Wittgenstein study notes

materials

background & overview

Studied for 3wks, from Feb 17 -> Mar 8. In a Vienna University library and my aunt/uncle’s.

  1. Read the wiki, encyclopedia summary, watched intro video.
  2. Skimmed Tractacus, made drawings to visualize some of 1->3.
  3. Watched Tractacus lectures and read through, writing summaries for each section.
    1. Discussed with family, ad-hoc.
    2. Discussed with a friend in depth, who was re-reading it.
  4. Skimmed Philisophical Investigations, didn’t absorb much.
  5. Watched PI lectures.
  6. Read through, writing summaries for most sections. Skipped/skimmed over some of the 200s+.

    takeaways

In the Tractatus, he stakes out the boundaries of language - the essential building blocks language is made of and the kinds of structures that can or cannot be made with those building blocks. He explains that problems in philosophy are reducible to problems in language, and those problems should be eliminated through clarity rather than solved by reasoning. He comes to the conclusion that using language to describe language becomes illogical, and that makes these kinds of language-describing activities illogical too. The overall story arc of the Tractatus is a performance of building up a system, then showing how it collapses in on itself.

A central theme is that there are atomic pieces of logic (which should drive language), almost building on/supplementing Platonic forms. Closely related is “picture theory”, where “propositions” in language/thought are mapped to things in the real world. And the mapping is the connection between language/thought and reality.

philosophical investigations

Language games / Meaning as use / Family resemblance

He describes language as a kind of emergent living ecosystem that arises from people needing to communicate in a context. The boundaries between the living things (words) in that ecosystem is kind of blurry and if you try to look really closely with a magnifying glass, it doesn’t get deeper and more complex like physical matter. Instead, everything gets even more blurry and you can’t see the surrounding context anymore. He uses a variety of arguments that sometimes verge on behaviourism, but expresses that reductive behaviourism is yet another language. If you try to look at the words under a microscope… you have to cut words out of the ecosystem and stitch the corpse of the words into your lab so you can look at it under your microscope. It’s going to look pretty crazy, especially beside all the other monsters you pulled from unrelated ecosystems, they’ll combine to make Frankensteins.

He also says that the boundaries of rule-following is blurry in a similar vein.

Philosophy as therapy

He expresses philosophy as an amorphous activity that fixes misbehaving thought patterns. That philosophy doesn’t end up with direct real-world results, but affects how results are produced. He shows a lot of ways that language can be misused and hints at signals to watch for that suggest language is being misused. Often, but not always, when language is operating on language. Often when getting more meta. The way it manifests is you’re thinking about some problem, then you notice a pattern that emerged from language’s inaccurate modelling of real-world phenomena. But you don’t notice that the pattern is mostly to do with language’s inaccurate modelling of real-world phenomena, and you follow it until you end up investigating some properties of how language works (without noticing that you transitioned from inspecting real-world phenomena to inspecting properties of language).

Private language

He gives a “beetle in a box” metaphor to demonstrate properties of “private language” / internal thought. Everyone has a box and no one sees what’s in each others’ box and what’s in the box can’t have parts of it described, just the whole thing has a name. And they know others’ experience of what’s in the box by whatever is in their box.

It seemed to me like he was kind of saying that internal feelings only have a name when they’re communicated to another. And you can’t really talk to yourself, so you can’t really have names for internal things, so you can’t have words, so you can’t really have an internal language. You might have something, but it’s not language.

incorporation into my writing

I had been seeing for a while, mentions that Darwin’s theory of evolution sits both in Science and some sort of Theology. That it can be “believed in”, and there is some controversy about it in certain domains about the degree to which it should be “believed in”. I didn’t really understand what all the fuss about, but I could just barely put my finger on there being something not quite right. And I knew the contraversy wasn’t just because it challenges Creationism. I had been contemplating this for a while when I read TLP 4.1122:

Darwin’s theory has no more to do with philosophy than any other hypothesis in natural science.

For some reason, that made it click for me. This is what I ended up writing - it’s inside a very short story about a kind of disembodied character experiencing a state change:

I am wondering whether I am experiencing creation or evolution. Things tend to evolve from ancestors in the same way that things tend to be created by a creator. Two different boundaries between not-really-the-thing to pretty-much-the-thing. I am discovering evidence of a mix of creation, evolution, and other genres of the same phenomena of identity change. Change happening to what I am.

infinite things and spectrum, things pop out as being worthy of interacting with. TLP 4:

The thought is the significant proposition

The word, “significant”, triggered it. Because there are infinite propositions, and the ones relevant to this discussion (as well as most things), are the relevant propositions. The ones right in front of us. The ones that are obviously what we care about, without having to explain why they are obviously what we care about. Because precisely explaining why they are the obvious choice would make them not-so-obviously the right choice anymore, and that doesn’t weaken the reality that they are the obvious choice right now.

I really like where he’s going with TLP 4.1.2

Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts.

Which seems like roughly, “philosophy should be clarifying where language has gone off-piste instead of trying to find meaning in the places where language has run into systemic boundaries.”

I also like the idea that religion and philosophy are closely related, and I have a section where a character is giving a sermon that the reader is meant to ignore, and I found a way to fit this idea into the end:

…Science is a predictor of future reality for systems where we have sufficient data, balancing between dogma and scepticism. There’s no place for science where we have insufficient data, so we turn to low-performing spiritual systems to fill in the gaps. But spiritual systems are designed with different intentions than predicting the future. Spiritual systems should bandage damaged thoughts instead of building on the wounds, so we should…

Reflecting on both books and thinking about private language, I thought about how language could break down in the future. Then I realized that language is a centralized, high-overhead endeavour that probably has externalities of scale. Those externalities of scale are probably most emergent and exploited in the ways the Wittgenstein explains. I tried imagining how to get rid of them, and have language once again be used in the ways it is intended - local contexts and no further. I imagine that the cost to build a language will go so low that it can be built ground-up on the spot, for a given context. Possibly even per-expression, like, for the story that’s being expressed or the desire/command/request/etc.

Here’s a note I left for myself:

Traditional language stops being the interface between religions/people. Multimodal stories instead, generated specifically for the context of the communication. Language built from the ground-up on the spot for the context. Externalities of scale on language not worth it anymore. Can decentralise. Use in “Simulate me”. Talking to French dude and EAI. No more religion from misuse of language. No one believes the stories of others for real anymore. Just religion from individual experiences, often shared.

reading notes

tractacus philosophicus-logicus

1. The world is all that is the case

When we’re thinking/talking, we’re talking about “facts” and not “things”, because facts cover everything, and are MECE.

2. What is the case - a fact - is the existence of a state of affairs

Definition: A state of affairs (atomic fact) is a combination of things (objects). States of affairs (facts) are independent of each other.

These objects are the substance of the world, which continue to exist regardless of what we’re talking about. These objects are MECE in a state of affairs. They’re so intensely MECE, that once you know one object, you kind of know everything, because of how interrelated they are and how they make up all facts. You’d know how they combine in all states of affairs. Right now, no one really knows of any object.

“Form” makes it possible to link facts to objects, because its existence means there’s some structure to make states of affairs out of.

2.1-2.3 We picture facts to ourselves

Definition: a picture is the existence/non-existence of a set of states of affairs. It’s a model of reality where the forms in it depict the forms in real life.

A picture can’t depict itself. It can depict reality truely or falsely, because it’s a possible situation.

3. A logical picture of facts is a thought

Definition: a thought is a logical picture of facts.

Thoughts can’t be illogical. A state of affairs is thinkable, we can picture it. If you can represent something in language, it can’t contradict logic - just like you can’t give a coordinate of a point that doesn’t exist.

3.1-3.5 In a proposition a thought finds an expression that can be perceived by the senses

Definition: a proposition is a thought that can be expressed & perceived by senses Definition: the “sign” of a proposition is the expression (projection) in speech/writing/etc

A proposition is not made of what it projects (like how a picture can’t depict itself). The sense of the proposition is expressed by how the things in the proposition relate to each other. Ex: furniture in spatial relation to each other in a room. Situations can’t have names, because names are like points while situations are like arrows. Propositions and facts and objects can be multi-part (complex).

The elements of a propositional sign can correspond to the objects of the thought. Those objects can be named, but not the signs. A sign is a fact, and that can cause confusion, because the sign-as-a-fact becomes a new thing that can be referenced, separate from the original proposition it was expressing.

Objects can be named and represented by signs, not actually put into words. Propositions say how objects are, not what they are. The definition of a sign points towards the sign, but is not the sign. Definitions are for translating between languages, which is what languages have in common. A proposition can’t make a statement about itself, so Russel’s paradox is not a problem.

Definition: expression is a part of a proposition that characterizes its sense (meaning)

what is an expression wrt a variable? 3.313

An expression indicates form and content.

The same sign can signify two objects, but that doesn’t mean the objects have any relationship.

A proposition has accidental and essential features. A proposition is in logical space. The space is guaranteed by its constituents.

4 A thought is a proposition with a sense

All propositions is language. We can express any sense with language without understanding anything about the concept of individual things meaning anything on their own. Language disguises thought intentionally. Most philosophical works are nonsensical rather than false, because the deepest problems are not actually problems.

Definition: A proposition is a picture of reality. A model of reality as we imagine it. A description of a state of affairs. (before: a proposition is a thought that can be expressed & perceived by senses)

A proposition shows its sense, shows how things are if it is true. We understand the sense of a sign without it being explained to us. A proposition should be able to communicate a new sense to us, using old expressions. The proposition has to be connected to the situation it is expressing.

4.0312

“The possibility of propositions is based on the principle that objects have signs as their representatives. My fundamental idea is that the ‘logical constants’ are not representatives; that there can be no representatives of the logic of facts.”

In a proposition, there can’t be more distinguishable parts than it represents. So you can’t do crazy infinite generalizations from a proposition. You can’t depict logical multiplicity, generating hypothetical “more’s”.

Reality is compared with propositions, determining true or false. “Things stand in the way they are represented.” ~p and p can mean the same thing, depending on how you define p. A double-negative is a different proposition than the positive.

4.1 Propositions represent the existence and non-existence of states of affairs

All true propositions are the natural sciences. Philosophy is not a natural science - it’s an activity that should logically clarify thoughts. Philosophy shouldn’t come up with propositions, and should instead clarify propositions and give clear boundaries to thoughts. Philosophy sets limits to natural science, sets limits to what is able to be thought or not.

Propositions can’t represent logical form. They’d have to be outside of logic. Propositions show the logical form of reality. What can be shown can’t be said.

Definition: feature is an internal property of a fact. An internal relation between situations is signed by an internal relation between the propositions that represent them.

A variable is the sign of a formal concept. It’s not possible to introduce both the primitive ideas that can be assigned to the formal concept, as well as the formal concept. There are no numbers in logic, or philosophical monism, dualism, etc.

4.2-4.5 The sense of a proposition is its agreement and disagreement with possibilities of existence and non-existence of states of affairs.

Notation: Names are single letters, elementary propositions are functions of names.

A sign of an elementary proposition is when there’s no elementary proposition contradicting it. If an elementary proposition is true, then its state of affairs exists, otherwise they don’t. A proposition is a bunch of t/f applied to elementary propositions.

In a truth table, the second-last column is missing. Tables are assuming that the proposition is true. The second-last column is whether the proposition is true. The last column is whether the combination of all the other columns (other than last two) makes for a true statement.

Tautologies and contradictions are not pictures of reality. They mean “all situations are true” or “no situations are true”.

The general form of a proposition is, “this is how things stand.” Only what’s essential to a general proposition should be included in its description. The general propositional form is a variable.

5 A proposition is a truth-function of elementary propositions.

Elementary propositions are the “truth-arguments” of propositions.

If proposition p1 follows from proposition p2, then the sense of p1 is contained in the sense of p2. Two propositions oppose each other if there are no propositions with a sense that affirms them both.

5.1 Truth-functions can be arranged in series.

Truth tables…?????

All deductions are made a-priori. One elementary proposition can’t be deduced from another.

There’s no way to infer one situation from another, there’s no causal nexus to justify it, we can’t infer future events from the present.

Free will comes from it being impossible to know the future.

If a proposition is not self-evidently true, then its self-evidence can’t be used to prove that it’s true. Contradictions are at the outer boundary where no propositions have in common, while tautologies are in the middle where all propositions have it.

When two propositions have no truth-arguments in common, they are independent. Two elementary propositions give each other the probability 1/2. Inside itself, a proposition is neither probably nor improbable - it just is.

Evidence of probability is not the same as the probability of the proposition. Probability is a generalization, a general description of propositional form. We use probability when our knowledge of a fact is incomplete.

5.2 The structures of propositions stand in internal relations to one another.

Definition: operation is process of producing a proposition out of some others. Ex: negation, logical addition, logical multiplication, etc. An operation manifests in a variable, it marks the difference between forms. A function can’t be it’s own argument, but an operation can, but it has to specify how many times it does.

Truth-functions of elementary propositions are results of operations with elementary propositions as bases. The sense of a truth-function, p, is a function of the sense of p.

5.3 All propositions are the result of truth-operations on elementary propositions.

A truth-operation is the way in which a truth-function is produced out of elementary propositions. All truth-functions are results of successive applications of a finite number of truth-operations to elementary propositions.

5.4 There are no ‘logical objects’ or ‘logical constants’.

5.4.1??? Because truth-operations on truth-functions are always identical whenever they are

5.5 Every truth-function is a result of successive applications to elementary propositions of the operations ‘(—-T)(E,….)’.

The right bracketed expression is the negation of those propositions.

“All” is not allowed in truth-functions. That means “for all” and “there exists” are not allowed. If objects are given, then we are given all objects. If elementary propositions are given, then we are given all elementary propositions. The truth or falsity of propositions affects what other propositions will be true or false.

Identity is not a relation between objects. To say that two things are identical is nonsense and to say one thing is identical with itself isn’t saying anything.

If a logical question can be answered, it must have the answer immediately. We have to answer a priori the question about all the possible forms of elementary propositions. Logic is prior to experience. “If logic could exist without a world, how must it exist, given there is a world?”

The application of logic decides what elementary propositions there are. Logic can’t anticipate what’s included, but it can’t clash with its application. Logic and its application must not overlap.

5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

Logic can’t say, “the world has this but not that”. Logic would have to extend past the limits of the world to see the other side where those things are. What we cannot think we cannot say.

The solipsist is right in many ways. The subject doesn’t belong to the world - the subject is a limit of the world. No part of our experience is a priori. Strict solipsism coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism shrinks to a point and coordinates with reality. The self is the limit of the world, not part of it.

6 The general form of a truth-function is [pbar, Ebar, N(Ebar)]

It’s also the general form of a proposition. It means every proposition comes from successive negations of elementary propositions.

The general form of an operation (Ohm(nbar)) is: [Ebar, N(Ebar)]’ (nbar) = [nbar, Ebar, N(Ebar)]

The sequence becomes: x = Ohm’ x Ohm Ohm(v) x = Ohm(v+1) x => [Ohm(0)x, Ohm(v)x, Ohm(v+1)x] => 0 + 1 = 1, 0 + 1 + 1 = 2, …

The propositions of logic are tautologies and say nothing. Any theory that makes propositions of logic appear to say anything are false. Logical propositions are recognized as true from the mark alone.

Zero method: in a logical proposition, sub-propositions are brought into equilibrium with one another, and the state of equilibrium indicates the logical constitution of those propositions.

With suitable notation, we don’t need logical propositions. A proposition of logic must be both irrefutable and unconfirmable by experience. The laws of logic can’t be subject to laws of logic. There can never be surprises in logic because all true logical propositions can be known in advance. Proof in logic is just facilitating computing complex tautologies.

The propositions of logic describe/represent the scaffolding of the world. They assume that names have meaning and elementary propositions have sense. We don’t express what we want with signs - the signs speak for itself.

6.2 Mathematics is a logical method.

Math propositions are equations, they don’t express a thought. In real life, we never want a math proposition, we want to use one. An equation marks the point of view to consider the two expressions, marking equivalence but not identity of their meaning. Every proposition in math must go without saying.

The law of induction is not a logical law, because it’s a proposition with a sense. It’s not an a priori law. The law of induction has a psychological justification, not a logical one.

6.3 The exploration of logic means the exploration of everything that is subject to law. And outside logic, everything is accidental.

Physics models are like different mesh you put in front of a picture to look through, and get back a single bit of information from each mesh block. Logic and logical laws describe what you can do with the mesh, not what the picture looks like.

The “modern” world is founded on the illusion that “laws of nature” are explanations of natural phenomena. People stop at the laws of nature, and treat them as correct. But they are not the explanation of everything. The world is independent of my will.

Just as the only necessity is a logical necessity, the only impossibility is a logical impossibility. Ex: two colours at the same place, particle with two velocities.

6.4 All propositions are of equal value.

The sense of the world must lie outside the world. Value doesn’t exist in the world itself. Propositions can not express higher things. Ethics can’t be put into words.

The will can’t be the subject of ethical attributes. It’s only of interest to psychology anyways.

Death is not an event in life. It is the end. If eternity is timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Life has no end in the same way visual field has no limits. Eternal life has the same riddles as mortal life - the solution of life in space and time lies outside space and time.

The facts contribute to setting the problem, not to the solution. It’s mystical that the world exists, not how things are in it. It is a limited whole. When the answer can’t be put into words, then the question can’t either. If a question can be framed, it can be answered.

When all possible scientific questions are answered, the problems of life remain untouched. When there are no questions left, this is the answer. The solution of the problem of life is sseen in the vanishing of the problem. These are things that can’t be put into words - they are manifest.

The propositions serve as elucidations: anyone who understands will step up the ladder and kick it down below.

7 Anything that can’t be said, must be passed over in silence.

overall notes

disagree

language as thought. He probably had words in his head and assumed everyone else does too. I don’t. As I write, it’s beginning to happen a bit, but it’s always the words of a character or an author of something that’s supposed to be consumed by others, not my normal thoughts.

binary vs. gradient

Throughout the TLP, he has this assumption that well-bounded things exist or don’t exist. Atomic objects, axiom propositions, etc. He also mentions that we can never know what they are, but that’s a whole separate problem. My intuition tells me that this is a big assumption - a suboptimal model of reality. My intuition tells me that there’s a spectrum of existence to non-existence for these things. And there’s even spectrums of the degree that different spectrums exist, etc.

So, saying that there are well-bounded things will provide a decent framework, but it will be lossy if reality is more like spectra.

usage vs. time

His solution to russel’s paradox seems like a fortunate subset of a broader solution. He says that recursive “usage” of a function, makes a different function every time it’s used at a different nesting level. He also often says that things have to be said “all at once”.

I think that’s correct, of course. I feel like what’s really going on has more to do with time and state changes. I feel like the logical use of language reduces the dimensionality of reality, excluding aspects of state change / time. But Russel’s paradox (and self-referential stuff in general) subtly re-introduces time and state-changes. As a result, expression both excludes and includes time/state changes, and there’s a paradox.

Where Wittgenstein gets fortunate here, IMO, is that “usage” can only happen if there’s a state change in the language. Which is a contradiction, if the language assumed no state changes. With that view, his talking about “usage” in language in the TLP is actually a really easy way to say whatever you want. If you start with a contradiction, like saying “this language, which must have no state changes, but turns out to have state changes in it…” you get to say whatever you want afterwards, because it’s already guaranteed to make no sense.

philosophical investigations

1 Augustine argues that words correspond to objects and that gives words meaning. But what about “five” or “red”?

2-6 Object<>word meaning is a concept that belongs to an older age.

7 There are games where people learn language. “language games” “The language game”: The combination of language and actions where language is woven in.

10 When once-arbitrary signs acquire meaning to become words, they’re not so interchangeable ands meaningless anymore.

11-12 When we talk about words in philosophy, they’re taken out of context. Like talking about tools in a toolbox or levers in a control room. When you look at a given word, it has developed some clear meaning.

13-14 Talking about words in general is not really saying anything because we haven’t called out what distinction to make yet. The distinctions you make between abstractions like “word” or “tool” aren’t especially useful.

17 You can talk about kinds of words/tools, and that is like giving different groupings, then using those groupings for some purpose.

18-20 When there’s a sense that you want to convey, you can express it in many ways, one word or many, and people can still understand it in the language. And they won’t really care that it’s one or more words to convey that sense unless they start digging into grammar.

21-22 You can’t make up or find the rules that apply to all language games.

25 Animals might think, but they don’t use language.

29 Words are defined how they’re used by the one who defines them.

30-31 You have to know what a thing does significantly, to ask for its name (word). To the point where an answer could be “make it up yourself” and you might come up with something yourself.

32 Augustine says that children learn language like a foreigner learning by matching words to the words they already know.

37 The relation between a name and the thing named is some kind of gesture at the thing while the name is expressed.

38 The word “this” is strange and kind of where names come from.

39-40 A word has no meaning if nothing corresponds to it, but meaning is different than the bearer of the name (ex: a dead person).

45 “this” must have a bearer. Whether it’s simple or complex.

46 “simples” in Theastus and tractatus and russel are supposed to have names.

47 But you’d never using the names of simples, because nothing you talk about is a simple.

48-51 Something about complexes and elements and how it’s hard to determine which way to think about them. Whether thinking about things being complexes or having elements is even useful.

52 If I look at where something came from, and assume the last place I saw it was where it was created, I’ll search that place. But if I don’t assume it was created there, I’ll take a different approach. Maybe words/names aren’t created so directly from pointing at things?

53 Rules and words are similar in that they can be learned and when someone doesn’t use them properly, their behaviour can be corrected.

55

“What the names in language signify must be indestructible; for it must be possible to describe the state of affairs in which everything destructible is destroyed. And this description will contain words; and what corresponds to these cannot then be destroyed, for otherwise the words would have no meaning”

56-58 We should restrict ourselves from talking about the mechanics of language using language. Specifically things like, “some name” exists / doesn’t exist. Eg: “red exists”. The name doesn’t exist in it’s own right, although the colour in the real world does.

65 The language game

Instead of producing something common to all that we call language, I am saying that these phenomena have no one thing in common which makes us use the same word for all,— but that they are related to one another in many different ways. And it is because of this relationship, or these relationships, that we call them all “language”. I will try to explain this.

The identifying thing that lets us use a word for “the language game” is the nature of the relationships between the language games.

66 Games have some overall similarities, some similarities of detail.

67 Characterization of the similarities between games is “family resemblances”

69 You can draw a boundary for a purpose, but not use it beyond that purpose.

71 It’s ok to have blurry boundaries on certain definitions, as long as they’re good enough. eg: game

72

75 How do you know how to play a game? Isn’t it useful enough to perform behaviour that suggests the understanding of what a game is, rather than define it?

81 On ‘ideal language’ and “language as a normative science”:

All this, however, can only appear in the right light when one has attained greater clarity about the concepts of understanding, meaning, and thinking. For it will then also become clear what can lead us (and did lead me) to think that if anyone utters a sentence and means or understands it he is operating a calculus according to definite rules.

We can construct “ideal language”, but it’s not ideal in the rule-based or reductively logical sense, instead it means it’s efficient/well-suited to the context.

82-85 Rules are more like empirical propositions. They can be interpreted or followed different ways.

86 Rules can be infinitely nested in their interpretation.

88 There’s no satisfying way to nail down, “exactness”

89

In what sense is logic sublime?

An urge to understand the basis of the empirical. Often attempted using language.

Something that we know when no one asks us, but no longer know when we are supposed to give an account of it, is something that we need to remind ourselves of.

90 We feel like we need to make sense of phenomena. But our attempts are directed at the possibility of phenomena. It ends up being a “grammatical investigation” - we’re side-tracked by language’s ineffective modelling of the phenomena.

91

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

92 That leads us to inspect language, rather than the thing we started investigating.

93-95 Thoughts can be “what is not the case”, while often containing, “what is the case” and that contrast makes them seem strange/special to us.

98 On one hand, language is not striving for an ideal. On the other hand, language always makes an ideal seem possible.

100 We get dazzled by the game and start searching for the ideal in it.

103

Logic is like a pair of glasses on our nose through which we see whatever we look at. It never occurs to us to take them off.

101-103 We grasp for the ideal, and the idea of not believing in the ideal is anathema.

104-107 The more we try to make our language “ideal” and perfectly specific, the more it runs into conflict with what it’s used for. It becomes unusable.

108-109 We should stop trying to explain so much and go back to describing. It’ll solve philosophical problems, which usually come from us misunderstanding the workings of our language.

110

121 Philosophy doesn’t act on itself to make something “one level above”. It’s more like a map, where you can point out where the map is in the map.

123

A philosophical problem has the form: “I don’t know my way about”.

124 Philosophy describes language and doesn’t affect language.

126

Philosophy simply puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything

127-130 The important parts of philosophy are subtle. About structure rather than content, demonstrated as structure rather than content.

131-133 There isn’t one approach or method to philosophy. There isn’t a singular problem or solution in philosophy.

139-141 What really goes into our mind in a flash when we read it? Not the whole use of it. It’s some sort of picture or application.

142-143 It’s hard to tell the difference between random and systematic mistakes.

144-156 It’s unclear what happens between reading and understanding. It’s unclear when someone “understands”.

201 We can grasp rules by following or going against them. Every action according to a rule is another expression of the rule.

202 Obeying a rule is a practice. You can’t obey a rule privately in your head.

203

Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and know your way about; you approach the same place from another side and no longer know your way about.

Language presents differently from different approaches.

206

Following a rule is analogous to obeying an order.

If two people react differently to the order, or obey/disobey… we use those behaviours to understand the language.

240-241 Disputes don’t break (ex: among mathematicians) out over whether a rule has been obeyed or not. It’s what people say is true and false, and they agree in the language they use. The framework (language) used to say true/false things is the assumption everyone involved is making.

242 Language needs people to agree on definitions and judgements.

256 Is there a private language?

258 Private language doesn’t seem to have a concept of “correctness” like language does.

260-262 What would the sign of a private language be used for? What language game would it be used in?

268 My right hand can’t give my left hand money.

271 If you used a different name for a pain every time you thought about it and still reacted appropriately, can that pain really have a name?

272 People don’t know if others share the same private experiences.

281 There’s no pain without pain behaviour.

293 Beetle in box.

No, one can ‘divide through’ by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is. That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of ‘object and designation’ the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant.

You can’t divide up what’s inside if no one can agree what’s inside. So you can’t name it, except as the external behaviour that everyone shares.

300-301 The image of pain enters the language game, but not as a picture. The picture of pain is a misunderstanding. (an image is not a picture, but a picture can point at it)

307-308 I’m not a behaviourist. I’m just hyper-aware that we’re looking at private-language-things the wrong way, and a behaviourist argument shows how that is the case.

309

What is your aim in philosophy?—To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.

If you try even a little too hard, you end up still stuck. You have to be crazy-precise in your method of thinking to not make mistakes.

08 Mar 2024