Whoops. Its been all sides so I might have jumped to that reflexively.

I started reading Descartes and Hume. I read several dialogues of Plato and plan to read the Republic by him. I study psychology but I took an interest in philosophy, mainly in metaphysics and in existentialism. After a time, I want to read Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Hegel. I find it harder to remember for the things I read after a few months, especially if they are hard texts. How can I absorb these texts better, how can I improve my comprehension and my memory regarding philosophy? — deusidex

I have found that you have to take notes. And, when I say that, I've found what is most important is what you are thinking about when you read them. Questions, other topics, connections, just anything that floats into your head. Also, do not read summaries or general articles on philosophy--it is not about knowledge; it is about "the dark journey" (as Hegel says) and how it changes you. So go with the whole book, or the book with a book about the book (Heidegger on Nietzsche, for example, after reading the Nietzsche of course). Also, if you think of philosophy as a set of "problems" you will not get as much out of it personally--the issues are framed differently every time so don't get sucked into "the! solution".

Other than that, you must figure out when they are using a "term" and come at that from the context and relationally to the rest of the text (not from a definition)--in a sense, don't assume anything and go to them on their turf. Don't dismiss someone for what you think is an error or when you disagree. I would argue against having a axe to grind or some other perspective and start fresh with them (but of course their place in the history of the books).

Do not take what is said at the first impression, and do not take everything as a statement that you can either agree or disagree with. Especially with Nietzsche, what he says are not statements he is making that he is going to justify as true--they are examples to see how our relations (moral, etc.) are said to work or for us to see for ourselves his insights. It is good to start with Plato, and then Descartes (who introduces the modern problem of radical skepticism) and then Kant (who removes metaphysics). After that I might skip Hegel. Nietzsche is based on a response to Kant I would say more than Schopenhauer, but he is a tough one; as is seeing that Emerson is responding to the analytical tradition.

I'm still wrapping my head around the three kinds of statements made about ordinary language, and it seems that grasping that is a key part of rightly understanding the methodology. — creativesoul

Yes, this is the part people skip over. It is not making an argument in everyday language (or for it), it is making claims about the criteria (or Grammar) of our concepts. So we take a concept like "believing" and we come up with examples of when we would say "we believe" and then make claims about what the implications would be: the necessary threshold situation that would have to be in place, the consequences, the type of judgements that would follow, the kind of things that would not be said, etc.

Two problems immediately come to mind. First, there are multiple different accepted uses/senses/definitions of the same term, and not all of them are compatible. We know that much the same thing is true regarding phrases as well. — creativesoul

As I discussed above, Witt will call these the "senses" (as in options) for a concept (like "I know" discussed above), and thus why it is important to fill out a context which differentiates one sense from another. These senses are not endless.

Say we find that some native use of the term "believe" is accompanied by doubt. We can recognize some hesitation from the speaker to proclaim assuredness, certainty, or knowledge because we know what it's like to be uncertain. I'm sure most native speakers of an American English dialect would be perfectly capable of making the right sort of sense of someone else saying "I believe so" when the signs of uncertainty appear within their facial expressions and are supported by body language(shoulder shrugging, perhaps). So, we can agree that uncertainty can and does sometimes accompany the native speaker's use of "I believe". However, that's certainly not the only accepted use. There are common ordinary everyday situations where there is no difference of certainty at all in one's use of "I believe", no more certainty; no less certainty; equally on par with "I know", or "I am certain of it". Doubtlessness. — creativesoul

As Cavell will point out, the examples are not a survey of what people say (sociology as it were), they are examples in a context to make a claim about the criteria that is implied. The claim is to the criteria. Now I think your example is to say sometimes "I believe" is like a guess, "I believe the child is hiding behind the second shrub." (This is the sense that belief is like a hypothesis (from Witt, as I discussed above).) Now I would claim that the criteria of this is not that there is uncertainty in the person, as opposed to a feeling of certainty. What if I say "The child is behind the second shrub" and they are not? Was I not certain? (And I think this is what you mentioned with Gettier.)

Perhaps we can say there is no reason in this case to say "I know"? If I did have a reason--"I just saw them go back there"--but they were not, would we now say you only "believed"? or were just wrong? If I guess, and am right, is there a case where it would matter if I had no reason? At least now, we have some things to discuss and a means for being more specific in cases in order to settle them between us. There are not endless senses, just not "one" (There is also a believing as in hoping). And with these questions we can see maybe that there is more to consider before putting the cart before the horse with a picture of "knowledge" as just opposed to "belief".

Upon what ground, by what standard are we further discriminating between different uses, aside from some are native, common, everyday uses and some are not? — creativesoul

We, you and I, are agreeing on my (universal) claim about the implications when we say "I believe" in a certain context (in a certain sense). This is not judging that one is "common", and one is "not", but agreeing about the criteria for judging it is being used that way (in that "sense"). If you can not see for yourself than either the example is not correct, not detailed enough, etc., but you can make a competing example or bring out different details in a case, claiming different criteria are involved, and thus we have a rational discussion.

"There is, after all, something oppressive about a philosophy which seems to have uncanny information about our most personal philosophicalassumptions (those, for example, about whether we can ever know for certain of the existence of the external world, or of other minds; and those we make about favorite distinctions between "the descriptive and the normative", or between matters of fact and matters of language) and which inveterately nags us about them."
--Stanley Cavell

Whether or not we can know for certain of the existence of the external world is the kind of consideration that can only be arrived at via very complex self-referencing language use(metacognition). Ordinary people do not become paralyzed by such contemplations. Ask a non-philosophical thinker whether or not an external worlds exists, or if other people have minds(thoughts, beliefs, and human experiences), and they will surely look at you as if you're mad/crazy/insane, and rightly so * * * — creativesoul

I did say OLP was analytical philosophy that worked within the tradition. I've also said that it looks at what we might say at a time and place (in context) to make claims about what the ordinary criteria are (the implications, etc.). It does not speak in "ordinary language", nor is it trying to explain skepticism to lay people.

Such historical philosophical 'problems' have led to the demise of value and respect for philosophy and philosophers. — creativesoul

Traditional philosophy has become irrelevant because people are still applying methods from last century, especially when they think that they aren't or when they think they have moved on from the traditional philosophical issues.

Sorry, I should have went back and checked. It was Creative Soul; I fixed it.

Thank you sir. Always a pleasure.

Well you've got yourself into an interesting knot. I would suggest the third chapter (skip the first two if you are familiar with skepticism) of Stanley Cavell's Claim of Reason, but it is pretty Gordian itself. I'll just try to touch on what he sees when we say "you ought".

He starts with "the things we say" (a trademark of the Ordinary Language Philosophy method he uses) about moral arguments: if premises are accepted, we must accept our goal: a conclusion on "what" ought to be done. To say this is "normative" is to answer: what that one thing "ought" to be, with the threat of incompetence or irrationality in a picture of what counts, what is rational. To say "you ought" is to imply I am arguing against an alternative, I take a position for which I offer proof relevant to you.

Yet, as you know, people do not have to agree. After Cavell investigates what is said with "I promise", "enough", "commitment", "belief", etc., he digs out that a claim to knowledge is different than your moral claim to rightness, as we question the position you take, what you are taking responsibility for, with the threat to our relationship; arguing "you ought to ____" with moral reasons for what will benefit me. Then to know what you are doing (the various types of rationality of our individual practices) is to know why you are doing it, where you will stand, what you will be answerable for--to know yourself.

Isn’t that reducible to experience? If context stands for the the myriad distinguishable opportunities for using a concept, doesn’t that presupposes the time and place of them, which is the same thing as experience? It follows that a possible miscommunication using a common concept can be merely a matter of uncommon experiences. — Mww

It’s not so much communicating experience. It’s more like training someone (indirectly most times) in a practice (in one or a few contexts and then people are able to extend a concept (say, asking or pointing) into new contexts; as I said, this usually just happens from us being around people and picking up the way things work; this is based on our ability and the flexibility of concepts into new contexts (another reason their criteria (Grammar) is dissimilar to rules). I would also tweak "myriad distinguishable opportunities for using a concept" as a concept has its possibilities (like Kant's), thus it has some uses (like options), and, even though concepts can be taken into new contexts, they won't go into every/any situation. The time and place is the event of me saying something. The fact of our concepts being common (as English speakers)'makes any uncommonness of our experience less important (say, you may have seen something that no one else did).

[People are] always in fear of failing in their language use. So...even while we are aware OLP has exposed what it considers a problem, has it done anything to fix it? What does a philosophical picture of how all language works, actually do for human frailties, other than seeming to disregard them? — Mww

Well the fear (philosophically) is basically a reaction to radical skepticism (uncertainty), and the picture it creates is that we need a theory of how all language works. Austin and Witt start with showing that we already had tons of individual ways that language works (the Grammar for each concept), but Witt (further developed by Cavell) saw that knowledge has a limit (which I discuss in relation to the Other in that post on the lion quote), but, with our expression, it means that I say something (at a time and place) using the options of our concepts, along their Grammar (but not conscious of, or justified by, them), but after that, I am responsible for that expression, answerable to it. So knowledge and theory end at a certain point and (after saying something) I take over; this is the fact that skepticism records, that everything can fail between us, and Cavell will label this part of our human condition (the "truth of skepticism"), so there is no "cure" or dismissal of skepticism. So OLP, in bringing a rationality back to every concept, simply gives us a view of our condition and to see (philosophically), reflect on, the ordinary (only) ways we have to resolve each situation. As you say "procedures are in place to prevent failings in language use, so in that sense, there is a fix, albeit hardly philosophical." Responding to that last bit, I would say that is the new approach OLP brings to the situation, claiming that: looking at what we mean when we say something, IS Philosophically relevant.

the average smuck on the street doesn’t care...about how all language works. — Mww

Cavell will see this as not that philosophers are different from other people, but that there is a moment for philosophy--where we do not know what to do; where we do need to turn and look at the criteria for our concepts (each with their own) in order to examine how far our criteria take us to understand the position we are in and, in learning about the criteria of our concepts, to learn about ourselves.

The point being that a "concept" for Witt is not like an "idea" of something, or, say, conceptual--just language.
— Antony Nickles

A concept is just language? — Mww

Sorry I write by assuming the continuation of words so I remove them (probably from being a twin). I should have written
a "concept" for Witt is:
Not like an "idea" of something,
Not "conceptual"
Not "just language."

It is impossible to have language without concepts, so if I speak, I must already have the ground for speech. — Mww

Wouldn't we say poetry (at least some) is language without a concept? And here, again, Witt's term "concept" is not a "ground" for communication (as I said above, if there is any "justification" or "ground" for communcation, it is us--being responsible for what we have said).

So for Witt, the spontaneity is relinquished for the objective manifestations of concepts in language. But he’s just kicked the speculative can down the philosophical road, wouldn’t you say, in that we still need to know what makes language possible. — Mww

Again, this is not like an "idea", or some other thing, that gets "manifested" in language. Witt's terms "concepts" is just a shorthand grouping our, say, practices, together (like pointing, asking, sitting in a chair, intending, knowing, etc.). They are not (put?) IN language (we could say, maybe, they are expressed by language). "What makes language possible", or, as it were, communication, is the fact that, in each concept, our ways of judging, making distinctions, knowing what counts, how to continue, when to question, etc. are in line with each other (Cavell say "attuned"), as well as everything else in our lives that surround and come before, e.g., believing (as discussed with Creative Soul above).

Concepts, on the other hand, as I’ve hinted before, always originate privately, by the first instance of it, and which usually, but not necessarily, subsequently become public in the communication of it. For which we must fall back on spontaneity....but, so be it? Not many choices in the matter, actually. — Mww

So, again, this is not how Witt uses "concept". And the picture of an idea originating in me which is then "communicated" (as explained through some theory)--or something of that order--is the picture Witt is investigating in PI. That he is trying to get people to see that language is public, is to say we, in a sense, lock ourselves into a public way of expressing (a use of a concept); we give ourselves over to it. Expression is not (always) taking my ..."experience" and putting it into words. Apologizing, threatening, lying, are concepts that make my expressions meaningful, not me.

Rules in the sense I’ve been using, merely indicate a logical significance in accordance with a complementary system, the empirical knowledge of which we have no privilege. It’s the same as, we don’t know why that happened but there must have been a reason for it....this theory doesn’t tell us how this happens but if it wasn’t in conformity to a rule we can say it wouldn’t have happened. — Mww

Well this is a lot, and, as I said, the section on rules in PI is not my strong suit, so I would check that out, or the essay by Cavell. I may review that section and come back to this.

Well, the Mac I use is not that antiquated, but thank you very much for that providing link. — creativesoul

Well, I guess I am the winner then with a '96 iMac.

folks like Moore show... why so many people refuse to understand that simply knowing what "this is a hand" means proves beyond any reasonable doubt that there is an external world(Witt's private language argument aims at much the same thing, but he struggled with the infinite regress of justification as his remarks throughout OC show). — creativesoul

Well, OLP moved on from Moore's standard of the contradiction of what everyone knows to be true (granting that my Moore is hella rusty), through Austin to Witt focusing on the implications when a concept is expressed in a context and shared language. I'll be interested to hear what you think of the Cavell, as his reading of Witt is that he does not go so far as Moore (solving skepticism; or dismissing it, actually) and leaves the threat of skepticism open and as a lesson regarding the limitation of knowledge (that we are in a position to each other and to what we say that is beyond knowledge).

Another broader benefit leads us to consider specific situational circumstantial context aside from just the statements and/or words being used as a method or means to correctly translate and/or better understand another's meaningful language use. — creativesoul

I'm concerned by the sense we are categorizing contexts to "correctly translate" what someone else is saying. As if reducing Austin's contribution to merely cataloging what people (can? must?) mean in certain circumstances (rather than describing how expressing specific concepts, as in practices, are differently meaningful). And as if the way our concepts worked was baked into the world (the circumstances) and determines what is said--taking our responsibility for our expressions out of the equation. That being said, the essay by Cavell will skirt that line of the "must" of our shared criteria in a different way.

I'm puzzled by the lack of clear unambiguous distinction being drawn between statements and belief statements when discussing things like Moore's paradox or Gettier. — creativesoul

On pp. 190-191 (x) in the PI Witt uses examples of what we say to make the claim that "I believe" is a hypothesis, a conviction ("I think it's going to rain), a disposition, and not a measure of uncertainty compared to a statement that can be true or false (as Austin's examples are meant to show are not the only kind of statements, nor the only expressions with the value of truth).

Moore's paradox shows that self-contradiction is a natural occurring limit upon our belief, and that there is a difference between accounts of belief and belief. One cannot believe that both statements are true when talking about oneself, but we've no issue believing or saying that it's raining outside but another does not believe it is (both are true regarding another). — creativesoul

Witt will describe this as our inability to infer our conviction in our expressions--it can be said that "I do not see or hear myself [my conviction]". That the look of "I believe..." tempts us to look at believing differently in ourselves. Cavell will frame this that I do not accept my expressions, where I believe the other because they say it.

There is a clear distinction that needs to be drawn and maintained between the truth conditions of a statement (when spoken by an individual that believes the statement) and the statement itself - when taken in general - completely divorced from the individual believing speaker. Sometimes, they are remarkably different. — creativesoul

There are two things going on for me here. One I like is that we are measuring that there is a difference between a statement and the expression of a statement (at a place and time; that I own). Now, that being said, the abstraction ("divorcing") of statements from their expression removes a context for them, which allows for the creation of criteria for certainty, universality, etc. in general--as in the difference between a "true" (certain, universal) statement and a statement of belief (uncertain, contingent).

I understand that many reject the very notion of one single overarching theory of meaning, simply because there has yet to have been an acceptable one(one that is amenable to evolutionary progression, and is somehow relevant and/or explanatorily powerful enough to exhaust the acceptable parts of all the rest, while also being able to explain the unacceptable parts). — creativesoul

OLP's initial mission (with Austin and Witt) was specifically to show that there is not "one single overarching theory of meaning"; to bring our expressions back to the ordinary criteria of each of our concepts.

Meaning arises/emerges within belief formation. Getting meaning right requires getting belief right. — creativesoul

So once meaning is internalized, we can have certainty and feel like we have avoided metaphysics through a general theory about how meaning is said and then understood, if only we could get it right, or get science involved, or... anything but take away our control over "meaning" (as it is public) and put us in the position of being responsible for what we have said.

“Completely” wouldn’t be a bit too far, if there is a time frame earlier than, or in addition to, learning and joining society. It seems to me, that if the onus is on each of us to take responsibility in the saying, if we are “bound to our expressing”, we’d want something more authoritative than the meager accolades of society. That which merely assuages the ego, as in, “Hey, you expressed that correctly! Good for you!!”, comfortably disguised as “Ok, fine; you’re playing by the rules”....isn’t the taking of responsibility.

Yours is the beforehand as part of learning/joining, but with no true account of the extra part of being bound by the responsibility in expression because of agreement with the rules. — Mww

What I was trying to say is it is not responsibility "in" the expressing, it's "to" the expression, so it's not learning "completely" or expressing correctly (in "agreement" with a concept's Grammar) it is being answerable to it once you've done/said it. As, based on the examples above, we ask: "Did you intend to shoot the donkey?"--as if intent is not (always) first. We are bound to answer for what we've done (or shirk it), thus the need for excuses--"no, my finger accidentally slipped on the trigger." To continue to be intelligible and explaining along the different ways under each concept (or refusing to; or pushing it into another context).

Your form of OLP wants to turn what it looks at as learning/joining, into rote instruction. There should still be an account for how learning is done. — Mww

I agree with accounting for learning, though not as sociology so much as it shows how we grow with our concepts, as our practices. Witt spends a lot of time showing how learning a concept is being able to continue a series.. even into new contexts. I would call it training more than rote when done overtly but most of our learning society's alignment along the lines of our judgments, identity, what counts, what matters, what our shared interests are, in each concept: as in meaning, learning, understanding, apologizing, etc., is just by growing up and assimilating into our society/culture. These are not learning "rules", but, our sharing lives (though not as justification).

Your OLP wants to account for responsibility in expression by a subject, but doesn’t account for the authority within the same subject, by which the responsibility is obtained. It follows that the rules are contained in the subject, antecedent to, and hence authority for, any expression whatsoever. — Mww

Our criteria (Grammar) for what we do/say (our concepts as practices) are public, prior to us. The question of authority is interesting as, in expressing, at times, we assert our self, "I say this!" (Emerson roughly) to assert/create our self as separate (averse to conformity Emerson says). We are our own authority in this regard--our responsibility is to the consequences of and questions about our actions. We may break, stretch our Grammar as well because of their not being our justification, or we their cause.[/quote]

It shouldn’t be a contention that whenever language is in use, something necessary is occurring beforehand. — Mww

I'm not sure if you mean it shouldn't have to be said (it should be uncontested) or that no one should say that something is occurring beforehand, so I'll just take it as the first and say that Witt would say it is not (necessarily, every time) how "language is used", as in my intent or causality, but "looking" at a concept's "use" (afterwards), which is to say which option (his term is: in which "sense") of a concept (see "I know" in the OP above now) and how that fits with the context of the situation and context of the Grammar of the concept. So to say "something" is "occuring" beforehand, makes a lot of assumptions which I believe would come from the picture Witt and Austin are trying to shed light on. Many things have occurred beforehand; all of our lives lead up to the possibilities of our concepts (even Witt's builders need to be familiar with calling, pointing, counting, etc., to be able to ask for something).

Point being, no matter the word, somebody somewhere at some time, determined its relation, and that determination had nothing to do with learning or joining society, but rather, contributed to a society for its members to learn. — Mww

Language does have the ability to be set (terms, labels, etc.) yet even in this limited case there is a relation, even if it is determined, to our lives (e.g., the builders' "world" of concepts). The assumption that all of our concepts are created by naming, say, idea=word, word=world, is the picture that Witt is investigating in the PI.

Everybody uses the same words, but with uncommon intimations, which facilitates an examination of the expressive ambiguities of the many at the exclusion of the compositional certainty of the one. — Mww

What you call "fundamental conditions" I think OLP would consider part of the standards desired (for certainty, control, my specialness) which Witt shows creates the picture of referentialism or the interior. As if you control the use and (intimations) of our language; the words being the same but that "I" at least know, am certain, about what I "mean". That every expression has the possibility of ambiguity in it because of the picture that "I mean" something specific (their composition is certain) but the other has their own "I understand", thus ambiguity is inherent in every communication, instead of being situational, contextual--"meaning", as "intending", only coming up when something unexpected happens (as worked out in the examples above).

What I posed as just a simple question, you turned into a riddle. There is no reason to do that, there’s no hint in being a mere question that there is a disguised sublimity contained in it. You, of your own accord, before even considering a response, thought my expression as having qualities not justified by the words used in it. — Mww

Hmmm.."simply"? You failed and refused to explain or define the term "mentality" that you were using, saying it was "whatever I think it is". Thus, I had to guess what you meant or work out what I made of it backwards from the context of everything else--if that is not a riddle, it was mysterious or, at the very least, coy. To say "there's no hint", and that the "qualities" of expressions can not be seen by me, or that "I turned' it into something, is wrapped up in the picture that you control an expression's "qualities" (I, and Cavell, would say its implications), and that "the words" make your intention certain (or, the other way, that your intention is in those certain (fixed) words) because they can be understood independently (the picture that words stand on their own is the way philosophy strips the context out of our expressions). This picture is how we can avoid the responsibility to what we (and others) express; that, apart from what you want, you can be read by what you say, and that our expressions can be made more intelligible if necessary and we remain answerable to them (as possible obfuscations, tricks, etc.) Our word is our bond Austin will say.

People generally aren’t drawn to that picture, your “concepts" being thought (then?) turned into words”. They haven’t a clue that’s what happening, because it’s all theory. Could be no one does that. So why diagnose a reason for something that is no more than speculative theoretic? — Mww

This is complicated (it took the whole PI to draw it out), but the idea is that humans have a desire for certainty, and a fear of our human frailty (failings), and philosophers slide from there into radical skepticism, which, along with our ability to understand words without context, allows for a theoretical philosophical picture of how (all) language works, which skips over our human frailty and separateness.

By showing how public meaning and language are......what? — Mww

How much language and our concepts are public (rather than determined by me); that they are meaningful to (all of) us in the ways our lives are attuned "in judgments" Witt will say (not only in definitions of words). #242.

To show how understanding is relational to a point where knowledge reaches its limits.....I can’t unpack that. Knowledge has it limits, but such limits don’t have anything to do with understanding. — Mww

I give examples of "understanding" above, but the "limit" of knowledge is just to say knowledge is not our only way of relating to the world. This was the point in my post on the lion quote where "I know you are in pain" is not an expression of knowledge as information, but knowing as acknowledging (Cavell says)--I accept or reject (this is how it works, it's Grammar) the (moral) claim of your pain on me. Emerson will say "Character is higher than intellect". I've also realized Cicero was onto something when he insisted that a speaker had to be "virtuous".

I don’t have a problem with calling all those things “concepts”. I would only say the objects of those concepts are what’s part of our lives. Seeing is a concept; what is seen is the object of the concept of seeing; learning is a concept, a series is the object learned about, etc. — Mww

I don't think I need to disagree with this characterization of what "objects" are, and, if you are saying that Witt's "concepts" (practices as it were) are not an "object", I would also let that go. I guess this just means you think something needs to be an object to be part of our lives. Then I'm not sure what to say to get you to see that "seeing", "sitting in a chair", apologizing", "intending", "understanding", "continuing a series", are "part of our lives"; maybe to say that by: the "way we live" I mean our judgments, distinctions, ways to identify, etc. with each concept. There is a quote by Austin above that Banno put up from which I draw out this sense in a response.

What does the double asterisk and the (completely different) attached to “concepts” mean, from the point of view of Witt and OLP? — Mww

The ** was left in by mistake. I incorporated the list of what Witt would consider "concepts" into the sentence. I have differentiated them as "practices", but "thinking", "intending" etc. are also these type of concepts and calling them "practices" is a little off. The point being that a "concept" for Witt is not like an "idea" of something, or, say, conceptual--just language.

Have their own Grammar (roughly the way they work).....sounds an awful lot like rules to me. — Mww

Well this one is a toughy. I'd say read from #200-#300 in PI or Cavell's essay The Argument of the Ordinary (with Ryle), but off the top of my head: we don't "follow" Grammar, as we do rules; that Grammar is more open-ended; they can be extended into new contexts or broken but still be recognizable; they can be vague or highly specific, and rules are too fixed and determinative; rules gives the impression that we "set" Grammar; and there is some sense of arbitrariness of when a rule applies, but, frankly, I've forgotten more about this than I ever learned, so you can't take my word for it.

So....nothing on images? Familiar with the science of visual thinking? From mention by Einstein, 1942 to books by Pinker, 2007, and originating as a speculative condition for human cognition, in Kant, 1781, the idea has been around quite some time. Being around much longer than OLP isn’t sufficient reason for it being better, but it is sufficient reason for OLP to account for the possible validity of it. — Mww

Well, as I said, I wasn't sure where to start--and I do not have experience with any of that. All I can put out there is that I think OLP's early intent on accounting for the desire for the picture of language as something internal (meaning, thought, intention, "mental activity" Witt will say) attached to or corresponding to a word or object, lessens its interest in anything else "mental". That isn't to say that they don't account for it; Witt looks at what we mean when we say "I imagine" as a way of seeing our concept of imagination (imagining) and also the activity of bringing up an image for yourself. Also, part of OLP is "imagining" cases, though that's neither here nor there I think. As Witt says, none of this is to attempt statements of facts or theories, so the science of any of this would be moot upon what the implications are when we say "I imagine..". (Also not to say philosophy is not accountable to the discoveries of science, but that they are two separate methods in two separate fields--though it has not always been that way.)

Other than OLP's take on thinking, I was influenced by Heidegger's What is Called Thinking? and Emerson's framing of thinking as passive reception, rather than active; but Witt would say "thinking" is more like solving a problem (guessing, testing, imagining cases...). That is not to say that people do not "think" as philosophy is accustomed to picturing it, but that I would call that, all of the things above, except, (talking) to yourself.

Is OLP still alive and kicking? I have read that Searle is the last proponent of OLP. I admittedly don't know much about OLP or ILP — emancipate

Searle and Derrida talking past each other made it seem like the life was drained out of OLP. And so many of its early practitioners came to the conclusion (or were taken to, i.e., Witt) that OLP either solved or dissolved radical skepticism in showing how philosophy's singular focus on certainty and knowledge overlooks all the varied ways each of our concepts work and our part in that. I think Stanley Cavell has done the most to advance the lessons from early OLP (very effectively continuing its method at the beginning of his career).

I think we just don't know very much about how to think well, or how our languages work. — Snakes Alive

I think seeing how our language and philosophy can get moving is a major accomplishment of OLP. And I enjoyed Heidegger's What is Called Thinking? (thinking as "being called"). The idea that thinking is more like external problem solving and about our attitude and approach (an ethical epistemology).

A major part of that is our not understanding the way that the conditions under which we ask questions affects their intelligibility and the truth of their potential answers. In this respect, it's the radical pragmatists like Travis that carry on the OLP legacy, if anyone. — Snakes Alive

It's been a while with pragmatism for me but I found it settled onto practical matters, as if philosophy's problems could be side-stepped. But I do find more of a sense of truth, and that the conditions of intelligibility are specifically under consideration, with OLP by Witt, Austin, and Cavell. And I would consider the first two as only superficially understood and thus still relevant (necessary). And the sense of hope for our providing answers for ourselves is what Cavell is doing to breath life and usefulness into philosophy (both analytical and continental--literary, film, politics, etc.)--along the lines of Emerson's call for "self-reliance".

Much of OLP was, and I think should still be seen, as destructive to philosophy, and is a matter of 'seeing through' it. — Snakes Alive

There is much made of some OLP philosophers, Moore, Austin, etc., taking OLP as solving skepticism. And some who take Witt as either solving it or making analytic philosophy a confusion that can and should be undone (permanantly), as I believe is Rorty's stance. But I think Cavell is on to something when he talks about "the truth of skepticism", which builds on Witt's seeing the limits of knowledge (and thus our responsibility), which also is a thread which bridges the gap between analytical and continental philosophy (as everything is not explained through manipulating a general theory of language/knowledge). I do believe the methods and revelations of OLP are capatible with traditional philosophy (taking the good from the bad).

For me it clicked with Cavell's Knowing and Acknowledging, which I've just realized, references Malcolm.

Suppose we're going through the forest and we hear rustling, so we go to investigate. We look beyond and in a clearing there's an animal. We are close enough to see it perfectly clearly. You say it's a wolf, and I say it's a fox. When you protest, I ask, how can that possibly be a wolf? It looks and acts like a fox – it has all the features typically associated with a fox. But you protest, and say 'I grant you that – it has all the characteristics of what we would normally call a fox. Nevertheless, it is a wolf.' — Snakes Alive

This records the fact that traditional philosophy strips away our ordinary criteria and any context in the attempt to generalize for universality and ensure certainty by fixing the picture of language, even with identity for particulars (Austin works very hard picking out Goldfinches). The step we really run into trouble with is the need for justification that it is a "real" fox.

Mentality is whatever you think it is, and from which whether images are part and parcel of it, is then determinable. We are not saying imagination, because we already said mentality. If it was the ability to bring up images, then they are presupposed and the question remains as to their part and parcel. — Antony Nickles

I have the feeling if this is not just a trap, it is a guessing game or riddle; which, of course, I can't help but play/try to solve. If calling up an image has to be accepted as essential to "mentality", and it is not related to imagination, then... mentality is the group of stuff you can do by yourself, like talking, remembering? I feel like this is too trivial to be right.

I discovered where you got your writing style. — Mww

Ohhhh, found out! Yes, I have read too much Cavell. The reason I picked that up is that I find it respectful and an acknowledgement that this is a claim on you, not an explanation/statement, and there is the possibility I have not got it right and there might be additional evidence to be considered (but specifically not that I can take it however I want for any purpose).

after dropping out all those stupefying cogito interruptus parentheticals — Mww

Tangential to the extreme. I've found the point is that part of philosophy is listening to what interests you, and another point is that this is not a theory so much as an investigation, one that opens avenues for further inquiry, so there are a lot of questions left unanswered, which is separately an essential part of OLP: that you answer the questions Witt etc. asks, for yourself, to see what they are seeing for yourself (what Grammar is shown be the examples).

“...And what we mean (...) to say, like what we mean (...) to do, is something we are responsible for....”, pg 197

.... is merely a reiteration of that which has always been the case, long before this article was written, because the rules for what is meant by what is said, are never simultaneously established in the saying, but already completely established beforehand in the relation between the words said and the conceptions thought, from which they arise. — Mww

I'll let the formulation of Grammar as "rules" go for now, and say I agree that Grammar has been established beforehand (as part of learning and joining society), though "completely" is also a bit far, as seeing that "we are responsible for" "the saying" does play an extra part because, once said/done, we are bound to our expressing, acting, "responsible for" having said it, for answering why, how, among all the possibilities and among what part of the context is important, we said this now, here--we are called out by it, seen in it. And also to point out that Witt and Austin's goal is that our lives ([all] our judgements, distinctions, interests, in this language-game) are attuned to these words (concepts**), not that words "arise" from "concepts" (as in "ideas" I would guess) which are thought (casually, or otherwise). Witt's idea of "concepts"** (completely different) is a grouping of regular and complex parts of our lives (language games) like justice, meaning, understanding, but also, forgiving, threatening, sitting in a chair, pointing, learning a series, seeing, seeing an aspect, and that each of these have their own Grammar (roughly, ways they work, as they are part of our lives); the point being that an investigation of those shows us something about our philosophical issues (not to justify those claims, again, as it were, like Cavell says).

And to which the question regarding images becomes its most relevant. — Mww

And here I think I can say that if the idea that I am guessing as the answer to the riddle--of "concepts" being thought (then?) turned into words--is what you mean by "mentality', then I would say Witt is trying to diagnose the reason people are drawn to that picture by showing how public "meaning" and language are, and how "understanding" is relational (see comments above) at a point where knowledge reaches its limits.

"That language is dead is to say that writing comes before the speaking (as if opposite of Derrida I believe Joshs)."
--Antony Nickles

Writing’ for Derrida means that what is spoken is not immediately understood but is deferred, delayed in its reception. — Joshs

I put your name in there as I thought you might have a better idea of Derrida's take on this idea of the life and death of language, or of the priority or primacy or metaphorical temporality of voice and writing (the garmene?) I know there is a "trace" and the idea of "presence" but I'm not sure they come into play here.

I've spent a lot of time reading the 'canonical' OLP philosophers,
* * *
OLP spawned some of the most exquisite methodological discussions about how inquiry itself works that I've ever read.
* * *
To read Ryle on what constitutes 'ordinary' language, what it is for words to have a 'use,' and so on, is truly a pleasure, and the back-and-forth between Ayer and Austin, and Mates and Cavell, are wonderful. I don't think analytic philosophy has ever reached such self-awareness and methodological heights again. It was a rare burst of sophistication. — Snakes Alive

Well, you are officially in charge of this thread. I'm finding "explaining" it is either beyond me or does little to shift people's framework to consider it, and I'm afraid I don't seem to have the skills to provide compelling examples and don't even do a good job of stealing Austin's or Cavell's. I have posted a few other oblique attempts, and I will, of course, carry this on.

The less-celebrated OLPers, such as Malcolm, Wisdom, Urmson, Ambrose, and Lazerowitz, are all worth reading in their own right. — Snakes Alive

I'm impressed. I have read everything Cavell has written (the essay in "Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome" looking at Ryle on rules is even better than the Mates' one--great political philosophy book) and Witt and not enough Austin, and I have a book of Wisdom's, but I will check those out. I have considered reading Stephen Mulhall, Alice Crary, Tracy strong, or Cora Diamond--people "influenced by" OLP, but I find myself reading back with fresh eyes on late Heidegger, Nietszche, Hegel, Kant, Marx, and Emerson. Any modern/old interests?

I'm in dire need of getting over the the name of the method, and looking more towards understanding the benefits thereof a bit better than I currently do/can. — creativesoul

Well that's refreshing. The name leads to a lot of confusion. If I didn't already suggest it, this essay by Cavell is a good explanation and example (way better than I appear to be doing); though a little dense, it's only 40 pages.

https://sites.ualberta.ca/~francisp/Phil488/CavellMustWeMean58.pdf

(I provide the whole link as I understand you are working on a 1994 PowerBook)

It's strange but the idea is that we formulate an expression, say, "I know..." (maybe a regular one or a traditional philosophical one) and then imagine a context where this would be said, or what about it makes it impossible to imagine a context, (even a fantastical one), and other variations of this, and in doing so we see something traditional philosophy usually skips over, that has the same legitimacy and addresses the same issues.

If you skip through the comments and find ones with quotes, like in the OP, those are examples (though pretty horrible really). I made a list of Witt quotes too and tried to list out some misconceptions again somewhere in the middle. I really need to re-write the OP in having learned where a lot of people are coming from, and the assumptions they carry about OLP.

hope you see that this makes your rebuttal to my point appear to be that you know what reality is, and I do not.
— Antony Nickles

Yes, you suggested that a human being could remove oneself from the context of intention, and I think that's simply unreal. It's no different from asking me to accept a proposition which I strongly believe to be false. I'd tell you that if you believe that proposition you simply do not know the reality of the situation. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand you want to let me know that you disagree, but you simply rejected this with no justification than I'm not living in reality. It is arrogant and not even an argument. I find it rude and I will not tolerate it. This is a philosophical discussion. If you speak to me like that again I will not respond.

To say that we ought to discuss these activities as if there is no intention involved would be foolish. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is unacceptable behavior. I feel I have been quite patient and met with nothing but refusal of consideration. It is not a foolish argument. I appreciate the opportunity to attempt to refine how I present this material but a blanket denial in the end leaves nothing to say. I hope you have learned something from all the effort I put in but I fear you are not ready to hear from others other than to defend your beliefs.

..our shared lives...
— Antony Nickles

Again, this is incoherent to me. My life is my life, and yours is yours. We are separated by space, we are born and die at different times. There is no such thing as a shared life, except perhaps the Siamese twins'. — Metaphysician Undercover

It must seem like a lonely world. Good day sir.

Regarding the rules of language games...

One need not know or interpret the rules to learn them. The knowing is shown in the using. We do not call trees "cats". Etc. We learn that trees are called "trees" by drawing correlations between "tree" and trees. Learning the rules is embedded in language acquisition. We learn that "Shut the door" can have several different meanings, depending upon the speakers' tone, facial expressions, volume, etc. The different contextual elements are part of the different meanings(uses) 'tied to' the same words. The same words are part of several different uses. We learn about the differences in meaning by virtue of drawing correlations between the same words and the different contextual elements(tone, volume, facial expressions, etc.) — creativesoul

I agree; and this is an important fact for OLP; that we learn our language (concepts) and the world at the same time. That our language is molded by the interests, judgments, distinctions, etc. that we have shared over the course of our (everyone's) living in the world.

Regarding ordinary language...

I'm all for striving to use as much common language as possible to explain something or other. The simpler the better assuming no loss in meaningful explanation. I'm also inclined to believe that Ockham's razor is worthy of guiding principle status, so... — creativesoul

If it matters, not at all what OLP is about. But I agree Kant and especially Hegel could have dialed the terminology back some.

Not "what do you mean by___" It's: "what do we mean when we say___?"
— Antony Nickles

Your phrases "we say", and "we mean", are incoherent, as if a phrase could be properly interpreted outside its context. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think maybe you are taking this as a statement, when I am trying to explain the method of OLP, which necessarily involves fleshing out the context in which the example would be said.

But this is to just divide acts/expressions into intended ones and unintended ones, so the intended ones still fall under the picture of a ever-present cause (for those "intended"). And this is different than my proposing the question of intention only comes up sometimes, not that it applies to all acts that are (pre?) "intended".
— Antony Nickles

You are simply denying the reality of the situation. Human beings are intentional beings. — Metaphysician Undercover

I hope you see that this makes your rebuttal to my point appear to be that you know what reality is, and I do not.

They always have goals and therefore they cannot separate themselves from their goals, as if they could pass some time without having any goals. So an habitual, "unintended" human act, exists within the wider context of intention. When I walk to the store, my legs are moving in an unintended habitual way, but this is within the context of me intending to get to the store. When I talk to my brother, my lips are moving and I'm making sounds in an unintended habitual way, but this is within the wider context of intending to speak to him about some subject. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not denying that people have goals or "intend" to do things, just that I think the picture is framing them a particular way (I could say they seem to be in the present, when we can see from examples--below--that they are about the future), as if there was the intention, and then the action. Or that there is some thing "the intention" which divides these two types of action (habitual and intended), maybe rather than dividing them between movement and action? Anyway, you say "my legs are moving in an unintended habitual way, but this is within the context of me intending to get to the store. When I talk to my brother, my lips are moving and I'm making sounds in an unintended habitual way, but this is within the wider context of intending to speak to him about some subject." (Which, by the way, is close to doing OLP, but these are explanations.) Can we not just say: "I'm going to the store." or: "I'm speaking to my brother about something." We do not need your picture of intention here-- what is the determination of where the line is between intended an unintended? I could say: "I'm intending to go to the store." and there is a context you can imagine for this. And also "I'm intending to speak to my brother about something." and a context or this as well. And these show us something about intention--that it is a hope for the future, which, however, may go wrong (like shooting a cow instead of a donkey).

If it's difficult to justify the idea that "you and I" exist as one united entity called "we", how much more difficult is it to justify your claim that "all English speakers" exist as such a united entity? — Metaphysician Undercover

"Our" is not an "entity" but merely a way of saying our language, its Grammar, our shared lives, are owned by each one of us and together--a form of social contract. And with each expression, we consent to the contract (agree to be bound by our expression), or break it.

"What about the circumstances led to the mistake?" The fact that the person (oneself a part of the circumstances) did not properly account for the particulars. "Why did you shoot the cow instead of the donkey?" "Someone put the cow into the donkey's stall and I didn't confirm that it was the donkey I was shooting." This is the answer to "why" in every instance of a mistake, "I did not take into account all the particulars of the circumstances". A mistake is an intentional act which was made without adequate knowledge of the particulars of the situation, therefore it does not result as intended. It is because each situation consists of particulars which are unique to that situation, as "the circumstances", and the person fails to account for the particulars, that mistakes are made. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can see what you see here as part of the Grammar of a mistake: failing to account for the particulars of a situation, and I agree. And I think this is a very good job of using OLP to get there.

"We are separate people, but not separated by anything...
— Antony Nickles

The biggest problem of idealism is to account for the fact that we, as individual minds, are separated. There is a very real medium of separation between your mind and my mind, which we call the material world, and this very real separation forces the idealist toward principles to account for this reality, to avoid solipsism. If you deny the reality of this separation between us, you force us into a reality in which there is no material world, and we are all just one solipsistic mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was referring to the point I made previously, which Witt gets to and Cavell elaborates (in Knowing and Acknowledging); we are separate bodies, and that gap can not be intellectually solved by knowledge--we have a further relation to each other. We make claims of the other, and they accept those claims, or deny them (see my post on Witt's lion quote). Character is higher than intellect Emerson says. And Nietzsche is pointing to this as well.

Understanding as:

looking at use...
seeing certain words articulated in a novel or curious way
thinking anew...
intentionally suspend[ing] our judgement...
carefully considering another's viewpoint...
grasping where another is coming from...
wanting to hear from another...
entertaining - sometimes said to be "for argument's sake"...
begin[ing]... with an attitude that everyone deserves a certain modicum of respect...
hear[ing] them out as thoroughly as is needed... — creativesoul

Hear, hear. An ethics of understanding, being understanding to reach the point I try to make of Witt's in my further response to @Metaphysician Undercover--where we can go on from/for the other, and the similar necessity in OLP that the criteria for Grammar being true is that you can see it for yourself, come (from where I am, what I have said) to it on your own.

Our original worldview is almost entirely adopted, and all the stuff you learn to talk about is already meaningful to those with whom you learn to talk about it with. In this way, the world is always already meaningful, if and only if, the world is equal to word (to what one can talk about, what has been talked about, or what can be talked about). It's not. — creativesoul

You bring up a good point which I have overlooked; that interest, attraction, and what is meaningful are very important. Now what is meaningful for us (everyone) is what shapes our lives and our Grammar of our concepts (our shared interests in judgments, distinctions, what counts, how we decide, or reconcile, etc.--for each concept). But there is also our personal interest and what attracts us about something--meaningful as impassioned. Witt will say "Every sign by itself seems dead. What gives it life?—In use it is alive. Is life breathed into it there?—Or is the use its life?" #432 That is to say something happens in the expressing (not within the language, or me), the fact of me saying this now, here and the options of the concept that come into play. That language is dead is to say that writing comes before the speaking (as if opposite of Derrida I believe @Joshs). We make our concepts come alive by being sloppy or ignorant of the way they work, or calling for a higher justice (aptness) as it were for our expressions--being answerable for them, called out by them, and openly prepared for further intelligibility.

Surely everything said is meaningful at least to the creature saying it, even if it sounds like gibberish to everyone else. — creativesoul

Well, not really (everything?)--sometimes we say things flippantly, mechanically, under duress, etc. To a certain degree we could say the person may care about receiving a basic respect for having said something, but some people don't care about that even. Sometimes we are passionate, sometimes we just say things we don't care about.

Stubborn bunch, aye. They’ve done the heavy lifting, so perhaps have earned the right.

I’m familiar with the essay. What I found quite telling about it, is located in fn2, wherein it is admitted that the explication of the stated purpose of the essay, follows conditions "as I understand them to be”. — Mww

Well, footnote 1 talks about philosophical problems common between OLP philosophers and that similar questions enter into their attempts to deal with those problems. He says it is with these questions he is concerned, and qualifies that to say, with what he understand them to be. I take that to refer to the fact that among the common problems there are similar, but not the same, questions, and that Cavell counts (understands) certain of those questions to be his to answer among all the similar (though non-identical) ones that enter into dealing with those problems. I will also note that Cavell interestingly earlier says philosophy for him is a set of texts rather than a set of problems, so it may be that he counts (understands) the questions to be categorically about something else (the "what") than problems.

That's all you took from that essay?

“understanding” is precisely the quanta of the heavy lifting to which the especially post-Renaissance continentals directed themselves, and the anti-metatheoretical analyticals have back-burnered. — Mww

I enjoy Cavell because he talks about bridging that trans-continental divide, which I take as meaning that analytical philosophy can be meaningful to how we live our lives (being a better person, to use the parlance of the scurge that is self-help). I did talk about Witt's take on "understanding" with Meta in the last few comments.

Question: are images part and parcel of human mentality? — Mww

Well this sounds like a loaded question--what is "mentality"? Are we saying imagination? Or just the ability to bring up an image? I would say "part and parcel" sounds like a lot even with either in terms as general as "human" anything, but I'd need more I think.

Witt did not have a good grasp upon human thought and belief. Otherwise, he would not be looking for "hinge propositions" as the 'bedrock'. — creativesoul

That is actually a misapprehension based on a misquote. The teacher is only "inclined" to draw the line and say "this is what we do". His desire is not to "ground" anything as needed by one attempting to solve skepticism. The teacher is always open to try again to reach over the gap between us (except Ms. Kemik, horrible woman).

I'm afraid I will never understand you then, if you're not willing to compromise with your terms, and explain yourself in a way which appears to be intelligible to me. — Metaphysician Undercover

Oh the irony. The sense I was saying it was: being understanding. Of the sense as in "knowing", Witt will speak of "mastery of a technique" ("is able to") #150 or "now I can go on" #323 or that it is "in the application" #146 based on the "particular circumstances" #154. As if not a middle ground or agreement that people reach between my meaning and your interpretation, and not an inner process, but, as it were, being able to continue from the point of the other; the circumstance dictating what it is to show one can continue--here, being to apply a method.

If, simply asking the question, "what do you mean by...?" is the method, then ...I'm practicing it very well. I've been asking you, what do you mean by "ordinary criteria", by "grammar", etc. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not just asking questions. And not asking them on behalf of you, to me. Not "what do you mean by___" It's: "what do we mean when we say___?" This may appear trivial to you, but it is crucial to come up with something we would say about the concept, and prepare to elaborate on the context. And, as I said, then we can see and make claims about the grammar from the example. And "we" is, as I said, ever English speaker, as it is a claim to universality (subject of course to clarification, etc.)

I spoke of familiar, habitual activities, which most of language use is. These language acts are mostly just responses, reactions, to the particular circumstances which we find ourselves in, we might even call them reflexive. So these language acts cannot be directly tied to any meaning or intention. — Metaphysician Undercover

But this is to just divide acts/expressions into intended ones and unintended ones, so the intended ones still fall under the picture of a ever-present cause (for those "intended"). And this is different than my proposing the question of intention only comes up sometimes, not that it applies to all acts that are (pre?) "intended". And there will need to be very many more examples than of accidently and mistakenly to show all of intention's Grammar, which I will leave to Austin and Witt. After many examples, Witt will say we are inclined to say intention is internal to an action, it is "interpreted as the accompaniment to action." p. 219. That I can know what you intend, not as guessing thoughts but, that I might know what you will do (p. 223), as if it is imbedded in the situation. #337.

"My description is completely different from yours" is different than "how our lives have come together" (I would say "when"). Our shared language (concepts) is "how our lives have come together". Now our description of the Grammar of those concepts is subject to disagreement, but thus also open to agreement. Seeing the Grammar is to look at what we say when as instances of "how [when] our lives have come together"
— Antony Nickles

The claim that we have "come together" is not justified. To say that "our lives have come to together" is a false description. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is not "we" as in "you and I". It is "we" as in all Engilsh speakers (Cavell will say "native" speakers, not to be racist or exclusionary (intentionally) but to record the fact that learning a language is to learn (be trained in, is more accurate given Witt's student) all the things that we do and say. And here I am not saying people don't then disagree or have hidden motives or speak past each other or mistake a claim for a statement, etc.

how would we ask your question? "I made a mistake." "What was the cause?" Now there are a number of answers here, perhaps they show the grammar of explaining a mistake (as in confessing to it, asking for help in correcting it, or learning how it went wrong, etc.)
— Antony Nickles

I find that there's a problem with your example of "mistake". A mistake, no matter when or where it occurs, is a product of the particular circumstances. I think that is the only generalization we can make about mistakes, other than that something has gone wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

I guess I don't see where I implied that mistakes happen without circumstances--"product of" seems to need accounting for, as if a mistake was a result of, at least an outcome of, the circumstances. "I made a mistake." "What about the circumstances led to the mistake [as an outcome]?" And this seems like it is more of a desperate act than a mistake (in what context I can imagine). And "What circumstances was the mistake a result of?" And this could almost be an excuse; you see what looks like me trying to do one thing and messing it up (making a mistake), but to offer the circumstances up to qualify the mistake... I'm not sure this example works for a mistake or if it's hard to imagine the context this would be in--and this is what makes OLP hard sometimes. But it may turn out that "I" have to "own up to" the act of shooting the cow, as if my intention is the only thing it being a mistake hangs on. And we can here say "my intention" would not have come into the picture if I had hit the donkey (unless perhaps it was your donkey).

do you see that we have control over our own descriptions, the descriptions which we make, of whatever we describe? We can choose whatever words we want, even make up new ones. Furthermore, there is no need that we be truthful, or accurate, we can leave things out, and do all manners of deception, depending on what one's intention is. The intention of the individual is not completely irrelevant. So, how can there be such a thing as "our Grammar"?

It is (all of) our Grammar as it is all of our shared lives. And you don't need intention here (describing, choosing or inventing words, deceiving, are enough). Now if you have an example of what we say, and you describe it, the truth and accuracy of it is my seeing it as you do (not being persuaded or deceived into what you say). Witt refers to this not as agreeing in opinions, but in judgments. #241-2. Witt talks of perspecuity, and seeing the whole view, but his examples show there is a kind of epistemological ethics; he says we conjure up a picture designed for a god which flxes sense unambigously but with which we can do nothing, lacking meaning or purpose; instead, we go by side roads and detours to the seeming muddiness of actual use (#426).

— Metaphysician Undercover

I can break the Grammar of an apology; that doesn't mean an apology is not an apology, but that I am a jerk.
— Antony Nickles

If you break the Grammar of an apology, then you are not making an apology. If the thing is not consistent with the description, then it is not the named thing. Otherwise you could call anything an apology. — Metaphysician Undercover

Did I say this or you? What? Felicity in action!

We're pretty far apart... — creativesoul

"We are separate people, but not separated by anything, so we are answerable for everything that comes between us." - Cavell (roughly)

Overlooking the idea of "ordinary language use"...
— Antony Nickles

Seems quite an irrational move, remarkably so even, given that ordinary language is one of many irrevocably crucial elemental constituents of ordinary language philosophy. — creativesoul

Well I won't take this as deliberately obtuse (I assume you have not read the 20 comments at the start trying to iron this out nor the list of additional misconceptions I made halfway through)--I'll say cheeky, which is fine. I will simply say that "ordinary language use" makes it sound like it's contrasted to philosophical language use (as if I am merely advocating: "No terms!" "Speak like regular people!" "My opinion matters!" "Common sense!!"), and, more importantly, as if we are talking about "language use" as in a theory about how we use language, and not a (poorly-named) philosophical method (like, say, Hegel's) and as if "language use" is one thing (explained generally), instead of as varied as there are things to do and say, as Witt and Austin are attempting to show (the Grammar of each, how each works differently, basically--very basically.) And you failed to consider my response? or it just made so much sense you've moved on, yet somehow irrevocably changed?

Don't you see, what I've been saying, that this is what "understanding" is, to subject another's terms to one's own standards? * * * Interpretation is an act of subjecting your terms to my standards of judgement. If I have not interpreted what you have said, simply read the words and agreed to them, it is impossible that I have understood what you have said. — Metaphysician Undercover

Uhhhh... this is the opposite of understanding. You are never going to get Hegel unless you find a way to meet him on his ground through his terms as he uses them. I try to just imagine that terms are a word in a foreign language and that you have to understand them by inference and context. The sense of understanding that I am talking about is through "being understanding", instead of, I don't know how to put it--assuming they should write to you rather than you come to them; learn something new rather than assume you have the tools to figure it out ahead of time; or that the whole thing crashes down because you can poke one hole into it based on a general standard or logical necessity.

And I am not saying read the words and simply agree to them. It takes work to see what they see, it takes stretching your imagination, putting things in the context of the philosopher they are reacting to and the history of texts in the tradition. I think reading the words is only a start, and more people need to treat philosophers as if they are not easy to understand (Nietzsche knew this problem, and I think Witt suffered under it--taking the author of the Tractates and of the PI as the same person); as if everything is a statement that you either agree with or not.

Try to understand that it is a method not a theory; I have repeatedly given examples and samples of Witt's text.
— Antony Nickles

But I don't see that you are showing me a method. — Metaphysician Undercover

I suggest going back through all these comments and find the places were I am imagining something someone might say (in quotes). Those are the instances of method (I think there are some on the Witt page too. Sometimes it is "Imagine what one would say..." as well. The (sure, speculative) claims to the Grammar of the concept from the implication of what we say is meant not to be taken as independently justified; it is justified if the example allows you to see and agree with it. If not, you can (must) object to it with a different example, a more detailed context, etc. I do think you will balk at what you see as the indirect nature of this, but I think that is part of not seeing how the ways we live are reflected in what we say in a situation.

I think we need to know the intention to know what was meant. So we have the vicious circle whereby we cannot say what was meant by the word without knowing the intention, but we are wanting to say something about the intention by knowing what was meant. So we are actually completely excluded from describing intention, and all we can do is speculate. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sometimes (in regular life) you'll want to know the intention, as I have said, because something is fishy. But the picture that everything said is tied to a "meaning" or "intention" is the misconception that Austin and Witt spend their entire books overcoming, so maybe I'm not going to get you to see that here.

I have also tried to say that grammar is just a description of the ways in which our lives have come together to create these distinctions and terms of judgment and identity and possibility for each concept.
— Antony Nickles

So you are talking about a "shared grammar" here. And "grammar" means a description of how our lives have come together. But my description is completely different from yours.
* * *
If "grammar" is a description of the ways we have come together, as you have defined it, then it makes no sense to speak of a "shared grammar" because we've each come from different directions with different descriptions, therefore different grammars. — Metaphysician Undercover

Seeing the Grammar is to look at what we say when as instances of "how [when] our lives have come together" (I would say "when"). Our description of the Grammar of those concepts is subject to disagreement, but thus also open to agreement.

Under your definition of "grammar", I don't see how a concept could have a grammar. Grammar is a description of the possibility for a concept. How do we make the jump from describing the possibility for a concept (grammar), to the the claim that an actual concept has a grammar? Or, are all concepts just "possible concepts", because that is how they are described by "grammar", such that a "concept's grammar" implies the possibility for a concept? — Metaphysician Undercover

Possibilities of a concept (plural)--the senses of a concept, the ways it is moved forward, its conditions of employment, etc. Not possibility of a concept, as in its potential to be (at all). Sorta like the conditions of possibility in the Kantian sense.

Don't you recognize a separation between the thing described, and the description? — Metaphysician Undercover

The description is of what you see implied in the example of what we say when. You want to call the implications "things"? Sure.

It is a theory about the way intention works, it is not a description of the way that intention works. Actions, which are what is described, as " the ways in which our lives have come together to create these distinctions and terms of judgment and identity and possibility for each concept", are the results of intention, the effects. When you proceed to speculate about the cause of those actions, intention, it is theorizing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, the description is a claim about the ways in which intention works (sort of, basically, the Grammar of intention); you may disagree. But the description does not need a theory because it is based on the evidence of what we say when. I would not describe intention as a "cause" as it is not only not a part of an action, the actor may not even have an answer to a question about intention, and, as I said previously, the difference between motion and an action is not a matter of "intending" it; our motions are seen as "actions" based on our concepts (responding, anticipating, defying, etc.). This is going to require you to shift your whole picture of language and meaning.

To show the way a mistake works is to show the cause of a mistake. That is what I described in my last post, "the way mistakes work". But your study of grammar has no approach to this, because you have no way to apprehend the actual conception, which is where the mistake inheres. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, you can theorize about the "cause" of mistakes, or we can ask when we might say it: "What was the cause of your mistakenly shooting the cow, and not the donkey?" Of course, this is probably a different sense of "mistake" (not as used re actions) than I believe you are using. But how would we ask your question? "I made a mistake." "What was the cause?" Now there are a number of answers here, perhaps they show the grammar of explaining a mistake (as in confessing to it, asking for help in correcting it, or learning how it went wrong, etc.) Now do we want a theory to avoid the mistake? or is the theory the "cause" of the mistake (having created a standard for what is "right")?

Grammar is a description of this shared life. We may not have control over the sharing of our lives, which we've already had, but we do have control over our descriptions of it, and consequently we get some control over the way we share our lives in the future. — Metaphysician Undercover

I wouldn't say the control we have over our shared lives is through description (maybe politics, decent, violence, etc.--Emerson will call this "aversion", Thoureau of course, civil disobedience). I do agree that we can disagree over our descriptions of our Grammar (though we are not doing sociology), but there is a logic and rationality to this (through OLP's method), though no certainty of agreement, or the kind of justification you might want.

If grammar is just a description, then it is not "the ways our lives come together" but a description of that. We need not follow any such description, we might even reject a description on a judgement of inaccurate after reference to criteria. A description is really nothing more than a theory about the thing being described. — Metaphysician Undercover

This all works for me except we have not set our criteria ahead of time in making an assessment of a description of the implications of what is said when (Austin calls this "the descriptive fallacy"). It is a competition of details and breadth and imagination--like I said, if you have a better example and more details or a different context, we can sort that out rationally, though just not always, as with talk of art, or morals. Oh, and I understand "theory" here as like a guess, which is fine, but it is based on evidence.

Furthermore, if you ascribe to human beings the capacity to act freely, randomly etc., in a way which does not follow the description (grammar), then you are actually admitting that the description has inaccuracies. — Metaphysician Undercover

That doesn't follow, I can break the Grammar of an apology; that doesn't mean an apology is not an apology, but that I am a jerk. Part of the Grammar is seeing the consequences (or means of reconciliation)--what comes after. This is one of the important lessons of OLP (historicity of acts/communication--which Nietzsche learned about morals; Hegel/Emerson about our growth).

Is [OLP] not seeking a method toward truth and understanding (as other philosophies are), but rather a practical method for activities in the world. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would suggest that in learning (reflecting on) how "activities" (concepts) work, we are learning about ourselves, and the possibility to better ourselves in seeing our part in them and where we might go from there. One lesson of OLP is the responsibility we have to what we say; a responsibility traditional philosophy wanted to get out from under by having a picture that did not include that responsibility (and possibility of failure). As Cavell says, knowledge is not our only relation to the world.

moral philosophy seeks to understand intention directly. — Metaphysician Undercover

One of the great philosophical words, "directly". Others include "actually" "logically" "exactly" etc. Ironically, in a sense, traditional philosophy has been staring at itself (the picture it created) instead of turning and looking (Plato and others will say remembering) our ordinary Grammar.

The degree to which "our human lives are together" is extremely minimal. * * *Therefore, there is a fundamental separation between people which makes it impossible to speak about "the Grammar of language" in general, or, "the language-game" in general. * * * Instead of recognizing the individual differences between the individual perspectives of individual people, differences which need to be worked out through establishing consistency in interpretative, explanatory, and justificatory practices, through the application of rules and criteria, you simply take all this for granted, as a starting point. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well I would simply call this cynicism (we're talking pretty fundamental human concepts here), but it is philosophy's interpretation of our human condition of being separate (bodies) to make the individual special (and unreachable), or that the failure of knowledge is our separateness turned into an intellectual problem--that this separateness is our differences which need to be constantly reconciled (as if with every word). I'm not going to try to talk you out of this, but this is the slope that leads to a picture of every expression being intended or meant or thought and understood or interpreted, and those are all up to you and me. As if we were responsible not to what we have expressed (held to it), but that we are responsible for everything--the whole process--thus the need to perfect language (rather than ourselves).

I obviously can not get this across well (it is complicated), but I think it would be best, if you are still interested, to read a better explanation with much better examples than mine. I would try Cavell's essay Must We Mean What We Say (found the link) from the book of that name or, better yet, Knowing and Acknowledging from the same book (though that does not appear to be online).

It is an OLP claim that structurally, categorically, the process and identity of believing is not the same as that of thinking.
— Antony Nickles

We can think about something without believing it. — creativesoul

Well the full quote is: #574 "A proposition, and hence in another sense a thought, can be the 'expression' of belief, hope, expectation, etc. But believing is not thinking. (A grammatical remark.) The concepts of believing, expecting, hoping are less distantly related to one another than they are to the concept of thinking."

So I might have been a little hasty, but what you've said sounds like the grammar of thought is that every thought is either "believed" (not justified) or known (backed by something that ensures it as such).

A proposition as an expression of hoping "I have a great feeling about our project," or of expecting "I'm gonna kill it once I get that new technology," or of believing, "He looked into gene therapy as it might be a cure" (Witt calls this believing, like a hypothesis--see below). (I'm not sure in what sense of a proposition it is a thought, but here maybe just not the outward expression--my guess is he is saying this because the topic above it is thought compared to "belief".)

However, the process of believing is fundamentally the same as thinking. — creativesoul

Witt's claim is that believing is expressed in a proposition (which here he is saying can be thought (as it were, to yourself as well as externally). This is differentiated from picturing "belief" u]as[/u] a proposition, setting it up to be judged as a proposition (compared critically to true/false knowledge)--Witt's claim is that believing is a hypothesis (see the example above). See PI p. 162. "So it looks as if the assertion "I believe" were not the assertion of what is supposed in the hypothesis "I believe"! (emphasis in the original)

That's not to say "thought" doesn't come into it, just not in the way you may picture it. This is the next paragraph:

"575. When I sat down on this chair, of course I believed [had the hyposthesis] it would bear me. I had no thought of its possibly collapsing. But: 'In spite of everything that he did, I held fast to the belief. . . .' Here there is thought, and perhaps a constant struggle to renew an attitude."

It is only when one becomes aware of their own fallibility that the two are no longer the same. It is only when we begin to consider whether or not some thought or belief are true, that there can be a difference between thought and belief.... — creativesoul

And this is the skeptical fear which creates the desire for a standard of certainty for justified knowledge (as opposed to something deemed lesser) which is then used as the only standard instead of the ordinary criteria (Grammar) which varies with each concept as much as our interest in our lives--as Austin and Witt are in the business of showing.

[In OLP] are we the final arbiter; do we have the final say, regarding what counts as an "insert name here"? — creativesoul

As I explained above, the claim is to the Grammar implied in what we say when. It is an observation. It is made in Kant's "Universal Voice" (see my contribution to the Aesthetics as Objective post), which is to say for everyone to see for themselves--subject to if there is a more detailed example with a more appropriate context, etc., i.e., a closer description--but thus it is a rational discussion without statements relying on theories of justification (simply true/false, etc.).

It quite simply does not follow from the fact that there is more than one use for the same term that all uses have equal footing, are equally justified, are equally warranted, have equal explanatory power, do the same thing, afford us the same capabilities, etc. — creativesoul

This idea that what we need is "equal footing" or "have equal explanatory power" would be the exact issue being addressed: of wanting the same standard of knowledge applied to every concept (and every use of that)--when all this may be as varied as the Grammar of each and our lives are. Also, the claims are not explanations, but observations, descriptions.

What is the benefit of our taking such a careful account of, and/or placing such high regard upon ordinary language use? — creativesoul

As I've tried to explain elsewhere, we are not talking about "ordinary language use". It is the ordinary criteria (grammar) of language (for all our varied concepts)--this is seen indirectly through what we imply, etc. when we say "I believe ____".

Our account of everyday ordinary language use must meet certain standards in order for it to be true. Those standards are nothing less than the way that different people across the globe use the same terms. — creativesoul

The Grammar of each concept are not "certain standards" (as in all the same), and "true" (or false) is not the only criteria that has the value of truth (distinct, rational, rigorous, re identity, etc.). And OLP limits its claims to all English speakers as the Grammar/language is contingent on our the way we live (which is not to say this is a ground). That is not to say there are not ways to bring our lives/Grammar in line with, say, the "strangers" Witt discusses (on the page with the lion quote--as I discuss in another post), in as much as we can align our judgments, interests, what counts for what, and all the other ways we live (to have similar Grammar and thus a similar concept---hoping, misunderstanding, learning, etc.)

Has the conventional academic use "belief" become something quite different than the ordinary everyday use(s) of those same marks? Does academic convention pick out the same things as everyday ordinary people? If academia has altered the use of ordinary terms, and the different senses of the term are incompatible with one another, if the one negates the other, then which sense warrants our assent? — creativesoul

Overlooking the idea of "ordinary language use", yes, the ordinary Grammar of belief was wiped clean (as well as any context) by the kind of philosophy OLP is defining itself against for it to make a picture of philosophy created by its desire to rise above all the things that are uncertain to have a certain, universal, pre-determined criteria for knowledge. That is not to say that OLP philosophers are not rigorous, accountable, etc. or that in saying each person has a right to this type of claim, that this is just anyone's opinion (again, as gone over in the OP and other times above).

The problem I see here is a backward analysis. The processes of formal logic came into existence following the coming into existence of language. the application of rules, grammar, criteria, etc., was developed in an attempt to make language use logical, so that language could provide better understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well... that might be to jump a few steps. If I were going to tell a story, it would start that we learned language and our human lives together. At some point we started asking questions, like what is it to be a better person. But we wished for knowledge to provide the answer for us, but found it lacked the ability to fix the space opening between our world and our interest in it. And so we built a new language for knowledge, one that would be certain and cover all occurances no matter the situation. And it was so wide and comprehensive that it bridged the gap but it was as if we sacrificed the world to save our connection to it because we were never allowed to touch the world again. But then we realized that, when we had learned our language and our lives together, the things we said had a memory of the things we did. We didn't need to fix our langauge nor have knowledge secure the world, because in finding that memory we found the world again.

It's a stubborn bunch. I will say, the understanding of of OLP came over me all at once in a way. I don't believe I have the ability to present a description that interests people enough and allows for seeing the breadth of the change requested. I would suggest this Essay by Cavell, which is in response to someone so addresses the sticky points of seeing things a different way. Stick to your guns.

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

A concept has possibilities, as life does. These are described by grammar--the difference options ("senses" as Witt says), but, also, some concepts provide for where they are fluid, how they can be stretched, extended into new contexts, etc.(as much as some will not be defied without being deemed incorrect). Grammar is not everywhere prescribed by rules, not is our lives, and OLP is enforcing statements explaining Grammar, it is making open claims, refutable by anyone.

And I hate to say it, but "Grammar", "Sense", "Criteria", are all technical terms here. As I said, it is philosophy--but in traditional philosophy it is as if every word were a term.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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