What's the logic of "Pass me the salt"? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, for one thing, it appears to be a request. I would say that it is a claim upon me that is open to refusal, despite anything said in support (even pretty, pretty please)--and maybe there is something specific about the type of support here? But the fact of the unqualified denial of a request differentiates it from a demand, which appears to be based on leverage, consequences ("If you don't ___, then I will ____."; or a command, which would be contingent on authority ("Pass me the salt!" (said to a waiter--however rudely). The other thing about a request seems to be that it can be made of a stranger, or a friend--but it is perhaps a kind of claim not just for help, an expression of need, but a claim to a community possibly? And then what could we imagine we would say to elicit the criteria for the kind of support offered to create community?

Do requests or commands even have truth values? — Srap Tasmaner

Well I use them interchangeably with my 9-yr-old but not my wife, if that helps. That is to say, there are criteria which differentiate one from the other. That they have a categorical identity is also tied to doing them correctly, aptly--not boffing it and inadvertently commanding your wife instead of requesting something of her (this is the value of being apt, or felicitous as Austin says).

"Walking in my shoes" is exactly the type of thing which requires criteria, rules and definitions. Agreeing with each other does not require criteria, rules, etc.. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Walking in my shoes" as an idiom here would mean trying understand me on my terms rather than subject my terms to your standards of judgment. Try to understand that it is a method not a theory; I have repeatedly given examples and samples of Witt's text. And the point here is that agreeing is: agreeing on the description of the grammar of a concept. Agree that to do something mistakenly requires intention, or provide an example of what we say with a context to show there is another point which makes "mistakenly" what it is.

So I requested, that you define "ordinary criteria", in a way which I could understand, and you couldn't, or didn't. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure this is always possible, and in this case I'm guessing not. To understand "ordinary criteria" requires you to let go of a standard of judgment or justification that I take you to consider essential, which I would consider a choice. Again, I tried to show how it was different than what you are familiar with and with what you appear to want. I think you would have to not focus on your understanding of those words (grammar) and look at the examples and the method by which they are reached--a definition (or explaination) is not always sufficient for understanding.

At this point I would say that we do not have a clear understanding between us, as to what "grammar" refers to. I will adhere to a familiar understanding, that grammar refers to some sort of rules which we follow, and I will attempt to demonstrate how it makes sense to interpret "grammar" in this way. If you can show me another way to interpret "grammar" which makes sense to you, then I will attempt to follow you. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have said that grammar are not rules in the exact sense that we do not "follow" them. Also, we agree to rules, or set them, and we have authority over them, etc. None of these things are true for grammar. Of course you can interpret the word "grammar" as you are familiar with, but how does that help us? I have also tried to say that grammar is just a description of the ways in which our lives have come together to create these distinctions and terms of judgment and identity and possibility for each concept. If we assume we do not already have an understanding of meaning, we learn about it by examining what we mean when we say "I meant..."

If you want to show me a method of philosophy, then show me a method of philosophy — Metaphysician Undercover

Is it fair to say that none of the examples I have given, nor the quotes from Witt, have been sufficient to show this method? Have we tried it? Or to counter the implications of what we say when?

Your words are referring to some type of thing or things which you assume exists somewhere, "ordinary criteria", "grammar of a mistake", But you are not describing this thing or things, and when you point toward where the thing ought to be I do not see it, nor do I see any logical possibility that the thing referred to through my normal, familiar, use of those words, could even be there. Therefore you need to provide me with a better description of what you are referring to, so that I might understand your use of those words. — Metaphysician Undercover

We are not using a picture of language that has "words" "referring" to "things" which you assume "exist" "somewhere". Nevertheless, I have repeatedly tried to explain how grammar is just a description of the ways our lives have embodied the things that grammar sees. @Banno brought in a quote from Austin. I tried to show @Janus how a definition is contingent on a world of concepts.

criteria is very explicitly principles for judgement. In language use we have two very distinct types of judgement, choosing one's words, and interpreting the words of others. So if grammar shows some boundaries as to what is correct in language use, and it doesn't refer to rules of correct usage, then can I conclude that it refers to rules of correct interpretation? — Metaphysician Undercover

Skipping over that this is a particular picture of choosing and interpreting words, and a particular idea of "correctness", which I have addressed previously, why can't we describe the possible, categorical ways a concept (not just individual words) can be meant? and what is possible (open) to question (in different contexts)? As I paraphrased Witt earlier, it is not part of the grammar of knowledge to speak of it when there is no possibility of doubt, such as "I'm in pain" compared to "I know I'm in pain".

If the boundaries for choosing words were different from the boundaries for interpreting words, wouldn't this lead to misunderstanding? Where else could you possibly be pointing with "grammar", and "criteria", other than to rules of usage? I just don't see it. That's how the words are normally used, now you want to say that you are pointing to something different than this, but what could that different thing possibly be? — Metaphysician Undercover

The whole point of Witt's PI in describing our shared grammar is to show that words don't always "point" to a "thing". With that in mind, our grammar describe the ways we live our lives. As I have said again and again, this is not about language "usage" as in conscious reasons we say one thing or another. We don't decide how to apologize, we apologize. There are criteria (measures) of the boundaries for this, practices, conditions, ways to judge, etc.--these are just our lives.

First, as you say to 'practice a mistake' has very confusing implications. No one practices a mistake. Couldn't you have found a better way to say what you wanted here? I assume you are asking 'what does it mean to make a mistake?'. — Metaphysician Undercover

What I meant was that a concept is like a practice in the sense of a way of doing something.

Why must we "find differences"... "animal" is a descriptive term used for describing "human being". In describing a thing we do not assume to have to distinguish that thing from other things, we do the exact opposite, compare it to others, looking for similarities, to establish its type. The differences are what is obvious to us, we don't have to find them, as they normally jump out at us, to describe the thing we look for points of similarity, and make comparisons. — Metaphysician Undercover

Obviously we can compare a concept's grammar to others--grammar is like context in that what we focus on is dictated by what we would like/need to investigate it for. So it is helpful to categorize groups of concepts together, as Austin does. But he also gets into the differences in types of excuses in order to show the ways our actions are considered moral or can be qualified to avoid our responsibility.

But you really lose me with "Grammar of intention". What is the point of "Grammar" here? It appears to serve no purpose but to distract, as if you are talking about Grammar when you are really talking about intention. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think describing the ways in which intention works--its conditions, its place, when it comes up, how it is possible to discuss, how we question it--are the same as "talking" about "intention". These are not justified "true" statements explaining intention, it is a claim about what is implied in examining and describing what we say when we talk about intending.

Clearly you are talking about intention rather than grammar, as you proceed with "you do not intend anything when you have an accident". However, this statement is itself mistaken. "Doing something" always involves intention, so even when there's a mistake or an accident there is still something intended. So a mistake, or an accident, is an unintended feature of an intentional act. Therefore the fact that there was an accident is insufficient for the claim that intention was not present. — Metaphysician Undercover

Must We Mean What We Say is to a essay by Cavell that does a great job of explaining Austin''s claim from the description of the examples he gives of what we say which show that intention, as I have said above a few times, (usually) only comes up when something about an act is "fishy" he says. ("Did you intend to...?") The traditional picture is that every act or expression is "intended", as the same picture that every expression is "meant". Of course "doing something" (which is unclear), which I take as consciously deciding to act, can be done deliberately, after consideration, in the hope of a certain outcome, etc. And we can ask, what was your intention?, and I can answer along these lines. But most times, actions are not intended, and one part of the grammar of doing something accidentally is that we are not culpable because we did not intend for it to happen--"I" do not come into it, so I can not intend to "do something" accidentally (though I might intentionally make it look like I did it accidentally, or intentionally say it was done accidentally--more of the grammar of accidentally).

We might however, use this fact, the occurrence of a mistake, as evidence that Grammar wasn't present. Let's do that instead shall we? Now we have evidence of intention without grammar. And we appear to have no principle whereby grammar could be brought into intention. So "the Grammar of intention" is a misnomer, a mistaken use of words which we need to reject. As you ought to be able to see, grammar is not inherent to intention, but extrinsic to it. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think this might be an assumption of some causality or necessity. I thought I have made clear that Grammar may not be present (conscious), but what it describes is inherent in the concept (the life in it). It is not just made up rules or some theory about words; it is a description of ways in which intention works, what matters to us, what counts for it, the reasoning it has, and the ways it falls apart. This is not an explaination nor a justification nor the reasons we use nor the ways we discuss it. Intention is part of the world, which is inherent in it. Grammar is merely the explication by description of these ways of the world that make up, are embodied in, as Austin says above, intention.

Grammar is not any part of a mistake. Grammar is brought into existence intentionally, to serve a purpose, and that purpose is to avoid mistakes, to exclude the possibility of mistakes. The "conditions of/for a mistake" are the absence of appropriate grammar. If the appropriate grammar was there, there would not have been a mistake. So we can see that since "mistakes are part of our lives", so is the absence of grammar. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would not say Grammar is "part" of a concept. It isn't part of its makeup--it describes what counts for a concept (among of things). Looking at the grammar of a concept has different reasons, and it might be said that someone might reflect on it in order not to run afoul, or, as discussed, someone might look at what makes an expression what it is (literary/art criticism (see my discussion in the Aesthetics as Objective post), political speech, come to mind), but OLP is also using the investigation of grammar to shed light on our traditional philosophical issues. The point is not to "avoid mistakes" or "exclude their possibility". I would say that is the desire of the philosophy OLP is trying to revolutionize. Studying grammar shows us the way mistakes work--how they are identified, how corrected, the responsibility I have to what I say.

It is not the phrase itself which has a grammar, it is the people using the phrase which have grammar. It really doesn't make any sense to say that there is grammar within the spoken words. How would we locate this grammar in our attempts to interpret the words? As I explained above, we apply grammar. — Metaphysician Undercover

Now here we are way off into a picture of communication that Witt spends half of PI trying to unravel. Yes, grammar is public. It is both within the expression and in our lives because those are woven together. We do not "have" or control grammar or meaning (use it any way we like) anymore than we "have" or control the ways we share our lives. An apology is an apology despite what you want it to be. A concept has different senses (options, possibilities) in which it can be used, but "sense" is not some quality an expression has which is applied by intention or "meaning" (or "thought"). We do not "apply" grammar. Our expressions use concepts which are embed in the shared lives we already have.

It makes no sense to say that the grammar is within the words, "meaning", "knowing", "understanding". Where could it possibly be hiding? Instead, we follow a grammar when using the words (speaking), and interpreting the words. Otherwise we have no way to understand the nature of misunderstanding. If the grammar was in the spoken words, then either we'd perceive it (and understand), or not. To allow for the possibility of misunderstand, we allow that the words are apprehended, but improperly interpreted. Then what does "improperly interpreted" mean other than not applying the correct grammar? So we must allow that "grammar" is the rules we follow in choosing words and interpreting words. — Metaphysician Undercover

Grammar is forgotten (not hiding, or "in" an expression, readily viewable) because we just handle things in our lives--thus philosophy's images of turning (in caves), and reflecting, and looking back, remembering, etc. Thus we have to see it indirectly in the kinds of things we say when we talk of a concept. Again, we do not use grammar (directly) to clear up misunderstandings ("interpret words" plays into the picture I describe above). "Misunderstanding" has grammar as well, and so ordinary ways in which it is handled. Concepts have different senses so which one is being used might need to be cleared up ("improperly interpreted?"); also, you may break the concept expected in a particular context, but that can be fixed in ways everyone understands (drawing out the context, making excuses); etc. Our lives have much more depth than we give it credit for. To have one theory of how language works is a picture that, for example, we always "choose" words and that words always need to be "interpreted": e.g., I mean something (applying my rules and "my context") and then you interpret that (with your rules and from "your context"), or some such explanation.

If you follow me so far, I can tell you about a third condition, and this one is the most difficult to understand. The third condition is the willingness to follow, or adhere to the grammar. as we are free willing beings, their is some tendency for us to drift off into some sort of random actions, or trial and error situations. Here again we would have no grammar in our intentions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, again, the picture of "intention" (as casually or ever-present) is getting in the way, as well as the idea that grammar is somehow a justification, reason, or conscious necessity. That being said, this is a good thing to bring up. We do not "have" to follow the ways our lives come together. We can act randomly, or even act rationally (or emotionally) but revolutionarily (against our concepts or taking them into new contexts). We can act flippantly, playfully, experimentally, etc. All of those things are specifically possible because of the grammar for each concept being specific to it and flexible in those ways (even those concepts).

I will just point out, as I did above with @Joshs, that Witt and Austin and Cavell (and Emerson) see our relationship with our expressions as giving ourselves over to them, choosing (if that is the case) to express, and then that expression speaks for us, but also reveals us (in its having been expressed). We say it, then we are responsible for it (which we can shirk), so answerable to the other to make it intelligible, even why it was meaningful to say it, here, now; describe, in what matters for this concept, what matters to me, to make clear to you.

This would mean that a person's grammar is developed individually from another person's, through one's social interactions for example. But this implies that a person goes into the social interactions, in the original condition (as a child), without grammar. And, the person must still be capable of communicating, in that original condition, in order to learn the grammar, without having any grammar. Therefore grammar is not a fundamental aspect of communication — Metaphysician Undercover

We learn how to communicate in learning our concepts which is to say what matters about our lives, the distinctions we need to make, the way an apology works, etc. Witt has many instances of a student or child and how we take them through something (like training) and see if they can follow on or continue a series, etc. Learning our lives and learning our concepts happens at the same time. That is not to say we are not sometimes without words, but as I discussed that above with Joshs, this is not to say we don't have the means of expression, even without words (is violence a concept?), but that we are nonetheless responsible to make ourselves intelligible.

In #90 the statements we say about concepts show us their possibilities; these possibilities are part of its Grammar--this concept can do that and this, but if it tries to do this other, than it is no longer that concept. When does a game just become play? The concept of knowledge has different possibilities (senses, options) and each is distinguished by its Grammar.
— Antony Nickles

So here's the dilemma for you Antony. Can the word "grammar" be successfully used in the way that Wittgenstein demonstrates, which is to go outside of the concept's grammar? If so, then it's not true that a concept's grammar is what determines its possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover

A concept's grammar" does not "determine" anything. Its possibilities are a part of our lives and the way language can move into new contexts or our lives change or the possibility of justice is lost or dies to degenerate times, but we can find it by turning to look and bring it back to life in our expression.

The issue was how to distinguish a mistake from an accident in order to ensure that the correct word is used to describe the situation.. And, as I demonstrated, sometimes a mistake is also an accident, and in those instances the accident would also be a mistake. What makes one of those a better choice of words in these instances? — Metaphysician Undercover

The fact that we can switch one synonymous word for another shows that our words don't hold the meaning so much as the context/our lives in a way allow for it, and shows the fact that the difference between mistakenly and accidentally does not matter in that instance, nothing hinges on it then. But just because in most circumstances you can be sloppy with language does not make that demonstrable of anything.

We can say that an accident in some cases is the result of a mistake, the consequences of. But a mistake might also be the consequences of another mistake, or some other unforeseen thing, making the mistake itself an accident. So in many instances the same thing could be correctly called an accident or a mistake. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, speaking of sloppy language, I'm gonna have to get both my foot and some crow out of my mouth @Janus. I just realized I (inadvertently? unintentionally?) lost track over the posts that the point of Austin's examples was to understand intention so they were examples of excuses for action (Austin has a whole essay). So I have meant to be strictly describing the grammar of how an action can be done accidentally or mistakenly (not all senses of mistake and accident). Ugh; "I'll not trust his word after!"

But if you aren't ready to kill me yet, this is a good exercise.

Now we can say "I accidentally went through the intersection." and here we can imagine my foot slipped off the brake (which I did not intend). And "I mistakenly went through the intersection." (is a crappy examples again). Here I could say "I intended to go into the turn lane", or "I only meant to creep up to the edge of the intersection." And thus part of OLP is imagining cases (contexts) to fill out what we say in order to see what it means for the grammar of the two concepts and what they show about intention.

Again sorry for the confusion. Saying things over and over tend to take the punch out of em.

To say Witt is corrective is not to say he is convincing people to "now believe" in language games. He is doing more than changing the subject; he is hoping you see what you desired of the picture, and then to turn around and see a better way (method) to see our actual desires.
— Antony Nickles

What does it mean to see a better way? If you’ve read Kuhn, you know that embracing a ‘better’ scientific theory always implies a change of subject. — Joshs

I guess in this analogy I would not say a different subject (nor a different theory either), but a better method, as in different than the scientific one.

I think you, Austin and Cavell are holding onto a version of realism along with Putnam, who has nothing but praise for Cavell, and this puts you at odds with Rorty and a thoroughgoing postmodernism. — Joshs

I don't know what "realism" is but I've always been wary of labels. I find there is always something worth learning even if not everything is agreeable or correct. And I don't know Rorty at all, but from what I've been told, the idea of "postmodern" is something like we are past the traditional concerns of analytical philosophy. So Plato created the Forms, Descartes ended up in outer space, Marx thought humans were good under it all--you're not going to learn something in reading them? Like theory is more important then "the dark path" as Hegel put it?

Dictionaries are based on ordinary, everyday usage and are constantly being revised, so why should they not be fair guides to the meanings of terms? — Janus

I'm not going to say it's a terrible place to start but it is only one way, and which gives the impression the word carries its meanings around as a definition. Understanding words "independently" as I said would be independent of how and when they are expressed (in what contexts, to whom, what counts as a reason, a misuse, how are those corrected...). You say we don't have "precise" meanings, but what if "meaning" wasn't just in a web of "associated ideas" but a whole life. Cavell has us imagine looking up a word that turns out to be an Eskimo kayak, and he asks did the dictionary bring us the world, or did we bring the whole world to the dictionary?--we already knew what a boat was, an Eskimo, vehicles of travel, etc. to learn the "meaning" of the word.

it would also be a mistake to think that exploration is not required for making good maps, or to think that having drawn the map you've actually been everywhere you want to go. — Srap Tasmaner

I wonder what Witt's image of bumping into things to find our way adds to this. I'll have find that.

Are there other ways that frameworks get forced on people? If there is a desire for certainty, is this universal, or it it possible some people don’t have this desire for certainty? — Joshs

Well Cavell would say the human condition is universal (to humans), in the sense that we are separate bodies. I am responsible for what I say, and answerable for that to you (and, as the other), to make myself intelligible. But nothing is more human than to want to escape being seen by what I say, to want our words to work perfectly without us, yet not have meaning unless I give it. The human desire not to be human. In philosophers it is the desire for certainty (or the seeming acceptance of skepticism while trying to escape/work around it as well), to close the gap, in a way, with the mind. Descartes, Plato, Kant, early Wittgenstein... And I wouldn't put this as a framework or aspect to be seen or not, but some people don't care about these things of course, even some philosophers.

Witt talks a lot about how language forces a picture on us. One point is the idea that if: the word "tree"=tree than all of language works that way. And if each word has a "meaning" we can look at a group of words, each one independently, without any overall concept in a context, and talk ourselves into a picture that makes them understandable. "I only see the appearance of a chair." and... well, that's the only example I have on the tip of my tongue, but the Interlocutor in the PI says a lot of things that seem to be understoodable; and Witt and Austin just started asking: but when would we say this?

What is meant by "the grammar of a mistake"? If "grammar" concerns rules of correct usage, and a "mistake" is to do something incorrectly, then how could a mistake have grammar? Doesn't "grammar of a mistake" seem oxymoronic to you? — Metaphysician Undercover

With a lot of this I feel like a few things are happening (which happen between people a lot):

1) you insist on your terms and your framework (and your criteria for judging what I say) instead of working to see my terms and how what I am saying requires you to see everything in a new way (walking in my shoes is exactly the method of OLP--trying to see what I see).
2) we are getting side-tracked on every little statement I make if it doesn't fit what you believe even if it isn't part of my trying to explain a different method of philosophy, instead of having to justify every little thing.
3) OLP is not taken seriously enough; by which I mean it is entirely outside the normal framework of traditional analytic philosophy, and thus requirements seeing it differently.
4) the points I have made above or to other participants are getting forgotten or lost and so I am having to repeat myself.

Of course, this is just how philosophy goes sometimes.

I do think you may be taking "grammar" too literally (as regularly defined), but I'm not sure this is all wrong. (Though Witt does differentiate Grammar from "rules" in many different ways (we don't "follow" Grammar), but that is a rabbit hole.) Grammar does show the boundaries of what would be considered a "correct" or apt apology (but this type of criteria does not work for, say, intending--though we may find the Grammar of what is or is not part of intending). And there can be different "uses" (senses) of a concept (like: I know, above), and Grammar does differentiate between these. But the phrase "rules of correct usage" makes it seem like we are looking for something to ensure "usage"; maybe, of meaning, or communication, etc. that would be "correct" as in justified or certain.

In any event, moving on, the focus is the "concept" of a mistake--we could call it the "practice" of a mistake (though that has confusing implications). And looking at what we imply when we say "I made a mistake" is to find differences that make it distinct (in our lives) from, say, an accident (this differentiation is "part of the Grammer" as Witt says). If I can say "what did you intend to do there?" we learn that part of the Grammar of intention is that it is not always present--you do not intend anything when you have an accident, or (usually) if you do something in the ordinary course. These are, in a sense, categorical claims, procedural claims, claims of distinctions, etc. So it is a different level of investigation than just how language is justified--these aren't rules about language or communication, they are what matters and counts in our lives--we are simply turning to look at them.

With OLP we are not "judging" (or justifying) the action, we are making a claim to our observation of the grammar (my claim, your concession to it), and the evidence is the example of what we say when we talk of accidents, or mistakes. So we are not doing the judging; people just make mistakes and accidents happen, and these are part of our lives, as is the deciding between them--which is what OLP looks at.
— Antony Nickles

Can't you see though, that this is a judgement in itself? To say that something is a "mistake", or it is an "accident", implies that you have made that judgement. It's hypocritical to say to a person, "I'm not judging you", but then proceed to talk about what the person has done as a :"mistake". So in reality, you really are judging, by referring to things as mistakes or accidents. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, this got all twisted up. OLP is not "saying" something is a "mistake". It is making a claim to the conditions of/for a mistake--you can call that "judging" the example, but the point is to see the grammatical claim. Now, yes, another philosopher might hear the grammatical claim and say, "no, you haven't got that right." At which point they might say "The context would be different", or "the implication does not have that force." (This happens between Cavell and Ryle). But the point is you have the means and grist with which to have a discussion. I was trying to say this is not the normal conversation that people would have to figure out if it was a mistake or an accident--people in a sense "assume" (though this is misleading) the things that philosophers would call Grammar because mistakes are part of our lives. We are not trying to justify whether it was one or the other, we are discerning what makes it so by investigating what we mean (imply) when we talk about it.

Choice of words implies judgement, and that's why we can categorize language use as an action. And we assume that this activity is carried out through some form of intention, like other human acts. The difficult aspect about language use is that it is activity which is often carried on rapidly, in an habitual way, therefore with very little thought. So we're faced with the question of how does intention play a role in an activity carried out with very little thought, and no immediate indications of intention even being present. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well I don't want to get side-tracked here--Austin has a whole essay about "intention" and Cavell's essay "Must We Mean What We Say" (a link is above to Banno). First, not every motion is an action (even, "try really hard to move your finger"--is there a point to calling this an "action"?), and this is not to say all actions are intended. As I discussed above, we find that something has to be wrong or off about something for someone to ask "Did you intend to do that [shoot the cow]?" So choice of words "may" be important ("Choose your words carefully, she's grieving"), though most of the time we do not "choose" our words, nor say them with "intention" (nor "meaning"). Witt will even say there is no space between our expression and our pain.

#244 "So you are saying that the word 'pain' really means crying?"— On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it.
#245. For how can I go so far as to try to use language to get between pain and its expression?"

And these statements are claims to the Grammar of intention and expression.

we relate to what has been said through "meaning" implying what was meant, or intended. Therefore there is a serious gap here, a hole in our knowledge. We assume to know what was meant or intended, by an act in which intention is barely evident. So we turn to something completely other than the speaker's intention to justify our interpretations. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Meaning" can be the same thing as "intending", as: "Did you mean to offend them? or did you not know their history when you made that joke?" But we also want to clarify "Did you mean to tell me to fold the dough, or kneed it?" or definitional "What does anthropomorphic mean?" These are all different senses of when we say "I mean" or you ask "Did you mean?" Each will have its own grammar. We do not get someone's meaning by, as Witt will say, "guessing thoughts". And you speak of a "gap" in our "knowledge". And this is a picture caused by (Cavell will say) the fact of our being separate turned into an intellectual lack (problem). We do have things we say in situations, so we do not always (have to) "interpret" what another say. To say that there is a "gap" for Witt is the fact we can be opaque to one another, and so to fill that gap is to ask about meaning (or, yes, assume, and see where that gets you). It is "we" that are responsible to each other for meaning--after (usually), not before; though we can imagine a case in which you can be irresponsible (lazy) in what you say. This is also to bring up the fact discussed before that our expressions and our lives are out there, public, so when we say something, even though we don't (necessarily) "choose" it, we are bound to it, fated to its implications and the consequences of having said it--this is the realm of meaning: what is meaningful to us, what counts for something, what differences have been made, etc.--all the things Grammar uncovers of what matters in our lives.

The hole, or gap is only closed by skepticism. — Metaphysician Undercover

Witt would say that the fear of radical skepticism creates a certain picture of the "gap" (and thus the way that it must be bridged (with knowledge, certainty, justification, etc.).

You say for instance, "grammar of a mistake", I recognize that I might very easily misunderstand what you mean by this, so I question you in a skeptical way. Now, we'll see what comes out of this, but the way I see it, is that very often on this forum, people cannot explain what they mean when questioned about a phrase they have used. This fact provides another piece of evidence. Not only do people appear to be talking away habitually, without thought or intention entering into what they are saying, but even when questioned about what they mean by what they have said, sometimes they cannot even determine what they themselves intended. The evidence therefore, is that there are speech acts with very little if any intention, thus very little meaning, yet they appear to be correct grammatically. — Metaphysician Undercover

Just two things: calling a speech act grammatically correct (not of course correct in regular grammar) does nothing to ensure understanding. Second, one might choose their words very carefully (as is necessary in philosophy as opposed to regular life), and it might be the other is not doing their part in understanding, but rather just insisting on justification or explanation on their terms.

What OLP is doing is looking at Grammar to: 1) show that philosophy's preoccupation with a picture where there is one explanation (for speech, say) is confused by our desire for certainty...
— Antony Nickles

This I believe is a misrepresentation of philosophy. It is not preoccupied by this 'one picture', or 'one explanation'. * * * A philosopher might appear preoccupied in skepticism, with the question of what validates that particular explanation (definition), the one employed by the mathematician as the ideal. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I tried to explain above, instead of dragging it out, when I say "philosophy" I mean analytical philosophy like metaphysics, positivism (the Vienna Circle), representationalism, Descartes, Kant (partly), early Witt, A.J. Ayer, etc. And, yes, it is the "preoccupation in skepticism" that is the slippery slope to wanting the ideal (or approximating it), and ignoring the rest.

Take Plato's dialectical method for example. Each dialogue takes a term, like love, courage, friendship, knowledge, or just, and investigates the various different ways that the word is used. The implication is, that if there was an ideal, the ideal would validate the correct definition, therefore correct use of the term. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would offer that Socrates method is analogous to OLP's. The only issue is that (and I think this is the way Plato pictures it) he doesn't stop at the end of each discussion and see that we have learned something of the way justice works when we look at the implications of saying "justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger." (The guy's not "wrong".) Now I would say it is the fixation on the standard that will satisfy us which creates the necessity of the Forms (and the loss of the rest of the discussion).

Clearly this is folly, to claim that we can have "rationality and logic and truth value" without justification. — Metaphysician Undercover

And this is Austin's point in Sense and Sensibilia. That picturing language as just being statements that are either true or false (because they are justified), is to ignore all the different ways which language has (the value of) truth, rationality, and logic (these of course being different than you'd like I imagine). The one example I have given is felicity (aptness). To pull off an apology aptly is to do it correctly--the right way. And the grammar of a concept just is what counts as rationale and what fits. To say you MUST do an apology a certain way, is not to claim authority to ensure norms--you can do whatever you like. But if you don't do certain things, it's not really an apology is it? This is the categorical nature of concepts (sort of like Kant's except every word in a sense).

Therefore we ought to conclude that interpretation, and explanation, the aspects of language use which philosophers are interested in, cannot be deferred to grammar or criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

OLP's tools are imagining examples of what we say and describing what we see. Thus its powerlessness to ensure your interest.

But this doesn't make sense to say that there is a particular grammar for each unique action. * * * if we say that each particular action has a description unique to it, how could we call unique, distinct, and different incidents, as following "a grammar"? — Metaphysician Undercover

I would put it that there is Grammar for each "class" or "type" of action (I'm not sure I would say "unique" because they overlap, etc. (as if family resemblances); and one might get the idea we are talking about each individual act.) So each concept, e.g., --"meaning", "knowing", "understanding"--all have associated "grammar" (multiple, and extendable, as much as our lives). Now we are tripping up on "incident" again as well--some incidents are not (grammatically) distinct from each other; we will only come up against grammar when necessary, and, even then, the discussion may not be "about" grammar (just along its lines as it were). Maybe it helps to point out that we are not "following" grammar, that we are just meaning, knowing, understanding, having accidents, making mistakes.

But every circumstance is unique, time and space are that way, despite what you say about the way that we align our lives. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is true, but only meaningful to the extent it is necessary; say, to flesh out the context to clear up something or frame what we were referring to, etc.

Why do you feel the urge to think that there is always 'concepts' involved when people are speaking? Why not just start with the evidence, and basic facts, that people are doing something with words? If, when we proceed to analyze what they are doing with words, the need to assume concepts comes up, then we can deal with that. But until that point I see this assumption of "concepts" as misleading. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well a lot of expressions involve multiple concepts (asking while being threatening), but can we imagine an expression where none was involved? Maybe, but what would that sound like? And that's not to say all or any of the concepts that could be pointed out need to be, or can be easily (passive-aggression). But I would think that "doing something with words" comes close to the idea of concepts, but are we "always" doing something? or, more importantly, are we always doing one thing--e.g., what I mean, what you understand, or something theory/explanation about how all that (all) happens.

I see your assumption of "concepts" as directly opposed to what you say that OLP is telling you: 'What OLP is doing is looking at Grammar to: 1) show that philosophy's preoccupation with a picture where there is one explanation (for speech, say) is confused by our desire for certainty'. You have just replaced the 'picture which can give certainty' with 'concept'. — Metaphysician Undercover

OLP is not looking for certainty, nor is it a theory; it's a method, it's a description.

This is what I'll ask of you, as a proposition, to enable our capacity to proceed in a manner of discussion which is acceptable to both of us. Can we start simply with the idea that in language and communication people are 'doing something with words'. We cannot assume "concepts", nor can we assume "grammar", or "criteria", or any such type of principles or rules as prerequisite for 'doing something with words'. — Metaphysician Undercover

The prerequisite for all of it is our shared lives (not agreed; nor as a fallback for justification); our attunements, the way we judge, feel pain, spot folly, apologize, intend... We are looking (at what we say when) not explaining.

let's start with the assumption that a human being is free to act as one pleases, and if the need to assume some sort of grammar appears to arise, we can discuss that need. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, not assuming, looking. And, yes, you can act however you'd like, but, in doing so, you're not going to be apologizing, or threatening, etc.

So, I further propose that this type of action, customary, habitual, familiar, and ordinary acts, are carried out with little, if any, reference to grammar in the performing of those acts. * * * thought is not directed toward, or by, grammar, it is directed by the intent to bring about the desired consequences in the particular context or circumstances. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes people do not usually "refer" to grammar (not sure what this would sound like), this is why philosophy needs to turn and look at examples of: what is said when, in order to see it.

And your mention of "thought" appears to be in the sense of: consideration, or deliberation, or strategizing, etc. but even with all that I would agree that people do not "refer" to grammar, but they might consider the implications, possible misunderstandings, etc. before they speak, and these would be part of the grammar of a concept. They might not consider the way we "mean" what we say (the concept of meaning); or contemplate the criteria for an apology before apologizing; but maybe they would consider our history of determining what is just before they discuss justice. All that is to say some concepts are more transparent than others.

Because of this progression of knowledge, this philosophical need for evolution or advancement of knowledge, there is a need for a progression and evolution of language as required to capacitate the evolution of knowledge. Therefore there is a need for philosophy to "redesign language", and use language in a way initially perceived as "abnormal", or else we could not venture into the unknown with the intent to make it known. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'll grant you that philosophy does create a lot of "terms" (even Wittgenstein). It is the entire framework that is re-designed in this traditional form of philosophy; a (unbeknownst) manufactured picture. The story you are telling is what: knowledge as fact? knowledge as a better theory (of, say, meaning)? I'm not saying language does not progress or evolve; our concepts have the ability to stretch into new contexts as our lives do, as poetry does; but traditional philosophy cleared all our ordinary criteria out of the way to make its own space, where it floats and never touches anything.

So be it. To strike out is to show one should stick to his own game. — Mww

I appreciate the attempt.

I have to be honest here: call me obtuse, but I have to say I don't have any idea what Wittgenstein is getting at in those passages from PI. Can it be explained in plain language? — Janus

Don't worry about the points. The reason I picked them is it shows the method of OLP - it looks at what we imply, etc. when we say___. And I was trying to give a flavor of what "Grammar" is for Witt.

What we learned about (the Grammar of) Memory in #56 is: we do not always resort to what memory tells us as the verdict of the highest court of appeal. (That it is certain and a perfect copy). This is (grammatically) a constraint on this concept.

In #90 the statements we say about concepts show us their possibilities; these possibilities are part of its Grammar--this concept can do that and this, but if it tries to do this other, than it is no longer that concept. When does a game just become play? The concept of knowledge has different possibilities (senses, options) and each is distinguished by its Grammar.

In #572 "Expectation is a state" is a claim to its Grammar--to be expecting is to be in a state; that's how expecting works. And we see this when we say: "What counts as a criterion for expecting [being in that state]?" And criteria here being special as well, tied to "what counts as".

#573 has a lot of: when do we say, what do we regard, etc. And the "answers to these questions" shows us what it is that gets treated as a state, grammatically--which is to say, what (criteria) forms its category, what differentiates it from feelings, its relation to time, etc.

In #574 to call the statement "believing is not thinking" a grammatical remark is to say that it is not a statement that Witt is claiming is true (relying on some logic or justification). It is an OLP claim that structurally, categorically, the process and identity of believing is not the same as that of thinking. I have discussed above how an accident is grammatically different than a mistake--not to claim that they are different, but how.

All: @Mww@Joshs@Banno@Metaphysician Undercover@Srap Tasmaner@Luke@Janus

I think it might help to see examples of Wittgenstein showing how we see Grammar and what it consists of. I have underlined and put in bold some phrases [and added some comments] that might allow you to see the method of OLP (that what we say reveals something):

#56 "But what if no such sample is part of the language, and we bear in mind the colour (for instance) that a word stands for?——"And if we bear it in mind then it comes before our mind's eye when we utter the word. So, if it is always supposed to be possible for us to remember it, it must be in itself indestructible."——But what do we regard as the criterion for remembering it right?—When we work with a sample instead of our memory there are circumstances in which we say that the sample has changed colour and we judge of this by memory. But can we not sometimes speak of a darkening (for example) of our memory-image? Aren't we as much at the mercy of memory as of a sample? (For someone might feel like saying: "If we had no memory we should be at the mercy of a sample".)—Or perhaps of some chemical reaction. Imagine that you were supposed to paint a particular colour "C", which was the colour that appeared when the chemical substances X and Y combined.—Suppose that the colour struck you as brighter on one day than on another; would you not sometimes say: "I must be wrong, the colour is certainly the same as yesterday"? This shews that we do not always resort to what memory tells us as the verdict of the highest court of appeal." [ A Grammatical claim ]

#90 "We feel as if we had to penetrate phenomena: our investigation, however, is directed not towards phenomena, but, as one might say, towards the 'possibilities' of phenomena [ the concept of phenomena ]. We remind ourselves, that is to say, of the kind of statement that we make about phenomena. * * Our investigation is therefore a grammatical one.""

P. 59 or 90 "(a) "Understanding a word": a state. But a mental state?—Depression, excitement, pain, are called mental states. Carry out a grammatical investigation as follows: we say
"He was depressed the whole day".
"He was in great excitement the whole day".
"He has been in continuous pain since yesterday".—
We also say "Since yesterday I have understood this word". "Continuously", though?—To be sure, one can speak of an interruption of understanding. But in what cases? Compare: "When did your pains get less?" and "When did you stop understanding that word?""

#199 "Is what we call "obeying a rule" something that it would be possible for only one man to do, and to do only once in his life?— This is of course a note on the grammar of the expression "to obey a rule"." [ The concept of obeying a rule ]

#353 "Asking whether and how a proposition can be verified is only a particular way of asking "How d'you mean?" The answer is a contribution to the grammar of the proposition."

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

#573 "To have an opinion is a state.—A state of what? Of the soul? Of the mind? Well, of what object does one say that it has an opinion? Of Mr. N.N. for example. And that is the correct answer.
One should not expect to be enlightened by the answer to that question. Others go deeper: What, in particular cases, do we regard as criteria for someone's being of such-and-such an opinion? When do we say: he reached this opinion at that time? When: he has altered his opinion? And so on. The picture which the answers to these questions give us shews what gets treated grammatically as a state here."

#574 "A proposition, and hence in another sense a thought, can be the 'expression' of belief, hope, expectation, etc. But believing is not thinking. (A grammatical remark.)"

#692 "Is it correct for someone to say: "When I gave you this rule, I meant you to ..... in this case"? Even if he did not think of this case at all as he gave the rule? Of course it is correct. For "to mean it" did not mean: to think of it. But now the problem is: how are we to judge whether someone meant such-and-such?—The fact that he has, for example, mastered a particular technique in arithmetic and algebra, and that he taught someone else the expansion of a series in the usual way, is such a criterion. [ Part of the Grammar of meaning, criteria of judging ]

Ordinary language can be taken as the content of any linguistic engagement, thus OLP can then be taken as each rational being’s internal ground for his philosophizing by means of that content, and such philosophizing suffices as that by which such internal ground is represented.

From here, it makes sense that he intends differing meanings for articles of his linguistic engagement depending on the differing contexts of its expression, all in accordance with an overarching personal philosophy with respect to all of them. As such, each engagement is itself a measure, or an example, of a philosophy.

How’m I doing? Close? Ballpark? — Mww

I hate to say it, because I appreciate the effort, but this is, metaphorically, not even playing baseball in terms of describing OLP.

OLP is not a theory nor the "content of linguistic engagement"; it is a philosophical method, to learn about our lives. The process was first used by Witt and Austin to show a picture--as it turns out, exactly the one you are trying to understand it within. Now, the Grammar of a "concept"--Witt's term, not, like, an "idea", rather, e.g., apologizing, walking, knowing, sitting in a chair)--is a description (the Grammar is) of what is meaningful about these "concepts"--what counts for it being that (or not), what matters in its judgments, the distinctions that are made, the interests involved, etc. As Austin is quoted above as saying, all the things embedded from living our lives for thousands of years.

Grammar is not discussed (usually), so much as lived (we know, apologize, etc.). Though we reflect (doing philosophy) on them through examining what we say, e.g., "I didn't intend to shoot the cow" (It was a mistake, I meant to shoot the donkey).

And Grammar does not serve as "grounds", as in justification or to ensure meaning ("forms of life" or agreement). As an example, "intention" (above) is found not always to be present, and thus not casual for "meaning", which is also seen as not in any form an object. Try to imagine why and when we would say: "What did you mean when you... ?" and then look for the grammar of it--say, for one, something has to be wrong in order to ask what you mean (that is a categorical necessity), or, we don't always ask, and then, we don't always "mean" something, or maybe something particular, or what you might misunderstand the meaning of.

The grammar is public; that is it is "external" and shared--in the way our lives are shared (not that people explicitly know it, or use it to argue--some things we just do or say without "knowing" the grammar, though we can make/judge a claim about it. Think of Socrates asking about the Good, Justice, and getting answers/judgements from strangers). It is "claimed" to be universal by the philosopher, subject to your seeing it as well, showing it to yourself. Also, Witt and Austin are fighting the picture of an idea being "represented", along with a word "having" a meaning, something internal corresponding with anything else.

OLP makes a claim to those ways and means and identity (a concept's Grammar) in order to learn about our philosophical questions--first, to show that there are as many ways of rationality and justification, etc. as there are concepts (though of course things overlap); and second, about the problems we have of other minds, skepticism, morality, reason, etc.

It is not that each occurrence is an example; we are describing examples of what is said about the concept in order to investigate the Grammar--more public and general than looking at each occurrence and our opinion or "personal philosophy" with respect to "all of them" (articles?).

"Ordinary" in this instance implies normal, does it not? As if there is a customary, familiar, or habitual, normal, or "ordinary" way of making this decision as to whether it was an accident or a mistake..
— Metaphysician Undercover

Just look up dictionary definitions of the two words and see if there is any consistent conceptual difference. — Janus

I have been going back and forth with @Metaphysician Undercover about the role "concept" plays in the Philosophicl Investigations because it is not a concept as in "idea". He uses it as a technical term, only to say as his own way of categorizing the type of expressions and actions for which we don't set the standards and thus need to investigate their criteria (grammar), another specific term, before we know what they actually are (meaning, intending, thinking--though also to show everyday concepts like sitting in a chair, or a game, or apologies, are subject to the same investigation/mystery--we don't usually think about).

All this to say, with these two words, we are not going to find our answers in a dictionary. I will also throw out there that a definition is one type of description of, say, intention, but the idea that we understand every word independently is one way we get into problems with the picture of how language works.

As Witt says, "back to the rough ground!" — Luke

Thank you, I understand your being wary of talking about something "higher". A reticence that I have is that philosophy does want something higher, a more complete understanding, to better ourselves, to rise above what can be lazy, nasty, partisan, ineffective, unintelligible, etc. I think OLP provides the possibiity of that in taking us from: grasping for a goal of certainty to have it slip away, to waiting to see the grammar that provide the humble dirt from which to begin that work.

Rorty and I are both claiming that Cavell is assuming a logical connection between such situations as believing in the picture theory of meaning and Wittgenstein’s corrective of that thinking. Instead, we argue that moving from a belief in the picture theory to language games amounts to a change of subject. — Joshs

Well I read the Rorty, and I don't agree that we do not have to go through the history of analytical philosophy to get to a point where we feel the need (desire) for radical skepticism. I'm not sure if he just hasn't read enough Cavell (maybe the early stuff), but Cavell does account for the connection (I wouldn't call it logical more then inevitable, or sliding down a slippery slope) between the desire for certainty and removing the human. Rorty even refers to the discussion Cavell has that our relation to the world is not one of knowing, as we understand it (perhaps most directly evidenced in Knowing and Acknowledging).

And there is the "picture theory of meaning" but Witt separately refers to a picture (like a framework) but it is not one people "believe" in. It is forced on them by their desire for certainty. To say Witt is corrective is not to say he is convincing people to "now believe" in language games. He is doing more than changing the subject; he is hoping you see what you desired of the picture, and then to turn around and see a better way (method) to see our actual desires.

Skepticism belongs to the type of thinking that is incommensurable with Wittgenstein. In order for a skeptic to “take meaning out of any context” they would fist have to understand ‘context’ and ‘ meaning’ in the way that Witt means it , and that is precisely what they cannot do. — Joshs

What I mean by "taking away any context" is an implication of what they do; or, in this case, the abstraction of meaning to have an explaination for all communication, or to require that morality be determined before an event (or deontologically--without us). Not everything is done with my intention or reasons--the effect of what I say is not causally related; I may choose my words, but then they are in the world, subject to the criteria or our concepts, even though I remain answerable for them. (@Metaphysician Undercover)

Our lives have agreed in all the little ways (all the pieces are in place Wii says) that allow for us to recognize the terms of a misunderstanding, the concept of miscommunication.
— Antony Nickles

Our lives will have had to agree in more than just the little ways in order for our criteria to align closely enough to attain agreement on the content of the ideas. — Joshs

But we are not talking about "attaining" "agreement" on "ideas" or "meanings". Our lives align (in apologizing) in ways (what is apt or not, how excused, or fixed...) that we can see in looking at saying: I apologize. The alignment is, as Austin said, over thousands of years in myriad ways. And Witt will add from top to bottom, big and small: that we are human, that we act in uncertainty, that things go wrong, that there is pain, that there are remedies, etc. All these things need to be in place beforehand. We do not agree what an apology is, we agree in judgements, Witt will say. #242

One thing I'd emphasize is how one of the quintessential moves of OLP works: if X were true then it would make sense to say Y. — Srap Tasmaner

This is a good point (and I'm glad someone out there is taking up the banner). I have been focusing so much on just getting over some kind of threshold misunderstanding we are having that I have not provided any of the other (negative) ways OLP works. Witt does this a lot, as I mentioned parenthetically above, when he says (grammatically, of knowledge) that we can not speak (categorically) of knowledge, when there is no possibility of doubt. They will also take a statement of traditional philosophy and ask: in what context would this be said? "I only see the appearance of a Goldifinch."

Thank you for the contribution.

well I think you are still stuck on something about these words; maybe thinking there is "no such thing as the ordinary way", as if the ordinary way were opposed to the philosophical way (which can make those distinctions). I can't sort it though.
— Antony Nickles

"Ordinary" in this instance implies normal, does it not? As if there is a customary, familiar, or habitual, normal, or "ordinary" way of making this decision as to whether it was an accident or a mistake. — Metaphysician Undercover

Let's just use the term grammar for what OLP is doing and criteria for what traditional philosophy uses, as that is along the lines of a set standard to apply or judge by (the most familiar use of criteria and the one I think you are focusing on). Now let's just clear up that the grammar of a mistake would not be used in making a decision as in beforehand (in most cases--except a deliberate appeal to them, like in a speech), but, as I believe you are saying, in a decision as to what happened, though usually indirectly. For example, "Did your finger slip? (Was it an accident?); or, "Why did you shoot the cow?" (Was this a mistake?)

"Each particular incident, in each set of circumstances, must be judged according to the available evidence, and there is no such thing as the "ordinary criteria", to be applied in a particular situation." - Tony Nickles

I don't see where the reference to "worst case" comes from, or "sense of doom with every 'circumstance'". We are talking about judging an action which has already occurred, as to whether it was an accident or mistake. The action has already occurred so there is no sense of impending doom if the wrong decision is made. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was overreacting here I think to the supposition I saw that every instance calls for the need to be "judged" ("must" be justified), which I took as tied to the assumption that everything is intended or decided, or needs to be, or even can be, judged (Witt here talks of the grammar of knowledge: that there can be none without the possibility of doubt). And especially, that, if we were to (could) always judge, it would be based on one picture of how we judge.

And I think we also need to clear up that "criteria" (grammar) is not being investigated to (necessarily) figure out how we judge, as that implies justifying the action; as if every act needs justification (or is judged the same way); i.e., that philosophy is only (primarily) about grounded action or speech. What OLP is doing is looking at Grammar to: 1) show that philosophy's preoccupation with a picture where there is one explanation (for speech, say) is confused by our desire for certainty; and 2) to learn something about, e.g., intention by looking at the grammar of actions which delineate them from each other (here, see Austin, ad infinitum) @Banno. Here, above, we learned that part of the grammar of an accident does not allow it to be considered beforehand (again, revealing something about intention), but that a mistake's grammar allows for mitigation, say, by concentration "Don't make a mistake".

With OLP we are not "judging" (or justifying) the action, we are making a claim to our observation of the grammar (my claim, your concession to it), and the evidence is the example of what we say when we talk of accidents, or mistakes. So we are not doing the judging; people just make mistakes and accidents happen, and these are part of our lives, as is the deciding between them--which is what OLP looks at.

So, I think we are onto something to say OLP is not in the business of justification--we would be seeing what counts (what matters to us)--the grammar--to show us about intention, evidence, judging, decisions, etc., starting with the basic goal of OLP initially, which was to say judging and evidence--justification--works in different ways depending on the concept and even the context; that not everything is about certainty, universality, etc., but we can still have rationality and logic and truth value in other ways, and in cases philosophy thought we could not, e.g., what it is to judge and what counts as evidence, in: the problem of the other, aesthetics, moral moments, types of knowledge, and other philosophical concerns.

What I said, is that in each particular instance of such an action occurring, if such a decision is to be made, the action must be judged in a way which is specific to that particular instance. That is because each particular instance is unique, and there is a very fine line of difference between the two possible judgements. There is no customary, familiar, or habitual way of deciding this, therefore no "ordinary way" of making such a judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover

Now we can see that we are saying each "instance" is "unique" (and here is where @Joshs is, I believe, hanging onto "context" as unique/different) instead of saying there is a "particular" grammar for each "action" (concept). One implication when we say this may be that, if the "circumstances" are (context is) different each time, then the way of judging (justifying?) is the same---say by the one acting, or the one judging, or both in some way in each unique circumstance. This is only to say, look and see!: what are we hinging on the fact that every event is its own. I offer the grammar that, in any expression/act, what is "particular" about the context usually only comes up in light of the "grammar' of how we judge that thing (e.g., its felicity, or identity). In other words, if every circumstance was "unique", we would not have our lives aligned in the ways they are. Different parts of the context will come up with different questions about the act, endlessly, but rationally.

This is why there is a very clear need to distinguish, in principle, between what a person is saying, and what a person is doing with the words. If I judge what a person is 'saying' to me, according to my customary, familiar, habitual, ordinary way, but the person is actually 'doing' something different from what appears through my ordinary interpretation, then I will be deceived. Therefore, I need to apply criteria in my interpretation, to go beyond the ordinary interpretation which the deceiver intends for me to use to support the deception, in my effort to determine what the person is really doing with the words. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, there are ordinary means we use to judge deception, but there is always its possibility (the fear of the other mind). And Austin does show that some expressions "do" things--like, I promise, is: to promise. (He also shows that intention=meaning is the opening for deception). But not everything we say "does" something. Maybe we could say, there is what a person says, and then the possibility this is a different concept based on the anticipated grammar and the context, so that there is what is actually "done" with the words in terms of the aptness of the expression and the anticipated implications, and the consequences which should follow. That is to say, if you say: that, here you MUST (grammatically) be, e.g, making a threat, when the words you used took the form of an overture. The difference between these two is a major philosophical issue; Austin touches on it, Cavell is obsessed by it.

If you allow that OLP cannot dispel skepticism concerning "the solution", then you have no principle whereby you can argue that OLP is better than any other philosophy... — Metaphysician Undercover

Here I didn't mean to say that OLP was solving skepticism, just in a different way. The reintroduction of ordinary grammar is to show the many ways we have for rationally handling situations where doubt creates skepticism for the philosopher. Now that is not to say these "solve" skepticism as they come to an end somewhere, but they are ours and we are responsible for them, in our lives, in a way traditional philosophy would like to ignore in just setting its own standards (Cavell will say Witt sees the truth of skepticism)--knowledge has a limit; we are separate but answerable to each other, and the possibility for continued intelligibility exists.

The standard for OLP of a claim to our ordinary criteria is if you see it and agree; if you see what I see--that you can show yourself.
— Antony Nickles

But this has no logical rigour. Agreement does not require criteria. You propose something to me, I can agree or disagree, but neither requires criteria... And your claim that "ordinary criteria" is justified by me agreeing, is unsupported. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is supported by the evidence of my examples and their detail and "perspicuity" (Witt calls it); the distinctions I describe between grammar; the description being thorough (rigorous; not lazy, haphazard, sloppy). I don't think you can read Austin and not call that "rigour". Now maybe you mean logical certainty; rigour as in: held to a certain standard for justification or something.

This does reveal OLP's inability to force itself on us, or necessarily require your agreement if you agree on premises, etc. It is based on you seeing for yourself what I am claiming (about the grammar of a thing). In Wittgenstein there are a lot of places left with questions, for us to answer for ourselves; or (oblique) statements which only point at a conclusion we have to draw, He, and Nietzsche, will make a grammatical claim, and everyone assumes it is a statement justified to be true; that they both are taken to have theories about philosophical issues when they are (mostly) describing what they see, for you to try to see as well. (You can read Cavell and feel like he only told you half the story, and Austin is so obtuse that people only take him to be making the case for different types of acts, with no point to it at all.)

"You say let's get rid of the notion "word=idea", it's a faulty "picture". Then you say "let's put it that: we are seeing how a concept is used." But what we are seeing is words being used.[/quote]

This could have been worded better. I did not mean to say "Words/concepts are used (by people)". Just that OLP is looking at the uses (as in "senses") of a concept, describing the grammar of that use (as a concept may have different uses/senses--see "I know" above). Not that I control the meaning (how it is "used") of the expression, but only that expressions (concepts) have different ways in which they work (uses/senses)--a concept will have different grammar for each use, but we don't "use" that grammar, manipulate, control, intend, etc., or "use" a concept.

The customary, habitual, familiar, ordinary acts proceed from an attitude of certainty, while we only apply criteria when we are uncertain. So if we wish to obtain a true understanding of these types of acts, we need to maintain that separation between acts carried out with an attitude of certainty, and acts carried out with uncertainty, we ought not use "criteria" when referring to the motivating factor in customary, habitual, familiar, ordinary acts, which are carried out with an attitude of certainty. We only apply criteria when we are uncertain. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is well taken. Part of what OLP is saying is that all acts are subject to uncertainty (though I'm not sure we carry out our acts with "certainty" so much as confidence). But by uncertainty I mean, every act is subject to failure. Now if something "fishy" (Austin will say), happens, the Other will be uncertain in a sense, yes. However, what OLP makes clear is that this is not the open hole that leads to the type of skepticism where we abstract from any context and install "certainty" in some other way. This would be to overlook or wipe out the grammar of the act, which includes the way it might fail, and how we rectify that, with qualifications, excuses, detail, etc. "Was that a threat...?" "No, I was trying to make an overture, and left off what I intended next." Now the Other is reassured, but are they now "certain"?

Now if we are qualifying acts as "customary, habitual, familiar, ordinary", then we are assuming a sense of "certainty" in those types of acts, where with "other" acts we need certainty, in the sense of justification perhaps. Now we may just be thinking of aesthetics, morality, politics, etc., where some might say there are no justifications, or none that satisfy reason, or logic, or certainty. And even here, OLP will point to the grammar of the concepts in these areas as a sense of rationale, intelligibility, if not certainty, nor agreement. But there may be times when, even given the existence of our grammar, we are at a loss as to how to proceed. And then perhaps reflection on our grammar (philosophy) might help, or at least allow us to see the ground we are on in this case (the rationality of our options), so that we may go beyond our grammar, or against it, or extend it into a new world.

The problem though, is that the term "everyone" is extremely inclusive, in an absolute sense, therefore too inclusive. All it takes, is one person who is abnormal, and doesn't share that ordinary way, to be skeptical, uncertain. This person might start applying criteria, and develop the belief that the judgement which everyone else is certain of, as they proceed in the ordinary way, with certainty and without criteria, is actually wrong... This is why we cannot ever exclude skepticism. — Metaphysician Undercover

And I agree, skepticism shows that the ability of knowledge to take our place has a limit. After that, we are responsible for the decision that our ("shared") judgments are wrong (that it is "I" that must go beyond our morality Nietzsche will say). There are ways to address this: education, political action, we ourselves stand for the new judgment by our example, etc.

But the universality I was referring to, as it were, was between philosophers, those investigating the grammar of our concepts. Here, if you disagree, you are obligated to make yourself intelligible, with counterexamples, further, more-detailed contexts, etc.; though philosophy breaks down too.

Either we must just accept as a fact that language was not designed to talk about meaning, and we simply cannot go there with language, it is a realm of what cannot be spoken about, or, we need to redesign language such that it can be used to properly speak about meaning. I think that the latter is the appropriate way forward, and the way which philosopher generally proceed, giving the impression that philosophy uses language in an abnormal way. Well yes, but that's because we cannot do philosophy using language in the ordinary way, because ordinary language was not purposed for doing philosophy. OLP ought to simply acknowledge this difference. — Metaphysician Undercover

In the paragraph before this, you do an excellent job of describing the picture of meaning which Witt is trying to reveal we (philosophy) had been struggling under (and still does in some circles). And your first option here is the direction Witt went with the Tractatus. But then you say '"or, we need to redesign language such that it can be used to properly speak about meaning." And here is where we are caught by the same net. I admit (@Banno) that our language is the rope, as it were, but OLP's idea is not to "redesign language", use it in an "abnormal" way (I would say this is, backwards, putting certainty first and the words second), yet neither, as I have been saying, use it in a contrasting "normal" way, within the net as it were. OLP is turning and looking at what we imply when we say "I mean" in order to see the grammar of meaning--I would say, that our grammar allows for expressions to be meaningful (not justified) because grammar tracks what is meaningful in our lives.

You’ve been adamant in maintaining OLP is best understood by its examples, which suggests there isn’t a method, — Mww

I've given examples of its method, of looking at examples. With knowledge, an apology, intention (accident/mistake), etc throughout this thread.

it takes the concepts that philosophy wrings its hands o know the other or over and reveals their mystery and seeming power as driven by our disappointment with misunderstandings and our desire to take ourselves out of the solution.
— Antony Nickles

It makes it sound as though desire is at the heart of the split between olp and approaches antagonistic to it. — Joshs

The desire is Cavell explicating what Witt saw that representationalism really wants. Seeing the representation of an object with a word (or any other similar picture) as the only picture out there of how meaning works, Witt turned to look at all the variety of ways different things are meaningful to us. So why this other picture? And his interlocutor keeps going on about having to know, and about rules, etc. So the idea is that the fear of doubt and the black hole of skepticism/relativism cause the philosopher to skip over our regular criteria to fix meaning and word together, to have certain knowledge, normative rules, universal criteria, predetermined, etc.

Does Wittgenstein’s work not represent a paradigm shift? — Joshs

There are no new facts and everything is left as it is. So not so much a little shift or extension or new picture as...

a gestalt shift requiring turning the world on its head ? — Joshs

Yes, Emerson or Cavell say, turned on the point of our real need. As if our real needs and desires are in our ordinary criteria which we need only reflect on (turn to), rather than the need driven by our fear of uncertainty and irrationality, etc.

Is it possible to understand what you mean by ‘ taking ourselves out of the solution’ without already having undergone the paradigm shift necessary to relate to Wittgenstein’s world? — Joshs

In reacting to skepticism, philosophy sees the problem as the human, its fallibility, its inconsistency, its emotion, its partiality, its diversity, and decides that none of that is going to give us the certainty and universality and rationality that we want to solve skepticism, so we take philosophy out of any context and fashion it to meet the standards that will solve it. But this doesn't see that not only are ordinary criteria more adequate, but they also see that we still have a place in their application or their extension, or going past them, or against them.

I'll repeat then, what I've said from the beginning, there is no such thing as the ordinary way of distinguishing an accident from a mistake. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well I think you are still stuck on something about these words; maybe thinking there is "no such thing as the ordinary way", as if the ordinary way were opposed to the philosophical way (which can make those distinctions). I can't sort it though. Let's just ask: can we distinguish between (the concept of) a mistake and an accident? Sure. Maybe we could ask what we say when: I shot the donkey accidentally and I shot the donkey by mistake. And here we can imagine the accident is something that I didn't intend to do, and the mistake was in hitting the donkey, though I was going to (intended to) shoot something else. So one distinguishing thing is that mistakes require an intention and accidents do not. Now let's see how traditional philosophy attempts to make a distinction:

Each particular incident, in each set of circumstances, must be judged according to the available evidence, and there is no such thing as the "ordinary criteria", to be applied in a particular situation. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Each"? "Particular"? "Must be judged"? And here we are imagining that each case is the worst case (skepticism without a net). Do we "apply" the criteria? Well, we didn't know them before and now we do, but do we always need them? Imagine that there is all this life we have that makes it so we don't usually need them ("Don't make a mistake!" "Don't worry; it's only an accident."); does this help dispell the sense of doom with every "circumstance"?

We say that the judge upholds the law, in many unique circumstances, but this is not really done through reference to criteria, it's done through the experience of many precedents. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think here it is important again to say that Witt is focusing on a special idea of criteria, as I mentioned to @Mww above. One difference is it is not the kind of criteria that we set, say, for identification of a show dog, or when someone has broken the law. Those criteria are in the wide open; one, standards of a perfect specimen; the other, the law. And yes, the law Is not a science and takes judgment to clearly align the facts of this case with the law, or, when necessary, rest on a precedent circumscribing a tricky set of facts or the interpretation of the law in a new context, but, even here, not every case is distinct in the eyes of the law either.

If this notion of "ordinary criteria" is your proposed solution, then it's quite clear to me that you do not have a solution at all. And if philosophy appears to be trying to take itself out of "the solution", you might take this as a hint, that the supposed solution is not acceptable to philosophers. — Metaphysician Undercover

And I believe I came to this same spot with @Mww above. OLP does not have a solution (to skepticism). Ordinary criteria are not acceptable for certainty, universality, predetermination, etc. I can perhaps some time in the future (or in my other posts) show its usefulness in morality, aesthetics, politics, etc. where traditional philosophy has failed to satisfy. Or I stand ready to try again to show /explain and hope to do better.

So it appears to me, like OLP is a lot of idle talk with no justification for what is said. — Metaphysician Undercover

The standard for OLP of a claim to our ordinary criteria is if you see it and agree; if you see what I see--that you can show yourself. If you can not, perhaps I have not done a good enough job with my example, or in filling out the imagined context, but we do have the grounds there for an intelligible discussion, which is the "rough ground" which Witt is trying to get philosophy back to.

If you allow that the same concept has different criteria according to different contexts, you are saying that the word refers to the same concept despite having a different meaning. Using the word with different meanings, and insisting that the different meanings constitute the same concept is equivocation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, let's pull out "refer" just in case anyone gets confused that this is word=idea. For example, intending is a concept; to say it is (only) a word is to make it seem isolated, connected only to a "meaning', which is a picture Witt is trying to unravel. Meaning being more like, say, what is meaningful to us about a concept, along the ordinary criteria for it. And let's put it that: we are seeing how a concept is used. Witt says "sense" for the fact that a concept (knowing) can be used in various ways; here, again, I know as: I can give you evidence; I know as: I can show you how; I know as: I acknowledge you, your claim. He is imploring us to Look at the Use! (#340) to see that our concepts are various and meaningful in different ways.

A criterion is a principle or standard used for judgement. There is no ambiguity there. Either a person is following the criteria or not. — Metaphysician Undercover

And this is on me; I did not realize that Wittgenstein is limiting himself to a particular type of criteria, not the overt, set, delineated, followed criteria as we are most familiar with, say, ironically, that are the most ordinary. Sorry for the confusion.

The thing which you don't seem to be acknowledging is that in the vast majority of "ordinary" situations, the circumstances are unique and peculiar, such that a judgement cannot be made on the basis of criteria. There might be some criteria which would serve as some sort of guideline, but the real judgement is made by some process other than referencing the criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, I would say the vast majority of situations are mundane and uneventful and non-specific, such that our criteria (of this type) never really come up (Thoreau says we lead quiet lives of desperation). However, yes, there are problems and circumstances and issues (even philosophical ones) that do come up, exactly because we are at a point where we do not know what to do, we can not or do not want to use criteria as our base (excuse, justification, cover). As you say, "the real judgment is made by some other process". Now Wittgenstein talks about coming to an end, and about being "inclined" to draw a line, or convinced and shutting our eyes, but the other option he offers is to go on from our criteria into their open-endedness, their ability to point into new contexts, and act or speak so as to define ourselves beyond (further than) our criteria, to the other without certainty, and thus be intelligible and answerable for that extension or deviation, etc. as if there was a limit to knowledge (Cavell will refer to this as the truth of skepticism).

Reflect on this action, your example here: "You know you smirked when you apologized." I think you'll agree with me that what is referred to is a matter of interpretation. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure this was a great example (surprise). But you could say that identifying the smirk was an interpretation (of their facial movement), but what I was trying to point out is that everyone could agree that to correctly apologize, you can not scoff at the whole procedure--that it is not open to interpretation, that it is a categorical necessity.

Do you see how it may be the case that "criteria" is not the right word here? — Metaphysician Undercover

Absolutely. I am sorry I ever brought it up. I don't know if it helps to fall back on "Grammar" but maybe the absolute made-up-ness of it solves the confusion, though I doubt it. The whole first chapter of Cavell's The Claim of Reason is about working out Witt's sense of "criteria" though I can't force myself through it because Cavell rarely makes anything easier to explain to anyone else.

I thank you for your patience and persistence.

How do you know "what they mean to say" if there is no context in common?
— Janus

I don’t, any more that I would know what Einstein meant to say without a context in common. Context in common means I have already found myself thinking in terms that are close enough to that of the writer that I can relate to what they have to offer. — Joshs

In terms of OLP, this would be the alignment of the criteria of our concepts (our forms of life), their terms of judgment, what counts and how, what matters in making what distinctions, etc. Their history and possibilities. Our lives have agreed in all the little ways (all the pieces are in place Wii says) that allow for us to recognize the terms of a misunderstanding, the concept of miscommunication. If this is a context (setup?) we don't have to share it (exactly?) except only in that we agree in those paths of judgment Witt says. This is not the "context" that OLP points to, which is whatever is needed to clarify what sense of concept we are using and the criteria that we need to clear anything up, etc.

'preciate that. Worst name ever. Austin's is not much better. I don't have the patience to give better examples and come up with more text. And I didn't realize the terminology was so technical (concept, criteria, ordinary, even context!, although Cavell warns of this with Witt). And it's really hard to get people to see that it's not a different view within the same picture; that it's turned on itself, first looking at what we say to find our what matters to us, and then figure out why we ignore what we find to skip over ourselves and create a picture to ensure certainty; is it reassuring? Who is it convincing?

"think it would be more apt to focus "change and stability" in our world and our concepts" - Antony Nickles

What do you mean by world? Can world have any useful meaning outside of how the word is used by people relating via language? — Joshs

Nothing metaphysical or factual; just world in the sense of our lives in the world, how we live, which we learn about (the grammar of) through our investigation of our criteria of what counts for us, what matters, etc.

“schizophrenics may experience thought insertion, the sense that another person’s voice is speaking to one inside one’s head. The schizophrenic knows the voice is coming from their own head, and yet they don’t recognize it as their ‘I’.” In the West , this voice is typically belligerent, accusatory, judgmental, whereas in other cultures it can be positive and supportive.

I was wondering if you think the kinds of conversations that that place with this sort of ‘other’ voice in one’s head are amenable to an Austinian analysis. By that measure, what of the voices of characters a novelist creates? Often, writers say that the characters they create come to life and tell them what they want to do. — Joshs

This is actually right up Cavell's alley. I mean Wittgenstein was dealing with Logical Behavioralism and Verificationalism along with Positivism, so he was dealing with the psychologism of philosophy, but his main goal was just to get people out of their (everyone's) head. But Cavell has wild examples and loves to draw outside the lines into literary forms etc. Cavell talks about Thoreau's use of "ecstasy" (In the Sense of Walden) as the sense of being beside yourself at the same time as a way of talking about Emerson's closing and moving to a larger circle (of your always-partial self). Austin might just say pphhfftt.

@Mww

The point was that "applying criteria" is a conscious act. If the subconscious, or unconscious, is doing something which might be in some way similar to "applying criteria", then we ought to acknowledge the difference, rather than asserting that the unconscious is applying criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'll leave"applying criteria" alone for now (still not sure what to do with it), only to say that criteria could be described as "unexamined" (not unconscious exactly) which means we are maybe missing the fact that criteria are just all the ordinary ways we might judge someone as doing or saying this well, how we show in this case how it matters to us, what counts as an instance of it, etc. These things are not mental constructs, or created standards (though there are those too), these are our lives of doing these things like apologizing, thinking, knowing, threatening, identifying a dog, etc.

My position is that there is no reason to assume that what is going on behind the scenes is a matter of applying criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure the point of this, but I would agree. I might say, "what is going on behind the scenes" is our lives.

the conscious human being must suppress the natural inclination, which is other than applying criteria, with will power, in order to actually apply criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

And I would agree with this as well. Only one small step in between: to become "conscious" for OLP is to become aware of our ordinary criteria, so they may be applied intentionally, aversely, controversially, etc. Maybe that, in being unaware, we can not "apply" anything(?). In any event, to become aware of (in this sense, know) our ordinary criteria is the only epistemology OLP has, and it does that by... blah, blah, no one cares.

I think it is the case that the average person doesn’t know how it is he knows things. — Mww

And what we are looking for in OLP is knowledge of the ways we judge (what criteria we use to) what makes a thing important to us, what counts in its identity, its place in our world, etc. ("Grammar tells what kind of object anything is.") #373 (my emphasis). And the average person (I assume here not the "philosopher") can reflect and give examples of what counts as criteria for concepts (understood as Witt uses that term), including objects, though the need for such is rare.

To him, a dog is just some particular thing; the ways and means between the thing and knowing it as a particular thing are (regularly) undisclosed to him. — Mww

The example of corresponding a word to an object can appear philosophy simple (just factual) or complicated (skeptical problems unthought by the average person); but OLP is using examples of: when do we say it is no longer a wolf, but a dog? (When it is tame?) Isn't a dog in a sense always also (historically) a wolf? Are these criteria "undisclosed"? or merely just don't have to be brought up all the time?

I think it may help to say that Witt's "criteria", as "grammar", is a special term @Metaphysician Undercover. Some points may be: there are regular criteria (we decide on), this is not that; it is not to start with an object (a dog) and then pick criteria (like how to judge a dog at a dog show); start with "knowledge" and then pick the criteria for it, certainty. OLP is to first investigate criteria to learn about a thing (intention)--to know what a thing is in the end.

It is only when he wants to know its kind, its degree of danger, etc., must he then determine supplemental conceptions to add to the conception of dog in general — Mww

Yes, but to point out that here we are simply going from what the object is generally to particularly, not understanding all the ways (other than as an "idea" of a dog--universal? true?) we use the concept "dog"--say, even metaphorically to malign your character.

From here, it is easier to see that there are only two criterion for any conception....the principle of identity for those conceptions relating to conceptions in general, and the principle of non-contradiction for those conceptions supplementing given general conceptions.....both principles operating entirely behind the scenes. — Mww

And here is where the traditional philosopher has wiped away our ordinary criteria for a concept (and here I don't mean philosophical "conceptualization"), and replaced it with their own principles (like conceptualization, integrity, particular in relation to general, etc.), of which of course the average man has no idea. But, as an example, the concept of "identity" has its own criteria (Austin will talk a lot of identifying a Goldfinch), and anyone can reflect on "I have identified that bird as a Goldfinch" and make a claim about what criteria the speaker might be using, and learn more about the type of criteria we use for identification; only some do this better (and are more interested) than others--and those are philosophers.

regularly-learned folk don’t need to consciously examine the validity of a thing’s verbal description when the habitually communicated description has always sufficed. Nevertheless, theoretically-learned folk will maintain that the cognitive system as a whole must still be in play, otherwise, we are presented with the necessity for waking it up when needed, and then the determination of method for waking, and then the necessity of determination of need, ad infinitum......and nothing rationally conditioned is ever successesfully accomplished. — Mww

Again, it is as if everyone is sleep-walking here except the philosopher, who understands the "cognitive system as a whole" which is always "in play". Except we all have drank the "lethe" as Emerson says, that we may "tell no tales" (not explicate our criteria) until we "shake off our lethargy". Experience, p.1. So there is no "cognitive system" happening all the time, which just needs to be systematized. We don't reflect, until we do; until, as you say, there is a necessity to, say, distinguish between an accident and a mistake, or a thought and an intention, or a fetus and a life.

my thinking is that OLP as I understand it, is at least superfluous and at most utter nonsense — Mww

This isn't (maybe just) thinking, it's a (also a) judgement (categorically--identified by the criteria of what a judgement is). I stand ready to help in understanding if that is of any interest.

If we take a step beyond Descartes, for whom the 'I' finds itself being, to see the 'I' finding itself deciding, acting, and therefore changing, we cannot assign to this deciding, or acting, a method of applying criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is perhaps to say, without this picture of the "I" there is no deciding or acting along the ways in which we decide and act. And I understand that this puts into question "applying criteria", but the picture forces itself onto what it means to "apply criteria". But we have not asked ourselves what we mean when we talk about deciding and acting, and investigate if their criteria require this picture.

If we cannot agree on the principles which drive a decision or judgement, and justification is based in agreement, then we have no means for justification. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'll just say up front that it is a misconception that our criteria are based on "agreement," that is to say, we do "agree" on criteria (here, but there are times) but in forms of life Witt calls it (though not as grounds--for, say, certainty--and not the same way), but that the routes of our lives align--in judging, identifying, expecting, exluding, etc.--for each concept. (In many layers: Cavell will say even our sense of humor; Witt will add even in our being human). That is, again, not to say forms of life JUSTIFY our criteria; we have a concept of justification, and this has many different senses in many different contexts. Though our lives and concepts and expressions do split sometimes, say in a moral moment, (another opening for skepticism), but in ordinary ways, in specific instances (even in the investigation of criteria). That said, I think I need to review how Wittgenstein's "criteria" are not singular and separate from our ordinary use of criteria (set standards, rules, etc.).

I really don't know what you mean by "ordinary" then. It seems like your attempts to define "ordinary" "ordinarily", and in your usage I see nothing to indicate anything other than everyday language. I'm hoping you will enlighten me concerning this other type of "ordinary language" which you are concerned with. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, it is not ordinary language. It is our ordinary ways of telling an accident from a mistake--the criteria of their identity and employment (grammar), and all I can say at this point is it is a term to hold a space opposite of how philosophy sets up the traditional criteria (certainty, universality, etc.) it wants for the concepts of meaning, knowledge, understanding, etc. Frankly, the term doesn't matter much compared to the method and the examples.

So if I understand correctly, you are saying that there is a way to make judgements as to whether or not our concepts are misunderstandings without referencing metaphysical principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, but you're probably not going to be happy about it because it takes the concepts that philosophy wrings its hands over and reveals their mystery and seeming power as driven by our disappointment with misunderstandings and our desire to take ourselves out of the solution. OLP is investigating our concepts to show that desire in our philosophy by showing that our concepts have ordinary (various, individual) ways in which they work and ways in which they fail, and, at some point, they involve our involvement, accepting, denying, asking, walking away, etc. and in ways that reflect on us, or require us to change ourselves, our world, or extend these concepts into new contexts, a new culture, perhaps to make a word include a change in our lives, perhaps to re-awaken it to old contexts.

As far as I understand, epistemology is grounded in metaphysics, so if you can demonstrate an epistemology which is not, yet is well grounded anyway, I'm ready to consider it. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was speaking of epistemology as the investigation of knowledge. OLP gives us a knowledge of our concepts that we did not have, of their ordinary criteria. Now justification is a trickier subject as we can say our criteria align with the ways in which our lives are, but that is not to say our forms of life are the bedrock of our criteria or that we "agree" on our criteria. And also not to say that radical skepticism is the outcome either. The truth of skepticism is that knowledge only takes us so far and then we are left with ourselves, you and me to work out the failings and clarifications that our criteria/lives lack the necessity, conclusiveness, completeness, etc. to ensure. Our concepts are breakable, indefensible but also open-ended (justice) and extendable into new contexts (freedom of speech).

I view philosophy as an effort toward a higher understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

And is it not a higher understanding to realize that knowledge also involves acknowledgement? What we are responsible for and our relationship to others (even in creating a picture of knowledge of the other that skips past them). Perhaps we are looking for a specific version of "higher", even before we start our investigation to look at the use of our concepts.

Since the same word has different meaning in different language games, then if we are going to say that the word refers to a concept, we need to say that it is a different concept in each different language game. — Metaphysician Undercover

And here it is the PICTURE of "word" and "reference": word--refers to--concept, that gets in the way. We (me) express a concept in a context (of time, place, language game, criteria). Nevertheless, I would say that the different "context" of a different language game, may or may not require "different" criteria (for the same concept). "I know the sun will rise tomorrow" is a sense of certainty (that concept), but not a factual one (knowledge connected to certainty, without doubt). It may be a sense of faith (certainty) in hope. Now this "different language game" is part of the possibility of this expression, but it simply falls on another concept (certainty) rather than reflecting on knowledge (other than to say knowledge is not always connected to certainty, or that, without the possibility of doubt, we are talking about a different "sense" of knowledge).

Since a concept would consist of rules or boundaries (criteria), and the rules would be different for different games, then we cannot say that it is the same concept. So these are not games we play with "a concept", they are games we play with a word. In other words, word games. — Metaphysician Undercover

Maybe it is better to say concepts have different criteria for the different ways (and different contexts in which) they are used (the sense in which they are used). So they have more possibilities than under the fixed standards (one picture) that philosophy wants. So in a sense they ARE different "games we play" with a concept, but a concept is not just about "words" or even expressions, because concepts are not "conceptual" or "ideas" as opposed to the world as philosophy's picture of certainty creates.

What Witt explicitly says in that section, is that there is no boundaries for the supposed concept of "game", but this does not prevent him from understanding what is meant by the word when it is used. Further one can draw boundaries for a particular purpose, if a person wants to. So he is saying that criteria (being boundaries) are not necessary, but can be imposed for particular purposes. — Metaphysician Undercover

He is making a point about the roles of rules and boundaries in a concept. This is an example of when they are not necessary; this does not mean that criteria do not exist, just that in this instance we can impose them. What seems like a categorical statement about criteria is not, it is a statement about games. Criteria of the concept of "a game" are that there are no rules or boundaries, and that one can draw those for a purpose (as one can elsewhere with other concepts--even as to their criteria). That those are part of the grammar of how a game works. Criteria are not like rules, they are not always fixed, or unbreachable, or determinative.

You are saying that people apply criteria without knowing that they apply criteria. But if this were the case, then we could not call this applying criteria, because applying criteria is to make a conscious judgement in relation to the criteria. Let's look at the reality of the situation. People act out of habit when they talk. And acting out of habit is not applying criteria. So let's just forget this unrealistic notion that people are applying criteria for the concepts involved with each of the words when they are talking. — Metaphysician Undercover

I wouldn't say that people apply criteria (I would have to think why we feel the need to say this), or that they always do--as I've said, everyone can reflect on our criteria, and some moments call for it, as it were philosophical moments, moments of reflection on who we are and how we do things, and that is to say everyone can be said to sometimes "do philosophy", a politician writing a speech about freedom, a new freedom, getting back to our old sense of freedom, what freedom means in our new America. But I agree that most of the time we speak and act out of "habit"; Emerson will cll it conformity (to which we must at times be averse). One thought on application is that, even unconsiously, we know the criteria of an action to ask "You know you smirked when you apologized." not because we explicitly are thinking of the criteria, but that we were raised in a world with others, and pain, and a need for forgiveness, etc. The explicit "criteria" are drawn out in a philosophical moment when we are at a loss as to how to respond, our criteria fail us in a way we do not know how to be responsible for, etc.

If you are distinguishing between "it rained this morning", and "I know it rained this morning", saying that the latter must be justified by conceptual criteria, then how are you going to justify standards for what "rain" means, or what "morning" means without ontology? — Metaphysician Undercover

These two statements don't bring into question what rain or morning are, but knowledge. When I say "It rained this morning" I am reporting a fact (that I know), but I could be saying it really rained hard, or that it rained this morning so I don't think it will (or do think it will) rain this afternoon, etc. When I say "I know it rained this morning" I could be acknowledging what you told me, as in "yeah, I agree with you Bob, it rained", perhaps to confirm the claim Bob has made (on authority or proof) that it rained "I read it in the paper", "I saw it" "The grass is wet" "My mom told me" (some of these are more credible than others, but nevertheless under that criteria for that sense of knowledge). Now to see that, it some cases, I don't have a way to do other than accept/confirm it, is to see the power ("normativiy") of that sense of knowledge and its criteria, and that philosophy tunnels in on that as the standard for everything. These are two senses (of the concept) of knowledge we are investigating in what we say when we say these expressions.

Let me paraphrase where I think we're at. You are claiming that there is a type of epistemology which is grounded in some type of criteria other than metaphysical criteria. You call this "ordinary criteria"? This is not criteria in the sense of some philosophical principles, but in the sense of some grammar. Can you demonstrate to me, how we might ground epistemology in grammar? For instance, if a proposition was composed according to proper grammatical form, would it be necessarily true? — Metaphysician Undercover

Well two small tweaks. I take epistemology not as the search for grounds for knowledge, but as the search for knowledge, and that looking at what we say to see our criteria, as in to make them explicit--known from the unknown--is a way of knowing ourselves since our lives (what is important to us, what should count as a thing, judging, making distinctions) are our criteria. And that sometimes, we are responsible for our claims to aversion, to our extension of a concept asserting a new context, (politically, culturally) creating a new context.

Now a proposition can be true, or false. I would say that it does have to be grammatically proper to categorically be this kind of proposition, one that is either true or false (There are other types of proposition Austin shows). But this is merely a threshold; it does not "ground" it's truth or falsity; and it has criteria, it's grounds, but it is not a quality of the criteria (of their formation or their internal logic), it is meeting them. A scientific fact is "necessary" based on the method of good science, its reproducibility, its universal application, etc.--but also refutable through its method, or the denial "of science".

an expression" has a lot of moving parts in each case,
— Antony Nickles

I think it is safe to say that the collection of terms that are interlinked as part of Austin’s approach to doing things with words points to many moving parts. I consider this a particular kind of structuralism. — Joshs

Not sure they are interlinked (but he does categorize them by more general criteria); the concepts he is talking about are a multitude of examples to show we may have different criteria for each concept, instead of just statements about the world that are either true or false. I might call it formalism but they are not necessarily rules, or closed, etc.

One could say that the terms of ordinariness are whatever allows for an alignment of moving parts that creates agreement, shared practice , normativiity. — Joshs

Well we do not agree on these type of criteria (they are unexamined, thus the need for philosophy), and it is not the critria of, say, apologizing, that are normative for our practice of apologizing, it is actual apologizng, whetther or not you do it correctly (whether you learn your lesson when you do it wrong). Our lives are aligned, "shared" sounds too much like we share one exact same thing or that the "sharing" was not everywhere surrounded by the criteria for a concept and what it is to change our lives.

The rabbit is there to be seen because it supposedly pre-exists my seeing it ‘as’ a rabbit. But it is not as if the person who relies on this picture view is not seeing what they believe is the ‘same’ meaning ( or just a different aspect of the ‘same’ meaning) via an endless series of language games. They just don’t notice this transformational process. It is invisible to them at an explicit level @even though they rely on it implicitly. — Joshs

The picture duck-rabbit is to show we don't have an "inner picture" as a perspective in us that changes. As he says, "seeing as... Is not part of perception." P. 168. It is complicated but part of this kind of seeing involves seeing "aspects" based on our (pre-existing) familiarity (of rabbits--like being able to recognize a human face in something else). An example is when Witt says "My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul." P. 152 I see that aspect of him, I see him as a human, rather than, say, as a means of production. Witt says this takes "imagination". Id.

For olp change and stability are functions of different kinds of relations between participants in language. — Joshs

I think it would be more apt to focus "change and stability" in our world and our concepts; people usually come into it afterwards to figure out a mess.

When would one use a word like self except in order to contrast it with a person who is not myself? What other use is there? — Joshs

Well the idea is to ask yourself when you say "self" what are you implying. Witt says one use would be "I myself", PI #413 as if to say I did it by myself or as if to emphasize that I am the body owning, or disowning, an expression (if necessary)--standing behind it, judged as lacking for having said it. In any event, this would be process of analysis in OLP, showing, looking at our ourselves by looking at our expressions, without "introspection" which Witt says is "the state of a philosopher's attention when he says the word "self" to himself and tries to analyze its meaning (and a good deal could be leaned from this). Id.

The problem though, is that as Wittgenstein pointed out, in what you're calling ordinary language, there is no such standards or criteria. There need be no boundaries for me to understand what "game" means. — Metaphysician Undercover

One thing I realized I need to clear up. The term "language-game" is to say the games we play with a "concept"--what criteria/grammar describe.

One place I imagine you referring to is #68. He is discussing rigid limits and rules

(I may) use the the word "number" for a rigidly limited concept, but I may also use it so that the extensions of the concept is not closed by a frontier. And this is how we use the word "game". For how is the concept of a game bounded? What still counts as a game and what no longer does? Can I give the boundary? No. You can draw one; for none has so far been drawn. — Wittgenstein, PI

(original italics in underline)

Now it is not the point here, but he is not saying that the concept of "game" has no ordinary criteria. One is that it is, as he says, "not closed by a frontier" (he later says it is the kind of concept that has blurred edges (#71)--that is another one of the ways it works, its grammar). He directly says, "And this is how we use the word 'game'." Another criteria, or grammar, for games is that its boundaries and rules are drawn--not set ahead of time. Another is that "What still counts as a game and what no longer does?" is answered by us (that is part of the way the concept of a "game" works). "That's not a game! You're just playing with a tennis racket!" but then I could counter that we are balancing it (a skill) and seeing how long we can (a measure of winning)--are these not some of the criteria of (set for) a game? and do they not allow for a discussion of what counts (criteria) and what matters? Witt is calling out the fear that if rules and boundaries can sometimes be drawn by us, we can't count on anything,which leads to the fixation to have rules take our place.

If you want to investigate the standards (criteria) involved when we say "..." in ordinary language, you are imposing a philosophical perspective somewhere where it does not belong. In other words you proceed from a false premise, that there are criteria and standards invlolved when someone says "..." in ordinary language.
* * *
The point is, that we do not judge the meaning of a word, in ordinary language use, through reference to criteria — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, we can remove "in ordinary language" because we are not opposing that to any other language. I would point out again, also, that "there are criteria and standards involved when someone says '...' " implies that everyday people think about or discuss the criteria for what we say when. Which is not usually the case; though they might. The premise with OLP is that we regularly do not know what the criteria for a concept are (they work behind the scenes as it were), but regular people can come up with them (imagine Socrates questioning the regular people he comes across to provide criteria of the Good). Someone also might discuss them, as I have mentioned above about accusing someone of a half-hearted apology. However, this is a philosophical perspective--to reflect on what we mean (thus on our selves) seems pretty standard philosophical fair. Maybe it helps to say that OLP simply claims that no one necessarily has a better vantage point on our criteria--I can speak for everyone. To say it is "imposed" is perhaps to say we don't need it, language works fine. Which is true, until it is not, which is where traditional philosophy goes off the cliff anyway.

[Philosophy] is a specific type of activity with a specific goal, so standards and criteria are imposed toward that goal.
* * *
If you change the goal, then you do not have the same activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

And OLP is trying to revolutionize the method of philosophy. It is not abandoning philosophy's concerns and issues, if this is what you mean by "goal". But Witt shows that the real desire (what I poorly worded as its "goal") of traditional philosophy (the kind he is pushing against) is to solve the problem of skepticism (close the gap it sees between us and the world and the Other) by imposing its own criteria and standards.

If you are investigating to understand what counts as an instance of a particular concept, then you are doing philosophy, and this is not what we do in ordinary language use. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right, not investigating "what we do in ordinary language use", but "investigating to understand what counts as an instance of a particular concept", which is to say, as you do, OLP is doing philosophy. Its method is to investigate an instance (example) of a concept by looking at: when we say "I know___" to understand what counts, what matters, where the distinctions are made, etc., i.e., the criteria for the concept.

What you don't seem to grasp, is that ordinary language usage is not exemplary of the structure of our concepts. In ordinary language use, we learn how language is used from observation and practise. This does not involve any standards or criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think I've got another misconception. It is not that what we say is an example of the structure of our concepts. We take an example of what we say when to investigate the structure of our concepts--the criteria hidden in what we say when. And, it is exactly philosophy's "standards" for [the explanation of] criteria (universality, certainty, predetermined, "normative") which causes the loss of our ordinary criteria and any use of their context.

...my interests lie in the areas I mentioned to you ( deconstruction, Heidegger, hermeneutics, constructivism, social constructionism, phenomenology , autopoietic self-organizing systems theory, Rorty and pragmatism, enactive embodied cognition, Deleuziain bio-politics). — Joshs

I studied Husserl and Gadamer, as well as by Paul Ricoeur, in studying literary theory along with philosophy. I liked the idea of the "event" that Ricoeur discusses, as it brings notice to historicity, which Nietzsche/Hegel wanted to give to morals, and the understanding that an expression is a person saying something at a moment in the face of exigency and context, claiming (at times) their existence, even their non-conformity--but with a future of consequences, responsibility, answerability.

As you know it has been at least 70 years since Austin and Witt introduced their work, and in that time, a healthy, vibrant and complex scholarly dialogue has been unfolding in a diverse variety of disciplines, embracing and utilizing Austin, Witt and Cavell, expanding their thinking in many directions. — Joshs

Well, Cavell just died, but I find that most people are embracing what they see as OLP's (Witt's and Austin's) "theories" or "explanations" and "utilizing" those for their own projects, i.e., not seeing it as a method, but a solution, say, that Witt's "forms of life" suffice for the certainty that philosophy craves. I would say the OLP tradition is carried on, or critiqued constructively, more with Cora Diamond, Steven Mulhall, Crary, Strong, Hammer, Goodman, though my experience with all of those is limited.

Now let me ask about your comment that words do not have contexts, expressions and acts do. If we change any word in an expression, doesn’t it change the
sense of the expression? — Joshs

Maybe, it is case by case for OLP (we are not looking for a general theory). First, I believe you are using "sense" here as in "meaning", as if they were attached to the expression. Witt is trying to show that words (concepts more specifically) do not have an associated "meaning", in the sense of thought: then meaning: then word, or word-object/meaning. Words (concepts) are meaningful to us, which is reflected in their ordinary criteria, as Austin says above (quoted by @Banno): they have been sculpted over our entire existence along the lines of our cares, differences, etc.

Is there such a thing as two identical expressions with non-identical words composing them? — Joshs

So, in light of the above, let's just say: if we change any word in an expression, does it not change a concept from one to another of its senses? (see the various "senses" of knowledge above). Well there are many ways to word a threat (as an example of a concept), and those may or may not affect the various criteria which would change what sense of a threat this is (empty, backed by authority or violence, for compliance to do something, or not to do something, etc.). In addition, what parts of the context come into play for the sense of threat too, say, given to a child, inappropriately to a superior, when the person has no means to comply, etc. All of these examples and ordinary criteria help us to understand that "an expression" has a lot of moving parts in each case, one of which also is one of the most important parts of seeing something said as "an expression" is that it is an event, as I discussed above, and that it is I who is expressing it (I have to defend it, be judged by its being made, follow through with it, etc.)

So, whether we can word two identical expressions with different words may be less of a matter than: it is possible (particularly with a less controversial concept) that the sense of the concept could be "identical" (a particular type of threat) if nothing matters about the context to differentiate the expressions from each other, other than we are still left with the fact that my expression is mine and your expression is yours; that is only to say, if I need to be, I am the one responsible for it, answerable for it--which is no small thing but which nevertheless may not come up. Even with all that, we may be able to say there can be, for all intents and purposes, the "same expression", even in the sense that it might not matter that I said it--but this seems to take all the gas out of it. Sometimes none of this matters, sometimes it does.

What is an act and what exactly is the difference between an act and a word? — Joshs

Well I meant actions and expressions. But an expression is an "act" (or maybe only sometimes--sometimes we just pop off; it begs the interesting distinction though between an action and a movement--perhaps whether it is in or outside a concept), and sometimes expressions are "actions"; they "do" something--Austin will have a lot to say on this. The best intro to Austin would be to read A.J. Ayer and then read Austin's Sense and Sensibilia (though @Banno may have a better idea).

Are you saying that we know [criteria] outside of local, contingent contexts, that they transcend contexts?... Are you trying to say that shared custom, upbringing, background assure that when move over from context to context a thread of normative continuity allows us to a avoid ‘starting from scratch’ with every new context? — Joshs

To say someone "knows" how to use English (its concepts) is to say their judgments, cares, distinctions, (criteria) coincide with each other (though in that is the possibility of much variety, and dissension). This is no small thing, but it is also not the big thing (some idea of "normativity") which philosophy would like it to be--there is no assurance. Now the lack of assurance is one reason philosophy would throw it all out and start entirely from scratch. As well, OLP accounts for the extension of concepts into different contexts than the regular ones which uncontroversially allow it to work along the lines it usually does, however, this extension is a function of, within, the concept itself, and more specifically, the life of our criteria.

I'm not sure why I am reticent to allow it to go unmentioned that maybe we would say expression to expression rather than "context to context"; maybe it is a point you'd like to hold on to, but I would only say, the possibilities lie in the concept and its expression, and the context is brought up (or not) to clarify (afterwards) or in deliberation (ahead of time), not that the concept is changed by the context--we could have the same sense of a concept expressed (same type of threat) and the contexts would only need to align in the ways necessary to allow for the criteria to work as they do in the same way--so that "every context" is different is not as meaningful as: they have differences, but they may or may not matter: to the expression (you deciding to say it, say, at an inappropriate time), or may only matter in the aftermath of you saying something we have to make sense of, or which changes the consequences of the expression (what happens after a threat to your brother may be different than after a threat in an alleyway).

[Each of Witt's examples involving creiteria] involves a case of judgement as to whether or not one has correctly understood, and is therefore a specialized epistemological use of language. Criteria for judgement as to whether or not one is correct, knows such and such, or understands such and such, is epistemology, and therefore specialized language, not examples of "ordinary language". So the examples really do not justify your claim of "ordinary criteria". — Metaphysician Undercover

One, I think we got off on the wrong foot; I tried to make clear above that OLP does not mean "ordinary" as in everyday language, or just language generally, or that people actually discuss these criteria (though they may have to) in making judgements, though OLP is drawing out the ways in which we are making judgements about our concepts such as "whether or not one has correctly understood." I can only say, quickly, that it is better understood as opposed to metaphysical criteria, certainty, universality, predetermined, etc. And, second, yes, this is epistemology. It is a method to discover the unexamined ways in which our concepts work, their grammar. (And also an ethics of epistemology, a comment that the way in which we seek knowledge, and the type of knowledge we seek (the criteria for it), reflects on us.)

Do you see the difference I am pointing to? In ordinary language use we communicate with each other and carry on with our activities respectfully, without hesitation, questioning, or otherwise doubting what the other has said. Understanding is assumed, taken for granted, and we carry on without issue. However, if misunderstanding occurs, it creates a problem, and the problem might be greatly magnified because understanding was assumed, and the person carried on under the assumption of having understood, and therefore proceed into doing the wrong thing which might constitute a significant difference. — Metaphysician Undercover

And I agree we are "ordinarily" (in one of its regular senses) assuming and taking for granted our understanding, and in a misunderstanding we do not usually examine or discuss our criteria (we unconcsiously share the concerns and judgments and distinctions embodied in them (that is to say, we also share our lives, our senses of humor, our expectations, etc, all our forms of life, and desires and distinctions of those are in the criteria of our concepts)--though all of this can break down, they do in traceable ways.

We [philosophers] impose criteria to escape the pitfalls of ordinary language. — Metaphysician Undercover

Now this is where I am trying to point out the philosophy that differs from OLP. Instead of "imposing" criteria to "escape" the pitfalls, OLP is trying to show all the ways we have to carry on in the face of these pitfalls, and that we can not escape and shouldn't impose, but look and work within (or extending beyond). There is no philosophical solution for this failure (nor the implied radical skepticism)--it is our human condition. I tried to work through this with @Joshs above in relation to when words fail us.

Again, this is not philosophy using or justifying "ordinary" language or our games, in the sense of regular, unquestioned, etc., but to say that these games (Witt uses concepts to generalize here) have criteria for how they work, their grammar; these are our ordinary criteria for these concepts. Looking at our ordinary criteria gives us an idea of why philosophers react to solve "the gap" that skepticism takes as absolute and world-ending, by imposing particular (universal) criteria to ensure understanding. But OLP also sees that we are separate and that we do sometimes fail, but that who we are is responsible for our expressions and for our answerability to the Other, our misunderstandings along the regular ways we already have.

So yes, there is a difference between regular unexamined discussion (and the regular ways we repair those) and when philosophy steps in (when the "gap" appears to "open", Cavell says when we are at a loss of what to do). OLP looks at our ordinary criteria to see what they lend to the discussion of philosophical issues; to say, for example, that a question of intention only comes up when something unexpected happens (as I discuss above).

I hope this helps differentiate the sense of ordinary communcation and ordinary (unquestioned) language, from the philosophy that OLP is doing (just don't think about it being called "Ordinary Language" Philosophy) in the tradition of analytic epistemology but with a different version of criteria and different senses of knowledge. and its implications (which I address in my post on Witt's lion quote).

The problem though, is that as Wittgenstein pointed out, in what you're calling ordinary language, there is no such standards or criteria. There need be no boundaries for me to understand what "game" means. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well I guess I haven't done a good enough job with the examples I've tried to give above (re knowledge, apologies). I know that forms of life and family resemblances hold a big place in the investigations, and what I am saying does not detract or take the place of his point in bringing those up. But if you check the index there is 3/4 of a column of references to criteria of how to tell one thing from another or how a thing works: for raising your arm #625; learning a shape p. 158; of meaning #190, #692; of a mistake #51, etc. There is also the central role of the term Grammar for the concept of how and what ordinary criteria tell us about our concepts.

What fear is that? — Luke

Well Cavell tags it to scepticism, or the tipping point where all the failures of communication and moral confusion lead to the fear that we are never able to tell or say or judge and so we abandon our ordinary ways of understanding about telling, saying or judging and create one picture for all action and speech based on certainty, universality, prediction, etc. Along with the fear of never being heard, Cavell diagnoses that we remove our criteria in order to remove us (our fallibility) from the equation, our responsibility to what we say and our answerability to the Other.

I think family resemblances are more about a contrast to essentialism rather than representationalism — Luke

Well that is good to point out. Witt does say Essence is expressed by grammar, which is to say, what you want from the idea of an “essence” of a thing, you get from examining the ordinary criteria for it.

And by representationalism I thought was the thing Witt first addressed, which is the belief that all language operates like a word corresponds to an object. In any event, consider that essentialism, representationalism, mental processes, metaphysics, positivism, are all different reactions to the same fear; different attempts to do the same thing; all erasing our ordinary criteria in place of a picture made to fit manufactured standards.

Thank you for taking the time to read the Cavell (on Wittgenstein). I have read the article on Austin, Ryle, etc. and I do have some thoughts I will share later. I do wonder what you thought of the sense Cavell brings to Witt. I can't shake the impression that you looked through the essay to find justification (shared words) for your own theories, rather than addressing the main contentions (which is what we all do ultimately in beginning a reading). I can at this point, thus only address where you seem to go off track.

Context is novel and familiar (background history ) at the same time. * * * Word contexts can be more or less familiar, more or less felicitous , more or less successfully understood. — Joshs

Words do not have contexts, expressions do (actions do). I'm not sure you have OLP's sense that context is not a fixed or not-fixed thing; maybe it helps to think of it as the (undetermined) realm in which misunderstanding gets worked out. What needs to be brought in about the context (of its limitless possibilities) is based on what needs to be straightened out: in which sense of a concept (of "I know") something is said: which circumstances are we in that it does what, compared to what was happening when it was expressed, to the context of our expectations, whether certain consequences should flow, i.e., understanding along what other criteria for how that concept works. Also, felicitous (apt/not apt) is the truth value of an action or expression to its criteria (was the apology done correctly, aptly), not a judgment of context. However, in working out if something was apt it may be necessary to say that in the context of what was happening, it was not apt to apologize (based on the criteria that, say, timing is part of a correct apology).

So what does this tell us about scientific approaches that are currently in use? — Joshs

Well if you mean philosophy of science, Thomas Kuhn was, I believe, trying t change the same picture with his discussion of paradigms (not my forte). But I am with Ryle and Witt that philosophy's concerns are not about facts (not that they fly in the face of them)--philosophy does not look to facts. I also believe that positivism's mistakes have led to a sense that science can address the concerns of philosophy (though it has reduced the purview of philosophy over time to such things as morality, meaning, aesthetics, what is the best way to live, etc.

You seem to find problematic accounts of resistance to communicative understanding due to personally sedimented histories. But Witt seems to acknowledge the role of background in causing difficulties in understanding.

Witt says “ There are, for example, styles of painting which do not convey anything to me in this immediate way, but do to other people. I think custom and upbringing have a hand in this.” — Joshs

I do not object to the fact of this, only to the implication of it; where the skeptic is compelled to go with it. Yes, people have different customs and upbringing, but we have ordinary ways by which these differences are addressed. That is to say, the fact of misunderstanding is not cause for throwing out our regular criteria and trying to find some other lesson in it: a need for certainty, a desire to make each individual the holder of all the keys to meaning what they say and whether it is understood; that there is no context, or shared history, or to each his own.

Custom and upbringing are objects in a box, we only know them in contexts of use. — Joshs

Our customs are literally the criteria we see when we look at the use of what we say when (in whatever context to draw out the criteria). They are not in a box (though they may be unexamined), and we do not "only know them" in looking at their use in context, that is exactly what OLP is doing.

Nevertheless, there are... more and less felicitous relationalities, that can be spoke of usefully as ongoing patterns rather than as simply this momentary difficulty of understanding. — Joshs

Yes! Other than changing "relationalities" to "acts or expressions" (concepts), and not "rather than" but, say, "in order to" work out "this momentary difficult in understanding". Say "there are... more and less felicitous actions and expressions that can be spoken of usefully as ongoing patterns to resolve this momentary difficulty of understanding [say, philosophy being stuck when talking about an issue]."

Now, in regular life, we may not discuss a concept's criteria (the "ongoing patterns"), which is where philosophy comes in, but, nevertheless, a conversation may come to that: "You call that an apology! You don't even think you did anything wrong!" (Claiming that, when we say "I apologize", one criteria is that it be a recognition of a wrong done to you.)

Your analysis of Ratcliffe’s treatment of some heady psychological topics (ptsd, severe depression) implies an alternative ‘psychotherapy’. — Joshs

I did not mean to imply that. I think I was merely saying that the fact of psychotherapy is the possibility of actually getting at what we might (want to) think of as unspeakable, beyond words, and to passingly show some reasons why we might want to be unknowable (trauma, repression, the consolation of pity).

Yes, but Sacred Cows are allowed to wander where they will. — Ciceronianus the White

Touche'. Fresh meat?

The reason why OLP becomes self-contradictory, or hypocritical, is that the activity of philosophy, as a quest to dispel misunderstanding in favour of understanding, is itself a specialized activity with a particular goal.
— @Metaphysician Undercover
***
The business of language is to express or explain; if language cannot explain itself, nothing else can explain it. (R.G. Collingwood)
***
As I mentioned elsewhere, there is the typical, and there is the exemplary. — Pantagruel

OLP is literally letting language--what we say--explain itself. Taking the typical as exemplary; looking at what we typically mean with what we say as exemplary of the structure of our concepts. I do not agree that OLP does not have the same goals as philosophy in general, but, yes, I am asking that you rethink the "specialized activity with a particular goal" that is the method of a tradition of some analytic philosophy.

I think you need to distinguish between the intention involved with describing what philosophers are doing, and the intention involved with doing philosophy. If you do not allow for this distinction, then "doing philosophy" is an act of describing what philosophers are doing, which is describing what other philosophers are doing, onward ad infinitum, without ever taking into account what a true philosopher is actually doing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Point well taken. What I am explaining is a way of doing philosophy in order to understand our world, ourselves, and philosophy's issues. Philosophy is, however, often about revolutionizing, or re-envisioning, philosophy itself. Where do we get Nietszche from if not in response to Kant? and Kant from Hume, etc. And so OLP must first clear up the grounds. So when I say "philosophy" does this or that, I am referring to a specific "type of philosophy".

The premise is that criteria has failed, the description given, which may or may not have been based in criteria, is insufficient for understanding, so the philosopher is seeking a better description. — Metaphysician Undercover

And I am trying to get at this moment with @Joshs, but this is where two paths are taken. Some philosophers are seeking a better description, but in looking for "better", they get trapped into only accepting a particular answer, say, which will solve the failure of language, words, criteria. Some refuse to acknowledge any statement that could not be answered as true or false. Kant had his own standards for morality and rationality. Plato ended Socrates' questioning by setting a bar for what would meet the forms on knowledge. The refusal, the standard, the bar, are what I mean by criteria set by these philosophers (certainty, universality, pre-determined, infallible, or only fallible in predictable ways, etc.). Now OLP, instead of setting those standards (for the description of our "concepts"--knowledge, intention, ad infinitum), looks for the standards (criteria) to judge what it is to be those concepts and what is important to us about them, by investigating when we say those things, "When we say...", i.e, When I say "I know you are in pain" one example is that I acknowledge, accept that you are in pain. That claim that pain (the person who it is in) is something that is accepted, or denied, is a standard or measure of our description of pain (the "concept" of pain). Acceptance or denial is one way it works, a criteria for that type of working, what is important to us about it--as truth and falsity is one way to measure (one criteria of) what a statement is.

When we describe, we assume to know what is going on, as a fundamental attitude of certainty, allowing one to put words toward making a description. When we do philosophy, we assume not to know, we are seeking knowledge, therefore we request, or ask for descriptions from those who appear more certain, we inquire, in order to dispel one's own misunderstanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

OLP is both claiming to know, and not to know. The first premise is that we do not normally see the criteria for our concepts. Second is that no one knows any better than anyone else (Emerson calls this Genius) about the type of claims OLP is making (about the criteria of what we mean when we say something). But also, that the OLP philosopher is making a claim for everyone, that is its claim to a type of knowledge/understanding, but that claim is able to be clarified or changed based on developing better or more representative samples or contexts. It starts from simply seeing and describing.

At this point, you ought to see how you are making a clean break from Wittgensteinian principles, by seeking criteria for concepts, rather than seeking family resemblances. — Metaphysician Undercover

Family resemblances are part of a picture in contrast to the picture of representationalism. I do not understand how this is either/or with Witt's discussion of criteria?

The use of criteria to create concepts, which Wittgenstein called boundaries, is carried out for a particular purpose. — Metaphysician Undercover

I will grant you that "criteria" for Witt is a term, not all the applications are used--I would say (his term) Grammar is interchangeable--and I admit I have not done a good-enough job differentiating it from all the other senses of "criteria" (I will edit this in at the bottom when I can). But criteria do not "create" (from the PI): having a toothache, sitting in a chair, playing a game of chess, following a rule, believing, seeing, thinking, hoping, etc., but the idea of them as boundaries is well taken, because criteria tell us what type of thing those are. PI # 373. We are investigating what we say when about a concept in order to understand what counts as an instance of it, how it works, what matters to us about it, how we judge under it, etc., which gives us a way of understanding them, ourselves, and philosophy's issues.