[C] [Wittrs] Re: Wittgenstein and Theories
- From: "J" <jpdemouy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:22:50 -0000
Sean,
Apparently, I misunderstood you on several points. I appreciate the
clarifications.
> Theory-of-knowledge courses generally proceed from the
> misguided question of "what is knowledge?" This leads
> students into thinking that this question is a puzzle in
> need of a conjured answer.
Is the question misguided? It is potentially misleading, but are those who ask
or attempt to answer it necessarily misled?
Consider whether a paraphrase such as "What do we count as 'knowledge'?" or
"How is the word 'knowledge' used?" would be acknowledged as such or whether
they would object with, e.g. "No, I'm not concerned with playing games with
words. I want to get to the essence of what knowledge truly is"?
And how will they respond to examples of knowledge? Are they dismissed as not
even a suitable starting point, as with Socrates?
(Note: dismissing the value of examples as a starting point and dismissing
partial definitions like "justified true belief" are both problematic:
BBB pp. 18-19 Instead of "craving for generality" I could also have
said "the contemptuous attitude towards the particular
case". If, e.g., someone tries to explain the concept of number and tells us
that such and such a definition will not do
or is clumsy because it only applies to, say, finite cardinals I should answer
that the mere fact that he could have
given such a limited definition makes this definition extremely important to
us. (Elegance is not what we are trying for.) For why should what finite and
transfinite numbers have in common be
more interesting to us than what distinguishes them? Or rather, I should not
have said "why should it be more
interesting to us?"--it isn't; and this characterizes our way of thinking.
The standard
> answer is TJB. And the way TJB is vetted is by example
> and counter-example. And by the time Gettier is pulled
> out, students are led to believe there is some crisis that
> philosophers need to solve.
Whether it is a crisis is a matter of the seriousness with which we view our
confusion. That is a distinct matter from how we would characterize the nature
of the problem and the possibilities for its solution. Taking our puzzlement
seriously, experiencing "deep disquietudes", and supposing that the answer is a
theory are different matters.
PI 111. The problems arising through a misinterpretation of our forms of
language have the character of depth.
They are deep disquietudes; their roots are as deep in us as the forms of our
language and their significance is as
great as the importance of our language.--Let us ask ourselves: why do we feel
a grammatical joke to be deep? (And
that is what the depth of philosophy is.)
Consider some biographical data you've recently shared. Knowing that people
dying from bombs dropping all around called continuing with philosophical work
into question. Knowing that he was dying from cancer did not. This places the
value for Wittgenstein of grappling with philosophical puzzlement into some
perspective. And note: unlike the period after the _Tractatus_, Wittgenstein
did not stop doing philosophy once he had had the insights of PI 1-188.
>
> The answer to the puzzle is never to propound the initial
> question.
NO!
Or rather: that is only an answer for some people and for some problems.
I'm reminded of the old Vaudeville joke:
"Doctor, it hurts when I do this."
"Well, then don't do that."
Sometimes, that answer is perfectly sound medical advice. Not always.
And consider Anna Boncampagni's metaphor of philosophy as vaccine.
Z 460 In a certain sense one cannot take too much care in handling
philosophical mistakes, they contain so much truth.
Rather, it is to show students that the
> question causes the problems. And that "knowledge" merely
> is what it does in anthropology (the language culture),
Obviously, you don't mean that the legitimate uses of "knowledge" are limited
to the use of that word in the practice of anthropology. Should I suppose that
you mean that the question of "knowledge" is an anthropological question and
the answer anthropological?
This is wrong, though it is a common mistake, because Wittgenstein does make
comparisons between his methods and anthropology. But philosophy is not
anthropology. To equate them is to make the same mistakes Frege criticizes in
his attacks on psychologism. (And Wittgenstein recognized the importance of
these points.) The anthropological perspective is one perspective from which
to consider a philosophical problem.
RPM III.65 Are the propositions of mathematics anthropological
propositions saying how we men infer and
calculate?--Is a statute book a work of anthropology telling how the people of
this nation deal with a thief
etc.?--Could it be said: "The judge looks up a book about anthropology and
thereupon sentences the thief to a term
of imprisonment"? Well, the judge does not USE the statute book as a manual of
anthropology.
RPM III.72 (partial) It is clear that we can make use of a mathematical work
for a study in anthropology. But then one thing is not
clear:--whether we ought to say: "This writing shews us how operating with
signs was done among these people", or: "This writing
shews us what parts of mathematics these people had mastered".
and
> that the only thing one can ever do here is become
> especially keen with regard to its conditions of
> assertability across its various senses.
And why couldn't sating that knowledge is justified true belief be simply a
misfiring - or merely incomplete - attempt at stating "conditions of
assertibility"? Why must it be stigmatized as a "theory". (Someone may offer
it as such, but that has more to do with the context than with the form of the
statement itself.)
And if students are
> trained like this, they would be more concerned with Moore
> claiming to know he has a hand than with Gettier.
Would he? Gettier-style problems are interesting in their own right.
Why?
> Because, then, they could see that doubt-removing grammar
> is being taken out of its ordinary and useful context under
> warrant of language confusion. Gettier does not need an
> answer; it needs "therapy."
Both need 'therapy". I am not seeing the contrast here.
(snipping where we are largely in agreement.)
If asked
> whether knowledge was "TJB" by a student...
He would NEVER have said, "no,
> because Gettier refuted it. We're still trying to solve
> that one."
No. But he might well have said something along the lines of (PI 68):
It need not be so. For I can give the concept 'number' rigid
limits in this way, that is, use the word "number" for a rigidly limited
concept, but I can also use it so that the extension of
the concept is not closed by a frontier
Or something not unlike the remark in BB p. 57
It is as if someone were to say "a game consists in moving objects
about on a surface according to certain
rules..." and we replied: You must be thinking of board games, and your
description is indeed applicable to them.
But they are not the only games. So you can make your definitions correct by
expressly restricting it to those games.
And he might well have used Gettier-style examples as showing cases for which
such a definition is inadequate.
(You do know, by the way, that Edmund Gettier was a student of Max Black and
Norman Malcolm and was strongly influenced by Wittgenstein? Not that that
proves Wittgenstein would have condoned his work, but it is at least
interesting in light of this discussion.)
Examining the failures or inadequacies of definitions in terms of necessary and
sufficient conditions is part of the process of coming to appreciate insights
such as thinking in terms of symptoms and criteria, family resemblances, and
the flexibility and openness of boundaries. Just saying not to define terms in
that way or not to ask questions that would seek such definitions is an evasion
of the problems that give value to these hard won insights.
JPDeMouy
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