What do you mean - then nothing is happening?

Other than a joke, it is also a play on the idea that the words 'nothing' and 'always' and 'happening' have different senses depending on the context, your focus, your interests--to show that 'exists' changes too, as does 'identity'. Your vantage point is harmless to the extent it includes everything and connects everything, and I grant you that, but does it have to occlude everything else?--my interests, my vantage point, the myriad of other ways in which the world exists, in the sense that it comes alive only for me. I can understand though the wonder and awe and comfort and company and connectedness in having something in common with everything else. Cheers.

I think the forefront of modern analytic philosophy (not discussing social topics) is Ordinary Language Philisophy, which was reacting to Positivism (among other things), first with Wittgenstein and then J.L. Austin's response to A.J. Ayer. The current proponent is Stanley Cavell, who is ground breaking in his methods of changing our perspectives, and the breadth of its application, though there are others, Cora Diamond, Mulhall. Try an essay from Must We Mean What We Say.

I hate to say this--it is merely meant for humor and not to be flippant (blasphemous?)--but it needs to be said in light of the question implied by the title of the post... Answer: 5 to1

Self organization is not something we can break free from, or step aside from, even in pure self aware reflection we are self organizing. This perspective has very broad consequences for understanding everything, but in terms of identity and I am, it puts those static notions in doubt, and replaces them with an evolving process of being, as a biological system, where self organization is always taking place -however it may manifest itself. — Pop

I understand this as an underlying, necessary occurrence, and maybe you are aligning this with Descartes' desire for something to connect us (to).** But the idea of something inseparable from us, however fundamental, does not replace our possibility to claim our existence, our responsibility to, even, or we may, in a sense, not exist at all. Emerson's method is to investigate the concepts in these words; bring them back from hovering alone in space with Descartes (like "exist"), e.g., say, that consciousness is not a condition of humanity, but a state of being that comes and goes, like sadness, or focus. This is to say that we may be speaking apples and oranges here, only that "thought" and "being" are also not constants, and so neither "static" nor "notions", but more akin to activities, and so saying an evolving biological system "replaces" them is more like ships passing in the night, e.g., are evolution and character in the same conceptual realm? That being said, your desire/claim that: "I am an evolving process of self organization" is legitimate (you could be making the point that you are like all of us, or that there is hope in being human, etc.). But to say that all of us are is a different claim (factual or general), without the moral force of one claiming their own identity--"I am the means of production!" I'm not saying our thought or identity cannot be forced on us, but, in that case, do I exist?

** Some say the trouble Descartes got into was he set his standards and terms first, and then started investigating his thoughts, but each word has its own criteria already (before us) and each sense its own conditions. Are we looking or insisting? That's only to say: is there a goal and/or desire for certain implications which may have created the form of the concept?

We are an evolving process of self organization. We are not a static - I am. We think because we are conscious, there is no choice in the matter. — Pop

I can agree that "We are not a static - I am", but, in what sense are we agreeing? Factually, sure. But we can also disagree: "I am a static; I've always been a Bruins fan". And maybe if one part stands still, anyways, not all of us does. Sure, but that is to say.... what? Something is always happening? And who would disagree? (Until I'm 18 in Vernon, B.C. on the weekend, and then nothing is happening.)

We can be said to think unconsciously (say, without words, or attention--perhaps working on a Rubix cube), and we can say we choose to avoid thinking ("I'm too busy to think about the funeral arrangements", or "I'm going to clear my mind of any thought"), or even choose not to be conscious (unaware). If we desire to stretch these terms beyond their ordinary use, they loose traction to do anything for us but what we want. Maybe we want them to be given or our nature, but then maybe we overlook what makes them special and that can be lost.

All that uncertainty can be made certain by acknowledging a singular process that in many ways is self evident in the universe and life, though not entirely understood - Yet! Yes it is a god concept - works much the same way as a god, but it places the power of god in the individuals hands, and it gives everybody and everything an equal power of god, by understanding that everything belongs to a singular process of self organization. — Pop

Making uncertainty certain could be said to be the goal of every philosopher since before Plato; but it's like grasping harder, where everything falls through your fingers says Emerson (and Heidegger). Wittgenstein would say the desire for certainty creates a particular picture of our concepts (blocking the actual view) and that without any specific context there is nothing to grab onto at all, so we are back floating around with Descrartes, searching for the thing that will hold down the universe.

The picture is: meaning, thought, any inner processes (how some use Forms of Life), corresponds to the world. We know one (world) through the other (word/meaning)--correlation.
— Antony Nickles

Agreed, in principle. The picture....the mental image as I use “picture”......corresponds to the world, such image I would call intuition, but the remainder of the inner process must ensue before there is knowledge. Different metaphysics, similar principles. — Mww

This is a description of "the picture", not as a theory proposed by Witt (or me). It is also not referring to 'pictures' as, say, mental images; it is the theoretical framework forced on us by the desire for certainty (predictability, universality, etc.). The metaphysics (or Forms of Life, or Use, or any other postulation to solve the problem (separation) of the Other) is created by the need for something other than the stopping point at which we become responsible to each other. This is to veer into territory better suited for another post, but one of Witt's points is there is no space between our pain and its expression to allow our own "knowledge" of it. We express our pain (or hide it); we don't "know" it. Similarly, usually there is no space between the world and our language; no (metaphysical) "reality" to which our words correspond. I say usually because our doubt--our confusion, our fear, our lack of control of the Other--along with other (moral, aesthetic, etc.) problems, create the feeling of space--and thus the need for some connection--between the word and the world. But the Other is separate; we can't agree or convince each other; things fall apart, irreparably sometimes; our standards run afoul. The picture allows a vision of the world where these things are manageable, avoidable, or solved--by knowledge, logic, argument, etc.

it's just we have a relationship to the Other that is more than knowledge ("know" in a different sense--aaaand I just lost Mmw because this is Witt as Ordinary Language Philosopher.)
— Antony Nickles

Kindasorta lost me, I guess, insofar as I attribute no philosophical authority to ordinary language. But I’m still interested in this “know” in a different sense, from its point of view. — Mww

I'll take the second part first. I have discussed elsewhere that Witt is pointing out that knowledge in this sense (our ability to be certain, say, about the Other), comes to an end sometimes. We are separate, and that comes out in ways that cannot be resolved by "knowledge"--either of the Other, or of our world or our language, say, to convince/logically force the Other. As I added just above recently, language is not just word-object or true/false statements; there are myriad uses ("senses" Witt will say, grammars) of a concept--they have numerous possibilities in which they can be meaningful (even projections for new meaning into new contexts), and have different criteria, judged different ways, in each sense, in each categorical context--knowledge as fact, knowledge as skill/familiarity, knowledge as acknowledgement--its many ordinary formations.

Now when you say you attribute no philosophical authority to ordinary language, that is understandable. That is a view of Witt and other ordinary language philosophers shared by much of philosophy. This definitely would be another post, but the observations of OLP are not made to be assessed as statements (about the world, etc.). OLP makes no claim to defend ordinary usage ("common sense") either (say, against "philosophy"). The descriptions also have no authority other than the extent to which someone else sees what I see--the statements about: what we say when, e.g., when we say we "know something", etc.--are philosophical evidence--but they are not facts. Though neither are they merely beliefs. There may be disputes, e.g., over whether it is really the case/sense, whether it applies in this particular context, and whether, even if we accept it, there is any philosophical implication to the issues that concern us, say: does the sense of knowledge as acknowledgement really impact the Problem of Other Minds? OLP is not to compete with traditional analytical philosophy (say, on its terms), but to revolutionize it (from within) entirely.

[concepts have different meanings. Or, the grammar of concepts are not etched in stone, so the] reasoning using concepts is adaptable to circumstance.
— Mww

......Concepts have different "uses" as in different ways in which they make sense.....

Doesn’t that say the same thing? — Mww

In the paragraph above in which this is included is the implication that there is a competition here between knowledge and belief--a way for certainty (stone), and a failing of "difference"/"adaptability". Witt is trying to see past those all-or-nothing pictures by showing that our concepts have varying senses (say, than this dichotomy). But the criteria for you "knowing" your brother's character compared to you "knowing" Newton's laws are not different "meanings". We don't (reason doesn't) "use" or "adapt" concepts. Just because they are not certain, universal, predictable, etc., or that because they are varied, sometimes generalizable, projectable, subject to circumstance, etc., does not make the different senses (and each of their criteria) of our concepts, flimsy, personal, or without implications. You'd have to explain why you'd say you "know" the sun will come up (not that there are no reasons, I guess), not because it's common sense, but because that does not fit the criteria for the concept of "knowledge"--(there'd have to be a reason to doubt it would come up)--My examples of apologies, etc. are better. You CAN say whatever you want ("adapt concepts to circumstances"), but at a certain point you will be said not to be making an apology, no longer playing a "game"; you will be outside any category of a concept, or lying, evading, joking, insincere, avant garde, or maybe called insane (the goal here is not claiming normative force).

A concept is, after all, nothing but a representation of something. A representation, in and of itself, has no meaning. It only attains to a meaning upon being conjoined with something else, and the only way to conjoin, is to reason. To think. It is here that it becomes more rational to insist concepts are fixed, concepts do ensure something, otherwise we couldn’t ever claim any knowledge whatsoever. — Mww

Witt's view of concepts (the same term used by others but with a different framework around it), is that they are categorical (as I said, in sort of a Kantian sense), not representational. It is not "idea" and "reality" (or whatever). A concept is a class held in place (loosely) with criteria (say, for judgment, standards, identity, etc.). The "conjoining" of meaning with anything, by reason or agreement, etc., to "ensure" or "fix", say, our thoughts--the "insistence", the need of it--is the pull that forces a certain view of how meaning must work; the picture, the theoretical threshold. The fear of the fallibility of us, of our concepts, leads to calamatizing "we couldn’t ever claim any knowledge whatsoever."

If we are not certain of a specific representation of a specific quantity, conceived, say, as the number 1, we wouldn’t have any ground at all for what stands as the absolute truth of mathematical expressions. — Mww

Here try to see that "the absolute truth of mathematical expressions" being "grounded" in "certainty" is the grammar of mathematical expressions; it is the way they work, the criteria for being what they are. Is it not easier now to see that there are other expressions that have other criteria? different ways in which they work? Maybe they do not rely on certainty; there may even be no "ground". Our moral realm still has rationale, though it might fail; our aesthetic world still has knowledge, only perhaps not always agreement. Can we never make any claim whatsoever? i.e., is discussion impossible outside the conditions of grounded certainty?

we see what counts as reasonable for each concept may indeed be different — Mww

Seeing the variety of conceptual rationale is one of the main points of the PI. "Seeing what counts" for a concept--even for the different senses of a concept--is to see two things (at least) about the grammar of a concept: the criteria ("what counts") are the structure and limits of that concept. If you stray from the grammar of a concept, the criteria resolve the identity of an action under that concept--e.g., what it can not be (or must fulfill) if it is to be "knowledge". But the criteria also elucidate what "counts"--as in, what 'matters'--under a concept; the human cares and needs reflected in our criteria. "Reasoning" is not internal; grammar is also the ways I which a concept can be meaningful, or at least usually (as humans can do whatever they want for whatever reasons they want), say, "What's your reasoning for doing it that way?"--"for more aerodynamics" or "less weight"; but maybe not: "I felt a moral obligation".

But the number 1 is completely meaningless by itself, and actually wouldn’t even have been conceived at all, if it weren’t for a need only it could satisfy. — Mww

And here we can see a need giving a concept the criteria for its grammar (one of which is the satisfaction of the need). Should we call this the concept of singularity/uniqueness? or of numerical primacy? or a series? All? Are there contexts where there could be confusion between which sense applies? (not here but maybe under the different senses of knowledge, good, should, etc.) We have different criteria for how these senses are used, e.g., different conditions, and different consequences for using them outside that criteria, say, the rigidity for inclusion under one sense or the other. These distinctions go on as far as the need to clarify, even beyond their limits (e.g., the "bad" as the "moral" as Nietschze might say).

I think therefore I am.

Thinking is a function of consciousness, where consciousness is the fundamental activity and thinking being its result. So the sentence can be rephrased:

I am conscious therefore I am.

This is closer to the truth, but now the sentence highlights what was implicit and inconsistent in the original phrase –there are two identities where there can only be one.
I am conscious and therefore I am. It can be rephrased:

I am consciousness - the therefore I am, is superfluous - what I am is consciousness.

I like it. It now cannot be reduced any further, and it is closer to the truth of our being. I believe, at its base. I like the way it does away with false identity and equalizes and unifies everyone.
What do you think? Is it logical?

For the statement to be meaningful, consciousness needs a definition. My definition of consciousness is: an evolving process of self organization. So, I am an evolving process of self organization - sounds about right to me, what do you think? Dose it work for you?

The construction is a challenge to the notion of identity and its product the ego, so an exploration of this might lead to insights about human nature. — Pop

Emerson in Self Reliance says "Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say 'I think,' 'I am,' but quotes some saint or sage."

If this is, as I believe (as does Stanley Cavell), a critique of Descartes, Emerson has taken out the "therefore"; our identity/existence is not contingent (on consciousness, on thought--on anything). But what is left is a standing up for ourselves. As it were in Emerson's example, I no longer speak from others mouths. I am saying this! I am claiming myself! "I am an evolving process of self organization!" Yes!, you be you. But this identifying is not ego, so much as a courageous carving out for ourselves (even if aligning with others, along party lines, against our mother, etc.). It is the opposite of "equalizing and unifying". A ramification of this active claiming is that: not everyone thinks, or is. If you want to be, if you want to be said to be thinking--something must be done! Being and thinking are not given, ever-present states of the human condition; sometimes we act like others without consideration, speak their opinions; some are even ghosts of themselves, lost to themselves. We are not ensured or given; there is only the possibility to think, to be.

You say the lion sentence is to be taken as a fact demonstrating an impossibility. It is only to be taken as a fact because its author so stipulates, but the sentence does not demonstrate an impossibility. — Mww

No, he/the sentence does not demonstrate it, but, Yes!! Witt is asking you to take/accept/imagine it as a fact. Whew.

The conviction that the feelings some dude in pain are inaccessible to us when in truth “we CAN know”, but choose to be convinced we can’t.... — Mww

Again, got it. You go on to assume Witt is using the comparison as a moral equivalency (between our position to the lion and the Other), but that is going one step too far--what you say above is the stopping point with the lion. Also, we are not "choosing" to be "convinced". Picturing knowledge this way expresses our conviction with regard to the Other: I want to know him only by knowing his inner (thought processes, meaning, intention, etc.) or outer (traditions, form of life, etc.), and, since those are not accessible/sufficient, we conclude we cannot "know" the Other (as the Interlocutor says), when we can. But we do have a relationship to the Other; it's just that it's more than knowledge ("know" in a different sense--aaaand I just lost @Mmw because this is Witt as Ordinary Language Philosopher.) Our relationship to the Other (and meaning, Form of Life, etc.) is not predetermined, certain, universal, predictable, not partial, unconditional, free from doubt, etc. There is a gap between us and Them that only we can fill (if necessary)--we know the Other in the sense we acknowledge them, their expressions as meaningful, or reject them.

we [are] relieved of moral responsibility... so can’t be held liable for denying the accessibility of them [the Other's feelings] — Mww

This (which is taken out of the context of @Mmw's discussion, but it) is, in a nutshell, what we want as humans, and which creates the Picture of philosophical (positivist) knowledge. We no longer have to be responsive to the accessible expressions of the Other; no longer have to span the distance of our separateness.

And all that needs doing..... is to grant that... the grammar of concepts are not etched in stone, so the reasoning using concepts is adaptable to circumstance. — Mww

And here all we need to tweak is that "reasoning" (or, us), do not "use" concepts. Concepts have different "uses" as in different ways in which they make sense, say: "to know", as I have discussed elsewhere, a phone number, the theme of a poem, a person's intent, when a star will appear on the other side of the moon, etc. But these senses are not adaptable "to" a circumstance, nor, again, adaptable by reason (or by a person); the "use"--the sense(s) a concept has--is part of the context at the time (as it were, to be determined, if necessary). Just because they are not fixed (do not ensure anything), does not make them adaptable, nor irrational--just that what counts as reasonable for each concept, in context, may be different.

It is not that we CAN NOT know/understand the other.....we decide that without knowledge......we have no obligation to respond to their pain.
— Antony Nickles

It is never our knowledge of others that predicates our moral obligations. — Mww

The issue is the problem the Other creates in being unknown (unknowable (with certainty) the interlocutor will claim, since we cannot know what is going on with their experience--internally; or by some shared external something)). Now this response in a sense moves past the other--the claim on us of them, not others generally, but this person, in front of us, in a present moral situation, say, writhing in pain--past that to find our obligations spelled out in morality, our moral knowledge. As if Kant were not just trying to remove our feelings or instinct from our moral action, but remove what we can't be certain of (beforehand) entirely--including the Other.

The idea of a sentence or a word in isolation is only a thing in philosophy--stemming from the desire to tether it to something determinate, certain, universal.
— Antony Nickles

Yes. Tethering to the irreducible, the apodeitically certain, is the whole modus operandi of human reason, and consequently, for possible mutual understanding because of it. — Mww

Here I should say that there is nothing wrong (false) with the Picture of knowledge that the Interlocutor wants, and there is nothing impossible about it--we can, of course, 'know' the Other, say, scientifically (for what good it does). And the mode of (philosophical, rational, logical) "human reason" is not nonsense, or incorrect. However, the desire to "tether to the irreducible" is the same desire for certainty of the Other that Witt is pointing out comes to an end (categorically) in the human condition. We are separate; there is no understanding that is ensured to us mutually. If there is a miscommunication, or a disagreement, or a refusal to recognize the Other--their cares, their sensibilities, their history--there is nothing that "knowledge" or "reason" will do apart from our willingness to refuse to give up on the process of understanding. The "possibility" for that understanding has a breaking point, an ending moment. But, again, most of the time misunderstanding does not happen--there is no need for concern over the Other; no need to ask about intention or what they mean, but that is not the situation philosophers care about. The desire is to never come to that moment by treating every communication and the process of understanding as the same; setting the bar for certainty and predictability, and solving for that problem. It is to put the cart before the horse, and the philosophical criteria from that desire for certainty leave us blind to the Other, unable to capture all the various ways we save understanding--excuses, apologies, clarifications, acknowledgements, concessions; i.e., reasons, to allow for the possibility for understanding.

Witt credits language use for understanding, or lack of it, but proper philosophy reduces language to its components, and those are the actual ground for understanding, and by association, the prevention of misunderstanding. Rather than worry about what a word means in a language, it is a better effort to realize how words originate of themselves, for then we find the meaning of a word is given BY its origin, and understanding henceforth becomes a matter of its relation, and its meaning becomes merely a matter of convention. — Mww

And now we've come full circle to the "ground for understanding" again; the search for how meaning is given to a word--here maybe by its origin, relation, convention; "language as components"--this is the search Witt is showing forces a picture on us, a certain pre-determined theoretical framework based on our fears and desires. Saying Witt "credits language use for understanding" is to impose that picture onto Witt--attribute to him the desire which he is attempting to reveal. It is important to note that when Witt is saying, paraphrased: "Look at the Use!" (#340), that is not to say that "use is meaning" (use as opposed to... ) but: Look! See how language functions many ways beyond this prejudice for certainty, universality (beyond the person); to see that language is not just word-object or true/false statements; to recognize that there are myriad uses ("senses" he will say, grammars) of a concept--they have numerous possibilities in which they can be meaningful (even projections for new importance, into new contexts), and have different criteria, judged different ways, in each sense, in each categorical context--knowledge as fact, knowledge as skill/familiarity, knowledge as acknowledgement--its many ordinary formations (imagine, even "certainty" in different ways in different places). As if Plato pushed past Socrates' accomplishment in his (Plato's) desire for a standard of knowledge which led to the picture of the forms. Socrates was an ordinary language philosopher first in asking "what do when say: when...", say, we ask about justice. One ordinary answer is: might makes right--that is actually a part of the world of justice; it's a legitimate, rational answer. Maybe not the best justice, but how can we say that the idea that "what is good for the stronger is good for the country" is not part of the concept/possibility/conversation of justice? It's the basis for trickle-down economics. Socrates (and definitely Plato) do aspire to a (more just) answer, but along the way we are investigating our (normally unnoticed, unexamined) concepts--this is the benefit of ordinary philosophy. Plato went too far in imagining a hidden world to fit his desired conditions rather than see the criteria existing in the world. Why ask the question if you know the answer?

But Witt's point is that the grounding we want is a wish; a decision before we look (start our investigation)--starting with a demand for a certain standard. We understand each other most of the time because of the ordinary everything; all the training, all the watching, all the mistakes, etc. Our language is weaved into our lives and world, not in any specific way, but in all the complex, subtle, crass, general, lazy, vague, precise, poetic ways in which we live and judge and how we disagree and know and forget and apologize. Witt is trying to expand our vision to see all the different ways language works in various activities; even just at a particular time/place (the context of the event, the people there, the expectations, the accompanying histories, the feelings). All language can not be reduced to one explanation, a theory.

The point he is making at this moment in the PI is that, despite our wish to interact with the Other based on knowledge that is certain, and with understanding grounded in something that would prevent misunderstanding, our knowledge of the Other comes to an end, and we are left with: not an empirical problem to solve, but a moral situation in which we are responsible for our effort (or lack of) to understand the Other--together, through questions, rebuke, ultimatums, education, exasperation, breakthrough, learning what matters to each other, clearing up hyperbole, generalized terms, different senses, etc. You might say words have meaning; I would say that more important than ensuring that process is to see that words are meant.

"I cannot know what is going on in him" is above all a picture. Witt, PI, p. 223.
— Antony Nickles

Can you help me out with [the] picture? Picture of what, picture of what kind, how do I know it as such, what am I enabled to do with it, what am I enabled to do because of it......and whatever else may apply as far as this topic is concerned. — Mww

This is a legit question for this post, as I skip over the picture to just make a case that the same desire (for the picture) comes from the entire human condition (our separateness). Maybe the best sense of the picture is: a model of sorts; the positivist model of meaning that Witt toyed with in the Tractates (that he is now diagnosing in the PI--"why did I/we want to think about it that way?"). The picture is: meaning, thought, any inner processes (how some use Forms of Life), corresponds to the world. We know one (world) through the other (word/meaning)--correlation.

" [From the Interlocutor:] 'A name signifies only what is an element of reality. What can not be destroyed; what remains the same in all moments.'... This was the very expression of a quite particular image: of a particular picture we[**] want to use." #59 **"We" being what philosophy has wanted in the past--certainty (not"destroy[-able]"), fixed ("the same"), universality ("in all moments")]

If we can't know one (the Other's mind) we can't know the Other (this is the denial). It is the view of (a picture for) meaning as statements that refer to objects; that true/false is the measure of meaning.

" 'The mind seems able to give a word a meaning'... But this is not something that seems to be so; it is a picture." p. 184

It is here important to point out that this is what Witt is trying to show as the shortcomings of philosophical 'knowledge'--its attempt to solve the skeptical doubt of other minds ("I can't know--be certain--what is going on in them"; "I can't but know what is going on in me"--or "I absolutely can not know what is going on with them"---because it doesn't meet the standard of the positivist's "knowledge".

" 'Either he has this experience, or not' --what primarily occurs to us is a picture which by itself seems to make the sense of the expressions unmistakable..." #352

Witt points to the lion; as if, in THIS case, yes, we CAN NOT--but, with the Other, we are ABLE TO, however, we would rather rely on the Picture: where knowledge (of the inner, of agreed meaning, etc.) stands in our place, excusing us from any relation to the Other--to their expressions which ask to be answered, perhaps; "mistake"-nly (see quote above); unjustly, selfishly, by closing our eyes shut, etc.

Clarification: since Witt's focus on "use" seems to be a stumbling block, I wanted to point out that it is not the idea that someone makes a decision or some conscious casual force for a sentence to be used one way and not another (even in a very specific way); the same confusion that every word/action is 'intended'. In literary criticism this is the confusion of asking what the author themselves 'meant'. The context tells you the use, it allows for the determination of it. "Every word has a different character in a different context." PI, p. 181. The idea of a sentence or a word in isolation is only a thing in philosophy--stemming from the desire to tether it to something determinate, certain, universal.

I'll leave you to it; only to say: my whole point is that Witt is not here "making a claim". That is not why this sentence is here. It is used in a different sense in the context of this text. Of course you can take it that way (it is a possibility of those words alone) as it is possible to drop in on one comment of a post.

"If a lion could talk, we could not understand him."

I will argue that it is essential to put the above sentence in the textual context in which it was written to see its USE here by Witt--(...) that it is used in its sense as an uncontested FACT (not to be refuted or interpreted, nor an open question, nor a thesis, etc.)
— Antony Nickles

I can grant the sentence is being used as an uncontested fact, but if it is not be contested, refuted or interpreted asks the question....why did he say it? Apparently Witt is allowing himself to do something with it, even if only to demonstrate something else, which seems to require some sort of correspondence with an uncontested fact. Doesn’t the fact need to be interpreted in order to determine its correspondence? — Mww

As I said in my first post: he is using it as a fact in comparison to the choice (the conviction) in the sentence before, to show that we are in a position to the other (beyond knowledge) in response to their pain. It is not that we CAN NOT know/understand the other ( as with the lion, see ** below) we decide (cave to our desire) that without knowledge (in its sense of certainty, independent from us, etc.) we can not know the other--we have no (further) obligation to respond to their pain.

**Though, as I have said, you can certainly debate the fact if you want, or discuss it in its other possibilities; just trying to get people to see that its use here by Witt is as an uncontested fact, again, for comparison. Maybe it helps to say that: it can be both of these things, along with others. Just because it can be used in various ways, or that it "makes sense"--as in: you know the words and how they go together, say, independent of any context--doesn't mean that it can't be/isn't used in a particular sense--here, as an uncontested fact; it is the context (here, textually) in which its sense is seen.

Again, this should (will I am thinking more and more) be a separate thread about Grammar, and intention, action, etc., but I do see some profit here (with this thread) in pointing some things out.

Yes, I can know what you are going to do; "look he is going to ask her out!"
— Antony Nickles

"...you can’t know he asks until he actually does." — Mww

Just to point out, this isn't predicting the future (especially not ensuring it). It is "going to do", not, know that he actually does it. And, of course, importantly, we can be wrong (or, as you say, something can intervene), but that only proves the possibility that we can. Witt is pointing out that possibility, in comparison to the Interlocutor's refusal to admit that we can "know" the other (even knowing their secrets) without "knowing" what is internal in the other. Importantly, these are two senses of knowledge within its Grammar (possibilities): to know (to guess with evidence, experience of the person, etc.) as opposed to knowledge as certain, prediction, infallibility, etc.

.'Meaning' is like the imagined 'hidden' inner process. A concept's grammar is its possibilities of sense--not a fixed 'meaning' like a definition either. "It's a blue day."
— Antony Nickles

It is because concepts do have specific meanings... which obtains a meaningful statement coincidental to speaker and listener. * * * understanding is a logical procedure in which the objects must align with the subject necessarily in order for there to be understanding in the first place. — Mww

We're almost there, but I put 'meaning' in quotes as connected to the hidden, inner process, because it is the (confused) picture Witt is trying to figure out why we want to insist on. Part of that picture is the idea that "concepts do have specific meanings." The PI starts with the idea that there is more (in his term, ordinary) rationality in the world/our language, than fixed, certain, specific; ALL the different ways each concept makes sense (the possible, available--even the unforeseeable): see two types of 'know' above (also, we can 'know' our phone #, which is the sense of knowledge (in its Grammar) that "we can remember it"). Meaning is not a noun, in this sense, not an adjective (meaningful statement), because meaning usually comes up afterwards (though we occasionally are trying to mean a specific sense, e.g., writing a speech; taking into consideration in advance an obvious possibility of it being taken in a different sense in a given context, etc.) We usually just say things and it works out fine (as you say). The point is nothing is fixed at all ahead of time (the 'object' and 'subject' do not align--the people do); we are endlessly responsible to each other to clarify, re-phrase, apologize, etc. (although we can give up). This frailty is not determined or resolvable by philosophy, logic, Forms of Life, our thought, 'meaning, intention, rules, science, etc. It is the open-ended process of communication.

Witt does say its amazing that we can communicate at all.
— Antony Nickles

...I can see, however, that Witt’s detractors might say exactly that, considering they might think Witt made common language use FUBAR because of his very own philosophical investigations. By the way.....did Witt have any peers playing the role of serious detractor? — Mww

All the positivists turned against him; Russell, Godel, the "Vienna Circle"; I would put A.J. Ayer in that boat (who J.L. Austin eviscerates: He and Witt share in responding to the 'descriptive fallacy'--the idea that everything said is a (true/false) statement; that everything is word--world, meaning--understanding; Austin showing there are other "truth-values", e.g., felicity to the Grammar of a concept, in Witt terms. But Austin is just a destroyer (thinking that refuting the skeptic is all we need); Witt is looking for why we want that in the first place (leaving the door open for the skeptic, putting us at the end of the failure of knowledge).)

[Your admitted paraphrase (of me):] with a human in pain we have to add more assumptions to avoid feeling empathy. * * * I think it is problematic to not realize that the animal us is what is being denied when we assume our way away from empathy with other humans and animals. — Coben

This extrapolates from the consequences of what I am proposing Witt is uncovering in a way that shows you understand where I was coming from, so, again, thank you. You are headed in a different direction (a different interest), which is fine, so I would only say that I (and I believe Witt here) am not so much making a case in place of empathy, so much as diagnosing the desire, as philosophers--to side-step the fallibility of others, their separateness, with, say, knowledge--that starts with the human (common) desire for certainty, and the need to respond to, fill in, that gap (to the other). I would say, before that view of ourselves, there is not even the possibility of empathy, that the denial of our 'human condition'--here I mean our relationship to (the limits of) knowledge--is a desire to avoid any other relationship to the other (animal, as you rightly point out we should add; which also brings up our instinct to see the other (their pain) as the same (as ours)--also avoiding any difference in people (and the people of difference), even further negating them--as we do not want to see our separateness because then I must respond to the other, bridge that gap with, in a sense, me--take their expressions as a claim upon me (e.g., my empathy).

Not that a call for empathy is not needed (even, philosophically), but just that I think there is merit in achieving the ethical perspective that Witt is attempting to get us to see--to see our human reaction (denial) to our condition with the lack of knowledge of the other; especially given the still prevalent influence of positivism (although cloaked now), which is a product of the common (cultural/human) desire for fact and evidence to take the place of individual judgment and putting ourselves in a position to (for) the other--letting ourselves (bravely) be called out, without certainty, for the other, rather than shirking that; e.g., to only rely on DNA evidence rather than seeing that circumstantial evidence, judging an unreliable witness, etc., is sufficient to convict (however fallible); also, e.g., we rely only on science to understand other animals, rather than realizing we are in the same position to them as to another human; as I say it in my other response to you: that we are responsible for our response to their expressions (in the face of our separateness and the inability of knowledge to bridge that gap).

We do have this problem with dolphins. They are clearly communicating, but are they using language? Might we figure it out and be able to say something to them? — Marchesk

I hate to police, but you might notice (I try to point out many times) that this thread is about the difference between: taking something (a statement) as something (a claim) for yourself, and putting yourself in the position of the other (Witt) to see how it is USED (not its other implications) given a certain context; the above--opinions about understanding lions/dolphins--is to ignore my effort here entirely. So, you're not wrong or have a trivial interest, only maybe, imagining this thread as a different topic--and, maybe, hurting my feelings? ; ) Maybe the other responses might help with the difference between 'meaning' and 'use'?

[Witt] [r]einforcing that non-humanness of animals and the non-animalness of humans actually, in the long run, I think does damage to the very goals you are attributing LW with. We've had a long hallucination that we are radically different from animals (and then also even other races of humans) — Antony Nickles

Yours is a thoughtful response, taking into consideration my effort here; I appreciate it. I will say a bit of clarification for me in another reply, and I understand and share your disappointment with his (repeated) distinguishing our biological differences--which I would only say he is (insensitively) using to contrast our 'humanity' positivism would like to ignore--but I am heartened by your association of seeing (desiring to see) a person in a way (for me, past them to something else more certain, less 'human'--per Witt) with the idea of seeing an animal in a way--say, as meat--without noticing the sympathetic. I would say the "seeing as" or "aspect-seeing" that Witt gets into later (pp. 193-208), ties animals and humans together in our ability for denial of the other, say, their pain. There is a great book of back-and-forth essays (four) called "Philosophy & Animal Life" in which, in response to an essay by Cora Diamond (in response to another), Cavell argues a rational argument for the ethical treatment of animals is impotent because it does not address the human desire to see the other (animal) as, in a sense, "inhuman"--not seeing the (moral) aspect of our similarity as animals: that we are responsible in the face of our separateness and the failing of knowledge to bridge that apart from our response.

I have attempted to re-write the OP to address the problems we're having/what I eventually get to (ya only know what you're saying at the end of a paper).

So, are we going somewhere here? — Banno

I'd rather not here (see the edit above)--maybe another post; his path from TLP to the PI and the "rationality" (rigorousness? ability to be subject to study/criticism?) of everyday life, "ordinary language", I may take up in another post about Ordinary Language Philosophy generally. Here I wanted to focus on the ethical argument Witt is making (and the subtlety of 'use' I guess because everyone can't seem to wrap their head around that).

Wittgenstein was never a positivist. — Banno

Weeeeeeell, I'll grant you that. But (though this is said provisionally, i.e., I don't want to argue it here) he did skirt it and was left with nothing to say, and spent the PI filing in that blank (everything other than word--world, true/false statements). More to what I AM arguing here, in the PI he is wondering what the positivist's desire (need) was, which I will argue he did share (as does his other/former self--the Interlocutor).

“the picture is a model of reality” (TLP 2.12)

I think the picture theory ran deep enough to carry well into PI... — Banno

The SEP article you quote is Wittgenstein as a positivist. In the PI, the positivist is the Interlocutor--he is wondering how he got himself into the gordian knot of the Tractatus. He is diagnosing the creation of the picture theory.

I think the picture theory... this is what he has in mind when he talks about the lion; we have no picture of what would be going on.

And I think that we do have at least something of a picture of what is going on. — Banno

If you want to take a position on the content of that sentence, go ahead. I don't have an argument against this; I am not arguing with that. However, I am arguing that Witt had something else in mind (he is using the sentence in another SENSE): here (with the lion) there is not a choice (it is in its sense as a FACT that he is USING it), but with us (with the conviction; in wanting a picture theory) we have a choice, and, in doing so, we shut our eyes to the other.

That first paragraph is quite beyond my keen. — Banno

Yes, this is ships in the night (the arguments are categorically incompatible--back to the "rough ground" as Witt would say; which I would argue is the text--maybe seeing it a new way). I can understand if you don't care to follow it, but I don't think I'm speaking German ;) Always willing to help, of course. And I do edit some of my responses, like my last one, to try to make them more clear and responsive to where I feel the misunderstanding is.

The context is guessing thoughts, and the talk of pictures relating this to his picture theory of meaning; it's the whole picture that we do not understand, as opposed to when some specific utterances are seen as lacking sense (this is dealt with around ∮500). "If a lion could speak we could no understand him" is the expression of a conviction, not a piece of reasoning. — Banno

Well, this is very-much appreciated (someone's been reading--maaaaybe not my post, but it's something). I agree with you that he begins with guessing thoughts and that "it's the whole picture that we do not understand." I would point out the picture is not Witt's, so much as positivism's, but, whatever. But, yes, Witt is trying to investigate: why do philosophers (anyone) hold onto, need, create, this picture (of meaning being internal thought)?

I ask that you look again at my argument that the quote is being USED as a fact (though it is, makes sense as, and can be addressed as--independently--a hypothetical opinion, or questionable claim, whatever--fine; that is not what's happening here/what Witt is doing with it--I'm not sure how to write that any better (it's starting to make me self-conscious); I mean looking at USE is a major point of the PI); He is using it, here, as a fact, for comparison with a conviction (above)--a belief chosen and held onto strongly (and maybe the above back-and-forth with Luke might help). Not (used as) an expression of belief (nor a piece of reasoning). The PICTURE is, in those terms, an (expression of our) denial of the other. I am adding to "the picture"'s motivations, our own (it's our picture anyway), in that it is a human doubt and fear that creates (is expressed into) the picture, but also that its solution--for certainty, rationality, predictability, universality, predetermination--is the same solution that wishes to deny the human in the other (and ourselves); the failing, the responsibility, the unpredictability, irrationality, etc.

I'm not sure how Witt is not seen as looking at "specific utterances" (say every utterance of the Interlocutor?) and sometimes pointing out how they don't "make sense"--yes he can be less than forgiving with this, but it is not a dismissal (insensible idiot!) so much as to bring to light the distinctions between having said one thing as opposed to another, for being judged as falling outside that category, subject to the consequences for that concept, etc. (the Grammar of the concept). He is rather curt and unforgiving though.

Have a look at the sections around about ∮500. — Banno

507. " 'I [the interlocutor] am not merely saying this, I mean something by it.' -- When we consider what is going on in us when we MEAN (and don't merely say) words, it seems to us as if there were something coupled to those words, which otherwise would run idle. --As if they, so to speak, connected with something in us." [With the talics in original, in all CAPS.]

The 'meaning' being the something, connected to words, or connected to some inner process (set apart from our responsibility). But we don't 'mean' what we say, usually--'casually' at all--and we don't have to, in the senses: be careful with it, say it emphatically, for reasons, etc. Yet we can still answer the question (afterwards): What did you mean? (or, "Did you mean to say that?") But that is not usually asked unless we say something strange, etc. These are some of the Grammar of 'meaning' (something).

Sure, the context is important. If that is the whole of your thesis, then we have no disagreement. — Banno

The textual context: the role the sentence plays on this page. Based on Witt's discussion (and my other evidence), the sentence is used as a fact, not as an open question. (I wouldn't put it as a 'disagreement' so much as an inability, or lack of interest, to see, so far.)

Have a look at the sections around about ∮500. — Banno

Okay...done. ; )

StreetlightX made a thread on this topic a few years back.

Lions and Grammar — Banno

The quote in that thread is taken (mis-taken) as an open-ended call for speculation too. Instead of inner processes, he's fixed 'Grammar' in the place of those, in the same way Forms of Life is used as well, just grabbing the quote for its own reasons. As a discussion of Witt's term Grammar, it misses the mark for that reason and others, but that is a different discussion.

I think Wittgenstein was making a joke. Either that, or he was wrong. — Banno

This is philosophy? Troll much?

I am having a hard time figuring out if the OP does deal with the issue your cartoon humorously took up. But since the cartoon does — Coben

The cartoon is all most people take from Witt, which is sad (and wrong) as I think he's one of our most important modern thinkers. Also, again (previously addressed to others here), the idea here is to see that the sentence is not an opinion or a claim of some kind (to be answered with an opinion or alternative claim). If there is some confusion, I hope I can help.

“...To say "He alone can know what he intends" is nonsense: to say "He alone can know what he will do", wrong....”
(From your Witt, P.I., p. 223)

Am I suppose to gather from all that, that I can know what he intends, if only I choose the right word for the concepts? So I say...did you intend ____?; he says, nope, not that. So I say, well, did you mean ____?; nope, not that either. I see a serious problem here, don’t you?

On the other hand, I say, did you mean ____, and he says, no, I meant _____, to which I say, oh, cool, I get it now, or I could just as well say, ohfercrissakes, that just doesn’t make any sense at all. — Mww

This has two things going on. Acting and intending, and the knowledge of those. To intend (to do) something, and, to mean (something) have two different ways they work (or don't)--different Grammars. Witt is explaining the Grammar of knowledge in these instances (Grammar, as: let's say, everyday logic, roughly; or: the way in which knowing intentions makes sense or doesn't). Yes, I can know what you are going to do; "look he is going to ask her out!" With intention it is harder, but imagine them both as not a hidden internal causal process--that intention is like an excuse; it only comes up after something gets screwed up; "Did you intend to bring a gun fishing instead of a pole?" "Did you intend to slap her instead of apologize?" Something unexpected happened or outside (the Grammar of) our expectations. What Witt is trying to get at is that, if you want to say there is a hidden internal 'intention' or 'meaning' that you (alone) KNOW (say, beforehand, certainly, specifically), that is not the way knowledge and intending work--if you insist on that (and mean it, say, as a philosopher), you are denying the other; if you say that in normal conversation, it's going to sound like nonsense too (though we could probably imagine a scenario). Now I can intend to do something: "I intended to roll for Sixes, but I'll have to take Chance."(in Yatchze), and we too can know your intention (you only had those two spots left, course you're gonna roll for sixes. If you intended to roll for chance, then there would be questions.).

[H]ere’s the kicker. All I wrote just now? All I’ve ever written, actually? I submit, My Good Sir, that it is impossible for you to tell, if I got it right, whether I used my grammar (reasoning) correctly with respect to your understanding, or merely from my own, and they happen to coincide from sheer accident. And, if I got it wrong, it is impossible for you to tell whether I chose my meanings with the intent to make you think I got it wrong, when I understood you perfectly from the get-go. Both of which catastrophically falsify Witt’s prophecy given above. — Mww

Witt does say its amazing that we can communicate at all. But trust me I can tell when you're reasoning is wrong. : ) Grammar sits apart from us, prior to us--in the language/world. But if we understood each other by coincidence or accident, would it make a difference? But you have hit on the crux of the matter for me, which is that trickery, pretending, lying, charade, joking, trolling (@Banno), etc. look exactly like the real thing (maybe), so: how do we KNOW! And this is when we have to see that 'hidden processes' and 'having a secret', are two different ways of thinking of (viewpoints on) the uncertainty of the other (The "Problem" of Other Minds).

how you correlate reasoning to grammar....
— Mww

....briefly (...), the OLP....idea of grammar is that each concept, say, knowing, or, an apology, has its own (or multiple)....ways it can make sense, how it works (or fails): e.g., understanding--when can you say someone else understands something? how do you explain it? what is proof for understanding, say, math, a poem, a person? etc., each concept having its own (subject to change and adaptation as we change our judgments, standards, lives, etc: what is justice, these days?).
— Antony Nickles

So grammar is the science of application of concepts? Can we say that? If concepts have a plurality of meanings, grammar is the method for picking the better of them? Ok....to what end?

When I pick use a word representing a concept, and indicate some meaning by it, is that word intended to demonstrate my reasoning, or is it chosen to align with your understanding of my reasoning? — Mww

Obviously this needs to be an entirely different thread. Science doesn't come into it. 'Meaning' is like the imagined 'hidden' inner process. A concept's Grammar is not the reasoning we go through, but the (external) possibilities of sense--not a fixed 'meaning' like a definition either. Part of it is the way we judge in reacting (the lines along which it could make sense): "It's a blue day." "Do you mean, we should go surfing? or that the sky is a magnificent color?" "Well, I meant both", or "No, I'm just sad." A little harder to understand as fitting in the field of acceptable Grammar: "Today's the day I wear blue!" But also the limits of sense, as with the failure to apologize by offending instead. These are not determined (fixed by us or decided) beforehand. We don't always 'mean', or 'intend', what we say (say resolutely or casually) because most times those things do not come up until we say something strange. This is all very quickly said and better addressed with Witt's text on Grammar, or OLP in general, which I may get to eventually.[/quote]

What I should have said is Witt is using its impossibility; as I did say, using it as a fact
— Antony Nickles

On your reading, he's using the impossibility as a fact. Okay. — Luke

I got my "it"s confused; not using the impossibility as a fact, using the statement as a fact.

My argument is that this is not being used as a conditional statement
— Antony Nickles

How can it be otherwise? Lions can't talk. — Luke

Yes, it is a statement, among other things. It is not being used for its possibility to state something--to claim itself as a fact; to stand to be refuted; it is being used in its uncontested fact-ness, for comparison to a choice. As you say, Lions can't talk. If someone says they cannot know another, that is a belief. "A dog cannot be a hypocrite, but neither can he be sincere" p. 229 This fact is being used in comparison to a baby who will be able to pretend, but not without learning many things beforehand.

And to provide the full quote from p. 56 (right after#143): What we have to mention in order to explain the significance, I mean the importance, of a concept, are often extremely general facts of nature: as are hardly ever mentioned because of their great generailty."

If these terms [knowledge and understanding] are not synonymous, then doesn't this create a problem for your reading of:

"I cannot know what is going on in him"; and

"We could not understand a lion if it talked"?

Doesn't it loosen the connection you are wanting to draw between these? — Luke

Well, you got me there, though I believe the point still stands. He is going back and forth between the two, and the difference between wanting certain knowledge, and being able to understand the other, intersect here in Witt's use in their mutual sense of: trying to figure out what to do with the other, how to address them. Object of knowledge? or understanding how to go on with them? (both maybe?)

So some, out of the same desire, have latched onto his term of Forms of Life, as a communal agreement, or a type of rule, that ensures the meaning of words.
— Antony Nickles

It sounds as though you take this to be a misunderstanding of Forms of Life. If so, what do you understand "Forms of Life" to mean or to be about? — Luke

This is also outside of this text, but Witt points out the variety of our forms of life to get us to see the variety of how the world makes sense (has reason)--not just word=object, or true/false statements. I only point out the analogous use some people make of it as with hidden internal somethings--the desire to secure language from skepticism (ground it from confusion, misunderstanding), to remove the human from the activity of communicating.

If you want to be able to fix words or speech to something inside the brain (ideas, thoughts, mental occurrences; what has been termed 'qualia') then hanging onto that makes it hard to shift to seeing the motivation for that, which Witt is pointing out.
— Antony Nickles

Where does he talk about "fixing words or speech to something inside the brain"? I don't find the relationship between mind and body to be an immediately apparent goal of his investigations. — Luke

Well this isn't the stretch where that is looked into in detail, that's on me. But the interlocutor's desire to have, his worry about, something "hidden", is evident here. If something isn't hidden in the other, it could be there is nothing I can hide, or nothing special about me--which leads to the thought: I can't know his pain, but he MUST be able to know it (and I, me)(see @Mmw here)--which is the desire not to have to understand the other, be responsible (and for what I say). "Thought is connected to words, and I know those words, so I know him"--without me having anything to do with it. I'm just working from the very end of that journey, where he is exploring the ethical situation we are left with when that desire is abandoned.

"I cannot know what is going on in him"

"We could not understand a lion if it talked."

The first is a refusal, the second is an impossibility.
— Antony Nickles

I'm not sure what you mean by an impossibility. Is it impossible that lions can talk? — Luke

What I should have said is Witt is using the statement in its sense of impossibility; as I did say, using the sentence as a given fact (it could be other things--in other texts, in other uses). The use (its fact-ness?) is more important than it being an isolated statement (an opinion or claim to be answered by an opinion or refuted). The problem is, isolated/taken as just the words, you are not wrong in everything you are saying. This is why Witt falls back on "use"--how it is meant (in what sense).

Wittgenstein is getting us to imagine that a lion could talk.... It's a conditional statement and hardly a self-evident fact. — Luke

My argument is that this is not being used (I'm not sure it helps to underline it anymore) as a conditional statement (though it can be seen that way--it is one of the possibilities of its grammar--but you would have to ignore the context) In this case (in this text, in relation to everything around it), he is not asking us to imagine a talking lion--it is being said as an accepted fact ("if", "then", no buts). If he is asking us to imagine something, what sense do the sentences around it make?

I suppose that [getting the reader to see from a different viewpoint] might work for one who hasn’t an entrenched viewpoint already. It may also work, even for him, if OLP made enough sense to displace it. — Mww

Ouch. ; ) It is tough because OLP is more of a method and viewpoint than a theory; it doesn't have any force or particular logic to itself other than: "Hey, do you see this too?"". The place where I thought it made the most sense (other than J.L Austin's response to A.J. Ayer, though he doesn't bother to explain himself) was in Stanley Cavell's essays in Must We Mean What We Say, particularly the title essay--basically about intention--and "Knowing and "Acknowledging" which steps through the problem of other minds (like Witt here) but methodically and more straightforward.

I’d be pleased to see how you correlate reasoning to grammar, from your “...one of the main points of Ordinary Language Philosophy would be there are different kinds of reasoning ("grammar")....” — Mww

These may be another post(s), but, well briefly (Cavell addresses this in that title essay too), the OLP (Witt) idea of grammar is that each concept, say, knowing, or, an apology, has its own (or multiple) say, ways it can make sense, how it works (or fails): e.g., understanding--when can you say someone else understands something? how do you explain it? what is proof for understanding, say, math, a poem, a person? etc., each concept having its own (subject to change and adaptation as we change our judgments, standards, lives, etc: what is justice, these days?).

I’d be interested in what you have to say about Kantian “grammar” with his categories. — Mww

My Kant is questionable, but "grammar" would classify an action being a certain action--being identified as such. You can try to make an apology, but if it is said sarcastically it may not be understood/accepted as an apology (its a further rebuke, etc.); there are reasons essential to it being an apology; criteria it must meet. We could look at each concept as a category. To be in its category, a concept has its limits (when does a game break down into only playing?) This is a far cry from Kant's desire for his categories, but the structure of grammar is analogous--the sense of inclusion and exclusion, the rationality of criteria--though not the "imperative" of his logic/reason. There is not the same force (should) and inclusion is not determined deontologically (beforehand, for certain), but only usually after an act. "Did you mean to apologize? that just sounded like complaining. There wasn't any acceptance of wrong; no request for forgiveness!"

I meant it as indicating the opening statement as affirmation, in accordance with continental dialectical reasoning, re: German idealists in general. The antithesis, then, follows as subjecting the opening to negation, or just some sort of modification.... Still, I could have used point/counterpoint, so...... — Mmw

Not to belabor this, but I would suggest Witt ( and OLP) does not play by those rules: affirmation, negation, points to counter, etc.--again, these (mostly) are not meant as statements, say: to be taken as true/false distinctions, or as claims. He's trying to get the reader to see from a different viewpoint. I only worry about trying to force this text to meet a pre-determined criteria (idea of reason), as one of the main points of Ordinary Language Philosophy would be there are different kinds of reasoning ("grammar") for each concept, each word in a sense: "knowing" "understanding" "acknowledging" "reason" and even for just a kind of situation, and even without being closed, fixed, or certain. And I wouldn't call Witt a German Idealist, but even Hegel's method was to unpack simple juxtapositions, and Kant had roughly the same idea as grammar with his categories (though singular criteria and limited application).

I just went off on a rant over the gross dissimilarities between emperical invisibility and rational invisibility, and how silly it is to juxtaposition one against the other. — Mmw

Again, I hate to be a stickler, but the juxtaposition is the whole point. The comparison with "emperical invisibility" (out of sight) starts down the road to figure out why philosophers might make up the idea of "rational invisibility" (as a hidden 'thing', not just unexpressed) and all of its offspring.

Also, do you think Wittgenstein uses the terms "know" and "understand" synonymously? — Luke

After looking around in the book, I would say, sometimes its close, but not here. As with most words, the 'grammar' of the word allows for many senses (and for new ones). Knows, as: has knowledge; as: acknowledges; as: familiar with; as: know how to continue, etc. Understands, as: understands how to (do a procedure); as: commiserates with (a person); as: can follow (what someone is saying, their point), etc.

They are not fluid as much as multifaceted. At one point Witt says: "The grammar of the words "knows" is evidently closely related to that of "can", "is able to". But also closely related to that of "understands". ('Mastery of a technique.) #150. And also at one point talks about how understanding a sentence is being able to paraphrase it, but understanding a poem can only be said one way. After his interlocutor says: "Then has 'understanding' two different meanings here?--I [Witt now] would rather say that these kind of use of 'understanding'' make up its meaning, make up my concept of understanding."#531-532. Concept not being an idea but a term to encompass all the different senses, uses, possibilities, etc. of a word (its "grammar" he calls it).

But on page 223, knowledge (saying, I know) is most often used by him to mean the certainty people want for their words or other people--the positivist version of knowledge--either as a fixed internal or external thing ('thought' or 'tradition'). Understanding here is I would say more tied to: can follow what they are saying (the point; why; where they are coming from, etc.) We might not be able to say what a clarinet sounds like (#78), what a game is (#75), but we can demonstrate that we understand those things (are familiar with, can be said to; e.g., give examples, compare to a flute, etc.) He is not using a definition of understanding nor does understanding consist of one thing.

I think you need to provide more support for this reading. Why couldn't it be another example of "the convincing expression of a conviction"? Or something else? — Luke

There are other ways this sentence could be used, yes, but that doesn't mean I have to refute all of them (that it is any of those). The reading is internally coherent and based on the textual evidence. I realize it might be hard to see/accept, but I have pointed out the comparative examples, his actual statements about how he uses facts, his use of them elsewhere, the impact to the rest of the text, and the parallel structure to the previous sentence (if you switch the clause) that highlights the comparison:

"I cannot know what is going on in him"

"We could not understand a lion if it talked."

The first is a refusal, the second is an impossibility.

Is there (do you have) another way (attempt) to account for all of this evidence? The statement is not enigmatic if you accept and focus on its use. It is a "very general fact[ ] of nature (Such facts as mostly do not strike us because of their generality)” #143. Could he have used a simpler fact? Yes. Could it maybe not have been from an imagined world? Maybe. Is he goading the positivist? Maybe he feels this stark contrast, however fantastical, would be shocking enough for people to reassess the need to have a fixed referent.

Wittgenstein isn't the easiest philosopher to get a handle on and "if a lion could talk" is one of his more enigmatic statements. — Luke

I would say that the point of putting this fact here is enigmatic, but that's my whole discussion (start with letting go of the assumption that this is used as the kind of "statement" philosophy historically defines--say, a claim based on a theory). I will also say that it is illustrative of Witt's method of looking at the use of language, which is indicative of Ordinary Language Philosophy--is this a threat? an apology? a refusal? a plea?

I'm also curious about the other parts of your discussion title re: qualia and forms of life which you said little about in your OP. — Luke

I do mention those in the post, but they come from a viewpoint based on a desire for certainty basically. If you want to be able to fix words or speech to something inside the brain (ideas, thoughts, mental occurrences; what has been termed 'qualia') then hanging onto that makes it hard to shift to seeing the motivation for that, which Witt is pointing out. So some, out of the same desire, have latched onto his term of Forms of Life, as a communal agreement, or a type of rule, that ensures the meaning of words. I would need maybe a little more to understand where you're getting hung up, or what you are interested in discussing, but I appreciate the consideration.

First, it is not made as a claim nor said as a statement to be considered (which are obviously within its possibilities of sense). This is a lesson in how words (sentences) can be used in specific ways. The use of this statement is as a fact, to be contrasted with the conviction, or the strangeness of traditions. Let me put it another way: if a lion talked, we would no longer understand it to be a lion. We can of course understand lions, say, study them. But, yes, this is simply meant to be an uncontested fact, used for comparison. The choice (conviction) regards the other (person).

I'm wondering what text you read to take him to believe effect outweighs intention; not that I feel you're wrong, but I'm curious. J.L. Austin and Stanley Cavell say intention only comes into a situation when something goes wrong or unexpected. As in: "did you intend (mean) to do that?" Or, "did you intend to stop that robber?" The effect might "outweigh" that because the effect could be anticipated from the act--it is one of the expected outcomes, so why ask what they "intended"?

I've read it all twice and thought about it. You may be right that the sentence needs to be read in context, but I don't understand the context. — Daemon

Maybe try not to think of it so much as an argument with a thesis as a reading to put you in a certain perspective to a certain history of philosophy (particularly positivism). Maybe start with trying to see the purpose of the lion-quote on this page: as a fact to contrast against the rest of the paragraphs (within all the possibilities it could be taken or used--within its 'grammar' Witt would say, or the 'sense' of it used here), and then work backwards, as the ripple-effects begin with that sentence and go deeper, contrasted to other mis-readings.