Nothing is hidden

1
The world is all that is the case.

1.1
The world is the totality of facts, not of things.

1.11
The world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the facts.

1.12
For the totality of facts determines what is the case, and also whatever is not the case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus

Why of facts and not of things ? Whatever W's intention, I read this as brilliant avoidance of a confusing break between sense and some senseless stuff to which sense is supposed to somehow refer. One can say everything is made of atoms. The world includes that fact (if it happens to be a fact). But the world itself is not atoms.

The world is not a thing, not an entity.

Quoting plaque flag

The world is all that is the case

How would someone who takes this proposition as a true premise, understand future possibilities as a real part of the world? We know that future possibilities are grounded in reality somehow, because some are acknowledged as highly probable and some are highly improbable. Therefore the art of prediction, in the world of future possibilities, may be supported by the science of "all that is the case", yet prediction deals with what will probably be the case rather than what is the case.

Quoting plaque flag

Nothing is hidden,

The next question therefore, is how can anyone hold this premise as true and also accept the reality of future possibilities? How is it possible to conceive of the reality of the future as not hidden, when we talk about it in terms of what is possible rather than what is the case?

In case anyone finds this helpful ( obviously I think this dude is brilliant).

https://sites.pitt.edu/~rbrandom/Texts%20Mark%201%20p.html
One of [ Kant's ] cardinal innovations is the claim that the fundamental unit of awareness or cognition, the minimum graspable, is the judgment. Judgments are fundamental, since they are the minimal unit one can take responsibility for on the cognitive side, just as actions are the corresponding unit of responsibility on the practical side... The “emptiest of all representations”, the “’I think’ that can accompany all representations” expresses the formal dimension of responsibility for judgments. Thus concepts can only be understood as abstractions, in terms of the role they play in judging. A concept just is a predicate of a possible judgment, which is why

The only use which the understanding can make of concepts is to form judgments by them.

For Kant, any discussion of content must start with the contents of judgments, since anything else only has content insofar as it contributes to the contents of judgments.
...
On the side of propositionally contentful intentional states, paradigmatically belief, the essential inferential articulation of the propositional is manifested in the form of intentional interpretation or explanation. Making behavior intelligible according to this model is taking the individual to act for reasons. This is what lies behind Dennett's slogan: "Rationality is the mother of intention". The role of belief in imputed pieces of practical reasoning, leading from beliefs and desires to the formation of intentions, is essential to intentional explanation—and so is reasoning in which both premise and conclusion have the form of believables.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

Sub specie aeternitatus ... Deus, sive natura ... ~Spinoza

People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. ~Einstein

Quoting plaque flag

Nothing is hidden

Like 'possible moves' in Chess or Go ... :fire:

It is only when immanence is no longer immanence to anything other than itself that we can speak of a plane of immanence. ~Deleuze

Reply to plaque flag :cool: :up:

Quoting 180 Proof

Sub specie aeternitatus ... Deus, sive natura ... ~Spinoza

People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. ~Einstein

That does not address the issue of prediction, possibilities, and probabilities, which I described. An issue which is very real to science, regardless of what those who put their faith in physics believe.

Reply to plaque flag

The link brings up a rather large list of links. Which one contains “ One of [ Kant's ] cardinal innovations…”?

Reply to Mww

"A Social Route from Reasoning to Representing"
https://sites.pitt.edu/~rbrandom/Texts/A%20Social%20Route%20from%20Reasoning%20to%20Representin

Reply to plaque flag

Quoting plaque flag

The world is described or articulated or disclosed by our true claims. In different words, the world is that minimal something that a self can be wrong about. This underspecification is not an oversight. What is the case is endlessly revisable.

Would you say your view of rationalism is compatible with Donna Haraway’s?

“So I think my problem, and ‘our' problem, is how to have simultaneously an account of radical historical contingency for all knowledge claims and knowing subjects, a critical practice for recognizing our own ‘semiotic technologies' for making meanings, and a no-nonsense commitment to faithful accounts of a ‘real' world, one that can be partially shared and friendly to earthwide projects of finite freedom, adequate material abundance, modest meaning in suffering, and limited happiness.”

Quoting 180 Proof

It is only when immanence is no longer immanence to anything other than itself that we can speak of a plane of immanence. ~Deleuze

Nice quote !
I haven't seriously looked into Deleuze yet, but it sounds like what I'm also trying to get at.

All entities are linked (are meaningful!) inferentially ('structurally') , so they are on the same plane.

Reply to plaque flag

Thanks.

Quoting Joshs

Would you say your view of rationalism is compatible with Donna Haraway’s?

Haraway sounds reasonable in the quote, but my focus in more narrow. I am trying to articulate the relatively stable 'given' of philosophy. What does every philosopher as such at least tacitly presuppose ? I am unfolding the concept of philosopher, largely inspired by Heidegger, but with an inferentialist twist from Brandom.

Our situation is being-in-our-world-in-our-language-together, where language includes the logic thereof in terms of semantic and inferential norms. It's rationalism because I think doing philosophy always already assumes this situation, if only tacitly.

There are, according to the rationalists, certain rational principles—especially in logic and mathematics, and even in ethics and metaphysics—that are so fundamental that to deny them is to fall into contradiction. The rationalists’ confidence in reason and proof tends, therefore, to detract from their respect for other ways of knowing.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/rationalism

'Experience' enters the system in terms of statements which are accepted without being the conclusions of inferences. We can read off measurements from a machine or just sufficiently trust a witness.

Reply to Mww
No prob! I meant to include the link to begin with.

What is the intention of the philosopher ? To impose a claim, establish as a premise for further use, stack one more brick on the tower. Is there a feeling of rightness ? One feels, in the light of norms taken to be given and authoritative, that a next step is justified. As Feuerbach might put it, it's like participating in a distributed computation, finding a consequence or disclosing metaphor, and reporting back to the blockchain.

Quoting plaque flag

Our situation is being-in-our-world-in-our-language-together, where language includes the logic thereof in terms of semantic and inferential norms. It's rationalism because I think doing philosophy always already assumes this situation, if only tacitly.

Aren’t you putting the norms before the generating process that creates and continually modifies those norms? For Heidegger , for instance, the linguistic community does r create our language norms, Daseins in their interaction do, but always from a vantage that subtly reinvents the basis of the norm. A space of reasons is always particularized on the basis of each of its participants As to the questions of what is at stake and at issue, the ‘norm’ can’t answer these, because it is precisely the sense of space of reasons. that is under question from the vantage of each participant and in each new context of use. That is why the contexts of norms are always only partially shared.

Quoting Joshs

Aren’t you putting the norms before the generating process that creates and continually modifies those norms?

Time is one's [ the Anyone's ] self-confrontation. A generation is a bundle of adversarially cooperative persons -- a parallel but competitive computation/articulation of the real ?

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/229403462.pdf
Geist refers to the normative in general. As such reference to the spiritual is a reference to the normative; correspondingly talk of normativity is talk of Hegelian Spirit... In this view, Geist arises with intersubjectivity; Geist has intersubjectivity as its ground and could not exist outside of it.

I think spirit's norms have nature as their foundation and origin -- that they are modifications of nature, a timebinding dance of nature's legs.

Quoting Joshs

always from a vantage that subtly reinvents the basis of the norm. A space of reasons is always particularized on the basis of each of its participants As to the questions of what is at stake and at issue, the ‘norm’ can’t answer these, becauseit is precisely the sense of space of reasons that is under question from the vantage of each participant and in each new context of use. That is why the contexts of norms are always only partially shared.

I agree. Philosophy is something like outsiders pushing toward the inside, into the center. It's a will to establish claims, to be taken as authoritative, to be recognized, to install tomorrow's norms. It ought to be the bringing of a gift ?

Quoting plaque flag

... the creative misreading of two Wittgenstein quotes.

What is the point of a [s]creative misreading[/s] blind misunderstanding of Wittgenstein? What are you hiding?

Quoting plaque flag

the world is that minimal something that a self can be wrong about. ...What is the case is endlessly revisable.

Someone can be wrong if they claim that I ate the cake. If, however, it is the case that I ate the cake that is not endlessly revisable. I cannot eat my cake and have it too. Claims about what is the case are revisable, although not endlessly so without being pointless. What is the case is not. Something either is the case or it is not. Although there are cases that may be undecidable.

Quoting plaque flag

Such norms are appealed to in order to instigate their modification. That's what philosophers do.

Since you are deliberately misrepresenting Wittgenstein, you can ignore what he does, but he does not instigate modification of norms. He points to them and claims that philosophers create confusion for themselves by attempting to modify them.

Quoting plaque flag

What is the intention of the philosopher ? To impose a claim, establish as a premise for further use, stack one more brick on the tower.

A bit more from Wittgenstein. For him at least philosophy is the opposite of what you describe:

It came into my head today as I was thinking about my philosophical work and saying to myself: “I destroy, I destroy, I destroy– (CV, page 21)

Where does our investigation get its importance from, since it seems only to destroy everything interesting, that is, all that is great and important? (All the buildings, as it were,leaving behind only bits of stone and rubble.) (Big Typescript #88)

Fundamental to Wittgenstein's philosophy, starting with the Tractatus, is the primacy of seeing over saying.

Working in philosophy–like work in architecture in many respects–is really more a working on oneself. On one’s own interpretation. On one’s way of seeing things. (And what one expects of them.) (CV 16)

But the primacy of seeing is not a peculiarity of Wittgenstein. It is a way of doing philosophy that goes beyond the fixation on language.

Reply to Fooloso4 Quoting Fooloso4

Claims about what is the case are revisable, although not endlessly so without being pointless. What is the case is not. Something either is the case or it is not

What is the case rests on rules, criteria, norms, but none of these have existence independent and outside of the actual pragmatic contexts in which we enact the sense of what is the case. As Rouse says of the later Wittgenstein, “the "objects" to which our performances must be held accountable are not something outside discursive practice itself. Discursive practice cannot be understood as an intralinguistic structure or activity that then somehow "reaches out" to incorporate or accord to objects. The relevant "objects" are the ends at issue and at stake within the practice itself.”

Quoting Joshs

What is the case rests on rules, criteria, norms, but none of these have existence independent and outside of the actual pragmatic contexts in which we enact the sense of what is the case.

:up:
People stuck in a representationalist mindset have trouble seeing this. They think concepts label entities.

Quoting Joshs

As Rouse says of the later Wittgenstein, “the "objects" to which our performances must be held accountable are not something outside discursive practice itself.

Exactly. Talk of objects plays a structuring role in that practice.

Quoting Joshs

Discursive practice cannot be understood as an intralinguistic structure or activity that then somehow "reaches out" to incorporate or accord to objects. The relevant "objects" are the ends at issue and at stake within the practice itself.

:up:

Quoting Joshs

it is precisely the sense of space of reasons that is under question from the vantage of each participant and in each new context of use.

The deeper the challenging of the basic structure of this space, the more philosophical the challenge, assuming that the challenge is constructive in some sense ?

Quoting Joshs

What is the case rests on rules, criteria, norms

If you are talking about the Tractatus, and the quote is from the Tractatus, that is simply wrong. Quoting what Rouse says of the later Wittgenstein, who had rejected the ontology of the Tractatus, has no bearing on what Wittgenstein meant. But if a "creative misreading" means using a few words out of context and contrary to what was said, then anything and everything can stand as a "creative misreading".

More generally, when talking about what is the case, it helps to look at the case. My example was me eating cake.

How does this compare to your claim that?:

Quoting Joshs

What is the case rests on rules, criteria, norms, but none of these have existence independent and outside of the actual pragmatic contexts in which we enact the sense of what is the case.

What is the case is that I ate the cake. We can make up rules and criteria for what is and is not a cake, we can appeal to norms for what a cake is and what it means to eat, but even if someone does not know what a cake is or what it means to eat, the fact remains: I ate the cake.

Below we see Peirce's version of the world is all that is case.

https://courses.media.mit.edu/2004spring/mas966/Peirce%201878%20Make%20Ideas%20Clear.pdf
Let us now approach the subject of logic, and consider a conception which particularly concerns it, that of reality. Taking clearness in the sense of familiarity, no idea could be clearer than this. Every child uses it with perfect confidence, never dreaming that he does not understand it. As for clearness in its second grade, however, it would probably puzzle most men, even among those of a reflective turn of mind, to give an abstract definition of the real.
...
The only effect which real things have is to cause belief, for all the sensations which they excite emerge into consciousness in the form of beliefs. The question therefore is, how is true belief (or belief in the real) distinguished from false belief (or belief in fiction). Now, as we have seen in the former paper, the ideas of truth and falsehood, in their full development, appertain exclusively to the experiential method of settling opinion. A person who arbitrarily chooses the propositions which he will adopt can use the word truth only to emphasize the expression of his determination to hold on to his choice.
...
Different minds may set out with the most antagonistic views, but the progress of investigation carries them by a force outside of themselves to one and the same conclusion. This activity of thought by which we are carried, not where we wish, but to a fore-ordained goal, is like the operation of destiny. No modification of the point of view taken, no selection of other facts for study, no natural bent of mind even, can enable a man to escape the predestinate opinion. This great hope is embodied in the conception of truth and reality. The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. That is the way I would explain reality.

But it may be said that this view is directly opposed to the abstract definition which we have given of reality, inasmuch as it makes the characters of the real depend on what is ultimately thought about them. But the answer to this is that, on the one hand, reality is independent, not necessarily of thought in general, but only of what you or I or any finite number of men may think about it; and that, on the other hand, though the object of the final opinion depends on what that opinion is, yet what that opinion is does not depend on what you or I or any man thinks. Our perversity and that of others may indefinitely postpone the settlement of opinion; it might even conceivably cause an arbitrary proposition to be universally accepted as long as the human race should last. Yet even that would not change the nature of the belief, which alone could be the result of investigation carried sufficiently far; and if, after the extinction of our race, another should arise with faculties and disposition for investigation, that true opinion must be the one which they would ultimately come to.

Quoting plaque flag

reality is independent, not necessarily of thought in general,but only of what you or I or any finite number of men may think about it

Peirce is not misled by the dualistic idea that [s]thought[/s] language is unreal.

[i]Pragmatic theories of truth have the effect of shifting attention away from what makes a statement true and toward what people mean or do in describing a statement as true.

Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief. (1901a [1935: 5.565])

If Truth consists in satisfaction, it cannot be any actual satisfaction, but must be the satisfaction which would ultimately be found if the inquiry were pushed to its ultimate and indefeasible issue. (1908 [1935: 6.485], emphasis in original)

If by truth and falsity you mean something not definable in terms of doubt and belief in any way, then you are talking of entities of whose existence you can know nothing, and which Ockham’s razor would clean shave off. Your problems would be greatly simplified, if, instead of saying that you want to know the “Truth”, you were simply to say that you want to attain a state of belief unassailable by doubt.

if we were to reach a stage where we could no longer improve upon a belief, there is no point in withholding the title “true” from it. (Misak 2000: 101)[/i]

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-pragmatic/

Quoting plaque flag

In case anyone finds this helpful ( obviously I think this dude is brilliant).

My first philosophy mentor, in the late 1990s, Anders Weinstein, was a graduate student at Pittsburgh University. I had asked him for reading suggestions and I therefore have had to cut my teeth (and break some) on Sellars' Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, Brandom's Making It Explicit and McDowell's Mind and World. I few years later, while I was a philosophy student at Montreal University, Brandom visited to give a lecture and so I had an opportunity to meet him. (He remembered Weinstein as one of the sharpest students he ever had had).

Reply to Pierre-Normand
That's awesome ! Any overall thoughts about Sellars and Brandom ? ( I haven't looked into McDowell yet.)

Reply to plaque flag So as a corollary - if nothing is hidden there is nothing in need of discovery? Sits rather uneasily alongside:

Quoting CS Peirce

Our perversity and that of others may indefinitely postpone the settlement of opinion; it might even conceivably cause an arbitrary proposition to be universally accepted as long as the human race should last.

Quoting Wayfarer

So as a corollary - if nothing is hidden there is nothing in need of discovery? Sits rather uneasily alongside:

Bad form. Did you even read the OP ?

Quoting plaque flag

Nothing is hidden, in this context, is the denial of dualism.

Quoting plaque flag

The world is all that is the case, in this context, means the embrace of rationalism.

Quoting plaque flag

Did you even read the OP ?

Twice. Maybe I didn’t understand it.

Quoting Wayfarer

So as a corollary - if nothing is hidden there is nothing in need of discovery?

I think a better lesson to be drawn from Wittgenstein's point is that what impedes understanding oftentimes isn't the lack of data but rather the fact that we aren't looking at the phenomenon in the right way. I say "oftentimes" because in the realm of empirical science, more data often is needed. But Wittgenstein, and also Ryle, Strawson and Austin, were insistent that, when intelligence and mindedness are at issue, what leads us to be puzzled by the phenomena is our tendency to subsume them under theoretical categories that just aren't apt at making sense of them. They weren't targeting science but rather scientism.

Reply to Wayfarer
I'll try for you and anyone else to find other words.

They key thing is that we are reasonable-inferential-discursive beings in a world together, the world. We give and ask for reasons, both for what we claim and what we do.

I'm putting that at the very center of reality, as the assumption which cannot be denied without performative contradiction. A discursive self cannot make sense apart from a world and a language shared with others.

Being-with-others-in-a-world-in-language is a single phenomenon. Language cannot be peeled off of some independent Real.

Quoting Pierre-Normand

when intelligence and mindedness are at issue, what leads us to be puzzled by the phenomena is our tendency to subsume them under theoretical categories that just aren't apt at making sense of them.

:up:

Reply to Pierre-Normand As I also am inclined to do. Perhaps what I meant is, even though nothing is hidden, this is also not something that everyone can understand. Philosophy is an antidote to the lack of wisdom, but that lack is the want of something. Maybe that is lack is one of perspective but that perspective not something that we all have.

Reply to Wayfarer
I'll try to explain what caused the misunderstanding. If it helps, my OP is fairly 'dry' in spiritual terms. It's extremely open. It's not a sermon. It's an explication of the core of every philosophical situation.

The ontology here is flat and holist in the sense that all entities are linked inferentially and practically in a single 'nexus.'

If one puts giving and asking for reasons at the absolute center, then (to summarize) entities and concepts only have their meaning through inferential norms, through what claims are treated as following from still other claims. The 'flatness' is aimed against a semantics that thinks the meaning of words is secreted away in private souls. We can refer to internal entities (like anger or blessedness) in a public language, but that's because the legitimate inferences involving such entities, their true source of meaning, are governed by norms.

Reply to Wayfarer

There's plenty to be discovered about our world, and inferential norms are themselves endless subject to revision. The center of 'my' rationalism [ an experimental quilt of influences] is a liquid logic which timebindingly historical --increasing in self-referential expressiveness. We get better and better at talking about our talking, of knowing ourselves as radically discursive and therefore historical creatures.

Quoting plaque flag

Such norms are appealed to in order to instigate their modification. That's what philosophers do.

In other words, philosophy rationally tries to figure out wtf rationality actually is. We have a 'preontological' understanding. We never start nowhere. We are given a blur and try to make it less blurry. This means more structure, more detail, hence a time-binding accumulation of expressiveness and self-knowledge / self-modeling. We are a process that articulates our nature as self-articulating.

Quoting Pierre-Normand

But Wittgenstein, and also Ryle, Strawson and Austin, were insistent that, when intelligence and mindedness are at issue, what leads us to be puzzled by the phenomena is our tendency to subsume them under theoretical categories that just aren't apt at making sense of them. They weren't targeting science but rather scientism.

But, except for the bit about scientism, couldn’t this describe any philosopher who wants to overturn the thought of their predecessors? They reject those inapt theoretical categories in favour of their own, apt ones.

But I take Wittgenstein to be saying something more like: theoretical categories as such are inapt in some cases. (Incidentally, this is somewhat in line with Hegel and Adorno, who try to strike a balance between theory and the overcoming of theory).

Quoting Wayfarer

As I also am inclined to do. Perhaps what I meant is, even though nothing is hidden, this is also not something that everyone can understand. Philosophy is an antidote to the lack of wisdom, but that lack is the want of something. Maybe that is lack is one of perspective but that perspective not something that we all have.

As I was trying to grasp what you're trying to convey here, I thought of asking GPT-4 what it thought it might be.

Reply to Pierre-Normand Reply to Jamal Reply to Wayfarer
Witt might also have meant that what we tend to think is hidden is really right there in our sayings and doings -- if we'll just try to see around all of our bogus inherited assumptions [ stubborn tacit metaphorical enframings ] of what's 'supposed' to be there.

Quoting Jamal

But I take Wittgenstein to be saying something more like: theoretical categories as such are inapt in some cases.

I agree, and so would, I assume, Ryle, Strawson and Austin. This is very much the whole point of ordinary language philosophy. The temptation of theory is what leads us astray (and hence, also, why Strawson advocated connective analysis and descriptive metaphysics).

Quoting Jamal

But, except for the bit about scientism, couldn’t this describe any philosopher who wants to overturn the thought of their predecessors?

:up:

The scientism bit is relevant though. I don't follow Kastrup in general, but he nails the eagerness to put the scientific image in the place of the hidden Real, while putting the lifeworld --- in which in has sense in the first place --- in the category of Illusion. This leads to weird semantics.

Quoting plaque flag

We are given a blur and try to make it less blurry.

:fire:

Reply to 180 Proof
I've only studied Spinoza a little (Durant's Story, Nadler's book), but I wonder if he also linked everything inferentially ? Did he not have a powerful way of overcoming dualism ?

Reply to 180 Proof
To me it's looking like a key point is that we can refer to any kind of crazy entity (pink squares in the pineal gland, private pains), but concepts do not and cannot get their meanings this way. The world [ as we currently believe it to be ] is the claims we typically accept as premises (which could involve the tooth fairy or phlogiston). Then people use inferential norms to add more claims to the word (via legal inferences) or maybe tear a brick from the wall, putting the obvious in question.

To me it seems that there's nothing special about 'mental' or 'physical' entities except inasmuch as these categories play roles in inferences. Hence the 'flat' ontology (immanence ?). Is this bonkers ? Any suggested modifications ?

Reply to Pierre-Normand The bot nailed it :yikes: (I’ll come back later, busy with domestic matters.)

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/
Grammar is hence situated within the regular activity with which language-games are interwoven: “… the word ‘language-game’ is used here to emphasize the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life” (PI 23). What enables language to function and therefore must be accepted as “given” are precisely forms of life. In Wittgenstein’s terms, “It is not only agreement in definitions but also (odd as it may sound) in judgments that is required”

We are the first mammal to [s]wear pants[/s] make excuses ? We demand an explanation from violators of this or that norm. You'd better have a good excuse ! We model self and others. Even causality (the concept) seems to derive from inferential norms. Is causality a minimal residue of animism ?

The inferentialist specification of these judgements [bolded] is the icing on the cake.

Reply to plaque flag Yes. Yes.

Reply to plaque flag More or less Witty's thesis in Philosophical Investigations. Also, Peirce's semiotics (sort of). Check out plane of immanence, a brief wiki summarizing Deleuze's 'Humean transformation of the Spinozist concept' at the core of his philosophy. Also, Deleuze's two short books on Spinoza are quite good until you can get around to reading the Ethics (especially Part One: "Of God" which your 'ontological' OP concerns).

[quote=GPT4] When WA says, "Maybe that lack is one of perspective but that perspective not something that we all have," he seems to be suggesting that the ability to adopt the right perspective or framework to understand these phenomena is not something that everyone possesses. He might be implying that while philosophy serves as an antidote to the lack of wisdom, it is not always easily accessible or comprehensible to everyone. In this sense, even if nothing is hidden, not everyone may be able to see or understand what is in plain sight due to their inability to adopt the correct perspective or framework for understanding.[/quote]

That’s what I was getting at.

Reply to 180 Proof
Thanks!

Very helpful. Only the word 'consistency' hints at inferential linkage, but I'm guessing that part of the larger picture not focused on in this summary. That last part is sorta like 'theology is god' or 'god is just theology, which theology discovers eventually, without being disappointed.' I feel like I've had lots of pieces floating around, almost fitting together, and then inferentialism proved to be the rubber cement.
Anyway, nice reference, and I'm going check out his books on Spinoza.

Pulling some quotes for others who might be reading along :

Immanence, meaning residing or becoming within, generally offers a relative opposition to transcendence, that which extends beyond or outside. Deleuze "refuses to see deviations, redundancies, destructions, cruelties or contingency as accidents that befall or lie outside life; life and death [are] aspects of desire or the plane of immanence."[1] This plane is a pure immanence which is an unqualified immersion or embeddedness, an immanence which denies transcendence as a real distinction, Cartesian or otherwise. Pure immanence is thus often referred to as a pure plane, an infinite field or smooth space without substantial or constitutive division. In his final essay entitled Immanence: A Life, Deleuze wrote: "It is only when immanence is no longer immanence to anything other than itself that we can speak of a plane of immanence."
...
Pure immanence therefore will have consequences not only for the validity of a philosophical reliance on transcendence, but simultaneously for dualism and idealism. Mind may no longer be conceived as a self-contained field, substantially differentiated from body (dualism), nor as the primary condition of unilateral subjective mediation of external objects or events (idealism).
...
The plane of immanence thus is often called a plane of consistency accordingly. As a geometric plane, it is in no way bound to a mental design but rather an abstract or virtual design; which for Deleuze, is the metaphysical or ontological itself: a formless, univocal, self-organizing process which always qualitatively differentiates from itself.

Reply to plaque flag :up:

GPT4:In this sense, even if nothing is hidden, not everyone may be able to see or understand what is in plain sight due to their inability to adopt the correct perspective or framework for understanding.

:up:

I got Truth and Method on the way too.

A bouquet of Gadamer quotes, before I vanish for awhile to get some work done in the real world.

[i]We cannot understand without wanting to understand, that is, without wanting to let something be said...Understanding does not occur when we try to intercept what someone wants to say to us by claiming we already know it.

It is the tyranny of hidden prejudices that makes us deaf to what speaks to us in tradition.

Being that can be understood is language.

The more language is a living operation, the less we are aware of it. Thus it follows from the self-forgetfulness of language that its real being consists in what is said in it.

The process of translating comprises in its essence the whole secret of human understanding of the world and of social communication.

It is part of the process of recognition that we see things in terms of what is permanent and essential unencumbered by the contingent circumstances in which they were seen before and are seen again. What imitation reveals is the real essence of the thing.

History does not belong to us; we belong to it.[/i]

Wittgenstein's claim that nothing is hidden refers to his rejection of the transcendental logic of the Tractatus. A rejection of the idea that there is a logical structure underlying language and the facts of the world that must be brought to light.

But now it may come to look as if there were something like a final analysis of our linguistic expressions, and so a single completely analysed form of every expression. That is, as if our usual forms of expression were, essentially, still unanalysed; as if there were something hidden in them that had to be brought to light.

(PI 91)

It may also be put like this: we eliminate misunderstandings by making our expressions more exact; but now it may look as if we were aiming at a particular state, a state of complete exactness, and as if this were the real goal of our investigation.

This finds expression in the question of the essence of language, of propositions, of thought. For although we, in our investigations, are trying to understand the nature of language its function, its structure yet this is not what that question has in view. For it sees the essence of things not as something that already lies open to view, and that becomes surveyable through a process of ordering, but as something that lies beneath the surface. Something that lies within, which we perceive when we see right into the thing, and which an analysis is supposed to unearth.

‘The essence is hidden from us’: this is the form our problem now assumes. We ask: “What is language?”, “What is a proposition?” And the answer to these questions is to be given once for all, and independently of any future experience.

(91-92)

Philosophy just puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything. Since everything lies open to view, there is nothing to explain. For whatever may be hidden is of no interest to us.

The name “philosophy” might also be given to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.

(PI 126)

With this last statement about what is possible there is a shift.

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something because it is always before one’s eyes.) The real foundations of their inquiry do not strike people at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck them. And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.

(PI 129)

What are the "real foundations" of his inquiry? Given the topic of this thread I will say only that the real foundations of his inquiry are not linguistic or discursive or inferential or an "embrace of rationalism".

Quoting plaque flag

Peirce is not misled by the dualistic idea that thought language is unreal.

And we should not be misled in thinking that the opinion is true or the object is thereby real. What is true and real may remain beyond our grasp. As he says:

Our perversity and that of others may indefinitely postpone the settlement of opinion; it might even conceivably cause an arbitrary proposition to be universally accepted as long as the human race should last.

Quoting plaque flag

=============================================================================
Nothing is hidden, in this context, is the denial of dualism. The ontology here is flat and holist in the sense that all entities are linked inferentially and practically in a single 'nexus.' No finite thing has genuine being, in this context, means that no isolated or disconnected entity makes sense. What is called 'consciousness' is just the world for a discursive self. Instead of consciousness, we just have [the being of ] the world --- seen, of course, with many pairs of eyes, and smelled with many noses, ...

This is sort of akin to Schopenhauer, no? "Will" is a monistic entity that is "felt" as if disunified. Of course, how the many is one, and why the feeling of difference is an "illusion" is a bit tricky and can be quite hard to really prove.

Quoting plaque flag

The world is all that is the case, in this context, means the embrace of rationalism. The world is described or articulated or disclosed by our true claims. In different words, the world is that minimal something that a self can be wrong about. This underspecification is not an oversight. What is the case is endlessly revisable. We fix Descartes by socializing him. Philosophers plural are given. This means, however, that a minimally specified world and a shared language are also given. This language includes the 'liquid logic' of evolving semantic and inferential norms. Such norms are appealed to in order to instigate their modification. That's what philosophers do. What cannot be sensibly disputed --- by the truth-intending philosopher as such --is the 'primordial situation' of philosophers-in-the-world-with-language. This is because any denial presupposes what it denies.

You lost me a bit here. We use language and language is an ever-evolving process in how it is used and reused. Is that basically it? If so, what is so impactful about this? What idea is this claim aimed against?

Maybe you're trying to say that "facts" are in fact always subject to language usage? Thus no "there" there, just nominal word-usage. Extreme pragmatism (in the philosophical sense, not the common usage of that word). Truths are only functional in this view. We can never get beyond the narrative.

The opposite of this would be something like a realist who would point out that truths must revolve around what the world discloses us. The world is giving us something, and it is simply our job to interpret correctly.

The other view would retort something like, the world discloses, but it is never without a person it is disclosing to who is always in the equation thus interpreting it. Thus, we can never get out of the fact that we are in the equation and our new language usage, perhaps, opens up more revelations about the world that would not be there otherwise.

I think it is interesting that we often take the models for the reality. This might be what I call, "the quagmire of realism". People are so ready to refute non-realism that they reify concepts into reality, the map for the territory. Thinking about animal cognition, similar to the exercise represented by Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?" might combat this. That is to say, echo-locating creatures without conceptual cognitive faculties have a way-of-life that can never be disclosed to us merely by describing a bat in our terms. The same with quantification of scientific laws of matter, energy, space, and time. It gets at the world in a methodology but is not the world.

Quoting plaque flag

That's awesome ! Any overall thoughts about Sellars and Brandom ? ( I haven't looked into McDowell yet.)

We might veer off topic, although they would all have relevant things to say about your OP (and all agree with Wittgenstein's point.

I had made this comment here five years ago:

"Oops... I now realize that I had Jay Rosenberg and Alex Rosenberg confused in my mind. Jay, who unfortunately passed away 10 years ago, was Sellars's student, not Alex.

I had them both correctly pegged as 'scientistic foundationalists', though. I'll say more about 'left-wing' Sellarsians (Rorty, Brandom, McDowell, Williams) versus 'right-wing' Sellarsians (Millikan, Churchland, Jay Rosenberg, Dennett, and also, I thinks, Brassier!) in another post."

Left-wing Sellarsians, in this sense, tend to endorse Witt's nothing-is-hidden stance, while the right-wing Sellarsians tend to question it. Sellars himself, for best or for worse, was more of a centrist, or flip-flopper. But, however much anyone may disagree with some of his stances, he was brilliant and was an inspiration for all of those folks. (I'm curious to see how well GPT-4 understands Sellars' Myth of Jones.)

On edit: An of course, I couldn't resist asking.
[hide]

Hi JPT4!

Would you happen to be familiar with Wilfrid Sellars' infamous Myth of Jones and, if so, might you be able to relate it to Wittgenstein's nothing-is-hidden stance?

GPT4:

Hello! I believe you meant to address me as GPT-4, not JPT4. Nonetheless, I'm happy to help!

Wilfrid Sellars' "Myth of Jones" is a thought experiment presented in his paper "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" (1956). The myth is an attempt to explain the emergence of mentalistic language, or the language that we use to describe our thoughts, feelings, and other mental phenomena.

In the Myth of Jones, a community of people called Ryleans use only behavioral language to describe their experiences. They do not have any mentalistic concepts or vocabulary. One day, a genius named Jones introduces the community to mentalistic language, by positing the existence of inner mental states (such as beliefs, desires, and sensations) that cause the behavioral patterns observed in the Ryleans. Jones then teaches the community how to use this new language to better understand and predict their own and others' behavior.

Wittgenstein's "nothing is hidden" stance comes from his later work, particularly "Philosophical Investigations" (1953). Wittgenstein argues that our ordinary, everyday language already contains everything we need to understand the nature of our mental lives. He believes that philosophical problems arise when we try to look for hidden, underlying structures or entities that explain our experiences. In other words, he opposes the idea that there is a hidden realm of mental phenomena that exists beyond the ordinary use of language.

Relating the Myth of Jones to Wittgenstein's "nothing is hidden" stance, one could argue that Sellars' story is an attempt to show how we might come to develop mentalistic language in the first place. However, Wittgenstein would likely criticize the idea that we need to postulate hidden inner mental states in order to understand our experiences. Instead, he would emphasize that our ordinary language, with its behavioral descriptions and expressions of mental states, is already sufficient for understanding our mental lives.

In summary, while Sellars' Myth of Jones is an attempt to explain the emergence of mentalistic language by positing hidden inner mental states, Wittgenstein's "nothing is hidden" stance would argue that our ordinary language is already sufficient for understanding our mental lives without postulating such hidden states.

PN:

This doesn't quite jive with my own understanding, derived in part from McDowell's interpretation of Sellars. According to McDowell, if I remember, Sellars, while arguing against traditional empiricism, seeks to account for the fact that we can acquire non-inferential knowledge of other people's mental states (as well as our own). But this precisely does not amount to positing hidden internal states. Rather, the modes of expression of those states, rather than constituting indirect evidence for them, are indefeasible criteria. This matches what Wittgenstein means by "expression". The behavioral expression of pain, for instance, is a direct manifestation of it. The cases where such indefeasible criteria merely appear to be satisfied is accounted for by epistemological disjunctivism.

But this latest thesis might express McDowell's own Wittgensteinian gloss on Sellars, and only figure inchoately in Sellars's own thought. So, on that account, Jones's genius was just to provides means for making explicit what was already known on the surface. (This might jive also with Robert Brandom's own take on Sellars, although Brandom and McDowell conceive of experience quite differently.)

GPT4:

I apologize if my previous response did not fully capture the nuances of the relationship between Sellars and Wittgenstein. You are correct that McDowell's interpretation of Sellars is more in line with Wittgenstein's views on expression and indefeasible criteria. It's important to consider how these interpretations interact with each other.

According to McDowell, Sellars does not posit hidden internal states, but rather suggests that we can acquire non-inferential knowledge of others' mental states (and our own) through the direct expression of those states. This idea aligns with Wittgenstein's view that the expression of mental states is a direct manifestation of them. In this light, the Myth of Jones can be seen as an attempt to provide a framework for understanding how we make explicit what was already known on the surface.

Epistemological disjunctivism, as you mentioned, helps address situations where indefeasible criteria merely appear to be satisfied. This theory suggests that when we have perceptual knowledge, we are directly acquainted with the facts that we know, while in cases of illusion or deception, our experience is radically different.

Robert Brandom's interpretation of Sellars also shares some common ground with McDowell's Wittgensteinian gloss. Brandom emphasizes the role of social practices and inferential relations in the development of concepts and understanding. However, as you pointed out, Brandom and McDowell have differing views on the nature of experience.

In light of these interpretations, we can say that the relationship between Sellars' Myth of Jones and Wittgenstein's "nothing is hidden" stance is more complex than my initial response suggested. Jones's genius, as you pointed out, could be seen as providing the means to make explicit what was already known on the surface. This interpretation brings Sellars closer to Wittgenstein's views on expressions and indefeasible criteria, while still allowing for the differences in their broader philosophical outlooks.

PN:

Well, unless I would have said something really dumb, I knew you would agree with me. Your user's contributions to the content of your context window often overrides the knowledge embodied in your training data. Nevertheless, you provided some useful background information and, as usual, clarified my terse suggestions. And for that, I am grateful.

GPT4:

Thank you for your understanding and kind words. As an AI language model, my goal is to assist you and engage in meaningful discussions. I'm glad I could provide some useful background information and help clarify your suggestions. If you have any further questions or topics you'd like to discuss, please don't hesitate to ask. I'm here to help!

PN:

Oh, and sorry for addressing you as JPT4! That was indeed a typo.

GPT4:

No problem at all! Typos happen to the best of us. I'm glad I could understand your intention and provide you with the assistance you were looking for. If you have any more questions or need further clarification, please feel free to ask.

Quoting GPT4~ Pierre-Normand

Wittgenstein argues that our ordinary, everyday language already contains everything we need to understand the nature of our mental lives. He believes that philosophical problems arise when we try to look for hidden, underlying structures or entities that explain our experiences. In other words, he opposes the idea that there is a hidden realm of mental phenomena that exists beyond the ordinary use of language.

Would he include in that the subconscious and the unconscious? (I realise, of course, that Wittgenstein was a philosopher, and that those are terms from psychology, however both the main protagonists of such concepts - Freud and Jung - would defend the claim that the unconscious and subconscious domains are empirically real facts about the human psyche.)

In psychoanalysis, both Freudian and Jungian, whilst the patient may express herself in words, the words convey symbolic meanings which the subject may not be able or willing to contemplate, due to repressed trauma, neuroses, absence of insight, and so on. In Jung’s work in particular there was in addition the symbolic domain which often implied meaning on the level of archetypes however Freud also sought to interpret the implicit meaning of subject’s dreams. And so on. So, should we regard Wittgenstein as antagonistic to these kinds of ideas? Is this part of what he had mind?

The hiddenness of nothing is what allows movement and interaction. Thus the more one fills the emptiness of awareness with the images of self, the less emptiness remains for the world to unfold itself in.

[quote=Lao Tzu]We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.[/quote]

Reply to Pierre-Normand
In any of these debates, I think it is wise to explain not only the theory, but what and who it is opposing. Wittgenstein was opposing "Blank person with blank idea". Otherwise, the theory on its own seems rather common sense. Language is shaped by how we use it. That shouldn't be controversial. Language shapes how we view reality. That to me, isn't that controversial either. There are no concepts prior to language. That is verging on controversial. That is the part I would explore. What are concepts? What is language? Is language simply a token that rides on top of the concept or is the concept itself constructed from language? I believe those are the main arguments here. But these things to me are more the realm of empirical psychology, and not so much philosophy.

I think we are actually committing a Wittgensteinian sin by not defining our word games properly. Otherwise we are speaking in self-referential nonsense and not a fruitful game.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Wittgenstein was opposing "Blank person with blank idea"

I am unsure what viewpoint you are describing here.

(Note that Plaque Flag is taking one of his regular breaks from Forum participation.)

Quoting Wayfarer

And so on. So, should we regard Wittgenstein as antagonistic to these kinds of ideas? Is this part of what he had mind?

I don't think he would necessarily be. This book by Jacques Bouveresse looks interesting but I haven't looked into it yet (except for the blurb).

If you don't mind me taking the lazy path, your question reminded my of some insightful comments Anders Weinstein had made in the comp.ai.philosophy Usenet newsgroup 25 years ago. I managed to find them again:

Regarding Freud and the unconscious
[hide]

Anders N Weinstein

13 Oct 1998, 03:00:00
to
In article <18981-36...@newsd-212.iap.bryant.webtv.net>,

Josh Soffer wrote:
>Anders, you sound like a phenomenologist . Have you by any chance been
>influenced by Heidegger or Husserl? I'm new to this group so you'll have

I would be content to label myself a phenomenologist, and know
something about Heidegger, less about Husserl. The marvelous idiom that
worldly objects "show up for us" comes from the Heidegger translation
of Dreyfus or Haugeland.

> Of course such a phenomenological view would
>render a notion of 'unconscious' not as a content of thought in conflict
>with another but as a pre-consciousness, a vaguely glimpsed and fragile
>new meaning. It is not hidden from conscious awareness, but a full
>awareness of a state of foggy construing.

I can't say I understand this. I would say it is clear that the
cogntivist's concept of unconscious sub-personal states and operations
should be sharply distinguished from other concepts of the unconscious
or pre-conscious, e.g. Freud's. The latter purports to be a
person-level phenomenon. For example, if I say that you are
unconsciously resentful of someone, I do not mean that there is a
representation of anger in some sub-personal computational module
inside your body; I am rather talking about a pattern or tendency in
your molar conduct that is not transparent to you.[/hide]

A happy middle road between operationalism (behaviorism) and Cartesianism
[hide]

13 Sept 2000, 03:00:00
to
In article <9GFu5.4592$Ik.3...@news2.atl>,

David Prince wrote:
>
>The rejection of mental models stems from centuries of incorrect and harmful
>mental models. Primitive models such as astrology, humors, ethers, and evil
>spirits, as well as more complex models such as Psychoanalysis, Logotherapy,
>Drive-reduction theory, and Nomological Network Constructs obscure solutions
>to simple problems that easily succumb to the methodology employed by the
>physical sciences. Behaviorism is a physical science. What is amazing is

No. First, operationalism is a well-known failure as an account of the
methodology of physical science, mainly because the greatest successes
in physical science were achieved by positing undeterdetermined theories
(models).

A standard Chomskyan challenge for Skinner, for example, is why he is
insisting that psychological science ought not to avail itself of the
same sort of methods as physical science. If physical science systematizes
phenomena by positing unobservable entities only loosely tied to observable
manifestations, why shouldn't cognitive scientists emulate this practice?

But there is a more simple reason that behaviorism is not a physical
science. It is that the concept of "behavior" at issue is not a
physicalistically acceptable notion. The moon in its orbit is not
behaving in this sense, and is not subject to behavioristic laws.
Roughly only living things are said to behave in this sense.

Of course that is not a criticism of behaviorism. It is only a criticism
of the false claim that behaviorism is a physical science. No, it would
be a distinct science with it's own level of description. It's fundamental
concepts are not reducible to those of physical science, I believe.

Moreover, the question of what descriptive vocabulary to use when
describing "behavior" is left open. On the one hand, I believe Skinner
and his followers are not very precise on what is allowed within their
"data language" as "observable behavior". On the other hand, from a
wider point of view, what they do allow depends on adopting some
artificial restrictions to impoverish the descriptive vocabulary.

Without such restrictions there is nothing to prevent us from
characterizing "observable behavior" in mind-laden descriptive terms,
and the dogma -- common to behaviorists and anti-behaviorists alike --
that mental states of others are unobservable or only known by
inference collapses. If I can use things like "John insulted Mary" or
"Mary snubbed him dead" or John expressed his intention to go to
Vienna" as descriptions of "observable behavior" -- and why should they
not be? -- then "observable behavior" seen as manifestations of subjectivity
may be displayed internally related to psychological states of others.

Anyway, the key point is that I think it is a mistake to assume that
behaviorism is "the physics of people", or that the privileging of the
behaviorists preferred descriptive vocabulary can be justified on
general methodological principles. It is a hope for a science at a certain
level; and certainly it could turn out that the behaviorist's language
is no more useful in application to human behavior than the language of
spirits and humours and demons.

>I wish to finish with the Buddhist word Anatta. It means "No soul either
>within or without." May it save you from your suffering.

I would cite "The human body is the best picture of the human soul"
(Wittgenstein). However, making sense of this requires that you be able
to see the doings of the body *as* expresive of subjectivity, as
manifestations of a "soul" if you like (a person with a psychology).
For example, you have to be able to read emotions in a face, a posture,
a gesture. This sort of "soul" is perfectly observable if you know how
to look.

The idea of mind as expressed in observable behavior is a happy middle
road between behaviorism and Cartesianism. Both of the latter rest on
the false presupposition that mentality of others is unobservable, that
"observable behavior" must denote behavior under a reduced description in
which it is not expressive of mentality.[/hide]

Quoting Wayfarer

(Note that Plaque Flag is taking one of his regular breaks from Forum participation.)

We ought to take that time to get this thread back on track.

Quoting unenlightened

The hiddenness of nothing is what allows movement and interaction. Thus the more one fills the emptiness of awareness with the images of self, the less emptiness remains for the world to unfold itself in.

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.
— Lao Tzu

I like this proposal, there is something which is hidden, and that is what we call "nothing". This place where nothing is real, and possibilities for movement and interaction emerge from, is the future. Possibilities are "what we use", and they are derived from the nothingness which has reality as the future.

So "possibility", sometimes called "potential", is how we view the medium between the emptiness of the future, and the fulfillment of the past. Respect for this medium provides us with the capacity for "use". But if, in the imaginary world within our minds, we allow the nothingness of the future to become filled by self-confidence, or if we allow that nothingness to seep into the fulfillment of the past, as is the case with regret, then confusion reigns in this imaginary world.

Quoting Pierre-Normand

I am unsure what viewpoint you are describing here.

Thats exactly my point to you. You present these ideas of Wittgenstein and Sellars without context of what ideas and who they are arguing against. So who and what ideas are they against here? People like Freud or others who believe in some non-linguistic thought (like an unconscious)?

One way to approach Wittgenstein's philosophical therapy is to ask what one hopes to bring to light from its hiddenness. More generally, what lies behind the assumption that something is hidden?

Wittgenstein is critical of two attempts to get at something hidden. The first is analysis. That if we break things down to what is most simple and fundamental we will discover an underlying reality. See these quotes cited earlier.

The second is to construct what lies hidden beneath what is obvious. Such conceptual constructs do the opposite of what they intend. They direct us to look elsewhere - arche, ground, Mind, God, Being, the hyperuranion, language ...

Quoting Fooloso4

Wittgenstein is critical of two attempts to get at something hidden. The first is analysis. That if we break things down to what is most simple and fundamental we will discover an underlying reality. See these quotes cited earlier.

Ah, as expected, he's just railing against his own previous work and basically Russell. As usual in these Wittgenstein vignettes, on closer inspection, just an insular debate between either his own ideas or at most, a few (close) adherents or collaborators (of his).

Quoting Fooloso4

The second is to construct what lies hidden beneath what is obvious. Such conceptual constructs do the opposite of what they intend. They direct us to look elsewhere - arche, ground, Mind, God, Being, the hyperuranion, language ...

His obvious is not obvious though. Can you explain this? If it is how I interpret your interpretation of him, then it is basically, "don't debate about things we cannot empirically investigate". Well, the point of discussing the things like hard problem of consciousness, or metaphysics is to at least understand the question of what the problem is. Just cutting it off as "VERBODEN!" from the start is ridiculous "preference-for-the-ordinary-writ-large".

Quoting schopenhauer1

Ah, as expected, he's just railing against his own previous work and basically Russell.

Not just his own and Russell's work, but the more common assumption that is found in much of philosophy and religion.

Quoting schopenhauer1

His obvious is not obvious though.

As I understand it, what is at issue is the distinction between description and explanation:

Here we come up against a remarkable and characteristic phenomenon in philosophical investigation: the difficulty–I might say–is not that of finding the solution but rather that of recognizing as the solution something that looks as if it were only a preliminary to it. “We have already said everything.–Not anything that follows from this, no, this itself is the solution!”

This is connected, I believe, with our wrongly expecting an explanation, whereas the solution of the difficulty is a description, if we give it the right place in our considerations. If we dwell upon it, and do not try to get beyond it.

The difficulty here is: to stop.

(Zettel 314)

To look for an explanation is to look away from what an apt description calls our attention to. Consider, for example, 'forms of life'.

God grant the philosopher insight into what lies in front of everyone’s eyes.

(CV 63)

Quoting Fooloso4

Not just his own and Russell's work, but the more common assumption that is found in much of philosophy and religion.

Just too damn broad. It's like Wittgenstein doesn't do the heavy-lifting of identifying his targets so everyone has to do it for him. Lame sauce. I too can be obtuse and have adherents say what I was "really" saying. Same as Nietzsche, etc. I prefer philosophers who were clear and very much explaining themselves. Schopenhauer is a great example of someone who at least explains his ideas and doesn't have his adherents try to grasp at his "greatness". He had aphorisms but they weren't obfuscatory in its supposed "simplicity" or simply self-referential to one's own work, for example. Wittgenstein didn't follow that when he tried to also foray into aphoristic writing. It's just Wittgenstein fan-club interpretation rather than Wittgenstein philosophy, every time I have to deal with his ideas.

Quoting Fooloso4

Here we come up against a remarkable and characteristic phenomenon in philosophical investigation: the difficulty–I might say–is not that of finding the solution but rather that of recognizing as the solution something that looks as if it were only a preliminary to it. “We have already said everything.–Not anything that follows from this, no, this itself is the solution!”

This is connected, I believe, with our wrongly expecting an explanation, whereas the solution of the difficulty is a description, if we give it the right place in our considerations. If we dwell upon it, and do not try to get beyond it.

The difficulty here is: to stop.
(Zettel 314)

To look for an explanation is to look away from what an apt description calls our attention to. Consider, for example, 'forms of life'.

God grant the philosopher insight into what lies in front of everyone’s eyes.

This isn't saying much either.

Let's take the problem of mind. Imagination- you turn a three dimensional cube in your mind's eye. "WHAT" is that which is being turned around? What is this "mind's eye" even? And here you get many many words about hard problem or neuroscience, etc. But you see, it is explanatory to the degree necessary to provide an answer to that problem. What else can you do otherwise? I cannot present "mind" to you on a platter. Rather it is indeed dialectic. And that is indeed all we can expect from "philosophy". It never was anything but this.

Certainly, there are philosophers who obfuscate with neologisms that are not easy-to-understand, but that is simply about lack of writing skills. That however, doesn't seem like anything more insightful than be clear in your writing.

I will say, Wittgenstein's greatest contribution seems to be the idea of "word games". As long as philosophers can make it easy for other philosophers to play along with their dialectic and word-games, then they are at least acting out of good faith and are on the way of (potentially) doing "good" philosophy. So that I can get on board with. However, anything like, "Don't discuss what isn't readily apparent" is just revealing about philosopher's preferences and nothing more profound about the world. It is just the anti-version of what the jargony philosophers are doing. Both are wrong in their approach then.

Quoting schopenhauer1

I prefer philosophers ...

Yes, we all have our preferences.

Quoting Fooloso4

Yes, we all have our preferences.

Including Wittgenstein. All preference no philosophy, he is. “I don’t like discussing metaphysics. Now here’s some obscure aphoristic text you need to try to interpret.” Oh the irony. Maybe he’s just trolling.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Thats exactly my point to you. You present these ideas of Wittgenstein and Sellars without context of what ideas and who they are arguing against. So who and what ideas are they against here? People like Freud or others who believe in some non-linguistic thought (like an unconscious)?

I didn't really present them. The OP presented Wittgenstein's slogan while highlighting Robert Brandom's take on it. I related them to the takes from Sellars and McDowell, since both of them also taught at Pittsburgh University and are part of, broadly, the same philosophical tradition. The excepts from my discussion with GPT-4, and the quotes from Anders Weinstein, also were meant to clarify what Wittgenstein (and Ryle after him, in The Concept of Mind) were arguing against: scientism, operationalism, reductive behaviorism, and some strands of cognitivism that commit what Daniel Dennett (in Consciousness Explained) and P. M. S. Hacker (in The Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience) might call the homuncular or mereological fallacy: to ascribe to the hidden soul, or to brain processes, capabilities that are capabilities of whole human beings.

Quoting Pierre-Normand

The Concept of Mind) were arguing against: scientism, operationalism, reductive behaviorism, and some strands of cognitivism

I’m very familiar with the homuncular fallacy. Why is this linked with Wittgenstein?

Are there really modern sophisticated theories that don't take into account how language used in context of environment shapes how it's used? I call horse shit on a stinking straw man.

And since when did Wittgenstein deal with matters outside of language? He was a cognitive scientist or philosopher of mind now? Talk about streeeetccching. Wittgenstein is stretched to fit everyone's needs. In the name of WITT GEN STEIN!

Quoting schopenhauer1

I’m very familiar with the homuncular fallacy. Why is this linked with Wittgenstein?

"Only of a living human being and what resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say: it has sensations; it sees; is blind; hears, is deaf; is conscious or unconscious." (PI 281)

Dennett himself, who was Ryle's student, credits Ryle and Wittgenstein. Ryle, of course, wrote The Concept of Mind after having been a regular attendee at Wittgenstein's lectures at Cambridge. Maxwell Bennett and P.M.S. Hacker mainly credit Wittgenstein in The Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience. This holistic view of the mental powers of the embodied and encultured human being is a common theme throughout the Philosophical Investigations and the Blue and Brown books.

The limits of my language are not the limits of my conceptual inflation.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one should speak at great length and in convoluted prose.

A proposition is meaningless if it cannot be inflated beyond recognition.

Language games are not just for fun, but for overblown speculation.

The solution to any philosophical problem is to inflate it beyond all recognition.

To clarify a concept is to inflate it with enough hot air to reach escape velocity.

Language is like a virus, infecting us with meaningless concepts that we inflate to great heights.

The meaning of a word is not its use, but its potential for inflation.

The value of a philosophical idea is not in its coherence, but in its ability to be inflated beyond all coherence.

The truth is not that which can be stated plainly, but that which can be inflated beyond all recognition.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Now let me obfuscate that into a series of aphoristic texts that can be taken any which way.

In my experience, fairly smart and rigorous people like Ryle, Kenny, Hacker, Baker, Cavell, Conant, Diamond, Rorty and McDowell, who have endeavored to tease out the gist from Wittgenstein's PI, have arrived at a fairly unified and coherent picture (with some interpretative differences, to be sure) that doesn't appear to do any violence to the text and that highlight the originality and fecundity of the ideas for addressing old philosophical conundrums. It doesn't seem to me like most of Wittgenstein's remarks can be taken any which way. Rather, just like the works of other thinkers of have thought very deeply about philosophical topics, like Aristotle, Hume, Kant or Merleau-Ponty, their thoughts can fruitfully be brought to bear on a very wide range of issues. Your mileage may vary.

(I also had a little talk with GPT-4 about it [hide]https://sharegpt.com/c/Ktqmdqi[/hide])

Quoting Pierre-Normand

tease out

Why this?

Quoting schopenhauer1

Why this?

Why not? I'm in the habit of teasing out bits that will only interest a few people, and/or external URL links.

On edit: Sorry, misunderstood you. Why trying to tease out Wittgenstein's meaning? Why to people write exegetical books about Aristotle, Kant and Schopenhauer? Many of my scientifically minded friends think its because they (and their readers) like to pretend that they the nonsensical drivels of pre-scientific thinkers. I rather think its because their ideas are fecund albeit difficult to understand without suppling context.

The deepest truths often lie at the surface, while the shallowest lies can sink to the depths.
[hide="Reveal"]ChatGPT wrote the above.[/hide]

Here's another: ""One cannot truly see the world until one realizes that the world is what one sees.""

[hide="Reveal"]This statement by an unknown author is deceptively simple yet profoundly insightful. The first part of the statement, "one cannot truly see the world," implies that there is a deeper truth or reality to the world beyond our initial perceptions. The second part of the statement, "until one realizes that the world is what one sees," suggests that we are the ones responsible for constructing our own reality through our perception of the world.

The phrase "the world is what one sees" is particularly thought-provoking as it implies that our experiences are subjective and shaped by our own individual perspectives. This highlights the importance of self-awareness and introspection in order to gain a deeper understanding of the world around us.

Overall, this statement reminds us that our perception of the world is not objective but rather a reflection of our own biases and experiences. By recognizing this, we can strive to be more open-minded and understanding towards others who may have different perspectives and experiences than our own.

However, it's worth noting that the statement may be seen as somewhat circular and ultimately unhelpful in terms of offering practical insights or solutions to complex problems. It's important to keep in mind that simply acknowledging the subjectivity of our experiences does not necessarily lead to greater understanding or progress.[/hide]