Final Day Wittgenstein Final Paper Some Brief Recap
Final Day Wittgenstein
Final Paper
Some (Brief) Recap
Russell’s Logical Atomism: Central Tenets • The world is real: it has nonmind dependent aspects • The world is complex and it is constituted of simple parts: the logical atoms • Anything that can’t be analyzed is a logical atom: for example, redness
Russell’s Logical Atomism: Linguistic Turn • There is a correspondence between how our language represents the world and how the world is • The world is made out of particulars and universals & relations going together in facts • These are represented by proper names, predicates, and sentences, respectively
Russell’s Logical Atomism: Goal Develop a logically perfect language where every logical atom has exactly one representation and every complex entity (fact) is analyzed into its simple parts.
Russell’s Logical Atomism: Big Picture Russell thought the only particulars we could properly name were sense data and universals. Thus atomism will analyze all other facts (about other “things”) into complex propositions about sense data and universals (“this red patch here, ” etc. ).
Gottlob Frege (1848 -1925) • German mathematician, logician, and philosopher • Instructor at various levels (sometimes paid, sometimes not) at University of Jena • Dissertation on Geometry
The Analytic Triangle
Frege on Correspondence “[B]ut my own way of doing this is something that nobody can avoid who lays down such rules at all, for we cannot understand one another without language, and so in the end we must always rely on other people's understanding words, inflexions, and sentence-construction in essentially the same way as ourselves… It is here very much to my advantage that there is such good accord between the linguistic distinction and the real one. ”
Frege on Correspondence “[A] concept is the Bedeutung of a predicate; an object is something that can never be the whole Bedeutung of a predicate, but can be the Bedeutung of a subject. ”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 -1951) • Son of a steel baron: one of the richest people in the world • Engineering math philosophy of math Frege Russell • Participated in both world wars: first in the Austrian army, then in British hospitals • Constantly gave up philosophy
Categories • Objects • States of affairs • Facts • The world • Form
Possibility & Logical Form • The chain metaphor (2. 03) • The puzzle metaphor • Grammar metaphor
Logical Pictures A spatial picture has the same spatial structure as the thing it represents. A logical picture has the same logical structure as the thing it represents. (All pictures are logical pictures. )
Logical Pictures The elements of a logical picture stand in for (represent) the elements of a state of affairs. The way the elements of the logical picture relate to one another represents how the objects they represent relate to each other.
Wittgenstein on His Own Nonsense 6. 54 My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb up beyond them.
Wittgenstein on His Own Nonsense 6. 54 (cont’d) (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it. ) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.
Wittgenstein on His Own Nonsense 7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
The Later Wittgenstein
vs. Representation: The Apple Store “But how does he know where and how he is to look up the word ‘red’ and what he is to do with the word ‘five’? ” --Well, I assume that he ‘acts’ as I have described. Explanations come to an end somewhere.
Wittgenstein vs. Representation But what is the meaning of the word ‘five’? --No such thing was in question here, only how the word ‘five’ is used.
Dis-Solving Philosophical Problems This is the general structure of how the use theory attempts to dis-solve philosophical problems. STEP 1: Explain how we use some particular bit of language. STEP 2: Claim that “explanation has to stop somewhere”: here.
Meaning Is Use Importantly, every theory of meaning thinks that how we use our words plays some role in what they mean. How could it not? The use theory is importantly different because it identifies use with meaning.
In language we play games with words.
Family Resemblance But on Wittgenstein’s view, “game” is not a concept like this: there is nothing that all games have in common. Being a game is a matter of “family resemblance”: you must be similar enough to other games to count.
Criteria vs. Symptoms There are different ways of telling that a field goal has been scored in basketball: • Watching the scoreboard • Listening to the crowd • Hearing the announcer say “a field goal has been scored” • Seeing the ball go through the hoop.
Rule-Following Paradox
Rule Following (Sec. 201) “This was our 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. ”
The Skeptical Solution
The Main Problem ‘The main problem is not, “How can we show private language– or some other special form of language– to be impossible? ”; Rather it is, “How can we show any language at all (public, private, or what-have-you) to be possible? ”’
“The skeptical paradox is the fundamental problem of Philosophical Investigations. ” (p. 78)
Skeptical Solutions Straight solution: deny the skeptic’s claims. Show that there is an error in the skeptic’s argument. Skeptical solution: accept the skeptic’s claims BUT claim that our ordinary way of talking is justifiable, because it never required the justification the skeptic asked for.
Wittgenstein’s Skeptical Solution “The skeptical solution does not allow us to speak of a single individual, considered by himself and in isolation, as ever meaning anything” (pp. 68 -69)
Accept the Skeptic’s Claims “Wittgenstein holds, with the skeptic, that there is no fact of the matter whether I mean plus or quus. ” (pp. 70 -71)
“Don’t Think, Look!” The solution: my meaning addition by ‘+’ is NOT a matter of my mental states or my past actions (skeptical solution). Rather, it is an accordance of my responses to those of others in my community. To give the ‘right’ answer is to give the answer others’ would give.
“Don’t Think, Look!” “An individual who claims to have mastered the concept of addition will be judged by the community to have done so if his particular responses agree with those of the community in enough cases, especially the simple ones (and if his 'wrong’ answers are not often bizarrely wrong…)…”
“Don’t Think, Look!” “…An individual who passes such tests is admitted into the community as an adder; an individual who passes such tests in enough other cases is admitted as a normal speaker of the language and member of the community. ”
“Don’t Think, Look!” “…Those who deviate are corrected and told (usually as children) that they have not grasped the concept of addition. One who is an incorrigible deviant in enough respects simply cannot participate in the life of the community and in communication. ”
PI 87: “The sign post is in order if, in normal circumstances, it serves its purpose. ”
Private Language
On Private Languages “But could we also imagine a language in which a person could write down or give vocal expression to his inner experiences – his feeling, moods, and the rest – for his private use? – Well, can’t we do so in our ordinary language? ”
On Private Languages “But that is not what I mean. The individual words of this language are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language”
The Question As we saw, Wittgenstein believes that there are public criteria for uses of mental state expressions, like “he has a toothache”: for example, clutching one’s cheek and moaning. The question here is: can there be a language (game) which has only private criteria? A language where only one person in principle has access to the criteria?
Russell’s Ideal Language “A logically perfect language, if it could be constructed, would not only be intolerably prolix, but, as regards its vocabulary, would be very largely private to one speaker. That is to say, all the names that it would use would be private to that speaker and could not enter into the language of another speaker. ”
The Diary Case Wittgenstein approaches the question of whether a private language is possible by imagining a speaker who wants to privately name some sensation S, and then keep a diary about when he feels S. Can we make sense of what this person is doing?
The Diary Case Suppose that I have what I think is the same sensation on multiple occasions. Now I want a name for it (? ). Wittgenstein points out that if I use a definition, then the name won’t be “private” in the relevant sense: others can learn it by learning the definition.
The Diary Case So he claims what I have to do is to inwardly point to the sensation (concentrate on it) and say “Let this sensation be called ‘S’!” This is called an “ostensive” definition. Wittgenstein now wants to know whether this can establish a criterion for the use of the word “S. ”
The Diary Case What could NOW be the criterion by which you were able to judge that a certain sensation was the same one you named “S” to begin with?
The Diary Case It seems the answer is: I remember the sensation I named before, and this is the same one.
Private Rule Following (Sec 202) “And hence also ‘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. ”
The Diary Case How is remembering what you did before (seeming to remember!) any different from just believing it? You remember the sensation being like this and you use that criterion to apply “S”– but there is no further standard of correctness!
“As if someone were to buy several copies of the morning paper to assure himself that what it said was true. ”
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