[Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
- From: "swmaerske" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:49:37 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Cayuse" <z.z7@...> wrote:
>
> Stuart wrote:
> > Cayuse wrote:
> >> There is no experiencer of "subjective experience":
> >>
> >> PI 398: "But when I imagine something, or even actually see objects,
> >> I have got something which my neighbour has not." - I understand you.
> >> You want to look about you and say: "At any rate only I have got THIS."
> >> - What are these words for? They serve no purpose. -
> >
> > This is a reference to the use of ownership terms, ownership concepts.
> > One cannot reference an experience as if it were a possession.
>
> An experience cannot be referenced at all, since there is no "referencer".
>
That is a declaration, not an argument.
We are speaking here and in the preceding threads and Wittgenstein was speaking
(writing, actually) in the citations you offer. Words don't speak themselves,
nor write themselves, except in a Zen sense which is completely different than
any ordinary use to which Wittgenstein repeatedly called us back!
>
> > But think about it: What grammar exists that reflects or enables us to
> > speak of experience without an experiencer?
>
>
> By giving it by a name, experience, we make a 'thing' of it, and consequently
> also call into existence whatever is not that 'thing' -- the conceived
> "experiencer" and the relationsip between them, "experiencing". Experience,
> experiencer, and experiencing arise in mutual relationship and
> interdependence within "it". Once again we are beguiled by language into
> squeezing "it" into a category of itself. To name it is to lose it.
>
It is a "thing" in language though not to be confused with what we mean by a
physical thing (though "physical thing" is often the model we have in mind, the
picture that seems to dominate, when we use the term "thing" -- but there is no
reason it should, if we actually examine the myriad of linguistic uses -- think
of the common phrase "that thing you do").
We speak and think in language. What "beguiles" us is when we allow an
inappropriate or irrelevant picture to dominate some use or other, i.e., when
we take words out of their appropriate contexts and try to use them in an
inappropriate one.
Think of "certainty". Philosophers for centuries have been obsessed with
finding something, some claim of knowledge of which they can be certain.
Without which they have felt we can have no knowledge at all, only supposition.
But what does that mean?
When we are "certain" we usually mean we have a feeling about something or can
cite some level of justification within a particular and very limited frame of
reference to back up what we claim to be certain about. On a witness stand the
lawyer cross examing me demands "but are you certain?" and I nod yes, believing
the truth of what I have said about what I've seen.
But this is not a claim of ultimate certainty. I'm quite aware I could have
been deceived in some manner, and I'm even willing to agree that I could be
dreaming even as I answer the question. But THAT isn't what I mean when I
answer "yes, I'm certain."
Philosophers want to know how can we be sure we know what we think we know? How
can we guarantee that some claim of knowledge is really that, i.e., that it is
true? But that isn't what we mean by "certain" in everyday life. We are certain
about lots of things in lots of different ways. I'm certain I live on the earth
in the city where I am now sitting, etc. I'm certain I am now typing on my
keyboard to respond to you. I'm certain the world is round (more or less) and
not flat. I'm certain that 2 and 2 make 4. All of these "certainties" I have in
different ways and, in a sense, for different reasons (I would back them up
differently). But I am certain of them all without expecting that my claim of
certainty demands some level of apodictic surety that is beyond any possible
challenge.
What "beguiles" us is when we think that lingusitic uses like such claims of
certainty require something more, something on a level that enables us to
forever be able to claim certainty, come what may. But THAT isn't what we mean
by this term. When we think it is it is only because we've taken language on
that holiday!
>
> > A corpse is not said to have experience because it has ceased to be
> > animated.
> > It has lost the capacity of being a subject, the capacity to have
> > experience.
>
> Such claims are nonsensical, since "subjective experience" (ugh!) is
> non-empirical.
>
Again that is a declaration, not an argument, dependent on your insistence on
substituting one notion of "subjective experience" (the one you are interested
in and which nothing can be said about) with another (the one I have said again
and again that I am interested in, about which we both agree there are things
that can be said). This way will never get us to any kind of mutual
understanding. We have already agreed to go our separate ways vis a vis these
uses so applying your usage to my claim simply misses that point all over again.
SWM
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