@Banno @schopenhauer1 @Corvus

The word "private" has many uses, as shown in the Merriam Webster Dictionary. — RussellA

I'm not sure what you are getting at here, but, just because a word has many different definitions does not make it impossible for it to be one of its specific senses when said at a particular time within a particular context--just because there are many uses (amongst all its ordinary possibilities) does not allow that it can mean any of them all the time. What I meant to clarify was that there is Wittgenstein's basically technical sense of "private" and then there is the ordinary sense of private as in personal, secret (among all the other senses it can have), most closely definition 3b: "preferring to keep personal affairs to oneself" though a definition does not draw out the workings of a use (sense). So personal and private (as Wittgenstein terms it) are two different things, and you are using the word "private" in the place of both, which is confusing others (particularly @Luke), and I think getting in the way of your understanding Wittgenstein.

If it is the case that neither of us can describe in words our personal experience of the colour violet, then how do we know that my personal experience is just like your personal experience? — RussellA

But "your personal experience of colour" is not the way identifying color works, by which I mean the criteria we use to judge the identity of colors. I would review his discussion of color starting at #275: "...without philosophical intentions—the idea never crosses your mind that this impression of colour belongs only to you." As with pain (#253), we don't get into distinctions of "my" impression of color unless we are taking into account other interests than its identity (discussed below)--we have concrete ways of identifying color. For example: "Grab the purple ball" (from a ball pit with many other colors). If there is no other purple-ish ball, we do not continue to distinguish that it is actually violet (if you said, "you mean the violet one" we would say your are being obtuse, or a know-it-all). But if we are examining someone's house in order to replicate its color, and I say "that's a nice purple" it might be important for you to point out that it is actually violet, say, given that we need to be able to tell the paint shop. And here (in this case, instance) we can make distinctions even without our input, regardless of our judgment at all, as the creation of color can be broken down empirically, e.g., taking a sample and having it matched. The point being, if two objects are "red" (based on the context), the color is the same, and not because our personal experiences match up (or that we "agree").

It is this context of the importance of (our interest in) distinguishing and the necessity based on the situation that drives the identification of color, not my "personal experience", however, that is not to say that we do not have personal experiences with color. Green can remind me of my childhood home. A Rothko painting is meant to be evocative in many ways. Also, there are rational ways to discuss the use of color for effect, the aesthetics of it. (I'm sure there are other cases where our experience with color matters, but they escape me. Thus the admonition to read Witt's discussion.) Even here, where my personal reaction matters, it is not to say we can't talk about it; that we can't share that experience, though, as I said, this does not preclude the instance of the ineffability to express (even metaphorically, poetically, etc) my experience of, say, a magnificent sunset--but this is the exception, not always the case. This is a step above, but the desire for there to always be something of mine is the desire to hold onto a fact of myself, something ever-present, unique, "individuating" as @schopenhauer1 put it.

I have a friend who is colour blind. How would you describe to them in words your personal experience of the colour violet? — RussellA

"Color blind" as used in philosophy is a hypothetical case based on the same picture that in every case each one of us always has a unique experience of color (it is usually called an "impression" of color). The philosophical imagined case is that when I see red, you see blue. However, imagine the ordinary case that I am no good at color, and my wife says I'm "color blind". That is just because I call blue, green (what she "calls" green--but I've learned she's... right (that was hard to say). That is because she has authority (as color matching could be), so this is just a matter of labels, names. Even in the philosophical fantasy, the color-blind person still knows what color is, how it works. If you say it is red, and I say it is blue, you defer to me about the label because I am not color blind. The point being that identifying color still works the same way as the cases above (what matters about having the "same" color in a specific case). This is totally separate from the science of color, and actual color-blindness, which does not resolve the skeptic's picture of color, which is to actually record that we can refuse the other person, be blind to them, their experience: as in their input, authority, importance.

If we take the case of someone actually being blind, philosophy would say they have never "experienced" color. But we can still explain the experience of color. We would just describe what matters about (our interests in) the experience of seeing color, what color does for us, as humans. It would be things like: color makes us feel alive, it allows us to organize things, it's a means of personal expression, etc.

yes, we might be a “zombie”, a puppet, speaking only others opinions, etc.
— Antony Nickles

From Wikipedia Philosophical Zombie: "A philosophical zombie is a being in a thought experiment in philosophy of mind that is physically identical to a normal person but does not have conscious experience." A philosophical zombie is not someone who doesn't have their own opinions. — RussellA

Again, just because there are alternative uses of "zombie" does not mean I was not being clear about something specific, and that you can take it anyway you want, or point out its multiplicity as some sort of critique of my point. I was obviously not using it "philosophically", and not in its sense as a fantasy of their actual existence, but in its metaphorical sense: that we can be mindless, unthinking, compelled by a force that is not our own, dead inside (as we can be a "ghost" of ourselves); as you even said, a "community of zombies" which is to say, conformists without individuality. This is how "Dawn of the Dead" can be seen as a social commentary.

“Students and scholars of all kinds and of every age aim, as a rule, only at information, not insight. They make it a point of honour to have information about everything, every stone, plant, battle, or experiment and about all books, collectively and individually. It never occurs to them that information is merely a means to insight, but in itself is of little or no value.” - Schopenhauer — schopenhauer1

This mirrors Wittgenstein’s insights about the limits of knowledge, and our desire to have knowledge be everything, that knowledge might equal virtue, will be an answer in place of us, of our responsibility to see for ourselves, to expand our vision; that the value of philosophy is an insight beyond what can be told. This is why I’ve been saying we have a desire to have knowledge (purity) replace our other relations to the world (and others) beyond it, apart from it.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.” - Schopenhauer — schopenhauer1

I can see this as an analytic statement; perhaps as an insight into our misplaced myopathy out of fear of our lack of control of the world. Even if I haven’t read this right just yet, I still think he is trying to get at the reasons and desires we have that hold us back, just as Wittgenstein is with the interlocutor (that Schopenhauer’s “students” and “every man” share the same fear of skepticism). So I would say they have a similar interest, project. That Wittgenstein uses a different method I would say is because of the specific and entrenched tick he has to dig deep to—that because of his path he is closer to it, has to walk us through it as he undergoes his own insight; though now I think I better understand your preference for Schopenhauer’s style.

I’ll admit I have not read Schopenhauer (which is long overdue given my interest in both Witt and Nietzsche), but I am claiming that the Investigations is specifically about our “human condition” (in relation to knowledge) and “one’s own individuation” (thus the importance of how a certain picture obscures how individuation actually works—see my response to RussellA just above.) I am not trying to dismiss anything; I am just trying to show how strong the fear of it is, thus how pervasive the issue, and how multi-faceted the responses are. I am not trying to say this is the only issue in all of philosophy of course. Just that people don’t usually realize that what they are theorizing about and for, falls under this banner, and thus is based on the same fears and desires that Wittgenstein uncovers, along with the attempt to have knowledge or intellectualization solve our separation, ignore the limitations of knowledge.

But do all "philosophies" really do this, or just some? — schopenhauer1

What Wittgenstein is looking at is one of classical philosophy’s responses to skepticism: trying to solve skepticism (deny the fact that Wittgenstein’s investigation finds about our human condition; the truth it records Cavell will say); some also try to accept its conclusion but work around it (most of modern philosophy); or give up and abandon philosophy (which some people say Wittgenstein is doing). I would say the battle with skepticism, “moral relativism”, etc., has been the crux of “analytical” philosophy. I can’t think of examples that don’t other than what people call “continental” philosophy, which I would categorize as: accepting the world and just investigating how it is (Foucault, Arendt, Rousseau, Machiavelli, Confucius, etc.)—more of just a social commentary.

@Bano @Sam26

You are talking about us each having our own private language. Wittgenstein took issue with that idea. - @Luke

RussellA: Cavell in The Later Wittgenstein makes the point that Wittgenstein never denied that we have private thoughts and feelings… Having private thoughts and feelings is not the same as having what is called "a private language".

As the analogy of the beetle in PI 293 illustrates, private sensations do drop out of consideration within the language game, not that private sensations drop out of consideration. — RussellA

This makes me understand a lot of what you have been saying. You may have been butting heads with people (and with understanding the Investigations) because you are saying the word “private” for two things. One is Wittgenstein’s specific philosophical sense of “private” as having some “thing” in your mind for all of language, every “thing” you say. What is important for you, I think, is better expressed as something personal (which is not all the time either, as I will discuss below). So your ownership of your inner life is: a secret; not that there is some thing always there that is unknown to others, “unknowable”, which is what Wittgenstein means by “private”). So a “secret” is just kept from others, because it is unexpressed, you have to let it out, it is hidden (not “private” in Witt’s sense)—this is the way our inner life works, in the sense of: is judged as meaningful (not, as it is misunderstood, knowing the science of our brain), what matters to us about being a self. If you look at the Index of the PI under expression it is a core idea to understand in this context.

So you have been correct to insist that we do have individual feelings, and even experiences that are inexpressible to others entirely (the awe of a sunset)—though ordinary language is perfectly capable of making us intelligible (for us to agree we are like others), and so it is our choice not to, and so ethically our duty or responsibility to be understood (not start as different, individual). The fact of our inner life is what Wittgenstein means when he asks us to look at why we think he wants to deny that (#308) (in his investigating and deconstructing why we want something pure, certain in us, continual, always known).

If concepts didn't exist in the mind, but only in a community, such a community would be a community of zombies, none having a private concept or private sensation. — RussellA

So if we reframe not having a “private language” (not having a thing inside us, like a “concept” in our “mind”) and look at it as the fear of not having an inner life, then: yes, we might be a “zombie”, a puppet, speaking only others opinions, etc. Emerson will call this “conformity”. Wittgenstein speaks of us as being blind (to others, but also ourselves). The article I offered points out well that philosophy in this sense measures not what we ought to do, but how much we find, know, and are ourselves in contrast to “community”.

However, community does allow the easy ordinary flow of our lives together; most of the time your “experience” is just like mine (#253); we both just “went shopping” or “have a headache”—to preserve our individuality is a different thing than saying my feelings, experience, “consciousness” are always different than yours. But sometimes we need to take a stand, differentiate our experience (our lives). But this is the exception. Only sometimes, Wittgenstein says, we are lost, do not know how to continue, say, a concept into a new context, or from the failure or disappointment with our ordinary criteria (what matters to us, how things usually go). This is when he is saying classical philosophy abandons our responsibility to ourselves by abstracting to ensure myself, my relation to the world, to others.

I think and have hope this will allow you to make great strides in being able to talk about what concerns you here while understanding what Wittgenstein is getting at.

Ironically, you are trying to convey some sort of "certainty" about WIttgenstein's philosophy to me :snicker: — schopenhauer1

That is not irony, it’s obtuseness. What you are haphazardly referring to is certainty in its sense as particularity, and, despite your condescension, I am, of course, arguing that Wittgenstein is being rigorous and specific. Also, generalizing my response in with others is starting to be more just rude than simply unfair and intellectually lazy.

I just don't agree with the premise that philosophers are working to solve skepticism necessarily. — schopenhauer1

You mean the analytical tradition’s disappointment with knowledge and its attempts to resolve that? You’d need to answer for a lot of evidence.

I don't think Will will help me understand how a toilet works, or how it is that humans evolved brains that have the ability for language, for example. — schopenhauer1

But is that philosophy? …isn’t that science? and… plumbing?

the search for Truth itself is something that seems motivating in some way. A search for answers to abstract questions… that accord with what makes sense. — schopenhauer1

“Accord with what makes sense”? Is that rationality? So the uncertainty of another person has a rational answer? If we have a moral disagreement we just agree (or judge?) what or who makes the most sense?

none of this really strikes some sort of profound truth to a personality that never had the demand for certainty in the first place. — schopenhauer1

Feeling the grip of skepticism is not an easy experience to engender either. But you just make up what you think is right about philosophy and I’ll do the same and we’ll just hope we agree.

True, whether I agree or not with the PI is in a sense secondary, as I am using it to help me develop my own understanding of the relationship between the mind and the world using language. — RussellA

This explains a lot.

The two major topics in the PI, self-knowledge and ordinary language, appear to lead into two different directions. Self-knowledge leads into scepticism and Indirect Realism, in that I see a red postbox but this only exists as a representation in my mind, and ordinary language leads into the absence of rationalism and Direct Realism, in that as I see a red postbox there must be a red postbox in the world. — RussellA

Skepticism is the fear that there is an ever-present breakdown in activities such as just: seeing a mailbox, which leads to the fantasy of an essence or “real” mailbox, and thus the creation of the“representation” or something else that is “mine”, to explain our inability to deal with differences and exceptions, etc. of “a mailbox”. In other words, your “own understanding” is philosophy’s classic freakout to uncertainty and doubt.

Self-knowledge comes from self-reflection, from which sceptical doubt arises naturally about the beliefs inherent within ordinary language — RussellA

Skepticism doesn’t come up because of something wrong with ordinary language (and we don’t “believe” in it, or have certain “beliefs” because of it). Our uncertainty just comes up when things just naturally fail, or turn out not as we expected, as, from the first part of the meditations:

SEVERAL years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that consequently what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful; and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation — Descartes 1sr Meditation

(My emphasis)

Descartes was wrong a couple times and now he is compelled to “build” something certain, “foundational” so he doesn’t have to worry about being wrong.

Ordinary language is criticised as lacking rational justification and is founded on what the observer believes to be obvious. — RussellA

The condemnation of our ordinary criteria is the skeptic’s reaction to their doubt; they fly away from our everyday means of judgment. And Wittgenstein’s claims are not obvious, they are uncontroversial (not as "common sense" but that which we can acknowledge or find out by ourselves).

From my reading of Cavell, there appears to be a fundamental ambiguity in the PI. On the one hand the lack of rationalism in ordinary language, yet on the other hand a desire for self-knowledge which inevitably leads to scepticism about things such as ordinary language. — RussellA

Wittgenstein is using a method other than what we would "usually call reasoning"; that does not mean it "lacks rationality"; plus that is not a characterization of "ordinary language", so not ambiguous or conflicting with skepticism of our ordinary criteria (not language), which does not come from the desire for self-knowledge, but, if examined, leads to self-knowledge.

Maybe one more time through that article.

@RussellA @Banno @Sam26

I came across this (attached) very short 13-paragraph synopsis of the ethical import of the Investigations. It includes a discussion of the actual importance of “forms of life”, as expressions of our interests, and even touches on why he is not abandoning philosophy or its issues @schopenhauer1 I’m not sure I would agree with everything, but perhaps these points are expressed better here than by me.

Well I wouldn’t take what I pointed out before as of little significance; it is the conclusion on Descartes’ Meditations. But of what I have seen of his opinions about religion (which is very little), they seem personal. I am not without interest, just not familiar with those, so to what extent that informed or shaped his insights I can’t say.

He does, of course, say things in the ballpark, for example: about another’s soul.

My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul — Wittgenstein, Investigations 3rd p. 178

That is to say our posture to someone else is not a matter of knowledge, knowing something (or something lesser, like my opinion), it is a matter of, say, treating them as if they have a soul.

As to theorizing, I take his main point to be that our theories can stand in the way of seeing.

When he says at PI 66:

... don’t think, but look!

He is not telling us not to think, but rather, in this case, if we think that all games must have something in common we will fail to see that they do not. — Fooloso4

@schopenhauer1

I am merely putting this same observation in a way that goes further to incorporate the larger issue of the fear of skepticism. That it is our desire for purity ("something in common") that blinds us to our ordinary criteria because we will not accept the human condition that we must stand in the place of the limitations of knowledge (it's not just: look! but see why you want an intellectual solution to take your place of being responsible for our interest in our ordinary criteria, or our desire to flee that position).

I think you believe Wittgenstein is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Kant took away our possibility of knowing the "thing-in-itself" (what Wittgenstein will say is essential about something) because of his requirement for what it would mean to "know". He then replaces it with something that would meet the same standard, the "imperative". But that is not to say that everything Kant says is useless; Wittgenstein's examination of Grammar is based on Kant's Conditions (#90), and his method is contingent on Kant's seeing the possibility of a universal voice in his Critique of Judgment.

concepts that are not tied to a correspondence theory of words to metaphysics, are simply describing their theory. And it is implicit in their descriptions of reality that they are mere descriptions- a way of relating their ideas about reality. — schopenhauer1

But this is creating a vision of "reality" because it is required ahead of time to meet a certain requirement, which I am going to stop calling "certainty" because you are conflating it with the sense of being confident, or something like that.

They are using "forms of life" if you will, to convey their message, and there is no error had with any above and beyond demand for "certainty". — schopenhauer1

Forms of life is not how, say, my ideas are conveyed, as some kind of way of talking for a certain thing, that we might, then, create or abstract. It is just all the stuff we share in common that is necessary to even have language (but not how it is conducted or ensured).

Stanley Cavell will put it like this:

[Being able to, for example, project words into new contexts] is a matter of our sharing routes of interest and feeling, senses of humour and of significance and of fulfilment, of what is outrageous, of what is similar to what else, what a rebuke, what forgiveness, of when an utterance is an assertion, when an appeal, when an explanation – all the whirl of organism Wittgenstein calls “forms of life”.

@Banno has a good Austin quote that amounts to the same but I can’t remember where that is.

In terms of what a “language game” is, look at the examples of "concepts" that Wittgenstein investigates, the list of which is above in a response to RussellA--these are just things we do that he uses as test cases. He will of course invent contexts and imagine worlds in which what the philosopher says might fit.

What I mean by Certainty (what Wittgenstein is getting at in saying "purity") cascades from an occurrence of things not working out; creating doubt in morality, others, and even physical objects; taking that as a rift (between words and meaning, words and the world, appearances and essences, logic and emotion, etc.); wanting to never have that happen again; requiring there be a way to solve (intellectually) ahead of time what is seen as this "problem"; which creates a prerequisite of a single standard which necessitates a generalized application (universalized, known, predetermined, dependable, etc.). It is basically the age-old problem of skepticism and responses to it, based on knowledge. Schopenhauer, Hume, Kant, Plato, Descartes, on and on, are wrestling with skepticism. Positivism, Moore, Russell, and Frege are just one instance of a response; another is the belief that neuroscience will resolve the "problem".[/quote]

@RussellA @Banno

I see Witt's style in PI as a sort of "confounding" affect/effect. I can't say if it is intentional, but it is the way the text is laid out. He generally starts out as the "interlocutor" in quotations, sort of like his "demon" presenting various absolute cases of language use (very Socrates-like) and then Witt goes on to prove that absolute case is not as absolute upon further reflection. — schopenhauer1

The style of the Investigations is extremely intentional and necessary for what he is doing--the method he uses is part of the realizations he is able to reach, that the reader is asked to see; it is like Socrates' except Socrates (as with most of analytic philosophy) insisted on a particular type of answer: One that only met a predetermined standard (which Wittgenstein refers to as purity), thus necessitating the idea of "Forms", his inability to come to the conclusion he wants in the Meno, the Theatetus; what @Richard B is calling "consistency and unification, through attainment of coherence, the elimination of exceptions, arbitrariness, and unnecessary idiosyncrasies."--say, making philosophy's findings meet the same standard as science.

does this mean all theorizing stops now because, welp, it's just language games? I think the next move is to present his idea of "No wait, he gives you an out! He gives us the idea of Forms of Life!". But that then seems to indicate all we can do is study the community of language users and their use of words, and not the concepts themselves. — schopenhauer1

This is a common misconception of the Investigations. He is not trying to end philosophy (to avoid addressing the concerns which led to metaphysics); it is just an investigation into the desire that has driven philosophy to certain conclusions, frameworks. The difference between Description and Explanation is also confusing--the description leads to an "explanation" (though the explanation is speculative and simply to see his larger point); it is only that he is not looking for an explanation that satisfies the desire for purity, to generalize, before investigating what is actually the case, what our ordinary criteria are, and why we want to avoid those.

Again, yes, many people misunderstand the reason of pointing out various examples of our lives. The examples are not meant to be foundational (solve skepticism the same way as metaphysics, or facts, or general explanations; the examples are not used, as you say, as a "tool against a particular set of beliefs" emphasis added), they are explicitly meant to lead to the realization that our ordinary criteria for our lives (the "concepts themselves") embody our interests in our lives, what matters to us about a practice, how something counts to be that practice (as I explained above to RussellA, my saying practice here is in place of what he groups and terms "concepts"--to avoid the confusion with the sense of "concept" as in: "idea). These criteria (not the sole criteria that our relation be ensured, "pure") are the "Grammar" meant when Wittgenstein says "Essence is expressed by grammar" #371. Grammar is not "language use" or "use of words" or "rules"; they are the ordinary criteria for judgment that reflect what is essential about an activity for us, rather than a singular "essence" that is constructed from the sole interest for a fixed relation, one that can't go wrong.

And, again, he is not restricting himself to "language" or "language use" (and not the world); his method is to examine what we say in a certain situation (and the associated context) as a means of, as a method to, learn about ourselves and our world, why we overlook these in our desire for purity. As I said above, this misunderstanding leads to the misreading of "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." (Emphasis added) Here "by means of language" is in the sense we battle against our bewitchment (desire for purity) through the process of (the "means of" as method or instrument of) looking at what we say in a situation (what he means by "language" here, though Wittgenstein will, confusingly, talk of "cleaning up language", by which he means bringing words back from their philosophical use (#116), bringing us back from our desire for that purity, not being a language police or that this is just about language).

Well, if Witt represents being "caught in the web of ecology" of word use and not about understanding things like the "human condition, ethical implications, suffering, what is, what should, what ought, what can, by what criteria, etc." then one isn't really practicing philosophy so much anymore. — schopenhauer1

The Investigations is specifically about our "human condition" as it is a realization about the limitations of knowledge, for instance regarding other minds and the "ethical implications" of that (including their suffering, their pain), along with the ethical implications for how we handle moral situations when we don't know what to do (what people "come to blows over" #240), for how to think ethically; the pitfalls of "what should, what ought", etc. You will say he doesn't explicitly address these issues, but I continue to suggest it is only a matter of working to place him in (yet in critique of) the analytical tradition, e.g., matching up a moral situation with the "extension of a concept". He is not spelling all this out to a layperson that has no familiarity with the history of philosophy.

it does not seem to be the case that it is the reader's problem that they have difficulty in understanding Wittgenstein's writings, but rather the responsibility lies with Wittgenstein himself. — RussellA

I can relate that it is hard to see why it is written this way. First, it is a realization so only you can come to it on your own; understanding is not possible without inner change. Also, yes, skepticism is not a matter to be solved and understood; it is an ongoing threat which recurres in the moral realm, and so each situation can require seeing the temptation to abstract and working through it by explicating our ordinary criteria and the context in a situation. Even Hume and Descartes struggled.

But this undertaking is arduous, and a certain indolence insensibly leads me back to my ordinary course of life; and just as the captive, who, perchance, was enjoying in his dreams an imaginary liberty, when he begins to suspect that it is but a vision, dreads awakening, and conspires with the agreeable illusions that the deception may be prolonged; so I, of my own accord, fall back into the train of my former beliefs, and fear to arouse myself from my slumber, lest the time of laborious wakefulness that would succeed this quiet rest, in place of bringing any light of day, should prove inadequate to dispel the darkness that will arise from the difficulties that have now been raised. — Descartes, end of 1st meditation

I hope not being able to have it straightforward won’t deter you from humbly doing the work first before passing judgment. Did you read the Cavell I suggested (attached above starting at p 56?)

As for seeing Wittgenstein in different ways, there's a long overdue thread on Moyal-Sharrock's Understanding Wittgenstein’s On Certainty that should be started. Have you read it? — Banno

I also ordered Moyal’s 2021 book Certainty in Action.

The first sentence of TLP starts with a declarative type of sentence "The world is all that is the case."
and then it goes on, "The world is the totality of facts, not of things." They are quite unusual writing styles for philosophical texts, which can only be described as aphoristic.

Of course Witt makes his points in his writings, and it is not all 100% aphoristic writing style which fills his books, but we cannot help, but notice the writing style. — Corvus

The TLP are more “aphorisms” but I would also not try to make sense of them outside the context of the rest of the work. What he wanted in the TLP was only things that he could be absolutely sure of, so his statements are meant to move forward building on his absolute certainty of each thing. In the PI everything is more a description he is asking if you see too.

I agree that the style of the Investigations is unique and I believe it is important to his method. I would recommend reading the Cavell essay I attached above, maybe just starting on p. 56.

I don’t have anything more on his thoughts on God.

I have been trying to take another run at On Certainty but @Sam26 is way ahead of my understanding so I’ve been reluctant to weigh in (I don’t want to get things mired in a need to clarify or a disagreement about conclusions I don’t really have enough knowledge or experience on which to have a legitimate opinion). I have read the first third of that book probably four different times. I am thinking of skipping to the last dates he addressed the topic which is a certain section of the end of the book.

I will order the Moyal. I am curious about the structure and role of the “hinge”. I have found people are under the impression that the situations put forward in On Certainty are to somehow negate the realization of the investigations, or to replace metaphysics rather than simply examining our ordinary criteria for certainty, much as Austin would flesh out a topic systematically. Of course I have nothing to base that on but what amounts to philosophical gossip.

what I do get is Witt thought we shouldn’t try to philosophize about these things as there is no certainty… No system is going to give me slam dunk certainty. — schopenhauer1

That’s the wrong takeaway. He is “philosophizing” it’s just a different method and not driven by the desire to resolve skepticism with a”system” (rather than understanding our ongoing part), as classical philosophy was, and, frankly, as is most of today’s “philosophy”. I’m afraid none of this is going to help you. I can only suggest re-reading the book and attempt to see it as a journey of discovery about your insistence (which I would think equates with the Interlocutor at times, as does @RussellA). It might help to read the section by Cavell I attached previously at p. 56 on Wittgenstein’s method “The relevance of the appeal to everyday language” on through “The knowledge of our language” and “The style of the Investigations”. Good luck.

I’m pretty sure you’ll say this won’t mean anything to you either, however, you would interpret that as a refusal to be intelligible. That being said, your backcover, Wikipedia blurb would be: metaphysics is a fantasy created by our desire to fix the limitations of knowledge, which, epistemologically, is not our only relation to the world, and, ethically, this means it is our responsibility beyond knowledge to respond to the world and be accountable for what we do.

Before you condescend to me again, you (and I hate to say, perhaps @Banno) may want to consider your criticism that Wittgenstein is unintelligible might have more to do with your unwillingness to see it on any other terms than what you want. As he would say: your predetermined requirement makes anything that meets it empty (#107)

@Banno @RussellA @Luke

This weeks comic ha. Very appropriate. — schopenhauer1

I get how this would be funny, but it is not accurate or helpful for either Nietzsche or Wittgenstein. I would point out a few things because the comic makes assumptions that are common misunderstandings.

Wittgenstein is not denying “truth” but only saying we have different criteria for judging what truth does in different areas of our lives, and they are not all pure like we want a certain picture of truth to be (like math).

He is not isolating us to language removed from the world. It is through the method of looking at language that he is investigating why we misconceive the world, as they are the normally the same (until we have a situation in time when that falls apart—we don’t know our way about).

Our ordinary criteria are not based on agreement, nor statistical majority (this is not a defense of common sense or “ordinary people”), but the way our lives have aligned over our history, that we would judge things using the same criteria, usually come to same conclusions, respond the same way, have the same expectations, understand the same implications. These are not rules, nor usually explicit. It is the same basis that allows each of us the ability to evaluate his claims of what we say when, to see for yourself.

Both TLP and PI seems written in richly aphoristic style, which attract broad range of different interpretations by the academics and readers. — Corvus

I think aphorism is a misscharacterization. They are not meant as individual (independent) statements of something he is arguing is true. He does make statements, but they are speculative (like a hypothesis) with the purpose of your coming to the same conclusion on your own, seeing the viewpoint of why he is pointing this out in the context of the rest of the book. I would say they are hard to understand because they require you to change yourself in order to see the way he is looking at things. Removed from his process, they are easy to take in multiple ways.

What is his view on mental objects such as fear, anger, joy, hope, doubt ...etc? What is his idea on existence of God? — Corvus

He is trying to find out why we want feelings to be objects. He does not address the argument for the existence of God other than looking at the same desire of why Descartes looked to God for the purpose of having something fixed, universal, perfect, as Wittgenstein equates with purity as a goal and standard for knowledge.

As Wittgenstein writes in the Preface, a vagueness in the PI is inevitable, as he admits himself that he was unable to weld his results together. — RussellA

This is not “vagueness”. It is a realization that there is no general explanation of “meaning” or “solution” to skepticism. He comes at it from multiple angles to understand how the desire for purity affects different areas of our lives.

For some of these questions it is also unclear whether he considers them valid or not, — RussellA

He does test hypotheses, but you may be confusing the role of the “interlocutor” who represents and expresses the embodiment of the desire for purity (what motivated the Tractatus and the picture of the world that created).

I agree when you say "Anybody that thinks they can tell you what it “means” is wrong". — RussellA

I don’t say this to imply there isn’t something clear, specific, rigorous, etc. But just that narrowing it down to positions and statements that we can tell someone misses the point that he is doing something by a certain method which you must participate in to have it become meaningful to you.

What status does a "table" have for me. It is an inseparable fusion of the concept "table" in the mind and a momentary set of atoms existing in the world in time and space. Both aspects are necessary. My position is that of Nominalism rather than Platonic Realism. — RussellA

Wittgenstein focuses on our criteria for judging identity in the case of tables (and objects) but also not a generalized “concept” (I assume some kind of universal or idea) separate from the world. I would move to more complicated activities that he discusses because the case of physical objects makes it too easy to stay stuck in the picture Wittgenstein is trying to broaden. Below are other activities that Wittgenstein groups together under his unique term “concepts” (not the historical philosophical use of concept as idea). See p. 200 about material objects especially.

-of game, 71, 75, 135
- of a material object, p. 200
- of mathematical certainty, p. 225
- of (noticing) an aspect, pp. 193, 213
of number, 67, 135
- of order, 345
- of pain, 282, 384
- of proposition, 136
- of saying inwardly, p. 220
- of seeing, pp. 200, 209
-s of sensation, p. 209
understanding, 532

It is these kinds of things we do where he gets into how things go sideways or when we bump up against limits of an activity or when we don’t know our way about in an activity in a new context:

teaching, learning -s, 208, 384
use of a -, 82; p. 209
- with blurred edges, 71, 76
direct interest, 570
extending a -, 67

Also this ties to the criteria for judging our lives (concepts). Below is another list of concepts he looks at (under “criteria” in the index).

- for a dream, pp. 222-3
- for an experience, 509, 542; p. 198
- of guessing thoughts right, p. 222
- of having an opinion, 573
- identifying my sensation, 290
- of identity, sameness, 253, 288, 322, 376-7,
404
- ofimage, 239
- of intended projection's coming before
one's mind, 141
-of learning a shape, p. 185
- for looking without seeing, p. 211
- for mastering the series ofnatural numbers,
185
- for matter of course, 238
- of meaning, 190, 692
- of mistake, 51
-of reading, 159-60, 164
- of remembering right, 56
-of state of mind, 149, 572-3 -and symptoms, 354
- of talking to onself, 344
- for temporality of thought, 633
- of understanding, 146, 182, 269

Only by theorising can we make progress, as science has clearly shown. — RussellA

The desire for purity Wittgenstein is investigating is the same as the desire for everything (all our activities) to meet the criteria for science; that expectation of predictability, repeatability, generality, abstraction from a situation, resolution, agreement, etc., and such that it should have nothing to do with my ongoing responsibility (anyone can do science and come to the same conclusion). But philosophy is not science; it has other satisfactions, e.g., its progress is understanding ourselves and the conditions (and limitations) of being human.

But this itself is a language game of how "certainty" is used. — schopenhauer1

You really should stop using those words; that use insinuates triviality and that it’s just about language. This isn’t a debate on how certainty should be used. I’m using it as a term—I could spell it all out every time, but it seems pretty clear where it comes up in the PI. Different approaches, influences, methods don’t matter. They all had the same goal, to solve skepticism by having something foundational—call it “constructions of epistemology and metaphysics”.

“Language game” is not a helpful term to latch onto; it confuses people. In an attempt at shorthand (which is never gonna work), abstraction removes any criteria and circumstances of an individual case of confusion and takes me out of the equation, along with my responsibility (in the fear of “subjectivity”). Our ordinary criteria are sufficient; it’s just hard for people to swallow that some of the time things just don’t work out the easy way, or at all.
— Antony Nickles

Not sure what you're quite saying here. — schopenhauer1

Well that certainly makes it easy to clarify.

I still think it stands that if you want to be known, then say it. Show it after you say it. Or show it and then say it. There is a balance. All show and no tell, and now you are a prophet and others are doing your telling. — schopenhauer1

He’s not “showing” you rather than telling you—he’s asking for your approval: do you see what I see? He’s working out something nobody saw and you’re along for the ride; this is not something you can understand from your first impression or with it being spoon-fed to you, so quit letting people do that for you and figure it out if you want or get off the pot. It’s quite clear you don’t want my help.

Eh, that's so vague though. — schopenhauer1

Plato, Kant, Hume, Descartes, etc. are all reacting to skepticism, doubt in our knowledge. That’s not vague, it’s pervasive.

if the "language game" is thus defined appropriately, why would the abstractions not be helpful in conveying these new "concepts" about "reality"? — schopenhauer1

“Language game” is not a helpful term to latch onto; it confuses people. In an attempt at shorthand (which is never gonna work), abstraction removes any criteria and circumstances of an individual case of confusion and takes me out of the equation, along with my responsibility (in the fear of “subjectivity”). Our ordinary criteria are sufficient; it’s just hard for people to swallow that some of the time things just don’t work out the easy way, or at all.

I think certainty has more to do with confidence in one's knowledge. — schopenhauer1

Yes, that would be an ordinary sense of certainty. I am using it in the sense of a math-like necessity; Witt calls it “logic” or “crystalline purity”; Descartes will call it perfection; Plato just calls it knowledge. Basically it is the desire to know beforehand, generally, reliably, based on fact, without involving the human, etc. It is a standard invented by philosophy in an attempt to counteract skepticism.

I'd say something like Forms or the "Thing-in-Itself" or theories of understanding, are more about being, ontology, and the mechanisms of knowing. — schopenhauer1

Wittgenstein is getting at why they were created; it’s not a discussion of what they were about (the theories). I wouldn’t say Wittgenstein avoids existentialism (the creation of the self), ontology (essence), or knowing, but I don’t think you’d like his answers.

Yeah, same reason I think I don't like either of them. It's vagueness is just enough to have a fanbase use it endless debates and they can then always say, "No, it REALLY means this...". — schopenhauer1

Just because you don’t get it yet doesn’t mean that it is “vague”. The writing is very specific, rigorous, and necessary for its purpose. Anybody that thinks they can tell you what it “means” is wrong (including me), thus the problem with summaries. I’m just trying to help you guys in reading it; to avoid its pitfalls. You have to figure it out for yourself (I mean I could walk you through it but again you seem like another thread would satisfy you more).

What exactly is “the fruitcake” in this analogy? The method? The realization about our desire for certainty? A paragraph summary?

How do you know? There are smidgens of philosophers he sort of mentions but this seems very interpretive. — schopenhauer1

The claim is not “interpretative”. It comes from a familiarity with the history of western analytical philosophy. The desire to solve skepticism is an ever-present theme.

Plato was trying to figure out change and permanence, universals and particulars, things like this. Kant was trying to figure out empirical knowledge and a priori knowledge and how they fit together to understand the world, etc. I don't see that as major breakdowns in ordinary use of language. — schopenhauer1

Again, it’s not about language or language use. Skepticism starts with a case of not knowing what to do (#123). Kant and Plato find no satisfactory certainty to resolve it and so abstract from our ordinary cases to the forms or requiring imperatives having denied the thing-in-itself (“constructing systems” you say). It is this flight from ordinary criteria for how things work in a desire for certainty that concerns Wittgenstein.

“The preconceived idea of crystalline purity can only be removed by turning our whole examination round. (One might say: the axis of reference of our examination must be rotated, but about the fixed point of our real need.)” #108 He is turning the investigation around onto ourselves—why we have this delusional need for a standard of purity (certainty) that we create systems in advance of looking at the world.

Nietzsche and Wittgenstein share the goal of creating a new philosophy out of the old, and so are speaking to a new philosopher, one that you must become in order to see in a new way. These are not textbooks that say everything explicitly, only there to tell you information.

Then why doesn't he just say it thus?… Some explication is okay… An author presumably is trying to convey "something". — schopenhauer1

Well there are times he addresses us directly but the point is for you to judge if you would agree with what is said in a situation, or agree that his explication of a context allows what is said to become understandable in a way other than the “philosophy” he is critiquing insists on. He is not trying to convey anything; he is trying to change how you think, get you to see yourself (as having the same desire he did). The investigation is to find out why we want what he wanted in the Tractatus, what Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hume, etc. wanted.

Even "knowing" that there are various rules in various contexts, doesn't thus confer anything more than the usual of me just trying to interpret the person's philosophical statements. — schopenhauer1

Well I would say criteria rather than rules (another day), but what you are meant to see is not (only) his descriptions, but to ask why the philosopher wants to overlook our ordinary criteria to substitute the sole standard of certainty or something certain (as metaphysics was). This I would say first takes letting go of the fixation that he is trying to (somehow alternatively) answer the problem the skeptic (or uncertainty) poses.

It just seems like not making any commitments and saying "language games" is akin to putting on a pair of sunglasses and posting an "office closed" sign with feet up on the desk and calling it a day… if it is just stalling and spinning in circles about language use, I just see it as a kind of long con trolling. — schopenhauer1

He is trying to find out why we want to create explanations, such as correspondence, forms, positivism, and, as I tried to say, your (and others) misreading that “language games” or “use” is a substitute for those (even if a failed one). I would take your requirement to having an explanation (a “commitment”) as the same desire for certainty for which Wittgenstein is trying to find a reason.

Also, as I said, this is not about language. He is looking at the things we say in a situation as a method and means for learning why philosophy ignores our ordinary criteria of judgment about the world to focus on a general explanation to ensure certainty. “Language use” is neither the issue nor a “solution”; it is a means of seeing the variety of what is meaningful rather than a single standard and explanation.

The rest of what you said, I'm not sure. — schopenhauer1

I remain willing to elaborate or answer questions but it’s fine if that is just an expression of a lack of interest.

@Banno @Sam26 @Luke @Corvus

For that reason, I call this particular thing in front of me an "apple", even though "apple" is a universal concept and the thing in front of me is only one particular example of it.
— @RussellA

But that doesn't answer the metaphysical question of "what" is this concept apple. It is obviously a mental thing. What is that? Witt doesn't have an answer. — schopenhauer1

Wittgenstein is responding to the historical status of philosophy in his time. However, the problem of appearances or “resemblances” has been an issue since Plato in the Theatetus. What he did was take the ordinary alignment between language and the world and our lives (that they are the same; that they operate without any concerns) and inserted a space between them, creating the necessity of a connection in order to make it fixed. Mostly this starts with an inability to reconcile moral or interpersonal issues, and then working backwards to try to be certain with the best case scenario, physical objects.

So doubt creates the framework of ontology, appearances, or something else (in Wittgenstein: the misinterpretation of “use” or forms of life or language games) to try to ensure our words are meaningful, to close the gap we created. Philosophy takes the limitations of knowledge and turns it into an underlying ever-present intellectual problem it feels it needs to “solve”, rather than a truth about our human condition that only raises it head when we “don’t know our way about”, and we become dissatisfied with our ordinary criteria.

So Wittgenstein is making explicit the criteria and activities we use about a bunch of different examples in order to show that our ordinary criteria are more complicated and it is not just a matter of solving a problem like “essence” or “meaning” with a different, better explanation. In the case of physical objects, there are many underlying activities and contexts that we skip over, such as: identification, pointing out an aspect, extrapolating from seen to unseen, our interests in that object, when it is out of place, scientific problems, differentiating from other objects, the stretching and extension of the criteria of identity and purpose thus our judgement of whether they are misapplied or broken, e.g., an ottoman is not a table but can be used for that purpose, or, part of or judgment of a “table” is where we gather with others to eat, so, even if it is around a rock, we would still say we are sitting around the “table”. This is not empirical or about the about, but is still normative, “real”, not “subjective”.

@Banno @Luke @Joshs @Sam26 @Paine

After reading some of the recent comments, I wanted to offer what help I can on reading Wittgenstein (following the Cavell essay I attached earlier):

Yes, words sometimes refer to objects (and are meaningful as names), but that is only one of many ways the world (and meaning) works. The PI is an investigation of examples to show how varied other ways are, and why we want it to only be one way.

He is using a particular method (this is not ordinary writing). He looks at the evidence of what we say—shorthanded as: “language”, but not as the subject (except as another example) nor the salvation—when we are doing activities (the examples, which he groups under the term “concepts”, like chess playing, rule-following, meaning, seeing, pointing, etc.) and he either offers an appropriate situation (context) in which we would say it (or he imagines that) in order to see how vast are the ways that the world works (their “grammar” and criteria), and how and when they don’t.

You have to be able to see what he is describing for yourself (at times only hinting at it or in a riddle-like phrase), because he can’t tell you (he is trying to change our mindset, how we see the world, others). Look at what he says as speculative (he is almost running it by himself at times), because we must agree in our judgment of the situation—what we would also say in that situation. (Thus why @schopenhauer1 and @RussellA balk at the unsubstantiated accept-or-reject nature of his statements.) It is almost like it isn’t a matter of understanding him as much as seeing (the vision) the perspective, as he puts it, the attitude (as in: the position in relation to).

The goal is to see how and why we are (philosophy is) tempted to want a single theory for everything that is simple, logical, and certain (he says “pure”); to look at the desire philosophy has to have the problems of skepticism and other minds solved by something we can know. But Witt is not offering a better solution or some foundation for the limitations of knowledge—as people take: language games, “use”, forms of life, etc., to be. The reason he finds is that there is an open possibility of meaninglessness (uncertainty, doubt, skepticism) which scares us away from our ordinary criteria into a myopic view of how the world works so we can be sure about it, know it (but that knowledge is not the only relation to the world).

Also: “Use” is not some operation done to, or result held by, language (say, by the casual power of “our intention”); it is part of his method to look and see that what is said can be meaningful in different ways, from different vantages, in different situations (have different “uses” or “senses” he also calls them) depending on the concept, the context, who, when, where, to whom, etc. He is saying look at all the factors and criteria from the whole history of all our lives that hold what we are interested in, what matters in what we do, our criteria of judgment about what is meaningful. “Meaning” is not put into language by you, it is judged as meaningful (or not) by our ordinary criteria.

What if we were to recognize that responsibility is “the essential, primary and fundamental mode" of objectivity as well as subjectivity? Ethics is therefore not about right response to a radically exterior/ ized other, but about responsibility and accountability for the lively relationalities of becoming of which we are a part.” Barard — Joshs

These are all very interesting. I would agree that yes without “responsibility and accountability” the moral realm is not inhabitable (that refusing to acknowledge the other is a “conviction”. P. 223). But I’m worried Barad might be seeing the other as “radically exterior” before we find out if they are such, and jumping to “becoming” together without knowing how we would—unless we are coming from who we are while simply finding our “way about” (#123) as a culture or community (or friends), which may very well mean extending our understanding, our judgments, or even our lives.

Since responsivity is a given of relational being, the challenge isn’t how to become responsive to each other, morally or otherwise. The issue is how to enrich and enlarge the system of relational intelligibility that defines us as ‘selves’ within a tradition, so that we can make sense of and embrace alien traditions. — Joshs

It is a “given” that our obligation (to their claim on us as other) characterizes us either in responding or not. However, even if we end up disagreeing, that qualifies as a moral answer. Even with the effort to explicate our criteria on an issue or action, and develop what we find important in the context, we may very well still come to a point where we find we are not in agreement on how to continue together, but at least the process allows us to part on terms we better understand, having learned the others’ interests and desires, as it were, rationally, i.e., being morally rational. So, while I support our ability to be intelligible to the other—and more, the importance of working towards intelligibility of and on the others’ terms (especially in doing philosophy)—I don’t believe a moral solution ends with either a global sameness or the rejection of the others’ legitimacy to define their selves without us, even against us.

the radically social constructionist position I’m arguing from doesn’t see shared systems of intelligibility as grounded in autonomous selves. On the contrary, the self is derived concept, a social construction. — Joshs

While I see Wittgenstein as defining the self differently than an inherent, given thing (e.g., as the self only existed, for Descartes, when we are clear and distinct), I wouldn’t think we go so far as to politicize the terms of the self (requiring the other to be intelligible to us or be “ungrounded”, say, irrational). Though I can see how Marx would agree that the self only has public means for its production (“construction”), he took that to show the importance of not allowing a generic capital (culture) to separate us from our interests, our work, or, as some would say, our “subjectivity”, or what Emerson would call our moral “partiality”, which I read as what I take personally.

I agree wholeheartedly that “certainty” and “knowledge” are specific here, apart from the various senses they have in ordinary use. But both are the product of the desire philosophy has always had for, as he puts it, “crystalline purity”, as old as at least Plato, with the creation of his Forms to stand for the wish for a knowledge apart from the human—e.g., the inherent risk of incommensurability in the moral realm—a fixture beyond the limitation of our human condition (our separateness, the contingency of the future at times on us alone).

In poststructuralist and other postmodern forms of discourse, the idea of certainty is no longer considered useful. This is not due to a repression of the desire for it, but because the concept has lost its intelligibility. — Joshs

And I disagree that this obsession has left us. The war between skepticism and attempts to “solve” it is sphinx-like in its incarnations. The whack-a-mole that once was metaphysics continues with the wish for science to resolve our feeling of lacking sufficient knowledge, and in the modern theoretical convolutions to explain away the truth that there is no fact (or theory) that ensures our understanding each other or continuing on together. To claim the dragon dead (or unintelligible) is to miss the point that as humans we clamor not to err, to be good, to ensure that the future is in our vision and control, that intelligibility is only a matter of process rather than our fickle will.

If there is any motive which transcends the locality of cultural eras, I suggest it is the need for intelligibility. — Joshs

But yet we want to maintain our inherent uniqueness; that you can’t know “This!” (#253); that my experience is still paramount to communication and the failure is intellectually explainable. That our communicating with each other is just “constructing, through joint action, shared systems of intelligibility” and not an ongoing responsibility to be responsive to each other and our moral claims on each other, or, all too often, to fail or refuse to make ourselves intelligible.

I believe @Banno was referring to the Cavell essay I attached, but it is about reading the PI anyway.

I’ve taken a run at On Certainty a few times and I’ve found that he was attempting to look at the ordinary ways certainty works, having taken apart the philosophical desire for certainty as a foundational solution to skepticism, much as he took apart the desire for “essences” but showed that our ordinary criteria satisfy that yearning in expressing what we find essential about something, its importance, and so retaining the aspiration of Socrates and Kant without succumbing (as they did) to the need for knowledge to replace our role in the world.

I hope, as well, to find the time and motivation to review the work and your posts and learn more (or something else), but I also keep putting off Zettel too.

I'm not sure what you mean by "explaining language"…he also does this via looking at how language actually works. — Luke

Fair point. But, as you say, he is looking and all I am saying is let’s not loose track of the reason he is looking, and it’s not to be an English teacher (though I do see the irony based on his tone sometimes). We might say he is looking at how language works in the sense of when it is achieving something, but more at why (and when) it doesn’t, which is more akin to why Socrates never seems to quite come up with the answer he wants. Wittgenstein is critiquing traditional philosophy and doing philosophy; addressing traditional philosophical problems. He is not solving the skeptical problem but is investigating language as a means (method) of seeing, for example, that “essence” is what essentially matters to us and “meaning” is really the ways in which things are meaningful, including that the type of sciencified knowledge we want is not our only relation to the world and others.

…Wittgenstein's philosophical investigation gets it importance from "destroying [..,] only houses of cards, and [...] clearing up the ground of language on which they stood." — Luke

It is the house of cards and its destruction that is important—clearing language of the idea that it has a foundation, certainty: meaning or rules or mental occurrences, etc.

Well I don’t want to high-jack the thread. I looked at a Cavell essay on Kripke here in a post on rules.

But I’ll entertain any thoughts on Cavell’s assessment of how to read Wittgenstein more profitably. I always find people take him to be explaining language or offering it as a solution to skepticism, when it is simply a window to see that each thing works differently, not to justify claims about how we play games or follow rules or dream of our own world, but as examples to see why we insist on a requirement (certain knowledge) that they fail to meet.

Wittgenstein reifies as a primal desire of humankind is in fact the product of historically changing social-discursive forms of life. — Joshs

I would characterize Wittgenstein’s insight of our desire for certainty as a temptation based on the human condition (that we are separate and we want knowledge to bridge that gap). Our situation to each other would only change if we someday can read minds or no longer have ongoing relationships (which we may be approaching). The desire for certainty is as ancient as Socrates’ desire for knowledge, spawned from the desire for control, the fear of chaos (and death), and the mistrust of others, so again, I find it unlikely those responses will go away (though they may wax and wain/be overcome and succumbed to).

Yes Wittgenstein is critiquing philosophies gripped by the desire for certainty (including the author of the Tractatus) but he wouldn’t claim that our ordinary language is “a stable, ahistorical background.” It is only a window into our lives (a method) to put the skeptic’s claims into context—not as a skeptical solution, which he goes to great pains (not hard enough it appears) to avoid. The only controversy he is avoiding is the skeptical/anti-skeptical one, the relativist/foundationalist dichotomy, which is to realize our ordinary criteria are sufficient to allow us to bridge the gap between us together.

Cavell would not be my got-to for this stuff. There are others who had more direct contact with Wittgenstein. That's not to say that what he says is wrong, so much as that the emphasis may be skewed. In particular, it seems to me that the essay follows Kripke into rule-scepticism, which I think absent from Wittgenstein. — Banno

I do think Cavell is a good example of the method Wittgenstein uses, and explains it well, so I had hoped those parts would be helpful to Russell. I take Cavell as appropriately reading Wittgenstein, focusing on the effects of the desire for certainty and Wittgenstein’s final insights about the limits of knowledge (and rules), which differentiates him from Kripke, who takes rules as fundamental, though flawed.

The act of “expression” (rather than “observable behavior”) is necessary as it implies that it is of me (reveals me)you can know I am in pain by inference from the context)
— Antony Nickles

I could say "ouch!" or I could wince, both serve the same function in indicating to others that I am in pain. They cannot know that I am in pain, they can only believe that I am in pain.
===============================================================================
And, again, expression is not a “name”.
— Antony Nickles

From the Wikipedia article Name, a name identifies something, a referent. A proper name identifies a specific individual human. A common name identifies a person, place or thing.

Wincing is an instinctive behaviour. Saying the word "ouch!" is a cognitive act, and as a cognitive act refers to something. As a part of language that is identifying something, it is a name. — RussellA

Sorry, but it appears you are not attempting to understand Wittgenstein but are simply operating from your opinions which you refuse to question, in which case, I can’t help. I would suggest reading the entire work of PI and actually answering the questions and trying to see how you could see things entirely differently. Sorry I couldn’t be of more use, good luck.

@Banno @Luke @Sam @schopenhauer1 @Richard B @frank

"Ouch!" is a name for an observable behaviour. As pain is not observable, if there was no observable pain behaviour” — RussellA

The act of “expression” (rather than “observable behavior”) is necessary as it implies that it is of me (reveals me), and pain does not function as “unobservable” but is suppressed (even if I try to hide it, it can be expressed in hiding it; even when nothing is observable, you can know I am in pain by inference from the context). Imagine sadness or guilt (pain is just one example of the problem of the other). And, again, expression is not a “name”. You are confusing all this by hanging onto a certain goal or picture; I suggest you start taking a look at that insistence (the need of that desire). It is the same as the interlocutor’s.

“after all, the interlocutor is part of Wittgenstein's imagination, and is putting forward ideas that Wittgenstein considers important.” — RussellA

They are important because they embody the confusion Wittgenstein was in during the Tractatus; the interlocutor has the impulsive desire for certainty and “crystalline purity” that Wittgenstein is trying to understand and unravel—this is the point of all of his examples (they are not explanations). You appear to be in the mindset of the interlocutor now (which is an ancient desire of philosophy—and why it wishes it was science). Wittgenstein cannot tell you an answer (a fact or theory), you have to become a different person, see differently.

As an alternative reading, or way of reading, I would suggest Stanley Cavell’s 29-page essay on the availability of the PI, a copy of which I am attaching below, particularly the section on the Style on the page marked 70 and the discussion of his method starting on 62.

And to say pain is “caused by something inside us” is just a physiological fact..........................that is philosophically unimportant and confusing because it appears to bring up issues of causation and determinism, etc.
— Antony Nickles

The issues of causation and determinism are important philosophical topics. — RussellA

I said the fact is philosophically unimportant. The picture of our expression being caused or determined by neurons, even if true, is not relevant to the skepticism of the other. We want science to solve philosophy, but they are like two separate worlds, and what Wittgenstein is doing (his method) is not empiricism or statistics or an experiment. The result is not facts or theories, its to change you.

Let’s try to do the work and answer the question “how could I say [ordinarily, he means] I felt something which is established by experiment?” one answer: “I’m sad”, “why?”, “Because of the neurons firing within me” Also, did you figure out how it is “indeed true that observation of regular concomitances is not the only way we establish causation.”? If you can see for yourself the other ways, then perhaps you might start to see the fact that the picture of internal causation is forced by a desire for a particular outcome. (He is more often asking you to imagine something or being cryptic to force you to see something for yourself—he is not arguing for a conclusion.)

“even though the private sensation of pain may drop out of consideration in the language game, pain does not drop out as a private sensation.” — RussellA

First, “language game” sounds trivial (simplistic). Our language and our lives are the same (usually), and it is not playing a “game” as opposed to some alternative that is more serious, valid. Second, if we can say our pain is the same, we have the same pain. #253 “I have a headache. Me too. No, mine is sharp and behind my ear. Mine too!” Taking out the focus on my difference is to show that the owning is the important part about pain. Part of this process would be to ask yourself why you are fixated on our singularity?

The discussion of a “private” language is not an argument—it’s the examination of a fantasy. One realization of its failure is that our lives are essentially shared; that, yes, it is possible to have a personal even ineffable experience (alone with a sunset), but not always or just because I am me (we could say, our nature is the same; I can feel everything that you feel.) Now you can try to hide your pain (even from yourself), but this is not its being private (unique), but secret. These are the ordinary ways in which pain works; humans have (traditional philosophy has) a reason for wanting to hang onto the uniqueness of our sensations, our selves. Wittgenstein is getting at the motivation for those reasons. Maybe to avoid the responsibility to make ourselves intelligible, to block off the other from our imagined “knowledge of ourself”—so we imagine that it is the nature of humans that comes between us, rather than our choice, our “conviction” p 223. And it is possible (and terrifying) for you to be empty, just a puppet, fake, and, in the face of that fear, we want to stay unique, unknowable, so we look around for a reason, and pick the thing most certain—“our” experience. But all the focus on us is easier to face than the real problem to be accounted for: our lack of knowledge of the other. The desire to enforce a connection between outward and inward in me is actually about our limitation to have knowledge of the other, which shows how we do respond to them (acknowledging them, or not).

“PI 304 Not at all. It is not a something., but not a nothing either!” — RussellA

So yes, pain is not a “thing” (like color is not), but what he is saying is that it nevertheless is important (thus, not “nothing”); it just matters in different ways; we care (or not) about the pain being “had” by this person; it is that pain is expressed by a person, that it expresses them, that they matter. It is not a matter of knowledge, but interest.

…the expression "I know I am in pain" does have a different meaning to "I am in pain" PI 246 It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain? — RussellA

It is not that they are “joking”; it only makes sense as a “joke” (you are to imagine the context in which it is a joke)—we would never otherwise say “I know I am in pain” because pain is not known (other than in the sense of knowing as being sure, as in “I am certain I am in pain and that it’s not indigestion”) Again, I do not know it, I have it; I do not know their pain, I acknowledge it (them). The idea is to take a strange philosophical picture or framework apart by looking at the ordinary ways they are said (this is his method, not that his philosophy is about language), not that there is a better framework, but to find out why we insist on an intellectual picture at all. For instance, if we had “knowledge” of ourself, there would be something specific that would by mine, me, but also something that I could hold in reserve so I could be different, unique, from you. In addition, we would have “certainty” of ourself, control, and an impersonal explanation for your indeterminacy.

Yes, we can talk about pain in the language game, even though no one else can know my pain and I cannot know theirs. Wittgenstein is trying to find a means of countering Cartesian solipsism, the separation of mind from world, through language. — RussellA

Again, pain is not a matter of knowledge (except in its sense of “I know” as “I accept/acknowledge”). Wittgenstein is not “countering” solipsism, but getting at the desire for it, and the desire to “solve” it. One realization is that there are more relations to the world and others than knowledge.

And there is a misunderstanding that Wittgenstein is trying to create a theory of language that is different, or that the solution to skepticism is that the world is language or “language games” or not skeptical because of “forms of life”. He is bringing up examples of what we say, the language we ordinarily use, as a method, to examine philosophy and ourselves. Most notably misread “ Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” #109 It is not that language is the “means” of our bewitchment, so we just need to clear up language in order not to be bewitched. Language is the means of “battling”, the method by which we battle. He is using the evidence of the historical things we say in situations as a “means” to gain insight into why philosophy abandons our ordinary criteria to impose the singular standard of certainty.

…the same problem attaches to a language game based on rules. Where is the rule that there are rules. PI 5: A child uses such primitive forms of language when it learns to talk. Here the teaching of language is not explanation, but training. — RussellA

Language does not follow rules; there is no fact that ensures communication. We are not “trained” in rules; it is an osmosis of, an indoctrination into, our culture, including implications, consequences, criteria for judgment, learning from mistakes, being guided, following examples, etc. This is like an apprenticeship, not knowledge to be explained, or workings we are always conscious of, or reasons we always use. Wittgenstein is not looking at rule-following to explain language, it is just one among all the examples of how different things work differently than we’d like. Wanting our world to work like rules has in common with other of his examples the desire for certainty that Wittgenstein is trying to understand why it’s so compelling for humans, for philosophy.

The intent is part of the way we explain actions with reasons…

I think we agree on this. — Banno

Yes. I would only add that we don’t normally (in anticipated contexts) explain actions, and it is not necessary or even possible to always explain—an ordinary context would never necessitate asking “Why are you stopping at the light because it is red?”, and we might not be able to imagine one (even an imaginary one; though, of course, now that I say that, maybe someone learning who has never been in modern civilization). The point being that talk of intention is situational (and, as Banno says, not metaphysical, i.e., part of meaning or all action); in Banno’s example—"Oh, he does that when he wants his bowl filled"—the intention, or reason, must be explained, say: in response to my curiosity at the animal’s, perhaps, inexplicably pawing at the air, or any other action which is, as Austin would put it, “fishy”, or, as I put it to @frank, unexpected, or abnormal (our lives are what is normative Cavell says). Expected, appropriate actions in ordinary situations would not and do not have reasons, and I would be stumped how to answer if you asked for one (though I may have subterfuge at heart in “acting” normal; but the exception proves the rule).

All that to say that traditional philosophy wants to place “intention” before action, or tie “meaning” to speaking, in order to have certainty (rationality, control, predictability) so it can remove (by theoretical explanation) the limitations and vagaries of involving a human, an uncertain future, calling for responsiveness and responsibility, perhaps breaking us apart.