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Wittgenstein's Master Question

How is sense (language with meaning) to be verifiably distinguished from nonsense in philosophy? That is the question of logic of language. It is not a "stupid" prejudice that bars the way to making this distinction.

We have a picture of the way language works, namely that words are names and the meaning of a name is the thing the word stands for (or the essence of the thing the word stands for, an essence discovered by ineffable abstraction). That is the preconception ("prejudice") that has to be overcome. How? By setting a standard against which language meaning can be tested in cross-questioning (which is both Socrates' and Wittgenstein's standard in philosophy: "if a man knows anything he can explain what he knows to others" (Memorabilia iv, 6, 1).

Setting a standard to distinguish between sense and nonsense is both the first question in philosophy, and, I think, Wittgenstein's master question.

[Or maybe language meaning is my most basic question -- as it is Wittgenstein's -- but Wittgenstein's master question or project in philosophy is to banish metaphysics. (In contrast, metaphysics, in the sense of the "eternal questions", is I think philosophy's unbanishable master question ... because the riddle does exist, and that and not language mystification (PI § 109) is why philosophy exists.)]

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Socrates and the Professional Philosophers

Note: this continues the discussion of Socratic ignorance or the distinction between what a man knows and what he thinks he knows but does not.

The fundamental mistake philosophers make is to assume that the first question of philosophy is whether a proposition is true rather than whether the proposition has meaning. (Introduction to logic of language.) And if a proposition is not nonsense, then what gives the proposition meaning? A linguistic sign is merely spoken sounds, marks on paper -- what gives the sign meaning?

Plato distinguished the "professors of philosophy" (Sophists) from Philosophy itself. The "professional philosophers" do not ask what gives the language they speak meaning -- for they are like the men Socrates questioned: they do not seek to know what they think they already know. They are sure that they know the meaning of the language they speak because language is merely the clothing of thought and of course they know their own thoughts. They assume that words are names, and that we learn the meaning of a name by becoming acquainted with the thing the name stands for (regardless of whether that thing is concrete or "abstract"), and then we talk about the thing itself, not about mere words.

What is accepted implicitly is the metaphysical theory of abstraction, i.e. that (1) a word is the name of an essence (which is somehow, no one knows how, mysteriously, but not Socratically, grasped), and that (2) that essence is the word's meaning, a meaning that is retained regardless of any context the philosopher drags the word into. For, after all, the thing itself does not change, does it -- as if to say "The mind is the mind, always the same thing; the only question is the nature of that thing"?

Philosophy's foundation

And that is why philosophers suppose that the first question of philosophy is, "Is it true?" rather than "What is its meaning?" -- namely because they assume that they already know the "meaning" of the language they speak (because they know the things named by that language). They are, after all, educated men; they have mastered English, have they not? They do not need to ask what the meaning of e.g. the word 'mind' is; they can simply make statements or conjectures about the nature of the mind, about the thing named by the word 'mind'. That the word 'mind' is not a name, but has a very different use in our language, never occurs to them as a possibility.

What I am looking for is the grammatical difference. (PI II, viii, p. 185)

A description of a word's use in the language is, in Wittgenstein's jargon, called the 'grammar' of the word. It is the logic = grammar of our language that is misunderstood.

"It is not a stupid prejudice"

Every way of thinking is all right as long as it isn't stupid. (Letter to Piero Sraffa, March 1935)

One cannot guess how a word functions. One has to look at its use and learn from that.

But the difficulty is to remove the prejudice that stands in the way of doing this. It is not a stupid prejudice. (PI § 340)

The two principal prejudices are that (1) "All words are names and the meaning of a name is the thing the name stands for, whether that thing is visible or invisible, tangible or intangible; and that (2) the metaphysically speculative "theory of abstraction", that if someone knows the meaning of a common name, it is because he has abstracted the common nature (although he cannot put into words what it is) the common name names. The essence of the thing a word names (or stands for) is the word's meaning. Both these "theories of language meaning" seem highly plausible.

Abstracting abstractions

An apparent difficulty for the philosopher is that the "things" that interest philosophy all seem to be invisible = Intangible = imperceptible, that the subject of philosophy is "abstract ideas", that philosophy is talk about abstractions. How does the philosopher know the meaning of philosophy's words -- how does he abstract the meaning of abstract objects, so he has just to summon what he knows to consciousness to guess (speculate about) what the nature of the things the words name is? (That he is able to do this is the presumption of Linguistic Analysis.)

Abstractions are the subject of philosophy; philosophical problems are problems about the meaning of "abstract terms". The words about which Plato says we are at variance about their meanings are the names of "abstract objects".

Intangible object

Why don't we just say 'ghost' ('ghost-object')? Well, if an object can be tangible, then why can't an object be intangible -- isn't that what grammar (grammatical analogy) suggests to us ("If a book can be some place, then why not also a mind?") We follow analogies both to invent new ideas [concept-formation] -- and to perplex ourselves with nonsense.

The facts are already in plain view

Why does Wittgenstein say that it is not a "stupid" prejudice? The proposition 'All swans are white' was not a stupid prejudice, but a generalization based on experience, before it was disproved. But disproof of false grammatical accounts does not rest on the discovery of new facts, but instead the facts needed for disproof are already in plain view. And it is not stupidity that fails to see them. In fact, they are seen -- but they do not answer the questions philosophers have conceived or the kind of the conclusions they have preconceived: it does not seem possible that things are the way they appear to be.

What is required is the acceptance of a different way of looking at language, a different philosophical view of things:

The philosopher says: "Look at things this way! (CV p. 61, remark from 1947)

But Plato's problem (Parmenides 132a-135c) is not philosophically stupid. If the problem of the meaning of common names is looked at metaphysically --

Metaphysics (definition)

Metaphysics is about what is imperceptible (in contrast to what is in plain view), although it seems that its existence can be deduced from what is perceptible -- the definition of 'faith' in Hebrews is a good definition of 'metaphysical-philosophy': the view that what is visible has its origin in what is invisible [11.3], if there is such a thing -- because if it could be verified it would not be metaphysics but natural science.

-- it is indeed perplexing and not nonsense, and Wittgenstein's logic of language does not solve Plato's problem (but falsifies its premiss, namely that there is a common nature, using the facts in plain view, but Plato is already well aware of those facts: they (and Heraclitus) are the origin of his problem).

Wittgenstein sets the metaphysical view aside (he does not want to speculate about things which, because they are imperceptible, man cannot know), and so Wittgenstein's solutions do not touch Plato's problems: the two pass each other by. In some instances Plato does not understand "how the word functions" (PI § 340), e.g. his presumption that knowledge is a kind of belief, but certainly not in all.

Philosophy is discourse of reason

Query: how would Socrates respond to Wittgenstein's refusal to discuss philosophy but only to recite poetry instead.

Either the problems of "metaphysics" (God, absolute value) can be put into words (Socrates' view) or they cannot be, which was Wittgenstein's view in the TLP: the metaphysical aspect of life cannot be examined by discussing it, but it can be examined in silence (which is what Wittgenstein's reading poetry was intended to be). If ethics (how to live our life) is rational, as Socrates thought, then not to discuss it (put it into words to be questioned and cross-questioned) is to live a life unworthy of man: the "unexamined life" is precisely that life that does not discuss ethics. But Wittgenstein denies that ethics is a branch of philosophy, because, he says, "absolute value" cannot be rationally discussed.

For both Socrates and Wittgenstein philosophy is rational discourse (or discussion). But they differ about "what can be put into words" to be discussed. Socrates would try to refute in discussion Wittgenstein's thesis that "there are things that can be shown although they cannot be said (i.e. put into language that is not nonsense)", because nonsense that can convey meaning, which is what metaphysical poetry is, is not after all nonsense (not as we normally use the word 'nonsense'). Wittgenstein would have to defend the thesis that the only language that is not nonsense is the proposition of the form "This is how things stand".

*

Thinking that the meaning of a word can be discovered through introspection was not a stupid way of thinking.

Variations of the picture that the meaning of a word is an idea in the soul or event in the nervous system. Why does Wittgenstein say this picture of how our language works is not a "stupid prejudice" (PI § 340), preconception or presumption? Friedrich Waismann wrote:

To give just one example of vision [i.e. a new way of looking at or seeing things] in philosophy: Wittgenstein saw through a big mistake of his time. It was then held by most philosophers that the nature of such things [and therefore the meaning of their names] as hoping and fearing, or intending, meaning and understanding [Wittgenstein's philosophy of psychology, i.e. description of the use in the language of our psychological vocabulary] could be discovered through introspection, while others, in particular psychologists, sought to arrive at an answer by experiment, having only obscure notions as to what their results meant.

Wittgenstein changed the whole approach by saying: what these words mean shows itself in the way they are used -- the nature of understanding reveals itself in grammar [i.e. public rules for using words; conventions], not in experiment. ("How I See Philosophy" by F. Waismann, in Contemporary British Philosophy: personal statements, Third Series, ed. H.D. Lewis (London/New York: 1956), p. 489)

"... reveals itself in grammar". It is not found by "sitting in arm-chairs and inspecting words" -- letting the words speak to us (Wittgenstein's Lectures, Cambridge, 1930-1932, ed. Desmond Lee (1980), p. 79) or in the laboratory. I think Wittgenstein meant that supposing that e.g. the meaning of psychological words is to be discovered by introspection (RPP i § 212) is not a "stupid" prejudice and that the essence of words can grasped by some mysterious process of abstraction (cf. the "analytic propositions" of linguistic analysis) is not a "stupid" prejudice. Wittgenstein may have meant things like this when he told Sraffa that "every way of thinking is all right as long as it isn't stupid".

Friedrich Waismann and visions in philosophy

When Waismann above spoke of "vision in philosophy", this belonged to how he saw philosophy:

To ask, "What is your aim in philosophy?" and to reply, "To show the fly the way out to the fly-bottle" is ... well, honour where it is due, I suppress what I was going to say; except perhaps this. There is something deeply exciting about philosophy, a fact not intelligible on such a negative account.... What is decisive is a new way of seeing and, what goes with it, the will to transform the whole intellectual scene. (op. cit. p. 482-483)

If philosophy has an essence ("decisive") that, however, is not it; the definition is not Socratic, because wanting to "transform the whole intellectual scene" is not unique to philosophy. It may be characteristic of original thinkers in all subject areas (e.g. Charles Darwin when he called for a propaganda war). What is "deeply exciting" is the "new way of seeing", the new way of looking at things. Sometimes this is seeing something you had not seen before; sometimes it is seeing that you have been mistaken (trapped in a "fly-bottle").

Then why give your life to philosophy?

Maybe in this, however, Waismann was correct: Wittgenstein did not express the nobility of philosophy, the love of wisdom in logic, ethics and metaphysics, in his books, calling philosophical problems "houses of cards" (PI § 118) -- although maybe he did express this when talking to M. O'C. Drury ("Don't think that I despise metaphysics ... noblest creations of the human mind"). But that he did not see the nobility of philosophy (Euthydemus 307b-c) or of Socrates nor the vital importance to philosophy of Socratic ignorance (as if this were something to take for granted), and of Socrates' having bound forever the concepts 'philosophy' and 'truth' to one another (as if this too were something to take for granted), in contrast to the Sophistic promise "to make the worse appear the better" reason --

("... as if this were something to take for granted." The whole world now treats the gifts given to it by Western civilization as a matter of course, as if its ideas and ideals were obvious and known to all mankind without instruction.)

Puzzled whether Socrates was a great philosopher

Wittgenstein: It has puzzled me why Socrates is regarded as a great philosopher ... (Recollections p. 115; this conversation is dated 1930(?) by Drury)

Wittgenstein's blindness here, whether towards the why Socrates wanted definitions in ethics (according to Plato) or towards the standard for knowing Socrates set for philosophers or towards the mission of Socrates in philosophy or towards the way of life of the philosopher -- that I don't understand.

(For Wittgenstein the name 'Socrates' seems to have meant the literary character found in Plato's dialogs, so that when Wittgenstein says 'Socrates' he means 'Plato', as when he alludes to the Theaetetus.)

"The tyranny of language"

Something else in Waismann's essay describes part of how I see philosophy: namely as

one of the great liberating forces. Its task is, in the words of Frege, "to free the spirit from the tyranny of words by exposing the delusions which arise, almost inevitably, through the use of a word language". (op. cit. p. 461)

That alone is reason enough to oppose Wittgenstein's contention that one must be cured of philosophy rather than by it, because at the very least philosophy, in the words of Kant, acts "to heal the wounded understanding".

"Round squares must exist, or I could not even deny that they exist"

According to Etienne Gilson in order to deny the existence of something, e.g. elves or a golden mountain, I must first imagine it to exist. And thus if I wish to deny that round squares exist I must first imagine them to exist [Gilson: "posit their existence"]. But how does one imagine nonsense? If we say "Four-legged human beings exist" we are not talking nonsense, but if we say "Square circles exist" we are [Of course in a sense 'square circle' is not "nonsense"].

We can say that "George Edward Moore has two legs" and that "Most human beings have two legs". Those are statements of fact. However, "Bipeds have two legs" is not a statement of fact (unless it is a statement of fact about the English language; it is not as it were a statement of fact about bipeds).

In these examples there is a failure to distinguish between statements of fact and definitions (rules of grammar). "Four-legged human beings don't exist" is a statement of fact; "Round squares do not exist" is not, no more than "Bipeds have two legs" is.

If we could imagine -- i.e. describe -- a round square -- i.e. assign a meaning to the combination of words 'round square' (RPP ii § 290) -- it would exist (as a logical possibility). As it is, "it" has no existence at all beyond its being a combination of English words. Bertrand Russell's "Theory of Descriptions" is a reply to notions of Gilson's kind.

Wittgenstein, concepts as a net thrown over reality

Words that follow "Query" are Internet searches from my site's server logs, about which I have made comments.

Query: paradoxes of empiricism.

E.g. that percepts without concepts are blind -- but concepts are the inventions of rationalism -- i.e. something we bring to or impose on the empirical/experiential evidence, not something we find with necessity in "the world outside" ourselves: Empiricism requires its antithesis (namely, Rationalism) if the world is to be intelligible (if indeed percepts without concepts are blind).

An empirical fact in the sense of 'artifact' -- in so far as there is such a thing as an artifact (a blunt object is not, without conceptualization, even a blunt object: Goethe: "All fact is already theory; a fact is only a fact within a theory") -- is not a fact prior to its being conceptualized into a statement of fact. That is the relation between percepts and concepts, between empiricism and rationalism. But there is an interplay -- concepts are not fixed once and for all, but are subject to revision [concept-formation and re-formation]. And this revision may lead us to see [conceive] new facts.

You can't say that percepts belong to Empiricism and concepts belong to Rationalism (indeed, if by 'Rationalism' we mean a process of reasoning, then most of our concepts do not belong to Rationalism because they are not the conscious creations of reason). Empiricism isn't just opening your eyes and seeing facts -- perception is concept-laden (Just try to perceive without the concepts e.g. 'object' and 'space', 'thing' and 'phenomenon').

In the context of concept-formation, it is empiricism-rationalism. Empiricism is not entirely a posteriori and rationalism is not entirely a priori.

Without examples to make the meaning clear, these notes are philosophy done in the bad old way, hydroplaning on abstractions, the post-Socratic-Platonic way. Without cross-questioning, it's impossible to say whether they are sense or nonsense, true or false.

Wittgenstein's net simile

Query: Wittgenstein, net over language.

That is 'net' as in 'fishnet' [cf. TLP 6.341 ff.] We talk about this as a "point of view" or "way of looking at things" -- or as a "[picture] frame of reference" -- i.e. as a frame around what we are looking at. But if we think of our frame-of-reference as a grid we lay over the world [concepts (or, language) laid over percepts]: some things will be caught in our net, others pass through.

Without examples, that is nothing more than a metaphor/picture. But would this be an example: Wittgenstein's 'meaning' = 'grammar' is such a net: it does not catch every meaning of 'meaning'? (Wittgenstein's work is not Philosophy of Language.)

There is a short, related discussion of the query "Wittgenstein, net of language".

Query: Wittgenstein, net over the world.

There's something not right about that form of expression, if it suggests that it is possible to see the world without a net (not without the net, but simply without one net or another), as if the world were one thing, nets another. But does there exist a world "in itself" [an sich]? separable from nets -- or in other words, is there an absolute point of view, the eye of God metaphysics seeks? (Cf. Is there an absolute reference point in space, the true origin of Cartesian geometry as it were?)

Query: Wittgenstein, hand signals.

It belongs to Wittgenstein's "net" (i.e. logic of language) that regardless of its form, whether it is spoken sounds, marks on paper, gestures, lines in the sand or on clay, what gives a sign, i.e. the purely physical aspect of language, meaning is its use in the language. If a form of language does the work of a sign, then it is a sign.

"All meaning is use"

Have I over-broadened Wittgenstein's application of the word 'use' in "meaning is use in the language" (PI § 43) when I include naming-an-object as a "use of a word"? It seems that could be said to be the use in the language of the word 'cow', namely to name a category of objects, the meaning of which is defined ostensively (How do we explain the meaning of the word 'cow'? We point to cows or to a picture of cows). But maybe it is unwise to say that, because then "a large class of cases" becomes "in all cases where we use the word 'meaning', the meaning of a word is its use in the language" (ibid.)? (Why would it be unwise to say that?)

Wittgenstein's "philosophy does not explain"

Query: Wittgenstein's principle.

The word 'principle' is sometimes a synonym for 'method'. Wittgenstein's method is comparative. A 'comparison' says that A is like B in some specified way, not that A is identical to B or that, despite contrary appearances, A really is B.

Wittgenstein's method is also descriptive, or for the most part descriptive, although sometimes it does try to account for concept formation, e.g. by imagining certain very general facts of nature to be other than they are (PI II, xii p. 230b); or by offering possible (plausible: "It may be this way") explanations, e.g. "Here is one possibility: ... the verbal expression of pain replaces crying" (ibid. § 244). But those accounts are myths: there is no question [method] of verification; and a myth must be recognized for what it is: it is not an insight into the "really real", only a way of looking at things that happens to appeal to us.

Philosophy simply put everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything. -- Since everything lies open to view there is nothing to explain. For what is hidden, for example, is of no interest to us. (ibid. § 126; cf. ibid. § 109)

The question is, of course, what does Wittgenstein mean by the words 'explain', and 'explanation' here? That is unclear to me. I wrote earlier:

Wittgenstein's logic of language (Wittgenstein's expression as my jargon) wants only a clear view of what is "open to the public" about language, its civil status (ibid. § 125). When it asks about the meaning of a word, if the word isn't jargon (an assigned meaning), what it wants to know is the held-in-common grammar of the word -- i.e. the rules [for the word's use] that are our common property, that belong to our "patterns of life", ways of life in which there is coincidental agreement (ibid. §§ 241, 19). The description Wittgenstein wants is of "what anyone knows and must admit" (Z § 211; PI § 599) about our life (our use our language).

[Wittgenstein's criticism of G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica: a thing isn't made clearer by saying it over and over again: "Moore repeats himself dozens of times ... Unclear statements don't get a bit clearer by being repeated!!" (Letter to Russell (R.1), 11.6.1912)]

Query: Wittgenstein, every explanation is an hypothesis.

But not as if we had identified the essence of explanation, because hypotheses are only one of the things we call 'explanations'. For example, explanations of meaning -- i.e. definitions, if they are definitions of words, not of "things" -- are not hypotheses -- not unless we are calling every statement of fact an hypothesis. Any statement of fact (factual proposition) can "be significantly negated" -- i.e. can be false.

What would it be like for the statement 'By the word 'simile' we mean a comparison using the word 'like' or 'as'' to be false, for it is a statement of fact about the definition of the word 'simile' in our language? That question is at the heart of Wittgenstein's On Certainty's examination of foundational propositions.

Definition by synonym

For the phrase 'rule of grammar' in Wittgenstein's sense of 'grammar' we could substitute 'rule of sense and nonsense'. A straightforward example of such a rule [of grammar or of sense and nonsense] are the substitution rules that are often found in dictionaries: a definition is a "rule of grammar" in Wittgenstein's jargon. (But there are several different kinds of definition in logic of language: e.g. verbal, ostensive, play-acted, and definition by examples.)

For the expression 'verbal definition' or 'equivalent-word definition' [substitution rule], we could also use 'synonymous-word definition' or simply 'definition by synonym'.

Query: perplexity, definition philosophy.

This is an example of where we need to remind ourselves that a verbal definition is not always the most helpful type. In this particular case, look at the behavior rather than at the sign 'perplexity' itself. Consider "I don't know what to do next", "I don't know how to go on" (PI § 154), "I don't know what to make of this", "I don't understand", "I don't know my way about" (ibid. § 123), and the circumstances in which we use those expressions. That is what we mean by the word 'perplexed'. (Philosophy begins in wonder, Plato wrote, and by 'wonder' he meant 'perplexity'.)

Language twofold: Authority and Convention

Query: children's questions without answers.

These seem indeed different from the grown up's Questions without Answers [cf. Animals and small children are not acquainted with the problems of philosophy (PG i § 138, p. 191)]. For example, the child's question: "What does this mean?" is not asked at the philosophical level, where the response might be: "Do you think that every word or combination of words, regardless of context, must have a meaning?" The child does not inherit "a logic of language" (from whom would it inherit this? Not from the muddled grown up certainly) -- i.e. a method for distinguishing between sense and nonsense: the child only recognizes that it does not know the meaning [It does not add: "if there is one"] of some word or words it reads or hears.

Philosophers are like children scribbling: the child imitates the grown-up (Is this not one of the things we call 'learning'?) The philosopher retains a child's vision of language meaning.

As children we face a contradictory picture: On the one hand, we are free to change the rules [Children can play "Let's pretend", "Make believe"], for language is conventional. But on the other hand, we acquire [and inherit] our language by being born into a community: we have to learn the rules of its language ['grammar' = 'rules of the game'], which also becomes our language.

So on the one hand there is convention [e.g. science and maths jargon, which however is often absurdly and confusingly defined through "real definitions"], but on the other hand there is authority: school teachers and dictionaries (which on the one hand merely report usage, but on the other hand are used as [treated as if they were] standards of correctness ("correct meanings", "correct grammar") and which make words appear to have meanings that are fixed independently of the human beings who use them, and indeed even of context.

Wittgenstein stressed conceptual fluidity, which is just the opposite of our picture of language; we imagine that words have meanings they retain in all circumstances (essential meanings). And while it's true that we use the same forms of expression again and again in the circumstances of everyday life [That is a word's "original home" (PI § 116)], we also assume that words can be removed from those circumstances and still retain their meaning (ibid. § 38). Is not one source of this presumption [others are following grammatical analogies and supposing that all words are names (so that whenever we talk we are talking about things that exist independently of language)] to be found in the child's "What does this mean?" -- i.e. in its picture of that language is authoritative: words just do have meanings (whether dictated by dictionaries or by the things, whether concrete or abstract, the words name).

Our deeply-rooted picture of language

Would this be the common view, that words are names of things (whether those things are "concrete" or "abstract") -- and the dictionary knows ["authority"] what those things are. Which word ["name"] we attach to a thing may be a mere matter of convention ("nominal definition"); but a dictionary defines not a mere word but a thing itself (whether the thing is "tangible" or "essentially imperceptible").

That is what we do in metaphysics when we try to "grasp the essence of the thing" (PI § 116) named: we try to give a real definition of an "abstract thing". (But an "abstract thing" is merely a concept -- i.e. rules for using a word [a "grammar"]. That is what I am calling "Wittgenstein's logic of language".)

Abstractions and the feeling of uncertainty

If anything characterizes our picture of the meaning of language it is our feeling of uncertainty about the status of "abstract objects", our feeling that those "objects" really exist ("somehow"). That is the false grammatical account, but breaking free of that picture requires [I think] breaking free of instinct. "Where our language suggests a body and there is none: there, we would like to say, is a spirit" (PI § 36) -- That is the instinct we have to break free of.

Surface versus Depth Grammar

Query: what is deep grammar? Wittgenstein.
Query: Wittgenstein, shallow and deep grammar.

"Depth grammar" is what would strike us about the use of language were it not that "the logic of our language is misunderstood". Instead what first strikes us is the syntax of a sentence, e.g. noun + verb, from which we infer that the sentence is a statement that some object is something or is doing something.

Our first impression is a shallow one -- but our acceptance of that first impression is a deeply rooted habit: we carry with us "a mass of false and far too simple ideas" about language. My earlier example was: we hear the expression '... in the mind' and immediately want to pattern its meaning on e.g. 'in the box', 'in the head': we immediately think that we are being told the location of something, as in e.g. 'Where is the book?' (and now 'Where is the mind?').

In the use of words one might distinguish "surface grammar" from "depth grammar". What immediately impresses itself upon us about the use of a word is the way it is used in the construction of the sentence ... -- And now compare the depth grammar ... (PI § 664)

By 'surface grammar' Wittgenstein does not mean the sign-symbol [or sign versus its use in the language] distinction only, but also what we are inclined to take the meaning of the sign to be (often on the basis of misleading syntactic analogies).

A sign's 'surface grammar' contrasts with the sign's 'depth grammar' -- i.e. to the sign's actual rather than its apparent use in the language.

That is Russell's "philosophical grammar" in his theory of descriptions. Wittgenstein, however, wants here to emphasize his use versus form [syntax] distinction (Meaning is not a function of form, but of use):

[The] main mistake made by philosophers ... is that when language is looked at, what is looked at is the form of words and not the use made of the form of words. (LC p. 2)

"A Real Definition of Philosophy"

Surely it isn't accidental to philosophy, but belongs instead to its essence, that there are "still" Aristotelians, "still" Cartesians, "still" Hegelians.

Question: does that remark belong to a real definition of philosophy? The (apparently) real definition I offered myself: "Philosophy is rational ways of looking at things in logic, ethics, or metaphysics." (But is my statement an hypothesis about what the true nature or essence of philosophy is?)

When Wittgenstein writes that "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language" (PI § 109) is he stating [or contributing to] a real definition of philosophy: Is he saying: this is what philosophy really is (That might be an hypothesis or metaphysics)? He certainly isn't arbitrarily assigning a meaning to the word 'philosophy'.

Defining 'philosophy' and philosophy

Is every report of how a word is used in the language a real definition, an hypothesis about the word's meaning? 'By 'thunder' we mean 'noise in the clouds'' -- if that is an hypothesis, it is only an hypothesis about the English language, and it is one that is easily verified. It is not an hypothesis about what thunder really is. But when we talk about the meaning of 'philosophy', we seem to be making an hypothesis of both kinds.

[Related discussions: Nominal versus Real Definitions and Origin of the word 'philosophy'.]

Query: nominal meaning of 'philosophy'. Real definition of philosophy, philosophers.

Is it logically-"grammatically" possible for there to be a real definition of philosophy, as opposed to a verbal definition of the word 'philosophy'? But is there a even a verbal definition? I have elsewhere defined the word 'logic' as 'the art of reasoning' (OED) or as 'the study of rules' (TLP), and maybe these definitions will be acceptable to some of us. And perhaps someone will offer a satisfying synonymous definition of the word 'philosophy'. But definitions of that kind do not take us very far: the meaning of such definitions still needs to be made clear by means of examples: no one ever learned "what philosophy is" from a verbal definition [certainly not from being told its etymological roots: "philo-sophy is love of wisdom"]. -- But knowing "what philosophy is" -- doesn't that mean knowing "the real definition of philosophy"?

Is the question of "what philosophy is" -- itself a philosophical question? Is Wittgenstein's bewitchment thesis (PI § 109) an example of an answer to that question? Will there be almost as many answers as there are philosophers? Russell: the aim of philosophy is "to understand the world as well as may be, and to separate what may count as knowledge from what must be rejected as unfounded opinion" (Wittgenstein's aim "to show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle"). Are those answers "real definitions" (Isn't a philosophical thesis an hypothesis; but is a project or aim in philosophy an hypothesis)?

I conjectured above: "It is not accidental to philosophy, but belongs instead to its essence." But if that is correct, then won't there be as many "real definitions of philosophy" or "theories about what philosophy really is" as there are philosophers -- and most importantly then won't there be no objective way to choose among them, saying that one is true, the others false? And why? Because a philosophy is a way of looking at things, which includes aims and methods appropriate to it; it is a frame of reference, and by what standard shall a frame of reference be judged? Only by standards to which it is not accountable. (Of course, that is not to say that a philosophy cannot be criticized: we can always look for unclarity and contradiction in thought.)

Is philosophy a natural phenomenon -- is it like thunder? Can one have a scientific theory about what philosophy is? What do we mean by 'scientific theory' -- an account that accounts for all the data in a self-consistent way -- and can be falsified by anomalies. Are philosophers' theses verifiable hypotheses or "insights about the really real" that are anomaly-proof? Nonetheless, there are "still" ... and those adherents are far more intelligent and learned than I am. The Cartesian is neither ignorant nor a fool.

Go back to the original definition I gave for 'real definition' as we may derive that from Aristotle: an hypothesis about the essence of the thing named by the word 'philosophy' -- in contrast to a 'verbal definition' which is a mere: description of the conventions (the "grammar" in Wittgenstein's jargon) for using the word 'philosophy'. Real = about the phenomenon; verbal = about language.

Would we say that there is a Russellian real definition, and a Wittgensteinian real definition, and an Aristotelian real definition, and a Cartesian real definition, and a Hegelian real definition, etc.? Wittgenstein: philosophers are bewitched by language. Russell: Wittgenstein has abandoned serious thinking; he has invented a lazy philosophy for himself. -- Does Russell's statement belong to a real definition of philosophy -- an hypothesis or theory about philosophy's essence? Are they saying: this is what philosophy is? or are they only saying: this is what philosophy is for me, what I am calling 'philosophy'?

Words are tools. Concepts are tools. Some craftsmen are more able than others to use them.

Wittgenstein's letter to Sraffa (March 1935)

Every way of thinking is all right as long as it isn't stupid. That is: the question is only if in my own way I go far enough. If I do, it'll lead me out of the thick forest. I'm only afraid of going half-way. And I am really afraid of doing so. My way of thinking is all right and I thank God for having given it to me; a different question is whether I make use of what I got in the right way. (Letter to Sraffa, 17.3.1935, Wittgenstein in Cambridge (2008), Document 184, p. 238)

Nonetheless, I believe that philosophers are far more modest than they often appear to be. For philosophical thinkers, philosophy is a strange mix of fundamental confidence and fundamental uncertainty. It is not dogma. It is not ideology. It is not a formula.

Query: the real definition of philosophy.

The addition of word "the" suggests that there is only one such definition. The query asks "What is the truth about this?" not "What are some opinions about this?" That is, the query presumes that there is a single truth to be known here (as if there were a true or absolute frame of reference). But all that "logic of language" can do is to try to give a true account of our use of a word -- namely, 'philosophy'. -- And unless our conceptual investigation finds that there is "an essence of philosophy" rather than only resemblances or similarities among "things" that are called 'philosophy', then the truth will be that there is no "the real definition of philosophy".

Query: how does Plato define the good?
Query: according to Socrates, define wisdom.

The notion that Socrates has a "definition" = "opinion" about what wisdom is and about what the good is, and Plato has another "definition" = "opinion", Aristotle yet another, etc. And these "opinions" are examples of real definitions (conjectures about the true nature or essence of wisdom and goodness). However, how can these "opinions about what wisdom is" and "opinions about what the good is" be anything other than verbal definitions of the word 'wisdom' and of the word 'good', definitions which may or may not coincide with how we actually use the word 'wisdom' and the word 'good'?

The concept 'wisdom' versus the thing the word 'wisdom' stands for. To define a concept is to define a word, and to define a word is to state a convention, a rule for using that word. Conceptual investigations are grammatical investigations. Now, what is it to "define a thing"?

What if Socrates said, as I think he would, that "Wisdom (or, the good) for man is to live in accord with the excellence that is proper to man both as man and as an individual man" (Know thyself) -- would he be defining the thing wisdom (or at least "part of what wisdom is") or the word 'wisdom'?

"Philosophical Opinions"

So that Socrates will have one opinion: "the life guided by reason", the holy man another: "the life guided by faith", and other thinkers will say other things. But rather than say that they have "different definitions of wisdom", maybe it would be clearer to say: By the word 'wisdom' in ethics we mean 'an opinion about how a human being should live his life', and about how we should live our life various thinkers have offered different opinions, some based on reason (as in philosophy), others not. (An opinion in philosophy can be put to the test in Socratic dialectic, to be agreed to or refuted in cross-questioning. That is what we mean by 'philosophical opinion'.)

To begin at the beginning, there is a word, a purely physical object, such as ink marks or spoken sounds, and the question is, What gives the word meaning? How can we define the nature of wisdom if we do not first define (state rules for the use of) the word 'wisdom'? What do you want to define the nature of? You can't reply, "Of wisdom" -- because 'wisdom' is so far only a sound or mark, not a tool of our language.

Regardless of whether that is what we mean by the word 'wisdom' in ethics or not, the question is: If we are going to offer an opinion about something, then we mustn't first identify what it is that we are going to offer an opinion about? And how does one do that in the case of a "concept" (idea, notion)? Because it is not like pointing at a cow in a pasture and asking, "Well, what is its nature?"

Is philosophy a mere parade of opinions, then? But for the opinions of philosophers there are reasons -- and with each philosopher there is a new way of looking at things -- and therefore there is no "mere" about it. In any case, if one is going to talk about "the opinions of the eminent philosophers" (Diogenes Laertius), then one ought to begin by trying to get clear about what we mean by the word 'opinion' in philosophy. Because it is not 'real definition'.

["Well, if that's all philosophy is ..." Because, yes, of course, the state of your own mind should be ... a matter of little concern to you.]

Wittgenstein's theory about what the essence of philosophy is

Query: Wittgenstein's theory of language.

Why shouldn't it be called a theory of language meaning if it can be tested for self-consistency, completeness, falsifiability? "Compare using a word to playing a game according to rules, then the meaning of the word will be the rules for its use." Are all games -- from chess to skipping rope -- played by following rules? Are all words -- from 'equilateral' to 'beautiful' -- used by following rules? In other words, is the comparison valid (or false)?

Query: Wittgenstein's theory of philosophy.

Can we falsify the thesis "Philosophy is a struggle against bewitchment by language"? It is falsified as a universal claim if even one philosophical question can be found that is not an expression of conceptual confusion. Is the proposition 'Philosophy is a search for understanding and truth' falsifiable? Wittgenstein would deny that philosophy is about truth and falsity.

'Philosophy is muddled understandings of concepts.' If that universal proposition is not anomaly-proof, i.e. if it is falsifiable, then it is a theory by Drury's standard. And I think there are anomalies that prove it to be false, i.e. not universally true.

Query: etymological and real definition of logic.

Where does its name come from -- and what is it? Isn't that the way of thinking that comes naturally to us, that if we are not talking nonsense, then surely we must be talking about something -- and 'something' becomes in our thinking 'some thing', i.e. some kind of object, if not "touchable" [tangible], then "intangible" (essentially imperceptible). We must learn not to think that way. Wittgenstein: it is not a stupid prejudice that we have to unlearn, but we do have to unlearn it.

Might children be taught from the beginning not to think that way -- or must we begin by thinking that way? Will a man who does not know that he is drowning understand why a life rope has been thrown to him; will he not push it away as something unnecessary to him? (This is a question about logical, not empirical, priority.) Or is this like a childhood disease that one must catch before it is possible to become immune to?

Or is it a disease with which we are born? Think of the readiness with which children accept fairy tales and learn to pray to invisible gods. Does it belong to the nature of human beings to suppose that all words are names of things? Who filled the woods with nature spirits and ancestral ghosts, after all? [Are metaphors terribly helpful to the understanding?]

Our word 'logic' comes from the Greek word logos. The query's etymology. Is 'the art of reasoning' a real definition?

What are we calling 'logic'?

Note: this continues the discussion Logic or The Art of Reasoning.

We call various things 'logic', but not so many as the Greeks did. W.K.C. Guthrie wrote that for the Greeks the word 'logos' was a "maid of all work", a jack of all trades word, il factotum della filosofia, but we would not normally call a proposition or definition a logic, although the Greeks called both a logos. But, in Wittgenstein's jargon, any investigation of language undertaken for the sake of philosophy can be called 'logic' in philosophy.

"Mathematical logic" is not concerned with natural language, rather mathematical logic is a language, or as it calls itself, a "calculus". But what has the "propositional calculus" to do with philosophy? Well, what has anything to do with philosophy? Nothing in itself -- but only as it is directed at the resolution of some philosophical problem. "What philosophical problem does mathematical logic address?" (I think, if I am not mistaken, and I may be mistaken because I cannot remember where, Wittgenstein said that the propositional calculus had been invented to "reduce" mathematics to logic -- i.e. to show that mathematics could be entirely rewritten as logic and therefore that mathematics was "really only" logic -- but after that project was abandoned, what was the point of its continued existence?)

Russell's enquiry into statements about the baldness of the king of France and the king of England -- 'The present king of England is bald' versus 'The present king of France is bald'; there happened to be a king of England at the time, but there was no king of France -- that such statements are false for very different reasons -- is an important insight, and certainly belongs to logic of language. The proposition 'The present king of France is bald although there is no present king of France' is nonsense; cf. the proposition 'I know it, but I don't believe it' which is also nonsense.

Suppose someone said: "The symbolic logic of Peano, Frege and Russell is of interest to philosophy because it is the successor to Aristotle's logic" ... but is it? Does philosophy work that way? I don't think it does, first because philosophers don't have successors ("With the idea, now is always"), and second, because different people want [are looking for] different things from philosophy. In any case the status of Aristotle's logic -- whether or not it has been superseded -- is itself a philosophical question. (Wittgenstein's logic of language is not the successor to Socrates' logic. "A philosopher says: Look at things this way!" And many people have no interest in looking at things Wittgenstein's way, whereas they do have an interest in looking at things Plato's way. Which is not to say that we do not argue our cases, defend [explain] our points of view.)

Query: does each language have its own logic?

Well, each language has its own rules. What are we calling 'logic'? Does a Chinese speaker use a different "art of reasoning" from an Englishman [simply because the languages they speak are different] -- but such that either would call the other illogical or irrational? (Is this a conceptual or an empirical question or are there elements of both? Until we sort that out, we won't get anywhere with the question.)

"Logical Synthesis"

"There is something distinctly novel about some of the features. If you should find yourself in doubt or in danger --"

"Danger! What danger do you foresee?"

Holmes shook his head gravely. "It would cease to be a danger if we could define it," he said.

"What is the meaning of it all, Mr. Holmes?"

"Ah, I have no data. I cannot tell.

... I can't make bricks without clay." (Conan Doyle. The Adventure of the Copper Beeches)

"If we could define it" -- i.e. if we could say what it is. And that is our way of thinking in all cases: we do not think of defining words, but of defining things -- i.e. of saying what the thing is; not: asking how we use the word, but asking what the word means: -- where 'to mean' means 'to point out', 'to designate', like pointing to a cow in a field. We treat all words as names and seek to define them all by pointing at an object, either visible -- or invisible!

"Think -- don't guess! Think the thing through." But doesn't 'thinking' here mean 'operating with signs' (BB p. 6) -- i.e. thinking with and about the language we are using? But, then, there are Wittgenstein's examples of where that is not the case -- i.e. of where language is not the key to solving the problem [the key that unlocks the safe], namely philosophy of religion and philosophy of aesthetics. So how do you think the thing through -- focus your thoughts -- what do you focus on if not on the language -- but what if the language itself makes nothing clearer to you?

... those incidents which may have been trivial in themselves, but which have given room for those faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis which I have made my special province. (The Adventure of the Copper Beeches)

So we have to form our own hypothesis, to pull -- i.e. make on our own selection from all possible selections ("synthesis"), not just organize a given selection [preselection] ("deduction") -- premisses together in a way that (1) is not self-contradictory, (2) accounts for all the selected facts, and (3) is subject to falsification by anomalies. This what we call a 'scientific theory'. And do we also sometimes do that "pulling together" in philosophy?

If I am trying to give an account of what I know, or think I know, which is what we often do in philosophy, mustn't we also say: know from a particular point of view -- i.e. within a particular frame of reference? So then you want to say that "all philosophical propositions are already perspective-laden" (Goethe, Hanson)? Drury imagined Wittgenstein saying to him:

Drury, Wittgenstein, Examples

"Give examples, give examples, don't just talk in abstract terms, that is what all these present-day philosophers are doing." (The Danger of Words (1973) p. 38)

"I can't make bricks without clay." (The Adventure of the Copper Beeches)

Only philosophers think they can make bricks without clay. Examples are clay.

Why do I force myself to philosophize? Wanting to understand and defend myself against thoughtlessness and ethical unpreparedness. The habit of a lifetime. Fear of growing pale, fading away, losing my self-identity. Of damaging my sense of self-worth [self-esteem], my pretension to being a serious human being, deeper rather than shallow. Because the condition of my own mind (Epictetus, Discourses i, 26) is not unimportant to me! There is what Wittgenstein said about writing to let your thoughts to develop, and Socrates about testing for clarity and truth, and Plato Phaedrus 276c-d about refreshment in old age.

What ... worry me are the following: that I have ... neglected my studies, that I have not been able to follow the right course when I see it ... (quoted in The Life of Confucius by Szema Ch'ien, tr. Lin Yutang)

I don't think that the Last Judgment will be a logic of language test. But on the other hand, if it is in any way a test of my intellectual or philosophical honesty (conscientiousness), then, in my case, it will have to be a logic = "grammar" test.

"What applies to the part also applies to the whole." A false grammatical analogy (i.e. fallacy)

We ask about this object and about that object, why does it exist? About the book, "Because someone wrote it, and Basil Blackwell published it"; and about the desk, "Because Ethan Allen designed it and his craftsmen made it." But then, following that analogy of asking why things exist, we ask about "the world" -- why does it exist? "That question is not allowed by the rules of this game: one can ask this question about parts, but not about the whole." But then: "If it is only a question of rules of grammar, then why not make just this rule [cf. PG i § 82, p. 127]: that one can ask that question about the whole: why does the whole exist?" But that is not a rule until you provide instructions for answering the question 'Why does the whole [the world] exist?' A rule that cannot be followed because it is undefined in meaning is no rule at all.

Realism versus Idealism

Note: this continues the discussion Etienne Gilson's discussion of Thomas Aquinas on First Principles.

"Really exist"

As to the question of whether objects exist. In another context Wittgenstein asked: what would it be like for everyone to be mistaken about this? But then I ask: mistaken about what? Are we asking if the things we normally call by the common name 'objects', for example, books, chairs, are not really objects? That I would say belongs to the essence of metaphysics, if it has an essence -- that strange use of the word 'really'. If a philosopher said that objects don't really exist, then I would ask if that philosopher had a picture of what he calls 'really existing'; what would an example be of something that really exists?

Is Augustine's "I must exist if I am doubting whether I exist" an example of really existing? But it suggests nothing analogous with respect to objects.

Wittgenstein suggested that the combination of words 'Objects exist' is of no use except as part of an explanation we might give to someone who either doesn't know what we mean by the word 'object' or by the word 'exists' (cf. OC § 36): "This [pointing] and the like are what we call objects; that is all I know about the use of that word in our language" (PI § 69).

That, as a matter of conceived fact, is our "language game" with the word 'object'; it belongs our life form's way of life. (Cf. the Born-Blind People's use of the word 'know', a fable I apropos of "not [coincidental] agreement in opinions but in way of life" (PI § 241).)

When we ask about the grammar of the word 'object' in philosophy, can we say anything other than that -- or is there a real definition of object, an hypothesis about what an object really is? "This [pointing] and similar things." -- That is a linguistic definition (i.e. verbal definition); it is not as it were an existential assertion of ontological import (whatever that would be when it's at home).

The way we use the word 'object' shows, not a theory, but only a concept (cf. Z § 223) -- i.e. the definition of a word (or Wittgenstein's grammar: description of the meaningful use of a sign).

Idealism, but not Realism | Pictures or Grammar

I think I understand the point of idealism, in Kant's sense that objectivity is partly -- but this is an essential, decisive part -- located in the subject -- i.e. in the categories we use to think. (These categories are Wittgenstein's "forms of life" that are not of the kind matter of choice).

But with respect to "realism", I do not understand it at all. Etienne Gilson used the expression "chose-ism", the view that things exist, as it were, independently of us and of our perception of them. But is that "view" anything other than a rule of grammar? Or does the idealist take the opposite view? It would seem natural to say that realists and idealists have different "pictures of reality", although Fichte denied this: one places a lens [eyeglasses] between man and "the world" whereas the other places nothing between man and "the world". (Eddington certainly had a picture of Bishop Berkeley playing hide and seek with objects.)

But if someone says "Objects really exist" or "Objects don't really exist", we would not know what he meant by that; we could only reply by giving him an account of the way we use the words 'object' and 'exist'. The realist seems to have a picture -- or some vague notion -- of a sort of "super existence". So it has always seemed to me.

Russell's "naive realism": the grass is really green. But Idealism doesn't say that the grass isn't green or really green, but that nothing is anything without reference to the human mind, that it mediates all perception. About what is projected to exist independently, nothing is known, and to assert that one knows is to say more than one knows, to think one knows what one doesn't know.

Percepts and Concepts (Kant's precept divided)

When I use the second half (I do not use the first half) of Kant's thesis "Concepts without percepts are empty, and percepts without concepts are blind", by 'percept' I mean no more than 'a sense perception' and by 'concept' no more than: rules for using a word (and this is why I do not use the first half).

Ethics ... want to concern themselves with empirical happenings and transform the circumstances of the empirical world. But if that world is only "appearance," derived from an intellectual world which functions within it or behind it, ethics have nothing on which to act. To wish to influence a self-determined play of appearances has no sense.

Ethics can therefore allow validity to the view that the empirical world is mere appearance only with the limitation that activity exerted upon the appearance does at the same time influence the reality lying behind it. But thereby they come into conflict with all epistemological idealism. (Civilization and Ethics, tr. C.T. Campion, 2nd rev. ed. (1929), p. 113)

Has Schweitzer given a correct account of Idealism? I don't know; Schweitzer was a scholar (His final philosophy degree thesis was a critique of Kant's evolving philosophy of religion), but I am not.

The word 'appearance' is being uttered here without an antithesis. To say that whatever we perceive is limited by the human frame of reference [human nature] does not have the consequence that therefore whatever we perceive is mere appearance, unless the word 'appearance' is being used as jargon.

That all perception is limited [partly determined] by a frame of reference is nothing more than "a rule of grammar": the combination of words 'absolute frame of reference' like 'absolute reference point' is undefined.

Then would the position of the realist (or materialist or indeed natural scientist) be that we perceive reality as it is in itself, unlimited [completely undetermined] by our human frames of reference? Although that the world is not independent of my will is an important insight (Tolstoy: "I have lifted my hand and let it fall"), it is no more important an insight than Idealism's. There are frames of reference, but action is possible within them. [If Schweitzer's account of Idealism is correct, then not only ethics -- but all activity is without influence on "the underlying reality".]

I want to compare Idealism-Realism to Rationalism-Empiricism: these are not alternative theories, but complementary aspects of our methods of investigation. Examples?

Aims in Philosophy: Russell versus Socrates

Query: Russell vs. Socrates.

Russell wanted philosophy to be "scientific", by which he meant without any reference to ethics. Ethics, of course, cannot determine the facts (anymore than wishful thinking can) -- but it may determine which facts are looked for, and sometimes which facts are not looked for: ethics does preclude some types of investigation-experimentation. Russell said that he wanted research to be indifferent to morality. Further, Russell wrote:

... as with all philosophers before [Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations], my fundamental aim has been to understand the world ... (My Philosophical Development, New York: 1959, p. 217)

In Our Knowledge of the External World Russell wrote that the aim of philosophy is a "theoretical understanding of the world". And so I think that Russell could have had no use for Socrates. Socrates was not concerned to "understand the world" (which is what Russell wanted from philosophy; "understanding the world" was Russell's, not necessarily philosophy's, aim): Socrates' investigations were restricted by ethics to ethics. And Socrates' investigations were empirical [induction] (although the requirement that their object -- namely, common natures in ethics -- exist was not) rather than theoretical (which Plato's Forms were). Russell regarded even the "question of a future life" to be, "at least in theory", an empirical question [Well, but only in a materialist world-picture could it be, which suggests that Russell's worldview was materialist (which is the worldview of natural science)]. And about the riddle of existence ("human destiny"), philosophy as conceived by Russell had nothing to say.

Counting Vanishing Sheep

Note: this continues the discussion of the philosophical foundations of mathematics: the Philosophy of Mathematics is the view from outside mathematics (It does not affect the calculus, although it does not float free of it either).

We may imagine that our mathematics began as a way of counting, for instance of counting the number of sheep [I should say, cows, cattle, but I will say sheep] that returned from the pasture every evening. [Polyphemus counted his sheep and goats, I think.] In our world if the number is different from evening to evening, we deduce that the missing sheep have gotten lost, and we go looking for them.

But imagine a world in which the number of sheep who returned in the evening was always different from the number that went out in the morning. So that today 21 sheep returned, tomorrow 27, the next day 16. (Although we look in the pasture we find no unreturned sheep.) If this disappearance and reappearance of sheep were random, then there would be no mathematics: -- i.e. although there would still be counting, there would be no calculuses; there would be no equations: 27 sheep out, 27 sheep in, e.g. But if these numbers followed an intelligible, a regular pattern, if e.g. on Thursdays 27 sheep always came back, and on Tuesdays 23, etc., then it would be possible to have a mathematics, a calculus. It would be different from ours, of course. And it would be important, because obviously you would want to shear the sheep of Thursday evenings rather than on Tuesdays [other things being equal]. (And we can also imagine that the disappearance-appearance was not a simple matter of correlation, but was described by a quite complicated formula.)

In our world we make use of the principle that sheep e.g. don't vanish [into thin air]. That belongs to our picture of the regularness of nature. We cannot make an, as it were, existential deduction from that principle, however, that sheep never do disappear. What we can deduce, however, is that in any world where that principle is used, if a sheep does disappear, it will not be acceptable [to a reasonable man, in a court of law] to say that the sheep vanished into thin air.

It is essential to our concept 'mathematics' that maths is open to the blind, that the blind can master it, that the blind can learn mathematics.

The Metaphor of the Museum Visitor

We are like people at a museum viewing a display of machines. We stand on one side of the glass, looking through the glass; we look at the machines and we try to understand the way they work. But the machines are on the other side of the pane of glass. In this metaphor the glass is the limits set by our concepts and limitations of human sense perception. Nothing we say [or think] affects the working of the machine, only our understanding [only our view] of it, our way of looking at it, the account we give of it. (The Philosophy of Mathematics is the view from outside the calculus; it is the spectator's view.)

Mathematics does not have [does not depend on] a philosophical foundation, as e.g. does physics ("natural philosophy", with Isaac Newton's Rules for Reasoning). Why is mathematics different from physics? Mathematics is not about the world; therefore unlike physics it is independent of any world-picture [worldview].

Contradictions and Psychology (Short remarks to philosophical questions)

Query: psychology of kindness.

All you can expect to be told in answer to that query is that kindness is not really kindness (but is really something else, a form of selfishness e.g., a denial of the reality of altruism. Psychology as metaphysics: "Despite all appearances to the contrary, A is not really A but is instead really B."

This query was misdirected to my site because of my criticism of the real definition half of Aristotle's "definition of kindness".

(I am extremely skeptical of any psychology that floats free of physiology, as if there were a "science of the mind" -- or, better, "a science of the soul", an unverifiable "science of psychology".)

Contradictions, false or senseless?

Query: contradictions are not false but senseless.

Some contradictions are false, e.g. the proposition 'This is a chair and this is not a chair', if different objects are pointed to and both are not in fact chairs, is not senseless (meaningless) but is instead false. Meaning is not determined by form (or not by form alone): a contradiction may have a use or it may not have a use in our language; only if we have no use for it is a contradiction senseless.

A formal contradiction is not as it were necessarily senseless -- i.e. it is not logically impossible for a contradiction to have a sense, and if it has a sense then it may be true or false. ('Nonsense' and contradiction | Contradiction in form versus contradiction in sense.)

If an line of reasoning ends in a contradiction, then logicians say that the line of reasoning is "invalid". But 'invalid' here does not = 'senseless'. Its meaning here is 'incorrect' (or 'false' in the sense of 'a false step') as in 'a breaking-the-rules-of-logic line of reasoning'. (There are no contradictions in undefined language. How could there be -- or what does 'undefined' mean if not 'without meaning'?)

Can one dog's bark contradict another's? No, given that we do not -- and maybe are unable to -- recognize barking as a language. Why are we "unable to"? Because it does not sufficiently resemble human behavior (PI § 360); cf. "birdsong" -- birds do not sing, just as cats do not smile.

Query: why do philosophers want certainty?

Why do we want a sturdy ladder if we must climb up to the roof? Or don't we care if the rungs of your ladder break? If our whole life is at stake, then we want certainty, because we want to be sure that we make wise decisions (in ethics, good decisions). But in philosophy also: because we want to know the truth. Is this question like: What is "the higher" (apropos of Engelmann's Memoir: my example in the concert hall)? How do you answer anyone who asks? It is a grammatically queer question.

Query: Socrates says that people are ignorant.

Meaning that we are ignorant of our own ignorance, fancying we know what we do not know. But I want to ask: why are children being asked such questions? If this is the level of students, then they are not ready to think about philosophy, because their minds have not yet awakened (which, according to Schweitzer, they should someday). But not every young mind is ready for philosophy. And imposing a caricature of philosophy on an unawakened mind cannot do it good and, if one's words are not written in the air or on water, may do it lasting harm.

Wittgenstein's Master Question

Language and philosophy. If we want to philosophize, we have to use language (Philosophy is discourse of reason), and therefore we cannot ignore the question of how sense is to be distinguished from nonsense, defined language from undefined combinations of words ("mere sound without sense"). In these pages I have called that topic "the logic of language". That is in my view the most important question in philosophical logic. Socrates wanted a public account, an objective (verifiable) account of what you know: "If a man knows anything he can explain what he knows to others" (Memories of Socrates iv, 6, 1). And that is what I want as well.

Logic of language is what I think Wittgenstein's master question in philosophy was and what I think there is to learn from him: that if our thinking is to be critical, then it must be founded on a verifiable (objective) -- public, subject to refutation -- distinction between sense and nonsense. This requirement of objectivity is a link to Socrates, because Socrates selected the sense of the word 'know' where knowledge is objective, just as Wittgenstein selected the sense of the word 'meaning' whereby meaning is objective.

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