[Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
- From: "Cayuse" <z.z7@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 16:45:39 +0100
Stuart wrote:
> Cayuse wrote:
>> The categories of private and public are themselves categories
>> of "subjective experience" (the "what it is like"). The error is
>> to consider one of these categories to constitute "subjective
>> experience" in contrast to some kind of "objective experience"
>> (whatever that might be).
>
> Ordinary language enables us to distinguish between subjective
> and objective experience and it's to be recalled that Wittgenstein,
> in his later phase, was a proponent of relying on and returning to
> ordinary language for meaning. You shortchange your own efforts at
> understanding him if you forget the role of ordinary language in all this.
>
> Do you seriously think he would have endorsed a view that denies
> the point of ordinary language here? Look, the issue is this: Philosophy
> often takes language out of its ordinary milieu, takes it, as he said at
> times, "on holiday". Then meaning is lost. When any of us speaks of
> what is subjective or objective we know what we mean in most cases
> (if we are speakers of the language in which these terms are expressed,
> of course). What is subjective is what is seen from my perspective, what
> I cannot share with others. My dream as I slept last night is subjective.
> My awareness of the waking world is objective. My perception of that
> waking world as I am observing it is subjective (because no one else can
> see it from my point of view) but what we can observe in a shared way
> (determined by our ability to exchange information about it or relate to
> physically in a shared way) is objective.
>
> "Subjective" and "objective" have very clear meanings in ordinary
> language (as clear as anything one can get without relying on some
> ideal language that brings with it severe limitations). But philosophers
> often allow themselves to fall into confusion about this. They think
> there must be some kind of ultimate objectivity or ultimate subjectivity,
> one of which subsumes within the other, etc. But Wittgenstein,
> certainly the later thinker, did not go there. He made no claims about
> any such thing and, indeed, strove to avoid making such claims. The world,
> on this Wittgensteinian view, is neither ultimately subjective (idealism)
> or ultimately objective (materialism). It just is and what it is is for
> science
> to determine insofar as it can. Philosophy's role is just to work to keep our
> thinking clear about such things. Kant's noumenal reality is beyond the
> scope of the later Wittgensteinian approach and for good reason.
I don't deny that the distinctions between private and public, and between
subjective and objective, are useful distinctions.
> Then what else do you need? Why seek some kind of larger
> metaphysical doctrine (even a doctrine purported to sustain a
> concept of an "all" that lacks grammar and referent that leads
> to a surrender of thought)?
Nothing is needed. Nothing is sought.
No metaphysics are required. It simply "is".
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