6 Philosophical Skepticism - Wittgenstein & Kripke on Rules & Meaning

my call is to try to do several different things at once today which is always a bad idea no walks wife included philosophy but I'm gonna try it anyway one thing I want to do is transfer our attention from philosophy of mind and external world cases of skepticism which we've mostly been talking about it's a philosophy of language and see how parallel issues come up in the philosophy of language that's one goal is to just shift the area but see in some detail it looks like a crossing language but another thing I want to do today it's awesome start to explore how it is that somebody could think what we saw John McDowell saying at the end of our last class I'm sorry at the end of last class I was here for plus Wednesday the end of that class we saw McDowell arguing that Cartesian problems about knowledge which is particularly clear in section 3 of the introduction to learning the world but it's throughout his writing the Cartesian problems about knowledge certainty doubt are in care and ko8 and inept expressions of a deeper philosophical insight which when it becomes fully self conscious and to borrow a phrase from vision strike strictly thought through to examine takes the form of to borrow a phrase for me I cut you skeptical problem so that's something McDowell thinks I think he thinks that you've started with the Cartesian problem in southern philosophy and you really think through what your commitments are there it won't bond them out into something that then takes the shape of a continent problem that's a big claim but we might want to see how it is in philosophy of language that might happen because I think Kripke thinks something like that about philosophers or at least came to by the time you is finished writing the book they just like to think something like that or at least if that's too much to say about creepy croupe he gives you the materials for drawings mature conclusion so be an instance of that we'll look at others in our last couple of classes besides a second thing of interest in joining this class within the framework of philosophy of language is exploring the relationship between Cartesian and continents compasses a third thing I'm interested in today is how a lack of clarity about what our problem is whether we're putting in a Cartesian or a country itself can lead to confusion and a fourth topic which are mostly preparing the way for today for which we'll talk about next time is what happens when philosophers who are writing about skepticism comment and criticize each other so next time we'll be looking at cabela's criticisms of Kripke and part of what I want to suggest next class I'll say this right now take the surprise out of it what I want to suggest next class is that Cavell and Crick II don't obviously disagree about any thing having to do with well actually it's really hard to know how to fix I'll just put it much more consciously I'm sorry it's not clear what cabal and Kripke disagreed about I'll put that way and it's not clear that cabal and Kripke have the disagreement that could Valentich himself without recruiting and so this will help bring out how hard it is to just move from one often running web steps if another that's part of what I want to prepare in our investigation critiques I'm doing four things today now cookies book is kind of a tricky book in ways that matter this in his article there's a book in an article you know trying to talk about both at once one reason their trip tricky is because um they're not officially giving you a creek peace years about anything we'll come back to that and the last quotation on the handout look more carefully what he says but Kripke's official stances that he's trying to give us new concerns news but then he thinks there's a various problems about giving us the construction is one of which is that the problem itself has a character where it's not easy to sit with the problem is which he thinks is part of the problem itself the reasons will also work into second is Vic and Stein famously said he didn't have any views which makes it hard to say what his fans are thinking that was right about that I've so simplified a [ __ ] market care but for all of these reasons Ricky Wong says that when he's dealing is that given striptease music he's not prepared to just say what he's doing is giving us something like their concerns news rather when he wants to discuss above all is a particular philosophical problem and then a solution he takes himself to be able to find a different friends ratings maybe rightly or wrongly and so what he's giving us Vic and Stein and Vic and and the problem that they can Stein's seem to be making urgent as it struck Kripke where he read the history so that's the words on FEMA it's actually our object in investigation Hilary Putnam has suggested a name for whose ideas were discussing then which is frikin Stein kryptonite and that's the the word I will sometimes use to them when I'm discussing something that clearly seems that only properly be attributable at most equip construct as opposed to out there Kripke or bit concern why it is that one has to look all the way to Krypton Stein that is to a philosopher in one sentence never existed in order to find what comes to clear expression in creepies book about Krypton Chinese itself I think an interesting issue which we might discuss at the end of today but before we look at Krypton Stein it might be a good idea to look for a moment at Vicki's not just ostensibly these things come out of it and I just want to do first on the first page of your handout I've just given you again an attempt to summarize it by way of a reminder what one might take to be a kind of Cartesian version of a skeptical problem as it can arise in philosophy of language tried to structure this in a way that's obviously parallel to the cases we saw an external world skepticism other my skepticism plus u2 action so forth and then a continent variety of the problem again parallel to the other sites have looked at I want to bother to go through this I take this to be repetition at this point like that might be helpful to have on the page as we're looking at these various quotations from Victor Steinem kryptonite because one question we might have is what kind of problem is this it's in these quotations is it of this sort or is it of this sort or neither or both took a question I'd like to have any month now what I've done with these big constraint quotations there's just six here yes almost exclusively all I've done is giving you some of the bits of the text that Kripke fixates on in order to generate his reading of victim strikes so I purposely that's one of the rings I've I've been scrupulously enough to put a dot dot dot before after my quotations these these passages have just lifted out of vintage sign if you read around the bits I've lifted then you might start worrying about trippy's overall interpretation evasion might in particular start worrying about this supposed skeptical solution in attributes to vacation well that's what Vicki Stein's after but um my aim today is not vision interpretation I'm not out to convince you he's right or wrong this interests in the passages out of which he motivates this problem and those passages are in addition Stein and just sort of get a sense of what kind of issue it was going on they're not worried for the moment about what is vacant Stein's ultimate response to that issue but what's the issue it's inaccessible so that's why I'm purposely truncating our look at Dickens down here I said almost exclusively because in quotation five I couldn't help giving you a little bit more than Kripke tends to have us to tend to just to give you one example of how if you just read on a little bit in one place expected in great work about its interpretation but mostly as I say I'm interested in a sense in this particular problem he gets out of Lichtenstein and what I do want to say about that is that Kripke's right the victim Stein's interest in this problem I do want to say that and that might not seem like much of a claim but actually um in a lot of the secondary literature after Kripke wrote at least the secondary literature written by people are interested in victim Stein a lot of it has the form of their Singh Kripke is completely wrong about Victor Smith and they're so concerned to prove he's completely wrong about Vic and Stein they don't wanted to be right about anything and so in their eagerness to prove he's not right about anything they don't even want his problem to be a problem that concerns concern with and I think that is um whatever once reservations might be about Christmas work I think that's an overreaction I think creepy is doing a pretty lucid job of expounding at least one facet of a problem that comes up in Dickens time what did centrality is how it relates to other things in vintage time and what the constraints responses those are all of the matters so let's just look at some quotations where this issue comes up first quotation from section 85 of the investigations he says a rule stands there like a signpost it's a very useful phrase and it it recurs throughout the investigations there's many references back to this metaphor of the signpost section 287 all the way through into the 4 and 500 so it's useful to sort of have this motif of the signpost under control the rule stands there like a sentence it's connected to atheneum in the investigation in which the interlocutor says things like but the sign itself is dead I said when the interlocutor says one thing for those of you haven't read the investigations much that you'll discover as you read this book is it's full of voices the interlocutor is a bit misleading it suggests there's just two people in conversation there concern this other guy I don't think that's right but their voices and some voice and many of the voices are flagged in question marks inserting quotation marks does it work make explicit there's a voice yeah that's insisting on something or saying something in response and one of these voices were currently especially in the 400s on says something like the sighing itself is dead and that's connected to the thought that's already coming up here for the first time and the idea that a rule stands there like a signpost so saying about the nature of rules that might apparently become clear by just thinking about the simpler case of a signpost so we have a solid post like that or if this seems to complicate things because that involves a word and understanding words is a further feature of understanding rules over and about understanding signs then maybe we could simplify our example further so just you know have a red sign like this say this was completely red and say what I'm trying to do is follow the red trail going out for a walk in Bergen and there's a blue trail of a red trail I've decided to take the red trail and occasionally there's a signle because I actually believe if I recall correctly that um is this right on the way up to Dickon Stein's Hutton sholden first you get orange double use but then at some point you just get some orange signs pointing so you know I'm trying to follow the orange signs up to the hut so here I am so it just has a shake you know like that it's a signpost now that's signpost in itself it's just a physical object like any other there isn't in principle any contradiction and the idea that you could have a culture and in that culture they use signposts and a signpost what this shape means now that way there's no logical contradiction Victor Knight says a little later in this passage I think I left it out he says a case like this would be a little bit like a case where you have a culture with somebody pointed and in that culture people are inclined to follow the line from finger it's a risk out over the shoulder so you point they looked over there and I think anyone has ever tried to say teach a dog to point you know in every standpoint II realize that's not so dumb you know your point the dog looks up you know usually looks at the finger first and then he sort of follows the finger up the line and it's a it's actually a sign of intelligence among dog trainers but it's not the only test it's a very good test of the really smart dogs like Shepherds and colleagues another duck what you can teach them to understand pointing it's actually very helpful when you're hurting sheep say to be able to go Rover like that for him to go after that sheep but if you go Rover and they look at your finger and they follow your finger up that's not very often you want some way to and a lot of dogs can't learn this some dogs here but similarly as with pointing so with signs there isn't anything about not difficult signposts on this picture of meaning remember we were talking about a gap a gap of something that simply belongs to nature on the one side of the gap and the other side of the gap there's something that we think of as mental or intentional if we think of the same as part of the material world so there isn't anything that belongs to it that has meaning built into it and certainly if you take the signpost apart you know and give the microscope and break into little pieces you won't find its meaning anywhere inside oh it's not in that sense a physical property of the signpost so with the idea within this picture that a signpost just stands there is it's just this physical object and what the idea the signpost just stands there you might think what is stuff what is it understanding what is it to understand that in order to stay on the orange path or I guess in this case the pink path in order to stay on the pink path I go this way well very natural thing to think is that understanding involves borrowing a phrase two stages now we're not talking about content philosophy of perception we're not talking about MacDonald philosophy of action but I hope you see a structural parallel it involves two stages first there's this stage of as it were taking in the physical son Deb itself just stands there instead there has to be a second stage a natural word we might use here without having done you know very elaborate in our theory about what the second stage involves is of the word interpretation it's only the sine qua physical entity combined with an interpretation that yields an understanding of what we are to do in the light of it go this way so we know to interpret this sign means to follow the arrow this way there might be another culture in which you have things that look just like this but if you understand the culture you go this way I gave you the example of you know people in Greece and the larger erstwhile Ottoman Empire who express no like this facially or gesturally I'm a good example of this was I came home to me when I was at Scotland a couple of days ago first morning in the hotel hotel was on a big Main Street I stepped out and almost got killed because I of course walked the way I thought your supporters line in the middle of the road my understanding of these arrangements that some deep unreflective visceral level is people are driving on the right side people are driving on the right side and this thing like this and there's a crosswalk that means you look a certain direction to see if a cars coming anyone everything set up exactly the same way except you look in the opposite direction or you die or in my case almost die your first morning before you realize looks the same only you do everything backwards some things are given like they move the steering wheel over um which is helpful but if you're just a pedestrian that's not that clear isn't very salient so things could be set up like this but the significance can be much no contradiction there so a rule similarly to say a rule stands there like a signpost it's to say I can give you a rule but any rule I give you it's the beginning of the problem now apparently is in no better situation than the signpost itself this is within the frame of this problem so say I tell you whenever you see a big sign with the pointing arrow like that that means go this way go in the direction of the pointing arrow I could write that out it's a whole lot of work that's a rule but now you've got to understand the role any role comes in the form of a rule formulation if it's true that any act of understanding involves the object understood understood as some sort of shapes or sounds and marks a noises in the world plus an interpretation and then similarly it looks like one ought to have to say or be able to say about our rule well that was something that's been formulated but it too could be interpreted in more than one way so it too must be first interpreted before in itself can guide an interpretation of the signpost so the rule itself qua objects should be understood stands there like a signpost now one thing you might want to say at this point and have this in the quotations our idea of Internet Explorer is quite a bit it's connected with what some people call Platonism in philosophy of meaning or philosophy mathematically one thing you might say well there's some rules which if you state the people just understand them those rules somehow you stick those there's no problem anymore about misinterpretation they're just somehow transparent or self intimate but one question might have this if that's true why do we wait a while to introduce that idea why don't we just somehow say we can do have already here or the scientist and and how does it work how do signposts just tell us what they mean you can see that we have a version here what a big dollop of the myth a beginner potential version of what McDowell here called the myth of giving not in philosophy perception now where as a mere causal over that was supposed to have sufficient rational structure failed to justify that was with respect to how it is that experience could have but here it's a physical entity which somehow my merely taking in its supposed to justify one interpretation of another but both uses it can look like you're trying to build answer something which itself a mere moment or element or transaction in nature a normative ground for certain convenient or justification or reason which it itself cannot deliver has bit the giver something won't want something to immediately be given in this case an object to be interpreted and its interpretation which itself is not the kind of thing that can be given or hence that would be the word on the mythical conception of the giving this is supposed to be as we'll see in a moment absolutely general it doesn't matter what rules are driver the point is um that there's a kind of problem now I want to put him in try to put this carefully a kind of problem you can get into and you're thinking about rules I don't mean to suggest that victims are in the end is endorsing this conception of what the problem is with rules I'm just not discussing their concerns I'll just tell you not to make a mystery I don't think that's what he's there but he is discussing a problem because he thinks people get into the problem and if you get into the problem thinking a certain way it's going to affect all rules not just some rules any rule that involves understanding any rule that involves correctness or incorrectness and that's all rules the question is isn't it going to be a problem about that most see this more clearly as we go on so rule stands there like a signpost that's trying to show you how much is actually packed into that way of putting it drawing another section stop quoting them all yes does the signpost leave no doubt open about the way I have to go does the signpost itself somehow make clear which way I have to go and it's very tempting to say here no signpost itself cannot even does it show which direction I am to take when I have passed it whether along the road or the foot tap or cross country so imagine they're coming the surface here's a road there's a foot tap that way there's nothing it's just a field straight across country I come to it did the signpost itself go left on the foot tap sorry right on the foot tap left on the road or perpendicular to the axis of the side post straight into the to the country does the signpost itself show which direction I'm supposed to take now you could answer yes or no if you answer yes and you're in the grip of this worry then the question arises but where is it said which way I am to follow it whether the direction of the finger in the opposite hook so you check this trip where does the sign plus say go this way rather than go that way that seems to be on this understanding something more than the signpost that's an understanding and interpretation of what the signpost means and if there were in if there were not a single scientist but a chain of adjacent ones or if chalk marks on the ground is there only one way of interpreting so once we get into this problem we think the cyclist is up is dead it doesn't mean anything it's only signpost Plus interpretation that yields an understanding of what we are to do such that it could be correct or incorrect then once we have that picture it's very hard to see what you're going to add that helps say you see your point which which way do I go here good point what I always say okay but your pointing gesture stands there like a signpost but now in virtue of what do I know then I'm supposed to go this way around the way that seems to require a interpretation of the pointy gesture well say well let's make it absolutely clear you know we don't want this very clear so let's put up several Suncoast another signpost here that kind of overlaps this one this one explains that one this one makes it clear what this one means is this we could add these this Chloe is it for their help if you have a problem here that you know multiplying signposts is gonna be very helpful what we might try you know put some arrows on the ground in this magic marker all the way you know we've out no bit you know pink arrows at every step we're still in the same problem so and this passage then goes into I've looked it up but then it goes into an issue of doubt if you've raised the doubt about whether this is meant rather than that and you take the doubt to a rise in the way of justice correct now how are you going to close off the top so put this way so far it's just I want to urge you to we've got something that has you know at least initially the form of a Cartesian problem how do I know what is meant I'm trying to find my way I take it there is such a thing as a signpost meaning something but I wanted to know which way to go and the skeptical worried notice is based on a kind of indistinguishability argument there could be a tribe in which things looks just like this there could be a country called England in which the roads you know we're divided just down the middle and the cars look to say but everybody does everything the opposite direction or in the opposite side so how can I tell how can I be sure and again here with this Cartesian down as with the other one they're not denying that probably I should go that way or something like that the issue isn't you know you know if we're betting money what would be a good idea this she was in virtue of what does my knowledge consist how could I know that well it doesn't look like I can know it except through an interpretation and then it looks like an argument can come up which is exactly the same argument we had in the Cartesian case about perceptions in principle being misleading but indistinguishable from Varenna poems I could have an interpretation that seems for all the world invited but it is possible that it's a misinterpretation if I can't exclude the possibility of misinterpretation then how could I ever know about what the sign means I might get lucky and follow it out and it turns out them they're more than lucky but what since I know what would it mean for me to know it that's I'm a Cartesian issue but quickly in the investigations this turns into a worry of a deeper sort so um now here we had signposts but the point is not just about signposts but signs generally that is things we take ourselves to be able to understand things in the light of which there is a correct and incorrect way of going on in using the sign again and in acting in accordance with our understanding of the Sun it's another simple example this proper ends you know maybe the simplest kinds of words Moses there's the word Moses it means somebody huh I know who it names well I could give an explanation of from the mothers names rotation 287 with annotations I take Moses to mean the man if there was such a man who led the Israelites out of Egypt whatever is called then and whatever he may or may not have done to science he chooses the example it's a good example that used to get this where he going isn't that absolutely clear existent it's not absolutely clear the text is completely reliable and you might think well there is somebody who was born to Pharaoh who was very important to help the Israelites but he didn't lead them out of Egypt maybe there was somebody who brought some Commandments down but didn't leave them out maybe you led them out of Egypt but there weren't any Commandments you could really start getting worried especially if you're not some kind of Christian or Jew that God actually spoke to into the burning bush there's a lot of things that happened to Moses there seems to be somebody we're talking about which descriptions if you think the meaning of a name depends upon some of these descriptions make sure which descriptions are the ones you mean when you say Moses somebody says well there you know he wasn't actually a son he wasn't actually put in a boat on the river I won't conclude on Moses didn't exist don't quickly well that's not you know what I mean by Moses isn't someone who's put in a river I I mean this guy it's other guy who lent people out of Egypt who I thought was also put on a boat but he's not thinking about doesn't keep me from eating something by Moses but similar doubts that those about Moses are possible but the words and the explanation so I say he's the one who led the Israelites out of Egypt what do you mean by Israelites we mean by Egypt well but Egypt I mean a country that has these in these borders well actually it looks like they start over here that wasn't Egypt occurring here well back then they call video so by Egypt you mean what people called Egypt back then or what we call each of now we can go on but any explanation you give of what you mean by the word depends upon your understanding of the words you use in your explanation of what you mean by the word those two have to be interpretive they can be misinterpreted there can be more than one way of going on from what seems like what you meant to other cases once complicated factors come up like the lines have changed or no one was ever putting about nor were these questions come to an end when we got down to words like red dark sweet but then how does an explanation help me to understand if after all it is not the final one if for any explanation you can give about what you mean by your words a question can at least in principle always arise you can always think up at the situation in which a question will arise about what you mean by one of the words in the explanation what you mean by the original word in that case the explanation is never completed so there's a certain picture you start with the idea the sign itself doesn't have a meaning we can't understand that huh we can only understand it in the light of an interpretation excuse me no later than to petition this is very sad because I don't actually know how to turn it back on but I won't Destin you can't matter later but somebody tell me when it's time for a break I don't have a timepiece now so it's never the final when a further misinterpret misinterpretation can always arise and then he says at the end of our quotation in that case the explanation is never completed so I still don't understand what he means and never show though an explanation as it were hung in the air unless supported by another one notice what's happening in the world here initially it looks like well we can't be sure what we mean because their explanations could be wrong but if what it is to understand what we mean is to now our interpretation is right and the only way to know our interpretation is right is to at least be able to understand what a formulation of the interpretation expresses and that itself it's nothing that could be misunderstood if we start to think this through there's no worry about what is we even think understanding consistent if we think what understanding consists in is understanding this in the light of that we're understanding that thing itself raises the same problem it looks like we're creating a situation in which it looks like our our understanding is always incomplete our grounds for a belief that we know what something means are insufficient but nothing could count as there being sufficient this will become clear as we go on now let's skip to much later investigations Vicki Stein gives a mathematical example something I think Kripke says about that mathematical example is exactly right which is that the mathematical example is meant to bring out very perspicuous Lee something that's true about understanding generally the pointing range there isn't sort of a narrow point in philosophy mathematics it's a problem for philosophy mathematics too if you will but it's just meant to be a perspicuous example of the kind of probably have already been looking at well I think Ricky's quite right about that some defenders of victory I think some help he needs to be taken for task for saying that but I don't see one so the example is a famous one no thanks to this passage investigations we have a student and we're teaching in the role and to add to zero I write add to or I say add to I notice we could say no I'm getting ahead of the passage but just to make the connection quick we could say now that stands there like a signpost that if we've said something the students supposed to do something now now in virtue of what can we conclude what the student has done is correct in light of what we told them to do the rule what say this kid is doing really well he said we say add to start with two I'm gonna give you a tip you give this from the condo I'm giving you two that gotta work I want you to add to your guys cotton look at him he's good at this he's never really fast right it's firing line he's gonna need a big black board for this phone but imagine we have a really big black board just shooting along slowing down a bit his wrist is getting tired but he's still doing fine she's doing great it's gotten all the way to a thousand yeah I'll just let you know given my understanding of that - he's done fine yes I stuck these dot dot dots in here Oh kind of cheap I think it's the whole problem is about what does a doctor not me what is it to convey something by doing a few things and then saying doctor that is really it sort of the essence of our problem but so pretend I've actually filled a board with numbers not without dot dots because there is a profound cheat and this entire board contains things that you would be willing to call even numbers all and only the even numbers between two and a thousand now of course what even numbers mean it's something else that you'd have to understand we'll come back to that but pretend you understand me for now so that's what we've got he's gotten this far I'm very much inclined to say yeah I really in a way made him work awfully hard for this reward I haven't been able to stop at 18 if I made him go to a thousand and now I'm inclined to say you know kanto really understands the role add to I mean his performance I think is impeccable I asked him to add to it took him a couple hours he wrote 500 numbers in the board I like all of them I really like the order in which he did it um I want to say he understood - and I didn't show him these I never told them what comes between these two he did that himself so if we wanted to say with victims time the child of the student understands the road when you can go on in his own looks like contest pass the test he understands the wrong out too but just as I'm about to stomp canto I'm saying you've done beautifully stop you clearly understand it your rights up and that sort of freezes me so now I'm about to say please stop you're tired no please stop like this you know if I said I want to say to I went on the same way so they did what linen look what right yeah there's this bigger gently you changed what you were doing an attack so wants to say no no I was going on the same way this is what I was doing from the beginning I was doing this my understanding of that was such that these are all instances of that now so we can't we say them just look at the passage look what you've done he doesn't understand he says we say you were meant to add to look how you began the seriously answer just isn't it right I thought that was how it was a man to do it suppose he pointed a series and said but I went on in the same way if he really thinks that he's not just mistaken but he thinks he's going on in the same way then it would be no use to say but can't you see and repeat the old examples and explanations in such a case we might say perhaps it comes natural to this person to understand our order with our explanations as we should understand the order AB - up to a thousand for up to two thousand that it's this is a class this is there is a function to put it in certain mathematical terms there is a function such that these are all correct instances of the function these are the outputs of the function in order this is a way of going on what you're doing is as it were acting in the light of the demand say as it were do that that's an understanding a possible understanding just like that side post reading it this way around that way that's a I think misunderstanding I want to say you know I'm at this he misunderstood it so an initial Cartesian worry is how do we know what someone says this that he meant this rather than that but the deeper content where he comes we start to focus on the fact that my god he went all the way to a thousand but all of those performances all of those acts themselves which in a sense are ultimately just physical marks are consistent with my understanding of what the rule that stands there like a signpost means and his understanding of like the rule stands there like a signpost means and to think about it careful you realize we're not gonna solve this problem now by going on further no matter how long we go on there's more than one function different functions within all of those instances could be correct in the light of an understanding of and yet what would be the next step would be different and if you think about the mathematics in fact you realize it's more than just more than one function for any finite number of instances there's an infinite number of functions such that everything he's done so far would be correct in the light of any of those infinite plasma he might say some of them are more like you know who would ever ask someone to do something this convoluted but the question right now we're asking is what does it mean to say that he's grasped this if no number of instances show that he's grasp this is correct what is it two graphs this is correct what is correctness meaning if up to any point there's an infinite number of things we could mean that would be correct and we can't tell from the instances themselves which of them we do what does acting correctly in the light of the understanding mean that's the question but starting to float up here when we talked about the very first class we talked about the relationship between parties of first two classes we talked to the relationship between Cartesian and content philosophy of presumption we said in Cartesian philosophy presumption the skeptic says well it appears to me as if I'm in front of a fireplace it appears to me as if I'm in a classroom but how can I know in the class I might be dreaming and we saw that in the case of the content variance variety of skepticism it became a question how could I so much as even greet them in front of the fireplace how could things even seem that way so there's something that's taken for granted in the Cartesian very in this way that experience can have a content it can be the kind of thing that's true or false that things can appear a certain way so it's a relationship in the Cartesian case between what's going on between me and how things are in the world in me I'm having a mental content of the sort in front of a classroom gym the classroom in the world there's something going on maybe jimin from the classroom and there supposed to be a relationship a relationship in which the one correctly mirrors that represents or whatever the other and then what happens in the continent case is the problem becomes how can an experience even do that and that is generally the character of the relationship between Cartesian varieties and conscient writings in cartesian skepticism there is a kind of relation between something on this side of the Cartesian jump something mental a perceptual experience and interstate being in pain a meaning go this way and something physical how the world is how his body is acting the shape of the sign and the character of that relation that there can be such relations a relation in which my experience appears a certain way in which someone's behavior appears to be paying behavior but as he puts Izzy mimicking paying behaviors in a pink but that it can be expressive of pain then it means something go this way I go that way those relations the possibility of those relations between things on this side of the gap and that's how they go are taken for granted the Cartesian question is always which one's the right one how do I tell the right one from the wrong one how do I know that this is a case in which there really is people in the classroom rather than dreaming how do I know it's the case of really being king instead of pretending and so on what's in each case in the conscience case what happens is that we lose our grip as we think through the Cartesian problematic and how if the Cartesian has set things up correctly even before we try to answer them how they could so much just be such malicious and in the case of the philosophy of language man we're investigating today I suggest borrowing a word from Anselm's translation well they can say I proposed the word a court you could use a different word but I think this is a nice word of court so there's a sign points this way there's something you could do say walk this way what to say that's the correct interpretation what makes that interpretation correct instead of say walking that way we want to say this behavior accords with the meaning of sign that doesn't I say slightly more complicated example hi - that's why I say this is you know something outright or noise I make he does something he goes 7-eleven Asterix question mark dollar sign I will say thank you very much I'm going to use a mathematics jab this doesn't quite a court this is not in a court with my instruction so you do there's a performance and some performance are correct and in country an understanding of a sign if it has a meaning should sort performances into those that are correct in the light of it and those that are not to understand the word read you have to know how to call read things with and not read things right there's some kind of a cord between a correct use of the Sun and the instances in which is here yes Joe if you if you accept when you test you on your computer and your present numbers you could have sure but that would um but then yeah my instruction was not at two modular blah blah blah it was just at two but sure there's all kinds of ways you could get that um no the Cartesian was to know how do I know which behavior is in accord with the Sun how do I know if the sign means this or that we think it through to the content variety of skepticism well I was calling crunching rice goes philosophy language what what happens is that this mistake or this relation itself comes to be mysterious what is a court I'll put something vehicle what is it that we take ourselves to be demanding of the performance such that we say it's in a court so canto has gone all the way to a thousand I said that to he's kind of all the way to a thousand looks pretty good to me so far goes to a thousand for know to know there's one possible case of course in which taught to a gun oh sorry I made a mistake changes but I went out in the same way then a quotation for how can the rule show me what I have to do at this point whatever I do is in some interpretation in accord with the role if any number of finite instances is in accord with the infinite number of different interpretations of this police accordingly what's he mean say visit courts with the room well that just stands there like a signpost this is just some fiscal stuff in that some physical stuff is this an accord with that you know we need some further you know conceptual content here if I say I want something that waves roughly the same amount you know if we have some further rules then you can say whether it's in a court but to physical things not clear with them for is for them just to be in accord with each other you can have regularities but it's not yet clear how you can have normative court unless you have some demand for things to be this way round that way so well here's the noise there's some noises there's marks marks so it looks like no we need an understanding of this you know we feel like saying the understanding in which these words add to mean add to that understanding but if any performance is consistent with many possible interpretations of that if we decide itself is now it's only the signposts the interpretation and there are multiple interpretations and we can't tell from the performance itself which of those interpretations your acting on that it looks like things are worse than what this interlocutor says the interlocutor says whatever I do is in some interpretation in accord with the rule interlocutors trying to put this in Cartesian way I might always still be wrong the carthesian says how about using the Dreaming case here to whatever I might be wrong it might be a different rule that's right the kicking Stein says here now if you have that from if you have the Cartesian problem to the max then that's not really what we should say your problems worse than that dick each thing's not saying to be clear about this again he's drawing this conclusion about rules he's saying if you draw the conclusion the interlocutor drove then you should draw an even deeper conclusion if you have the first pump then you have this problem that's that we not to say but rather any interpretation still hangs in the along with what it interprets and cannot give it any support interpretation by themselves do not determine me so we're just thinking out the point about during the house in the ground we had at the beginning with anything I can say at this point involves producing further noises that are only correctly understood in the item and interpretation then we want to start replicating the interpretations determine me maybe at some point if I just bully him enough you know I can get them to do what I want but that's true of most animals - yeah you know if you have a cow then you say please go there how does understand but they kick you say please go there please go there eventually it goes there do we want to say and now the cow understands you know in which I just make noises and then eventually consciousness research trembling he's not sure what he's doing but she's still trying to make me happy at each place but what I want to know is did he understand the role in virtues what do I say that once that he's got the correct interpretation but that interpretation requires what then you interpret anything we explain the interpretation in front of correctly that requires what the correct interpretation you can see how tempting is now to want something that somehow interprets itself as they can should I puts in the Blue Book they want to say something like well grass the meaning itself is the last interpretation when we grasp the meaning but this is a version of a magical solution that comes up all the time in Cartesian it's a little bit like saying yeah the way experiences represent something is their mental substance that's what mental substance does as opposed to physical subject that's not very satisfying at this point let's you've got this problem so then can whatever I do be brought into accord with the rule the interlocutor asked can whatever I do be brought into a quarter the world he comes back let me ask this what has the expression of a rule say a signpost got to do with my actions what sort of connection is down here what what do we want to mean by a court what kind of correctness or incorrectness can there be he's pressing this question I cut it off here because if we go on it won't fit quickly but we can see how we we have a bird in the crypt keys from and then creepiest favorite passage is the beginning of section 201 which begins the first paragraph of this so we have an apparent paradox we think through the problem of what's called rule following in this way we seem to arrive at a paradoxical conclusion no of course of action could be determined by a role because every course of action can you made out to a corgi the rule actually however cazzo goes on here I can write a function such that this is correcting the light of that function but if anything accords with the role but nothing does what is it to say as I said it looks like an understanding requires you to do that the rule itself sorts itself sorts performances in to correct coins and incorrect ones in light of an understanding we don't we can't draw a distinction between correct and incorrect it's not clear what correct or incorrect means dissapoint should be neither record nor conflict here that's a version of the content problem in philosophy language it looks like we're losing our grip on what a court could so much as be in this area philosophy he puts the point the next two paragraphs are one script he skips I think it's in fairly much answer but I don't think is anything you're saying about them we're victims what the Kings Knight is doing here I think the next two paragraphs I'll just say this in passing it is only better for today's class is he suggesting the problem is with the way we sat out the problem you have to go back to the very beginning when we set a rule just stands there like this signpost understanding requires interpretation we said the way of understanding the world somewhere is being a rule which is not an interpretation he's challenging the assumption which started this whole dialectic that's not what Kripke does Ricky assumes that the baddest trip he doesn't see that as an assumption he sees that as as an inevitable step but quotation six I think does nicely kind of bring out the problem we had the end of the first diagram quotation 5 where we concluded there be neither court nor conflict you to think when is it banging a roll is not so available it's it's not possible to be a real privately otherwise thinking one was a being a rule would be the same thing as a banging it it's not enough to be on the second look I think I know what I mean when I say add to and when I say add to it means to do this that's good enough for me I don't know how I can say whether it's correct or incorrect in some further way but if I can't distinguish between my merely thinking it's correct when it's being correct then there isn't anything which is thinking it's correct to entertain the content but this is correct in light of the rule means this has to mean something I can't have the mere appearance of this without there being at least a possible case of the reality of it this is this this point that he sent two and two or two about rules generalizes I think if you think it through for each of the versions of Cartesian skepticism but we've thought about if nothing counts as my perceiving how things are if what I perceive is always consistent with things being differently how things are just happens blankly beyond what I perceive then what does it mean for my perception to represent how things are my perception is just something that presents itself to me a certain way all perceptions are just saying seeming to me a certain way but if there isn't anything that it's things presenting themselves as being a certain way now what does it mean to say things seem to present themselves as being a certain way so this is the Vic and I which creepy is working off it tricky one one think Ricky wants to say off of this is that the so-called private language argument which is very famous which happens later in the investigations in sections 243 and following it's really just an application of this it doesn't have something to do with sensations about the inner life how do I know this is the same sensation again if there's a problem about how it is I could ever call anything the same again upwards you're you don't probably be a problem for sensations so that you know the real private language problem comes up here and I actually think a lot of problems occur people actually think he's right about something there that lets people read the private language sections as if there's some special fact about sensation that creates the whole problem but I think it's an application of the point that's already come earlier that doesn't mean there isn't things to get cleaner about sensation cut but the initial problem that if we can't make sense of how it is that are just being presented with items and saying something about them could license are going on correctly then it doesn't matter what the items are inner or outer now crickey says let's look at Crick you know so this just a handout supposed to help with this well in the first quotation he quotes this first paragraph of section one about the paradox and he says what he's doing in his book in his article is trying to develop this in his own way he said the paradox is perhaps the central problem of the investigations I personally think that's a bit overstated but what I think is right is that many problems that come up in the investigations are instances of this problem it's not just about role phone as we already saw with the issue about sensation and that many problems that initially have a different form like the one back in 84 and 87 but how do we know which way to follow the sign if thought through turn to this problem so I think he's right that has no its importance it's not just one more problem you know if you get it the right generality and you see it as a thought through version of a less focused worry that is quite important I think you know that makes it essential problem but it's a bigger problem people of thought even someone who disputes the conclusions regarding private language and the conclusions and philosophy of mind mathematics and logic the visionary Osmonds problem might well regard the problem itself as an important contribution of philosophy so the thought here is no matter what you think about what thinking Stone says about the problem is getting the problem so clearly in view is itself an important contribution Kripke says it may be regarded as a new form of philosophical skepticism now of course one thing I want to say about that is no I like the constraint flying man I don't think he should get credit for discovering a new front of philosophical scamsters don't think that's evident am i calling it content skepticism is the form of the problem I think there's one that's already come in seeing it has a varying philosophy of language and seeing how when you put it clearly and its flaws your language terms it has the kind of generality the big construct thinks it does that might be a discovery but the bear the discovery of the bear fact that a skeptical problematic can have this form I think that begins with human becomes quite clear and concise that's to give they can shuttle too much credit there so this is partly connected to Kripke thinking I think mistakenly that the form in which he's put the particular as it were clothing in which this problem is wrapped namely the philosophy language one is somehow special to the kind of skepticism it is now in fairness decrypt Kripke sees pretty general he knows he doesn't just have to flossy language you see this can affect philosophy of logic philosophy mathematics he also says clearly as we'll see in a moment that we can put this in terms of meanings but we could also put it in terms of intentions what did you intend at this point to do later and that will quickly if you think about it turning to the problematic and philosophy of action we were talking about in last class some grip you certainly see that it has some generality thank Kripke also understands quite clearly as he it comes out the second quotation that you - takes a mathematical example this was a little different this but the point of the mathematical example isn't it make a point about mathematics if you understand the point at the right tap the worry is what is it to go on in the same way what do we mean when I say yes he understood that and he kept doing it that way understood the rule and it's that way he went on which is correct it's the same what does it need to say what happened before thousand what happened after thousand is the same well one thing is you can never ask whether two things are the same it's the point I was making here without some further rule specification without some further concept to be applied they're both the same color the same size the same way manufactured in the same print there's got to be something in fact any two things are the same in some respect and any two things are different in some respect similarly the numerically distinct so to say we're going in the same we need to have a specification of a way in which it's the same as soon as we have that we have our problem we introduced that specification and what is our grasp or grip on it well what it was correctness or incorrectness or a chord with yeah correctness or anything in the light of it or accord with it so the mathematical examples are just meant to be particularly clear that um I can um that there's this multiplicity of possible understandings that are consistent with a single performance but they're not meant to be making a point that doesn't apply generally now crispies example is a bit different it's a bit complicated but in order to see other things you said I think we need to look at his example he too is example 2 is about addition and what it is to understand addition but he develops it slightly differently let me modify his example slightly or more explicitly in a way he suggests sometimes I don't mean to stir days it's just this isn't in cooking let's say I'm teaching someone a plus function and teaching them to act that's the word I use what I said add to but now we're not concerned with the rule just add two but we're concerned would be even more general rule act like you have two might be any other number so so we learn a lot of these things teaching you might have but this is my stipulation just to make the example a little more vivid intractable let's say all the numbers with added until now are smaller than or equal to 50 so so we just stay as it were on this side of 57 so we can treat each to the add 45 plus 42 and sound 1 but examples like this now then we want to get into a slightly more complicated case where things don't know and then we want to ask about all of these cases where we're doing this were we adding there was that person who get some trouble later now it's not getting into trouble by going to a thousand and four but by doing something else but we want to ask is that person at this point someone of whom we can say there he was added now he's not adding any more or do we have to say well he was never at he never understood the meaning of plus I wish I had encircled that actually the meaning of plus and if you want to say that have been the question and there's reason to want to say that the question is well what are we saying of our selves when we say until now when we've undertaken to add we have been added we have been doing what we meant to do when we required of ourselves that we add the numbers third quotation we're setting out the example he says I like almost all English speakers use the word typo use the word plus and the symbol cross let's call it plus two to denote a well-known mathematical function addition the function is defined for all pairs of positive integers now I want to come back to these sentences in the beginning a quotation three later at the end of today we'll come back to quotation three allowing me to do that but for the moment it seems very straightforward we appear to understand this he's setting it as example then he says by means of my external symbolic representation in my internal mental representation I grasp the rule for addition this is putting a very Cartesian Franklin the foul in order to stay close to Vic and Stein's text which is also getting the problem as it were less baggage I put it in a condensed work Vickie Stein's waves just to say there's a sign that just stands like a side close and then we need an interpretation Kripke puts this in in terms that are more explicitly drawn from a character Cartesian characterization of the gout does it make the problem any less serious but I think Ricky's way of putting it does of the workforce a Cartesian frame and are you standing in the problem it doesn't as I forget it the most basic version of the problem but um but the quickest way of putting is to say look there's an external representation of the role using a sign like this anywheres like this and then this my internal representation of what it means it's another very Cartesian we've got these things located in to Cartesian spaces out here Mark's mental stuff maybe you want to point here but of course if we know we're dead card it's not you know it's not crucial things not to locate some bit of space between the ears you know exactly three inches from each one but more more more MORE um particularly the mind you know which isn't really you know mental substance is not extended Descartes will say that's not the kind of characteristic it involves an understanding of meaning any internal representation does the external representation plus the internal representation these have to yield the possibility of an accord the right kind of combination of them such that I can see the one is in accord with the other what's going on with the marks is being an accord in the external representation it's in the court with the score and the internal representation signifies what we want to call a grasp he's grasped it he's got this stuff out there in line with the thing we wanted him to have here that's the very Cartesian picture of the problem Socrates hanging up what point is crucial quotation for under the cryptic partitions to my grasp of this rope this is really just making explicit what came out in the Dickinson example although I myself have computed only finite many sums in the past I made this explicit by saying no numbers were used box 857 no matter how many times I give this is a egg number there's only so many different ways you can combine numbers to add and add them if you're all the numbers themselves only fifty seven might be a lot again fatso can really fill the board adding all the different than you can add one in fifty seven you can have had one in fifty six you can add two and fifty-seven you can fill the board for a long time but as big busy as the board will be it'll be a finite number of applications of the plus function it's computer only finite many sums of hats the rule determines my answer for indefinitely many new sums I have never previously encountered it looks like what it is to grasp a role is not to understand it holds in these cases that seems to be important as it were difference between the power and the child the power can repeat exactly what we taught it to the child is learning language can go on on its own and use the word in new ways and new sentences it doesn't just repeat the ones we said even a very simple word like rep but if I point to a couple of red things and all you can say is to point to those things and say right then it's not really clear whether you've understood it means red as opposed to you're just making these noises when I confront you with these things I can teach my dog to bark when I put those three things in front of it because my dog learned the word red um it looks like we want to say you wanted right when you can go on to see further red things in principle you know practically infinite number of red things and say read each time so the point doesn't have deal with the complexity of mathematics has to do with what it is to understand sir it looks like to be able to understand sighs its understand the relationship between the meaning for the rule and its instance is such that in principle other instances could be produced that's this point the finite set that has already been produced can't exhaust the meaning but we don't have a conception of minute but they don't exhaust the meaning then what do we mean by saying the next one that hasn't yet been produced is what is meant district what's that mean that's the contine question in this context so I've only computed the finite number but my rule determines the answer for an indefinite number of new somes this is the whole point of the notion and learning to add I grasped a role my past intentions regarding addition determine a unique answer for indefinitely many cases he says indefinitely many because we don't need the assumption there's an infinite number of right friends or something like that there isn't some axiom of infinity that's required we need it in principle I could produce another one and if you've understood the meaning of the word then with respect to that new case there should be an answer or that's correct or incorrect and you should be able to say and if you can't or if you say something completely different than I do that raises a version of Kripke's question now to make this vivid Kripke varies the example from the constrains example of continuing suit but I take it the creepies example is just trying to bring out the point in different way the fundamental features of the example are the same but but one thing is helpful about looking at two different examples is to notice how they do not have a Cartesian structuring the point now is no longer for Cartesian skepticism we saw we had to choose our example carefully if the bird was too many feet away and I didn't know anything about Norwegian Birds and my eyesight was bad and so forth skepticism didn't follow its but here we don't need to say he goes to four seven we can go to a thousand when you go to two thousand when you ask 57 to 68 in a moment we don't need to say he got it wrong by one the fundamental point here in directed me directed the very possibility record means any mathematical example well illustrate the point just as well as any other because the question now is no longer to make us worried about how we can tell and so to create two scenarios that are sufficiently similar that's a problem of apparent instability the problem is what the hell would it need for it to be right at all no cookies example is we add fifty seven sixty eight and just to firm up his example I've introduced the further stipulation that we've never with canto this brings out the connect by stipulating us the connection between big fish lines example and cookies I think becomes completely vivid because we can see this in a sense as an instance of continuous series so so again we have canto doing plus with all the numbers between one and fifty seven he combined them in many ways he was starting to run out of things and then I said okay gotta do this one there's custom games and contests us okay now in the same ways before and creepy I think purposely has chosen a cases there's no other plausible he's not trying to like target our Cartesian worries about maybe this could happen no the worry more is in virtue of what do we rule this out um there is a function call it plus trip he writes it like this once rather than plus and quest means again a slightly varying example just our society to to make the connection clear in the situation so let's say plus means whenever you add numbers between one and fifty seven you get arithmetic service whatever one of those numbers is larger than 57 the function always yields five there are actually a lot of computer algorithms like this when computer scientists are writing computer games they write algorithms like this all the time begin to funny cases and when you get into those funny cases and it takes you straight to the help from where it closes then it does something that keeps the computer from crashing yeah you know what just machines are like this when there's a certain kind of like in definis the chess computer doesn't real yield a definite result then the chess you know program has the computer do certain kind of thing which it's a general algorithm for all of those cases which is basically the least dangerous with no just computer doesn't know what to do that tries to do nothing so a lot of cases where uses these strategic algorithms and then there's all the other case there's only other cases you do the same thing so this function means that the numbers between 1 and 57 in this way I tell you if I ever give you in this larger 50 Sun right now perfectly fine function are you clear in some sort of way you might say that's so weird much finer than plus is it more than close up center right make two choices add those and then clad those and tell me which is harder to do I get quite them real fast gives you fine don't feel like they have them right now if she'll forgive me um which is harder which is the which is the harder went across plus their question hardness to what we mean by hardness can be interpreted more than one way I'm not saying you can't make out another sense of hardness so what about when Kanto filled the board for the first few hours with things like this and constant in all of this stuff what's he adding or cladding was she doing this function until then and then he switched to something else where was he all along cladding as long as he stuck to these little numbers it looks like adding but maybe he was cladding here we have a Cartesian question how can I tell whether he was adding or quater and it has a Cartesian structure right there indistinguishable it serves the same function as the Dreaming argument from within my performance in some ways it's more literally like the X the other minds argument from the outside what he does is the same but maybe there's pain inside or not on the outside what he does is the same it produces this stuff but in the inside just a little light bulb of the mind we need to be doing this so that I can't get it I can only get at the performance remind this back you give it the line which is I can't know it looks the same way as out in your closet same behaviour it's a Cartesian structure it's an interesting other one of these indistinguishability arguments with the conclusion there is no way to know but there is no way to tell that initially looks like the problem many people recruit me as if that were the whole problem creep you were just making this card Cartesian skeptical point much as creepy as written to encourage you to read it that way it's not just their fault the conclusion of quotation sixes who is to say this is not the function I previously meant by plus is this the function I met or not that leaves in place the idea there is something which is meaning plus there is something which is my performance is being in accord with plus but how do I tell it's a Cartesian question that last question at the end of six bits group he goes not to say no matter how I try to answer that the skeptic will always be able to say that I might be misinterpreting gnosis exactly now the kind question head about the sign or all the others Cartesian philosophy language questions and now the interpretation is possible as I always put it I might be misinterpreting oh it was cloudy I was doing huh how do we know when I was looking at these things it looks so much like adding that I wasn't as they were imposing my interpretation of adding on them as I did when I imposed my interpretation of traffic law on TV as there were facts of the British Road it almost got killed whoops just like what we folks do when we add there are cultures and supporting parts of Africa where they have one two three four five minutes and they add one two three four five everything else as many this culture got only at 57 and then they just stick with this exactly then it's a little stranger now these examples Kripke says applied throughout language are not confined in mathematical samples that's with mathematical samples they can be brought out most smoothly like word like table he says it's something that has indefinitely many uses how do we know that someone is understood what am I saying am i just saying he did this an agent saying did this thing did this that doesn't give us anything that can fill out a notion of understanding it's got to be that he knows how to go on in the right way that's what it means to say still we need we need an idea of possible performances which relate to his actual performances as they would on our understanding of the word there's some notion of modality built into the very idea of meaning normativity can't simply be exhaustive I said offense but then the same questions can come up into a table that can come up here and indeed when you teach little children this you do run into this kind of thing tavella's the example of the Cavell reading you did of the little kid who says kitty-kitty-kitty very nicely and then she goes up to this lovely fur coat and tracks it and says kitty and you realized she wasn't doing so I thought you thought with all those other kitties you know she was giving me cut in the same way she saw a connection but it only appeared to be mimicking and understanding a kid now back to plus and Quest is this a Cartesian or a continent question in much of the book so much of the article which is incorporated then into the book what Kripke does is he alternates between see ways of putting he keeps saying he keeps giving the examples and saying there's no way to tell in this case whether he's paddling aquatic that is there's no fact of the matter about whether it's admission or coitus really means though that is suggests that the second clause is just a rephrasing of the first clause but the first clause is stating a Cartesian from the second clause is stating a continent problem and there's a lot of this in the cookie which then makes it very unclear what the issue is I think part of the reason for that is his initial setup of the problem in ways I tried to show you is extremely Cartesian and I think it's partly because there's sense like the sense of many philosophers is for it to be skepticism it has to have this shape of a Cartesian problem you know how can we distinguish we can't distinguish we can't tell Vicky shine fix it with a sketch and we're trying to get to be skeptical from so we set it up that way but Kripke also understands it well enough that he's saying at the real problem is associated so it puts it both ways I move to make it feel like skepticism and to bring out the deeper problem but in the preface the early part of the book on page 21 as he'd been thinking about this longer I think it became quite clear to him that the one bearing is just a root to the other he shouldn't see these as a positions you should see the first way of putting it as a setup for a problem which once you think through takes the second fourth so I think we really worried wrote the whole book carefully as we get later into the book the Cartesian foreign relations would drop away they would keep cropping up again but patients sitting and down and writing things has not ever been crypt is great strength so let's look at quotation 9 let's return to our example of plus inquest we've just summarized the problems in terms of the basis of my present particular response what tells me that I should say 125 and not 5 now that looks like a Cartesian problem what tells me how can I know of course the problem can be put equivalent in terms of the skeptical query regarding my present intent this is one of these places where I said he's very good at seeing that there's a philosophy of action varying about this right now I said this how do I know later that my action is what I attended something happened in the causal order I did one thing that brought about the other synapses fire I did something what does it mean to say but what I did fix my intention my earlier intention how do I know whether it fit my only intention so formulated the problem may appear to be epistemological how could anyone know symphysis and know goes with that empat out of my emphasis on oh here goes through the emphasis and knowledge and no section three of my world its introduction we looked at last time ok we know which of these I meant but he goes on so it looks you may think it's not just logical pump you put it that way given however that everything in my mental history is compatible both with the conclusion that I meant plus and what the conclusion in that quest there's still a Cartesian frame yet there's some sort of picture of a physical history on that side of the Cartesian graph and a mental history in this side of the minute the Cartesian yeah there's things I intend whatever those up tend to do this the only tend to do that but you want to say whatever the layout of these two places are the physical one and the mental one it's compatible both with the conclusion that I meant Plus and with the conclusion that I meant coifs given that given that's compared with either of these it's clear that the skeptical challenge is not really an epistemological it prefers to show that nothing in my history the past behavior nothing in my mental history of past behavior could establish whether I meant plus the cost no matter what I did it's not a Cartesian case where I could tell at this distance whether it was a tomato or not no matter how long I look it I'm gonna how long I'd bounce then suck my teeth into it no matter how close how much of a view I have of the history of my performance nothing could count that's what I meant plus their question and then he tries to bring that out in a very Cartesian way with the bit I skipped between the dashes not even an omniscient God would know so Sigma is the submission God who can see all of you can see everything you can see the numbers canto wrote you can see the ones that canto erased he can see all the way into Cotto's mind you can see everything you see more than we can the thought is matter how many facts you could see facts here facts there looks like we have a problem with any accumulation of these facts still doesn't take away the problem that it's not clear what a court consists in that is all of this kids could be consistent with an indefinite number of possible your standings of what is meant if it's under 57 course but we can create another function to make it like the numbers a little bigger um I'm not gonna take questions a lot of time just gonna say two more things so Kripke goes on but then it appears to follow that there was no fact about me that constituted my having men plus rather than question how could there be there was no such thing as my meaning this rather than that in the past there can be no such thing in the present what was initially presented the paradox we perforce used language taking present meanings for granted go back to quotation three foot of the Krypton rotation through the Kripke I like almost all English pea to use the word plus and the simple and so forth read that and many other words after that here we're assuming our ability to come to shared understandings of words simply in virtue of using them but if we think ourselves all the way through to the content version of the problematic we've raised the question about what we're doing even then and to set up the problem we must take our doing understand language for granted so we usually put as a Cartesian problem not probably can so much as mean something we're taking our ability to mean things for granted and asking whether it's this or that that we need do we mean one thousand four one thousand two when we say that to at this point but once we think it through it engulfs the very capacities were exercising and setting up the premises another virtue of cars for feature of tracking skepticism which is at the end of those lists of features that Conti and skepticism calls into question the very capacities of presupposes that's true every time it's part of why it's not a doubt we no longer have a doubt about what we mean to raise it doubt about what we mean presupposes that I need something and raising the doubt hence boggle about now how do you want to put the boggle anyway you put the boggle is itself as it were an expression of your helplessness with respect to the problem the Bronco itself this is something to be clearly presented it's just a philosophical conclusion you seem to be pushed towards but you can't completely embrace because to embrace it requires your capacity to come to a determinant conclusion of a sort that is itself being placed in the question this is I think connected to what Kripke is saying in quotation 11 which I won't read figure when he's trying to defend victim Stein his own way for having read I don't think this is a very good or full of what didn't start rights the way he does but Kripke saying look you know if you really understand how deep this problem is there isn't something which results here which is a view about the nature of meaning to have a view about the nature of meaning means being able to produce sentence like the ones we have in quotation three which stand still see how deep this problem is is to see that the words we use to motivate the problem themselves retrospectively seem to be placed under a certain indictment so as he puts it at the end of quotation 10 now when we initially presented the paradox we perforce use language taking present meanings for granted now we see that this provisional concession was indeed fictive there could be no facts as to what I meant by plus or any other word at any time including when I set it up in quotation three the latter must finally be kicked away that's a reference to the innocence notice which the idea that the very formulation you have in such kanji in problems I think this is itself you know a right to think the truck time is itself is a constant problematic but whenever you have a cartoon problematic it has the form of a ladder you kick away as you present a certain problem but once you come to see the depth of the problem at the end there's a question about how the sentences you used to reach the conclusion you appear to have at the end could even mean what they do you have a problem of the conclusion seeming to render the sentences you uttered nonsense but if the sentences were not such then you don't have that conclusion but it's not clear how you avoid it the Kripke's trying to use the word paradox taking it from difference none you bring this out it's not a problem it's it's something that you can't actually get into focus it's worse than the prob this then is our skeptical paradox this says that we'll stop there for now so we will continue with Kripke a bit more beginning next time and we will bring intervals criticism of cooking and see how what your dolls doing the lights the cooking I will draw a bit on the claim of reason as well which content talked about last Monday but if you haven't looked at that at all you might watch

Channel: Philosophy Overdose

Views: 4,404

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Philosophy, Analytic Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ontology, Theory of Knowledge, Wittgenstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Kripke, Saul Kripke, Philosophy of Language, Skepticism, Meaning Skepticism, Immanuel Kant, Descartes, Philosophical Realism, Metaphysical Realism, Reference, Semantics, Kantian, Language Game, Philosophical Investigations, Foundationalism, Holism, Coherentism, Private Language, Philosophy of Mathematics, Semantic Externalism

Id: oV4Z5H9G2Zo

Length: 98min 19sec (5899 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 12 2015