A note on skepticism and language games

Someone, who have not understood that 'pain' can be feigned under such-and-such circumstances have not understood our concept of 'pain' at all. The possibility of pretence is a structural possibility, in a sense; a necessary possibility. And yet, the language game of 'pain' is not founded on the constant possibility of pretence and doubt, but on the actual presence of pain.

Language games must be regarded as essentially functioning, not as essentially defect. Scepticism bypasses this point; and this is the error of scepticism. Our language is alright as it is.

And as they are, our language games already includes the standard sceptical possibilities; and so the sceptic cannot be viewed as a revisionist, but only as someone who misconstrues our language game, as someone who lays the accent on the wrong part of our language game. But, of course, he is not laying the accent on a non-existing part of our language game; we do doubt each other and we do contest matters of fact.

That we accept more than we contest constitutes what Heidegger called our being "in tune". And so the sceptic tests the extent to which we are in tune. He is not a truth-seeker or a revisionist, but rather someone who tests our bond. The sceptic serves, as it were, a social function.

Freedom, grammatically speaking...

Kant famously states that we cannot know whether we possess free will or not, but that we are entitled to believe it; and even that we are morally constrained to have faith in our freedom…. It has seemed to me, for a while now, that this is a fine example of a grammatical mistake; of using language non-perspicuously. Perhaps one can express my intuition like this:

If it is not an epistemologically decidable question whether or not we are free, are we then supposed to say that we believe that we are free? Well, that’s something a philosopher will say in his initial rehearsal of knowledge and beliefs with which he starts his investigation of ‘decidability’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief’ .
But that rehearsal does not express belief in anything; it contains no claims. Are we then to say that we have faith in our possession of freedom? But how would such a faith be achieved, how expressed, how maintained, how threatened, how lost?
(The preceding paragraph is a reworking of some remarks Cavell made on Carnap – see his ‘The Claim of Reason’, p.242-3)

These are neither rhetorical questions nor mere psychological questions. They are grammatical questions, that is to say, their form is: What is called ‘achieving faith in freedom’? What is called ‘expressing your freedom’? What is called ‘maintaining the belief that you are free’? What is called ‘having your faith in freedom threatened’? What is called ‘losing faith in your own freedom’?

If ‘freedom’ is taken in its metaphysical sense referring to the fact of free will, then these questions have no answers. And that means that the foundation for the application of the concept of ‘faith’ is lacking in this case; the concept is being applied without content. Language is on holiday.

(The mistake, it seems, is that one believes that one is making sense, just because the verb-phrase ‘to have faith in’ is syntactically transitive and can take ‘freedom’ as its syntactical object. The transitivity of verbs cannot, however, not be based solely on syntactical considerations. One must also consider the semantics of the possible objects of verbs. And ‘freedom’ in its metaphysical sense is not admissible as the object of the verb-phrase ‘to have faith in’.)

However, if ‘freedom’ is taken in its practical or even political sense, then these questions do have answers. But in that series of answers (and in the language games to which they belong) the question of the epistemological decidability of free will do not arise at all.

Practically speaking, we do not relate to our freedom at all; We stand in no relation – e.g. knowledge, belief, faith – to our own freedom.

The homology of modern Pragmatism...

Meaning is to use as theory is to observation.

Kantian gloves

“It is as if one were to say “The king in chess is the piece that one can check.”. But this can mean no more than that in our game of chess we only check the king.” – Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §136
What is the ‘but’ for here? What sort of subtle distinction is Wittgenstein making here? He is showing that a remark about what seems like a property of a thing can be translated into (or can mean no more than) a remark about what we do with a thing.

If we generalize this insight, we get: There is a Kantian projection-into-the-thing, but the projection does not stem from the subject, from our cognition, but from our actions, from our dealings with the thing. (We are not wearing Kantian glasses, but rather something like Kantian gloves.)

Necessity within/Necessity of

When we say: ‘But this is simply what we call ‘x’…’, e.g. ‘Such-and-such a result of these calculations is simply what we call a ‘necessary result’…’ or ‘Behaving like this is simply what we call ‘running’…’ – We are speaking within an existing language game, we are our taking point of departure from what we say now.

We are stating a necessity within a language game, not stating the necessity of a language game. This is immensely important, for our language games might indeed be different. The necessity we are stating when we say ‘This is simply what we call ‘x’…’ is logical in nature, but the necessity of the language game is practical in nature. Or as someone might say: The latter necessity is no necessity at all. – And there something correct in this: This necessity of a certain language game is, in one sense, beyond our reach.

The necessity within a language game is like a regulation and the necessity of a language game is like a regularity.

What is called 'having a wish'?

I want to kiss Penelope. Let us say that I have been harbouring this wish for days. When people mention her name I become distant for a moment or two, preoccupied with contemplating such a kiss. I think of ways that I could meet her. To friends I admit and say things like: ‘I should like to kiss Penelope’. I often look at the little photograph I have of her, sometimes even caressing it.
All such diverse phenomena (and not just ‘mental’ phenomena) are part of what we denote by the single expression “having a wish”. They are what is called ‘having a wish’.
Always consider: What a thing is (called).

Schematism 2....

The core of a scientific theory (in the broadest Quine-Duhemian, Kuhnian, Lakatos-sense) comprises criteria for the identity of certain objects – and that respect it is like a Kantian schema. So we might learn a thing or two about the notion of a scheme from comparing it with that of that of a core.

The core of, say, classical celestial mechanics comprises the general laws of motion and a good bulk of the metaphysics associated with Newton’s Principia. Now, of course, these core assumptions specifies certain parameters pertaining to the movements of celestial objects, but these parameters also has to be connected with celestial objects if it is to be a celestial theory at all. That is, it is only by being connected with a particular planetary system that the theory can serve as a model which allows computation, prediction and the like.
This is the first lesson: a schema is applied to objects.

Now it is also clear that the empirical observations pertaining to the particular planetary system are not mere conjuncts to the axiomatic core of the theory of celestial mechanics – contrary to popular opinion neither Quine nor Duhem ever claimed this either. They are more than this: they are the points at which the theory connects with reality; the Quinian web does touch reality. Only, it must be realized that these points derive their cognitive content from the theory. That is, they don’t form independent cognitive units.
This is the second lesson: the objects subsumed under a schema do not form independent cognitive units.

The empirical observations of particular planetary systems are however not possible solely with reference to the theory of classical celestial mechanics. Astronomical observations, as a minimum, presuppose a theory of optics and of gases in order to determine the propagation of light from the celestial objects to the observer. That is, the theory of classical celestial mechanics is not applied alone.
This is the third lesson: Schemes are necessarily multiple, since they are applied never alone.

It can always be discussed how precise such a conceptual exercise of comparing two concepts is, but in this case I certainly find it helpful.

Schematism...

From time to time, I read the Kant’s section on ‘schematism’ in Critique of Pure Reason. I’m never quite sure I understand it, and I can certainly never quite find myself in tune with its content.

A ’schema’ in its simplest sense is a way of identifying an object in time and space, or simply in inituition, kantianly speaking. If I speak of a ‘white shirt’ and if I’m able to identify white shirts within my experience and within time and space, then I have schematized the concept of a ‘white shirt’. I am able to project it into various contexts, I understand the concept.

But this is exactly my uneasiness with the concept of a ‘schema’. On the one hand, it seems an incredibly important concept if the above relation holds. On the other hand, if the above relation holds, it is hard to see the point in saying ‘I have schematized concept x’ rather than simply saying ‘I understand concept x’. What is the difference between having a schema for something and understanding that concept?

As a philosophical concept it seems either to be incredibly important or incredibly redundant.

What sort of content does the concept of a ‘schema’ carry? How, after all, is it suppose to enlighten, supplement or expand our concept of understanding? As far can I see, the only specific thing Kant says in this connection is that having a schema for a ‘dog’ is like possessing a dim image of a ‘dog’, which I can compare to the objects in my inituition thus identifying them as dogs [Kant’s example, CPR, B 180] – But this is ostensibly wrong, my understanding does not and cannot rest upon comparison with a picture of whatever nature, since this picture would itself have to be schematized in order to apply to real objects of experience. What we need to explain is exactly how my mental imagery and the real objects of my experience can be alike at all, and it’s no explanation to say that are indeed alike. Well, of course, they are. No shit, Sherlock.

PS: I know that I’m not very faithful to Kant’s own problematic here, its placement within the architecture of CPR etc.. I know. But.

An analogy.

Acquiring a concept is like being taken hostage. I must apply like it this, I can only see it like this, I am forced do like this. But in being taken hostage by a concept I immediately suffer from Stockholm syndrome. I identify with the concept. That is to say, I take its commitment upon myself freely. The way in which I am compelled is more alike to being bound by a moral imperative than to being forced by causality. My spontaneity reigns here. I am free to use the concept. But only free to use it like this. Just like a hostage held at gun point is causally free to do whatever he likes, but knows that it will have consequences to do whatever he damn well pleases.

Language conceived descriptively or prescriptively

My previous post(s) touched on the confusion between prescriptive and descriptive in general and within the social sciences. There is, I beleive, a corresponding confusion in our conception of language:

Language, roughly, can be described in two ways:

(1)One in which symbol-types are related to symbols-token as class to member and in which communication fulfills some empirical purpose. Symbols are used and these uses are events, ’symbol-events’. And ’symbol-events’ are categorized according to their symbol. They stand as class to member.

(2) One in which symbol-types are related to symbol-tokens as norms are related to its instances and in which communication is correct or incorrect. Symbols are standards and the use of symbols are actions in accordance with such standards. A use of symbols conforms or complies with a standard. They stand as norm to its instances.

This distinction cuts across linguistic and philosophical-semantic theories. (1) may be called 'the descriptive perspective' and (2) may be called 'the prescriptive perspective'.

Ask yourself: Which side of the distinction am I applying now and when may I be subject to confusing the two sides?

A reason to bother with rules...

Our problems in gaining the right conception of a rule is often connected with the distinction between description and prescription. I believe our problems in determining the modality of a rule stems from exactly these concepts, since our language is lacking in perspicuousness in distinguishing between the two following cases:

A rule considered from the point of view of a model (1) is a description, while a rule considered from point of view of praxis (2) is a prescription. And likewise a rule seems contingent from the point of view of the model, while it is seems necessary from the point of view of praxis.

(An recent example in point is the confusion of the famous philosopher of mind, Daniel Dennett, in ‘Philosophy as Naïve Anthropology’ in Bennett, Dennett, Hacker & Searle, Neuroscience and Philosophy (2008), p.73-97)

Contrast a description of the rules of chess within, say, a science of board games with the ruthless attention we pay the to rules of chess when we actually play chess. Within an empirical science of board games, such a description may be used to predict how people actually play chess, but it’s still only a contingently true description. Conversely, when we actually play chess, the rules are not descriptions, much less contingent, they are necessary prescriptions, they determine directly whether what we do is correct or not. In playing chess we apply the rules of chess, as it were, constitutively. They directly determine what is to count as X.

(In modern physics we call a relation between two physical quantities a ‘constitutive relation’, if the relation holds uniformly and yet doesn’t follow directly from the laws of physics. In grammar, too, we might speak of ‘constitutive rules’, if these establish a necessary relation between two entities, and yet doesn’t follow from the standard laws of logic.)

This distinction is as clear as anything, when it is just presented perspicuously: A linguist compiling a dictionary is making a description of how a word is used, while someone consulting a dictionary is using prescription of how a word is used.

But when we do social science we are so easily confused: We make our study of some field and say that this field conforms to these rules. E.g. that this field conforms to the axioms of microeconomics, that this field conforms to some Foucauldian apparatus, that this field conforms to the ruling ideology of management... But what are we charting by stating these rules? Some set of rules which fit these data OR some set of rules which guide the actors within the field?

A description fits something. A prescription guides someone. And the difference is vital.

Our failure to answer this last question puts the social sciences in an absurd situation. The situation is as absurd as if physicists wondered whether physical laws were descriptions or laws in the juridico-political sense. But it is not like that within physics: The orbital motion of the planets are described by the Keplerian laws, but certainly the planets do not comply with these laws.