I agree with someone's suggestion, I think it was McDowell's, that perhaps it's best to understand the Rule Following Paradox as analogous with the problem of perception: whereas with perception we ask "How could merely causal interactions between our body and the world provide a justification for a belief?", with the RFP we ask "How could a belief or an intention be considered a cause for our action?".
Yes, it’s a good question. Although the question in rule-following isn’t so much how a mental state causes action, but rather, whether any mental state, or any other fact about an individual, determines the correctness of an action.
@@AtticPhilosophy It's less about causal powers of mental states (although it seems that Kant thought it was to some extent) but rather about intention in action.
At heart the "rule paradox" is just a restatement of the problem of induction, or of computational irreducibility, or just a version of the Halting Problem You can't say for sure what the rule is until you reach the end, and you can't know when or if you will reach and end, until you do. In the meantime, use the simplest rule that accounts for the data so far, that most people would agree with, until it is contradicted, then revise it as needed.
Did you really did understand his presentation? So what if someone is following his own private rule that we don't know about, and we think that person is following a generally recognized rule (a public rule, if you like)? What is the significance of our misunderstanding (or misinterpretation) of what that person is doing? And how does this relate to Hume's problem of induction (which I know fairly well so need no instruction in that)? Can you explain all this to me? Thank you.
Happens in Minecraft, when I'm building I find I place things in a pattern and a rule applied without knowing what the rule itself is, but catching myself using it all the time. Small blocks of meaning.
In the U. S., turkeys and farmers have a rules-based problem that illustrates how each party may see their different interpretation of a rule as valid... Until it isn't. To the turkey, every day just after sunup, the Farmer feeds me. The Farmer follows the same pattern, until the morning that he harvests the turkey.
I think one thing that is important to remember here is that Wittgenstein was talking specifically about language and this paradox is an extremely potent metaphor for rules-based teaching in L2 grammar acquisition. It's super common for someone to say "if you're continuously doing something, you add -ing to show you're doing that" only for the student to say "I'm having a dog" and the teacher to reveal, that, no, actually English follows the "use -ing for continuous actions unless it's the word 'have, then you don't use -ing and simply say you have a dog, unless it's not a dog and it's an emotional experience such as a 'bad time', in which case you do say you are having a bad time, unless your original intention in saying you were having a dog is that you are pregnant and a puppy is inside you, in which case it is perfectly correct to say you are having a dog..."
I just got time to watch it, a great video indeed. I am glad you lean towards the communitarian side, as it is, at least to me, better grounded and argumented for.
If we define the addition by the use of the Succ() operator it follows that If Succ(X) = Succ(Y), then X must equal Y. since this does not hold for QSucc() we know we were were always doing addition, even if we never added any number in the Quadditiion domain.
I followed your examples of the rule following paradox but not the point of them or indeed what exactly is paradoxical. Other commentators seem to have understood so I guess it’s my lack of understanding that is the problem (but I may not be alone in my confusion). A appeared to follow the common sense rule and B understood what was happening. A then appeared to stop following the common sense rule and applied a new rule which B was unaware of. At this stage we don’t know whether the new rule works or not (it could turn out to be a quicker way to the destination which A had learned by experience [or by satnav]). How is that a paradox? Once A explained her new rule to B she understood what was going on even if she didn’t understand why. Was W simply trying to say that people who are communicating must first agree on the “meaning” of their words for effective communication? I’ve watched two of your videos now and enjoyed them both but this one has left me a bit stumped - sorry!
The thing about customs is that they build or change through time. So 'subjective' here can be read as something like "evolving over time" rather than, say, "fixed in the stars". If this is related with the notion of rule following as computation, rule-following scepticism can then be understood as a symptom of computational irreducibility.
I see meaning of words as something induced, reenforced and evolved by a cluster of actors, the true definitions of words are fuzzy distributed definitions in each actor and piece of consumable useful information, yet meaning is only ever fully realized with the addition of context and yet levels of subjectiveness still remains, because misunderstanding remains.
Great content! I am assuming probably not, given your more anlytical focus, but have your read any Heidegger? In particular Being and Time? I find so many interesting parallels between the phenomenological Heidegger and the later Wittgenstein's emphasis on practice/custom and meaning in use. Admittedly, I am much more familiar with the former than the latter, so it remains rather vague as of yet, but I could very well see the Heidegger of Being and Time saying "well, of course" to a lot of W's ponderings in PI. W has a more sophisticated understanding of the more technical side of language in my humble estimation, but still, H bypasses many of the problems with which W is dealing from the outset. Also, they both seem to share a mystical temperament of sorts.
It’s seems like that Quaddition is a rule with a exception. The addition is correct if the process of adding them together is similar to past processes of adding. If they are not then they will produce incorrect outputs. Now Quaddition is like addition just that at some point it introduces a anomaly process which doesn’t resemble past Quaddition processes on lower numbers. It is in some sense a conjunction of two different rules bound into one. So if one does not introduce the except beforehand, then yes the fact that one’s current behavior or thinking does not resemble one’s past behavior or thinking means that the rule has been broken. So I would take a regularity resemblance as the basis of what makes usage correct or incorrect and any exception must be introduced beforehand.
@@AtticPhilosophy Yes, but past behavior resembles addition more then quaddition. I think I should give a example. Let’s say we use logic gates to build a addition machine. Now the machine can only add a finite number of cases. But there is a regularity in the pattern of relationships between logic gates. If we extend this regular pattern then we can add more cases. But for Quaddition, we are forced at one point to introduce a irregularity in the pattern. Similar if I follow a arrow and then at one point I don’t follow the arrow, then my present behavior does not resemble my past behavior even if my past behavior agrees with both rules. Because in one rule the regularity is extended but in the other the regularity is broken at one point.
The rule-following section is a place where I think Wittgenstein touches Heidegger. There are quite a few overlaps in PI with the popular phenomenologists and he offers yet a different way through by avoiding the theorizing urge. I am not the biggest fan of Kripke's very skeptical reading of Wittgenstein. The argument really reads to me to point out the limit of the rule-following mentality we are easily bewitched by in a "turtles all the way down" scenario. But it is never enough for LW to point out the flaw, he wants to show us the way to change our thought. And that change is the act "blindly", the bedrock comments, the forms of life. If the meaning of a word is its use in language, then the meaning of following a rule is the action in a form of life. I feel like PI is an exceptionally long cautionary explanation why something like Cartesian skepticism or Husserl's bracketing doesn't work. And that began in the Tractatus "back to rough ground". Please note I am just an LW fan, read him many times. Not a professional philosopher. So take my comments with a grain of salt :) Thank you for the video.
Andrea Guardo is a contemporary defender of Kripkenstein and the skeptical, anti-semantical approach to solving the paradox. He has many interesting papers on the topic.
I suspect much of the antipathy to Kripke's sceptical solution arises from the view that Wittgenstein's work represents a struggle against scepticism as a solution to anything. The Investigations might be seen as a reminder that philosophical objectivity has its limits, and those limits are the city limits of the city of language. This doesn't necessarily invalidate the role of philosophy in clearly describing problems through analysis, however. Wittgenstein was, of course, maddeningly opaque on this.
I think something like that, after reading Wittgenstein: lets take the implication as an example. I could say if I go to London, i will talk to you. So, S=>P. But, it depends, as all speech, of the context of it. So I could be meaning S P, it depends, I could have said IF I go to London, i will talk to you, after all, real people don't use the expression "only and only if" in their everyday language.. How could we decide which formula is the correct? Well, we can't. So symbolic logic, when it come to natural speech, is not a science, its an art of interpretation, a game. And sometimes, scientist interpret in this way a relation of implication: if the water boils then its temperature is >= 100 C. Well, the temperature is over 100, so the water boils, and if it boils, it is over 100. Recently, I read "if there were life in Mars, then the new Nasa probe will probe will find traces of it", well, in the end of the article, they wrote, we expect the new probe to find traces of life, microorganism, on Mars so we will be able validated our hypotheses.
The “quaddition” argument reminds me of adding uranium atoms together. 1 + 1 = 2, etc. until you reach critical mass! (Big numbers added together = boom!)
Thanks. I understand Wittensteins words are self-explanatory, and you identify with Kripke inflates the waters, making it murky. Then again, that is a modern form of philosophy.
Agree with your reading, more or less. But this all ties to the private language argument, right? Yes, a linguistic community is required for there to be meaning because there needs to be a criterion of correct vs. incorrect use - which entails that there can be no private language. The meaning of a word will be grounded in the customs and practices of a linguistic community with whom we share a form of life. All that said, we are still faced with the question of what, if anything, ground the customs and practices of the linguistic community. There must be some facts regarding that, surely. Now these facts cannot be constructed out of, or derived from, individual past behaviour or even collective past behaviour - fair enough - but there are alternatives. For example, using dispositions grounded in counterfactuals. I meant plus (and not quus) by "+" because if I had been faced with "68+57=?" I would have been disposed to respond "125". As with Hume's problem of induction, the fact that I cannot empirically derive or epistemically justify that there is a particular rule being followed (be it a natural law or a linguistic rule) based purely on past behaviour, we cannot immediately conclude that there is no fact grounding the rule. We should not blithely infer semantic skepticism from epistemic skepticism - at least not without eliminating all non-behaviourust possibilities. Just a thought.
"This is for the real adepts in madness, who have gone beyond all psychiatry, psychoanalysis, who are unhelpable. This third book is again the work of a German, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Just listen to its title: TRACTATUS LOGICO PHILOSOPHICUS. We will just call it TRACTATUS. It is one of the most difficult books in existence. Even a man like G.E.Moore, a great English philosopher, and Bertrand Russell, another great philosopher - not only English but a philosopher of the whole world - both agreed that this man Wittgenstein was far superior to them both. Ludwig Wittgenstein was really a lovable man. I don't hate him, but I don't dislike him. I like him and I love him, but not his book. His book is only gymnastics. Only once in a while after pages and pages you may come across a sentence which is luminous. For example: That which cannot be spoken should not be spoken; one should be silent about it. Now this is a beautiful statement. Even saints, mystics, poets, can learn much from this sentence. That which cannot be spoken must not be spoken of. Wittgenstein writes in a mathematical way, small sentences, not even paragraphs - sutras. But for the very advanced insane man this book can be of immense help. It can hit him exactly in his soul, not only in the head. Just like a nail it can penetrate into his very being. That may wake him from his nightmare. Ludwig Wittgenstein was a lovable man. He was offered one of the most cherished chairs of philosophy at Oxford. He declined. That's what I love in him. He went to become a farmer and fisherman. This is lovable in the man. This is more existential than Jean-Paul Sartre, although Wittgenstein never talked of existentialism. Existentialism, by the way, cannot be talked about; you have to live it, there is no other way. This book was written when Wittgenstein was studying under G.E.Moore and Bertrand Russell. Two great philosophers of Britain, and a German... it was enough to create TRACTATUS LOGICO PHILOSOPHICUS. Translated it means Wittgenstein, Moore and Russell. I, on my part, would rather have seen Wittgenstein sitting at the feet of Gurdjieff than studying with Moore and Russell. That was the right place for him, but he missed. Perhaps next time, I mean next life... for him, not for me. For me this is enough, this is the last. But for him, at least once he needs to be in the company of a man like Gurdjieff or Chuang Tzu, Bodhidharma - but not Moore, Russell, not Whitehead. He was associating with these people, the wrong people. A right man in the company of wrong people, that's what destroyed him. My experience is, in the right company even a wrong person becomes right, and vice-versa: in a wrong company, even a right person becomes wrong. But this only applies to unenlightened men, right or wrong, both. An enlightened person cannot be influenced. He can associate with anyone - Jesus with Magdalena, a prostitute; Buddha with a murderer, a murderer who had killed nine hundred and ninety-nine people. He had taken a vow to kill one thousand people, and he was going to kill Buddha too; that's how he came into contact with Buddha. The murderer's name is not known. The name people gave to him was Angulimala, which means 'the man who wears a garland of fingers'. That was his way. He would kill a man, cut off his fingers and put them on his garland, just to keep count of the number of people he had killed. Only ten fingers were missing to make up the thousand; in other words only one man more.... Then Buddha appeared. He was just moving on that road from one village to another. Angulimala shouted, "Stop!" Buddha said, "Great. That's what I have been telling people: Stop! But, my friend, who listens?" Angulimala looked amazed: Is this man insane? And Buddha continued walking towards Angulimala. Angulimala again shouted, "Stop! It seems you don't know that I am a murderer, and I have taken a vow to kill one thousand people. Even my own mother has stopped seeing me, because only one person is missing.... I will kill you... but you look so beautiful that if you stop and turn back I may not kill you." Buddha said, "Forget about it. I have never turned back in my life, and as far as stopping is concerned, I stopped forty years ago; since then there is nobody left to move. And as far as killing me is concerned, you can do it anyway. Everything born is going to die." Angulimala saw the man, fell at his feet, and was transformed. Angulimala could not change Buddha, Buddha changed Angulimala. Magdalena the prostitute could not change Jesus, but Jesus changed the woman. So what I said is only applicable to so-called ordinary humanity, it is not applicable to those who are awakened. Wittgenstein can become awakened; he could have become awakened even in this life. Alas, he associated with wrong company. But his book can be of great help to those who are really third-degree insane. If they can make any sense out of it, they will come back to sanity."
It’s one of the central topics of 20th century Phil language, with many books written. Perhaps you’re right and all those professional philosophers are wrong!
I never like Wittgenstein. I think he was in some measure just a residual of the corrupt and contradictory postmodern movement which gave rise to the very destructive notion of relative truth, the consequences for which we are still paying today. As for that in the video, the meaning of a word in all cases is “not” its use in the language but (could be coined in use, e.g., “conundrum”) is defined in advance of its use and the cause of the nature of that use, which is the effect. Consider…..the structure of language is reflective directly of the nature of our minds and how they engage material reality. Subject, predicate, object, etc. exist as the skeleton of all languages, even in the context of those in which word order is shuffled about a bit, such as in German in relative clauses, etc. The mind itself seems to function in respect of or as the source of that common structure. Assuming similar manners of mental function, a man of a tribe with no language at all who experienced some event would be capable of holding the memory and the concepts of which it was composed at once in his mind, that which we do regularly as when we consider for example, “justice” as a concept all at once rather than having to trudge through a linear definition each time it is relevant to our contemplations. Were such a man to spy a rock on the ground he might mentally/conceptually calculate “a something by itself” in the wake of having no pre-existing word to describe it. That he and his tribe could assign the term rock to that something by itself is likely, a basis then upon which, given that manner of mind, to advance to the understanding that upon seeing a rock and another rock that a label of “two” or “2” could be assigned to express the concept. Such would be inevitable. Of course words can be misused and so corrupted (e.g., irregardless) but this is not the rule but the exception and there are by definition, institutions, works of literature (the social context), etc., which maintain their proper understandings. Functionally connected to that above is the process of perception itself, which is in my own definition (at least I believe this is mine alone) “quantitatively objective” and only “qualitatively subjective”. To clarify, we all can perceive a square and a circle. “Even if”, as some might pose, that our perceptions of the two could be in error for what we “see” is within the mind, so to speak, and cannot directly interrelate with the two objects, that we “can” see that there is that which we believe a square is in part because it is not a circle. The converse is also true. Note that we each see a square always as not a circle and that we all together see the square as the same configuration is quantitative. Again, the same is true of the circle. Consider also, a tree and a mouse. That we all see the tree as such, also that it is not a mouse, is quantitative. But that I might see the tree is beautiful and you see it as ugly, is qualitative. It can therefore be safely said that our perceptions are foundationally objective and no less so our understanding of the terms assigned to them. The concept of rules and our obedience to them is no less constrained. The example in the video of the following of the signs when on a road trip made little sense in any manner of consideration. That the driver followed the signs for the first 9 times, let’s say, demonstrates a knowledge of their purpose and their function. To then disobey the latter signs for any reason is a deliberate attempt to go against one’s own intentions and goals. If the girls needed the signs to get as far as they did before the driver began to ignore them, it is logical to claim that she didn’t know where she was going and by that, needed the signs to get there. It is assumes also that she wanted to get there or what was the point of the trip? This does not demonstrate in any way what Wittgenstein was claiming. History of rule following demonstrates what? “If” the girl wanted to get to the destination for which she required the signs, then she was required to follow them all, not just some with certain values. If her history showed her to follow some nonsensical rule or if her history was not known has nothing to do with this aspect of the video. If she refused to follow all the signs then it would be known to her and anyone else concerned that she would only get lost and never arrive. Does this show some people are stupid? Yes. Does it show that in the context of considering the means and consequences of following the rules that to do so can and will achieve the goal of the activity in many cases, in this one, to arrive at a destination unknown? Yes. Or does it show that one’s refusal is counterproductive and will result in failure? Also, yes. I don't see how this topic is as complicated and convoluted as made out in the video.
@@hss12661 I would disagree (assuming I understand your point). Truth is an imposition and drives the formation of the model. Do you not believe in absolute truths? For example, an absolute truth of materiality……there be no motion absent an object moving. An absolute truth of abstraction….one cannot appeal to truths to define a position denying truth (I cannot say “I think I am not thinking” and expect that it could ever be true). Or did you mean that the imposition of objective truth presents a context in which and for which we must then formulate an understanding of it? Truth is in no manner relative to anything, though it is contextual. Once understood in a relevant context, it is unforgiving and laziness of our understanding of language or failings in our expressions of notions or that of others does not in the confusion it might cause indict language. Nor do the limits of our perceptual capacities or our understandings of matters which inevitably require a greater knowledge of certain factors than one might natural possess. Avoiding this sort of thing might very well be why so much of the writings of philosophy is tedious that no seed of confusion would be allowed an effect. It is in postmodernism that the root of relativist truth is entangled. Wittgenstein is no objectivist. I thought is very relevant.
You're an excellent teacher
Thanks! I’ll screenshot that for my boss.
If you do that tell them that the precision and clarity of your teaching helped me to get to Cambridge. @@AtticPhilosophy
I agree with someone's suggestion, I think it was McDowell's, that perhaps it's best to understand the Rule Following Paradox as analogous with the problem of perception: whereas with perception we ask "How could merely causal interactions between our body and the world provide a justification for a belief?", with the RFP we ask "How could a belief or an intention be considered a cause for our action?".
Yes, it’s a good question. Although the question in rule-following isn’t so much how a mental state causes action, but rather, whether any mental state, or any other fact about an individual, determines the correctness of an action.
@@AtticPhilosophy It's less about causal powers of mental states (although it seems that Kant thought it was to some extent) but rather about intention in action.
Excellent! After reading so many papers and spending sleepless nights, it is your video which made the paradox clear to me. Thanks a lot!
I think Qualia are a Private Language. The meaning of pain is evident. No community necessary.
At heart the "rule paradox" is just a restatement of the problem of induction, or of computational irreducibility, or just a version of the Halting Problem You can't say for sure what the rule is until you reach the end, and you can't know when or if you will reach and end, until you do. In the meantime, use the simplest rule that accounts for the data so far, that most people would agree with, until it is contradicted, then revise it as needed.
Did you really did understand his presentation? So what if someone is following his own private rule that we don't know about, and we think that person is following a generally recognized rule (a public rule, if you like)? What is the significance of our misunderstanding (or misinterpretation) of what that person is doing? And how does this relate to Hume's problem of induction (which I know fairly well so need no instruction in that)? Can you explain all this to me? Thank you.
Happens in Minecraft, when I'm building I find I place things in a pattern and a rule applied without knowing what the rule itself is, but catching myself using it all the time. Small blocks of meaning.
or were you just blindly following language?
@@raginbakin1430 No it's
Phronesis, Ousia, Logos as Plato says
In the U. S., turkeys and farmers have a rules-based problem that illustrates how each party may see their different interpretation of a rule as valid... Until it isn't. To the turkey, every day just after sunup, the Farmer feeds me. The Farmer follows the same pattern, until the morning that he harvests the turkey.
I think one thing that is important to remember here is that Wittgenstein was talking specifically about language and this paradox is an extremely potent metaphor for rules-based teaching in L2 grammar acquisition. It's super common for someone to say "if you're continuously doing something, you add -ing to show you're doing that" only for the student to say "I'm having a dog" and the teacher to reveal, that, no, actually English follows the "use -ing for continuous actions unless it's the word 'have, then you don't use -ing and simply say you have a dog, unless it's not a dog and it's an emotional experience such as a 'bad time', in which case you do say you are having a bad time, unless your original intention in saying you were having a dog is that you are pregnant and a puppy is inside you, in which case it is perfectly correct to say you are having a dog..."
Look into Tomasello and Stephen Krashen to see how this argument kind of completely revolutionized the field of Language Acquisition in linguistics
So, the consequence is that to state which rule is being followed is an undecidable problem. Nice video, thanks!
I just got time to watch it, a great video indeed. I am glad you lean towards the communitarian side, as it is, at least to me, better grounded and argumented for.
If we define the addition by the use of the Succ() operator it follows that If Succ(X) = Succ(Y), then X must equal Y. since this does not hold for QSucc() we know we were were always doing addition, even if we never added any number in the Quadditiion domain.
I followed your examples of the rule following paradox but not the point of them or indeed what exactly is paradoxical. Other commentators seem to have understood so I guess it’s my lack of understanding that is the problem (but I may not be alone in my confusion).
A appeared to follow the common sense rule and B understood what was happening. A then appeared to stop following the common sense rule and applied a new rule which B was unaware of. At this stage we don’t know whether the new rule works or not (it could turn out to be a quicker way to the destination which A had learned by experience [or by satnav]). How is that a paradox? Once A explained her new rule to B she understood what was going on even if she didn’t understand why.
Was W simply trying to say that people who are communicating must first agree on the “meaning” of their words for effective communication?
I’ve watched two of your videos now and enjoyed them both but this one has left me a bit stumped - sorry!
The problem is: is it a new rule, or was that always the rule she was following? How could anyone tell?
The thing about customs is that they build or change through time. So 'subjective' here can be read as something like "evolving over time" rather than, say, "fixed in the stars". If this is related with the notion of rule following as computation, rule-following scepticism can then be understood as a symptom of computational irreducibility.
I see meaning of words as something induced, reenforced and evolved by a cluster of actors, the true definitions of words are fuzzy distributed definitions in each actor and piece of consumable useful information, yet meaning is only ever fully realized with the addition of context and yet levels of subjectiveness still remains, because misunderstanding remains.
Great content! I am assuming probably not, given your more anlytical focus, but have your read any Heidegger? In particular Being and Time? I find so many interesting parallels between the phenomenological Heidegger and the later Wittgenstein's emphasis on practice/custom and meaning in use. Admittedly, I am much more familiar with the former than the latter, so it remains rather vague as of yet, but I could very well see the Heidegger of Being and Time saying "well, of course" to a lot of W's ponderings in PI. W has a more sophisticated understanding of the more technical side of language in my humble estimation, but still, H bypasses many of the problems with which W is dealing from the outset. Also, they both seem to share a mystical temperament of sorts.
This is a well put together video.
Thanks!
It’s seems like that Quaddition is a rule with a exception.
The addition is correct if the process of adding them together is similar to past processes of adding. If they are not then they will produce incorrect outputs.
Now Quaddition is like addition just that at some point it introduces a anomaly process which doesn’t resemble past Quaddition processes on lower numbers.
It is in some sense a conjunction of two different rules bound into one.
So if one does not introduce the except beforehand, then yes the fact that one’s current behavior or thinking does not resemble one’s past behavior or thinking means that the rule has been broken.
So I would take a regularity resemblance as the basis of what makes usage correct or incorrect and any exception must be introduced beforehand.
Thing is, in the example, past behaviour perfectly matches both addition & quaddition.
@@AtticPhilosophy
Yes, but past behavior resembles addition more then quaddition.
I think I should give a example. Let’s say we use logic gates to build a addition machine. Now the machine can only add a finite number of cases. But there is a regularity in the pattern of relationships between logic gates. If we extend this regular pattern then we can add more cases.
But for Quaddition, we are forced at one point to introduce a irregularity in the pattern.
Similar if I follow a arrow and then at one point I don’t follow the arrow, then my present behavior does not resemble my past behavior even if my past behavior agrees with both rules. Because in one rule the regularity is extended but in the other the regularity is broken at one point.
The rule-following section is a place where I think Wittgenstein touches Heidegger. There are quite a few overlaps in PI with the popular phenomenologists and he offers yet a different way through by avoiding the theorizing urge. I am not the biggest fan of Kripke's very skeptical reading of Wittgenstein. The argument really reads to me to point out the limit of the rule-following mentality we are easily bewitched by in a "turtles all the way down" scenario. But it is never enough for LW to point out the flaw, he wants to show us the way to change our thought. And that change is the act "blindly", the bedrock comments, the forms of life. If the meaning of a word is its use in language, then the meaning of following a rule is the action in a form of life.
I feel like PI is an exceptionally long cautionary explanation why something like Cartesian skepticism or Husserl's bracketing doesn't work. And that began in the Tractatus "back to rough ground".
Please note I am just an LW fan, read him many times. Not a professional philosopher. So take my comments with a grain of salt :) Thank you for the video.
Andrea Guardo is a contemporary defender of Kripkenstein and the skeptical, anti-semantical approach to solving the paradox. He has many interesting papers on the topic.
Great material
I suspect much of the antipathy to Kripke's sceptical solution arises from the view that Wittgenstein's work represents a struggle against scepticism as a solution to anything. The Investigations might be seen as a reminder that philosophical objectivity has its limits, and those limits are the city limits of the city of language. This doesn't necessarily invalidate the role of philosophy in clearly describing problems through analysis, however. Wittgenstein was, of course, maddeningly opaque on this.
I think something like that, after reading Wittgenstein: lets take the implication as an example. I could say if I go to London, i will talk to you. So, S=>P. But, it depends, as all speech, of the context of it. So I could be meaning S P, it depends, I could have said IF I go to London, i will talk to you, after all, real people don't use the expression "only and only if" in their everyday language.. How could we decide which formula is the correct? Well, we can't. So symbolic logic, when it come to natural speech, is not a science, its an art of interpretation, a game. And sometimes, scientist interpret in this way a relation of implication: if the water boils then its temperature is >= 100 C. Well, the temperature is over 100, so the water boils, and if it boils, it is over 100. Recently, I read "if there were life in Mars, then the new Nasa probe will probe will find traces of it", well, in the end of the article, they wrote, we expect the new probe to find traces of life, microorganism, on Mars so we will be able validated our hypotheses.
The “quaddition” argument reminds me of adding uranium atoms together. 1 + 1 = 2, etc. until you reach critical mass! (Big numbers added together = boom!)
Thanks. I understand Wittensteins words are self-explanatory, and you identify with Kripke inflates the waters, making it murky. Then again, that is a modern form of philosophy.
Agree with your reading, more or less. But this all ties to the private language argument, right? Yes, a linguistic community is required for there to be meaning because there needs to be a criterion of correct vs. incorrect use - which entails that there can be no private language. The meaning of a word will be grounded in the customs and practices of a linguistic community with whom we share a form of life. All that said, we are still faced with the question of what, if anything, ground the customs and practices of the linguistic community. There must be some facts regarding that, surely. Now these facts cannot be constructed out of, or derived from, individual past behaviour or even collective past behaviour - fair enough - but there are alternatives. For example, using dispositions grounded in counterfactuals. I meant plus (and not quus) by "+" because if I had been faced with "68+57=?" I would have been disposed to respond "125". As with Hume's problem of induction, the fact that I cannot empirically derive or epistemically justify that there is a particular rule being followed (be it a natural law or a linguistic rule) based purely on past behaviour, we cannot immediately conclude that there is no fact grounding the rule. We should not blithely infer semantic skepticism from epistemic skepticism - at least not without eliminating all non-behaviourust possibilities. Just a thought.
This is brilliant and trippy
Thanks!
Wittgenstein basically predicted the Pentium division bug.
"This is for the real adepts in madness, who have gone beyond all psychiatry, psychoanalysis, who are unhelpable. This third book is again the work of a German, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Just listen to its title: TRACTATUS LOGICO PHILOSOPHICUS. We will just call it TRACTATUS. It is one of the most difficult books in existence. Even a man like G.E.Moore, a great English philosopher, and
Bertrand Russell, another great philosopher - not only English but a philosopher of the whole world - both agreed that this man Wittgenstein was far superior to them both.
Ludwig Wittgenstein was really a lovable man. I don't hate him, but I don't dislike him. I like him and I love him, but not his book. His book is only gymnastics. Only once in a while after pages and pages you may come across a sentence which is luminous. For example: That which cannot be spoken should not be spoken; one should be silent about it. Now this is a beautiful statement. Even saints, mystics, poets, can learn much from this sentence. That which cannot be spoken must not be spoken of.
Wittgenstein writes in a mathematical way, small sentences, not even paragraphs - sutras. But for the very advanced insane man this book can be of immense help. It can hit him exactly in his soul, not only in the head. Just like a nail it can penetrate into his very being. That may wake him from his nightmare.
Ludwig Wittgenstein was a lovable man. He was offered one of the most cherished chairs of philosophy at Oxford. He declined. That's what I love in him. He went to become a farmer and fisherman. This is lovable in the man. This is more existential than Jean-Paul Sartre, although Wittgenstein never talked of existentialism. Existentialism, by the way, cannot be talked about; you have to live it, there is no other way.
This book was written when Wittgenstein was studying under G.E.Moore and Bertrand Russell.
Two great philosophers of Britain, and a German... it was enough to create TRACTATUS LOGICO PHILOSOPHICUS. Translated it means Wittgenstein, Moore and Russell. I, on my part, would rather have seen Wittgenstein sitting at the feet of Gurdjieff than studying with Moore and Russell. That was the right place for him, but he missed. Perhaps next time, I mean next life... for him, not for me. For me this is enough, this is the last. But for him, at least once he needs to be in the company of a man like Gurdjieff or Chuang Tzu, Bodhidharma - but not Moore, Russell, not Whitehead. He was associating with these people, the wrong people. A right man in the company of wrong people, that's what destroyed him.
My experience is, in the right company even a wrong person becomes right, and vice-versa: in a wrong company, even a right person becomes wrong. But this only applies to unenlightened men, right or wrong, both. An enlightened person cannot be influenced. He can associate with anyone - Jesus with Magdalena, a prostitute; Buddha with a murderer, a murderer who had killed nine hundred and ninety-nine people. He had taken a vow to kill one thousand people, and he was going to kill Buddha too; that's how he came into contact with Buddha.
The murderer's name is not known. The name people gave to him was Angulimala, which means 'the man who wears a garland of fingers'. That was his way. He would kill a man, cut off his fingers and put them on his garland, just to keep count of the number of people he had killed. Only ten fingers were missing to make up the thousand; in other words only one man more.... Then Buddha appeared. He was just moving on that road from one village to another. Angulimala shouted, "Stop!"
Buddha said, "Great. That's what I have been telling people: Stop! But, my friend, who listens?"
Angulimala looked amazed: Is this man insane? And Buddha continued walking towards Angulimala. Angulimala again shouted, "Stop! It seems you don't know that I am a murderer,
and I have taken a vow to kill one thousand people. Even my own mother has stopped seeing me, because only one person is missing.... I will kill you... but you look so beautiful that if you stop and turn back I may not kill you."
Buddha said, "Forget about it. I have never turned back in my life, and as far as stopping is concerned, I stopped forty years ago; since then there is nobody left to move. And as far as killing me is concerned, you can do it anyway. Everything born is going to die."
Angulimala saw the man, fell at his feet, and was transformed. Angulimala could not change Buddha, Buddha changed Angulimala. Magdalena the prostitute could not change Jesus, but Jesus changed the woman.
So what I said is only applicable to so-called ordinary humanity, it is not applicable to those who are awakened. Wittgenstein can become awakened; he could have become awakened even in this life.
Alas, he associated with wrong company. But his book can be of great help to those who are really third-degree insane. If they can make any sense out of it, they will come back to sanity."
Difficult to see how this isn't garbage ...
It’s one of the central topics of 20th century Phil language, with many books written. Perhaps you’re right and all those professional philosophers are wrong!
I never like Wittgenstein. I think he was in some measure just a residual of the corrupt and contradictory postmodern movement which gave rise to the very destructive notion of relative truth, the consequences for which we are still paying today. As for that in the video, the meaning of a word in all cases is “not” its use in the language but (could be coined in use, e.g., “conundrum”) is defined in advance of its use and the cause of the nature of that use, which is the effect.
Consider…..the structure of language is reflective directly of the nature of our minds and how they engage material reality. Subject, predicate, object, etc. exist as the skeleton of all languages, even in the context of those in which word order is shuffled about a bit, such as in German in relative clauses, etc. The mind itself seems to function in respect of or as the source of that common structure. Assuming similar manners of mental function, a man of a tribe with no language at all who experienced some event would be capable of holding the memory and the concepts of which it was composed at once in his mind, that which we do regularly as when we consider for example, “justice” as a concept all at once rather than having to trudge through a linear definition each time it is relevant to our contemplations. Were such a man to spy a rock on the ground he might mentally/conceptually calculate “a something by itself” in the wake of having no pre-existing word to describe it. That he and his tribe could assign the term rock to that something by itself is likely, a basis then upon which, given that manner of mind, to advance to the understanding that upon seeing a rock and another rock that a label of “two” or “2” could be assigned to express the concept. Such would be inevitable.
Of course words can be misused and so corrupted (e.g., irregardless) but this is not the rule but the exception and there are by definition, institutions, works of literature (the social context), etc., which maintain their proper understandings. Functionally connected to that above is the process of perception itself, which is in my own definition (at least I believe this is mine alone) “quantitatively objective” and only “qualitatively subjective”. To clarify, we all can perceive a square and a circle. “Even if”, as some might pose, that our perceptions of the two could be in error for what we “see” is within the mind, so to speak, and cannot directly interrelate with the two objects, that we “can” see that there is that which we believe a square is in part because it is not a circle. The converse is also true. Note that we each see a square always as not a circle and that we all together see the square as the same configuration is quantitative. Again, the same is true of the circle. Consider also, a tree and a mouse. That we all see the tree as such, also that it is not a mouse, is quantitative. But that I might see the tree is beautiful and you see it as ugly, is qualitative. It can therefore be safely said that our perceptions are foundationally objective and no less so our understanding of the terms assigned to them.
The concept of rules and our obedience to them is no less constrained. The example in the video of the following of the signs when on a road trip made little sense in any manner of consideration. That the driver followed the signs for the first 9 times, let’s say, demonstrates a knowledge of their purpose and their function. To then disobey the latter signs for any reason is a deliberate attempt to go against one’s own intentions and goals. If the girls needed the signs to get as far as they did before the driver began to ignore them, it is logical to claim that she didn’t know where she was going and by that, needed the signs to get there. It is assumes also that she wanted to get there or what was the point of the trip? This does not demonstrate in any way what Wittgenstein was claiming.
History of rule following demonstrates what? “If” the girl wanted to get to the destination for which she required the signs, then she was required to follow them all, not just some with certain values. If her history showed her to follow some nonsensical rule or if her history was not known has nothing to do with this aspect of the video. If she refused to follow all the signs then it would be known to her and anyone else concerned that she would only get lost and never arrive. Does this show some people are stupid? Yes. Does it show that in the context of considering the means and consequences of following the rules that to do so can and will achieve the goal of the activity in many cases, in this one, to arrive at a destination unknown? Yes. Or does it show that one’s refusal is counterproductive and will result in failure? Also, yes.
I don't see how this topic is as complicated and convoluted as made out in the video.
Wittgenstein predated postmodernism by a good few decades!
@@AtticPhilosophy i know but as with the tenants of Marxism, many existed decades prior.
@@AtticPhilosophy if you have time, could you critique what i wrote? would really appreciate it
Truth is always relativized to a model. Not sure how this has anything to do with postmodernism or with Wittgenstein.
@@hss12661 I would disagree (assuming I understand your point). Truth is an imposition and drives the formation of the model. Do you not believe in absolute truths? For example, an absolute truth of materiality……there be no motion absent an object moving. An absolute truth of abstraction….one cannot appeal to truths to define a position denying truth (I cannot say “I think I am not thinking” and expect that it could ever be true). Or did you mean that the imposition of objective truth presents a context in which and for which we must then formulate an understanding of it? Truth is in no manner relative to anything, though it is contextual. Once understood in a relevant context, it is unforgiving and laziness of our understanding of language or failings in our expressions of notions or that of others does not in the confusion it might cause indict language. Nor do the limits of our perceptual capacities or our understandings of matters which inevitably require a greater knowledge of certain factors than one might natural possess. Avoiding this sort of thing might very well be why so much of the writings of philosophy is tedious that no seed of confusion would be allowed an effect.
It is in postmodernism that the root of relativist truth is entangled. Wittgenstein is no objectivist. I thought is very relevant.