What is rejected is not that the picture could be of something else. — Fooloso4
The point of PI 389 is to reject claims 1 -3 — Fooloso4
What is rejected is that it follows from the fact that it could be an picture of something else that a mental image must be more like its object than any picture. — Fooloso4
I believe Wittgenstein disagrees with sentences 1 and 4 but agrees with sentences 2 and 3. — Luke
Here's the problem. I describe my mental image of an object, a summer house by the lake. When I am finished by brother tells me that my mental image is not the same as his mental image of that house. We talk to my sister and dig out some old photos. It becomes clear to me that my mental image was not of image of this house and of nothing else, it was a composite image of different houses we stayed in over the years. — Fooloso4
A picture of X is an image of X. — Fooloso4
For the same reason that we should not conclude from this that it is an intrinsic feature of a picture that it is a picture of this and of nothing else, we should not conclude that a mental image is an image of this and nothing else. — Fooloso4
389.
1. A mental image must be more like its object than any picture.
2. For however similar I make the picture to what it is supposed to represent, it may still be the picture of something else.
3. But it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else.”
4. That is how one might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness. — Luke
It does not follow from a) the fact that there is not a necessary correspondence between a picture and what it is supposed to represent, that b) there is a necessary connection between a mental image and what it is an image of. — Fooloso4
It is a tautology to say that a mental image of X is an image of X. But this does not mean that my mental image of X is anything like X. If I describe my mental image of X it may become clear that the image as described is nothing like X. It may be that it is an image of something else. — Fooloso4
The point of PI 389 is to reject claims 1 -3 — Fooloso4
2. For however similar I make the picture to what it is supposed to represent, it may still be the picture of something else. — Luke
What does "this" refer to?
— Fooloso4
I was quoting PI 389.
— Luke
Right, but you said:
I don't see why the mental image must correspond to any object.
— Luke
At PI 389 "this" refers to the mental image of a particular object. If you disagree with the interlocutor then we are in agreement.
But you also said:
However, this need not imply that Wittgenstein rejects the interlocutor's statement that "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else".
— Luke
He does reject it. He rejects it for the same reason you now seem to be rejecting it. — Fooloso4
380. How do I recognize that this is red? — “I see that it is this; and then I know that that is what this is called.” This? — What?! What kind of answer to this question makes sense?
(You keep on steering towards an inner ostensive explanation.)
I could not apply any rules to a private transition from what is seen to words. Here the rules really would hang in the air; for the institution of their application is lacking. — PI 380
382. How can I justify forming this [mental] image in response to this word?
Has anyone shown me the image of the colour blue and told me that it is the image of blue?
What is the meaning of the words “this image”? How does one point at an image? How does one point twice at the same image?
I say without hesitation that I have done this calculation in my head, have imagined this colour. The difficulty is not that I doubt whether I really imagined anything red. But it is this: that we should be able, just like that, to point out or describe the colour we have imagined, that mapping the image into reality presents no difficulty at all. — PI 386
"it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else."
— Luke
I don't see why the mental image must correspond to any object.
— Luke
In general a mental image need not correspond to any object, but we are discussing PI 389:
389. “A mental image must be more like its object than any picture. — Fooloso4
The mental image of this refers to the one object it is an image of. Two blurred objects or events is a counterexample. — Fooloso4
Your requirement that the mental image must be of one object presupposes that it can correspond or be compared to some object.
— Luke
This is not my requirement. This is the interlocutor's claim: — Fooloso4
Do you therefore think it follows that a picture has a superlikeness to its object, — Luke
No. As I said:
A photo of X may to varying degrees and in various ways capture a likeness of X. — Fooloso4
So too, our mental images of X may to varying degrees and in various ways capture a likeness of X. — Fooloso4
Is his point simply that there is no distinction between a picture and a mental image?
— Luke
Of course not! — Fooloso4
On my reading, a mental image is unlike a picture because a mental image can only be "the image of this and of nothing else", — Luke
What does
"this"
refer to? — Fooloso4
Why can't my mental image be a likeness to the object it is an image of? I do not have to describe that image to myself, I see it. — Fooloso4
I talk to someone on the phone who I have never met. I imagine what this person looks like. I form a mental image of them. Later I meet this person and they are very different from my mental image. — Fooloso4
The mental image of this refers to the one object it is an image of. Two blurred objects or events is a counterexample. — Fooloso4
367. A mental image is the image which is described when someone describes what he imagines. — PI 367
Your reading - where you trust the picture to be like its object more than you trust the mental image to be like its object - could explain how the interlocutor comes to regard a mental image as a sub-likeness instead of a super-likeness. This might make more sense to you but it is not consistent with the text.
— Luke
The interlocutor comes to regard it as a super-likeness because he assumes that it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this object and of nothing else. I think the interlocutor is wrong and I gave some reasons why. You think Wittgenstein agrees with the interlocutor's assumption, I don't. — Fooloso4
Hacker tells us that a mental image is "not a likeness [to its object] at all" since its being a mental image of X "is not determined by its likeness to X".
— Luke
This is like saying a photo of X is not a likeness of X at all since it being a photo of X is not determined by its likeness to X. — Fooloso4
So too, our mental images of X may to varying degrees and in various ways capture a likeness of X. — Fooloso4
it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else
— Luke
I don't agree. Many things can influence our mental images. Two different events can get blurred in the mind. — Fooloso4
What Wittgenstein criticises is that the interlocutor "might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness" with an object.
— Luke
How is it that he might come to regard it in this way? As I read it, because he assumes that a mental image must be more like its object than any picture. I think just the opposite is true. My mental picture of the house I used to live differs from photographs of it. I trust the photo to be more like the house. — Fooloso4
I have seen a person in a discussion on this subject strike himself on the breast and say: “But surely another person can’t have THIS pain!” — PI 253
Now I remember why I balk when Hacker is mentioned. — Fooloso4
PI 389, which states: "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else."
— Luke
It is Wittgenstein's imagined interlocutor who makes this claim in the quotations. W.'s response is:
That is how one might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness.
One might regard a mental image in this way but a mental image is not a superlikeness. One's mental image can be quite unreliable. — Fooloso4
367. A mental image is the image which is described when someone describes what he imagines. — PI 367
One might regard a mental image in this way but a mental image is not a superlikeness. One's mental image can be quite unreliable. — Fooloso4
An image may change over time based on new experiences or the unreliability of memory. — Fooloso4
I think that both a picture and what is pictured can be seen in different ways. Consider the duck-rabbit, for example.
— Luke
When the picture itself is an object I agree, but not all pictures are objects.
When Wittgenstein says at PI 1:
These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language.
he is talking about a mental image, not an object. — Fooloso4
When he says:
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.
he is talking about a mental image, a way in which something is conceived to be. — Fooloso4
When he says at 301:
What is in the imagination is not a picture, but a picture can correspond to it.
This should not be thought of as a general statement about pictures, as something that holds true for all pictures. He is talking specifically about how pain is imagined. Pain in the imagination is about what pain feels like, not about how we might picture it. See 302: — Fooloso4
It is not that the picture can be seen in different ways, but that what is pictured can be seen in different ways. — Fooloso4
I don't believe it would be a picture theory per se...
— Luke
In the PI? I think that's right. — Banno
It's delicate. Consider:
And it is this inner process that one means by the word “remembering”. The impression that we wanted to deny something arises from our setting our face against the picture of an ‘inner process’. What we deny is that the picture of an inner process gives us the correct idea of the use of the word “remember”. Indeed, we’re saying that this picture, with its ramifications, stands in the way of our seeing the use of the word as it is. — 305
This has ramifications for your discussion with schopenhauer1, who is seems is in the thrall of a certain picture. — Banno
So "picture" is being used diversely. — Banno
The alternative seems to be that he still harbours a referential picture theory, somehow sitting under his theory of meaning as use. — Banno
300. It is, one would like to say, not merely the picture of the behaviour that belongs to the language-game with the words “he is in pain”, but also the picture of the pain. Or, not merely the paradigm of the behaviour, but also that of the pain. — It is a misunderstanding to say “The picture of pain enters into the language-game with the word ‘pain’ ”. Pain in the imagination is not a picture, and it is not replaceable in the language-game by anything that we’d call a picture. — Imagined pain certainly enters into the language-game in a sense; only not as a picture. — PI 300
The point upon which W. focuses here is a confusion concerning the relationship between the concept of a mental image and that of a picture. Clearly, pictures are objects of comparison, and, equally clearly, mental images can correspond to pictures. So we are inclined to think that mental images are likewise objects of comparison. Indeed, we are prone to conceive of mental images as pictures. They seem to be just like pictures, save for being mental! This is multiply confused. Imagined pain (Die Vorstellung des Schmerzes) is not a picture of pain (ist kein Bild). One can imagine a toothache or remember a headache, but this does not furnish one with a picture; there is nothing here employable as a picture or a paradigm, not even as a picture which only oneself (as it happens) can see. The description of the imagined is not a description of an inner picture, but a description of what one imagines (e.g. the face that launched a thousand ships (cf. PI §367)). Similarly, the description of the recollected is a description of what I remember, perhaps only hazily, not a description of a hazy picture. There is no such thing as using a Vorstellung of pain (as one can use a picture of something) as a sample or paradigm. Even in those cases where one can intelligibly talk of (vivid) images (Vorstellungsbilder), one’s mental image is not a sample or paradigm, for there is no such thing as a method of projection for a mental image. One cannot lay a mental image alongside reality for comparison. But it is important that if, e.g. I imagine a shade of red (and perhaps have a vivid image of it), I can paint what I imagine, and that can be used as a paradigm. ‘That is how I imagined the backcloth to be’, I might say to the scene‐painter, while pointing at a patch of paint. Here the image of red is replaceable by a paradigm (picture) of red. But nothing corresponds to imagined pain (die Vorstellung des Schmerzes) as a red sample corresponds to imagining, having an image of, red. Hence the ‘image’ or ‘representation’ (Vorstellung) of pain is not replaceable by anything that can function as an object of comparison. — P.M.S. Hacker, An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, Vol. 3, Part 2: Exegesis 243-427
301. What is in the imagination is not a picture, but a picture can correspond to it. — PI 301
An image, which one may have when one imagines or remembers something, is not an ‘inner picture’. But a picture may correspond to such an image, for one can often paint a picture of what one imagines and say ‘This is how I imagined it’ (cf. §280). Is this always possible, i.e. does it always make sense? No; for it is clear from §300 that though I can imagine a severe toothache, no picture corresponds here as a picture of someone clutching his swollen jaw corresponds to imagining someone with a bad toothache. — Hacker, ibid
What is the content of the experience of imagining? The answer is a picture, or a description. — PPF 10 (Part II)
389. “A mental image must be more like its object than any picture. For however similar I make the picture to what it is supposed to represent, it may still be the picture of something else. But it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else.” That is how one might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness. — PI 389
Oh I wasnt meaning to say “our representation” bit rather “my representation”, however that applies — schopenhauer1
How can one claim one was following it? Verifying by another representation suv. There’s no getting outside representation — schopenhauer1
How is this outside their own representation? What can that mean? — schopenhauer1
202. That’s why ‘following a rule’ is a practice. And to think one is following a rule is not to follow a rule. And that’s why it’s not possible to follow a rule ‘privately’; otherwise, thinking one was following a rule would be the same thing as following it. — PI 202
Others are verifying…right so no it goes to others verifying. Now, when they verify, is it their own representation of what’s right or wrong, or do they have access to something outside their own representation? — schopenhauer1
Individual confirmations of what are the rules and cultural ideas are not hidden and private; they are expressed publicly. One's public expression can be demonstrated to be inconsistent with the accepted practice that is called "following the rule". — Luke
How is anything “external”? — schopenhauer1
It doesn't matter how it is "internalized". That is irrelevant to following the rule.
— Luke
Who decides? :chin: — schopenhauer1
I don't. What's internalized (or internal) is the beetle, which drops out of consideration as irrelevant. All that matters to following a rule is "what's being conveyed" or one's words and actions.
— Luke
Huh who decides? — schopenhauer1
But how is this internalized? — schopenhauer1
Publically? — schopenhauer1
How do you know what’s internalized is what’s being conveyed? — schopenhauer1
It’s not my view it’s what Witts anti foundationalism points to. That is to say he wants the inner representation to be always hidden and private yet have “room” for public. Public is always individual confirmations of what are the rules and cultural ideas. So how is it he is getting out of any private version of representation? — schopenhauer1
You can’t just say common sense or refer to the other person because that can just be an individuals representation. The beetle in the box. — schopenhauer1
201. ...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”.
That’s why there is an inclination to say: every action according to a rule is an interpretation. But one should speak of interpretation only when one expression of a rule is substituted for another.
202. That’s why ‘following a rule’ is a practice. And to think one is following a rule is not to follow a rule. And that’s why it’s not possible to follow a rule ‘privately’; otherwise, thinking one was following a rule would be the same thing as following it. — PI 201
Do you feel Wittgenstein can be wrong or everything he said is airtight? I mean this in both his content and in the weird “oh well the way he wrote there is no wrong even” or some such claim. — schopenhauer1
You haven't sufficiently provided what this public is. Those things you described can simply be representations in individual minds. — schopenhauer1
There has to be a theory of what this public is — schopenhauer1
The beetle box deigns that you can ignore individual representations of meaning as "functionally" it's all "use". Well, that poses problems due tot he "public" nature of the "functionality of use". That requires a metaphysics of entities such as "public" that goes beyond the individual. — schopenhauer1
Something has to obtain in the world called "public". — schopenhauer1
I don’t follow why there needs to be either foundationalism or certainty in order for there to be rules.
— Luke
Because it posits a public entity — schopenhauer1
Im saying you can’t have both uncertainty, anti foundationalism but then claim that there’s X (rules, games, use) — schopenhauer1
That logic makes no sense. Someone else’s beetle may think they understand what I’m doing, find it “normal” or not, but it’s just their beetle reacting to something. That doesn’t confer anything outside of solipsism. How is there a public to Witt if there’s no certainty to ontology? It’s all anti foundational. You can’t start positing an external confirming entity. — schopenhauer1
All of these things are said as if there is a Platonic "public" judging this.. It is just people's internal "beetles" judging this. — schopenhauer1
202. That’s why ‘following a rule’ is a practice. And to think one is following a rule is not to follow a rule. And that’s why it’s not possible to follow a rule ‘privately’; otherwise, thinking one was following a rule would be the same thing as following it. — Wittgenstein, PI 202
Sure, but this language game (the uses) learned from a community is not some Platonic "thing" but is rather the various instantiations of understanding in each individual (internally). Thus the beetle-box actually seems at odds with this, as if internal understanding doesn't count here. — schopenhauer1
Use to whom? Surely if you get me a slab, there is nothing beyond me finding it "normal" and you finding it "normal" to do X and X. But it is still just "me" and "you" and nothing beyond that. There is no unifying form of "use". — schopenhauer1
In the same way, anyone can use the word "pain" in language, regardless of anyone's personal sensation of pain. — RussellA
There are also private concepts, such as my personal experience when looking at something in the world having a wavelength of 400nm. — RussellA
I agree, as with the beetle in PI 293, the beetle drops out of consideration in the language game. — RussellA
There are different uses of the world "meaning". The absence of pain means a lot to me and "pain" means "a sharp unpleasant sensation usually felt in some specific part of the body". — RussellA
My concept of "peffel" is inaccessible to others as my concept of violet is inaccessible to others. — RussellA
Can you describe in words your personal experience of the colour violet to a colour blind person? — RussellA
For example, we don’t know someone is in pain, not because it is “unknowable”, but because when someone seems to be in pain, we don’t: “know” their pain, we react to it, to the person; their pain is a plea, a claim on us—we help them (or not); that’s how pain works. — Antony Nickles
If we are using the word “know” as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know if I’m in pain. — PI 246
That's just quibbling over the definition
— Luke
Similar and same mean different things. "The Eiffel Tower is similar to the Blackpool Tower" is true. "The Eiffel Tower is the same as the Blackpool Tower" is false. — RussellA
What matters is that when the builder calls "slab", the assistant brings a suitable piece of stone. — Banno
What is the correct use of Form of Life ? — RussellA
What enables language to function and therefore must be accepted as “given” are precisely forms of life. In Wittgenstein’s terms, “It is not only agreement in definitions but also (odd as it may sound) in judgments that is required” (PI 242), and this is “agreement not in opinions, but rather in form of life” (PI 241)...Forms of life can be understood as constantly changing and contingent, dependent on culture, context, history, etc.; or as a background common to humankind, “shared human behavior” which is “the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language” (PI 206); or as a notion which can be read differently in different cases – sometimes as relativistic, in other cases as expressing a more universalistic approach.
I can define the word "peffel" as "part my pen and part the Eiffel Tower", and I can define "pen" and "Eiffel Tower", but I cannot put into words what the words "pen" and "Eiffel Tower" mean to me, as my concepts of "pen" and "Eiffel Tower" have grown and developed over a lifetime of unique multiple experiences. — RussellA
Even in Wittgenstein's terms, as my personal concept of "peffel" is inaccessible to others, it is part of my private language. — RussellA
As definition i) is your definition of a slab but not mine, then we don't agree as to the definition of a "slab". For me a "slab" can be "a large or small, thick or thin, flat or uneven piece of stone or concrete, typically square or rectangular in shape". — RussellA
I find it hard to believe that two people can have the same concept of any word. — RussellA
To follow a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (usages, institutions).
To understand a sentence means to understand a language. To understand a language means to have mastered a technique. — PI 199
Even if you have lived a similar form of life to me — RussellA
Each individuals experience of the Form of Life will be different and unique to them. — RussellA
For many years, I have had the concept of a "peffel" as well as its name, part my pen and part the Eiffel Tower. This word I have found useful when thinking about the ontology of relations, and has been part of my private language, and so far, unique to me. — RussellA
How can you know my concept of Slab? How do you know that our concepts of a "slab" are the same? — RussellA
My Form of Life has been unique to me, — RussellA
What enables language to function and therefore must be accepted as “given” are precisely forms of life. In Wittgenstein’s terms, “It is not only agreement in definitions but also (odd as it may sound) in judgments that is required” (PI 242), and this is “agreement not in opinions, but rather in form of life” (PI 241)...Forms of life can be understood as constantly changing and contingent, dependent on culture, context, history, etc.; or as a background common to humankind, “shared human behavior” which is “the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language” (PI 206); or as a notion which can be read differently in different cases – sometimes as relativistic, in other cases as expressing a more universalistic approach.
We can agree to the dictionary definition of a slab as i) a large, thick, flat piece of stone or concrete, typically square or rectangular in shape ii) a large, thick slice or piece of cake, bread, chocolate, etc, iii) an outer piece of timber sawn from a log, but many don't see the value in definitions. Definitions can end up circular and change with time. — RussellA
If concepts didn't exist in the mind, but only in a community, such a community would be a community of zombies, none having a private concept or private sensation.
Cavell in The Later Wittgenstein makes the point that Wittgenstein never denied that we have private thoughts and feelings
Other philosophers, I believe, are under the impression that Wittgenstein denies that we can know what we think and feel, and even that we can know ourselves. This extraordinary idea comes, no doubt, from such remarks of Wittgenstein's as: "I can know what 70 * MUST WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY? someone else is thinking, not what I am thinking" (II, p. 222); "It cannot be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain" (§5!46). But the "can" and "cannot" in these remarks are grammatical; they mean "it makes no sense to say these things" (in the way we think it does); it would, therefore, equally make no sense to say of me that I do not know what I am thinking, or that I do not know I am in pain. The implication is not that I cannot know myself, but that knowing oneself-though radically different from the way we know others--is not a matter of cognizing (classically, "intuiting") mental acts and particular sensations.
Having private thoughts and feelings is not the same as having what is called "a private language".
As the analogy of the beetle in PI 293 illustrates, private sensations do drop out of consideration within the language game, not that private sensations drop out of consideration. — RussellA
The meaning of the word "slab" derives from its context in the language game being used by the speaker.
When I say "bring me the slab", my concept of "slab" is part of from my language game. When you say "bring me the slab", your concept of "slab" is part of your language game. — RussellA
When I say "bring me the slab", my concept of "slab" is part of from my language game. When you say "bring me the slab", your concept of "slab" is part of your language game. — RussellA
What textual evidence in the PI is there that the PI is not taking the position of Linguistic Idealism?
Linguistic Idealism is the position that language is the ultimate reality. GEM Anscombe in her paper The Question of Linguistic Idealism considered the question whether Wittgenstein was a linguistic idealist.
For the PI , the meaning of a word is its use in language. Within language, a word can be used to describe the appearance of an object, give an order, obey an order, etc as set out in PI 23. But all these things happen within the world of language, not in a world outside language. — RussellA
The word “language-game” is used here to emphasize the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life. — PI 23
66. Consider, for example, the activities that we call “games”. I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, athletic games, and so on... — PI 66
The sense in which philosophy of logic speaks of sentences and words is no different from that in which we speak of them in ordinary life when we say, for example, “What is written here is a Chinese sentence”, or “No, that only looks like writing; it’s actually just ornamental”, and so on. We’re talking about the spatial and temporal phenomenon of language, not about some non-spatial, atemporal non-entity. — PI 108 - boxed section
The civic status of a contradiction, or its status in civic life — that is the philosophical problem. — PI 125
241. “So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?” — What is true or false is what human beings say; and it is in their language that human beings agree. This is agreement not in opinions, but rather in form of life. — PI 241
We only know the "unicorn" by description, not acquaintance. Apart from a few people who have directly seen the fossil of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, most people only know about dinosaurs by description, not acquaintance — RussellA
Totally agree. I have been trying to get across the idea for weeks that Wittgenstein's theory that meaning is use in language is circular, as I wrote before: — RussellA
the word "unicorn" refers to other words in the language, as in "a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead" — RussellA
It remains a fact that if the word "unicorn " in language depends on its existence on the fact of there being a unicorn in the world, then the word "unicorn" would not exist. — RussellA
Within his theory that meaning is use in language, in the sentence "bring me the slab", the word "slab" is not being used, as it would be in Referentialism, in naming a slab in the world, but is being used in the sense of meaning is use in language — RussellA
It would not make sense for Wittgenstein to be in opposition to Referentialism, but then use the word "slab" to name a slab in the world. — RussellA
As the word "slab" does not depend on the existence of slabs in the world, there can be the word "slab" in language whether or not there are slabs in the world. Therefore, the word "slab" in language cannot be referring to something in the world. — RussellA
If the word "slab" did refer to something in the world, then, if there was no slab in the world then there would be no word "slab" in language, but that is not the case. — RussellA
Sentences 1) and 2) are contradictory, in that in sentence 1) the word "slab" doesn't refer to a thing in the world but in sentence 2) the word "slab" does refer to a thing in the world. — RussellA
Sentence 1) encapsulates the core of the PI in that the meaning of a word is its use in language. — RussellA
The meaning of the word "slab" does not depend on the existence of slabs, as PI 40 indicates. Nevertheless, slabs exist in the world.
— Luke
You write that "slabs exist in the world", and also write that there can be the word "slab" in language even if there is no slab in the world.
So what you are really saying is that "slabs exist in the world even if there is no slab in the world" — RussellA
There cannot be a correct use of a word such as "table". — RussellA
Within different contexts there are different sets of family resemblances. Is it correct to say that this is a "table"? — RussellA
Is it just that we can’t tell others exactly what a [table] is? — But this is not ignorance. We don’t know the boundaries because none have been drawn. To repeat, we can draw a boundary — for a special purpose. Does it take this to make the concept usable? Not at all! Except perhaps for that special purpose. — Wittgenstein, PI 69
Yes, that is Wittgenstein's position, in that the meaning of the word "slab" does not depend on there being a slab in the world. — RussellA
What in the world has judged that an apple sitting on a table is a different object to the table it is sitting upon? — RussellA
3) If within the world, there is nothing that is able to judge which parts are connected and which aren't, then objects, entities and events cannot exist in the world. — RussellA
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 — for a special purpose. Does it take this to make the concept usable? Not at all! Except perhaps for that special purpose. No more than it took the definition: 1 pace = 75 cm to make the measure of length ‘one pace’ usable. And if you want to say “But still, before that it wasn’t an exact measure of length”, then I reply: all right, so it was an inexact one. — Though you still owe me a definition of exactness. — Wittgenstein, PI
Can you show me the rule for the correct use of the word "table"? — RussellA