NDPR has just published a review by Danièle Moyal-Sharrock of David Pears's most recent book, Paradox and Platitude in Wittgenstein's Philosophy (2006). The first book I ever read on Wittgenstein was Pears's Wittgenstein (1971). According to Moyal-Sharrock, Paradox and Platitude covers the same ground as that book, "but in greater depth and detail; and, I would add, with the familiarity and expertise of someone who has travelled long and deep with Wittgenstein."
Pears is also author of the classic False Prison: A Study in the Development of Wittgenstein's Philosophy, Volumes 1 and 2 (1987).
(I thought that Pears was emeritus at Oxford, but his name doesn't appear on their faculty list. A Google search was inconclusive.)
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Don't Mention the 'W' Word
On Dave's recommendation, I've been working my way through Baker's "Philosophical Investigations section 122: neglected aspects." Though I still owe my readers (all six of you) a discussion of Kremer's article (see below), and I've mentioned writing something about McGinn's Elucidating the Tractatus, I'm going to move a post on Baker to the head of the line. But before I do, I've found some more depressing words for aspiring Wittgenstein scholars.
In addition to comparing Baker's article to Hacker's revised discussion of "surveyability and surveyable representations," I've been reading reviews of Baker's Wittgenstein’s Method: Neglected Aspects. In particular, I've found Peter Sullivan's review in Mind and Hutchinson & Read's review in Philosophy to be helpful (in the same review Hutchinson & Read discuss Hacker's Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies; as you might expect, they're not sympathetic). Hutchinson and Read preface their review with the following comments on Wittgenstein's current reputation.
Since the publication of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations in 1953 there have appeared a huge number of secondary texts published on different aspects of his life, his work and his place in the philosophical canon. The sheer volume of texts alone might indicate to a non philosopher (or at least to someone who does their philosophizing outside the universities of the UK and USA) that Wittgenstein was the pre-eminent philosopher of the twentieth century and the philosopher of that century that can be truly said to take up a place alongside the greats: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant…etc. However, from those doing their philosophizing within the academy there is an increasingly apparent and contrasting sense that Wittgenstein is not only less significant than those philosophers who are usually considered as taking their place in the canon, but less significant than his twentieth century contemporaries: Frege, Russell, Carnap, Turing; and even than many of those who have been preeminent in the latter part of the century: Quine, Davidson, Kripke, (early) Putnam etc. It is common to hear young professional philosophers talking of Wittgenstein as if his contribution to our subject amounted to something akin to a statistical blip—that is, while appearing to many for a short period in the mid twentieth century to have done nothing less than transform our subject, he is now, with the perspective afforded by history, seen as bordering on the insignificant in light of the wider picture—of the progression of our subject—that we now have. Indeed, research grant applications do well to leave out the ‘W’ word. Young academics are advised to play down any interest in Wittgenstein when applying for jobs. And if one wants one’s critique of a particular philosophical picture to be treated on its merits alone one better not mention that critique’s Wittgensteinian debts or heritage.
So, how can this be? Think of the questions raised here. For instance, how can one of the most notoriously difficult-to-grasp philosophers of the twentieth century spawn a publishing industry of his own, an industry with its decidedly ‘populist’ end? An industry, that is, which ranges from books on ‘Tractarian’ logical form, written by logicians and impenetrable to all but those trained in formal logic, to books on a ten-minute ‘argument’, written by a couple of journalists, who acknowledge that no one present at the ‘argument’ (between Popper and Wittgenstein) really remembers what was said, a book marketed to the ‘departure lounge’ and the ‘3-for-2’ book-buyer? In short, Wittgenstein’s name sells books almost anywhere; but knowledge of and admiration for his philosophy does not necessarily help you to sell yourself as a philosopher, one bit.
We think the answer to the question posed at the head of the previous paragraph is to be found in that vast secondary literature, which spans the two extremes we invoked. We suspect that the interest in Wittgenstein that leads to publishers commissioning so many books indicates far more on the part of the book-buyers than a mere voyeuristic interest in a somewhat eccentric and domineering character; we think it also indicates that his interest as a philosopher lies in more than his contributions to the earlytwentieth-century development of philosophical logic (narrowly construed). Furthermore, we argue that those who summarily dismiss Wittgenstein’s lasting significance are generally found to be dismissing a straw Wittgenstein, though crucially a straw Wittgenstein often fashioned by ‘friends’ and foes alike.
Who, you ask, is the the principal 'friendly' straw Wittgenstein fashioner? That's right, Peter Hacker.
In addition to comparing Baker's article to Hacker's revised discussion of "surveyability and surveyable representations," I've been reading reviews of Baker's Wittgenstein’s Method: Neglected Aspects. In particular, I've found Peter Sullivan's review in Mind and Hutchinson & Read's review in Philosophy to be helpful (in the same review Hutchinson & Read discuss Hacker's Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies; as you might expect, they're not sympathetic). Hutchinson and Read preface their review with the following comments on Wittgenstein's current reputation.
Since the publication of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations in 1953 there have appeared a huge number of secondary texts published on different aspects of his life, his work and his place in the philosophical canon. The sheer volume of texts alone might indicate to a non philosopher (or at least to someone who does their philosophizing outside the universities of the UK and USA) that Wittgenstein was the pre-eminent philosopher of the twentieth century and the philosopher of that century that can be truly said to take up a place alongside the greats: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant…etc. However, from those doing their philosophizing within the academy there is an increasingly apparent and contrasting sense that Wittgenstein is not only less significant than those philosophers who are usually considered as taking their place in the canon, but less significant than his twentieth century contemporaries: Frege, Russell, Carnap, Turing; and even than many of those who have been preeminent in the latter part of the century: Quine, Davidson, Kripke, (early) Putnam etc. It is common to hear young professional philosophers talking of Wittgenstein as if his contribution to our subject amounted to something akin to a statistical blip—that is, while appearing to many for a short period in the mid twentieth century to have done nothing less than transform our subject, he is now, with the perspective afforded by history, seen as bordering on the insignificant in light of the wider picture—of the progression of our subject—that we now have. Indeed, research grant applications do well to leave out the ‘W’ word. Young academics are advised to play down any interest in Wittgenstein when applying for jobs. And if one wants one’s critique of a particular philosophical picture to be treated on its merits alone one better not mention that critique’s Wittgensteinian debts or heritage.
So, how can this be? Think of the questions raised here. For instance, how can one of the most notoriously difficult-to-grasp philosophers of the twentieth century spawn a publishing industry of his own, an industry with its decidedly ‘populist’ end? An industry, that is, which ranges from books on ‘Tractarian’ logical form, written by logicians and impenetrable to all but those trained in formal logic, to books on a ten-minute ‘argument’, written by a couple of journalists, who acknowledge that no one present at the ‘argument’ (between Popper and Wittgenstein) really remembers what was said, a book marketed to the ‘departure lounge’ and the ‘3-for-2’ book-buyer? In short, Wittgenstein’s name sells books almost anywhere; but knowledge of and admiration for his philosophy does not necessarily help you to sell yourself as a philosopher, one bit.
We think the answer to the question posed at the head of the previous paragraph is to be found in that vast secondary literature, which spans the two extremes we invoked. We suspect that the interest in Wittgenstein that leads to publishers commissioning so many books indicates far more on the part of the book-buyers than a mere voyeuristic interest in a somewhat eccentric and domineering character; we think it also indicates that his interest as a philosopher lies in more than his contributions to the earlytwentieth-century development of philosophical logic (narrowly construed). Furthermore, we argue that those who summarily dismiss Wittgenstein’s lasting significance are generally found to be dismissing a straw Wittgenstein, though crucially a straw Wittgenstein often fashioned by ‘friends’ and foes alike.
Who, you ask, is the the principal 'friendly' straw Wittgenstein fashioner? That's right, Peter Hacker.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Wittgenstein and the Grasshopper
I didn't want to waste any time on this topic, but it has been popping up in the blogosphere here and there, and in the words of Popeye, "I've had all I can stand, I can't stands no more!"
In 1978 a philosopher named Bernard Suits wrote a book titled The Grasshopper: Games Life and Utopia. In that book, Suits gives a definition of 'game.' From his only mention of Wittgenstein, it is apparant that Suits takes his definition to be a refutation of Wittgenstein's statement that "if you look at [the proceedings that we call 'games'] you will not see something that is common to all...." (PI, §66) Concerning Wittgenstein's advice to "look and see whether there is anything common to all," Suits replies, "This is unexceptionable advice. Unfortunately, Wittgenstein himself did not follow it. He looked, to be sure, but because he had decided beforehand that games are indefinable, his look was fleeting, and he saw very little." (The Grasshopper, p.21)
In a recent interview, Tom Hurka, philosopher at the University of Toronto, and author of the introduction for the recent reprint of The Grasshopper, is more explicit:
I think Suits's definition decisively refutes Wittgenstein's claims, and it does so because it looks at a level Wittgenstein didn't consider. He saw the surface differences between games—that some use playing-cards and some don't, that some are amusing and some not—and concluded that there can't be anything they have in common. But Suits's analysis operates at a deeper level, finding a shared structural feature that's consistent with all these surface differences, one that involves the pursuit of a certain type of goal, restrictions on the permitted means to that goal, and an attitude that accepts those restrictions because they make activity governed by them possible. That structural feature can be found in card games, cricket, chess, rock-paper-scissors—any game you like. But Wittgenstein didn't see it because he was looking only at the surface.
And on the back of The Grasshopper's cover, Simon Blackburn writes that Suits “engages not only Wittgenstein but human life itself at the highest level, in a book that challenges philosophical orthodoxies, while all the time flowing like honey.”
These are fantastic claims. Wittgenstein's fleeting, shallow look at the meanings of words (in this case, 'game') has been engaged and decisively refuted by a little-known philosopher masquerading as a grasshopper. Fortunately for Wittgenstein, the claims are ridiculous (that is, worthy of ridicule).
Reading all of this, I can only wonder with Duck whether the Philosophical Investigations is taught in school anymore. For (as he comments, and I'll elaborate below) the claims by Hurka and Blackburn indicate a lack of familiarity with (or understanding of) the relevant sections of the Investigations.
Now, I have no intention of reading The Grasshopper (I don't have any interest in the definition of 'game'). But (just for this post) I did read Hurka's "Games and the Good" in which he summarizes and applies Suits's definition of 'game' (Hurka wants to use Suits's definition to argue that excellence in games is good). In the opening pages, Hurka repeats the claim that Suits refutes Wittgenstein:
A unified explanation of why excellence in games is good requires a unified account of what games are, and many doubt that this is possible. After all, Wittgenstein famously gave the concept of a game as his primary example of one for which necessary and sufficient conditions cannot be given but whose instances are linked only by looser "family resemblances." If Wittgenstein was right about this, there can be no single explanation of why skill in games is good, just a series of distinct explanations of the value of skill in hockey, skill in chess, and so on.
But Wittgenstein was not right, as is shown in a little-known book that is nonetheless a classic of twentieth-century philosophy, Bernard Suits’s The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia. Suits gives a perfectly persuasive analysis of playing a game as, to quote his summary statement, "the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles." (pp. 1-2)
Then, after a summary of Suits's definition, Hurka makes the following admission:
This analysis will doubtless meet with objections, in the form of attempted counterexamples. But Suits considers a whole series of these in his book, showing repeatedly that his analysis handles them correctly, and not by some ad hoc addition but once its elements are properly understood. Nor would it matter terribly if there were a few counterexamples. Some minor lack of fit between his analysis and the English use of "game" would not be important if the analysis picks out a phenomenon that is unified, close to what is meant by "game," and philosophically interesting. (p. 4)
I will not discuss Suits's definition (as summarized by Hurka), or give counter-examples (of which there are many). Hurka's remark that "a few counterexamples" would not "matter terribly" is a tacit admission that there are such examples. But he dismisses them because "some minor lack of fit between his analysis and the English use of 'game' would not be important if the analysis picks out a phenomenon that is unified, close to what is meant by 'game,' and philosophically interesting." What Hurka doesn't realize is that this last sentence concedes Wittgenstein's point!
Here are the relevant sections of the Investigations:
66. Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games". I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all?—Don't say: "There must be something common, or they would not be called 'games'"—but look and see whether there is anything common to all.—For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look! […]
68. […] What still counts as a game and what no longer does? Can you give the boundary? No. You can draw one; for none has so far been drawn. (But that never troubled you before when you used the word "game".)
[…]
69. How should we explain to someone what a game is? I imagine that we should describe games to him, and we might add: "This and similar things are called 'games'". And do we know any more about it ourselves? Is it only other people whom we cannot tell exactly what a game is?—But this is not ignorance. We do not know the boundaries because none have been drawn. To repeat, we can draw a boundary—for a special purpose. Does it take that to make the concept usable? Not at all! (Except for that special purpose.) [...]
75. What does it mean to know what a game is? What does it mean, to know it and not be able to say it? Is this knowledge somehow equivalent to an unformulated definition? So that if it were formulated I should be able to recognize it as the expression of my knowledge? Isn't my knowledge, my concept of a game, completely expressed in the explanations that I could give? That is, in my describing examples of various kinds of game; shewing how all sorts of other games can be constructed on the analogy of these; saying that I should scarcely include this or this among games; and so on.
76. If someone were to draw a sharp boundary I could not acknowledge it as the one that I too always wanted to draw, or had drawn in my mind. For I did not want to draw one at all. His concept can then be said to be not the same as mine, but akin to it. The kinship is that of two pictures, one of which consists of colour patches with vague contours, and the other of patches similarly shaped and distributed, but with clear contours. The kinship is just as undeniable as the difference.
Notice that, while no sharp boundary can be drawn to the proceedings that we (i.e., English speakers) call 'games,' a sharp boundary can be drawn for a special purpose. However, the concept that is delineated by the sharp boundary is not the same as the normal concept, but akin to it. The concept that Suits creates by drawing a sharp boundary is similar to (but also different than) our concept of a game. And while the novel concept can, no doubt, be used for some purpose that is "philosophically interesting," it hardly shows that the normal concept admits of an exact definition.
So please, enough of this silliness about Suits refuting Wittgenstein.
[Update: Simon Blackburn has responded here.]
[Update: Norman Geras of normblog has given a nice response to Suits's argrument.]
In 1978 a philosopher named Bernard Suits wrote a book titled The Grasshopper: Games Life and Utopia. In that book, Suits gives a definition of 'game.' From his only mention of Wittgenstein, it is apparant that Suits takes his definition to be a refutation of Wittgenstein's statement that "if you look at [the proceedings that we call 'games'] you will not see something that is common to all...." (PI, §66) Concerning Wittgenstein's advice to "look and see whether there is anything common to all," Suits replies, "This is unexceptionable advice. Unfortunately, Wittgenstein himself did not follow it. He looked, to be sure, but because he had decided beforehand that games are indefinable, his look was fleeting, and he saw very little." (The Grasshopper, p.21)
In a recent interview, Tom Hurka, philosopher at the University of Toronto, and author of the introduction for the recent reprint of The Grasshopper, is more explicit:
I think Suits's definition decisively refutes Wittgenstein's claims, and it does so because it looks at a level Wittgenstein didn't consider. He saw the surface differences between games—that some use playing-cards and some don't, that some are amusing and some not—and concluded that there can't be anything they have in common. But Suits's analysis operates at a deeper level, finding a shared structural feature that's consistent with all these surface differences, one that involves the pursuit of a certain type of goal, restrictions on the permitted means to that goal, and an attitude that accepts those restrictions because they make activity governed by them possible. That structural feature can be found in card games, cricket, chess, rock-paper-scissors—any game you like. But Wittgenstein didn't see it because he was looking only at the surface.
And on the back of The Grasshopper's cover, Simon Blackburn writes that Suits “engages not only Wittgenstein but human life itself at the highest level, in a book that challenges philosophical orthodoxies, while all the time flowing like honey.”
These are fantastic claims. Wittgenstein's fleeting, shallow look at the meanings of words (in this case, 'game') has been engaged and decisively refuted by a little-known philosopher masquerading as a grasshopper. Fortunately for Wittgenstein, the claims are ridiculous (that is, worthy of ridicule).
Reading all of this, I can only wonder with Duck whether the Philosophical Investigations is taught in school anymore. For (as he comments, and I'll elaborate below) the claims by Hurka and Blackburn indicate a lack of familiarity with (or understanding of) the relevant sections of the Investigations.
Now, I have no intention of reading The Grasshopper (I don't have any interest in the definition of 'game'). But (just for this post) I did read Hurka's "Games and the Good" in which he summarizes and applies Suits's definition of 'game' (Hurka wants to use Suits's definition to argue that excellence in games is good). In the opening pages, Hurka repeats the claim that Suits refutes Wittgenstein:
A unified explanation of why excellence in games is good requires a unified account of what games are, and many doubt that this is possible. After all, Wittgenstein famously gave the concept of a game as his primary example of one for which necessary and sufficient conditions cannot be given but whose instances are linked only by looser "family resemblances." If Wittgenstein was right about this, there can be no single explanation of why skill in games is good, just a series of distinct explanations of the value of skill in hockey, skill in chess, and so on.
But Wittgenstein was not right, as is shown in a little-known book that is nonetheless a classic of twentieth-century philosophy, Bernard Suits’s The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia. Suits gives a perfectly persuasive analysis of playing a game as, to quote his summary statement, "the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles." (pp. 1-2)
Then, after a summary of Suits's definition, Hurka makes the following admission:
This analysis will doubtless meet with objections, in the form of attempted counterexamples. But Suits considers a whole series of these in his book, showing repeatedly that his analysis handles them correctly, and not by some ad hoc addition but once its elements are properly understood. Nor would it matter terribly if there were a few counterexamples. Some minor lack of fit between his analysis and the English use of "game" would not be important if the analysis picks out a phenomenon that is unified, close to what is meant by "game," and philosophically interesting. (p. 4)
I will not discuss Suits's definition (as summarized by Hurka), or give counter-examples (of which there are many). Hurka's remark that "a few counterexamples" would not "matter terribly" is a tacit admission that there are such examples. But he dismisses them because "some minor lack of fit between his analysis and the English use of 'game' would not be important if the analysis picks out a phenomenon that is unified, close to what is meant by 'game,' and philosophically interesting." What Hurka doesn't realize is that this last sentence concedes Wittgenstein's point!
Here are the relevant sections of the Investigations:
66. Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games". I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all?—Don't say: "There must be something common, or they would not be called 'games'"—but look and see whether there is anything common to all.—For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look! […]
68. […] What still counts as a game and what no longer does? Can you give the boundary? No. You can draw one; for none has so far been drawn. (But that never troubled you before when you used the word "game".)
[…]
69. How should we explain to someone what a game is? I imagine that we should describe games to him, and we might add: "This and similar things are called 'games'". And do we know any more about it ourselves? Is it only other people whom we cannot tell exactly what a game is?—But this is not ignorance. We do not know the boundaries because none have been drawn. To repeat, we can draw a boundary—for a special purpose. Does it take that to make the concept usable? Not at all! (Except for that special purpose.) [...]
75. What does it mean to know what a game is? What does it mean, to know it and not be able to say it? Is this knowledge somehow equivalent to an unformulated definition? So that if it were formulated I should be able to recognize it as the expression of my knowledge? Isn't my knowledge, my concept of a game, completely expressed in the explanations that I could give? That is, in my describing examples of various kinds of game; shewing how all sorts of other games can be constructed on the analogy of these; saying that I should scarcely include this or this among games; and so on.
76. If someone were to draw a sharp boundary I could not acknowledge it as the one that I too always wanted to draw, or had drawn in my mind. For I did not want to draw one at all. His concept can then be said to be not the same as mine, but akin to it. The kinship is that of two pictures, one of which consists of colour patches with vague contours, and the other of patches similarly shaped and distributed, but with clear contours. The kinship is just as undeniable as the difference.
Notice that, while no sharp boundary can be drawn to the proceedings that we (i.e., English speakers) call 'games,' a sharp boundary can be drawn for a special purpose. However, the concept that is delineated by the sharp boundary is not the same as the normal concept, but akin to it. The concept that Suits creates by drawing a sharp boundary is similar to (but also different than) our concept of a game. And while the novel concept can, no doubt, be used for some purpose that is "philosophically interesting," it hardly shows that the normal concept admits of an exact definition.
So please, enough of this silliness about Suits refuting Wittgenstein.
[Update: Simon Blackburn has responded here.]
[Update: Norman Geras of normblog has given a nice response to Suits's argrument.]
Friday, January 18, 2008
"Wittgenstein" in JFP
I meant to post on this back in November, but forgot. Issues 175 (October) and 176 (November) of Jobs for Philosophers do not contain the word "Wittgenstein" (neither do any of the web-only ads). Which is to say, nobody is looking to hire a Wittgenstein scholar.
I find it curious that there is so little interest in hiring philosophers with expertise in Wittgenstein when there seems to be increased interest in Wittgenstein's philosophy. There are several new interpretations, dozens of recent books, and no less than nine conferences or workshops in 2008 alone. Is it that there are too many philosophers who write on Wittgenstein already? I wouldn't think so after my limited investigation revealed that half of the "top" programs don't have anyone working on Wittgenstein. I wonder what explains this (apparent) discrepancy.
I find it curious that there is so little interest in hiring philosophers with expertise in Wittgenstein when there seems to be increased interest in Wittgenstein's philosophy. There are several new interpretations, dozens of recent books, and no less than nine conferences or workshops in 2008 alone. Is it that there are too many philosophers who write on Wittgenstein already? I wouldn't think so after my limited investigation revealed that half of the "top" programs don't have anyone working on Wittgenstein. I wonder what explains this (apparent) discrepancy.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
What Did You Say?
"If a lion could talk, we could not understand him" ... without clever computer software.
Wittgenstein Conferences in 2008
In addition to "Wittgenstein Organizations," "Wittgenstein Scholars with Papers Online," and the blogrolls, I've created a page element for "Wittgenstein Conferences in 2008." So far, there are seven such conferences (if the sessions at the Pacific APA are included as a "conference"). If you come across one that isn't listed, please send me an e-mail.
(There are also weekly meetings of the Wittgenstein Workshop at the University of Chicago.)
Update: There are two other conferences that do not appear in the "Conferences" section because there is, as yet, no information on the internet. The first is "The Third Wittgenstein." It's the inaugural conference of the British Wittgenstein Society, and is being held at the University of Hertfordshire (UK), June 7-8.
The confirmed guest speakers are:
John V. Canfield (Toronto)
Frank Cioffi (Kent)
J.-H. Glock (Zurich)
Laurence Goldstein (Kent)
P.M.S. Hacker (Oxford)
Michel ter Hark (Gronigen)
Daniel D. Hutto (Hertfordshire)
Nigel Pleasants (Exeter)
Avrum Stroll (UCSD)
Crispin Wright (St Andrews)
Contact: D.Moyal-Sharrock@herts.ac.uk
The second is a "Norwegian-French Wittgenstein Seminar" in Skjolden (Norway), June 16-18 (Contact information for the organizers is available here).
As soon as more information about these conferences and the BWS appears on the internet, I will link to it in the relevant sections.
(There are also weekly meetings of the Wittgenstein Workshop at the University of Chicago.)
Update: There are two other conferences that do not appear in the "Conferences" section because there is, as yet, no information on the internet. The first is "The Third Wittgenstein." It's the inaugural conference of the British Wittgenstein Society, and is being held at the University of Hertfordshire (UK), June 7-8.
The confirmed guest speakers are:
John V. Canfield (Toronto)
Frank Cioffi (Kent)
J.-H. Glock (Zurich)
Laurence Goldstein (Kent)
P.M.S. Hacker (Oxford)
Michel ter Hark (Gronigen)
Daniel D. Hutto (Hertfordshire)
Nigel Pleasants (Exeter)
Avrum Stroll (UCSD)
Crispin Wright (St Andrews)
Contact: D.Moyal-Sharrock@herts.ac.uk
The second is a "Norwegian-French Wittgenstein Seminar" in Skjolden (Norway), June 16-18 (Contact information for the organizers is available here).
As soon as more information about these conferences and the BWS appears on the internet, I will link to it in the relevant sections.
Wittgenstein in Pasadena
A look at the Pacific APA main and group programs reveals two (that's right, two!) sessions on Wittgenstein. The first (on Wednesday, March 19th) is an invited symposium:
Wittgenstein and the Paradoxes of Consciousness
1:00-4:00 p.m., Location TBA
Chair: Jonathan Ellis (University of California–Santa Cruz)
Speakers: Alice Crary (New School University)
David G. Stern (University of Iowa)
Meredith Wiliams (Johns Hopkins University)
The second (also on the 19th) is hosted by the North American Wittgenstein Society:
6:30-9:30 p.m., Location TBA
Chair: Jeff Johnson (College of St. Catherine)
Speaker: Janette Dinishak (University of Toronto)
“The Place of the Concept ‘Noticing and Aspect’”
Commentator: Joshua Kortbein (University of Minnesota–Twin Cities)
Speaker: Kevin Cahill (Universitetet i Bergen)
“Wittgenstein and the Fate of Metaphysics”
Commentator: John Woods (Princeton University)
Speaker: Newton Garver (University at Buffalo)
“Grammar and Silence”
Commentator: John W. Powell (Humboldt State University)
Wittgenstein and the Paradoxes of Consciousness
1:00-4:00 p.m., Location TBA
Chair: Jonathan Ellis (University of California–Santa Cruz)
Speakers: Alice Crary (New School University)
David G. Stern (University of Iowa)
Meredith Wiliams (Johns Hopkins University)
The second (also on the 19th) is hosted by the North American Wittgenstein Society:
6:30-9:30 p.m., Location TBA
Chair: Jeff Johnson (College of St. Catherine)
Speaker: Janette Dinishak (University of Toronto)
“The Place of the Concept ‘Noticing and Aspect’”
Commentator: Joshua Kortbein (University of Minnesota–Twin Cities)
Speaker: Kevin Cahill (Universitetet i Bergen)
“Wittgenstein and the Fate of Metaphysics”
Commentator: John Woods (Princeton University)
Speaker: Newton Garver (University at Buffalo)
“Grammar and Silence”
Commentator: John W. Powell (Humboldt State University)
Monday, January 14, 2008
Michael Kremer, "The Cardinal Problem of Philosophy," Part I
In this post, I try to summarize Kremer's "The Cardinal Problem of Philosophy" (here). (Actually, I don't summarize so much as selectively quote Kremer.) In the second installment (to appear sometime next week), I will try to make a few critical remarks. By the way, much of Kremer's article is a reply to Peter Sullivan's "On Trying to be Resolute: A Response to Kremer on the Tractatus" (here).
Kremer's article responds to one argument against the resolute reading of the Tractatus. That argument centers on Wittgenstein’s letter to Russell from August 19, 1919:
I’m afraid you haven’t really got hold of my main contention, to which the whole business of logical prop[osition]s is only a corollary. The main point is the theory of what can be expressed (gesagt) by prop[osition]s – i.e. by language – (and, which comes to the same, what can be thought) and what can not be expressed by prop[osition]s, but only shown (gezeigt); which, I believe, is the cardinal problem of philosophy.
This seems to pose a problem for resolute readers:
Wittgenstein’s insistence that this "theory" is the "main point" of his book is repeatedly cited by ineffabilist readers in support of their interpretation. Critics of the resolute reading have also seized on this passage as proving that the ineffability reading accurately captures Wittgenstein’s own understanding of the book. P.M.S. Hacker, noting both Wittgenstein’s insistence on the importance of the "theory" of saying and showing, and Wittgenstein’s apparent use of this theory in responding to Russell’s queries, writes that "It is implausible to suppose that he was pulling Russell’s leg and that the real point of the book is that there is nothing at all to be shown." (Hacker, "Was he Trying to Whistle it?" 129) (Kremer, 8)
Against this, Kremer holds that "the evidence of the Russell letter not only does not conflict with the resolute reading, it actually supports it." (Kremer, 8)
Kremer argues (persuasively, it seems to me) that, according to Wittgenstein, philosophical problems are the result of equivocations.
[P]hilosophical nonsense, according to Wittgenstein, typically involves an equivocal sign, which is part of two symbols. The philosopher generates problems by using the sign simultaneously in two incompatible ways. The solution of the philosopher’s puzzlement consists in distinguishing among the meanings his words might have. This can be accomplished by introducing a notation within which the distinct symbols involved are associated with distinct signs. Once such distinctions have been made and such symbols introduced, the philosopher can be asked to choose which meaning he intends his signs to have. Confronting this choice, he will see that he actually confusedly intended his signs to have both meanings at once, and that it was this confused intention that resulted in his philosophical puzzlement. (Kremer, 14)
Next, Kremer argues that the Tractatus knowingly equivocates on ‘showing.’ The two incompatible senses of ‘showing’ are showing that and showing how:
In a largely unsympathetic presentation of the Tractatus in general and the saying/showing distinction in particular, Graham Priest remarks:
…the word ‘show’ in English has both a propositional use and a non-propositional use. In its propositional use, ‘show’ is followed by a that-clause (she showed that she could play cricket); in its non-propositional use it is followed by ‘what’, ‘how’, etc., or even a simple noun-phrase (she showed him the bat/how to use it/where he could put it, etc.). (Priest, Beyond the Limits of Thought 186)
Priest clearly thinks that Wittgenstein himself is guilty of equivocation here, claiming that "Structures in the world and language show in both these senses." But, alert to the importance of such equivocation in the formulation of the problems of philosophy, we can turn his observation to more sympathetic uses. (Kremer, 25)
As Kremer notes, this distinction between propositional and practical knowledge is related to Ryle’s distinction between knowing how and knowing that (chapter two, section three of Concept of Mind, here). Knowing that is knowledge of some fact (some truth), while knowing how (‘know-how’) is the ability to do something.
Kremer continues:
How, though, might the fact that "showing" can have both a propositional and a practical use contribute to philosophical illusions and difficulties? Recall my suggestion in "The Purpose of Tractarian Nonsense" that the doctrine of truths which cannot be said, but only shown, seems to fulfill a certain purpose: it provides an "internal" justification for our language, our thoughts, our lives. For this purpose, I argued, we "need something sufficiently like a proposition to serve as a justification, an answer to a question, yet sufficiently different from a proposition to need no further justification, to raise no further questions in turn" – an insight that can be shown, but not said – but an insight into a truth nonetheless. (Kremer, "The Purpose of Tractarian Nonsense" 52) If we allow ourselves to use the word "show" in a way that trades on the fact that this one sign is part of two different symbols – "practical" showing and "propositional" showing – we may come to think we have a grip on just such an insight. For what is shown can’t be said, we think, running in the grooves laid down by the use of "shows how," yet it is certainly something like a fact, we convince ourselves, running in the grooves laid down by the use of "shows that." And so we seem to have what we want. (Kremer, 26-7)
Kremer fleshes out this equivocation by considering Frege’s notion of elucidatory nonsense (for a good account of Fregean elucidation, see James Conant’s "The Method of the Tractatus," pp. 386-8, here). Peter Geach summarizes Frege's view as follows ("Saying and Showing in Frege and Wittgenstein," 55):
Frege already held ... that there are logical category-distinctions which will clearly show themselves in a well-constructed formalized language, but which cannot be properly asserted in language: the sentences in which we seek to convey them in the vernacular language are logically improper and admit of no transformation into well-formed formulas of symbolic logic. All the same, there is a test for these sentences’ having conveyed the intended distinctions – namely, that by their aid mastery of the formalized language is attainable. (Kremer, 27)
According to Kremer, a crucial aspect of Geach’s story is
the connection that he draws between practical knowledge and the idea of showing, when he writes that "mastery of the formalized language" provides a test for having grasped the distinctions and features that certain nonsense sentences are meant to convey. Geach emphasizes that "the insight we gain ... into the workings of logical notation can be definitely tested – even by University examiners." (Geach, "Saying and Showing" 70) (Kremer, 30)
From this, Kremer concludes that
Geach’s understanding of "showing" involves precisely the confusion of practical and propositional showing which I have argued is at the heart of the ineffability reading of the Tractatus. It may be that the use of the word "feature," far from being innocent, helps to compound this confusion. For, as we have seen, talk of features, even facial features, can simply point us to the facts about a face …. Yet not all talk of features is of this sort. When I recognize my daughter by her facial features, I may not be able to articulate a set of concepts to describe precisely what it is that allows me to pick her out of a crowd. Hence, Sullivan is right after all to say that not all talk of features necessarily brings with it talk of propositions and facts. Talk of "facial features" may call on abilities of recognition and of comparison involved in the understanding and use of "family resemblance" terms, without requiring the articulation of a concept.
In fact, the very word "feature" has the same equivocal nature we have found in "show." When a doctor speaks of the characteristic facial features of a patient with fetal alcohol syndrome, she is, I suppose, saying something about how the patient’s face is. In contrast, when we speak of the features of language, we are saying something about how the language is used. But if we speak of "reality" as having "features" that we can grasp in mastering a symbolism, and go on to illustrate this through examples such as one proposition’s following from another, or one color of blue being lighter than another, we are confusedly thinking of these features both as having to do with how reality is, and as having to do with how language is to be used.
It is this confusion that is at the root of the "cardinal problem of philosophy." The notion of a "showing" of inexpressible truths, while sorely tempting to us, is also the source of great philosophical puzzlement. For the desire to express the truths we think we grasp is constantly competing with the thought that these truths must not – and so cannot – be expressed. But the Tractatus, in bringing us to recognize its propositions as nonsense, brings us to see that no meaning is attached to the ineffabilist use of the word "showing," which had seemed to be the key to understanding the book. And once we see that there is no clear notion here at all, the perplexities that it brought in its train disappear. (Kremer, 32-3)
Geach's Frege holds that the nonsensical sentences that seek to convey logical category-distinctions 'show' features of the symbolism and features of reality. According to Kremer, this involves an equivocation. 'Showing' features of the symbolism is showing how to use the symbolism, while 'showing' features of reality is showing that something is such and such. Once these different senses are made perspicuous, we are forced to choose between them. Presumably, we see that mastery of the symbolism is what we were really after, and we leave off talking about features of reality.
Kremer's article responds to one argument against the resolute reading of the Tractatus. That argument centers on Wittgenstein’s letter to Russell from August 19, 1919:
I’m afraid you haven’t really got hold of my main contention, to which the whole business of logical prop[osition]s is only a corollary. The main point is the theory of what can be expressed (gesagt) by prop[osition]s – i.e. by language – (and, which comes to the same, what can be thought) and what can not be expressed by prop[osition]s, but only shown (gezeigt); which, I believe, is the cardinal problem of philosophy.
This seems to pose a problem for resolute readers:
Wittgenstein’s insistence that this "theory" is the "main point" of his book is repeatedly cited by ineffabilist readers in support of their interpretation. Critics of the resolute reading have also seized on this passage as proving that the ineffability reading accurately captures Wittgenstein’s own understanding of the book. P.M.S. Hacker, noting both Wittgenstein’s insistence on the importance of the "theory" of saying and showing, and Wittgenstein’s apparent use of this theory in responding to Russell’s queries, writes that "It is implausible to suppose that he was pulling Russell’s leg and that the real point of the book is that there is nothing at all to be shown." (Hacker, "Was he Trying to Whistle it?" 129) (Kremer, 8)
Against this, Kremer holds that "the evidence of the Russell letter not only does not conflict with the resolute reading, it actually supports it." (Kremer, 8)
Kremer argues (persuasively, it seems to me) that, according to Wittgenstein, philosophical problems are the result of equivocations.
[P]hilosophical nonsense, according to Wittgenstein, typically involves an equivocal sign, which is part of two symbols. The philosopher generates problems by using the sign simultaneously in two incompatible ways. The solution of the philosopher’s puzzlement consists in distinguishing among the meanings his words might have. This can be accomplished by introducing a notation within which the distinct symbols involved are associated with distinct signs. Once such distinctions have been made and such symbols introduced, the philosopher can be asked to choose which meaning he intends his signs to have. Confronting this choice, he will see that he actually confusedly intended his signs to have both meanings at once, and that it was this confused intention that resulted in his philosophical puzzlement. (Kremer, 14)
Next, Kremer argues that the Tractatus knowingly equivocates on ‘showing.’ The two incompatible senses of ‘showing’ are showing that and showing how:
In a largely unsympathetic presentation of the Tractatus in general and the saying/showing distinction in particular, Graham Priest remarks:
…the word ‘show’ in English has both a propositional use and a non-propositional use. In its propositional use, ‘show’ is followed by a that-clause (she showed that she could play cricket); in its non-propositional use it is followed by ‘what’, ‘how’, etc., or even a simple noun-phrase (she showed him the bat/how to use it/where he could put it, etc.). (Priest, Beyond the Limits of Thought 186)
Priest clearly thinks that Wittgenstein himself is guilty of equivocation here, claiming that "Structures in the world and language show in both these senses." But, alert to the importance of such equivocation in the formulation of the problems of philosophy, we can turn his observation to more sympathetic uses. (Kremer, 25)
As Kremer notes, this distinction between propositional and practical knowledge is related to Ryle’s distinction between knowing how and knowing that (chapter two, section three of Concept of Mind, here). Knowing that is knowledge of some fact (some truth), while knowing how (‘know-how’) is the ability to do something.
Kremer continues:
How, though, might the fact that "showing" can have both a propositional and a practical use contribute to philosophical illusions and difficulties? Recall my suggestion in "The Purpose of Tractarian Nonsense" that the doctrine of truths which cannot be said, but only shown, seems to fulfill a certain purpose: it provides an "internal" justification for our language, our thoughts, our lives. For this purpose, I argued, we "need something sufficiently like a proposition to serve as a justification, an answer to a question, yet sufficiently different from a proposition to need no further justification, to raise no further questions in turn" – an insight that can be shown, but not said – but an insight into a truth nonetheless. (Kremer, "The Purpose of Tractarian Nonsense" 52) If we allow ourselves to use the word "show" in a way that trades on the fact that this one sign is part of two different symbols – "practical" showing and "propositional" showing – we may come to think we have a grip on just such an insight. For what is shown can’t be said, we think, running in the grooves laid down by the use of "shows how," yet it is certainly something like a fact, we convince ourselves, running in the grooves laid down by the use of "shows that." And so we seem to have what we want. (Kremer, 26-7)
Kremer fleshes out this equivocation by considering Frege’s notion of elucidatory nonsense (for a good account of Fregean elucidation, see James Conant’s "The Method of the Tractatus," pp. 386-8, here). Peter Geach summarizes Frege's view as follows ("Saying and Showing in Frege and Wittgenstein," 55):
Frege already held ... that there are logical category-distinctions which will clearly show themselves in a well-constructed formalized language, but which cannot be properly asserted in language: the sentences in which we seek to convey them in the vernacular language are logically improper and admit of no transformation into well-formed formulas of symbolic logic. All the same, there is a test for these sentences’ having conveyed the intended distinctions – namely, that by their aid mastery of the formalized language is attainable. (Kremer, 27)
According to Kremer, a crucial aspect of Geach’s story is
the connection that he draws between practical knowledge and the idea of showing, when he writes that "mastery of the formalized language" provides a test for having grasped the distinctions and features that certain nonsense sentences are meant to convey. Geach emphasizes that "the insight we gain ... into the workings of logical notation can be definitely tested – even by University examiners." (Geach, "Saying and Showing" 70) (Kremer, 30)
From this, Kremer concludes that
Geach’s understanding of "showing" involves precisely the confusion of practical and propositional showing which I have argued is at the heart of the ineffability reading of the Tractatus. It may be that the use of the word "feature," far from being innocent, helps to compound this confusion. For, as we have seen, talk of features, even facial features, can simply point us to the facts about a face …. Yet not all talk of features is of this sort. When I recognize my daughter by her facial features, I may not be able to articulate a set of concepts to describe precisely what it is that allows me to pick her out of a crowd. Hence, Sullivan is right after all to say that not all talk of features necessarily brings with it talk of propositions and facts. Talk of "facial features" may call on abilities of recognition and of comparison involved in the understanding and use of "family resemblance" terms, without requiring the articulation of a concept.
In fact, the very word "feature" has the same equivocal nature we have found in "show." When a doctor speaks of the characteristic facial features of a patient with fetal alcohol syndrome, she is, I suppose, saying something about how the patient’s face is. In contrast, when we speak of the features of language, we are saying something about how the language is used. But if we speak of "reality" as having "features" that we can grasp in mastering a symbolism, and go on to illustrate this through examples such as one proposition’s following from another, or one color of blue being lighter than another, we are confusedly thinking of these features both as having to do with how reality is, and as having to do with how language is to be used.
It is this confusion that is at the root of the "cardinal problem of philosophy." The notion of a "showing" of inexpressible truths, while sorely tempting to us, is also the source of great philosophical puzzlement. For the desire to express the truths we think we grasp is constantly competing with the thought that these truths must not – and so cannot – be expressed. But the Tractatus, in bringing us to recognize its propositions as nonsense, brings us to see that no meaning is attached to the ineffabilist use of the word "showing," which had seemed to be the key to understanding the book. And once we see that there is no clear notion here at all, the perplexities that it brought in its train disappear. (Kremer, 32-3)
Geach's Frege holds that the nonsensical sentences that seek to convey logical category-distinctions 'show' features of the symbolism and features of reality. According to Kremer, this involves an equivocation. 'Showing' features of the symbolism is showing how to use the symbolism, while 'showing' features of reality is showing that something is such and such. Once these different senses are made perspicuous, we are forced to choose between them. Presumably, we see that mastery of the symbolism is what we were really after, and we leave off talking about features of reality.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Philosophical Investigations §§ 359-360
I am working on a post on Kremer's article. And I'm reading through McGinn's Elucidating the Tractatus (Santa was kind enough to give me a copy). Sometime in the coming weeks, I would like to say something about her use of the notion of an internal relation. In the meantime, here are some brief remarks on whether, according to Wittgenstein, it makes sense to say of a machine that it thinks.
In a recent discussion (here), PI §§ 359-360 came up:
359. Could a machine think?—Could it be in pain?—Well, is the human body to be called such a machine? It surely comes as close as possible to being such a machine.
360. But a machine surely cannot think!—Is that an empirical statement? No. We only say of a human being and what is like one that it thinks. We also say it of dolls and no doubt of spirits too. Look at the word "to think" as a tool.
To get a better handle on these sections, I looked up a few of their predecessors. The earliest I was able to find (without digging around in the Nachlass) is from section 48 of the Big Typescript:
Why can’t we imagine a machine with a memory? It was often said that memory consists in events leaving behind traces, in which certain events then have to occur. As when water erodes a bed for itself and the water that follows has to flow in this bed; the first process lays down the track that guides the latter. But if this happens in a machine, as indeed it does, nobody says that the machine has a memory or that it remembered the first process.
But this is exactly like saying that a machine cannot think or cannot have pain. And here it depends on what one understands by "having pain". It’s clear that I can imagine a machine that behaves exactly (in all details) like a human in pain. Or rather: I can call someone else – i.e., his body – a machine that has pain. And of course my own body as well. On the other hand, the phenomenon of pain as it occurs when "I’m in pain" has nothing at all to do with my body, i.e. with experiences that I sum up as the existence of my body. (I can have a toothache without teeth.) And here the machine has absolutely no place. – It is clear that a machine can only replace a physical body. And in the sense in which one can say of such a body that it "has" pain, one can also say it of a machine. Or, once again, we can compare the bodies of which we say that they are in pain to machines, and can also call them machines.
Could a machine think? – Could it have pain? In the sense in which an animal’s body feels pain – yes. If I want to call the animal’s body a machine. Here it depends on how the expression "have pain" is used. But in the sentence "I’m in pain", "I" does not signify a body, and therefore neither does it signify a machine. And that’s exactly the way it is with thinking and memory.
The next is from the Philosophical Grammar (which is a mash of different versions of the Big Typescript), p. 105:
"But could a machine think?"—Could it be in pain?—Here the important thing is what one means by something being in pain. I can look on another person—another person’s body—as a machine which is in pain. And so, of course, I can in the case of my own body. On the other hand, the phenomenon of pain which I describe when I say something like "I have toothache" doesn’t presuppose a physical body. (I can have toothache without teeth.) And in this case there is no room for the machine.—It is clear that the machine can only replace a physical body. And in the sense in which we can say of such a body that it is in pain, we can say it of a machine as well. Or again, what we can compare with machines and call machines is the bodies we say are in pain.
The last is from the Blue Book, pp. 16, 47:
There is an objection to saying that thinking is some such thing as an activity of the hand. Thinking, one wants to say, is part of our ‘private experience’. It is not material, but an event in private consciousness. This objection is expressed in the question: "Could a machine think?" I shall talk about this at a later point, and now only refer you to an analogous question: "Can a machine have toothache?" You will certainly be inclined to say: "A machine can’t have toothache". All I will do now is to draw your attention to the use which you have made of the word "can" and to ask you: "Did you mean to say that all our past experience has shown that a machine never had toothache?" The impossibility of which you speak is a logical one. The question is: What is the relation between thinking (or toothache) and the subject which thinks, has toothache, etc.? I shall say no more about this now.
It seems to us sometimes as though the phenomena of personal experience were in a way phenomena in the upper strata of the atmosphere as opposed to the material phenomena which happen on the ground. There are views according to which these phenomena in the upper strata arise when the material phenomena reach a certain degree of complexity. E.g., that the mental phenomena, sense experience, volition, etc., emerge when a type of animal body of a certain complexity has been evolved. There seems to be some obvious truth in this, for the amoeba certainly doesn’t speak or write or discuss, whereas we do. On the other hand the problem here arises which could be expressed by the question: "Is it possible for a machine to think?" (whether the action of this machine can be described and predicted by the laws of physics or, possibly, only by laws of a different kind applying to the behaviour of organisms). And the trouble which is expressed in this question is not really that we don’t yet know a machine which could do the job. The question is not analogous to that which someone might have asked a hundred years ago: "Can a machine liquefy a gas?" The trouble is rather that the sentence, "A machine thinks (perceives, wishes)": seems somehow nonsensical. It is as though we had asked "Has the number 3 a colour?"
See also Hacker's commentary on PI §§ 359-360 here (unfortunately, the first page is not online, and I don't have a copy of the third volume of Hacker's commentary).
A few tentative thoughts: (1) Though his reasoning is not clear to me, what does seem clear is that the claim "A machine thinks" is, by Wittgenstein's lights, nonsensical. That is, it is logically or grammatically impossible for a machine to think.
(2) I'm reminded of Anton's claim (here) that "there are different levels of explanation, or in [Wittgenstein's] own terminology, different language games." Accordingly, in one sense of "having pain," it makes sense to say of a machine that it has pain (though I'm not sure what sense Wittgenstein has in mind). That is, in the language game of physics, we can give sense to the form of words "A machine has pain." However, when we are concerned with "the phenomenon of pain which I describe when I say something like 'I have toothache'," it is nonsense to say that a machine has pain. We have moved from physical grammar to phenomenological grammar. (Perhaps Anton could shed some light here.)
(3) The grammar of the personal pronoun "I" plays a prominent role in the first two passages. Perhaps this is tied up with Wittgenstein's point that I am not my body. Thus, Hacker comments, "we do not say of the body that it thinks or is in pain: my tooth hurts — but I am in pain, not my tooth."
In a recent discussion (here), PI §§ 359-360 came up:
359. Could a machine think?—Could it be in pain?—Well, is the human body to be called such a machine? It surely comes as close as possible to being such a machine.
360. But a machine surely cannot think!—Is that an empirical statement? No. We only say of a human being and what is like one that it thinks. We also say it of dolls and no doubt of spirits too. Look at the word "to think" as a tool.
To get a better handle on these sections, I looked up a few of their predecessors. The earliest I was able to find (without digging around in the Nachlass) is from section 48 of the Big Typescript:
Why can’t we imagine a machine with a memory? It was often said that memory consists in events leaving behind traces, in which certain events then have to occur. As when water erodes a bed for itself and the water that follows has to flow in this bed; the first process lays down the track that guides the latter. But if this happens in a machine, as indeed it does, nobody says that the machine has a memory or that it remembered the first process.
But this is exactly like saying that a machine cannot think or cannot have pain. And here it depends on what one understands by "having pain". It’s clear that I can imagine a machine that behaves exactly (in all details) like a human in pain. Or rather: I can call someone else – i.e., his body – a machine that has pain. And of course my own body as well. On the other hand, the phenomenon of pain as it occurs when "I’m in pain" has nothing at all to do with my body, i.e. with experiences that I sum up as the existence of my body. (I can have a toothache without teeth.) And here the machine has absolutely no place. – It is clear that a machine can only replace a physical body. And in the sense in which one can say of such a body that it "has" pain, one can also say it of a machine. Or, once again, we can compare the bodies of which we say that they are in pain to machines, and can also call them machines.
Could a machine think? – Could it have pain? In the sense in which an animal’s body feels pain – yes. If I want to call the animal’s body a machine. Here it depends on how the expression "have pain" is used. But in the sentence "I’m in pain", "I" does not signify a body, and therefore neither does it signify a machine. And that’s exactly the way it is with thinking and memory.
The next is from the Philosophical Grammar (which is a mash of different versions of the Big Typescript), p. 105:
"But could a machine think?"—Could it be in pain?—Here the important thing is what one means by something being in pain. I can look on another person—another person’s body—as a machine which is in pain. And so, of course, I can in the case of my own body. On the other hand, the phenomenon of pain which I describe when I say something like "I have toothache" doesn’t presuppose a physical body. (I can have toothache without teeth.) And in this case there is no room for the machine.—It is clear that the machine can only replace a physical body. And in the sense in which we can say of such a body that it is in pain, we can say it of a machine as well. Or again, what we can compare with machines and call machines is the bodies we say are in pain.
The last is from the Blue Book, pp. 16, 47:
There is an objection to saying that thinking is some such thing as an activity of the hand. Thinking, one wants to say, is part of our ‘private experience’. It is not material, but an event in private consciousness. This objection is expressed in the question: "Could a machine think?" I shall talk about this at a later point, and now only refer you to an analogous question: "Can a machine have toothache?" You will certainly be inclined to say: "A machine can’t have toothache". All I will do now is to draw your attention to the use which you have made of the word "can" and to ask you: "Did you mean to say that all our past experience has shown that a machine never had toothache?" The impossibility of which you speak is a logical one. The question is: What is the relation between thinking (or toothache) and the subject which thinks, has toothache, etc.? I shall say no more about this now.
It seems to us sometimes as though the phenomena of personal experience were in a way phenomena in the upper strata of the atmosphere as opposed to the material phenomena which happen on the ground. There are views according to which these phenomena in the upper strata arise when the material phenomena reach a certain degree of complexity. E.g., that the mental phenomena, sense experience, volition, etc., emerge when a type of animal body of a certain complexity has been evolved. There seems to be some obvious truth in this, for the amoeba certainly doesn’t speak or write or discuss, whereas we do. On the other hand the problem here arises which could be expressed by the question: "Is it possible for a machine to think?" (whether the action of this machine can be described and predicted by the laws of physics or, possibly, only by laws of a different kind applying to the behaviour of organisms). And the trouble which is expressed in this question is not really that we don’t yet know a machine which could do the job. The question is not analogous to that which someone might have asked a hundred years ago: "Can a machine liquefy a gas?" The trouble is rather that the sentence, "A machine thinks (perceives, wishes)": seems somehow nonsensical. It is as though we had asked "Has the number 3 a colour?"
See also Hacker's commentary on PI §§ 359-360 here (unfortunately, the first page is not online, and I don't have a copy of the third volume of Hacker's commentary).
A few tentative thoughts: (1) Though his reasoning is not clear to me, what does seem clear is that the claim "A machine thinks" is, by Wittgenstein's lights, nonsensical. That is, it is logically or grammatically impossible for a machine to think.
(2) I'm reminded of Anton's claim (here) that "there are different levels of explanation, or in [Wittgenstein's] own terminology, different language games." Accordingly, in one sense of "having pain," it makes sense to say of a machine that it has pain (though I'm not sure what sense Wittgenstein has in mind). That is, in the language game of physics, we can give sense to the form of words "A machine has pain." However, when we are concerned with "the phenomenon of pain which I describe when I say something like 'I have toothache'," it is nonsense to say that a machine has pain. We have moved from physical grammar to phenomenological grammar. (Perhaps Anton could shed some light here.)
(3) The grammar of the personal pronoun "I" plays a prominent role in the first two passages. Perhaps this is tied up with Wittgenstein's point that I am not my body. Thus, Hacker comments, "we do not say of the body that it thinks or is in pain: my tooth hurts — but I am in pain, not my tooth."
Sunday, January 6, 2008
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About Me
- N. N.
- I am a doctoral student in philosophy writing a dissertation on Wittgenstein.
