77 ideas
| 21405 | Cicero sees wisdom in terms of knowledge, but earlier Stoics saw it as moral [Cicero, by Long] |
| Full Idea: Cicero (drawing on Panaetius) treats wisdom as if its province were primarily a disinterested pursuit of knowledge. But earlier Stoics gave purely moral definitions of wisdom. | |
| From: report of M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.11-20) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 5 | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that after long discussion most ancient (and even modern) philosophers would conclude that it is both. The 'intellectualism' of Socrates hovers in the background, implying that healthy knowledge produces virtue. |
| 20871 | Unfortunately we choose a way of life before we are old enough to think clearly [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: At the beginning of adolescence when our deliberative capacities are weak we decide on the way of life that we find attractive. So one gets entangled in a definite manner and pattern of life before one is able to judge which one is best. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.117) | |
| A reaction: Hence it is important to have lots of means for bailing out of education courses, jobs, and even marriage. At least university postpones the key life choices till the early twenties. |
| 2512 | Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Philosophical problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have already known. Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §109), quoted by Jerrold J. Katz - Realistic Rationalism Int.xi | |
| A reaction: A philosophical dispute can be settled by a piece of information, which may be already known to you, but new to me. Philosophical discussion can also point to a scientific research programme - i.e. a need for new information. I like the first sentence. |
| 4148 | What is your aim in philosophy? - To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: What is your aim in philosophy? - To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §309) | |
| A reaction: Ridiculous. Trying to think about thought is not a pointless buzzing - it is an attempt by humans to become like gods. |
| 17275 | Realist metaphysics concerns what is real; naive metaphysics concerns natures of things [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: We may broadly distinguish between two main branches of metaphysics: the 'realist' or 'critical' branch is concerned with what is real (tense, values, numbers); the 'naive' or 'pre-critical' branch concerns natures of things irrespective of reality. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The 'natures' of things are presumably the essences. He cites 3D v 4D objects, and the status of fictional characters, as examples of the second type. Fine says ground is central to realist metaphysics. |
| 22490 | Bring words back from metaphysics to everyday use [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], 116), quoted by Philippa Foot - Natural Goodness 7 n16 | |
| A reaction: A germ of ordinary language philosophy. It is wrong to think that metaphysics must be studied in the usages of ordinary language, but I strongly believe that words like 'essence' or 'objectivity' should retain their normal meaning when philosophising. |
| 6566 | The problem is to explain the role of contradiction in social life [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: When a contradiction appears, we say: "I didn't mean it like that"; the civil status of a contradiction, or its status in civil life: there is the philosophical problem. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §125), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: The point is that logical concepts such as contradiction are conventional, and not all-or-nothing, so we might agree that you didn't really contradict yourself (when perhaps you uttered a witty ironic paradox). I don't see the problem as philosophical. |
| 17282 | Truths need not always have their source in what exists [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: There is no reason in principle why the ultimate source of what is true should always lie in what exists. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.03) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the weak point of the truthmaker theory, since truths about non-existence are immediately in trouble. Saying reality makes things true is one thing, but picking out a specific bit of it for each truth is not so easy. |
| 17283 | If the truth-making relation is modal, then modal truths will be grounded in anything [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The truth-making relation is usually explicated in modal terms, ...but this lets in far too much. Any necessary truth will be grounded by anything. ...The fact that singleton Socrates exists will be a truth-maker for the proposition that Socrates exists. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.03) | |
| A reaction: If truth-makers are what has to 'exist' for something to be true, then maybe nothing must exist for a necessity to be true - in which case it has no truth maker. Or maybe 2 and 4 must 'exist' for 2+2=4? |
| 17286 | Logical consequence is verification by a possible world within a truth-set [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Under the possible worlds semantics for logical consequence, each sentence of a language is associated with a truth-set of possible worlds in which it is true, and then something is a consequence if one of these worlds verifies it. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.10) | |
| A reaction: [compressed, and translated into English; see Fine for more symbolic version; I'm more at home in English] |
| 18743 | Wittgenstein says we want the grammar of problems, not their first-order logical structure [Wittgenstein, by Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: For the later Wittgenstein what we should be after is the grammatical structure of philosophical problems, not the first-order logical structure of such problems. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R - Mathematical Methods in Philosophy 2 | |
| A reaction: This is the most sympathetic spin I have ever seen put on the apparent rather anti-philosophical later Wittgenstein. I nurse doubts about highly formal approaches to philosophy, and maybe 'grammar' (whatever that is) is our target. |
| 4139 | Naming is a preparation for description [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Naming is a preparation for description. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §049) | |
| A reaction: Something has to be the starting point for a description. And yet a description could turn out to be an elaborate name. |
| 4946 | A name is not determined by a description, but by a cluster or family [Wittgenstein, by Kripke] |
| Full Idea: According to Wittgenstein (and Searle) the referent of a name is determined not by a single description but by some cluster or family. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §079) by Saul A. Kripke - Naming and Necessity lectures Lecture 1 | |
| A reaction: It is because of this characteristically woolly, indeterminate and relativist view of Wittgenstein that I (and most people) find Kripke's notion of a 'baptism' so refreshing. It cuts throught the fog of language, and connects to reality. |
| 17272 | 2+2=4 is necessary if it is snowing, but not true in virtue of the fact that it is snowing [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is necessary that if it is snowing then 2+2=4, but the fact that 2+2=4 does not obtain in virtue of the fact that it is snowing. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.01) | |
| A reaction: Critics dislike 'in virtue of' (as vacuous), but I can't see how you can disagree with this obvervation of Fine's. You can hardly eliminate the word 'because' from English, or say p is because of some object. We demand the right to keep asking 'why?'! |
| 17276 | If you say one thing causes another, that leaves open that the 'other' has its own distinct reality [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It will not do to say that the physical is causally determinative of the mental, since that leaves open the possibility that the mental has a distinct reality over and above that of the physical. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: The context is a defence of grounding, so that if we say the mind is 'grounded' in the brain, we are saying rather more than merely that it is caused by the brain. A ghost might be 'caused' by a bar of soap. Nice. |
| 17284 | An immediate ground is the next lower level, which gives the concept of a hierarchy [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is the notion of 'immediate' ground that provides us with our sense of a ground-theoretic hierarchy. For any truth, we can take its immediate grounds to be at the next lower level. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.05 'Mediate') | |
| A reaction: Are the levels in the reality, the structure or the descriptions? I vote for the structure. I'm defending the idea that 'essence' picks out the bottom of a descriptive level. |
| 17285 | 'Strict' ground moves down the explanations, but 'weak' ground can move sideways [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: We might think of strict ground as moving us down in the explanatory hierarchy. ...Weak ground, on the other hand, may also move us sideways in the explanatory hierarchy. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.05 'Weak') | |
| A reaction: This seems to me rather illuminating. For example, is the covering law account of explanation a 'sideways' move in explanation. Are inductive generalities mere 'sideways' accounts. Both fail to dig deeper. |
| 17288 | We learn grounding from what is grounded, not what does the grounding [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is the fact to be grounded that 'points' to its ground and not the grounds that point to what they ground. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.11) | |
| A reaction: What does the grounding may ground all sorts of other things, but what is grounded only has one 'full' (as opposed to 'partial', in Fine's terminology) ground. He says this leads to a 'top-down' approach to the study of grounds. |
| 17281 | If grounding is a relation it must be between entities of the same type, preferably between facts [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: In so far as ground is regarded as a relation it should be between entities of the same type, and the entities should probably be taken as worldly entities, such as facts, rather than as representational entities, such as propositions. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: That's more like it (cf. Idea 17280). The consensus of this discussion seems to point to facts as the best relata, for all the vagueness of facts, and the big question of how fine-grained facts should be (and how dependent they are on descriptions). |
| 17280 | Ground is best understood as a sentence operator, rather than a relation between predicates [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Ground is perhaps best regarded as an operation (signified by an operator on sentences) rather than as a relation (signified by a predicate) | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: Someone in this book (Koslicki?) says this is to avoid metaphysical puzzles over properties. I don't like the idea, because it makes grounding about sentences when it should be about reality. Fine is so twentieth century. Audi rests ground on properties. |
| 17290 | Only metaphysical grounding must be explained by essence [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: If the grounding relation is not metaphysical (such as normative or natural grounding), there is no need for there to be an explanation of its holding in terms of the essentialist nature of the items involved. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.11) | |
| A reaction: He accepts that some things have partial grounds in different areas of reality. |
| 17274 | Philosophical explanation is largely by ground (just as cause is used in science) [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: For philosophers interested in explanation - of what accounts for what - it is largely through the notion of ontological ground that such questions are to be pursued. Ground, if you like, stands to philosophy as cause stands to science. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: Why does the ground have to be 'ontological'? It isn't the existence of the snow that makes me cold, but the fact that I am lying in it. Better to talk of 'factual' ground (or 'determinative' ground), and then causal grounds are a subset of those? |
| 17278 | We can only explain how a reduction is possible if we accept the concept of ground [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is only by embracing the concept of a ground as a metaphysical form of explanation in its own right that one can adequately explain how a reduction of the reality of one thing to another should be understood. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: I love that we are aiming to say 'how' a reduction should be understood, and not just 'that' it exists. I'm not sure about Fine's emphasis on explaining 'realities', when I think we are after more like structural relations or interconnected facts. |
| 17287 | Facts, such as redness and roundness of a ball, can be 'fused' into one fact [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Given any facts, there will be a fusion of those facts. Given the facts that the ball is red and that it is round, there is a fused fact that it is 'red and round'. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.10) | |
| A reaction: This is how we make 'units' for counting. Any type of thing which can be counted can be fused, such as the first five prime numbers, forming the 'first' group for some discussion. Any objects can be fused to make a unit - but is it thereby a 'unity'? |
| 15106 | Essence is expressed by grammar [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Essence is expressed by grammar. ...Grammar tells us what kind of object anything is. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §371-3) | |
| A reaction: Enigmatic, as usual. The second part seems to imply sortal essentialism, though the emphasis on grammar seems to make it highly conventional, rather than a reflection of 'real' sorts. |
| 17279 | Even a three-dimensionalist might identify temporal parts, in their thinking [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Even the three-dimensionalist might be willing to admit that material things have temporal parts. For given any persisting object, he might suppose that 'in thought' we could mark out its temporal segments or parts. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: A big problem with temporal parts is how thin they are. Hawley says they are as fine-grained as time itself, but what if time has no grain? How thin can you 'think' a temporal part to be? Fine says imagined parts are grounded in things, not vice versa. |
| 17289 | Every necessary truth is grounded in the nature of something [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It might be held as a general thesis that every necessary truth is grounded in the nature of certain items. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.11) | |
| A reaction: [He cites his own 1994 for this] I'm not sure if I can embrace the 'every' in this. I would only say, more cautiously, that I can only make sense of necessity claims when I see their groundings - and I don't take a priori intuition as decent grounding. |
| 17273 | Each basic modality has its 'own' explanatory relation [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: I am inclined to the view that ....each basic modality should be associated with its 'own' explanatory relation. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.01) | |
| A reaction: He suggests that 'grounding' connects the various explanatory relations of the different modalities. I like this a lot. Why assert any necessity without some concept of where the necessity arises, and hence where it is grounded? You've got to eat. |
| 6600 | The belief that fire burns is like the fear that it burns [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The belief that fire will burn me is of the same kind as the fear that it will burn me. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §473) | |
| A reaction: Most of our beliefs are forced on us, rather than chosen, and this nice remark gives an indication of the reason. It dovetails with Peirce's pragmatic approach to be belief (e.g. Idea 6598), which is well developed by Robert Fogelin. |
| 4153 | Are sense-data the material of which the universe is made? [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Are sense-data the material of which the universe is made? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §401) | |
| A reaction: Presumably the question is meant to be absurd, and to a realist it is. You can't serious think that a filing cabinet is made of sensations. |
| 6501 | As sense-data are necessarily private, they are attacked by Wittgenstein's objections [Wittgenstein, by Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Sense-data are usually conceived as necessarily private to individual observers, so the final crisis for the empiricist conception of perception was Wittgenstein's famous polemic against such private objects. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Howard Robinson - Perception IV.1 | |
| A reaction: Personally I remain unconvinced by Wittgenstein's very elusive argument, but I think there are plenty of other reasons for doubting whether the idea of sense-data throws much light on our understanding of the processes of perception. |
| 11079 | How do I decide when to accept or obey an intuition? [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If intuition is an inner voice - how do I know how I am to obey it? And how do I know that it doesn't mislead me? For if it can guide me right, it can also guide me wrong. ((Intuition an unnecessary shuffle)) | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], 213) | |
| A reaction: Presumably the last point, in brackets, means that you still have to evaluate the intuition, with which I would agree. I take judgement to occur in the space of reasons, to which intuition is a major contributor. Only a fool would just accept intuition. |
| 4160 | One can mistrust one's own senses, but not one's own beliefs [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: One can mistrust one's own senses, but not one's own beliefs. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.x) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, because we don't choose our beliefs. We don't even choose whether to believe a sensation - we just focus harder until belief does or doesn't occur. |
| 17291 | We explain by identity (what it is), or by truth (how things are) [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: I think it should be recognised that there are two fundamentally different types of explanation; one is of identity, or of what something is; and the other is of truth, or of how things are. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.11) |
| 17271 | Is there metaphysical explanation (as well as causal), involving a constitutive form of determination? [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: In addition to scientific or causal explanation, there maybe a distinctive kind of metaphysical explanation, in which explanans and explanandum are connected, not through some causal mechanism, but through some constitutive form of determination. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I'm unclear why determination has to be 'constitutive', since I would take determination to be a family of concepts, with constitution being one of them, as when chess pieces determine a chess set. Skip 'metaphysical'; just have Determinative Explanation. |
| 19273 | I don't have the opinion that people have minds; I just treat them as such [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the 'opinion' that he has a soul. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.iv) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be precisely Dennett's 'intentional stance', where we conjure up minds in things like chess-playing computers, irrespective of whether we believe they are conscious. |
| 5663 | It is irresponsible to generalise from my own case of pain to other people's [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word 'pain' means - must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalise from the one case so irresponsibly? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §293) | |
| A reaction: This is the best known objection to Mill's Argument from Analogy for other minds. It appears to be induction from a single instance. The better approach seems to be ABduction (best explanation), in which my own case is just some evidence. |
| 19272 | To imagine another's pain by my own, I must imagine a pain I don't feel, by one I do feel [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If one has to imagine someone else's pain on the model of one's own, this is none too easy a thing to do: for I have to imagine pain which I do not feel on the model of pain which I do not feel. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §302) | |
| A reaction: I just don't feel a deep problem here. Wittgenstein didn't know about mirror neurons, which trigger in me a reaction like the one causing your behaviour. |
| 4161 | If a lion could talk, we could not understand him [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If a lion could talk, we could not understand him. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.xi) | |
| A reaction: How does he know these things?! We could at least know whether they talked or merely grunted, by studying their correlated behaviour. Cf. dolphins. I think he is wrong. All talk is understandable to a degree, even God's. |
| 7392 | If a lion could talk, it would be nothing like other lions [Dennett on Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: I think that if a lion could talk, that lion would have a mind so different from the general run of lion minds, that although we could understand him just fine, we would learn little about ordinary lions from him. | |
| From: comment on Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.xi) by Daniel C. Dennett - Consciousness Explained 14.2 | |
| A reaction: This is rather more sensible than Wittgenstein's famous enigmatic utterance. |
| 5676 | To say that I 'know' I am in pain means nothing more than that I AM in pain [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: As the word is normally used, it can't be said of me at all that I 'know' I am in pain; what is it supposed to mean - except perhaps that I am in pain? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §246) | |
| A reaction: This raises the question of whether self-consciousness implies self-knowledge, and suggests that it doesn't. All our normal talk of knowledge requires some sort of reliable justification of beliefs, and we can't drop that in the case of self-knowledge. |
| 17277 | If mind supervenes on the physical, it may also explain the physical (and not vice versa) [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is not enough to require that the mental should modally supervene on the physical, since that still leaves open the possibility that the physical is itself ultimately to be understood in terms of the mental. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: See Horgan on supervenience. Supervenience is a question, not an answer. The first question is whether the supervenience is mutual, and if not, which 'direction' does it go in? |
| 4154 | Why are we not aware of the huge gap between mind and brain in ordinary life? [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Why does the feeling of an unbridgeable gulf between consciousness and brain-process not come into the considerations of our ordinary life? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §412) | |
| A reaction: Nice question. Presumably Wittgenstein has a quasi-behaviouristic answer. People don't now ignore it? They retreat into crazy spiritualism. |
| 4158 | An 'inner process' stands in need of outward criteria [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: An 'inner process' stands in need of outward criteria. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §580) | |
| A reaction: Why do processes need 'criteria'? I have never understood why I can't have private criteria, or at least private modifications of public criteria. |
| 6165 | Every course of action can either accord or conflict with a rule, so there is no accord or conflict [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule. Answer: if everything can accord with the rule, then everything can conflict with it, so there is no accord or conflict. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §201) | |
| A reaction: This is a very interesting claim which goes beyond the private language question. It seems to imply, for example, Dancy's 'Particularism' about morality, which is a general rejection of rules and principles in moral thought. |
| 4143 | One cannot obey a rule 'privately', because that is a practice, not the same as thinking one is obeying [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: 'Obeying a rule' is a practice. And to think one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule. Hence it is not possible to obey a rule 'privately': otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be the same thing as obeying it. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §202) | |
| A reaction: The core of the Private Language argument. But if I drive on the right erroneously thinking it is the law, I can still make progress until I meet someone. |
| 7092 | If individuals can't tell if they are following a rule, how does a community do it? [Grayling on Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The problem facing a putative private language-user - namely, that he cannot tell whether he is, or only thinks he is, following a rule - also faces the community as a whole; how does the community tell whether it is following a rule? | |
| From: comment on Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §580) by A.C. Grayling - Wittgenstein Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: Nice question. If you really get into the sceptical frame of mind that Wittgenstein reached about rules, almost everything seems impossible. How can I move? How can I speak? How can one instant follow another? How can I understand a word? |
| 4138 | Is white simple, or does it consist of the colours of the rainbow? [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Is white simple, or does it consist of the colours of the rainbow? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §047) | |
| A reaction: A nice challenge to externalism. White remains simple long after experts have told us it is complex. |
| 7055 | Externalist accounts of mental content begin in Wittgenstein [Wittgenstein, by Heil] |
| Full Idea: The roots of externalist accounts of mental content lie in Wittgenstein. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by John Heil - From an Ontological Point of View 18.2 n1 | |
| A reaction: This points to the key idea being that content involves the whole language community, rather than that it involves the physical stuffs of the world, such as water. I suspect that Wittgenstein is right, but Putnam is wrong. |
| 12576 | Possessing a concept is knowing how to go on [Wittgenstein, by Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: Wittgenstein implies that which concepts a thinker is capable of possessing depends on the ways in which he is capable of finding a natural way to go on. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Christopher Peacocke - A Study of Concepts 1.2 | |
| A reaction: This doesn't seem to amount to much. Presumably someone who failed to grasp a concept would demonstrate the fact by going on in a silly way, and whether or not it was silly might not be obvious. A genius may go on in a quirky way. |
| 4157 | Concepts direct our interests and investigations, and express those interests [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Concepts lead us to make investigations; are the expression of our interest, and direct our interest. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §570) | |
| A reaction: This presumably points to the evolutionary origin of our concept-creating capacity, though I am not sure that it defines what a concept actually is. |
| 12606 | Man learns the concept of the past by remembering [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Man learns the concept of the past by remembering. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.13) | |
| A reaction: [quoted by Peacocke] Is it the case that we learn all of our concepts by doing? Obviously not, since we can be taught them. Could you have no long-term memories (head trauma), and be taught the concept of the past by someone else? |
| 4141 | Various games have a 'family resemblance', as their similarities overlap and criss-cross [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: I shall say 'games' form a family, with a 'family resemblance', for the resemblances within a family - build, eyes, temperament etc. - overlap and criss-cross in the same way. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §067) | |
| A reaction: A very helpful idea for the nominalist view of universals, particularly for showing how concepts shade off indeterminately at the edges. |
| 23450 | Wittgenstein rejected his earlier view that the form of language is the form of the world [Wittgenstein, by Morris,M] |
| Full Idea: Wittgenstein's later work rejects the central thesis of the Tractatus's philosophy of language, that the form of language is the same as the form of the world. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus Intro.4 | |
| A reaction: I associate the earlier view with the stoic belief that nature is wholly rational, and that our reasoning can match it. I take it for granted that language largely matches the world, but we must explain why so many people believe absurdities. |
| 4150 | Asking about verification is only one way of asking about the meaning of a proposition [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Asking whether and how a proposition can be verified is only a particular way of asking 'How do you mean?' The answer is a contribution to the grammar of the proposition. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §353) | |
| A reaction: 'How' a proposition is verified seems utterly irrelevant. What situation in reality provides the verification must have something to do with the meaning. Cat-on-mat is what counts, not whether you see it, hear it or smell it. |
| 6567 | For Wittgenstein, words are defined by their use, just as chess pieces are [Wittgenstein, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: For Wittgenstein, just as pieces in a game such as chess are defined by the rules that govern their moves, the meanings of words are similarly defined by the rules that govern their employment. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: Fogelin's note points out that it is more complex than this. It is hard to dispute the chess case, but while words like 'and' and 'not' may be given entirely functional definitions, others don't work like that: John, run, red, solid, pain, ow! …. |
| 6169 | We do not achieve meaning and understanding in our heads, but in the world [Wittgenstein, by Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: For Wittgenstein, meaning and understanding are not things that we do or achieve in our heads; they are things we achieve in the world. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §202) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Can't we achieve anything in our heads? Mental arithmetic seems to be fairly mental, unless we are going to be absurdly behaviouristic. If we can achieve some things in our heads, why not lots of things? |
| 4155 | We all seem able to see quite clearly how sentences represent things when we use them [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: It it be asked, "How do sentences manage to represent?" the answer might be, "Don't you know? You certainly see it when you use them." For nothing is concealed. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §435) | |
| A reaction: A tool isn't its use, even though it becomes obvious how a tool works when it is used. It has a use because it has a certain nature or property. |
| 4137 | In the majority of cases the meaning of a word is its use in the language [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: For a large class of cases - though not for all - the meaning of a word is its use in the language. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §043) | |
| A reaction: Defended by Paul Horwich, but I don't like this. If "swordfish" is a password, its meaning and its use are miles apart. Meaning connects to reality, but use doesn't. |
| 4142 | To understand a sentence means to understand a language [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: To understand a sentence means to understand a language. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §198) | |
| A reaction: Does this make learning a language logically impossible? Helen Keller only knew one word at the beginning. |
| 4149 | We don't have 'meanings' in our minds in addition to verbal expressions [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: When I think in language, there aren't 'meanings' going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §329) | |
| A reaction: No, but words have properties, like being meaningful, or long, or beautiful. They are not abstractions, or empty counters which can be used for anything. |
| 4156 | Make the following experiment: say "It's cold here" and mean "It's warm here" [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Make the following experiment: say "It's cold here" and mean "It's warm here". | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §510) | |
| A reaction: A lovely experiment, whatever it proves. It is easier if the meaning is the truth, rather than the words. I try to weld a new word onto my experience. |
| 4145 | How do words refer to sensations? [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: How do words refer to sensations? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §244) | |
| A reaction: A very nice question, to be remembered when discussing how we refer to beauty, gold, water or the present King of France. |
| 4140 | The standard metre in Paris is neither one metre long nor not one metre long [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: There is one thing of which one can say neither that it is one metre long, nor that it is not one metre long, and that is the standard metre in Paris. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §050) | |
| A reaction: The remark which inspired Kripke's causal theory. Clearly W. is wrong, because it is one metre long, but why is it that length? |
| 6166 | Was Wittgenstein's problem between individual and community, or between occasions for an individual? [Rowlands on Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: There are two interpretations of Wittgenstein here: the community interpretation sees error in a rule between the individual and the community, where the individual interpretation sees the problem between repeated occasions in the use of a sign. | |
| From: comment on Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §202) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Rowlands brings out how a lot hangs on which of these two interpretations we opt for, but also that if the individual has a problem, this may logically imply the same problem for the community. The individual interpretation would be a deeper problem. |
| 7875 | If a brilliant child invented a name for a private sensation, it couldn't communicate it [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Let's assume the child is a genius and itself invents a name for the sensation! - But then, of course, he couldn't make himself understood when he used the word. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §257) | |
| A reaction: [His example is a sensation with no behaviour] Sensations are not just related to behaviour; they are related to external objects, and to parts of the body. We doubt the sensations of others if they can't name the object or the body part. |
| 4146 | We cannot doublecheck mental images for correctness (or confirm news with many copies of the paper) [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If the mental image of a train timetable cannot itself be tested for correctness, how can it confirm the correctness of the first memory? (As if someone were to buy several copies of the morning paper to assure himself that what it said was true). | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §265) | |
| A reaction: An important point for the epistemological sceptic. Could God do an infinite regress of checks on the truth of his mental images? |
| 4147 | If we only named pain by our own case, it would be like naming beetles by looking in a private box [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If someone says he only knows what pain is from his own case, suppose everyone had a box with something in it (a 'beetle'). We can't see into other boxes, so we say what a beetle is by looking in our own box. The contents of each box could be different. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §293) | |
| A reaction: But pain is private. Children must guess the meaning of parts of the language that refer to inner experience, like 'sad' or 'hopeful'. Body language brings our private concepts together, but error seems possible. |
| 5659 | If the reference is private, that is incompatible with the sense being public [Wittgenstein, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Wittgenstein's claim is that the assumption that the reference is private (being observable to one person alone) is incompatible with the hypothesis that the sense is public. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §293) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.19 | |
| A reaction: An illuminating summary, showing the link between the private language argument and modern 'externalism' about the meaning of concepts (e.g. Idea 4099). I still don't find Wittgenstein's claim conclusive. Something is definitely private. |
| 4152 | Getting from perceptions to words cannot be a private matter; the rules need an institution of use [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: I could not apply any rules to a private transition from what is seen to words. Here the rules really would hang in the air; for the institution of their use is lacking. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §380) | |
| A reaction: That puts the argument nicely. In studying art or wine you learn what to say about your private experiences. |
| 4136 | To imagine a language means to imagine a form of life [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: To imagine a language means to imagine a form of life. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §019) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be about the transparency of language, but it supports meaning as truth conditions, rather than as use. |
| 4144 | Common human behaviour enables us to interpret an unknown language [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The common behaviour of mankind is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §206) | |
| A reaction: This is a behaviourist spin on the idea of charity, but it leads to Davidson's assumption that most alien beliefs must be true. |
| 11049 | To communicate, language needs agreement in judgment as well as definition [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in judgments. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §242) | |
| A reaction: If someone is locked into a highly alien viewpoint, then communication with them does seem to be virtually impossible. Amenability to reason, and consensus on elementary facts, seems to be the sine qua non of communication. |
| 6658 | What is left over if I subtract my arm going up from my raising my arm? [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: What is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §621) | |
| A reaction: Wittgenstein's implication seems to be that nothing is left over, but I would have thought that the will was the thing left over when you decide to raise your arm, but then discover that you are paralysed. |
| 6031 | The essence of propriety is consistency [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: The whole essence of propriety is quite certainly consistency. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.110) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me the key intuition on which Kant built his deontological ethical theory. However, opponents say the consistency requires principles, and these are the enemies of truly good human behaviour, which involves Aristotle's 'particulars'. |
| 4151 | Grammar tells what kind of object anything is - and theology is a kind of grammar [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Grammar tells what kind of object anything is. (Theology as grammar) | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §373) | |
| A reaction: A classic twentieth century blunder, originating in Frege and culminating in Quine, of thinking that the analysis of language is the last word in ontology. |
| 4159 | The human body is the best picture of the human soul [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The human body is the best picture of the human soul. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.iv) | |
| A reaction: Nice. How did we imagine the soul before reading that remark? My soul requires fingernails and eyelids in order to fulfil its essential nature. |