@Sam26 @Banno @Ludwig V @Joshs

As I said [in my notes], Prof. Hacker’s lecture stayed at the level of Witt as head-down here, just mapping out the facts of the logic of certainty and knowledge. Recognizing that the lecture was about the translation, and thus was focused on the interpretation, sense, and logic of the words (concepts), my question was (meant to be): did he have any sense of why Witt was doing this methodical work? Or did Witt come to any conclusion(s), or about Moore (his why)?

My "premises" being that: in the Blue Book he starts by specifically asking “Why does the skeptic frame thought as an object?” And the, at least initial, presumption is they want the kind of outcomes of science: an answer, its standards, a specific kind of certainty. So then the PI asks why do they (did he) want that singular, general standard of certainty/“crystalline purity” when he goes on to say, “look, we have all these ordinary reasons (logic, criteria) that are different for each type of thing”? Which then begs the question: “what actually is certainty? Well, let’s look (in On Certainty).”

Given all that, is there a “why” Witt has in On Certainty? or about Moore? The context being there are a lot of conclusions people make: Witt is refuting the skeptic, either by giving a (better, correct) answer than Moore/Descartes, or in saying the question is not important or just a confusion. He is again saying, “look at all these different senses of knowledge and certainty”, but is he simply (only) claiming “this is how they work”?

Prof. Hacker was so nice we got into the weeds about other affinities I mentioned (Austin, Cavell) and other senses of know I thought were in the book that he had not included in his list (the “know” of the patient’s bedside companion; its being about the relation/response to the other, not, say, the “truth” of them).

Nevertheless, as much as we got to him addressing the question, he said, roughly, “This was not, did not get to become, a ‘book’.” Which I take to mean his impression is that these end at being preliminary notes (as I find the Brown Book to primarily be), sketching out the ground without starting with a presumption, and never getting to any definitive, thought-through conclusion(s). Hacker did seem to imply his own rejection of the idea that Witt was answering the “difficulty” (BB, Harper, p. 48) of the skeptic foundationally, just in a different/better way.

Hacker Lecture

@Sam26 @Banno @Ludwig V @Joshs

I made 4-pages of scribbles during Professor Hacker’s recent lecture (mentioned above). I will try to make the following clean of my sense of importance and responses (which I will separate parenthetically), but there was such amazing detail and thoroughness that I couldn’t hope to capture or do it justice (I may have just written parts down wrong). I ordered his translation just based on his acuity and clarity, regardless of any disagreement; I can already tell it was done well.

He methodically went through all the different senses of know and certainty that Witt looks into, and captured Witt’s claims of their logical distinctions and limits. And, much like Austin, was very disciplined to just and only describe these judgments we make, and did not venture much more beyond that, which was refreshing because people tend to impatiently jump to conclusions. He did seem to enjoy the surprise of things that we wouldn’t think of, or wouldn’t realize made such a difference, and he was very patient and humble.

So, first he explained that in translating he looks at the contrasts, what connects, and the contextual in the sense of the logical field of a concept (can/cannot, do/do not; what makes it up/breaks it; distinctions, implications, exclusions, etc.)—what categorically makes a thing what it is, like claiming “we only… if…”, (or “we must… if we want to…”).

Some of the senses or types of knowledge, or what logically constitutes (or is different from) knowledge, that he says Wittgenstein points out are:

-Saying (claiming?) that I know does not mean I know, is not the same as knowing; and we may know without having made a claim.
-One claim to know is that I can demonstrate my knowledge, as in: give reasons (explanations or justifications) responding to “How do you know?”
-Another is I am asserting that I am not mistaken (that I am right?)
-To say you know is to swear you do, to promise to me (which Austin says is about our relationship, not a justification).
-The sense of certainty as being/feeling sure, in the sense being unsure is not the same as not knowing (he notes, curiously, that Witt does not distinguish this much, without answer or elucidation).
-The sense of saying “I think I know, but…” [he scrunched his face] i.e., don’t trust me.
-The sense in saying “Yes, I know all that” [while he waved a hand in dismissal] (brushed off because things can be obvious, are not necessarily questioned and already, say, justified).
-That we “know” in the sense of being familiar with, have experience with, an environment, like the builders need for pre-existing “knowledge” to even be able to start to do the simplest tasks (knowing your way around).
-The depth of knowledge evidenced in not claiming “I don’t know” [hands thrown up], having looked closer, been more rigorous (like expertise).
-And the sense of “unshakable” certainty that Moore/Descartes want, proof of the world (at all) and you/me.

Knowledge (or some sense of it) functions as where, what, when, but not why. In this sense, non-human animals can know, e.g., how to do things, have a purpose, be familiar, but not temporality, generalities, explanations, necessities.

That something is known to be so, does not make it “true”. There are conditions that warrant a claim to truth, and it is the form that makes it true (like the method of science), not the truth of the expression. A determination of a fact is warranted in some cases (even these logical facts), but we also know stories, rumors, have political constraints; and how we know is sometimes not reducible, like with music, poetry (not denying the intelligibility of paraphrase and the constraints of mediums, forms of genre). He says French and German still hold a distinction (perhaps @Astorre can help here). “I know that…” is not always a transitive verb; an attitude or proposition is not an “object” of knowledge (here see the Blue Book), though not only transcendentally logical (only form).

Knowing (or certainty?) is most of the time not new information but is still how things are, without (necessarily) lacking or needing anything else. We ask about knowledge when something is not reliable or is unexpected or when we ask for authority, “well, who does know?” Analogously, we do not “recognize” someone we know every time we see them (but only when we do not at first recognize them). Reasons have a time (after) and a place (not always), evidenced, for example, by the (logical) fact that a claim for knowledge allows for, but only sometimes needs, excuses or further clarification (not just justification), filling in or excluding omissions, mistakes, etc.


Now, given all or any of this, knowing is different, or at least consists of more usages, than just certainty, which is also not always in the sense Descartes wanted. Certainty is not always like historical dates, about confirmation, or just about justification. Yes, in the absence of doubt, or the ability to doubt, we do not make a claim to knowledge; but just: we do not, cannot logically (not as foundational, as an end). Doubt has its logic, constraints, one being: certainty is ensured by foreclosing possibilities (in response). Most times, as with a claim to knowledge, there is no warrant for certainty. [He mentions, appreciatively, that White points out how specific evidence or actions are excluded.] Part of its logic is there is a question of how certainty is made (its constitution is not inherent). We can (not arrogantly) claim certainty without making a claim of knowledge. In some ways, we exclude doubt not because something is settled, but because we are not worried, we are okay.


Now Wittgenstein addresses the (specifically Moore’s) desire to have proof of the world. Witt does not critique this as unintelligible. But there is no sense of what “external” here would mean, though this does not leave the logic of Witt’s many examples as transcendental (self-enclosed), as if only about their form. There is no assuring someone that that is their hand like being certain about whether something is gold or brass (previously he noted there is something different about being certain of people than being certain about objects). Moore (and Hume?) would say proof is in doing what we do, but there is no challenge asking for proof and so none possible (Austin’s example is there is no discussion of intention unless there is something off about a situation.) (Here Hacker questions why Witt says “this” body, rather than “my body”.)

Worrying about something is an occasion; there must be a time and a context (and a specific subject). Certainty of the world is not settled agreement after rigorous debate, as if we made a guess. We do not presuppose certainty (we come to it), so doubt is not resolved by a specific kind of support. We are not immune to doubt, as certainty is only knowledge cleared “as much as…”, but we begin without doubt in the sense that certainty is constituted of a judgment, afterwards, but not: starting from belief.

Our common lives do not “prove” certainty. They allow for its logic—and that of argument and what counts as a justification, etc.—thus our lives cannot be more certain (it’s not a matter of that). This point is grammatical, i.e., meant only to show these are separate categories. So refutation is an inadequate response to the skeptic’s expression of their (legitimate, intelligible) difficulty. You will not satisfy them with an assertion; we cannot empirically check. (He discusses noetic as explaining—making legitimate/justified—what cannot be justified; making visible what was thought invisible (explicit/implicit?)). Our lives (culture) is not rigid, but a change “is a conversion”, like a “shift in the riverbed”. These changes are not argued by persuasion; they are before, but not more “correct” than, science (Kuhn’s paradigms). There is a certain point (not initially) when we are deemed unreasonable, thought of as from a different tribe (reaching bedrock is not justification, but exclusion).

Actually, the book is out (at Albris here), so I think they are waiting, to put the video up, for the lecture to be given or published, as this was an abbreviated version.

@Sam26 @Banno @Ludwig V @Joshs

Well I hope someone else had a chance to catch Hacker's amazing lecture (130 people attended). He was very erudite and thorough about the different senses of knowledge. I think the new translation will be definitive (compared to Anscombe), and I believe he will be coming out with another book discussing On Certainty directly. After the translation comes out, there will be a video copy of the lecture available on the Nordic Wittgenstein Society website.

I will try to post my notes, but I could only record my thoughts and any connections, as his explication of all the examples was voluminous and I could never do that justice. I did get to ask a question, but I made such a mess of it we couldn't get past the premises.

Be aware that I provided a link to this discussion in the chat of the lecture.

Summary/take-aways

I don't know who all has an interest in this, but below is my recap of my notes on the Blue Book. I encourage those who followed along to post their own takeaways. All these points are discussed in more detail, and the text cited, in my posts above labeled "Section". I may separately address the topic of method.

I offer that the investigation here leads to the question why the skeptic** wants to turn what is important to us (about thought, meaning, and understanding), into an object, to see it through the framework of a thing. Not just like a rock (that we identify, measure, equate, etc.) but in the classic picture that there is a “real” object, and we get from it an “idea”, which we picture as a corresponding “internal” object (appearance, experience, etc.), that he calls “sense data”.
(**I take it Witt sees himself, and each of us, as what I am labelling “the skeptic”--in that asking “why” is not just us versus them. So I will use ”we” interchangeably (though he does make the distinction of old philosophers and “we” new philosophers). Also, my determination is that getting into why here is left hanging, and is more explicitly taken up in the Philosophical investigations.)

Also the verbs, like “meaning”, are imagined as discrete mechanisms, making a connection every time. In the case of meaning: between language and “our understanding” (as a sense data object ). But philosophy has to account for any disconnect, which gives the mechanism a “queer” sense that seems hidden from us. He says we create a “mysterious” process in order to be able to treat it as a “problem” (p.6) because we have a scientific “preoccupation” with “answers”.

As an aside, there is a key point which allows for asking “why”. He realized that how society ended up with the ways we assess things is not only contingent on our world and our lives (not in “essence” or as “reality”, but in the sense of our history of circumstances and our practices), but he found that each thing has its own different measures, which he calls “criteria”. The epiphany is that criteria are what matters to us (society) about that thing, and so reflect our interests in it. There is the possibility for confusion in the similarity of terms, but the “why” of the skeptic is their interest in having particular criteria (separate from our everyday criteria—thus the reason for showing all the examples for comparison).

The desire for the form of an answer first shows our interest in rules and causality, but he contrasts that by showing how we may or may not follow a rule (at all) and that the timing is that reasons are given afterwards. We mostly say things that have already been said in situations similar enough to ours that it doesn’t need more elaboration, or that we have means to clear things up afterward when your response makes it evident that you do not understand what I was trying to say.

But we picture a complete solution before we act, and so instead of meaning being variations as yet undetermined, we imagine “our meaning” as an “undefinable” fixed object (in us); as if “our understanding” is present in our saying something. We imagine a specific purpose (e.g., no doubt) with particular criteria for judgment (“objectivity”), that is just communicated without clarity, instead of having various criteria to focus on which reveal what is meaningful to us, that would take a conversation back and forth to work out.

We want “consistency”, and the analogy of an object allows us to simplify across cases and generalize, so, for example, we see each other’s pain and our “sense data” of color needing to be “equal”. Evidence is wrongly gathered or attributed because they meet criteria we want or impose (like an “object” being empirical, certain), so ordinary criteria are overlooked and we become confused and create a mysterious process or situation.

The best juxtaposition I noticed was the difference between “…a thing I am thinking about, not 'that [thing] which I am thinking'.” (P.38) In the first, we are perhaps in a discussion (with ourselves even) considering, remarking on, analyzing, etc. a thing/object. Thinking in the second case is just the description of a thing/object which I have, “my thought”, which I take as a fact (as complete and without any need for context), and an internal object.

He says we interpret a practical, logical limitation as a metaphysical difficulty; such as a physical impossibility compared to a logical ”cannot” as "If we did that it would mean we cannot___”, or "When we do that, it's only in a situation where___”, or "We would first need to know___ if we were going to judge whether___”.

For example, we imagine your pain as a “hidden” object, interpreting you as an “insurmountable barrier”. But he says our not knowing another’s pain is not an inability, a “human frailty” (p.54), because knowledge is just not the logic of pain. Pain is not an object I “have” (p.53) like a gold tooth that is just hidden in our closed mouth, like “private” (unique) data (p.55) that we could (scientifically) identify or judge as equal to yours, like comparing two objects, made impossible because we each keep them only to ourselves.

An alternative example of the “experiential” logic (grammar)—taken from human experience, reflected in what we say—is that the “can/cannot” of pain is that it is hidden in the sense it is ours to reveal. Logically, in one usage/sense, we do not point to it (the object), but point it out (to you). For example, we say “I can’t know your pain” because it buffers us from the fact that it can hurt me to think of you as cold, or that “you can’t know my pain” makes me unique, unknowable, constant.

The motivation for an “answer” is a desire for “reliability, and solidity”. To picture “what I mean” as “information” (p.65) is to need it to be in the framework of only knowledge. Our personal experience is pictured as an internal object to be “the very basis of all that we say with any sense about [being a human]” (p. 48). He also says we are “tempted to say that these personal experiences are the material of which reality consists.” (p. 45) The skeptic really wants to be “inhabited” by the exceptional, in a way that “others can’t see”. Thus the creation of the object, that is a 'mind' or 'subject', is to make me inherently important and unique; as if within me would be “that which really lives”.

Taking the framework by analogy from an object forces its criteria on meaning, thinking, and understanding, but he leaves it that the skeptic is compelled by a state of conviction, like a secret they see that we don’t, like they “had discovered… new elements of the structure of the world”.

But what makes them excited is not being trapped in the analogy, but by the possibilities of the criteria for an object, which are generalizable, complete, concrete, verifiable, substantial, etc. They become so compelled because there is nothing in the way of them projecting/imagining what they want: knowledge, an answer, a justification, a foundation, something of which they can be certain.

Section 20 - Finale! (p. 70-74)

Philosophers say it as a philosophical opinion or conviction that there are sense data. — (P.70)

This mention of “opinion” brings us back to where “The solipsist… is not stating an opinion; and that's why he is so sure of what he says.” (p.60) I take “opinion” here as what is thought of as a lesser version of knowledge; as “merely subjective, a matter of taste.” (p.48), as if it were unjustified, or isolated to just me.

But the solipsist “is so sure of what he says” that you can bring all the knowledge you have to bear, and tell them their position has no rationality, but they are “not stating an opinion”; they “say it as a…conviction”(p.60). But this is not as in a firmly held belief, i.e., that wants to be knowledge, but doesn’t quite meet the grade based on justification. It is in the sense of saying something with conviction. The solipsist is “so sure” about what they are saying because they have already been convinced, not of something (an opinion) that they are trying to justify to you, but by something, so they don’t care what you say.

Witt says they believe in something as possible but not here. I take the mirage to be created by the projection of the “mental” as imagined objects (by analogy), and I’ll grant to @Joshs that they are “gripped” by the picture, and are “inclined” (“tempted”) to say certain things as natural given their position once they have intellectually fortified it. But there is a why we have been chasing and I take it as the reason for picking (gravitating to) objects as the analogy.

Their conviction comes by a secret they see that we don’t, like they “had discovered… new elements of the structure of the world”. But what makes them excited are the possibilities of an object, which are generalizable, complete, concrete, verifiable, substantial, etc. They become so compelled because there is nothing in the way of them projecting/imagining what they want: knowledge; an answer, a justification, a foundation, something of which they can be certain. Any more beyond that I will let go as it is taken up in the PI, but listen to Descartes set his mind:

It is now some years since I detected how many were the false beliefs that I had from my earliest youth admitted as true, and how doubtful was everything I had since constructed on this basis; and from that time I was convinced that I must once for all seriously undertake to rid myself of all the opinions which I had formerly accepted, and commence to build anew from the foundation, if I wanted to establish any firm and permanent structure in the sciences. — Descartes, 1st Med., p.1

Thank you to @Ludwig V for hanging in there throughout this reading, and to all the others for your input.

Section 19 - special pain

But how could that change [a new notation of ‘Only I really see’] be justified? — Ludwig V

I take him to be saying that we could agree to symbolically hold an “exceptional place” (p.66) for the solipsist, but also the antithesis, that they could be justified to be noted as exceptional, if judged so or known to be by us. But the solipsist really wants to be “inhabited” by the exceptional, in a way that “others can’t see”. Thus the creation of the object, that is a 'mind' or 'subject', is to make me inherently important and unique; as if within me would be “that which really lives”. I take Witt as ultimately claiming that there is nothing inherent in humans that makes us exceptional (from each other), unless we, say, make ourselves exceptional. Your basic human experience is not something you know that no one else can. If you do not live a life, you are not really alive; it is not a given.

He is also claiming there is no 'I' in my body. 'Mind' and 'subject' are not in the same framework but opposite of physical; they are logical. Logically I (or you) can identify and individuate my particular body from yours (others), which is the ‘object’ version. But in the subject usage, “To say, ‘I have pain’ is no more a statement about a particular person than moaning is.” (p.67) The statement does not “point to anything” (as the “object” sense does); the ‘subject’ version does not refer to a 'me', as if an object in me, say internally. What I am doing is not knowing my pain (which is not innately unique), not pointing to ‘me’, but, logically, pointing me out, in the sense of ‘Hey! It's me, I have [am in] pain’ (thus modeled “on the demonstrative”(p.68)—‘This person is the one in pain’.) It is not as if I “might as well only have raised [my] hand.” (emphasis added) In this case (and sense), that is exactly it. What I am doing in saying “I have pain” is (logically) trying to “attract attention”, get someone to respond to me. The error that is possible is not identifying someone else, rather than me, it’s that no one may recognize me as a person in pain. “I feel pain” is not a descriptor of “my pain”; this usage (logically) is meaningful because it is a cry (a moan) for help.

The point of all this I think is that we impose the logic of the object version, which identifies a particular body from others (‘Them; no, that one’) onto the subject version, which is not to identify a “bodiless” object. My feeling is not particular (as my body is among a crowd). I am not a “subject”, existing in and of myself alone, as object or cause, but in the sense: "about which something is stated" (Webster’s 4, grammatically). I put myself out there as the one who has (as in "is") feeling; to, in a sense, identify my self, announce myself as something. It is me that is asserting that I am: the one that sees and hears something of the world, tries to do an act, thinks what I say. I am standing up and differentiating myself, not by ownership of an object, but in the sense: 'It is I! the one who is owning (up to) what I am' (this is the sense of ‘have’).

Of course this sense of “subject” logically means that something can be judged (stated) about me by others. I am “subject to” scrutiny, description, accusation, etc., which is perhaps what the solipsist is trying to avoid, or at least is avoiding, in claiming or picturing the self as an object which would thus be unknowable. Thus the claim: “ 'But surely the word ‘I’ in ‘I have pains’ serves to distinguish me from other people...' " That your pain is not special also makes your feeling pain universal.

Section 18B - “use” (oh boy, here we go…) p.65 (I can’t face 66-69 yet.)

One of the I think most misunderstood technical terms that Witt—ahem—uses. In the paragraph starting “The meaning of a phrase…”(p.65), we can all probably (hopefully) agree at this point that “The meaning is not a mental accompaniment to the expression”, mirrored off our relation to an object. More specifically, above on that page, not a thing that has “information” that is “what I really mean”. As if “I mean something” was that I make meaning happen—control its implications, connotation, repercussions, etc.

But “the meaning of a phrase for us is characterized by the use we make of it.” (Timeout. I believe a distinction is necessary between the sense of “use” here as “a purpose for or way in which something can be used” (Oxford-1) which is “use” as a noun, as "the herb has various culinary uses" or “habitual or customary usages” Webster’s 6(a)1, and the—I would say more common, and ironically philosophically more popular—sense of “use”, as a verb, where I would employ (use) words, like tools to make what I want**.)

Now above, when he says “the use we make of it”, it might seem like the second version (the verb), because I am making something, maybe the meaning? But “make of” is in the sense of an assessment, like “what ya make of this?” and the “we” is anyone, not (just) the speaker of the phrase. We are assessing the custom, or way, or purpose of this phrase, in this situation, to “show me that there is a use for the [phrase] in the kind of calculus…”. As above, there is a calculus in/of the culinary world, which allows for various uses of herbs “in practice” (p.69), and these are its logic or grammar—the distinctions, criteria, etc.—which are “characterized” by the usage (described by, reflected in). These are also interchangeably termed “senses” by him, like options, possibilities. Of course, we may put what herbs we like in the pot, however, given there is a customary logic to these matters, there will be a discussion to be had (that can be had, re: outliers). And in evaluating the use, he is looking for the grammar, the logic, as to whether, e.g., there are any distinctions pointed out that are possible in this practice/situation, or other criteria met, o,r in contrast, that the phrase does not hit any of those marks and is just spinning its wheels, simply wanting and appearing to do something, but based only on what I want it to be.

**Now, of course, I can choose what I say, but, even then, I do not control meaning, the logic of a usage, what matters in a circumstance or practice. Unfortunately, this might start another confusion, with “intend”, as if intention were an every-present causal mechanism, when it is a logic, and only at times, for example: as a hope (I’m trying to) or an excuse (I was trying to), but “my intention” is not an equivalent of the skeptic’s “my meaning”.

Section 18 - the unidentifiable individual (p.61-65)

At first, I take his “considering the criteria for the identity of a person” (p.61) as more about ‘essence’ and grammar (criteria). He says that we could and might identify someone entirely differently if circumstances changed making certain characteristics more prevalent or useful, implying there is not an underlying, determinate identity. “We can say whichever we like [that Jekyll and Hyde are one or two people]. We are not forced to talk of a double personality.” (p.62) He even throws away that there is a “right” or “wrong” about identity. The “inheritance” and “preservation” of what is meaningful is “at liberty” and without one “legitimacy”, as, by analogy, circumstances shift under our (say, math) terms over time, becoming meaningful for entirely different reasons.

I take the point as: how society ended up with the criteria for judgments that we have is not only contingent on how our world rolls (our history of circumstances). The fact that we do, or could, have multiple ways of judging something shows that we also have an interest (or multiple) in doing it the way we do. The “usage” is connected to those (cultural) interests in something, reflected in the criteria to identify that use.

He next considers the idea that ‘seeing’ is a continuous part of who ‘we’ are; that it is essential and ever-present (as people take Descartes to want from thinking). Logically, this would mean that every instance of seeing would have something in common, which he narrows down to “the experience of seeing itself” (p.63), which I read as distinguishing nothing (“pointing… not at anything in [ the visual field ]” (p.64)), and thus wishful rather than meaningful to point out.

The difference between a physical object and what we ‘see’ are not different types of objects, as a railroad law is not a railroad track (one is an idea). I take this to mean that what we are trying to do, in ‘seeing’ something, is not in the same category (“kind”) as our relationship with physical objects (equated with knowledge). Our interests differ for each. Some examples would be that we are pointing something out to you when we ‘see’ something; or we are evaluating it, say, seeing it’s potential; or interpreting it as… (PI #74), say, a box to step on or a container.

So he finally gets to our interest in only wanting what I see to be ‘real’, which is to keep part of me for myself, in reserve, impossible to be fully known or limited, read, characterized, labeled. To hold “what I mean” (p.65) as unable to be fully understood is to wish for the implications and connotations of our expressions to be ultimately under my control, judged as met or meant by me, to always allow me the last word, as if there was an essence of what I say that is “information” that the other lacks because it is mysterious, hidden, private… me.

Section 17 - The solipsist’s reality (p.58-61)

[ The solipsist ] is irresistibly tempted to use a certain form of expression [ ‘Only I really see, or hear, or feel (real pain)” ]; but we must yet find why he is. — (p.60)

We may not get this “why” yet, but it is not an issue with language—not just notation. The method is to look at/into the “form of expression” to see that it dictates a certain usage, limits the possible “schema” (p.58). He points out the variability of a discussion of ‘what is the usage?’ with his example of the hammer. It is more than just a matter of the situation and the possibilities (the answer to all the questions is ‘yes’), but also what we are interested in (in a particular case—between banjos and string instruments again). The solipsist’s interests force the possibilities and remove the situation, like “the man who… has already decided… and what he said expressed this decision.”

Many take the issue to be just to cure the solipsist, to either solve or untangle the “puzzle”. But it is not a matter of right; we look at the form of expression of the solipsist, in comparison to other usages, and we see our interests in them, in order to get at why the solipsist proposes what they do. We want to understand “the source of his puzzlement”(p.59), in order to “have answered his difficulty” (p.58).

He proposes that one source is “when a notation dissatisfies us”. (p.59) This does seem to just be a superficial issue of words, but, if we take it that our words matter, then what he is saying is that how they matter, and what they matter for, have disappointed us. Another way to say this is that our ordinary criteria about judging a thing have dissatisfied us. We either want other facts, distinctions, perspectives, to matter more, or less, or the judgment to lead to “other associations”. We might want our (culture’s) interest in a thing to loosen, adjust, perhaps respond to general changes in the associated circumstances, perhaps for the recognition of a different “position” (“attitude” he says in the PI).

In any case, it is what interests the solipsist has that are under investigation, and it is through the method of looking at their form of expression that we find them. Witt says they can’t conceive that experiences other than their own are real. Now we know this is misunderstood as a physical impossibility, but Witt also grants that it is not in the sense they lack pity. It is perhaps a logical impossibility given the form of expression, but then what do they want in claiming the only “real” feelings? (As it is “not an opinion”, i.e., something they could be wrong about.) Perhaps their criteria (for “real”) are that their feelings are certain (not possibly manufactured), measurable (not over-exaggerated as someone else could), complete (contained in feeling them; not having to be responded to, as another’s).

He wants to show “the tendency which guided” the solipsist in limiting and simplifying the usage of “I see” (the way it works and its implications) as something only I have. As an analogous tendency, he has the solipsist ask "How can we wish that this paper were red if it isn't red?” and then they provide an answer that there is a variation that we just (agree to) call “red”. This allows them to have their cake (what “they see”) and eat it too (still have “seeing” be a functioning part of our world). But he says that does not tell us a “new truth” nor show us that “Doesn't this mean that I wish that which doesn't exist at all?” is false. What might show that: no, that expression does not lead to that conclusion, is to show something true about color that is newer than picturing it as trying to occupy the same seat on a bench, and pointing out that “wishing” is closer to imagining a replacement color than physically having it (exist) to put in the other’s place.

Thus, in the case of the claim that “only I really see”, we should “examine the grammatical difference between the statements ‘I don't know what he sees’ and ‘I don't know what he looks at’, as they are actually used in our language.” The second is a recognition of (a “new truth” of) grammatical logic: at times we are not able to guess where another’s visual attention is focused. An option (usage) of the first would be “I don’t know what he sees (in her, in that art)” where, grammatically (logically), “see” is in the sense of “value”, and “know” is in the sense of: relate to at all, acknowledge as justifiable. But the solipsist takes the first as the lack of knowledge, by equation, of my vision and yours, which they picture as comparing two objects, made impossible because we each keep them only to ourselves. Perhaps this desire (for “our precious”) is the solipsist’s dissatisfaction and temptation, which ultimately leads to their difficulty.

Section 16 - Physical vs logical impossibility (p. 56-57)

As above, here (with color) we have a situation mistakenly analogized as a physical problem. With pain, it was a barrier (to knowledge) that we imagined, instead of the fact that we are just two separate people, and the (logical) way that works is that any claim of your pain involves me (taking steps towards or away from) recognizing it, for it to be “known”. The “impossibility” (p.56) of your pain was my desire to be outside the bounds of humanity; to see it, as it were: intellectually, apart from accepting you, thus the impact of it (seeing you suffer with a cold (p.54). Alternatively, the logical (grammatical) “cannot” is that I can’t know your pain without accepting it, identifying with you.

We come to this conclusion, as he says, “when we meet the word ‘can’ [or cannot] in a metaphysical proposition… We show that this proposition hides a grammatical rule. That is to say, we destroy the outward similarity between a metaphysical proposition and an experiential one…” (p.55). This seems to say that the grammatical rule is the “experiential one”, taken from human experience, which is hidden because so similar (in phrasing, conceptually) to the metaphysical proposition.

I think it’s necessary to point out that the importance here (to “destroy” the similarity/what hides the grammatical necessity) does not come from the grammatical logic being more “correct” than the metaphysical framework, nor that it satisfies, only differently, the same goal desired by the metaphysical/scientific “answer” or explanation (its “objectivity”). These are examples we all agree to, only described enough to show an alternative possibility (usage) for the “difficulty” (p.48) wanting to be addressed by a metaphysical framework, just without the forced criteria like timelessness, generalizability, etc. Thus the physical “can’t” of knowing pains is not alleviated by the realist saying “Yes, we can!”, but in finding the logical “can’t” of our having separate bodies, but, in doing so (not as an argument for), we also see a different relationship to another’s pain than knowledge.

This brings up the problems of language, in that we can make some sense of words on their own and together out of any context so we can impose a framework on them without getting into particulars, not seeing something more subtlety than an analogous, imposed framework. He says we have to turn our familiar forms of expression “out by force” (p.46), which I take as similar to looking past a snap judgment.

There is also something methodological to his saying that we “can’t apply” a metaphysical picture; like we should bring up certain contexts and show that the picture, created to solve a difficulty, can’t be applied there. And, also, that we would have to stand on our head and create a situation (say, with conjoined twins) to have the picture “apply” (to that situation).

The philosopher has “discontentment” (p.57) with our ordinary criteria (they are not generalizable, object-based, abstract, etc.), and they “rebel against” them, and supposedly would not if they were “aware he is objecting to a convention”. But I’m not sure if pointing out just any alternative criteria would be convincing, nor do I think he means to say the argument would be over if they were aware of the nature of what they were objecting to, as if convention is more justified or powerful or certain, because the trick is to capture the “difficulty” seen by the metaphysician (and philosophy in general), which I take as real and actual and not something he is dismissing.

Section 15 - Why couldn’t I know your pain? (p. 53-55)

At one moment we are saying "I know your pain" because we've had an injury like that. The next we are saying "You can't know my pain" because you can't feel it. It may be that there is no truth of the matter, that the illocutionary force attached to each is the real point. — Ludwig V

Well my understanding is that an illocutionary act is a very specific thing, but it is used by Austin as an example (to show there is validity other than just true or false, and not in some gray area). I take the example of pain here as used in the same vein, but to show there is a practice not framed as an object of knowledge, like a black eye, which is compared to its original object for “correctness” (p.53).

My reading is that the point of the example of the conjoined people is to get to a situation where the skeptic would actually accept that their “pain is exactly like mine” (p.54)—where they would grant that there is nothing different in the feeling or anything else about our pains—which then paves the way to see a different reason why anyone would still say “My pain is my pain and his pain is his pain”, and thus come to a “truth” that still exists when the “experiential” (call it scientifically-proveable) truth is granted. The conclusion I would think is they are different, not because each of ours are unique, but that: when I am in pain, it is me (my person) that is in pain, like each instance of a color on different objects, even when it is the exact same shade of color. This additional “truth” is another version of how ‘different pain’ works (its practice), another sense (usage), which he is labeling “grammatical”.

And he qualifies any “can’t” [know the other’s pain] as not in the sense that we “could not reach” knowledge and are thus relegated to only assume by analogy or “conjecture” (p.54) (as “belief” is sometimes framed). The point of showing that we are separated by instance and not different in kind (necessarily), I think is that we may** realize the way we relate to someone in pain is different than through knowledge. The grammatical truth (“taught by experience”) is the way pain works, such as: that I do or don’t “suffer when you” feel pain. It is not an object we “have” (p.53) like a gold tooth that is just hidden in us, like “private” (unique) data (p.55) that we could (scientifically) identify, but, I would offer for example, something that I ‘have’ happening to me.

He says our not knowing another’s pain is not an inability, a “human frailty” (p.54); which I take to mean that knowledge is just not the logic of pain: he says, I do not know that I have pain; I just have pain. (p.55) But, interestingly, the practical logic is “hidden” but interpreted as an “insurmountable barrier”. In connection with the concern @Ludwig V and I had of how any of this must (not ‘may’**) convince the skeptic, the question changes from not how it would be persuasive, but why someone would avoid it, skip over it in the first place. Choosing to say “I can’t know your pain” buffers us from suffering your pain, such as above: that it can hurt me to think of you as cold. Another way to think of it might be that, if there was an impossibility (of knowledge), then I would not be responsible for ignoring your pain. I would not have to address you as a suffering human (PI p. 223).

Section 14 - Variety of criteria and the place of pain (p. 49-52)

The problem of (knowing) someone else’s “mind” is an age-old issue in philosophy. Here he diagnoses it as a “grammatical difficulty” (p.49, after p.48, “Now the answer…”) because we take a picture, like not seeing something because it is hidden (in another’s mouth), as the framework by analogy for understanding another person (the pain in their tooth). So we have to look past thinking of the other as hidden and “get familiar with the idea” of pain to answer “What does it mean to know that the pains are there?” (p.50)

This takes us back to p.1, where the method to know what length is, comes from asking how to measure length. Pun aside, what he is looking for is what counts in judging length. In this case, “one must examine what sort of facts we call criteria for a pain being in a certain place.” (p.49) In other words, what kind of facts do we take into consideration as relevant in making a judgment about where pain is. In the case of an object, the factual criteria would be that I see it (it is not hidden). If it were a place, it would be necessary for me to be familiar with the ways around. He decides that these are cases where we must be aware of something before we could judge what is the case, as in needing to understand an order before being able to obey it.

A peripheral case that does not appear to fit the above “beforehand” necessity is “I must know where a thing is before I can see it” (p.50) perhaps because I would be told what it is, not where, and then I would search for it and know where it is in the seeing of it. After seeing how these cases work completely differently, he makes the leap to postulating that “What I wish to say is that the act of pointing determines a place of pain.”

In the pages after this he wants us to realize that our easiest or most sure evidence, i.e., means of judgment (in this case, touch, movement, etc.), may not be the only evidence in play (here, also sight). “what we regard as evidence for this latter proposition is, as we all know, by no means only tactile and kinesthetic.” (P.51) The type of evidence is contingent on the criteria that need to be met, with the point being that we are only imagining that the criteria for pain (for, say, location) has the same structure as those for physical objects. He says our language obscures the variety of evidence. We also may be confused about the world because criteria have been overlooked; or evidence is wrongly gathered or attributed just because they meet criteria we want/have imposed (like an “object”; empirical, certain).

And so to say “pointing determines the place of pain”, makes me think of two things. It is my pain, to hide or reveal; and, what also matters about pain is bringing your attention to it (the fact of my desire for attention), so that you respond to it (or not). So the exact, empirical location is not important in the case of pain (until it is). As with knowing where something is only in recognizing it while looking, where our pain is, is secondary to the act of pointing it out, to you.

Sec. 13 Personal experience and skepticism (p. 45-48]

At a certain point in the next section (“It seems to us… p. 47 ), he lands on the question of whether it is possible for a machine to think, and he submits that it is “not really that we don’t yet know”, because the question is mistakenly framed from our desire for personal experience to be “the very basis of all that we say with any sense about [being a human]” (p. 48). He also says we are “tempted to say that these personal experiences are the material of which reality consists.” (p. 45)

Of course Descartes will want to rely on our certainty in ourselves to justify the world, but, with Wittgenstein’s ordering, we seem to put ourselves first, perhaps out of self-preservation; that if anything needs to be certain, it’s “me”, even as a product of our doubt about others. “There is a temptation for me to say that only my own experience is real: ‘I know that I see, hear, feel pains, etc., but not that anyone else does. I can't know this, because I am I and they are they.’” (p. 46)

Ironically, our confidence in our personal experience leaves us without a shared world, only “a lot of separate personal experiences of different individuals”, which gives us a sense of “general uncertainty” (radical skepticism), and a belief that we need a “firm hold”, e.g., “How could I even have come by the idea of another's experience if there is no possibility of any evidence for it?” (My emphasis) I take this desire for “reliability, and solidity” to be the motivation for a (certain) solution to this “problem”, analogous to an object or biological mechanism.

If we are right to say we have been looking for a why to our forcing the analogy of objects, this seems to be the start of an answer.

Sec. 12 Expression and its accompaniments—memory, judgment, thinking (p. 40-43)

the experience of thinking may just be the experience of saying, or may consist of this experience plus others which accompany it. — After “Let us sum up”, p. 43

And so we are adding layers back in, and I think we’re left to contemplate rather than being told, what “others”? Obviously we do many things along with saying things (Austin would even say “in” saying them), and it is just a matter of not getting caught in the old traps while looking into them.

At p. 40 I take him to be differentiating my “expression”, in the sense of “by me”, from me describing a mental object that I have. The analogous “tune”, which he divorces from the mechanism of the phonograph, is from the world (before us) and is not “kept, stored, before we express it”. We perform the tune, as we go. Now beforehand, or when that retelling is interrupted, we may search our memory, but not necessarily, as we may just start off (or continue).

We might exhibit pain or describe a vision because these are actual—though not necessarily unique—physical states. But I would venture that expecting is just the label for a judgment we make from the evidence of our response to anticipation (fear of the past, in the case of a gunshot). The answer to: “Why are you tense, steadying yourself, holding your breath?” is not: “I have an expectation.”

As well, I see “groping for a word” not as putting a word to something “already expressed” internally (p. 41), but as an activity (though perhaps just passive waiting). In this sense, the expression is only in having found the word, in the saying of it (to you or myself).

I see his use of “expression” as meant to capture the event of that initial introduction of a thought, hope, or wish to the world, to, as he says, “existence” (p. 40), without the need for any “independent” process or thing in a “peculiar medium” (p. 43). The “sentence” is “reality”. (p. 37, 41)

This, of course, doesn't mean that we have shown that peculiar acts of consciousness do not accompany the expressions of our thoughts! Only we no longer say that they must accompany them. — p. 42

(The power of this “must” I take as very important to why all the forced analogies and “fixed standards” (p.43), but so far he only goes so far as to blame our forms of speech—not yet seeing the need driving it).

I think it is worth noting that he wants to add back in a sense of “private” thinking and experiences, as I take all this here (and in the PI) to be for much more than just a conclusion about “private language”. Here he acknowledges certain senses of privacy, such as being hidden from others, like a secret we tell to ourselves in an aside; as we could reveal (and thus hide) the “muscular, visual, tactile sensations” of my body, in the sense of bringing attention to (like admitting) the fact that I have them.

His method allows us perspective on thinking as the assumption that we just speak our “thoughts” (not in the sense of voicing our inner dialogue), by asking “what do we say if we have no thought?” and then pointing out the sense of speaking thoughtlessly as simply not considering beforehand the consequences of saying something in a particular context.

Sec 11 Our words’ connection to the world (p. 35-39)

The sentence itself can do the work of the shadow, and so no shadow is needed. We can explain what the sentence means, perhaps, by an ostensive definition. That’s how words and things can be connected. — Ludwig V

Nice work; my thoughts are along the same lines. He is showing us examples of how we can correct the connection of word and world, as you say, by ostensive definition, or, alternatively, by explanation, demonstration, being an example, by force, etc., but words and the world don’t (usually) need to be (re-)connected because, by default, they just are connected (as you say, “no shadow is needed”). “…the interpolation of a shadow between the sentence and “reality” loses all point” (p.37) [my quote marks]. In the PI he will talk of this as there being no space “to get between pain and its expression”. (#245)

Philosophy imagines we make that connection every time (say, to “our understanding”). But there are events (in time, place) where “language” and the world actually do have a disconnect (along our criteria for judgment), but philosophy interprets the sheer possibility of disconnection, and the difficulty of reconnecting, as if the “problem” is in the activity of (always) connecting which is then just a puzzle to “know”, like a “a queer mechanism” (cue some neuroscience).

But in practice we fall back on the many separate ways we have for straightening things out. Philosophy needs to be shown any of these examples of means of reconnection—shown that language and the world “can be” reconnected—to realize the exception means that the word and world are not always mitigated by some object like “perception” or data, or other “shadow” But it then also follows that there is no “object” for there to be a “fact” of it to communicate. There are not certain, fixed, ever-present objects, as if part of “me”, like, “my understanding”, that I simply put into words.

The best juxtaposition is the difference between “…a thing I am thinking about, not 'that [thing] which I am thinking'.” (P.38) In the first, we are perhaps in a discussion (with ourselves even) considering, remarking on, analyzing, etc. a thing/object. Thinking in the second case is just the description of a thing/object which I have, “my thought”, which I take as a fact (as complete and without any need for context). But, like with the Napoleon example, there is no singular fact that is a certain, unique criteria (there, for identification).

Most importantly, understanding is not “present” during communication. Understanding happens after expression, in coming back to it, e.g., when you have demonstrated that you haven’t understood how to do something, or how to continue a series as expected, or that your expression makes it clear that you do not understand what I was trying to say (apart from disagreeing, etc.). We mostly say things that have already been said in situations similar enough to ours that it doesn’t need more elaboration (mostly). This public nature of language is because it is a record of our history, that “The connection between these words and [the world] was, perhaps, made at another time.” (P. 39)

Sec 10 Intending and Meaning (pp. 32-34)

“To intend a picture to be the portrait of so-and-so (on the part of the painter, e.g.) is neither a particular state of mind nor a particular mental process.” (P.32)

This harkens back to looking at understanding or thinking as a “queer mechanism” (p.3) that happens in the brain. We decided this was an “answer” to what was turned into a “problem” in trying to head off misunderstanding, instead of seeing it as an ongoing situation to understand someone. To imagine intention as a mechanism of the brain seems to mean it is always present, as if it would serve a purpose, such as causality (for action perhaps). But if we use the method, as before, of making the process external, public, as in the case of copying, it turns out the judgment of whether we are copying is based on a number of possible criteria, and we may be judged to have copied something even when we set out [intended] not to, as in “It looks like you copied that.” “Oh, I wasn’t trying [intending] to.” So he concludes that a process, i.e., an action, “can never be the intention itself.” (P.33) Thus we can conclude there is no agent (needed) that intends, as there was not one for thinking.

“…consider what it is that really happens when we say a thing and mean what we say.” (P.34)

He says he wants to take apart the picture of a process accompanying or “run[ning] alongside these words”, as if there is a mechanism to “mean the arrow one way or another”; as if “We mean (our internal object)”. But he points out that to mean what we say is actually a matter of tone and feeling, “expression”. I would also offer that when we claim we mean what we say, we are committed to it, to the consequences; we are making a promise not to go back on having said it.

I take the purpose of the examples to be to show that we don’t “mean” or “intend” what we say “as a rule”, i.e., with everything we say, so it is not a mechanism or process, and so not a part of speaking or the way language works or the determination of what matters in something being said.

Sec 9 Non-existence and Statements without Facts (pp. 30-32)

I shall cover what might be seen as the first phase, — Ludwig V

Thanks for cracking this, well done; I was at a loss (and maybe still am) as to why we imagine a difficulty in picturing what is not. Obviously he points out that part of the difficulty is because of the forced analogy of thought as an object, but I take the confusion that follows to be that: if we are thinking of the absence of something, then how can there be an object that is (not) the thought.

I wanted to offer that Wittgenstein says that imagining it is "easy" perhaps because of the form of the question (not that the answering of it is). Asking "How can one...?" (p. 30, 1965 Harper's Ed.) “beautifully” plays right into his method of drawing out the means for doing a practice—its workings, how we can…. i.e., the “grammar” of thinking, facts, and "existing", etc. He looks at different cases to see that there is not only one way these each work (there are different usages/options/senses, with different possibilities, also qualified by the situation and interest).

If a watch is seen to "exist" because, say, it is completely put together, or functioning, then we might let go of identification by correspondence with an internal object, like an “idea” or visual “sense-data”, and realize it is just meeting the criteria of what is important to us (society) about a watch (tells time; is small, portable, operates by a vibrating mainspring compared to a clock, etc.)

The feeling of “difficulty” in first identifying red I would think comes from the desire to identify color by equating that color, as a “quality”, with an internal “object” of our vision, say, an “appearance” as part of “perception”, from which philosophy would ask: “how could we have that object of red before encountering it?” But I take it the way color works (it’s grammar) is like a pain (PI #235]; it is the “same” for us to the extent we align in a particular case, e.g., “What color would you say that is?” “Red”. “Well, isn’t it more of a rose color.” “Maybe, but all the client cares about is that it’s not blue.” “Yeah right, okay.”

In saying “it is not the fact we think”, I would offer that he is showing that, though something is a fact, like a house is on fire, its “fact-ness” is not an object (of thought, always there), because its expression may not be used as a fact; we are not (necessarily) making the point that, “it is a fact that the house is on fire” (unless of course there is the need for confirmation, some doubt, etc.). The statement might just be to raise alarm, as an expression of realization, shock, etc.

I am at a bit of a loss on the “shadow fact”, but I imagine it plays the same role as “appearance” or “impression”; inserted in between the ordinary process of vision and identification, etc. in order to mitigate all our statements in order to explain (and control) the possibility of error.

Sec 8 Purpose of Possibilities and Grammar (pp. 28-30)

His hope in pointing out multiple variations of “know” or “longing” (p. 29) is that being aware of “[an]other possibility of expression” (p. 28) would break the hold of projecting the expectations from an analogy.

In their being different possibilities in an expression, we may pick a form of expression to “stress” one part, to bring attention to looking at it a certain way, but he also says we may not even care (don’t always decide, pick), and that mostly we express ourselves along “deeply-rooted tendencies” (p. 30). I wouldn’t say these are necessarily personal tendencies, so much as habitual, conforming to culture, our common phrasings (for a context). I do find it interesting that our form of expression “betrays” us, as if it reveals more than we might want, that others can see more of us in what we express (not meant as just non-verbally).

He spends a minute talking about the nature of a “grammatical” statement. In doing so he says questioning our certainty about what we wish makes “no sense”. I think it is important that this is not in the sense of foolish or absurd, but that there is no context in which we would ask about knowledge because of the way we judge wishing, i.e., what is important to us about wishing is not justification for it, say, against doubt (of course there are the senses of “Are you sure that it is this you wish?” where we are asking for clarity about “this” or whether they have considered the consequences).

I think the importance of the grammatical statement for Wittgenstein will need more work (and text) to draw out, nevertheless, I think saying he is just trying to find a substitute for rules (to enforce), or is simply justifying how our practices work, is to miss the point, which I would preliminarily take, here, as something like being “aware” of our desire to overlay a framework (like knowledge) where it does not belong. In this sense we should think of their claim to be grammatical (provisionally, for us to concur with of course) as just the fact of the matter, e.g. rooms have length (as he looks at “facts of nature” p. 230), and moving on to it being evidence for other purposes, such as highlighting what is important to us (and not) about a practice (PI #143).

I am tempted to skip the discussion “what is not the case” and shadows, etc., and move to the mention of “intention” on p. 32, but if anyone else wants to take up or comment on that section, please do (as anyone can lead the charge at any time).

Sec 7 Puzzling Rules (pp. 25-28)

“…the puzzles which [philosophers] try to remove always spring from this attitude towards language [compar[ing] our use of words with one following exact rules]”. (p. 26) — Witt.

If philosophy’s puzzles “spring” from this desire for exactness, that makes its own expectation the creator of the issues it thinks it sees in the world and wants to solve. I don’t think we yet have a good sense of why it has this desire, but perhaps it helps to listen when he says “We are unable to circumscribe… concepts….” (p. 25), as if we wanted to, but cannot, draw a limit around them that is complete enough, covering or predicting all possible outcomes (and here “concept” is a practice, like identifying or following a rule).

If we are starting from “unclarity” and “mental discomfort”, perhaps we thought (assumed) we knew a thing, and then there was something that happened which made us stop and say “Hmmmm, what is time?” And if we then want to define it in a way to have something definite that will circumscribe all cases, perhaps the “something that happened” was unexpected, unpredictable, surprising, e.g., turns out we were wrong when we thought we were right (where Descartes starts in the 1st Meditations). So then we will want the (form of) answer to be able to never be wrong again.

Now it is ironic that he wants to clear up the puzzle created by trying to define what is measuring time by first wanting to apparently define “measure”, but his method is to look closer at how measuring works, and in multiple different cases, because he realizes that our concepts have “different usages”, as in options and possibilities (that cannot be circumscribed, and may even be “contradictions”).

Previously we saw the framework for objects was forced onto trying to understand feelings because of the desire for a similar direct connection (like when we see/know objects). He called this an “analogy” and here says that “forms of expression” exert a force that “fascinates” us (“the analogy between two similar forms of expression in our language”). I take this as the germ of how people think the PI is just about “language” creating problems. But it is the instinctive need for “consisten[cy]” (p. 27], generality, that forces us to apply something analogously across multiple or all cases. We choose a framework of sense that fits our desire for strictness, but we analogize it because that leverages our craving for simplicity to fill in the blanks of the disparate parts between the two cases with the likes of “sense data”, “appearance”, “reality”, “mind”, “forms”, or telling time using a tape measure.

Sec 6 Coinciding Criteria (pp. 24-25)

First, another note on his method. When he asks “what do we call ‘getting to know’” (p.24), by “call” he means what “counts as” or matters in determining, in this case, that we “know”. He uses the term “criteria” for what matters and counts in getting to it (for judging we have). Now these judgments are not like decisions, because we normally just employ them (unreflectively) as part of the practices we learn (when not examining them philosophically).

Also, all of this is just trying to draw the text out more, and so stated speculatively and provisionally (strongly held loose opinions)—open to clarification and correction of course.

But when he says our judgments (“A has a toothache”) have “always coincided” with our criteria for them (the “red patch”) it seems to open a can of (skeptical) worms, i.e., like it is a coincidence (that could disconnect at any moment). But I take it to be the sense of “coincide” that they “correspond in nature”; or, “are in accord” (Merriam-Webster) So when the skeptic keeps asking their foundational questions (past even the traditional argument for other minds), there is a point where we are “at a loss” (prescient of PI #217). But what exactly are we at a loss to answer? Even the other’s report that they have a toothache is considered “conventional” (just “saying certain words”), and that is only because it is under the scrutiny of “How do you know…?”, and there are no criteria for knowing (for certain) if the other actually has a toothache (and is not just saying the words). I specifically do not take the point to be that other criteria do justify our claims about toothaches, nor that the correspondence or accord between our criteria and our judgments is “natural” or unbreakable.

The seemingly “arbitrary” (p. 25) nature as to which of our criteria are “defining” is not because of a “deplorable lack of clarity”, but because it is not something that is decided ahead of time for a particular purpose (ad hoc), such as, in this case, with the predetermined desire to know without any doubt. In each case we may highlight one criteria over another depending on our interest (or just arbitrarily), and that gets sorted out after, as we noted previously how reasons do (compared to motives). He will go on to say the biggest ad hoc desire philosophy has, is for “strict rules”, which comes next.

Section 5 (pp. 21-23) Russell and Undiscovered Feelings

Maybe someone can help fill in the Russell here (mine is hearsay). The distinction I take as important is between things like ‘expecting’, which Witt claims need to have an associated subject, and ‘wishing’ (crying, etc.), where those feelings can stand alone (p.21). It appears (only from inference) that Russell is concerned about what we wish for because he gets himself confused how we might “know” what he is only presuming is an essential subject. This seems to be similar to the mistake of picturing feelings (sense data) as an object, thus creating an empirical ‘problem’ rather than accepting there are many ways actual feelings are meaningful to us. Witt points out that expectation not only doesn’t happen one way, but it can happen a number of ways (not along rules), so it is better thought of as an open question (with “endless variations”), rather than an object that cannot then be captured in a name (turning the as yet undetermined into something “undefinable”).

In forcing the picture of a feeling by itself to require an object, it seems to twist what would be the task of explaining our interests in my feelings into needing to be certain about something unique. “‘I am afraid of something, but I don't know of what’. Is there an objection to this terminology? We may say: ‘There isn't, except that we are then using the word 'to know' in a queer way’.” (p.22)

With the example of an “unconscious” toothache he appears to be noting that there is a difference which is legitimately recordable, but that our analogy (our form of notation) may lead us to imagine that the solution is a (scientific) “discovery” rather than simply noting the difference between a potential and recognizable pain. I can’t imagine what the discovery would be, nor do I have a good grasp of the “situation” between philosophy and science here, but he does seem to again want to underline that the philosophical muddle should not be thought about being “solved” (resolved) by an investigation that finds something new, but rather by a philosophy which uncovers “‘What do we call 'getting to know' or, 'finding out'?’” to “break the spell of those [notations] which we are accustomed to.” (p.23) He also points out that what we say is not just a matter of “notation” (just language), but is telling us something about the world, making a distinction that has importance to us; that this is what he means by “grammar”.

Section 4C (pp. 18-20] Philosophical “Attitude”

To step back just to page 18, he is I believe referring to Socrates when he asks why philosophy is “contemptuous” toward the particular case. On page 20 he says outright “When Socrates asks the question, ‘what is knowledge?’ he does not even regard it as a preliminary answer to enumerate cases of knowledge.” Power (might=right) is someone’s goal of what is good. Is it the most worthy goal? No, but it still exists in the world, and it gets dismissed because it doesn’t meet the standard Socrates wants.

“The contempt for what seems the less general case in logic springs from the idea that it is incomplete.” It wouldn’t seem this equates to the logical necessity Socrates is looking for, but to me “complete” lines up with a solution (answering the “problem” again) that ties up all the loose ends and addresses every contingency before an act. As if we could determine the right thing to do in every angle up front, “completely”.

And this is a matter of method for him. Like Austin, who always investigated how an action failed in order to learn how it worked, Witt implores us to be interested in what distinguishes something rather than search for neat and tidy commonalities. “For after all, there is not one definite class of features which characterize all cases of wishing.” We can draw sharp boundaries to feel we have a complete idea, but “there are many common features overlapping.” as he seemingly first refers to family resemblances, which is important enough to be in the preface of the PI.

Section 4B (pp.17-18) science vs. philosophy (generalizing)

Obviously, over-generalization leads to logical errors, but what’s interesting is how he ties it to traditional philosophical issues (however obliquely). It also seems clear that in saying “language” causes problems, he is referring to general problems in thinking, like the desire for simplicity, imprecision, mis-categorization, false analogies, etc., and not that we are pitting ordinary language against philosophy.

In (a) he brings up the abstraction of a quality into an independent property (creating an object) such as turning “real” into a thing that something either has or does not (as in his example of the “ideal” of beauty), which slides into the (not only Kant’s) idea of an (objective) “reality”.

In (b) is our main issue so far in a nutshell in that we turn the meaning of a word (leaf, or, say, thinking) into an object and take it to be what is common to particular instances (hello Plato). Not only that, but it is an image that resides “‘in him’”, creating ‘my’ ‘meaning’ for the solipsist (and the “mechanism” problem of (c)). What he sees is that we don’t actually put particulars together, but we learn (and reflect to make explicit) “certain features or properties which they have in common.” (p.18 my emphasis) These are the criteria for judging what is a leaf (say, from a seed that looks like one)—what is essential about it. (PI #371)

In (d) we see the creation of metaphysics (Plato’s forms; Descartes’ mind) as the product of science’s desire for an “explanation”, which is turning a “muddle felt as a problem” (p.6), into the “preoccupation” with ”answers” (not just never explaining anything @Paine), and here he clarifies, reduced to AN answer. This is the root temptation to solve the “problem” of skepticism, which blinds us (in “complete darkness”) from seeing our everyday criteria, which don’t unravel our “muddle” (once and for all) but unravel us so we can continue on.

But this is not to continue in the same manner, much less with the same goal. He doesn’t want to change the answer, he wants to change us, our interests. Our method is to look at “particular cases”, and our goal is to see what “distinguishes” them (our criteria for judgment).

Section 4A (pp.16-17) “language games”

As he puts off until later in the book the actual discussion of whether a machine can think, I will defer until then as well, only to point out the form of argument that he takes here is, again: a fact making a logical exclusion (what “can”, and “cannot”), which is simply that a machine cannot think because it is not human (analogously it can’t have a toothache either). I don’t know that this would be convincing to those that believe that eventually machines will be capable of “being human” or that reduce their interest in “thinking” to replicating an activity, such as problem-solving, but we can take that up later. As well as the brief reference to the desire that thought be “private”.

Another note on method involves the misunderstanding of what “language games” are for him. Many believe these are, say, contexts of rules that underly or justify the meaning of words, but, clearly here, he is “looking closely” at simplified examples that are “particular”, which I take to be distinguishing enough to show facts that matter to the workings of a specific activity (the criteria of its grammar), with thinking with words involving uses of “comparison”, “difference”, “agreement”, etc. (Thus, the PI is not, for instance, arguing that using words is like following rules, but is drawing out the mechanics of rule-following as a case to study; there, to show how the grammar is different than (falls short of) a desire for pure logic.) Here it shows thinking to be more than merely “activity” but not necessarily “mental”. Importantly, so we are not “misled by… linguistic form into a false conception of… grammar” as we might be misled by the expression that “thinking is an activity... of our mind” into thinking that the mind is “the seat of the activity of thinking” (rather than just pointing out, say, that we did it in our head rather than worked it out physically, and not a matter of locality).

Section 3B (pp.14-15) Causes vs. Reasons

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

Yes but aren’t justifications just one kind of (prepared) reasons, as are principals (beliefs for action), mitigating circumstances, impulses, conformity or “embedded beliefs” and any number of practices for which we express to you (or are told) our interest for having done or said something. But, nevertheless, there are things common to reasoning (here compared to rules or causation or motivation).

In his terms, reasons aren’t prior to an act (a reason is not “for action”, as you word it); our responsibility for answering why we did something (after the fact) is why “actual reasons [have] a beginning” (p.15) Riceour says acts are an event (meaning: in time).

And again, we can have “no reason” (and there can appear none), as the apathetic have none for not acting (perhaps this is ‘privilege’), though we can hold them responsible nevertheless.

As an aside, I note we “are inclined” (p.16) to give an (impersonal) cause when we “come to an end” rather than explain our interests and commitments further, as we are “inclined” to turn the spade (PI #217) on the student rather than keep trying to give justifications for our continuing as we do. The inclination here seems the beginning of the temptation at the heart of the matter, so perhaps our desire for science is tied to our fear of exposing ourselves, relying on ourselves.

“No number of agreeing statements is necessary” because my reasons are my own (or yours given to me). Neither are we hypothesizing as to the mystery of me; we are making a “statement” of what we are standing for.

Also, a note on method. He will often try to get us to see a logical impossibility (thus necessary possibility) by pointing out what can and cannot be the case (usually based on what we say in a given situation). A “grammatical” point shows us the hard edge of a practice, but it is our acceptance of the description that creates the power of the distinction (rather than a logical argument trying to force us to accept it, which is what creates the temptation for an abstract predetermined criteria only to satisfy that goal). The mechanism is self-justification—for a cause to be considered a cause (and not a motive) it must meet its own criteria. (Cavell will draw out this “must” in his essay “Must We Mean what We Say”.)

Section 3 (pp. 10-14) Acting without Rules

As an aside, he finds another logical error, mixing contexts, or thinking we understand a word because we have a definition for it in isolation but that offers up no particular rationale for the specific case. So we do not explain meaning generally; only a particular statement has “neither more, nor less, meaning than your explanation has given it.” (p.10) The idea has temporality to it (which becomes a theme); like we cannot be certain of the meaning of language beforehand, and we may not at first understand after an expression (even knowing the words, and other contexts in which it has sense), so it is not a matter of knowledge but being accustomed to (or learning) how to judge by what is important to us in that case. This is the ability of language to extend into new contexts (discussed in the PI as: continuing a series) because at times how it matters is, as yet, to be determined.

Mid-page 9, once we have finally settled there can be a sense of a “place” for thought in the brain (corresponding activity), he brings up water diviners who “feel” a fact, and those who defy even the logic of a described sense we can acknowledge, which I take as a reassertion that skepticism nevertheless can be endless, and to begin to investigate the individual attempting to retain a standard for his ‘own’ thought, as if my “feelings” fall back onto my ‘perception’ which is a claim of an “object” (sense data) in me that is irrefutable, causal (the feeling we need/want a yellow image to find a yellow ball).

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)

Yes, he will be externalizing our “feelings” by looking at how we learn to act, but I wanted to focus on the connection between “learning” and “making use of the word” only to point out that this clarifies the meaning of his term “use” in the PI. Many take it that he is pointing out that we “use” words (that we are the cause of their meaning). But I take the term to mean the externalized possibilities (“uses”) of a word (not that we can’t choose our words though)—here he calls it their (rule’s) “application”. If we are learning how a word works (its criteria and grammar) we are learning the different options for the word. So his point is not that we “use” words, it is which use (option) one would make of them (interpret them to be). He interchangeably will say “sense”, so it would be which sense (or “use”) applies in a given situation.

He breaks down learning into cause and rule. I took the “cause” to show the authority that I take, which can be the trust in the teacher’s authority, or, without reason, based on the authority I have for my own acts (example 4 “‘I don’t know, it just looks like a yard’”), which is to externalize some ‘internal’ cause for speech into taking responsibility for what I say (wanting to be certain beforehand vs. continuing to be resolved to what I say afterwards).

When he differentiates between being “in accordance” with a rule or “involving” a rule (p. 13), I take it to be the basis of the PI’s conclusion that meaning/action is not based on rules. “201. This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule.” Here he talks of a rule of squaring but comes short of saying the rule causes the conclusion, but that “What I wrote is in accordance with the general rule of squaring; but it obviously is also in accordance with any number of other rules; and amongst these it is not more in accordance with one than with another. In the sense in which before we talked about a rule being involved in a process, no rule was involved in this.” (Emphasis in original) He points out that the exception is when we actually consciously rely on a rule in taking an action, but, of course, the exception is to prove that rules do not dictate (or are the cause of) our actions—it does not “act at a distance” (p.14). Again, we can follow a rule or we can go “the way one has gone oneself”, even though we were taught by rules, the teaching “drops out of our considerations”. We may or may not explain by rules afterwards (“post hoc”).

Section 2B: 8-10 Analogy

Some of these sections are a little bumpy so I don’t think we should feel compelled to go through all of it, but I do find the term “grammatical analogy” interesting as in the PI it plays the role of the ‘language’ that confuses us and makes something “nonsense”, here specifically (pp.8-9) “you have not yet given this question sense; that is, you have been proceeding by a grammatical analogy, without having worked out the analogy in detail.” So ‘nonsense’ is not a derogatory dismissal, but a unspecific, imposed framework.

Thus:

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)

So we can “think” “mentally” (to ourselves) with words or numbers (or images). Again, my answer to which “different sense” (p.7) of “agent” we could point, is not to a casual agent, but the sense or use of agent as one who acts on behalf of something, thus, the designated one who is responsible.

Also, another note on method: when he is saying “if we talk about” or “talk of”, he is coming up with the things we might say, the expressions already there we ordinarily use or made up ones, for example, that there are already “senses” (what he also calls “uses”) of “‘locality of thinking’” such that one could be physical location, like on paper. Additionally, those expressions allow us to “examine [our] reasons”, reflect on ourselves in “understand[ing] its working”, or grammar. I also think it’s important to recognize the unintended logical force that compels us to complete a explanatory picture a certain way because of the inertia of thought and the desire to run an analogy “throughout” the explanation, as it were, creating things to fill missing spots (the ‘thing-in-itself’/‘forms’/‘queer mechanisms’).

As we’ve learned (though perhaps not fully accepted), the analogy of an “activity” is wrong because thinking is not a mechanism nor caused (though we can be “observing thought in our brain”, which is simply “corresponding” (p.7)). He also takes apart the analogy that thought is words/sentences while alluding to a yet-to-be-discovered “use” or ‘sense’ of the word thought, not ”criticizing” or judging “inappropriateness”, nor “hold[ing] throughout”. In fact, he appears to be creating an ethical standard for philosophy, or, ‘thought’, to be, at least, “worked out in detail”, not forced, with an individual/particular framework and workings.

Section 2: 5-8 Two Mistakes

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

Unraveling what is “different” here, one point is that, yes, there are things happening in the brain. And vision, hearing, imagining, talking to ourselves, all have objects that we experience. But meaning, understanding, and thinking (like problem solving) are not structured around objects. Now, sure, there are things happening in the brain when those things happen, but they are not actual mechanisms of the brain “that we were not yet able to explain” (p. 6). Another way to put this is that science isn’t going to tell us what thought or meaning or understanding are. Thus, “it is misleading to talk of thinking as of a ‘mental activity’.”

The reason these “queer” mechanisms are imagined is because we want to say: instead of just ordinary error (random, unpredictable, but correctable), we create an issue that must have a solution with certainty (thus an object), and so we create a “problem” (p.6). So instead of a regular goof-up, we now imagine a problem of knowledge (a scientific one), to be solved for as an object (causal) in us, by a “certain, definite mechanism”, or being able to explain that mechanism. But what was “queer” was not something scientifically peculiar, it was just a mistake, a “muddle” because “here are things hidden, something we can see from the outside but which we can't look into”. Thus the reason he says trying to find the place of thinking must be rejected “to prevent confusion”. (p.8)

From here he makes a radical statement that only plays out through the rest of the book. “I can give you no agent who thinks.” (p.6) This seems speculative at this point (and needlessly provocative), and I take it to mean so far that if there is no casual scientific mechanism, then it is the (“external”) judgment of thought that matters, not its agent (though this belies responsibility).

Another note on method. In addition to advising we take our ordinary expressions seriously (p.7), in the PI he gives the impression all our problems are caused by what he says here is the “mystifying use of our language” (p.6). But it is clear here that it is not language which fools us, but our temptation to treat words as objects (like “time”), and it is this desire that mystifies us, as, on page 7, he shows how analogy allows us to mistakenly infer there is a place for thought because there is a place for words.

Section 1B pp. 3-5: a “queer” mechanism of the mind

At the bottom of page 3, Witt sketches a picture from what it “seems” like “we ought really to be interested in.” I take this to be the “temptation” for an object-like framework; here, “certain definite mental” processes (perhaps in order to give us something fixed in ourselves). He says we want these mechanisms to associate a word with the world, though he intimates there is something wrong (“queer”, “don’t quite understand”, ”occult”(p.4)) that allows the space for error (to “agree or disagree with reality”), which opens the world to doubt.

Another moment on method as he again discusses transferring an internal mechanism to an analogous external process. This makes the process public, all out in the open, but also not personal, not individual, taking out me (which is also a theme), which feels like a loss I don’t know how to record yet. I take it he is playing off the picture of thought as an “object” and a mechanism that has “properties different from” signs, that makes signs come alive (or be ‘present’ as Derrida might critique it? @Joshs), when he contrasts that to “use”. Here I believe we should not jump to assuming we know what this term means yet, but let it take shape based on the role it plays going forward.

But he says, pulled externally it “ceases to seem to impart any life”, which I take it as less than ‘ceases to live’ but that it does no longer “seem to impart” perhaps the “queer” “association” that “you needed for your purposes”. (P.5) I take this purpose to be the desire for an internal mechanism (as object), and so perhaps the death is of the idea of the self as controlling that mechanism, creating meaning. The looked-for object “co-existing” with the sign was then a special vision of us.

He then flat out claims that what gives life to a sign is not us, but a system of signs. And not just that, but its “part” in that system, its “belong[ing]” in it, which shows the “significance” or meaning. I will also point out that time becomes a factor here—that instead of a mechanism occurring at the same time as the sign, “co-existing” with it, there is a system already, pre-existing.

Section 1 pp. 1-3 Mental objects & Use

Wittgenstein starts with claiming that we are incorrectly structuring ‘sense data’ (feelings, visions, thoughts) after an object, as when he says “a substantive makes us look for a thing that corresponds to it.” (p.1, emphasis added) (“A substantive” is defined as something that has importance to us, is meaningful.) He refers to this desire for correspondence as a “temptation”—which will be a theme—as if we are compelled to turn something that matters, into ‘matter’, compared to insubstantial ‘mind’ or ‘idea’, to avoid it being unstable and ensure its importance to us. (He will draw the skeptical picture of mind and its mechanisms—which have something “queer” about them—at the end of page 3.)

One other point is his discussion of method, which a lot of this book introduces and explains. He says we can be “cured” of the temptation (to need objectivity) by “studying the grammar [ workings ] of the [ an ]expression”. As if, when we saw each things’ different rationality, we would let go of the desire to impose the framework (and standard) of an object.

Now a “verbal” definition sets the terms of our words (“attributing” and “predicating” it, he says (p.2)—where the idea that we ‘agree’ to language comes from), which is why he prefers an “ostensive” definition, which is a demonstration by pointing out examples. (I leave the questions he asks to others; we can’t all be interested in the same things—thus why we may have multiple, non-conflicting readings.)

It would seem he is doing the exact opposite when he says it is the job of the O.D. “to give it a meaning”, but he means giving an expression a context of different relevances (fleshing out the “this-ness” as it were, I will take it, in contrast). “This is a pencil” can be taken, or seen, or said, as: its being “round” in that it is not shaped like a carpenter’s marker; or “wood” in that it is not just charcoal; or “one” in that it is “a pencil” (not two pencils), or “hard” (which ?? maybe you can find the circumstance that fits). A “ostensive definition” here is what in the PI he calls a “description” (PI #496, #665).

These are different possible ‘senses’ of the expression “This is a pencil”; he will also call these the ‘uses’—which is not meant to point out that we ‘use’ words—they reflect our interests, the reason to say it (then), and its possibilities, etc. (what he calls “criterion”) along with the circumstances, and practices, say, of picking out things, like instruments. He calls them here “interpretations”, not meant as ‘perceived’ differently, but taken to apply to a different context, under the associated kinds of facts that matter (to the related criterion) in that circumstance.

The already-established associations (criteria, practices) are the reason why we do not usually make a separate decision (unless and until we do; his example: “interpreting before obeying” (p.3)). The example of getting the red flower is evidence that with “the usual way” we don’t have any reason to deviate from or reflect on our life-long patterns (like searching, and matching colors), as we do in politics, and philosophy.

Thanks for the heads up - but it's at 1am. — Banno

4:00 pm CET is 7:00 am PST where I am but yeah philosophy lecture in the middle of the night is sure-fire sleep aid. I’ll try to summarize if I make it.

Hacker is problematic for me, — Joshs

I would argue there is always something to learn; as, if we dismissed philosophers given any flaw, we would never give them the chance to surprise us.

This was the whole of the invite forwarded to me; no notice necessary. Undoubtedly just listening. These are secrets Whitman would say, but not kept secret.

FYI Sam ( @Banno @Ludwig V )

Lecture by Peter Hacker: “On Certainty Some remarks on the new edition”

The Lecture will take place in ZOOM on November 26 2025, 4–6 pm CET. Please join us at: https://aboakademi.zoom.us/j/68544392354

On Wednesday November 26 the Nordic Wittgenstein Society is happy to host Peter Hacker for the second Nordic Wittgenstein Lecture. His new edition and translation of On Certainty was recently published (2025), and will serve as the background of his talk.

Among the topics he will touch upon are:

Wittgenstein’s limited remarks about the use of ‘to know’ and the contrast between ‘I know’ and ‘He knows’. These are now superseded by Oswald Hanfling’s and Alan White’s analyses.

Wittgenstein’s surprising lack of interest in the relations between being certain and being sure; between the certainty of things and the certainty of people; between making something certain and making certain that something is so.

The relation between knowledge and certainty, between being certain and feeling certain, between making certain and knowing for certain.

Wittgenstein’s powerful criticisms of Moore’s proof of the existence of the external world as well as his analysis of doubt and its limits.

The similarity between propositions of one’s world-picture (noetic framework) and grammatical propositions.

Confusions between kinds of certainty and degrees of certainty, as well as confusions about hinges.

Peter Hacker is Emeritus Fellow at St John’s College, Oxford (UK). He is known as a preeminent Wittgenstein scholar, and the author of numerous publications on Wittgenstein, philosophy, human nature, neuroscience and the human mind (see here for a full list of publications. Besides his own work, he is known for the analytic commentaries on the Philosophical Investigations together with Gordon P. Baker and the 2009 translation of the Philosophical Investigations with Joachim Schulte.

Welcome! – And please feel free to circulate the word.

The event will be hosted and chaired by Camilla Kronqvist.

On behalf of the Board of NWS
Lassi Jakola
Secretary, Nordic Wittgenstein Society
Docent of Philosophy, University of Helsinki

It is, perhaps, a different thing to wonder whether the sceptic may be right and then to try to work out whether that is so. — Ludwig V

I think this is ultimately where he lands (as Cavell will claim) and that he gets into to in the PI.

I tried to post all my notes together and it was 42,000 characters too long, so I’ll leave this as a reading group and post a separate discussion with all my notes so I can have them together. I think a I’ll add a post summarizing my comments on method.

After I give @Ludwig V’ a chance to comment on my response to his latest, I’m going to repost all my commentary in one post, as, by renaming the discussion, no one can search the whole thing anymore to find the sections.

@Ludwig V


Thank you for this. My hope is that I have read the words themselves correctly first and then dug deeper and let it give us everything it can before I jumped to any conclusions or think I’ve got it figured it out ahead of all that, but I’ve maybe made it seem there is only one thing to take away when there is a lot everyone else sees and has rightly brought up not because it conflicts but because different parts catch our interest.

@Paine

Put it this way, seeing these errors as logical makes them seem more appropriate for philosophy. — Ludwig V

I’m interested to hear more. The skeptic’s argument at their word appears to fly in the face of common sense, but yet to make sense to philosophy. I would think we all agree that Witt is not just arguing back with common sense (“The table’s right there!”) and I would hope we could agree that he shows that philosophy has been wrongly restricting what counts as “logic”, and that there is a logic to our different ways of judging each thing. So what are we doing with “appropriate”?

Now I will grant that part of what he is saying is that the skeptic is just doing it wrong; that they are thinking poorly in imposing their standards and creating a picture to have those make sense. And there is an admonishment by examples to do better (philosophically) by realizing the validity of the everyday logic of each thing. I’m happy with that here.

I only worry that in characterizing something as “inappropriate” we fall into thinking we have to guard the gate of what we imagine is logical vs, say, “emotional” (that this is a false dichotomy) when part of what he is doing is trying to make us see we are unnecessarily limiting what is able to be rationally and intelligibly discussed. For example, to bring ethical discussion back from the wilderness that the Tractatus imagined (this is not an argument for emotions).

That is, the temptation is not the temptation of pleasure. It's more like the temptation of taking the first offer for you car because you have better things to do than hang about selling it or putting on yesterday's clothes because that's what you have at hand. — Ludwig V

I agree; he’s not talking about some innate propensity or urge. Witt interchangeably uses the word “inclined”, which I see in the sense that we are set up to think of things a certain way, take a certain position in regard to the other. Partly our next step seems reasonable in the framework forced onto a topic by the analogy of the object (but also queer thus needing philosophy to explain). Thus we see the other as impenetrable if we only approach them as an object of knowledge.

There is also a moral component that something we are inclined to do is not necessarily something we have to do and so perhaps should not do, as, when we reach the bedrock of authority, we can still choose to continue to teach, lead again, listen, discuss why, etc., rather than just bring the hammer of convention down.

But this leaves the place of conviction still on the table. I remembered I had come across this before (bellow), which I took up here, and I see it that when you are inclined or tempted, you are not as yet committed. You have the chance to reflect and realize you are being set up or deluded before you act. And an inclination is not a reason, nor a cause, but we are responsible for our convictions.

‘I cannot know what is going on in with [someone writhing in pain with evident cause]’ is above all a picture. It is the convincing expression of a conviction. It does not give the reasons for the conviction. They are not readily accessible. — Witt, PI (p.223)

So the real question is not what are we tempted by, but what are the reasons for our conviction. Why are they not easy to reach? Is that it takes a lot of the kind of work we’ve done here to see the interests we really have? To get past our self-delusions. Are they withheld?

I'll venture that what W is interested in is not how we actually think, but how we should think - logic justifies its conclusions, psychology merely reports them. — Ludwig V

I agree; for me his work is largely ethical in that sense (like an ethic, a form of conducting yourself). How to think better, deeper, closer, more detail, based on the facts, having a case or example, letting things be what they are, etc. And there is a particular logic that “justifies” conclusions; but of course that is not the only version of logic. And sometimes it’s a matter of showing someone examples of other logics that changes their mind.

from the Tractatus to the PI, the distinction between science and whatever he is doing keeps being reestablished. That difference is often depicted as a limit to what can be explained but he seems hell bent to put it in other ways. — Paine

I agree the comparison with science is key. I don’t think the focus is on the distinction so much as that traditional philosophy wishes it had the same kind of outcomes as science, that matched its completeness, generalizability, predictability, consistency, etc. I take this as what he is talking about that our dissatisfaction with our ordinary criteria (p.59) makes us turn a “muddle” into something that would have an “answer” which is how and why the skeptic becomes “puzzled” (p.58). The restricted standard that the skeptic wants (as in the Tractatus) is what “limits” what they consider “rational” so they don’t recognize that although our ordinary criteria allow for us to get into muddles sometimes, there are also valid, intelligible ways to get out of it (just not ensured to ahead of time).

So, we have discussed previously where W looked at how the desire to be mysterious is recognized as a motive. But there is nothing like a move to make that an explanation for why it always happens. The latter would be an example of a reduction through psychology. — Paine

Sure, I don’t think it is an inherent trait or natural propensity, but it is one intelligible, possible reaction to our human condition of being separate. Another would be to imagine the only fault lies in language.

that we often impose one set of meanings to replace others… does not explain why W does not reduce one set of signs into another. — Paine

I’m not sure what the “set of signs” are, that they would be different (irreducible). The things he has us say are the same. “I can’t feel your pain.” etc. He just shows there are multiples senses of such a phrase which apply different (types of) criteria—allowing us to see the demands of the skeptic. He does say we can “construct new notations, in order to break the spell of those which we are accustomed to” but that is just an exercise to highlight the distinctions we make or could make.