what we desire isnt the same thing as this ‘why’ — Joshs

At this point (as it is taken up in the PI) I’m putting a pin in asking the greater ramifications or other reasons why the properties of an object (call it “objectivity”) give the skeptic such conviction—as it were, one step back. I think Witt does not here address the skeptic as explicitly arguing for objectivity, but just examines their (subsequent) claims as a function of the picture created by the analogy, but which does ultimately allow him to speculate on their attitude (position) towards their claims (their “conviction”).

why we desire what we desire cannot be located within the space of reasons, — Joshs

It then would make no sense to trace the genesis of something like a form of life to what we desire and what our reasons are — Joshs

I think Witt would say the criteria we (society) uses to judge within a practice (form of life) reflect our culture’s interests (desires) in that practice; thus why the skeptic’s singular interest in criteria for objectivity appears empty when made to apply to a particular sense and specific case.

But the way we frame the method, it looks very like an empirical/sociological argument. "We say.." "We wouldn't say..." Gellner got very hung up on this. The problem is that you have to buy in to certain ideas, ways of talking and thinking, if you want to have a debate with people - and that can look very like a clique. — Ludwig V

This would require much more explanation; Cavell takes this up better than I could a number of times in the essays in “Must We Mean What We Say”. It is not an empirical claim requiring observation and verification. They are claims about the logic (what it means) that “we” all can make as masters of our practices which he takes as reflected in the things anyone might say in doing them. This process in itself isn’t anything esoteric, but I understand seeing them as evidence in a debate about the implications and how that is philosophically relevant, would require some further explanation, agreement.

Agreed; he is not throwing in the towel. All I wanted to point out is that he is showing another option to compare to the skeptic’s, rather than engaging them within their framework.

@Ludwig V @Joshs @Paine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you to @Ludwig V for hanging in there throughout this reading, and to all the others for your input. I hope to review, summarize, and draw lessons from all we have worked on separately.

Great quote; boring ol’ Kant can zing ya. "This method… to investigate whether the object of the dispute is not perhaps a mere mirage at which each would snatch in vain without being able to gain anything even if he met with no resistance"

And I think we could say that Witt is investigating skepticism's "object" as a mirage, and finds himself met with no resistance, at least nothing to push against, but it is an open question here whether and what there has been to gain. I would offer the contrasting logic of other senses has provided a way to step out of the ring and see the how and perhaps why of their framework. Obviously Kant’s skeptic, and Montaigne’s, and Hume’s at times, are a necessary part of reflecting on and examining the unspoken, assumed, implicit parts of our thinking and acts.

@Paine

I find myself thinking that examples are not fully described and so the proposed response is not entirely determinate in view of the unspecified circumstances. — Ludwig V

This is absolutely how it should be, and Witt does say that we can always layer on more complexity, and he himself regularly adds on or changes a situation or facts (tries on hats) to consider what it is about the context that matters (what criteria), and what is affected (or not) by the judgments that are made. But, of course, no situation is "fully" described, but it can be fun to play around with because we may be surprised what we learn, as I think you are doing in thinking beyond the sense of "They are in pain" as describing them (as Witt is using it), to the fact that we can feel another's pain (in our body Witt says), as "They are in (some serious) pain", in the sense of a recognition. I would say this is some of the (even if peripheral) benefit of Witt's method; Cavell talks about it as becoming aware of our commitments I think.

The most prevalent confusion I see is not seeing that this is a philosophical method, not an empirical/sociological argument. Now of course we do need to agree on the logic, i.e., the implications of what we say in this particular situation (as a judgment from the criteria that apply here), thus we could and should say things like: "We wouldn't say that", or "If we said that it wouldn't mean we'd have to...", or, as you mention as to context, "When we say that, it's only in a situation where...", or "We would first need to know... if we were going to say (judge whether)..."

But that is just the start, with the end being to see a further, philosophical, point (there is a reason for the example). It's not about how we follow rules, but the import of the example (basically: does the logic of this sense show us anything interesting). Other examples (different contexts) might be important to take into consideration. But sometimes we get stuck on the starting line, worrying over a tree and never getting to the forest (and Austin frankly seems to assume we'll understand when we get there).

One mistake I've seen is that two people are thinking of two different senses/usages, such as the different senses of "seeing", so we are basically talking apples and oranges. We are not fighting with the skeptic about a practice, because we are trying to differentiate two senses of a practice, not bring in every possible criteria (thus every context) from every sense--such as: being aware of, focusing on, identifying, assessing--as if to make one judgment about "what I see" (or how I make a mistake). This brings back the question of how we get any traction with the skeptic.

I think, along with most people, that he does expect his readers to draw certain conclusions. — Ludwig V

I think in answering that question with your thought: if the skeptic is (and we are) to draw a (any) conclusion, they are only going to do it by themselves, see it for themselves.

Bbbb

@Ludwig V

W does not say it is the only sense possible — Paine

Agreed; getting fixated on the topic of the example is a big problem, and of course at a certain point it gets to be a matter of what implications are of interest/focus, but I would hope I am not misreading the logical necessities of these "uses" of I. I found most interesting the difference between the logic of the self as object and subject, which I found echoed in the literal grammar.

The solipsist could be me, after all, — Paine

I think the idea is that we play each of these roles at different times; that it isn't a matter of knowledge as information. But then the question is of course, when do we play the skeptic? and, then, why?

thhhttht

@Paine @Ludwig V thanks for making it seem possible.

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

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

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

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

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

@Paine

The talk of "life" and "death" is a bit peculiar. — Ludwig V

Then why should the written sign plus this painted image be alive if the written sign alone was dead? …the mental image… [does not] impart any life to the sentence at all. — p. 9

Still working on the finale, but procrastinating.

The mental image does not impart life to the sign, but the sign is still “dead”, i.e., basically meaningless (Witt will say, “without sense”). The skeptic wants an accompaniment to handle the meaning (ahead of time), and as an object of knowledge, which would leave us out of it. But even by and in itself, the sign is not alive (meaningful—forget definitions) because it has to come alive.

It is made meaningful in our consenting to, and thus reinvigorating, our shared interests (which are now in play and up for grabs/amendment), by and through the application of criteria (logic) of a certain sense in a certain situation (now). The application is also a living “expression” because it reflects on me (expresses me), as my response to, or within, a situation as an event, with specific circumstances, certain implications, and my ongoing responsibility to make intelligible, to answer for, how this is important (meaningful).

All I'm saying is that W is assuming the narrower, "strict" context. — Ludwig V

Yes, but he is not assuming this context; he is creating a simplified and limited context and logic on purpose (as he was with picking flowers or the builders) because the point is not about chess or rules (as logic is not always rules), but, maybe, that our ordinary criteria make a difference, where the skeptic’s criteria don’t (or something like I mention above). It is an example to make a logical point, not to claim the example is right or illustrative.

in the case of some philosophical paper hats, there might be a case of recognizing a variant of the game in which it does have a role. We might, or might not, want to play that game - or we might think that the resulting game is unplayable. — Ludwig V

Absolutely, as Witt does when he imagines these crazy situations (let’s try on this hat/circumstance).But also recognizing that our ordinary criteria might be missing something, not valuing it properly, not making a distinction it should. And also that, as I mention above, in each case of the application of a use (its criteria), we may step outside the criteria, be wrong, mistaken, inappropriate, humorous, or thought insane.

I had already picked my start were you suggested leaving off. Uhh.. good luck.

I believe we are in for an anticlimax so perhaps we can each write an overall analysis for discussion.

the opposition regarding the use of signs in this book's discussion of the real versus the empirical is applied to Augustine just as heartily in the Philosophical Investigations. — Paine

Your point that all philosophers, in some way or other, do, or may, not want to be understood is well taken. Cavell claims the realist, idealist, and solipsist are all responding to skepticism, just in different ways. But I’ll have to circle back.

I have challenged your view of "the skeptic" many times. — Paine

Having read too much Cavell, I am using it very loosely as a catch-all, so I wouldn’t die on that hill.

it depends on restricting the interpretation of both "use" and "meaning" to what is laid down and permitted by the rules. Other kinds of significance are excluded. Perhaps the paper crown distracts opponents, for example. — Ludwig V

I think we might say that “use”, in terms of that concept, is not interpreted, but maybe this is just to say: what do we consider (interpret) as a use here? Is this a use, i.e., is this move appropriate here? How do we decide, i.e., on what criteria/logic? Does it mean anything here, i.e., does it matter or make a difference?

Though there might be an interpretation (disagreement) of what is the form of logic of the usage of pieces in the game of chess, as we could point out that the usage of the pawn can be logically discussed, not just as rules, but in terms of the piece’s part in the game’s larger strategy (not just what is allowed and restricted).

But, again, the whole thing is just an example (a logical parable), which was chosen (and limited and simplified) to point out, not that a paper hat on a chess piece is entirely meaningless, or even that it has no way to have an effect on the situation, but that it does not matter within the logic (of rules) for a pawn in its usage in the calculus of chess. The hat has no usage (sense) because it has no leverage or importance or criteria for judgment of when it would, related to the piece, in its part in chess.

we need to think of someone suffering from cramp who doesn't want to be released from it. — Ludwig V

Their intransigence is I believe linked to the heart of many facets we are exploring. I wanted to follow up on the last section on use, but I’m going to hold off responding to this and the rest until I can get through 70-73 if you can take a crack at 65-69.

@Ludwig V @Joshs

Note the "us" and "We" being used here. — Paine

This is a good distinction to point out. The "us" and "we" being both in contrast to the skeptic ("them"), but also plural, which, as @Paine says below, logically implies something shared and not individual, for example, more than individual reasons with implications only in a disagreement between you and I.

Witt is not explaining how language is used by individuals—claiming, say, that we are always “using” language. Alternatively, we are not, as part of normal conversation, deliberately choosing between the senses of an expression, nor considering their criteria, even when speaking deliberately (choosing what to say) nor even when figuring out what each other (you and I) mean. Those are simply his philosophical methods to see what usage, and what according logic, we and the skeptic make of a phrase.

Now Witt does slip in and out of the sense of “we” as: the philosophers investigating these issues, and “we” for: everyone, as when he frequently claims “when we say…”, for evidence of the grammar of a case. “All this will become clearer if we [philosophers] consider what it is that really happens when we [anyone] say a thing and mean what we say.--Let us ask ourselves: If we say to someone…” (p.34) Everyone can attest to how (by what measures) anyone (our culture) would ordinarily judge that someone successfully “meant what they said”, such as they were genuine, moved, serious, etc.

The intention to not be understood is an interesting charge to make against the solipsist and other philosophers. This shows that what troubles the solipsist [has] is a condition other thinkers share. This encounter with a more general problem leads to a more general response: — Paine

Calling the trouble the skeptic gets into a "condition" is interesting because, in its sense as a situation, we would, grammatically, "respond". But the skeptic interprets their issue as if it were a “problem”, so they are logically driven to: an "answer" (see p. 6, 17, and below), a response in the form of knowledge, as information--certain, specific, empirical, etc.

The very word "problem", one might say, is misapplied when used for our philosophical troubles. These difficulties, as long as they are seen as problems, are tantalizing, and appear insoluble. — (p.46)

That is just to say that trying to fight the skeptic as if their answer were not correct, and ours is, is to get in too close; to get sucked into their confusion. Showing examples of other senses (usages) for a phrase than the skeptic claims, is not in order to be right, but to make a point by basically saying, “see?” to show the conditions which would allow the skeptic's phrase to try do what they want (to give it the necessary context, expectations, implications, logic, etc.)

**Consider the fact that we are also involving our shared "interests" (our shared culture), our "shared judgments" (thus our shared "ordinary" criteria, as in not the skeptic's singular criteria), and our shared practices (thus the "logic" of human history). This commonality is why anyone could offer what the meaning (import) is of what we say (a phrase) in a particular situation (My gun misfires and I shoot your cow--how (in what way) is this a mistake and not an accident?).

And also, this is philosophers doing philosophy addressing philosophical issues--but is there no way in which Witt’s response (or at least the fallout, the rubble of the house of cards) is relevant to everyone? is the “why” of the skeptic relegated to an ivory tower?

@Joshs @Paine @Ludwig V

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

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

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

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

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

@Joshs @Paine @Ludwig V

Section 19 - p. 66-69 uhhhh… what?

Alright $#$%!!, I am a hypocrite (apologies again to @Paine); just one more (hit off the pipe) and then back to the grindstone (and by that I mean the book, not my job; obviously).

"Chose" may not be quite the right word in some cases. — Ludwig V

Touche. "Chose" is a mis-categorization. I think I'm only pointing out that there is something leading up to an "object" being the analogy (that something comes before that, as I argue to @Joshs above)

I've come to the conclusion that the solipsist has a point — Ludwig V

I agree that there is something there as well, and maybe even addressed here, but if not, definitely in the PI; here I take it as obvious he is continuing to try to learn about/investigate the skeptic. I would claim the aim is this "why?" rather than refuting or dismissing the skeptic, or not just those, but at least not before.

But this finding out is not the kind of finding out you are doing when you ask people why they are adopting a philosophical position. In philosophy, we are looking for arguments, not expressions of personal preference. — Ludwig V

But isn't this: "looking for arguments" connected/related to the skeptic turning a "muddle" into a "problem" (that they can "answer", perhaps with a certain knowledge)? and isn't this part of why "arguing" with the skeptic doesn't seem as if it would be effective? and why we are still searching for a fulcrum that changes their mind? It interests me to think of the skeptic's expressions as a "preference", as in a desire. And then: how "personal"? (not individual, but not a "position"--an "opinion"? @Paine).

But I'm not sure that those mundane activities which we barely notice could not be picked out as experiences under some circumstances. — Ludwig V

My descriptions (of thought and experience) are of course not in the text nor meant "empirically", but merely--in attempting Witt's method--as simplified examples of another version/usage (of experience) to proffer a logic/grammar that would be another option to the skeptic's "logic" (but not "the" logic), i.e., this discussion of "experience" is not to "argue" with the skeptic (or anyone) in order to decide on the "right" version--as if only one, requiring that we resolve all versions with each other.

Accordingly, in this example of "experience", I am admittedly pointing out perhaps only one among other senses or usages (than the skeptic's) that would have other logic. I brought up this example to highlight (make explicit) what I see as what follows from the skeptic's picture of experience as a mental mechanism; that it is: ever-present, and that it is: of everything.

Your point is well taken that there is a sense of "experiencing" as awareness of, or attention to, something (even that awareness and attention are regular mental processes). Maybe it’s: being alive to the little things, even, just nothing (no "thing"?) But even that version would I think accede that one can't be mindful/attentive/aware all the time (which @T Clark might speak to) which I take is the logic that follows from the skeptic's picture of experience as a "mental mechanism".

So to say there is a logic to experience that is outside the norm of occurrences (like an uneventful shopping trip), might be just another version/sense/usage of "experience" that doesn't preclude (contradict/relate to) the logic that experience is an event (not always there, as we appear to agree on). And we might even agree that if you are "experiencing" the mundane/an everyday occurrence, you are doing so "outside" of a norm (of being distracted), maybe even being outside your (normal) self (the ego).

So maybe mine is just another usage on the same branch, just: coming from the "external" ("forced" upon us, as we might put it); an "experience" as a thing in response to which we would say "Well! that was quite an experience!". And that is not to say that it cannot still depend on the individual (their "internal"; their “experience” as their history, exposure, etc.); for instance: a white person may judge an event of racism as an "experience", to which a person of color might say "Welcome to my world [of everyday occurrences that I don't even notice anymore (or try to suppress)]".

And maybe this is what the (start of the) work philosophy can do looks like, when back on rough ground.

(**Digression: I take fighting over exactly what is, or how we justify, rule following or pointing or experience (Witt will talk about this as what leads to it being seen as a "scientific" disagreement) to be the single biggest misunderstanding of Witt that stops people from even getting started.

I think we would all agree at this point that these are examples to show there are alternatives to the skeptic's singular, forced "logic". They are meant to be premises so simple that everyone would agree to them, but in the sense of "accept" them as (see them as): having a logic at all. But even getting to where we have described criteria (for one usage in a particular situation) that we accept as "logical", is not the "conclusion", say, the "right" logic in response to the skeptic's "wrong" one, and, particularly, not to satisfy what the skeptic wants (still an open question). I take Witt's investigation (further than Austin's--here I seek confirmation @Banno) to become aware of the unexamined (by reflection, explication) in order to know/see one's self (here, one's skeptic), etc., to be able, finally, to ask: why am I (the skeptic) doing this? and then: what do we really, freely, want? (what is my "real need"?) (PI #108) -- a discussion for later I think.)

@Joshs @Paine @Ludwig V

Although we may have responses yet to Sec 18, and I do see the subsequent conversations as relevant and interesting and necessary, particularly the discussion of "why" (and "opinion") in Sec 17--which appears to be our driving theme here and which more than likely will continue in the next sections (which may shed some light)--I’m afraid I've hoisted myself on my own petard (in digressing into "reason v. emotion", though that may be relevant in concluding--lo! the hypocrisy), so I'm going to pause in responding to get through the last couple parts. Not to suppress discussion but just to explain I'll be stepping out for the time being. Again, anyone else is free to lead the charge as it may take me some time.

@Paine

What I'm fishing for is a distinction between what explanations we can expect from philosophy and what belongs to a different, less intellectual, mode of explanation. — Ludwig V

And don't we see here the possibility of the characterization and placement of philosophy (reason) in relation to “emotion” as mentioned here? And if we/philosophy is to decide why the skeptic does what he does, isn’t that philosophical? it is, categorically, looking for a “reason” (see above), must it be a certain form of “rationale” to be intellectually, logically valid? Can we not say/hypothesize that Descartes is "worried" by his being wrong? and ask why he pictures it as sleep? what it is that he wants in answering that worry the way he does?

One distinction I'm looking at is precisely that difference between something we can attribute to anyone who holds that view and something that may vary from one person to another — Ludwig V

Me too, as I also mention to @Joshs, but the categorization that it is personal (individual or has to do with the two people arguing) is one of the imposed rationale for forcibly distinguishing “reason” (as defined/defended) from what is lumped together as “emotion” (left to persuasion). Also the charge that this is meant to point out a “flaw” as if one were judging philosophy only by “good” or “bad”, and not anything specific, rigorous, detailed, in-depth, accountable, intelligible.

What we want (!) is a way to dismiss, set aside, reject the doctrine - isn't it? — Ludwig V

I would think we would agree that part of Witt's method or aim here is to get at why in a way that is still analytical/logical (I think I will claim that that is the start and goal of the PI). Circling back, I think we may have to admit that in showing other options/logic, there is no force to Witt's "argument", particularly given the skeptic's "opinion", which I might tentatively posit as the force of conviction (though not of a "belief", but perhaps a decision or choice they nevertheless hold strongly), though I would take this up later after a think.

And my response here is meant as elucidation of the historical mistake I am pointing out and not by way of accusation or that I see us as in argument.

@Ludwig V

In considering the solipsist, I think it is important to keep the "realist" and "idealist" within shooting range. — Paine

Interesting point. I did class them all to be reactions to skepticism, but each are different, so, worth a look. And I’m trying to wrap my head around Kant as the one looking for something stable, which is not us, thus the “object” but then which cannot be the “real” object, and the gymnastics start.

I think Wittgenstein understands motives as he understands meaning in general — Joshs

But motives have their own logic (p.15), here compared to causes vs reasons.

Our interests are enacted in situations, — Joshs

I am talking about the interests/desires (and feelings, as reasons) of the skeptic, but that is also a possibility in every one of us (including Witt), and so the “situation” is our situation as humans (the human condition). (I also refer to the interests of our culture, imbedded in the criteria for judgment that hold what matters to a certain practice.)

You seem to want to argue that the picture causes the “disquiet”, which is not what I am talking about. Anyway, the skeptic is “cramped” by the forced analogy (the two senses), from which he creates the picture, but this doesn’t explain why first choose “objects” to analogize, which is the matter at hand. And you’ve given no textual evidence for putting things back to front as you have done—I need more to see the logic. I take Heidegger to be dismissing urges as a cause “a push”; but what I am discussing is exactly the “motive” of the skeptic, what they want/desire (to stand before them), which is the object, the objectivity. Yes, I am conjecturing/hypothesizing fear, but as a “reason”, which is not a cause or catalyst. The force that they can’t avoid is that of the analogy once they choose objects as a framework. As I said Witt deals with these terms in the passage on p.15, quoted above by @Paine.

@Ludwig V @Paine

The impression I get is that it is the tricky grammar of language itself that motivates our confusions, not something that could be misread as an inner psychological motive, — Joshs

I’ve seen the term “psychological” used a few times now, and, since it does not appear to be used in reference to actual subconscious psychological forces (reenactment or displacement of trauma, insecurity, etc.), I can only assume it is being used as Witt does elsewhere, but I think that technical use is not appropriate to apply here. In this case, I’ll have to piece together the situation that is imagined and the implications that are imagined should follow, that it is not relevant.

One confusion I’ve seen is that it is seen as just personal, or just a belief only able to be defended by strong feelings, unable to be considered intellectually, logically. Related is the claim that philosophy does not or should not involve the “emotional”, but not actual feelings, because it’s just as a catch-all denigration to dismiss everything that does not meet a certain, predetermined requirement of rationality or logic.

But that flies in the face of Witt’s broadening the variable types of criteria we recognize for judgment which shows us that our human interests are reflected in (and part of) the logic of our practices. It is finding out why we predetermine and/or limit what criteria (interests) are valid and important that we have realized is at the heart of what we are investigating here. Also, as I mentioned to @Ludwig V here, I see the motivations and responses as also creating actual logical errors leading to philosophical misunderstandings, able to be resolved through philosophy.

And, yes!, the confusion inherent in the structure of language—not realizing that the things we say have multiple usages, partly because of the fact that words do have individual definitions outside of any context—and the leverage of analogy is how we impose and can get fixated on a certain picture. But that is the mechanism. Basically, we have still not answered (and I'd think you'd have to provide a reading different of) this: “He is irresistibly tempted to use a certain form of expression; but we must yet find why he is.”

It might help to acknowledge that, in their being a “why”, logically, there is a reason or motive, as: we chose our relation to objects as the analogy to impose, and there are reasons why we picked that--perhaps not all of them are intellectual, not all are apart from reasons of interest, even originating in instinctive responses to the basic logic of our situation to each other and the world.

You might say I’m projecting this, but there is evidence and references throughout the text. He does discuss disappointment (well actually, “dissatisfaction”**, but same enough) on p.58-59 (in my book, starting with “Now when the solipsist says that only his own experiences are real”). And he refers to what the skeptic “wants” (desires) “Thinking, one wants to say, is part of our 'private experience'.” (p.16) Or wishes for: “…describing the experience which we wish to call "observing thought in our brain"” (p.8) or “when we wish to give meaning to substantives to which no material objects correspond.” (p.36)

**I discuss the dissatisfaction with notation here in the 3rd paragraph.

Whoops

@Paine

But I'm led to think that the range and confusion of the possible seats of thinking may be meant to get us to see that the debate about experience simply can't be tidied up into a structure of alternatives. — Ludwig V

In saying that thinking can be in all those “locations” I take it just to say there is associated logic to thinking in each case. The confusion is from imagining thinking as a mechanism and not an activity (conducted by the hand, our speech, our ‘mind’). If we aren’t fixated on a mechanism of thought, then there is no ‘seat” or ‘location” of thinking (nor where a thought as an object would be). It dawned on me the other day that thought does not consist of a substance, but a judgment. “They are thinking (it through)”, “They are not thinking (but just reacting impulsively), “See that squirrel thinking about how to get the seeds out of that bird feeder.” It consists of acts (writing, speaking, internal monologue, problem solving, brain storming, just mulling it over) that meet certain criteria (not about the result, but compared to parroting, expressing, performing, etc.).

And if we are not picturing ‘experience’ also as a mechanism or “structure”, but, logically, I would offer that it is the description of a distinction, an event out of the ordinary, and not in some sense of: everything all the time that is “my experience”. As I may have said, sometimes going to the grocery store is not an experience.

And yes, p. 65, paragraph starting: “The meaning of a phrase for us is characterized…”

I didn't think that my observation would be a distraction — Ludwig V

I think I just didn’t see the original connection @Paine was making to the “opinion” issue, so I took the rest as just an unrelated discussion of the TLP.

that destruction would be part of my life — Ludwig V

Perhaps in claiming that only what the solipsist sees/feels, etc. is real (as if “alive”), they are thus “destroying” the world (by cutting it off/“killing” it), before it disappoints them.

the Berkeleyan move… [of] giving oneself a world before retreating from it. — Paine

Where @Ludwig V’s mind goes to the world we create in lieu of the thing-in-itself, my thought went to the related but opposite side where we imagine (“give” ourselves, as I take @Paine to put it) a ‘real’ world, but then we manufacture the idea of a (“peculiar” Witt says) mechanism, say, of ‘perception’, that only allows us an ‘appearance’ of that world, letting us “retreat” to arms length behind knowledge (or a lack of it), to avoid risking our hands getting dirty (to account for the mistakes we would make in a way that gives us a feeling of control).

These words [ ‘I can't imagine the opposite’ ] are a defence against something whose form makes it look like an empirical proposition but which is really a grammatical one. PI #251

Not to try to sort all of this out, but, for our purposes, it is interesting that he is claiming that the grammatical sense is ‘real’, and that the same proposition just looks like an empirical one. There is something to that in trying to persuade the skeptic, like: revealing the illusion of its empirical sense, but we know it can’t be a factual dispute, as the skeptic already acknowledges that their “fact”, say, of “me” as an object, is unverifiable, and the rest they grant as common sense, which they then just demote in its entirety as not in the class (of certainty) that philosophy sees or provides. Perhaps it is the logical impossibility (the “can’t”). Here, of not being able to imagine an opposite, or some other exercise, that defends against the temptation to see a claim as empirical.

@Ludwig V

My focus has been on the discussion of solipsism in the Blue Book and why W says it is not an opinion. I don't see the issue of certainty as germane to my observations. — Paine

Ah, my mistake; I lost the trail (from p.60). The “opinion” reference is obviously germane. I take it up here (though, of course, there is no obligation to address that). And to answer your question on the discussion: yes, we are pointing to/contrasting, etc. any corresponding mention of terms/discussions in other texts. I only mentioned it as we are of course primarily trying to understand how this text considers them. All that is just to say that I’m having a hard time understanding even what this text is saying (internally).

The solipsist who says ‘only I feel real pain’, ‘only I really see (or hear)’ is not stating an opinion; and that's why he is so sure of what he says. — (p.60)

For example, the text of the quote and its place in the surrounding train of thought seems to beg some questions (all of which I state rhetorically, simply to show the depth of his esotericism, and not to dismiss anyone else’s interests in the matter). Foremost, if not an “opinion”, what? or is it that the solipsist is not “stating” an opinion? (Or both) and then what is the alternative act? and form? Does their “being so sure” have anything to do with their being “irresistibly tempted”? (just below) or, if “so sure” is not being ‘certain’—like knowledge of a fact as if a math-like equation—what constitutes this surety? i.e., why/how “so” sure?

In that vein, the act they are doing (besides “stating an opinion”) is described by negation (in the paragraph above) in that “[ in not stating an opinion, they do ] not thereby disagree with us about any practical question of fact” i.e., we agree on the facts, so their claim is not that what they are saying is actually the correct fact of the matter. Thus, logically, what they are saying is not a factual claim in opposition to: ‘I am not the only one to feel (real) pain’; or, ‘others feel pain, and theirs is as “real” as mine’. If what they are saying is not opinion nor fact, then what are they doing (in what they are saying)? and how is not being a claim to knowledge “why” they are “so sure”? (a compulsion? a conviction?)

Another part any answers I would think have to include is that, even though “not stating an opinion”, they still want to “restrict” what is referred to as “‘real’” (and so how, if not restricted factually?). Methodologically Witt would take the fact to which he claims we both agree—about only my pain being “real”—and give examples of usages of “real” other than what gives the solipsist what they want (what I read, in Sec 18, as the desire to be unknowable). As I said in my reading of this quote above, these could be “real” as in: not possibly manufactured; not (necessarily) over-exaggerated as someone could; contained, in feeling the pain but not having to be responded to, as another’s are by me.

When W says that solipsism is not an opinion, the view is connected to the Tractatus saying it is present but cannot be said. There is something to be overcome but it is not like overturning a proposition. — Paine

I do think [ responding to the quote, that ] Wittgenstein is looking for a way to help the solipsist find an answer to a problem — Paine

Not an opinion: present, not proposed; problematic though not to be overturned, but answered by overcoming. I would guess this is referring to the “irresistible temptation”, but I am not familiar enough with the Tractatus to be sure in relation to the reference to that and the subsequent discussion. Any chance any of what I said is close? or at least the text here is related in some way?

@Paine

Scepticism is often explained as a desire for certainty, but if certainty is an unattainable ideal, perhaps we should think of it as being, not the desire for certainty, but the fear of it, as some inflexible that hems us in. — Ludwig V

Obviously I’d like to stay on topic (understanding this text), or at least until we get to the end (only 10 pages left), after which we will of course open it up to discuss these themes in larger contexts. But I think we can address this in the ballpark of the topics of the book. In understanding ‘certainty’ as a term we could apply here, it would be the framework imposed by the analogy of our relation to objects. In the PI it is the ideal of a pure logic, like math, and On Certainty is its own beast, but @Ludwig V has a point, which is the flip-side of what Witt takes up in the last section (being unknowable). If we have/are something ‘certain’, we keep something, but if language is ‘certain’, like equating ‘meaning’, as an object, with the world as something static (meaning as only labels), then we might object (fear) that I am trapped by my ‘self’, not only for me, but that I am completely ‘knowable’ to others in my entirety, as unguarded myself and through what I say—not just wedded to it, but only to it, constrained within it. Thank you for your patience with the reading.

@Ludwig V @Paine

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

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

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

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

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

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

The first issue is to get him puzzled, to get him to see that his resolution is not a solution. Or, it is we who feel unhappy with his conclusion. So, in a way, all we are doing - all we can ever do - is to develop an untangling - an alternative view, and then, perhaps, persuade him of it. — Ludwig V

But if you remember on p.6, the solipsist/skeptic were already in a “muddle” that they turned into a problem so that they could have it be something to solve (to find an “answer”). “How do I know you are in pain?” So it is not just untangling the solution, but reversing the framing of it as a problem/puzzle in the first place. I would offer that the “source” of their puzzlement is in a sense themselves. Witt starts by saying they mistakenly picture thoughts as objects, and that they are forced into befuddlement by the analogy, but it’s from a “temptation” to chose “objects” as analogous, and I offer it’s because they want the same things from thoughts that they have with objects, like a direct relationship, something verifiable, measurable, predictable, generalizable, independent, etc., i.e. “object”-tive.

If that is the case, then his method, of showing other senses of the same expressions/propositions, is not to show them they are “wrong” or are being obtuse, but for them to see that their solution simply can’t do what they want it to—to know/or not know the other for certain, objectively (at least not without circumstances like conjoined twins)—it can’t satisfy their desire, their intellectual requirement. And perhaps it’s not just a desire for objectivity, but also a fear, a truth they are unwilling to accept: that you and I just have separate bodies, and we are thus responsible for the work (back and forth) to bridge that gap. The reluctance to give up claiming impossibility is the fear of being known, possibly entirely, because we may not have the depth (or difference) they wanted to hold on to as inherent (as different from you as a bat).

Now I know @Ludwig V might worry the difference between the “psychological” and logical, or others might say I’ve changed the issue to feelings, but Witt talks about the mindset of the skeptic (tempted, dissatisfied, puzzled). I am not attributing motives as necessary, but from the categorical error (anthropomorphizing the logical mistake) because we are not just talking about a “philosophical” issue, but our basic human response to others. The skeptic claims the same dominion, only limiting it to the intellectual, which is (though unaware) by design, and the whole problem.

Why would the solipsist ask that question? — Ludwig V

I think it is similar to getting sucked into asking how we could destroy red (p.31) or what the absence of thought would look like (or maybe a thought about nothing; can’t remember where that was) because we got stuck on a framework with color as a quality and thought as an object (then how: an object of nothing?). But I could barely get there.

To me, this reads as his response to the Oxford ordinary language philosophers. — Ludwig V

Wisdom, yes, and Hume; to say “of course that’s a table, duh”, not trying to understand the “difficulty”, not seeing there is perhaps something to learn from/by the skeptic.

I have no idea what this [negation discussion] is referring to. — Ludwig V

No idea. There is mention of imagining a substantive (object) for time would make it understandable how there might be a deity of negation (p.6). But I know more understand that, then the reference here, nor negation itself really.

@Ludwig V

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

@Joshs @Ludwig V

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

@Joshs

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

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

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

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

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

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

@Joshs

if it is not based on criteria, it is my pain. If there are criteria (reasons, justifications) in play, it is not my pain. — Ludwig V

I agree there is an important difference that my pain is in my body, as in: not your body, but also that it is “mine”. I do think that the importance that pain has, for us as a society, gathers certain kinds or types of facts to it (pain works in certain ways).

“…one person could feel pain in another person's body.” (P.53)

Initially I thought this was like empathetically feeling another’s pain. Eventually I gave up trying to exactly sort it out because I think the point is there are different types of criteria to, and for, say, for example, “pointing out” something (and so, different senses, or usages of it), because there are different reasons for (interests in) doing so. Plus, he seems to believe that it is true (we could), only to better understand what the skeptic wants to deny.

I said that the man who contended that it was impossible to feel the other person's pain did not thereby wish to deny that one person could feel pain in another person's body. In fact, he would have said: "I may have toothache in another man's tooth, but not his toothache". — (p.53)

But to say “I know your pain” is not to try to equate ours, but to identify with you; to say “I feel your pain” is to console you. So then the context of saying it is “impossible” might be in the sense of giving them the space to be alone in their pain, to have their dignity to be pained (as if going through it for the first time, even as if, ever in human history), say, rather than saying [ I know what that pain is, and ] “You’re over exaggerating” or that they desire to be unknowable to pity themselves (to make their pain so unique and important as to be above anything else).

But perhaps this does not “fulfill” what he wants, which is to “try to find the form of expression which fulfills a certain craving of the metaphysician which our ordinary language does not fulfill and which, as long as it isn't fulfilled, produces the metaphysical puzzlement.” (p.55) He has discussed previously the way we create a “problem” of knowing the other, and some reasons for why (false analogy as an object), but there remains the “certain craving” to fully flush out.

@Joshs @Ludwig V

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wittgenstein stops short at saying that "I am in pain" replaces "Ouch" and does not describe it — Ludwig V

They are the same, as my expressions, and of me. This is partly that it sets me apart, as the individual that is doing it, who is thus responsible for it, and to it. And that it reveals me—is telling about me—that I am a person in pain. If I call you a liar, I am putting myself out there as judge. In parallel, when I say “I am in pain”, I am making a claim on your compassion in the sense it is (in its usage of) expressing my need to you. “They are in pain” is either: just an observation, or me acknowledging them, as a person who is in pain, who may need help. This is one place where he and Austin almost touch, in that such a statement does something, even more than being a proposition (to be true or not), or a description (to be understood or measured), or just the way (as if style) something is said.

he (and Austin) do rather give the impression of thinking they can be some sort of conceptual police. — Ludwig V

Part of that I think comes from the feeling of arrogance; that his insights from what we say and do in a situation must be correct. But it is both less and more. The common misconception is that we are just talking about what we say, or the way we say something, which is not only missing their use as evidence, but also imagines that what we say and the world are not connected. They are made as provisional claims to “trouble” us to think through and approve for ourselves; and also presumed to be so obvious no one would disagree. But they are not about being right. They are drawn from examples to bring to awareness something we had not considered. If we don’t agree, it would not be important that he is wrong, but that his description does not capture a distinction, or have the importance he claims, or some other rational difference which may be accounted for. They are not meaningful in themselves, but for their contrast to something, or as evidence for a further claim. So finding our way is always beyond his investigating examples, building to an as yet unrecognized insight that is left to us, for us to see.

@Joshs

W's account of "I have a pain" as an "expression" as opposed to a description — Ludwig V

This is the most-succinct, elucidating summary I’ve come across (of course needing to know what he is getting at with “expression”, and what the description would be presumed to be of, but still, well put).

Ordinary language is sometimes "all right as it is", but sometimes it is not. The trick is to tell the difference. — Ludwig V

I would offer that the method of “Ordinary Language Philosophy” does not give privilege to our common sayings, nor is the point that they are true (“common sense”). What we say in a situation is merely evidence of the criteria for a particular practice (our interests in it) to compare to the imposed, generalized, metaphysical criteria of objectivity, certainty, universality, completeness, etc. “Ordinary” criteria allow us to see the workings of a practice. That method of insight also allows us to create “imagined” cases (and simplified ones), and to clarify a common phrase in showing its sense/usage despite its not being worded well, forcing analogies, etc. Conversely, Cavell will work very hard creating fantastical scenarios (as Witt does with beetles and private language) to give as much sense to the skeptic’s words in order to understand what they want them to do.

The trick here is to juxtapose a sense in which one can speak thoughtlessly with the philosophical doctrine, in such a way that the emptiness of the doctrine stands out. But much depends here on the reaction of the audience, who, I find, are a bit liable to object that they did not mean that, so that the two sides are speaking past each other. — Ludwig V

Well you’ve hit the nail on the head again. The initial relevance of bringing up examples seems to just be to point out how our practices (feelings, etc.) work differently than in a metaphysical framework. But the examples of our ordinary criteria also show us that philosophy’s imposed criteria are not required, “that it is not necessary”(p.12). But not “not necessary in order to still have certainty” like philosophy wanted (which is a classic misunderstanding of his project), but just not needed to have an option to proceed at all, which is what skepticism seems to take away (in not getting the justification it requires).

He is showing what is important, even essential, to our practices, without resorting to certainty. “When I say: ‘we can only conjecture the cause but we know the motive’ this statement will be seen later on to be a grammatical one. The "can" refers to a logical possibility.” (P.15) The “logic”, however, is unfortunately not undeniable; if one does not see the distinction for oneself (the “cannot” of knowing causes), there is no force to it. Even worse, it does not satisfy philosophy’s desire for power from truth, but unravels it (here, the picture of causality).

But the goal is not to prove the skeptic wrong (to be right about the grammar of a practice), but to find out why we wanted to impose the criteria for certainty, universality, etc. in the first place. He calls it a “temptation” (p. 1). Thus we constantly remain able to supplant our ordinary criteria, tempted only to see the world the way we want, to try to make it answer to our desires. I agree that part of what needs answering is the question of how and why to fight against this temptation.

I would say that, so far, I don’t see it as an argument meant to convince us of a conclusion (say, sense data don’t exist, or, there is no such thing as a private language), but as ethical suggestions of methods to combat the desire to impose ourselves on the world, in order to discover our “real need” (PI #108). Thus the abundance of his examples is to see how we are “interested in a phenomenon in a variety of ways” id.

@Joshs@Ludwig V

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

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

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

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

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

I have the impression that these writing do not pay attention to the difference between conscious and unconscious processes. That allows the argument that there must be certain processes going on that we are not aware of - i.e. unconscious processes. — Ludwig V

I don’t take this work as an argument for a conclusion, such as that there are no processes of the brain of which we are not conscious. He implicitly acknowledges (p.6) that our brain is, of course, unconsciously doing all the things it does do (remembering, focusing, deciding, using language) while we are thinking or understanding. But I take him to be examining thinking, understanding, and meaning because these are examples that are just not independent mental mechanisms of the brain (but activities we work through; judgments we come to). The point of drawing out how they work is not to prove that (or prove that there are no unconscious brain processes), but to learn why we nevertheless want to force that framework on them, why we want to require the issue be a problem.

Similarly, his consideration of the possibility of a private language in the PI is superficially taken as just an argument against it (that the point, elsewhere, is that there are simply no “beetles” in us). As here, I take that section as an investigation of why we would want a private language (and that he finds reasons).

@Joshs @Ludwig V

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next, personal experiences, I think.

There's an interplay between what we are aware of, what W calls a mechanism of the mind - I think of it as the unconscious. — Ludwig V

I take his point to be that we create the idea of a mechanism. We try to internalize the processes of thinking, understanding, and meaning to imagine we control what the words that we say do (or do not) mean, as if we could avoid the responsibility to make ourselves understood, or not have to answer for what we say.

And the “unconscious” aspect of meaning I would offer is that words have a history and are subject to circumstances, which are either so pedestrian that they operate without our doing (being conscious of) anything, or that at times their possibilities of meaning outstrip our ability to encompass and/or control (be conscious of) how they will come off in a particular (even novel) context.

But it seems odd to say that understanding is not "present" during communication. — Ludwig V

I believe he would say that understanding is not a quality or thing—that is present or not; it is that picture/analogy which leads to the feeling of oddness. I think understanding is more appropriately thought of as a process (not a mental mechanism, but: clarification, explication, distinction, etc.) I only mentioned the “after” version, but of course there is the “before” process as well; e.g., “Tell me your understanding?” or: trying to understand.

Yes, there can be a multiplicity of meaning and complexity “in” communication (the wording here is also misleading), but we are only aware of the need to explain or clarify before or after the expression. Sometimes there is no “understanding”; we don’t speak of it when I ask you to pass the salt, as you say, “trading on shared assumptions and attitudes.”