On the other hand, he is thinking about "meaning-objects", so there ought to be a similarity of some kind [between the feeling examples and the toothache]. — Ludwig V
Now is it wrong in this sense [the sense of having tooth decay without the common accompaniments] to say that I have toothache but don't know it? — (p.23)
On the other hand it obviously makes use of the word "to know" in a new way. If you wish to examine how this expression is used it is helpful to ask yourself "what in this case is the process of getting to know like?" "What do we call 'getting to know' or, 'finding out'?"
But the new expression misleads us by calling up pictures and analogies which make it difficult for us to go through with our convention.
Thus, by the expression "unconscious toothache" you may […] be misled into thinking that a stupendous discovery has been made, a discovery which in a sense altogether bewilders our understanding…. [T]he scientist will tell you that it is a proved fact that there is such a thing, and he will say it like a man who is destroying a common prejudice. He will say: "Surely it's quite simple; there are other things which you don't know of, and there can also be toothache which you don't know of. It is just a new discovery".
The scientific method, as we know it, was not a model for Plato. Wittgenstein does not seem interested in Plato's own problems with analysis. There are the many times when the singular essence is sought for and not found. — Paine
But I wouldn't claim that the same is true of every philosopher since then. — Ludwig V
The point is that there is no way of comparing private sensations in a way that would allow us to classify a given sensation as either they same or different from another. — Ludwig V
. But the point of the example (language games) is to get us to see things in a different context and so differently. It's not really an exercise in logic at all. — Ludwig V
There is something [skeptics] are trying to express, but it is better expressed in another way. — Ludwig V
many people do follow the rules more often than not — Luke
Apologies if it is off the current topic and that it probably ignores the context of the preceding discussion. — Luke
Don't these remarks [about family resemblances] invite distracting arguments about whether they are factually correct? — Ludwig V
It seems to me that the limits to analysis being put forward by Wittgenstein are arguing for a particular set of facts over others. — Paine
The work does not solve the problem but shows how it is surrounded by other problems. — Paine
he was not assigning the problem of the good to being simply another case of craving generality. — Paine
Using the individual soul to measure the body politic is not done by Wittgenstein — Paine
I had the impression that his explanation of the temptattion is the only answer that I found in the text. I must have missed something. — Ludwig V
He doesn't seem to take into account that a description can be an explanation and can give us a new view of what we are already looking. — Ludwig V
I do think Wittgenstein is looking for a way to help the solipsist find an answer to a problem: — Paine
[Witt] is oddly just like Socrates in accepting he has to live with the arguments he makes. — Paine
I don't read the issue he has with Plato as equivalent to his complaints about the temptations of modern science. The latter are the people he lives amongst. — Paine
I do think W urgently wants to get past the 'problem of skepticism' in regard to phenomena versus reality frames of discussion. He may eschew other explanations but he keeps taking aim at that one throughout his life. — Paine
It's not a question of argument, but of learning. — Ludwig V
In the end, the authoritative. dogmatic, answer is the only possible one. — Ludwig V
what makes the reasons mine, as opposed to justifications after the event? — Ludwig V
there is more than one use of words at stake here — Ludwig V
So do you read Wittgenstein here as rhetorically casting doubt not only on the assumption noted ― about the separate, mental act of interpretation ― but also on the idea of giving a word an interpretation, or interpreting a word to mean something? — Srap Tasmaner
Do you take Wittgenstein to have been saying that "this is tove" might mean any one of… depending on context? — Srap Tasmaner
But he doesn't exclusively use "use" as a noun — Srap Tasmaner
However, my problem is with his comparison of reasons with motives. I have to say, I think of a motive as a desire or wish or value - reasons map the path from there to the action. as in the third bolded passage. But set that aside. My question is how does this fit with the justification post hoc? It looks as if I may act for no reason, but then offer a justification post hoc, which suggests that I did act for a reason. But that doesn't fit with our immediate awareness of the motive. — Ludwig V
if you're talking about a sign (or doodling mathematical symbols, whatever), you're not using it but mentioning it. — Srap Tasmaner
But one natural test of whether an utterance is a use is whether the speaker means it, or is just quoting — Srap Tasmaner
W thinks they are wrong about that, but that is a philosophical position, which needs to be demonstrated. — Ludwig V
…W seems to start from our perplexity… everybody needs to start from somewhere - but it seems to rely on a wholesale dismissal of the philosophical tradition(s) — Ludwig V
there may be a different desire underlying scepticism, the desire to undermine baseless certainties. — Ludwig V
Where, in that description, is an activity outside of psychology? Wittgenstein was the one who insisted upon an activity beyond that. — Paine
If the intention is truly the end of perplexity… — Paine
The only answer I ever heard was that people would go on making the same mistakes, so the cleansing process would go on. — Ludwig V
Yet there is a difference between saying that the action is justified for the following reasons and saying that those reasons were the reasons why one did it. — Ludwig V
I don’t see continuing the series as at all the same thing as extending a word or concept into new contexts. In the former, we say that we are doing the same thing and thatility is determined by the rule. — Ludwig V
Don’t I have to accept responsibility whether I outsource my decision or not? — Ludwig V
But surely it does not follow that given a specific rule, one cannot determine the next step. — Ludwig V
He is irresistibly tempted to use a certain form of expression; but we must yet find why he is.
— Blue Book, 59
That's the question that I don't understand. If the whole thing is a conjuring trick, there is no answer to it, or rather, the only answer is to the question how the trick is pulled off. — Ludwig V
The "illusion of language" seems like a complete explanation in a work that questions "general explanations." — Paine
Now we must examine the relation of the process of learning to estimate with the act of estimating. The importance of this examination lies in this, that it applies to the relation between learning the meaning of a word and making use of the word — (p.11)
Aren't you are citing the ideals that science tries to achieve? In practice science is always provisional and restricted in its scope, not certain at all. — Ludwig V
So solipsism is part of the human condition? Then how can philosophy free us from it? But then, if solipsism is part of the human condition, what does it mean to say that it is only an illusion of language? — Ludwig V
further clarification is needed about "more logical, clearer, more certain .. criteria". — Ludwig V
I can agree that the desire for certainty is a plausible motivation for solipsism. But I don't see any reason to suppose that's the motivation in every case. — Ludwig V
Once one has started looking for psychological motivations, one has to contend with a pandora's box of them. — Ludwig V
The desire to be scientific is in direct conflict with the desire for certainty - at least in the context of philosophy. — Ludwig V
I'm not clear why you call it an ethical standard — Ludwig V
What I'm suggesting is that W here is starting from philosophy as he finds it, and not paying enough attention to what gets philosophy started - which must be muddles that arise from common sense - or perhaps from science's search for causes. — Ludwig V
Wittgenstein, however, argues that solipsism results from misuse of language: — Paine
It is misleading to talk of thinking as of a ‘mental activity’. We may say that thinking is essentially the activity of operating with signs. — (p.6)
Are those the two mistakes in your headline for this section? — Ludwig V
we are tempted to say "the mechanism of the mind must be of a most peculiar kind to be able to do what the mind does". But here we are making two mistakes. For what struck us as being queer about thought and thinking was not at all that it had curious effects which we were not yet able to explain (causally). Our problem, in other words, was not a scientific one; but a muddle felt as a problem. — (pp.5-6)
I think the key point is that giving to us an 'agent who thinks' is standing on the outside trying to look in: — Paine
Thinking is a paradigm of a mental activity. Surely, what he needs to argue is that mental activities, in particular thinking, is not the kind of activity it suggests, because of the contrast with physical activities. Is doing a calculation with pencil and paper a mental or a physical activity? — Ludwig V
. The problem of the mechanics of the brain “does not interest us” (p.6) because thinking is not a “curious effect” which is the result of “casualty”—something science could explain.sees his work as something entirely different from investigating that — Paine
Thinking is a paradigm of a mental activity. Surely, what he needs to argue is that mental activities, in particular thinking, is not the kind of activity it suggests, because of the contrast with physical activities. Is doing a calculation with pencil and paper a mental or a physical activity? — Ludwig V
a process must be happening organically that makes thinking, speaking, and listening possible but sees his work as something entirely different from investigating that: — Paine
Yes, that's why I'm suggesting that scepticism/certainty is not the only issue in play in this text. BTW, I'm a bit puzzled by "all states of affairs" are objects. — Ludwig V
In short, there is a lot going on, and it is not evident to me that mental images don't play an important role. Also, what "mental images" specifically covers can be subtle. — Manuel