The Second Meditation:

“I feel like someone who is suddenly dropped into a deep whirlpool that tumbles him around so that he can neither stand on the bottom nor swim to the top.”

Emerson starts his essay Experience lost “[ i ] n a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none.” They are in surroundings with no form and no way to orient. The analogy is apt because Descartes has no specific subject, and so no context from where to start. The abstraction leads to a general response without the criteria of an ordinary circumstance, and so grasps for the criteria of perfection.

“I will suppose, then, that everything I see is fictitious. I will believe that my memory tells me nothing but lies. I have no senses. Body, shape, extension, movement and place are illusions.”

He goes on to create the picture that our human faculties are the problem: that our sight creates fiction, our memory lies, and our sensations are illusions. Framing it on ordinary terms like dream, illusion, fiction, and lies gives us understandable ways of making it right: to awaken (pay attention), find what is not fake, sort out the facts, and authenticate. Unfortunately, Descartes, and everyone thereafter, takes the judgment of what the solution needs to be away from these ordinary contexts, and so postulates consciousness, reality, factual basis, and truth vs falsity (rather than mistake).

Well, he does posit a demon but I do not think he is demonizing our fallibility — Fooloso4

This seems to be splitting hairs. I think we can agree he’s not actually claiming there’s a demon. I welcome your reading, but I am claiming he is externalizing that he is demonized (afraid), that his ability to have a clear path through our culture and customs is fraught. He is afraid that we are unable to tell right from wrong; that the human condition is unfounded.

but he does not argue that this is reason for panic or a vortex of irrationality. Quite the opposite, it is reason to find something indubitable and build on that foundation. — Fooloso4

He is anxious that he might turn out to be wrong (“I was struck by how many false things I had believed”) or that he is not aware of, explicitly, the opinions he “confidently assents to”, that “keep coming back… as though they had a right to a place in my belief-system”—our ordinary beliefs. The reason to find a foundation is the fear, the lack of confidence, the unease of possibly being wrong.

he does have a very strong optimistic streak so far as the extent of human reason can go in attaining knowledge. — Manuel

The thing about Descartes, even Socrates, is that they do put the cart before the horse in wanting a specific type of knowledge (to solve our doubts) even before they get started, but in searching they do find a method that advances our ability to dig into a subject, even if they don’t get things right, or are barking up the wrong tree (such as imagining if we get clear about our sensations we will solve our moral dilemmas).

The crux of what I see is that Descartes is demonizing the inherent fallibility of our human condition.

I sometimes think that others go wrong even when they think they have the most perfect knowledge; — Descartes, First Meditation

Even in the best case scenario, even when required to be “perfect”, knowledge—predetermined, non-contextual, hoping to predict the right thing to do (“ought”)—is flawed in Descartes assessment.

But the less powerful they make my original cause, the more likely it is that I am so imperfect as to be deceived all the time – because deception and error seem to be imperfections. — Descartes, First Meditation

But we regularly fail, make mistakes, don’t assess the situation (act thoughtlessly) or do so not taking into account the other, etc. None of this is reason for panic or a vortex of irrationality. The possibility of error in our actions does not lead to the conclusion that all our efforts are hopeless. And not just “wrong” but seemingly for no reason, randomly, as if it could happen at any time without our being able to see it coming (thus, maliciously). This is the motivation of the desire to have the predictability and stability of science or math or our direct sensations, so that we can just follow the moral rules and never be wrong or judged.

there are some propositions which seem impossible to doubt without claiming insanity. How can I doubt that these are my hands? — frank

This is the bottom of a very long fall, so it seems absurd; and people take philosophy as esoteric, unpractical, and academic because they associate it with taking this worry seriously. But, as I said, it starts with the fear that we could be deceived in our cultural assumptions and societal norms. Another way to see this is that we might not know how to go on together at some point, that we might be judged wrong despite following orders, that the words we say might betray us. We are scared and anxious of, as it were, the future: uncertain, unpredictable outcomes.

Socrates will say that contradictory ideas “clash with each other in our soul” and Theatetus says that he “wonders immensely what these things are, and really sometimes I feel dizzy when I look at them.” Socrates says this “wonder” is the “origin of philosophy”. Descartes will also feel “dizzy” at the realization that there is no foundation whatsoever, not even as to whether I am awake. But the concern is for certainty in our opinions and customs, which are what he really wants to get straight about. We want knowledge to be as certain as the hands in front of our face; we don’t doubt our hands, we doubt that knowledge will save us at all.

Antony, what would you conclude the object of his project is? — frank

Of course we’re just getting started, so conclusions are premature.

Is [Descartes’ object] to withhold assigning truth to anything that isn't certain in the way the conclusion of a mathematical proof is? Or is he putting aside his certainty for the sake of reexamining foundations? — frank

I will say that I think he started wanting to investigate what is normally unexamined; the hidden judgments and assumptions of our society (as he says, the “law of custom and habitual opinions”), as most of philosophy attempts to reflect on—ourselves embedded in our culture. But he floats away from an actual inquiry of instances of practices in the situations in which they happen, into an abstracted world encompassing every claim in every context. He jumps “straight for the basic principles on which all my former beliefs rested.” Plato makes the same mistake early on in the Theatetus when he skips over examples of knowing things to look for what knowledge is “itself” and then moves to theories of knowledge in the abstract, universally, like math.

Descartes’ skipping over our ordinary examples of knowledge to try to be certain about something more “foundational” is not because “going through them one by one… would take forever”. He is worried about being deceived about our major concerns of custom and opinion, the “many false things [he] had believed”, like morality, politics—the things we are more uncertain about. It is fear that makes him want to start with something he seemingly can’t not know, his senses and his awareness of himself.

It might help to examine the assumptions and conclusions he makes as he goes along.

“ I should also withhold it from ones that are not completely certain and indubitable.”

His criteria to assent to a truth is certainty and absence of doubt. Of course his ideal is a mathematical certainty. Wittgenstein later will show that this requirement is why philosophy overlooks our ordinary criteria for every different thing we do.

“the visions that come in sleep are like paintings: they must have been made as copies of real things; so at least these general kinds of things – eyes, head, hands and the body as a whole – must be real and not imaginary.”

He begins to account for our doubt by taking our most direct, best-case scenario, sensations, and concluding that we must make “copies”, which can then be mistaken, without undermining the possibility of something certain, which he creates and abstracts as what is “real” (as Plato did with the Forms). Which leads to a picture such as:

much of what we call reality is human projection based on our limited perspective. From this 'dimly lit' vantage point I generally hold that I (or any of us) don't have enough information or wisdom to make reliable judgements about the nature of reality. — Tom Storm

“yet clearly I sometimes am deceived.”

So in contrast, everything else is subject to doubt, or, to put it another way, possible failure, mistakes, error, thoughtlessness, hurt, tragedy, etc. As well, it is framed in a way that someone is deceiving him; in a sense, either God or himself. As if it weren’t a regular occurrence, but malicious, intentional, out of the ordinary.

“On their view [that God does not exist], then, I am a product of fate or chance or a long chain of causes and effects.”

He tries to give up on the idea of an “all-powerful” God, but, rather than accept uncertainty in the world, he assumes there are other forces of which I am the “perfect” product.

“I don’t reach this conclusion [that doubt can be raised about anything] in a flippant or casual manner, but on the basis of powerful and well thought-out reasons.”

I think most interesting is there is a sort of admission that this desire for certainty is driving the form of his answers; that it is “powerful”, like a basic human need, but he takes it as a validation or badge of honor rather than as a unexamined forced criteria.

“But if I go on viewing them in that light I shall never get out of the habit of confidently assenting to [the law of custom and habitual opinions].”

Again, almost as a throwaway sentence, he reveals something more interesting. It is the habitual assent that he is actually trying to throw off, and he makes the assumption that these are errors and uncertainties, to which the contrast is perfection, truth, and certainty, rather than conscious assent, or it’s opposite, what Emerson calls aversion, or Thoreau would call dissent. He warns against “laziness” and to be “on guard” against the “pull” of conformity. That we will need courage to shake ourselves awake (say in the metaphorical sense of: unconscious assent to the social contract) and that there is some violence and struggle that we must throw ourselves into. Hegel will refer to this “darkness” as the “dark path” in the Phenomenology of Spirit, when we begin to take apart our dichotomies.

However, perhaps because he views dissent as crossing the rule of the church, he needs to be absolutely certain (to “counter-balance the weight of old opinion”) before defying the authority of the status quo (why he is in a sense “hiding”, as @Fooloso4 points out, his defiance). So maybe this is not just an epistemological treatise, but, hidden within, a political one.

“However far I go in my distrustful attitude, no actual harm will come of it, because my project won’t affect how I act, but only how I go about acquiring knowledge.”

I just want to point to Socrates discussion in the Meno of knowledge and action (virtue) as well as Wittgenstein’s uncovering that the desire for knowledge creates the excuse for our responsibility to act, or react to the other’s claim upon us. That, no, there may be harm in Descartes’ attitude.

The quote says “you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours.” You are resorting to cherry picking and omitting parts of the quote to try and contort it to fit your argument regarding a desire for uniqueness. — Luke

Well, if you don’t think writing can be paraphrased and drawn out at all it’s gonna be tough to do philosophy. If you think I’ve got it wrong, what do you think he is saying?

“You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you. For you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours.”

And when I say that, I’m not asking what you take from it, but to answer the open questions, such as: what do I believe? and how is it the same thing as before, only now more? What is it that could be mine, but yet also something others can have (“my own”)? And what will “not just be you”? That which I believe in? That I will not just believe in something that is mine, I will believe in something that is theirs? If so, what and how do I and they possess it? How is mine mine and theirs theirs but they are alike? How is theirs “like” mine?

The rest of the quote counters your claims:

You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you. For you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours.

This does not reflect a desire for uniqueness. — Luke

The implication of the sentence is that you also (along with me) will be unique, and I will respect that more: “You’ll come to believe… in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you [that you will come to believe is singularly significant]. For you’ll soon realize that other[ s are singularly significant too]. (Emphasis and paraphrasing mine.]

I don't see where you find that in the premises of the article, unless you are talking about the premises created within the history of philosophy that brought about the hard problem. — Luke

Yes, I am claiming that the article is working on (assuming) a certain framework that, yes, is trying to answer or overcome the conclusions of philosophical skepticism.

The article does not mention anything about a "desire for uniqueness" of the individual phenomenal self. — Luke

He does say: “With this marvelous new phenomenon at the core of your being, you’ll start to matter to yourself in a new and deeper way. You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance”.

I wanted to say the same thing with “unique” as he is with “singular significance” though I take it as a fantasy created by our desire rather than a given state. I think I’ve made that as clear as I can.

What I take to be the main crux of the article is that the combination of different qualia create a sense of personhood; create me, my conscious self.

The example of blindsight demonstrates one aspect of this; that, although the person functions as a sighted person, without the qualia of sight, it doesn’t feel to them that those sighted functions belong to them. It was instead just some qualia-less physical processing that the person was unaware of, like their liver function.

If the same applied to all qualia, then there would be no sense of personhood. — Luke

I’ll let it go after this because I agree my point is not a critique of the crux of the article (rather, I would say, of its premises). We are all aware (or unaware), sense the world (or are numb to it), feel anger and sadness (or repress it), but what I sense and feel is not unable to be possessed by others, for them to “have” them. We are interested, traumatized, exalted—me by one thing, you by something different, remembering different things, perhaps differently, but not always different.

But it is no mistake that the “sense of personhood” is a “sense”. We want the criteria for a self to be continuous, specific, knowable, so we take as evidence the one thing we feel we cannot not know, awareness of sensation—this self-evident pain I am pierced with, undeniably, unavoidably—and add to that our desire for uniqueness (and control) and you have the individual phenomenal self, backwards engineered from, coincidently, the criteria for truth that philosophy has desired from the beginning.

You aren’t really aware of your feelings or sensations? — Luke

The trick is right in the space between feeling something, being aware of it (rather than suppressing it) and just before the jump to the conclusion that we have “consciousness”, more than “are conscious of”: as if it were pointed out, or we’re embarrassed into acknowledging it, or are touching something with a purpose, or suddenly notice the faint yet unmistakeable smell of bleach, or can’t seem to reach our grief. Part of it is the sense that these feelings, thoughts, sensations, must be “ours”, as if no one has ever been this heartbroken before; the fear that they are trivial, that the other can feel the same; as if I won’t “have” anything. Part of it is having the security that there is something of mine that I cannot be separated from, that knowing myself is at my fingertips (ugh), that, as you say, this at least is “given”.

Back to Humprey: “…what would be missing from your life if you lacked phenomenal consciousness? If you had blindsight, blind-touch, blind-hearing, blind-everything? Pace Fodor, I’m sure there’s an obvious answer, and it’s the one we touched on when discussing blindsight. It’s that what would be missing would be nothing less than you, your conscious self… imagine if you were to lack qualia of any kind at all, and to find that none of your sensory experience was owned by you? I’m sure your self would disappear.”

The stakes are certainly very high. As Descartes found, if we rely on anything else to build our sense of self, it can be taken away. Only if we “own” what is special about me (keep it inside) can I be ensured that my culture won’t minimize me, that others’ won’t define what is acceptable for me to be, that my actions won’t be judged to include implications I had not thought about, that I won’t just be identified by my suffering. As Wittgenstein’s nemesis says: “But surely another person can't have THIS pain!” (PI, #253) as if “this” were to mean: the same pain, the identical (unique) pain, when it is merely true because there are two bodies; this body and that one. In our case, he would put it that there is a difference in the criteria for the ownership of a self.

The section you quoted does not support your claim that the author’s goal is to “prove” that we each have an undeniable, given self. The fact that we have phenomenal consciousness is simply a given. — Luke

.

What I should have said is the need to explain or have knowledge of the purpose of “phenomenal consciousness” is to desire to solidify it, make it certain, understandable, important. To make it “factual”, say, as we feel the theory of evolution is.

I realize this is not the point of the article; I’m just trying to put its philosophical descriptions and claims in the context of the greater sphere of analytical philosophy. I’m saying that the assumption that we have “consciousness” is a misconception based on a desire to be certain that we matter. This, of course, is a broader discussion. I can let it be for another time.

”I am claiming that there is a reason he is imagining a “subjective experience”, the evidence being that he says it. That he wants it to be “explained” by a “mechanism” is not me “reading intentions”, it is the implications of his getting to his reason from those means.
— Antony Nickles

…this is actually terrible writing. Writing should narrow in on a point so the reader has clarity. — Philosophim

I am narrowly focused on his point that knowledge of the self will make us matter, and I am trying to show how the desire to matter creates the need for the certainty. Maybe I can help with something you’re not clear on.

He is right to use the terms and points he is so that even a reader not well versed in philosophy can understand his point. — Philosophim

But he does bring up Descartes; he does imagine these findings have philosophical import. Just because he doesn’t get into the place his claims stake in the history of philosophy doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be subject to its critique.

His lack of exploring Locke is not an intention we can fairly make. — Philosophim

I’m not saying there is a fault in not discussing Locke. I thought you might understand my point better in reviewing my response to Manuel’s bringing up Locke.

Critique his main conclusions, the idea of solving the hard problem. If he chooses to sprinkle meaning behind it, why is that relevant to his main point at all? It sounds like you're more upset with where you think this can go than with his immediate idea. — Philosophim

I’m not worried “where… this can go”. I’m saying it got started from a hidden desire and a misconception. Sometimes philosophy can’t be done so close in; this is how someone objecting to skepticism gets stuck trying to prove it wrong.

I feel your reading intentions into the article that are not being insinuated. I would re-read it once more. This is proposing a mechanism to explain how the subjective experience occurs within the brain. That's the crux and really nothing more. — Philosophim

I am claiming that there is a reason he is imagining a “subjective experience”, the evidence being that he says it. That he wants it to be “explained” by a “mechanism” is not me “reading intentions”, it is the implications of his getting to his reason from those means. The idea that there is “nothing more” is skipping over how this is set up from the history of philosophy. The “problem” is assumed without considering whether it is framed correctly (see post re Locke above).

"We have the ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know whether any mere material being thinks or no; it being impossible for us… to discover, by the contemplation of our own ideas… a power to perceive and think. — Manuel, quoting Locke

Humphrey, and many others, take this as a statement of a problem, seeing only that Locke (and Descartes) found it “impossible” because he was merely working from the “contemplation of [their] own ideas”. The feeling is that now, with science or some other intellectual solution, we can “discovery” and “know” the “power to perceive and think”. The “discovery” is, however, that it is impossible to know.

The sneaky part is the first step (as Wittgenstein will say, PI, #308). What Locke wants is knowledge of the other (and ourselves), which is to say, certainty, justified, immutable. What he is saying, despite his hopeful qualifications, is a statement of fact. We will never be certain the other is thinking, because, as Wittgenstein sees, the criteria of thinking is not knowledge—not everything is thought. The other may be quoting, brainwashed, serving platitudes, or just plain making stuff up. The answer is not one of “knowing” it is working to find out what the other is trying to point out in the context we’re in (being drawn in Heidegger will say), given the intelligible possibilities, or to make them intelligible. To trust that they are individuating themselves, until it is clear they are not. We must “contemplate” the other as other, treat them as someone who is seeing something different.

Thus, there is no “power” to discover, no continuous “thought” or special, ever-present “perception” leading to a “consciousness”; something always there and yours alone. We want others (and ourselves) to be able to be always thinking, everything said be “intended”, so that we can simply take their words on their face, take ours as clear without being responsible for them further, because they come from “our consciousness” which is the desire for something foundational.

Why are we using science to attempt to back up our “feeling” of having a “personal” sense” — Antony Nickles

Are we? — Luke

Well the article starts with a study; there’s neuroscience behind it attempting to understand “consciousness”; and the whole point is making a problem out of the “body”, which is able to be empirically studied, related to the idea of a persons’s individuality, pictured as their “consciousness”. Which hair are you trying to split?

Why is the feeling “mysterious”? — Antony Nickles

Because the hard problem of consciousness is a mystery in need of an explanation. — Luke

This is circular. The question was meant to spur the thought that we (philosophers) have created a “problem”, manufactured the philosophical idea of “consciousness” for a purpose we are not examining; that, philosophically, this is old ground, even the attempt to bring it certainty (Descartes, Positivism, etc.).

Ah. It’s this “mattering” and “significance” that we wanted all along
— Antony Nickles

No, it's an answer to the hard problem that we wanted all along. — Luke

Again, here is the quote at the end where he reveals what he wanted and admits why he wanted.

“With this marvelous new phenomenon [the “phenomenal self”] at the core of your being, you’ll start to matter to yourself in a new and deeper way. You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance.”

The quote is a conclusion unattached to his entire derivation for the purpose of justifying this “self”. And he is telling you his motivation. Maybe we are confusing his motivation with your own; I submit he is admitting something more self-reflective and honest which is typical of this project. You seem to be just expressing your opinion without explaining why you want “an answer”.

He goes on to say that if it could be proved that we each have a given, undeniable “self”... — Antony Nickles

Where does he say this? — Luke

“So, think back to the transformation that must have taken place when your ancestors first woke up to the experience of sensations imbued with qualia, and – out of nothing – the phenomenal self appeared… ‘I feel, therefore I am.’”

He feels he’s solved the skepticism of the foundational self (rewording Descartes) by implying that there is something special about my sensations (which are a given). It’s the point of the whole article.

that we would treat each other better, which implies we could wash our hands of having to see others as human — Antony Nickles

If we treated each other better, then "we could wash our hands of having to see others as human"?? — Luke

No, not if we treated each other better—?? I said “if it could be proved… we each have a… self”, as we wants. Basically, he's saying if we had knowledge of the other (before acting), then we would be moral. Hello Socrates, Kant, yada, yada. Not a new idea, but not one that pans out (ask Dostoyevsky, Nietszche, Wittgenstein). This is a philosophical misconception turned into a scientific or intellectually theoretical problem.

And just saying no it’s not isn’t an argument, it’s just a contradiction.

The article draws a conclusion from a patient who can find objects in the range of an eye that is blind. Whatever the mechanics of that, Humphrey takes it that there is a difference between sensation and perception—there’s sight, then there’s “the mysterious feel… [of] our subjective, personal sense of interacting with stimuli”—he calls it the “somethingness of seeing”, and this is the underpinning for our having “consciousness”.

Why are we using science to attempt to back up our “feeling” of having a “personal” sense? Why is the feeling “mysterious”?

“With this marvellous new phenomenon [the “phenomenal self”] at the core of your being, you’ll start to matter to yourself in a new and deeper way. You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance.”

Ah. It’s this “mattering” and “significance” that we wanted all along, and all the rest is to justify that (that I begin being special)—are we just going to finish the job Descartes started? He goes on to say that if it could be proved that we each have a given, undeniable “self” that we would treat each other better, which implies we could wash our hands of having to see others as human, having to treat them, as Wittgenstein would say, as having a soul (p 178), and the inevitability that sometimes we do not.

I'm not debating that. I said ''IF the hard-problem is real..." — Eugen

You’re right, I missed that. What I’m claiming is that, in response to #1, there is not a problem of consciousness at all, hard or otherwise. Science isn’t missing something, though nor should it imagine it is solving what is a philosophically mis-conceptualized issue. Where philosophy used to need to catch up to the discoveries of science, now science needs to stop thinking in the terms of 16th century philosophy.

even after we have explained the functional, dynamical, and structural properties of the conscious mind, we can still meaningfully ask the question, Why is it conscious? — Alkis Piskas, quoting the interwebs

I would suggest that we have not examined how asking this question is meaningful. In what context? Why or when is there a further issue? Why do we need more?

I (and Wittgenstein) would claim that the formation of the picture of “consciousness” is manufactured to have something to solve in order to have certainty in ourselves and in relation to others. It is not physical things (sensations, feelings, etc.) that make up who “we” are; our having them is not special. You have a headache; hey, I do to. Yours is throbbing behind your left ear; wow, me too—that’s crazy that we have the same headache. Our relation to others (identifying pain, having the same experience, etc.) is not based on our biology, it’s a function of living with each other through the history of our human condition.

[Information theory] seems like a potential way across the objective/subjective gap — Count Timothy von Icarus

This “gap” is not the difference between individual experience and generalized certainty; I am separate from you. My knowledge of you has a limit (you may be faking, hiding, lying)—there is a real truth to the fears of skepticism. So it’s not knowledge we lack (from science or otherwise). I can’t be sure (know!,) that you are in pain, because the way it works is I react to your pain, I respond to or ignore it. Our feeling that we want something more is not a riddle, it comes from a need for control.

I'm trying to relate your comment with the OP. I can't. — Eugen

I am saying there is not a “problem of consciousness” in coming at the other end, which is to say we create the fantasy of the “subjective experience”; that consciousness is a construct to gain theoretical certainty. We make it an intellectual puzzle because we can’t handle our actual human condition of separation from others (and “ourselves”).

The mystery here is not the basis for consciousness, it’s the framing of consciousness itself. We want “consciousness” to be a thing so we can feel that I am something specific and unique, instead of just individual (my body, not your body). We are conscious if we are aware; or awake. We do not need the certainty of tying ourselves to something “hard” to differentiate ourselves from others or expectations. If we do not, we, in a sense, aren’t an individual; I don’t exist as me (apart from anyone else I follow or mimic or quote, etc.).

I think without a clear, precise conception (or theory) of "consciousness", saying "isn't consciousness" doesn't actually say anything; ergo, at best, the so-called "hard problem" is underdetermined. — 180 Proof

Yes, we want “a clear, precise” concept of consciousness because it has been abstracted from its ordinary contexts in order to stand in the place of Descartes “I” and the doubt of our existence. “Undermining” is halfway there; I’m asking we consider not only why we want a “hard” solution, but why we need to have a fixed “me” as it were, our “consciousness”. You have an experience, say, a majestic fleeting moment of a sunset, maybe even something you can’t express in words; we want the picture of our entire human condition to be based on this occurrence (we always have our experience) so that we are by nature, as a given, unique and that that specialness dictates, for example: “our” meaning the things we say, our “subjectivity”, or being inscrutable to you, or that our expression is ensured, our actions always “intended” by us.

If truth is not an axiom that can be applied universally then are such truth statements as the first one in this OP useless? — invicta

You are assuming a few things, though understandably. Your measure of “useful” is based on the success science has had, which, as you say, is due to the certainty, predictability, consistency, etc. of its method (that it does not matter who does the scientific method).

Philosophy (that not peeled off historically as science) does not have this luxury of mathematical certainty, but judging whether its truths are “useful” is the desire to make philosophy be science, to require certainty, to avoid our part in our human truths. That we accept them and stand behind them, not in the sense of an opinion, but such, for example, that philosophy is not meant to explain, but to describe what you then might see for yourself, and in reaching to see and think in a way more than just certain knowledge, we change and become a better version of ourselves.

So are philosophical truths dependent on context? You won’t get far outside of the non-contextual abstract universalized pre-determined fixation philosophy has without considering how context plays a part in how we have truth-value despite not being analogous to mathematical criteria.

What other philosophy books did you read besides the textbooks during your undergraduate studies and why you read them? — Largo

I studied Ordinary Language Philosophy, but that would be hard to find a focus on. Most notably, it includes Plato, J.L. Austin, Wittgenstein, and Stanley Cavell (most recently).

I have a suggestion. Before you register, go to the actual school bookstore, and they should have all the books for each class grouped together. Read the first five or so pages of the start (not the introduction or the preface) of each book for every class you could take. Focus on which makes you react to it with your own ideas (as in reading you should make note of those first). Sign up for whichever courses have the books that interested you the most. Good luck.

Sure, if you want to be more precise, you can say that we put together what comes to us when we externalize to others what we say, or when we are attempting to get the other person to see what we are trying to say, as I am doing know, replying to what you said. — Manuel

This is a more precise description of the same picture I’m saying is only an occurrence (that we decide what to say), not a universal generalization that can explain or figure out “language use”; I’m saying there is no “answer”. Most of the time nothing definite “comes to us”; we, as with your examples, just want to apologize, or you want to convince me, or I have to say something polite, or we are responding, in situations where we can’t know how it will turn out—so we turn it into something we can control; but we don’t “have in mind” what we say; there’s nothing that specific or unique about us. Communication is much more slipshod and vague and prone to failure than imagining something definite in you, or that happens in some definite way, instead of as many ways as there are things to do with words. I’m saying that the desire for that certainty, that systematizing, that general explanation, is a wish to avoid cleaning up our own mess, or wanting to ensure what “we mean” beforehand, but that desire creates the goose-chase after a solution.

It's not always there beforehand. — Banno

Yes, and what we want to be there is in order for us to avoid our having to stand there ourselves (afterwards); to be responsible for the implications of what we said, to answer for being intelligible further, to be held against our own words. Cavell does a reading of Emerson’s essay Fate as a discussion of freewill, and I think it’s there where he has one picture the occurrence of starting a sentence and then realizing that, there, then (in that situation), there is only one way to finish it, of it being out of our control even when we are conscious and careful and choosing our words. I’m a twin, and people ask if we finish each others sentences, but what is happening is that I am starting a sentence that doesn’t need to be finished, by anyone. You “know what the other person is thinking” a lot of the time, it’s just rude to interrupt.

…it's not the development of a concept but the interaction with the world that counts…. And so more generally for… concepts [other than counting]. They are better thought of not as things but of acts. And I take it that this is what underpins "Don't look to meaning, but to use". Hence,
[as he said] “Understanding that concept is just being able to do that stuff. Including talking.”
— Banno — Banno

I agree that a concept (in Wittgenstein’s sense) is better imagined as an accomplishment (an act of its kind) and not an idea (mental, owned process), and so thinking, knowing, intending, are more like pointing, apologizing, and counting—we judge them based on the criteria that matters to us about them, “that count” as Banno says.

I would make clear that the end to grab onto is not thus that “we” then are “actors” (as a universal or even general rule). We are not now to simply shift to the picture that we control or do these acts or practices. This is not the same game just with a different explanation—the jig is up. We do not “use” words as a different explanation than that we “mean” them (not even in moving from picturing that we express a meaning we have inside us). This casual or individuated explanation still relies on a process (internal or external) that remains the mystery that we imagine we simply need to understand to be certain about communication. (Wittgenstein is merely saying that if you want to know what “I know” means here, look at which of the finite number of versions, or “senses”—a better word he employs than the easily misunderstood “use”—of that word is happening in this context. For example: of the different possibilities of “use”, his, in the PI, is the version of “use” as in “which sense”, which version in the conceptual category. Whew.)

So the picture is not that we are, somehow: intending, thinking, talking, etc. The point is that judging whether these have occurred is not a matter of knowing a brain process or language structure, but: differentiating what is deemed “a thought” from merely quoting, or speaking in platitudes; and intention is what we ask you about when you do something weird; and talking is different than shouting or singing. ALL the rest of it [okay, most of all the rest] is based on the desire to create a problem to fix so we can be sure about us squirrelly humans—Forms, quaila, analytic, factual, real, innate, etc. (or we want to bar ourselves from the possibility of fixing anything).

when we vocalize, we put together these [internal word] fragments into a coherent whole that another native speaker will understand what we are saying. I suspect that the initial babbling of infants offers a clue of the language faculty growing to maturity. — Manuel

We rarely “put together” most of what comes to us unless we are on a first date or creating a speech, much less can use that as a universal description. (The desire though is that we could control what we mean by what we say, even more than we “always” put it together.) The hoped-for picture here is that there is something (thought, meaning, intention, etc.) that we convey or at least that goes into language (or in this instance is in language systematically). However, for example, when Wittgenstein talks about “expression”, it is to point to the moment at which we are responsible for what we have said—speaking “externally” to this extent only; not to infer it is from something internal. We can also say we speak in expressions; that our words are judged (have importance, are meaningful) by the criteria for threatening, entreating, explaining, describing, etc. But it is not some “we” that do these or cause them to happen. As I have said in my last post, you are individually responsible for what you say, but it is not otherwise special in your having said it.

Chomsky's, supposition seems to be that since most of our language use is the little voice in your head, then the source and prime example of language use must be that little voice. But isn't it entirely possible that the little voice is a sort of back-construction, the internalisation, as it were, of our external language? — Banno

More than that maybe even. Is talking to yourself “necessary”? Don’t we sometimes want to not listen to ourselves? Despite our internal ramblings, or, more likely, in giving them too much attention, don’t we nevertheless speak thoughtlessly?

Words may change, but Kripke's Causal Theory of Reference illustrates the importance of the Performative Act Of Naming in Language in ensuring the stability of language, whereby the reference of a linguistic expression, what it designates in the world, is fixed by an act of “initial baptism”. — RussellA

Again, the desire to have all of language work like the very limited process of naming objects—to imagine all words referring to an object, even “meaning” or something “real”—is because we want logical necessity and predictability. If nothing else, Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations started with that picture of language and goes on to show that not only does most of language work entirely differently (each concept having its on criteria) but that language was taken out of individual case-by-case contexts by philosophy to ensure certainty, and that it is not the structure of language that is essential but our lives; that what we ordinarily say in a given context is simply a means of seeing what matters to us about our lives; and is the tool to take us out of our fixation (“bewitchment”) of an abstract solution to our failures and limitations.

Language has to be embedded far more widely in cognition - to the point where cognition and language use are much the same thing. — Banno

I don’t want to disagree that there are very complicated (brain/syntactic) processes happening when we use language, or even that there is perhaps some benefit to learning about them. But (as I see it; as Wittgenstein sees it) we are lured into thinking we will learn how our communications (“our sentences”) are meaningful if we understand the brain or how language operates logistically (internally as it were). But there is no “answer” to this desire.

What the brain is able to achieve, its thoughts, concepts and language cannot be [without] the physical structure that enables such thoughts, concepts and language. — RussellA

The reason we want it to be true (meaning to be systematic) is that we want to supplant the vagaries and failures of our ordinary back-and-forth, with certainty, such that it can be studied and deciphered (ahead of time).

But, as @Banno may agree, the criteria for judgment of a concept (say, apologizing or intending or threatening or knowing) show that these practices are meaningful to us, reflect what matters to people for that concept to happen or be what it is, not the understanding of a process. And we learn those criteria, judgments, etc. (by osmosis for the most part) through training and watching and making mistakes and being corrected, i.e., living (language is not normative, life is—conventions are not “agreed to” or “defined”). But, again, maybe I have Chomsky wrong here, however, it is suspect that an “analytic” statement is one that is true without external reference or without us screwing it up (as we do) and as we want, desperately, to find some way not to (with “necessity”); most classically, by taking “us” out of the equation.

We want to create an intellectual (logical, scientific) problem that we might be able to solve, rather than see that actually being able to communicate with people is much more of an ordinarily problematic part of the human condition than we’d like it to be. As Wittgenstein said, “We find certain things about seeing puzzling, because we do not find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough.” PI, p. 212 (emphasis added). The “certain things” that we find are the ones that we can maybe solve (e.g., the optical process of the brain) because we do not want to accept the fallibility of people (say, their inability to accept things that are pointed out to them).

The question then is not what is analytic (or “innate” or “generative” language processes), but: why do they matter? what importance would figuring these out have? where do they get us?

In a nutshell, I can't see why generative grammar requires analyticity. — Banno

Why indeed.

“It is clear, as Katz and Fodor have emphasized, that the meaning of a sentence is based on the meaning of its elementary parts and the manner of their combination. … [T]here are cases that suggest the need for an even more abstract notion of grammatical function and grammatical relation than any that has been developed so far, in any systematic way.” Chomsky, not sure where.

I’m not fully up to speed with Chomsky, but I take it he is claiming that our language is meaningful because we know how words work individually (as labels perhaps) and they function together by some human process that we just need to decipher systematically. We imagine we do this all the time when we try follow where someone is going with a new (unexpected) thought. I’ve seen it on this board a lot; people see words they know and take them at first glance, imagining their first impression of them together is something they can easily understand.

The picture is perfect (perhaps too so) if we wanted to be certain about what would be meant by what we said, or, say, if we wanted to know what we should do (what would be the right thing to do) before we did it.

But if we extend a concept (or speak across it) the projection is not made inteligible by our understanding the individual words and some internal structure they have (or external structure the world has). We won’t figure it out ahead of time by being clever, we carry a concept forward in continuing to talk amongst ourselves as we forge a new path ahead. We put ourselves out in front of our words (responsive to them) in moving past our ordinary practices. There is no certainty that you will, or even can, take up my words (support my acts); that’s why we have questions, denials, imagination, impasse, and madness.

If we are defining something that is empirical (objects), we are determining what counts—not what it is or what is there (@frank), but what we are focusing on about it to include that thing as identified under the definition; we are explaining what distinguishes it for us—say, to pick out a bird as a goldfinch (and not a robin). But we stop once the difference is grasped; so a definition is not about the objects, but to make the distinction clear to the other. Thus we can continue to define what we are talking about until that goal is reach. This unbounded limit is why Kant says it is useless to define empirical concepts, because they are not definite (complete).

But we are in a different class of definition if we are discussing knowing, thinking, intending, etc. We can operate the different uses (senses) of a concept, say, knowing (Do you know his phone number? Do you know New York? I know you’re in pain, suck it up.), but do we simply describe the use? (“I mean ‘know’ in the sense: I know my way around”.) Wittgenstein would say we describe the measures by which we judge whether you do, or do not, as what counts or doesn’t as an apology is already determined, only just unexamined.

when there are terms that have more than one commonly accepted use, [definitions are] certainly helpful for mutual understanding. — creativesoul

The definition of terms is an interesting case. Kant differentiates between a priori concepts and arbitrary ones, which I take him to mean: technical terms (set aside by @Jamal; referred to as “stipulated” by @Banno). He says they are ones (conceptions) that we create, which (unlike the other kinds of concepts) we can define; he says: however we choose, as we created them (which Kant excelled at).

But it makes me think of Wittgenstein’s use of the word “criteria” (or, even more starkly, “grammar”) in Philosophical Investigations. He is not “creating” it so much that it is not recognizable along its ordinary use, but there are differences, distinctions, such that it must be recognized as a “Wittgensteinian term”. However, he cannot “define” it for you, even for himself. It takes the whole book for him to bring you along with him, to show us the differences to the ordinary use through examples (playing chess, following rules, knowing others’ pain, etc.), dialectically against other terminological uses (even Kant’s, called “crystalline purity”), and (à la Austin) to show how they go wrong (through the interlocutor).

Socrates (paraphrased) would say that we must understand what the other is saying, on “their terms”. But this is not because they “created” what they are saying, as if a Kantian technical term; nor that an individual reinvents a concept unique to them, apart from its ordinary use, (without breaking it off from its ordinary contexts), but maybe that our concepts stretch and grow as we do, perhaps because our lives and judgments are reflected in them—that we are created by them. So getting us to see a new way means one might not even know yet what to tell (as Heidegger seemed unable to ever do). Mill didn’t even pick one audience to write to; and Nietzsche wanted to create his own (to change us).

By "ordinary understandings", didn't you mean our assumptions about the mind-independence of the world we experience? Or what? — frank

What I was trying to bring back to the fore was what Kant denigrates as our "given conceptions", which are our existing, cultural, historical, common concepts which Kant admits we "employ... in our application of the conception" but that he calls "confused" and only "presented to the mind", and requires to be "complete", "a clear representation", and "adequate with its object", yet, when they cannot be, they are judged unable to be defined, where I am claiming that our given, ordinary concepts are sufficient to define (though that is a process, takes effort--examples, distinctions between uses, etc.).

By "knowledge," Antony means knowledge of a mind-independent world. — frank

You were suggesting a definition of “terms” (which is a separate category from those under discussion, though getting confused into it anyway). But we were in agreement on the terms empirical and a priori and it was just a mixup as to which one I was referring to in making the point about Kant creating an “object” and then putting it outside of knowledge’s ability to access.

I still disagree with your angle on Kant but otherwise (I’ve read your first post in this thread) I think we’re in agreement. — Jamal

Well, it might be worth discussing the Kant if it is regarding his section on a priori definitions, though your first response does point to a wider difference in interpretation (I would say focus) on his broader approach, which I agree would be a different matter entirely.

Maybe it does not matter, but we may disagree because I would say that we can define our concepts, after investigation, and it’s just that Kant’s understanding of, and requirement for, a “definition” is wrong.

I don’t really want to do more of this exegesis, but I suppose it’s fair if what you’re saying is that I was mistaken in using Kant to back up my point. — Jamal

I also don’t want to turn this into it a digression about Kant. I was not trying to say that to you were wrong to use him to show that we need to dig into our concepts to explicate the different uses and their criteria. My only point was that Kant’s requirement overlooks that we can come to a place of deep intelligently and rationality within our ordinary concepts and examples, which only adds to your point that we can already apply our concepts, to say that we can actually “define” them, draw them out, despite Kant’s doubts (created by his desire for certainty).

[In fact, in the realm of empirical reality—that which we can know—Kant is very much on the side of our ability to know, to directly perceive and to judge objectively. — Jamal

Well, this is the realm of science, not philosophy (which deals with what Kant calls the “a priori”—and Wittgenstein calls our “concepts”), and this is a digression, but we also fail to define the empirical, to Kant’s satisfaction, because, though we do explain it (rather than describe, as we do with our concepts), in doing so, we set the limits of what counts or doesn’t (which is a terminal fault for Kant). In creating “objectivity”, Kant cordoned us off from the world “directly”, unfiltered by us, though that was his ideal.

And my contention is Kant’s ideal makes his standards for a “definition” untenable; that defining a concept is different than he imagines, though I agree that our understanding is never immediate and there is the need for development of a concepts senses.

Indeed the whole point of that section of the CPR is to say that what works for mathematics is not appropriate for philosophy. — Jamal

Again, digressing, but Kant takes this as a failure and a tragedy for philosophy, rather than a fact that nevertheless doesn’t make philosophy less rigorous than science, less methodical, practical, relevant.

You, I, Austin, Wittgenstein, and Kant are similarly sceptical about definitions in philosophy, claiming that we can use these concepts without such "mathematical certainty". — Jamal

Kant denies that we can “define” our “a priori” concepts because we cannot obtain certainty. I (and Austin and Wittgenstein) believe his desire for that standard leads to his conclusion, and that, despite the openness of our concepts, we not only are able to operate them, but that we can “define” them, which, against Kant, would mean that we can rigorously make explicit and precise (no less than certainty) the implications and criteria of and for the different senses (or “uses”) of our concepts. Only, they reflect our lives, rather than are rational apart from our fragility, as Kant would have it.

The overall point being that our “a priori“ concepts are “rational”, have depth and precision (not “confused”, not ordinarily lacking intelligibility—are definable), even without meeting Kant’s requirements of completeness; certainty, finality, closed to expansion, etc.

Kant says that "no a priori conception, such as those of substance, cause, right, fitness, and so on, can be defined. For I can never be sure, that the clear representation of a given conception (which is given in a confused state) has been fully developed, until I know that the representation is adequate with its object."

I take Kant as claiming that our non-empirical concepts (thinking, meaning, causing, doing right, etc.--those not subject to science, to explanation) cannot be defined because our ordinary understanding ("given" to us culturally) is "confused" and cannot be made certain--that our knowledge cannot reach the standard of complete clarity--representing its "object".

I claim that what Kant has done here is put the cart before the horse. In wanting to be certain of our concepts, to have our knowledge of them be complete and clear (ahistorically), he has created the idea of an "object" that they would represent, as with a Platonic "form". Of course elsewhere he puts this "thing-in-itself" outside the reach of our knowledge, thus the lack of faith in our ordinary understandings.

"But, inasmuch as the conception, as it is presented to the mind, may contain a number of obscure representations, which we do not observe in our analysis, although we employ them in our application of the conception, I can never be sure that my analysis is complete, while examples may make this probable, although they can never demonstrate the fact. Instead of the word definition, I should rather employ the term exposition— a more modest expression, which the critic may accept without surrendering his doubts as to the completeness of the analysis of any such conception."

I take it here that Kant wants it demonstrated as fact (to be certain, beforehand) that we have made explicit every use of a concept ("completely"), and then comes to the conclusion--because we cannot ensure a concept will not be expanded in its uses, applied obscurely--that he will only allow that we are exposing examples.

However, exposing examples is the bread-and-butter of what Austin and Wittgenstein do in order to show that, as @Jamal has said, we do not need certainty to apply our concepts, to operate their uses, and to make the terms and criteria of those uses explicit. This "definition" does not meet Kant's standard of mathematical certainty, but it is nonetheless precise, rigorous.

A definition of a philosophical concept might be required at the beginning of a discussion only in the case that the term is equivocal… implies different things for us… [ and ] are poor substitutes for a skill, namely the ability to use terms successfully… — eat with a Jamal

I think I understand and agree that: starting a philosophical investigation of a concept (separate from a technical "term") with a tidy unexamined single explanation in advance is antithetical to what I take philosophy to be for, which is learning about ourselves through explicating what matters to our concepts.

And, as one who uses Wittgenstein’s and Austin’s methods, I, as well as--I take it--you, believe that there is an implicit understanding of the implications of our concepts in being brought up and trained in the life of our culture, as evidenced in our language (what I take as your expression “shared meaning”).

And that you are right to make the distinction that these are not individual understandings but unexamined conflicting public "uses" of these concepts (Wittgenstein also refers to them with the additional term: "senses").

And that we should not ("ought" not, as @Isaac says) be arguing to persuade the other of our initial position, but working together to see the breadth of our world in openly, seriously "producing" the terms the other is using, by creating examples and imagining a context where they are valid (as pointed out by @plaque flag); to, as Socrates says, stand in the other's place, their shoes. I take this "unfolding", as you say, of our unexamined (shared) lives as the purpose and skill of the philosopher (mirroring @Banno).

I would point out that: philosophy is exactly for when we are lost as to what to do; when, as you say, our understandings of our concepts are “equivocal”, and we don’t yet see why (see the different use(s) of the concept, their different implications). That we don’t yet consciously “know”, and we are “talking past each other”.

So I agree that we should not start by stating and arguing for the right or correct use (as Socrates desired, however fruitful his method), that we are not just naming an "object" (as @Manuel pointed out through Leibniz), but differing about complex actions and ideals, like thinking, meaning, seeing, doing justice, determining right, etc. In these instances there are multiple "categories" (as Kant terms it) for a concept (like "knowing") which (possibly of interest to @frank) each have their own "proper", valid (necessary and sufficient) "conditions" (again, from Kant--Wittgenstein will call them Grammar, or criteria) with my point being that these criteria reflect our various interests, judgments, failings, etc. inherent in our lives together, which is really what we are trying to learn about and reconcile.

Thank you for bringing up an interesting and important topic. I think it will help to address your discussion of Kant (which I'll do separately), to look at why we want these kind of "definitions".

If two people have headaches there is no way of comparing whether both of them are having the same type of pain... Does this mean we are closed off from others in some kind of profound way? — Andrew4Handel

The philosophical problem is created because we are focused on the number of things and their being identical. "They are two people, so how do we know their, say, pain, is identical". And we picture this as when there are two blocks but the identical color; we say the color is the same, and that it is one color.

But with people it is more like when we both have cars; we each have our own car, but if both of our cars are Porsche 911s, we have the same car (to the extent they can be described the same). Wittgenstein puts it like this:

Another person can't have my pains."—Which are my pains? What counts as a criterion of identity here? Consider what makes it possible in the case of physical objects to speak of "two exactly the same", for example, to say "This chair is not the one you saw here yesterday, but is exactly the same as it". In so far as it makes sense to say that my pain is the same as his, it is also possible for us both to have the same pain. — Wittgenstein, Philososphical Investigations, #253

So we can have the same pain ("I have a searing headache on the back of my head", "me too!", as @Banno points out), and memory, dream, thought, etc. However, the real issue is that we each have our own body, so you have to express your pain for it to be said it is the same as mine (my pain is "private" like a secret, not "private" as if unable to be had by another). So we feel unsure of this descriptive solution, as if the problem remains. Philosophy mistakenly takes it as a ("hard") problem of knowledge, in the sense of certainty (and so "correlation" or "identity" become the sticky points).

But the simple truth is that, yes, we can be closed off from others in a profound way. You may not express your pain as the same as mine, and I may reject your expression of pain. This knowledge is different than certainty, it is the acknowledgement of pain. In this sense, I may not acknowledge that you are in pain, react to your claim that you are in pain with: "I know" (your pain). I may not accept that my heartache is the same as yours (I am putting on a brave face; or I won't let you make a fool of me).

Not to be known is thus your conviction (PI, p. 223 3rd), not an intellectual lack (me not being certain of your experience @Michael). Language can bridge any divide between us, but we must remain responsible to being intelligible to each other (Cavell).

the self is a thing just like any other thing. It comes into existence just like every other thing, by being thought of, conceptualized, by a person. — T Clark

I’m not sure we just disagree or whether you misunderstand my point. Not everything in the world is an object, like a tree; some are activities, like pointing or apologizing; some are concepts, like justice, truth, etc; some are logical conceptualizations, like Plato's forms or Kant's thing-in-itself. The idea of a physical or casual "consciousness" is a manifestation of our need for something specific, knowable. The act of naming, as Tzu references, is not the only way language works (we, more generally, particularize, which is I think more to his point). And “consciousness” is not an object. The question is: what matters to us in wanting it to be one? Because, if it is an object, we can know it, be certain about it, and ascribe causality and intention and “thoughts” to it; also, if I have a consciousness, and others do, then we have something certain in “knowing” other minds, say, their pain.

I don't think consciousness handles intention and judgement, it just attaches meaning, labels to them using language. — T Clark

The idea that “consciousness” “attaches” something to words, or “uses” words, is just the desire to have control over the meaning of what we say by internalizing how language works. It's as if: because we have experiences, and we can chose words, that all of language is us putting words to what we are aware of, like labeling it.

I'll just say that of all the functions of the body, none of them amounts to the mathematical, factual/physical certainty that we want for "consciousness"--for ourselves or others; philosophy created this picture, and science chases the image.