baker and Hacker note of PI 223:

...when we understand a rule, we do not await its prompt at every step of its application, baffled, as it were, about what to do next. On the contrary, it tells us, once and for all, what to do. For the rule always tells us the same, and in following it, we always do the same. Indeed, this is something one might emphasize in training someone to follow a rule. — Baker & Hacker on PI 223

If one treats a rule as a logical inclusion structure, a category to which particular applications belong, then it seems perfectly reasonable to make a distinction between the idea that different senses of a word relate to each other via family resemblance, and the idea that a categorical, normative concept like rule , being that essense common to a family of resemblances , cannot itself be dissolved into an infinity of related senses. — Joshs

This seems to me bordering on idealism, which runs counter to Wittgenstein's repeated reminders that linguistic meaning lies in its use (rather than "in the mind"); e.g. language-games, the incoherence of a private language, etc.

The word "rule" may have a family of related senses but, I would think even according to your own view, Wittgenstein uses it with a particular sense at PI 201.

235. From this you can see how much there is to the physiognomy of what we call “following a rule” in everyday life. — LW

[Hutchinson & Read]: “The mistake here then is (Baker &) Hacker’s thought that what is prob­lematic for Wittgenstein—what he wants to critique in the opening remarks quoted from Augustine—is that words name things or correspond to objects, with the emphasis laid on the nature of what is on the other side of the word-V relationship. Rather, we contend that what is problematic in this picture is that words must be relational at all—whether as names to the named, words to objects, or ‘words’ belonging to a ‘type of use.’It is the necessarily relational character of ‘the Augustinian picture’ which is apt to lead one astray; Baker & Hacker, in missing this, ultimately replace it with a picture that retains the relational character, only recast. There is no such thing as a word outside of some particular use; but that is a different claim from saying, with Baker & Hacker, that words belong to a type of use. For a word to be is for a word to be used. Language does not exist external to its use by us in the world.” — Joshs

This seems to me flatly contradicted by Wittgenstein. Hutchinson and Read claim that words do not have (or do not "belong to") a "type of use". At PI 23, Wittgenstein states that there "are countless different kinds of use", goes on to give many examples of the different kinds of use, and then speaks of "the diversity of kinds of words and sentence".

There is nothing common to all language games or particular applications of a rule. — Joshs

Family resemblance may (or may not) be concerned with the concept “rule”, but I don’t believe that family resemblance relates to particular applications of, or the following of, a rule.

I would say that there must be something in common in all particular cases of following a rule correctly, otherwise there could be no such thing as following a rule correctly.

… there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which, from case to case of application, is exhibited in what we call “following the rule” and “going against it”. — Pi 201

The 'confused' idea here seems founded on 'mathematical' fantasy of how language works. 'God' knows exactly what 'chair' and 'is' and 'there' mean (semantic Platonism.) — Zugzwang

You draw an interesting connection here between mathematics and Platonism. I wonder if this is what Antony means by “mathematical” in the thread title. As I noted earlier, however, Wittgenstein was not a mathematical Platonist, so this could be the cause of some confusion.

I'd like your input on the following, inspired by the quote above. Personally it seems impossible for anyone to know all there is to know about (the token) 'justice.' At the same time, most of us could give most of us a rough idea, a start. Then we just keep living, keep interacting, and the way we understand or employ the token shifts, more or less, depending on our trajectories through time. It 'means' (roughly) how it's used. (I think we agree on this.) Its 'meaning' is out there in the hustle and bustle of the crowd, and definitely not in the possession of a clever individual. It has a 'market value.' I care about its so-called meaning only because I interact with others. Its meaning (for instance) is how they'll react to me if I used it like this rather than like that. — Zugzwang

Our concepts are not everywhere circumscribed by rules (cf. §§68–70). But
what would it be to have rules ready for all possible eventualities (cf. §84)?
The case of the disappearing chair leaves us bereft of words — we do not
know what to say. We do not have any rules to budget for such cases. But
the idea that our mastery of the use of the word ‘chair’ consists in knowledge
of a rule that settles the truth-value of ‘There is a chair’ in every conceivable
circumstance is confused. We have rules for the use of the word ‘chair’ wherever
we need them (and if a new need crops up, we can devise a new rule
to budget for it, modifying our concept of a chair accordingly). Our concept
of a chair is none the worse for not being determined by rules that cover the
imagined kind of case, precisely because it does not arise. ‘The signpost is in
order — if, under normal circumstances, it fulfils its purpose’ (§87). — Baker and Hacker, exegesis of PI 80

I will try and respond to the others later, but for now:

The question only comes after the expression. My claim is that we don't always intend what we express; that that idea creates a necessity which, as Witt would say, forces a picture upon us (of causality). — Antony Nickles

You seemed earlier to be disputing that we ever use language intentionally, in relation to our discussion about meaning and use. I did acknowledge earlier that we may not always speak intentionally (e.g. on autopilot), but I would say that we speak intentionally at least most of the time.

We can intend to say something--we can reflect and try to say something specific, perhaps explicitly trying to influence (ahead of its reception) which way to take what we think might be misunderstood as another sense of the expression. However, most times we don't intend what we say in this sense, as a deliberate choice. — Antony Nickles

I think that we generally use words with intention, particularly by intending one meaning of a word or sentence rather than another; intending to express something or other. Whether it is taken in the right way, understood or interpreted correctly by its audience is another matter. However, I confess that I don't think this talk of intention is very relevant to anything Wittgenstein was saying. Again, it only became an issue because you seemed to argue that we do not or cannot use language intentionally.

Witt puts it as "An intention is embedded in its situation" (#337). Sometimes it would be strange to even ask what we intended, as when a question can not exist. — Antony Nickles

But that needn't imply that we only speak with intention when a question is raised about what we intended. It might be odd to ask what a speaker intended on a given occasion (e.g.) only because there can be no doubt about what the speaker intended.

That is one point, but not the one I was trying to draw your attention to there. I was pointing out the framing of the claim, not commenting on the topic of the paragraph. Those are not mutually exclusive. — Antony Nickles

Your concluding line: "The point is not to explain how language works, but to feel out the limits and logic of the world (our lives in it)", together with your comments regarding the grammar of ethical situations, the grammar of art, and the grammar of sitting in a chair (that you later retracted), all indicated to me that you were bordering on a misunderstanding whereby grammar is no longer about language, but about the things themselves (about "the world" and "our lives in it"). Hence, my blunt responses to remind you that grammar is about language.

As poorly misleading as the OP is named, I would still say: other than rules, but of course my topic was the influence of the mathematical on the desire for rules to play the part Kripke gives them. The mathematical can be extended repetitively with certainty and completeness for every application, predetermined and predictably (even when--particularly when--"used" incorrectly). — Antony Nickles

The point of 'rails invisibly laid to infinity' is that this is the wrong picture. I agree with Baker and Hacker's reading of 218-221 that (even in mathematics) we learn a technique of how to apply a rule; we do not learn or get to know every possible application of a rule in advance.

That, unlike the mathematical, these concepts are opened-ended, extendable into unforeseen contexts. — Antony Nickles

Wittgenstein says at PI 67 that "we extend our concept of number". Are you using "extendable" differently to this? Wittgenstein's use of the word "extend/extension" is clarified at PI 68:

For I can give the concept of number rigid boundaries in this way, that is, use the word “number” for a rigidly bounded concept; but I can also use it so that the extension of the concept is not closed by a boundary. And this is how we do use the word “game”. For how is the concept of a game bounded? What still counts as a game, and what no longer does? — PI 68

That is, the concepts 'number' and 'game' can be extended to new kinds of 'number' and 'game' that share a family resemblance to what we currently call "numbers" and "games". The concepts 'number' and 'game' themselves get extended or expanded in terms of "what counts" (or what we count) as (falling under) those concepts.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you appear to suggest that it is not the concepts themselves which can be extended (in terms of their family resemblance), but it is the applications/uses of the concepts which can be extended "into unforeseen contexts".

Either way, Wittgenstein indicates that mathematical concepts can be as open-ended as any other (in the sense of "extension" he uses here).

A cardinal point of W.’s argument is that a series of examples can itself be employed as the expression of a rule. Cf. ‘Isn’t my knowledge, my concept of a game, completely expressed in the explanations that I could give? That is, in my describing examples of various kinds of games . . . and so on’ (PI §75)
— Hacker

This question is by the Interlocutor, who desires or believes possible a "complete expression" of a concept by explanations and describing examples. I take Witt's answer to the question here as no — Antony Nickles

I'm not sure why you think anything at PI 75 is said by the interlocutor. Typically - but not always - what the interlocutor says is in quotes. Anyway, I take Witt's answer to the question here to be yes, my concept of a game is completely expressed in the explanations and examples that I could give. As he says at 69:

69. How would we explain to someone what a game is? I think that we’d describe games to him, and we might add to the description: “This and similar things are called ‘games’.” And do we know any more ourselves? Is it just that we can’t tell others exactly what a game is? — But this is not ignorance. We don’t know the boundaries because none have been drawn. To repeat, 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. — PI 69

In the paragraphs following he points out that we can draw boundaries around different parts--mine loose and yours definitive--but that ultimately most times we can't completely express a concept by explanation; we can't say what we know (#78) or we can't anticipate the 9 mil ways an expression may be meaningful (#79)(even apart from just "what I intend it to be"). — Antony Nickles

Yes, our concepts are not everywhere circumscribed by rules (see PI 84), but they are still usable.

The standard reading of Witt here is based on our requirement eventually for some kind of foundational justification, which is most times projected through all his terminology (forms of life, language games); that our shared lives are the final or preexisting justification for our choices. Kripke allows us "inclinations" and Hacker appears to give us "propensities", but the common practice is "what is to be done". This is Cavell's point in saying that Kripke's picture ends the conversation before we even begin about what to do when we are at a loss, what to base our action on in a situation when our justifications to each other run out--that Kripke's picture limits our relationship to judge/defendant. This is not to say there are further justifications, but that we are only "inclined" to end the discussion with a shrug (which you and Hacker have completely ignored). — Antony Nickles

I'm not sure about ignored; it just seems to miss the mark.

If I am asked why, given that I was told to add 2, I wrote ‘1002’ after ‘1000’, there is little I can say other than ‘That is what is called “adding 2”. — Baker and Hacker, exegesis of PI 217

What will you say to the poor sod who continues to demand further justifications for why we write '1002' after '1000' when we are told to add 2? How will you avoid "repressing" them during this "crisis"?

The desire for normativity creating social repression, suppressing the fallibility of the ordinary with the need to avoid the chaos of the skeptic's conclusions: we may not be justified, we may not (continue to) share a life, we can not be sure, relying on our knowledge and predetermination of practice or rules. — Antony Nickles

Shared behavioural propensities (looking in the direction pointed at) and common responses to teaching and training (learning the sequence of natural numbers) are presuppositions for the possibility of having such shared rules at all; not the bedrock of justification but the framework for its very possibility. The bedrock is the point at which justifications terminate, and the question ‘why?’ is answered simply by ‘Well, that is what we call “...”.’ — Baker and Hacker, exegesis of PI 217

Wittgenstein is pointing here to "extremely general facts of nature" (PI 142) - such as our shared form of life and our natural human reactions - as the "framework for the very possibility" of having shared rules. You and Cavell have it backward in reading Wittgenstein as talking about the end of justification. Witt is not talking about the end of justification, but its beginning; its possibility.

We do not follow a rule to expect something, but are said to be expecting (in that state). — Antony Nickles

The rule pertains to the use of the word "expect", not to (how to) expect something. The emphasis is on "said to be" (expecting). - "we are not doing natural science; nor yet natural history".

So to say we are only talking about language is minimizing — Antony Nickles

Philosophy is a struggle against the bewitchment of our understanding by the resources of
our language. [PI 109]

111. The problems arising through a misinterpretation of our forms of language have the character of depth. They are deep disquietudes; they are as deeply rooted in us as the forms of our language, and their significance is as great as the importance of our language. —– Let’s ask ourselves: why do we feel a grammatical joke to be deep? (And that is what the depth of philosophy is.)

115. A picture held us captive. And we couldn’t get outside it, for it lay in our language, and language seemed only to repeat it to us inexorably.

119. The results of philosophy are the discovery of some piece of plain nonsense and the bumps that the understanding has got by running up against the limits of language. They — these bumps — make us see the value of that discovery.

124. Philosophy must not interfere in any way with the actual use of language, so it can in the end only describe it.
For it cannot justify it either.
It leaves everything as it is.
It also leaves mathematics as it is, and no mathematical discovery can advance it. A “leading problem of mathematical logic” is for us a problem of mathematics like any other. — LW

I asked how a metre is not the distance between two points.
— Luke

No, actually you asked "how is the distance traveled by light in 1/299 792 458 of a second not the distance between two points". — Metaphysician Undercover

The "distance traveled by light in 1/299 792 458 of a second" is a metre, — Metaphysician Undercover

What’s the difference?

I gave the definition of a "metre", and it does not mention "the distance between two points", or anything about points. And, in no way is "the distance between two points" implied by that definition I gave. — Metaphysician Undercover

“Traveled” implies having gone from point A to point B.

Indeed, it turns Wittgenstein into a closet metaphysician. — Joshs

There's a book I own, which I read several years ago now, called "Wittgenstein and His Interpreters: Essays in Memory of Gordon Baker". In the introduction, under the heading of The 'orthodox' interpretation, it says:

Wittgenstein interpretation reached a high point of scholarly detail in Gordon Baker and Peter Hacker’s comprehensive commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, published in four volumes from 1980 onwards. [...]

The Philosophical Investigations [...] is understood by the ‘orthodox’ interpreters as a rejection of the Tractarian model of the language-world relation, and through it, of the tradition behind it. In particular, the book propounds an explicit anti-metaphysical view: philosophy is not taken to consist in the pursuit of the sempiternal and hidden structure of language and the world. Language can still be said to have essential features, but they lie in plain view and need only to be made perspicuous by way of describing the uses of words or by tabulating the rules by which language is governed (see PI § 92). Many of these features are not immutable, however, but belong to changing linguistic practices. The world, on the other hand, is no longer viewed as an object of a priori philosophical speculation, but only of empirical scientific investigation. The logical syntax of language does not mirror the hidden structure of the world, but is simply a means of representing the world. The study of language will thus not uncover any hidden metaphysical features of reality, since there are none. The traditional conception of the aims of philosophy, shared by the Tractatus, is taken to be the result of a misunderstanding of the relation between language and the world by (i) sublimating the essence of our language, and (ii) mistaking features of our linguistic representation of the world for features of the world. What previous philosophers took to be metaphysical truths about the nature of reality are in fact no more than ‘shadows cast by grammar’ (Baker and Hacker 2005, 97). Therefore, we need to discard this idealised model of language and give a systematic account of the language-games in which concepts are used and thus make our conceptual framework explicit in order to resolve philosophical problems.

...the later Wittgenstein is taken to argue that since language is a rule-governed practice (positive result), the idea of a private language is incoherent (negative result). Reading Wittgenstein as providing an overview of grammatical rules that will dissolve philosophical problems and confusions, this interpretation sees his later work as largely continuous with the work of Oxford philosophers such as Ryle, Austin and Strawson. [...]

The orthodox interpretation attributes to Wittgenstein a concern with a methodical account of philosophically relevant concepts for the therapeutic purpose of releasing us from deep-seated confusions, but not primarily an ethical interest in philosophy, as certain other interpreters do (see below). Consequently, the hermeneutic task is seen as consisting in working out his nuanced and complex arguments and analyses, both positive and negative. On this approach, then, interpreting Wittgenstein need not be fundamentally different from the interpretation of other major philosophers. — Wittgenstein and His Interpreters: Essays in Memory of Gordon Baker

So whose characterisation of Hacker and of the orthodox interpretation should I believe?

I won't pretend to have read all, or even most, of Hacker's work, but I am willing to accept that his reading may be more clarificatory than therapeutic. I am also actually sympathetic to a slightly more therapeutic reading. But what you have raised strikes me as more nuanced and tangential than the substantial disagreement over the broad strokes of Wittgenstein's work that I have been having with Antony.

How do you view the clarificatory/therapeutic dispute as being relevant to the current discussion regarding morality, the putative distinction between mathematical and ordinary rules, the exhaustion of justifications in following the rule "in the way I do", and the other matters raised in the OP? Do you find the OP to be consistent with your own reading of the Philosophical Investigations?

How is the distance traveled by light in 1/299 792 458 of a second not the distance between two points?
— Luke

The "distance traveled by light in 1/299 792 458 of a second" is a metre, and "the distance between two points" could be any distance. — Metaphysician Undercover

I asked how a metre is not the distance between two points.
I did not ask how the distance between two points is not a metre.
Obviously the distance between two points “could be any distance” (including a metre).
That does not explain how a metre is not the distance between two points.

A metre is the distance traveled by light in 1/299 792 458 of a second. It is not the distance between two points. — Metaphysician Undercover

How is the distance traveled by light in 1/299 792 458 of a second not the distance between two points?

No that's not true, an hour does not need to start at 0 and end at 60, it could start any time. — Metaphysician Undercover

What do you mean "it could start any time"? I wasn't talking about when it started. I was talking about the duration of an hour, which has the temporal length of one hour. A length is the distance between two points. What do you think the length of one metre is?

I have a suggestion to make which may or may not clarify this debate. Rather than giving the impression that what you are attempting to do is locate THE correct reading of Wittgenstein, maybe you could instead accept that there may be more than one ‘correct’ Wittgenstein, and proceed to learn about the alternatives to your own. You will still end up preferring one version over another, but at least you’ll have opened yourself up to other possibilities. — Joshs

I've just read through half of the first article you quoted, Practising pragmatist-Wittgensteinianism. It is almost completely unrelated to this discussion. What's worse is that the article is not even critical of the so-called "Oxford reading", which it turns out, relates only very narrowly to the reading of PI 43 (the meaning-as-use passage). The "Oxford reading" is coined in the article and is cited only in order to criticise a reading by H.O. Mounce. It is not, as you presented, a criticism of the "Oxford reading" or of Baker and Hacker's reading. So I'm afraid I'll have to take your advice with a handful of salt.

I don’t see evidence yet in your posts that you recognize there is such a camp that backs up Antony’s perspective on Witt. — Joshs

I don't see evidence yet in your posts that you and Antony are even on the same page.

Such background internal and culture constraints (grammar , rules) only function by being changed in actual use. The actual use co-invents the sense of the rule, grammar, concept that ‘was’ implicated. — Joshs

I quote Baker and Hacker because I view theirs as an orthodox reading. This is supported by the fact that Hacker was one of the two editors of the latest edition of the Philosophical Investigations in 2009. Their reading is also in accord with the current Stanford article on Wittgenstein, which offers insights such as these:

Language-games are, first, a part of a broader context termed by Wittgenstein a form of life (see below). Secondly, the concept of language-games points at the rule-governed character of language. This does not entail strict and definite systems of rules for each and every language-game, but points to the conventional nature of this sort of human activity. Still, just as we cannot give a final, essential definition of ‘game’, so we cannot find “what is common to all these activities and what makes them into language or parts of language” (PI 65). [...]

Grammar, usually taken to consist of the rules of correct syntactic and semantic usage, becomes, in Wittgenstein’s hands, the wider—and more elusive—network of rules which determine what linguistic move is allowed as making sense, and what isn’t. [...]

The “rules” of grammar are not mere technical instructions from on-high for correct usage; rather, they express the norms for meaningful language. Contrary to empirical statements, rules of grammar describe how we use words in order to both justify and criticize our particular utterances. But as opposed to grammar-book rules, they are not idealized as an external system to be conformed to. Moreover, they are not appealed to explicitly in any formulation, but are used in cases of philosophical perplexity to clarify where language misleads us into false illusions. — SEP article on Wittgenstein

It is possible that you and Antony have mistaken me for appealing to "grammar-book rules" as per the final paragraph above, but I have been talking about the ""rules" of grammar" as described in the same paragraph. I have referred to this wider sort of grammar - Wittgenstein's concept of grammar - as a corrective to what is indicated by the discussion title: 'Rules' End', and to Antony's explicit statements that some concepts are without rules; the idea that some meaningful language-use is not rule-governed. That's just not the case. Furthermore, it is a clear misreading by Cavell (followed by Antony) to view PI 217 as pointing to an end to rules or an invitation for further justification. (Cavell reads far too much into the word "inclined".) I also find it odd that the OP is framed in terms of a student-teacher scenario, as the student does not yet know the rules, our technique. Wittgenstein isn't saying let's negotiate with someone who doesn't accept our exhausted justifications, as if their absence of knowledge might somehow be better than our knowledge.

Regarding your claim that grammar and rules "only function by being changed in actual use", you have given no reason as to why these function only "by being changed", or why they do not function without being changed. The actual use can "co-invent the sense of the rule, grammar", but - if I understand you correctly - that is a change in the rules, not an end to the rules.

Only when we measure a specific duration, points are required. We can talk about a duration in the general sense, such as "an hour", and no points are required because no specific hour is to be separated from the rest of time. Talking about "the present" as a duration in a general way, is the same principle. Points would be required to say that the present is a specific duration, but not to say that it is a duration, because i am not trying to measure that duration. — Metaphysician Undercover

That analogy does not hold because an hour has a specific duration of an hour, which begins at 0 minutes and ends at 60 minutes. There is no “general duration” of an hour with an unspecified duration. There is likewise no such thing for the present. If the present has a duration then it can be specified by its beginning and end points.

The conscious part is future, the sense part is past — Metaphysician Undercover

Where in the past? At what point/event does the sense part begin?

Why would I think that the present has beginning and end points? That doesn't make any sense. — Metaphysician Undercover

So the process whereby the future becomes the past (this is how I describe the present) must itself require a duration of time. — Metaphysician Undercover

A duration of time has beginning and end points.
You claim that the present has/is a duration of time.
Therefore, the present has beginning and end points.

Cavell says Kripke just takes Wittgenstein to be giving rules too much importance. — Antony Nickles

Doesn't Cavell also take Kripke to be misreading Wittgenstein, though?

And this is where I couldn't help but wonder what is happening here. Colloquially perhaps this picture of causing amounts to the same thing when I frame it that we say something, express something, in that there is no evaluating it except against the external practice, in your case, along rules, in mine with criteria in conjunction with, to whom and the place and time in which it is said. — Antony Nickles

It might help to consider what you go on to say later:

Rather than judging whether the use of a word correctly follows the rules for a practice (language), I am judging how an expression, something said, fits into a concept (it's possibilities) based on the concept's criteria, e.g. "How did you mean 'I know'? [what use of "I know" is this?]" — Antony Nickles

Your question "How did you mean 'I know'?" implies what I am saying here. You are asking what use of 'I know' was intended by the speaker. Why do you think that we use language without intention?

He is looking at or imagining what we say or would say, and he will call that “language” sometimes, so it may seem as if he is only talking about how language works. — Antony Nickles

I haven't said that Wittgenstein is only talking about "how language works". He is talking about grammar and the bounds of sense, and this includes how language is interwoven into our daily lives.

An example (of an expression in time with a possible context) like when we say "Did you intend to shoot the mule or was it an accident?" (Austin) shows a use of the word "intend", but it also tells us something about (real-life) intention (it only comes up when something goes wrong). — Antony Nickles

It's not an either-or scenario of grammar vs. "real-life"; it's both, and they cannot be separated. You seem to think Wittgenstein is pointing to something outside of language, or talks about "real-life" without talking about language, but he isn't. The "real-life" context of an intention is the reason that we call it an "intention". Language isn't just some scribbles on paper or the thoughts in one's mind.

"If anyone says: "For the word 'pain' to have a meaning it is necessary that pain should be recognized as such when it occurs"—-one can reply: "It is not more necessary than that the absence of pain should be recognized." The point is not to explain how language works, but to feel out the limits and logic of the world (our lives in it). (#119) — Antony Nickles

No, the point is grammar, and what it makes sense to say (e.g. about pain).

Sometimes we just have to be an example, #208. #474. — Antony Nickles

You have cited #208 a few times now, but I think you are mistaking what Wittgenstein is saying. He is not talking about something "beyond the rules", as suggested by your OP. Forgive the long quote of part of Baker and Hacker's exegesis of #208, but it may help to address the discussion topic:

Of course, one must distinguish two uses of ‘and so on’: (a) as an abbreviation
for a finite list (e.g. ‘the letters of the alphabet, viz. ‘A, B, C, D and so
on’) and (b) as an indication of a technique of unlimited application.
Employed as an abbreviation, ‘and so on’ is replaceable by an enumeration.
If instead of ‘and so on’ we use the sign ‘. . .’, then these dots are ‘dots of
laziness’ (AWL 6; cf. PLP 165). But employed, for example, in explaining
what the series of even numbers is (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, . . . , 22, 24, and
so on’), the ‘and so on’ is not an abbreviation. Rather, it indicates a technique
for constructing an indefinitely long series (cf. BB 95). This is rendered more
explicit by ‘and so on ad infinitum’. But one must beware of the muddled thought
that an infinite development (such as π) is merely much longer than a finite
one (so that as it were, God sees right to its end, but we cannot).
(g) concludes that teaching the meaning of an expression defined by enumeration
is different from teaching the meaning of an expression by examples plus
an ‘and so on’. The criterion of understanding differs between such cases.
In the first case, repetition of the examples will betoken understanding; in
the second, the production of further, hitherto unmentioned examples (e.g.
continuing the series at an arbitrary point).
§208 exemplifies W.’s observation:

what the correct following of a rule consists in cannot be described more closely than
by describing the learning of ‘proceeding according to a rule’. And this description is
an everyday one, like that of cooking and sewing, for example. It presupposes as much as these. It distinguishes one thing from another, and so it informs a human being who is ignorant of something particular. (RFM 392)

(i) ‘by means of examples’: a cardinal point of W.’s argument is that a series
of examples can itself be employed as the expression of a rule. Cf. ‘Isn’t my
knowledge, my concept of a game, completely expressed in the explanations
that I could give? That is, in my describing examples of various kinds
of games . . . and so on’ (PI §75); see 2.1(i) below.
(ii) ‘I influence him by expressions of agreement, rejection . . .’: the effect
of explanations depends on the learner’s responses to encouragement, pointing,
etc. (cf. Exg. §145).
(i) ‘by means of examples’: cf. MS 165, 74: ‘When do A and B do “the
same”? How can I answer that? By examples.’ See also BT 188: ‘I cannot give
a rule in any way other than by means of an expression; for even examples,
if they are meant to be examples, are an expression for a rule like any other’
(cf. PG 273; RFM 320ff.). We are prone to think that a statement of a rule
plus a few examples are only an indirect way of conveying to the pupil what
the teacher has in mind. ‘But the teacher also has only the rule and examples.

It is a delusion to think that you are producing the meaning in someone’s
mind by indirect means, through the rule and examples’ (AWL 132).
(ii) ‘I do not communicate less to him than I know myself ’: elsewhere
W. stressed this point. We are inclined to think that a rule ‘in some sense’
contains its own applications, and hence that when we understand a rule, our
understanding foresees all its applications. (Hence, when we order a pupil to
expand a segment of a series, we conceive of our meaning him to write ‘1002’
after ‘1000’ etc. as an anticipation.) Here we confuse, inter alia, a grammatical
articulation which we know (can say or think ) with a future step in an unfolding
process. But my knowing the meaning of ‘x^2’ gives me no more reliable
an insight into my own future performances than I can have of another’s.
I have done many examples; I have understood and can give appropriate
explanations. ‘I know about myself just what I know about him’ (LFM 28).
An ability to employ a symbol according to a rule is not a mental container
out of which my subsequent acts are drawn; ‘You yourself do not foresee
the application you will make of the rule in a particular case. If you say
“and so on”, you yourself do not know more than “and so on” ’ (RFM 228).
This is not a form of scepticism, but an objection to a certain metaphysical
delusion. We do not think that if A is able to hit the bull six times in succession,
then, in some sense, he has already done so in advance. But we are prone
to think that if A understands the rule of the series ‘+ 2’, and now knows
that ‘1002’ succeeds ‘1000’, ‘1,000,002’ succeeds ‘1,000,000’ (which he does),
then in some sense the sequence he is to write unfolds in his mind in advance
of his writing it. Hence, we think, he must be able to predict what he will
do at any stage in the application of the rule. But this is muddled, and the
muddle runs parallel to that in kinematics (cf. Exg. §193), where the use of
the future tense to state principles of movement looks like a prediction of a
future movement. — Baker & Hacker on PI 208

Since it is not an interpretation, it does not answer a conflict about a rule, nor eliminate the possibility of interpretation. Though interpretation is not involved at this point in this case, we still express a rule, interpret them by "substitution of one expression of a rule for another". — Antony Nickles

What do you make of the last (bracketed) paragraph of PI 217?

"(Remember that we sometimes demand explanations for the sake not
of their content, but of their form. Our requirement is an architectural
one; the explanation a kind of sham corbel that supports nothing.)"

What do you think is Wittgenstein's purpose with these remarks?

This is what Baker and Hacker say with regards to PI 217:

If I am asked why, given
that I was told to add 2, I wrote ‘1002’ after ‘1000’, there is little I can say
other than ‘That is what is called “adding 2”.’ We need have no reason to follow
the rule as we do (BB 143). The chain of reasons has an end. When one
has exhausted justifications, one reaches bedrock. This is what I do; and, of
course, this is what is to be done.
W.’s point is not that where justifications thus give out my action is
unjustified (haphazard, a free choice), but rather that it has already been justified,
and no further justification stands behind the justification that has been given
(cf. RFM 330). The bedrock of justification in following rules is not a prenormative
foundation. Shared behavioural propensities (looking in the direction
pointed at) and common responses to teaching and training (learning the
sequence of natural numbers) are presuppositions for the possibility of having
such shared rules at all; not the bedrock of justification but the framework for
its very possibility. The bedrock is the point at which justifications terminate, and
the question ‘why?’ is answered simply by ‘Well, that is what we call “. . .”.’ — Baker & Hacker on PI 217

Hopefully, this shows that PI 217 is not indicating an invitation for further justifications.

Rather than judging whether the use of a word correctly follows the rules for a practice (language), I am judging how an expression, something said, fits into a concept (it's possibilities) based on the concept's criteria, e.g. "How did you mean 'I know'? [what use of "I know" is this?]" — Antony Nickles

Perhaps I am simply confused by your quoting of PI 217 in the OP, which speaks of rules. Or perhaps I am confused by your claims that there are concepts without rules. But I think the larger point to be made is that the "rules for a practice (language)" and the "concept's criteria" both fall under the larger umbrella of grammar (the bounds of sense), and its rules. That is, it's all part of grammar, and you go wrong in trying to draw a distinction here.

Part of the reason to discuss rules would be to draw a limit around how they differ from grammatical/logical rules. — Antony Nickles

How do they differ? There is no difference. There aren't rules on one side and grammatical rules on the other. The rules are techniques that we learn how to apply, as per B&H's exegesis of PI 208.

Okay, you need words, yes. Witt's term "concept" is used in the sense of a classification for what we do: apologizing, understanding, knowing, seeing, etc. These are parts of our lives, so concepts are not abstract from that, nor individual nor arbitrary. — Antony Nickles

But neither is "what we do" separate from the words "apologizing", "understanding", "knowing", "seeing". The words encompass "what we do" and our uses/meanings of the concepts.

Let's call it the grammar of our ethical situations. — Antony Nickles

Let's not. Grammar is of our language.

And, as I asked, what logical reason is there for locating the present at the beginning of this "medium" (or "gap") instead of at its end? We know that the end point of this "medium" is the time of our current conscious awareness, but at what point in time is the beginning (and why)?
— Luke

I don't think that the present is a "point" in time. — Metaphysician Undercover

I didn't refer to it here as a point in time. I referred only to the beginning and end points of your "medium" or "gap", and I asked you at which end of that "medium" you located the present.

What I think is that what we refer to as "the present" is a type of duration (not quite in the same sense as Javra, because I give time a second dimension to account for this type of duration which is the duration of the present). So "the present" is not a point, but it consists of some past and some future. And I believe that the conscious awareness, being goal oriented, is most likely in the future part, like i believe that the sense apparatus is in the past part of the present. — Metaphysician Undercover

If the present has a duration with its own beginning and end points, then why is your view that the present "consists of some past and some future"? Where (or when), in the duration of the present, is the past separated from the future? Are the past and future separated by the entirety of the duration of the present such that the past and future do not meet (option 1 below)? Or are they separated at some point within the duration of the present such that the past and future do meet (option 2 below)? Or are they separated at some point within the duration of the present such that the past and future do not meet (option 3 below)?

Here is a pictorial representation (including a third option):

1. [Past][Present][Future]
2. [Past Pres][ent Future]
3. [Past Pr]ese[nt Future]

If it is option 2 or 3, then why does the present overlap the past and the future?

If it is option 2, then what do you call the point/line that separates the past from the future?

As I explained, there is a medium between sense organs and conscious perception which needs to be accounted for. — Metaphysician Undercover

And, as I asked, what logical reason is there for locating the present at the beginning of this "medium" (or "gap") instead of at its end? We know that the end point of this "medium" is the time of our current conscious awareness, but at what point in time is the beginning (and why)?

Anyway, do you not acknowledge any distinction between perception and memory?

Memories that you recall, and memories that are sense perceptions is an untenable distinction, I believe — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't believe it is untenable. It is the distinction between perception and memory; between the experience of consciously perceiving an event via the senses, and (later) recalling that experience via the memory. These are very qualitatively different. You do not perceive memories (or anticipations) via your senses; you perceive the world via your senses. And I consider it a misuse of the word to say that we "recall" our perceptions of the world (while perceiving).