ok this is going to be really short and i hope to expand on this later, but i was thinking about externalism in sensations. here's my thought: when you feel a pain, where exactly do you feel it? many people have argued that you can only feel pain in your brain. that is, if something pinches you on the hand, you feel the pain in your brain nevertheless because that's where the c-fibers directed.
but, if you realize that each particular pain has an origin, then that origin is necessary and thus, even though the brain registers the pain, it is actually felt whereever it was actually felt.
this intuition is largely caught in a thought experiment that to my knowledge, is new. it is no doubt inspired in part by kripkenstein on other minds and mcginn on imagination, but here goes.
is it possible to imagine a pain in your knee? well, sure, you can imagine your knee being in pain, and in the simulated pain, it is your knee that has the sensation. however, can you imagine a pain in your knee in your elbow? well that doesn't really make sense. you could imagine a pain in your elbow, even a particular type of pain, the same your knee had, on your elbow (sharp vs. chronic, etc), but you can't imagine a pain in your knee in your elbow.
if i'm right about this, then particular pains have necessary origins, which lend support to an externalist account of sensation.
however, an objection quickly arises in the cases of pain in phantom limbs. i either have to come up with a pretty damn good explanation for them, or categorize them as non-legitimate pains. i tend to agree with the latter, but then i'd have o come to the conclusion that sensations of pain are not the same as pain. however, kripke himself has argued for this claim, that sensations of pain ARE pain (and the argument seems to be sound).
how to reconcile my seemingly correct previous intuition with kripke's? this'll take some time to figure out.
Showing posts with label wittgenstein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wittgenstein. Show all posts
02 April 2008
05 March 2008
incomplete answers to some queries
C (hey C!) asked some interesting and important questions which i will repost briefly. i will attempt to answer them as an exercise in critical engagement with the text.
he asks:
(1) what are the implications of when we are mistaken about concepts in this manner?
(2) Since employment of the two different concepts in the same linguistic instance results in the same answer, what is the fundamental difference between employing the two? Is the answer yielded actually the "same"?
(3) How does this differ from other forms of skeptical possibility, if at all? Does this generate a sort of skeptical problem similar to the Cartesian one?
ok. i think i'll try to answer (3) first, as it will make the answers to the other questions clearer. the skepticism kripkenstein presents is much more devastating than descartes's. this is because descartes's skepticism was epistemological in character, whereras this skepticism is both epistemological and metaphysical. descartes's skepticism was with the goal of establishing a certain, true set of beliefs from which to base the rest of his epistemological enterprise. foundationalist through and through, he designated an epistemically privileged set of propositions that he used to justify shakier propositions, so to speak. and much has been written (cs peirce, susan haack) about how this kind of cartesian epistemic skepticism was pretty much just bafoonery to get to propositions he wouldn't alter anyway because they were 'clear' and 'distinct' to him anyway, thanks to god.
however, kripkenstein's skeptical paradox is a more serious threat. not only does the quaddition example show that we, at this moment, don't know whether we are using addition or quaddition, an epistemic skepticism, there is no fact of the matter as to what mathematical function we are performing at the moment, a metaphysical skepticism. this of course extends to previous uses of the function and future uses of the function. and then the same principle carries over to not only addition, but ultimately every function, name, natural kind term, description, etc.
so, if we take a step back for a sec, what kripkenstein is actually doing is presenting to us a very real, encompassing, epistemological as well as ontological skepticism of meaning that pretty much runs the full sweep of both speech acts and mental acts. there is no fact of the matter concerning what we ever mean by any linguistic utterance. part of the problem here, of course, is that there is an underlying assumption that we have to explain meaning in terms of something else, but that problem isn't very relevant for the present discussion, so we'll just give it to him for now.
now to address (1). well the implication here is that we don't ever know what we're talking or thinking about because there is never any fact of the matter as to what we are talking or thinking about! the implications themselves are rather tough to formulate apart from this previous statement. my initial reaction was to say that "even if we think we know what we're talking about, we don't actually know because there is no fact to speak of." but the problems of saying this are pretty evident: i mean, communication in general would be a farse, but further even the possibility of cogent thought comes into question. if we take kripkenstein's skepticism seriously, then it is almost undeniably, irrefutably serious!
finally, for (2) i'm going to use another mathematical example. the functions (n+m), (n x m), and (n^m) are of course different functions. but if we happen to say for each of these functions n=2=m, then they all yield the same answer. the fundamental difference in them is the nature of the method of manipulating the numbers, but given specific circumstances they might coincide in output. the problem with kripkenstein's kind of skepticism is that all math, all communication through symbols, actually, is lacking meaning. if nothing has meaning, because there is no ontological fact concerning meaning, then every communicative act is a coincidence, just as those functions happened to coincide at 2.
well i hope i helped a bit, as it helped me understand kripkenstein a bit more myself.
he asks:
(1) what are the implications of when we are mistaken about concepts in this manner?
(2) Since employment of the two different concepts in the same linguistic instance results in the same answer, what is the fundamental difference between employing the two? Is the answer yielded actually the "same"?
(3) How does this differ from other forms of skeptical possibility, if at all? Does this generate a sort of skeptical problem similar to the Cartesian one?
ok. i think i'll try to answer (3) first, as it will make the answers to the other questions clearer. the skepticism kripkenstein presents is much more devastating than descartes's. this is because descartes's skepticism was epistemological in character, whereras this skepticism is both epistemological and metaphysical. descartes's skepticism was with the goal of establishing a certain, true set of beliefs from which to base the rest of his epistemological enterprise. foundationalist through and through, he designated an epistemically privileged set of propositions that he used to justify shakier propositions, so to speak. and much has been written (cs peirce, susan haack) about how this kind of cartesian epistemic skepticism was pretty much just bafoonery to get to propositions he wouldn't alter anyway because they were 'clear' and 'distinct' to him anyway, thanks to god.
however, kripkenstein's skeptical paradox is a more serious threat. not only does the quaddition example show that we, at this moment, don't know whether we are using addition or quaddition, an epistemic skepticism, there is no fact of the matter as to what mathematical function we are performing at the moment, a metaphysical skepticism. this of course extends to previous uses of the function and future uses of the function. and then the same principle carries over to not only addition, but ultimately every function, name, natural kind term, description, etc.
so, if we take a step back for a sec, what kripkenstein is actually doing is presenting to us a very real, encompassing, epistemological as well as ontological skepticism of meaning that pretty much runs the full sweep of both speech acts and mental acts. there is no fact of the matter concerning what we ever mean by any linguistic utterance. part of the problem here, of course, is that there is an underlying assumption that we have to explain meaning in terms of something else, but that problem isn't very relevant for the present discussion, so we'll just give it to him for now.
now to address (1). well the implication here is that we don't ever know what we're talking or thinking about because there is never any fact of the matter as to what we are talking or thinking about! the implications themselves are rather tough to formulate apart from this previous statement. my initial reaction was to say that "even if we think we know what we're talking about, we don't actually know because there is no fact to speak of." but the problems of saying this are pretty evident: i mean, communication in general would be a farse, but further even the possibility of cogent thought comes into question. if we take kripkenstein's skepticism seriously, then it is almost undeniably, irrefutably serious!
finally, for (2) i'm going to use another mathematical example. the functions (n+m), (n x m), and (n^m) are of course different functions. but if we happen to say for each of these functions n=2=m, then they all yield the same answer. the fundamental difference in them is the nature of the method of manipulating the numbers, but given specific circumstances they might coincide in output. the problem with kripkenstein's kind of skepticism is that all math, all communication through symbols, actually, is lacking meaning. if nothing has meaning, because there is no ontological fact concerning meaning, then every communicative act is a coincidence, just as those functions happened to coincide at 2.
well i hope i helped a bit, as it helped me understand kripkenstein a bit more myself.
29 February 2008
kripkenstein's quaddition - exposition
oh kripke... or kripkenstein.. or whatever...
so here's the real deal. i have not read wittgenstein's philosophical investigations so take this entire post with a grain of salt--or a heap of it.
anyway the argument as it struck kripke goes somewhat like this:
suppose you've never performed the mathematical function "plus" with integers greater than 50. A is a teacher and YOU are B.
A: "17 plus 23 is..."
B: "40"
A: "yes! you got it! now, 58 plus 67 is..."
B [takes a bit longer. B computes in his head] "125."
A: "uh... i'm sorry. i don't think you understand. try again."
B [computes again]: "no i did it again in my head and.. well i was right. it's 125."
A: "uh... i think someone didn't teach you this right. 58 plus 67 is 5."
B: [baffled] "whaatt??"
so here's the trick. when you heard the word "plus" you thought that was a function where you combine numbers , such that
'plus (a,b)' = addition (a,b) --> 'a + b' when {x| -∞, ∞}
however, it is not logically inconsistent that "plus" really referred to the function of quaddition such that
'plus* (a,b)' = quaddition (a,b) ---> 'a+ b' when {x| -∞, 50} and '5' when {x| 50, ∞}
now, it's important to note that this skeptic who is proposing this skeptical scenario is not being a skeptic about the concept of addition. he's not saying that the concept of addition is vague in any way. he's just saying that it's not logically inconsistent to propose that it may be the case that whenever we use the word "addition" or the mathematical symbol of "+" we might be talking about quaddition instead of addition.
this skepticism, however, is not just an epistemological skepticism about whether we know we're adding or quadding, but it extends to a metaphysical skepticism about our own use of concepts. we can think we know what concept we're using but we could be mistaken.
i'm interested to see how or if kripke attempts to solve this...
so here's the real deal. i have not read wittgenstein's philosophical investigations so take this entire post with a grain of salt--or a heap of it.
anyway the argument as it struck kripke goes somewhat like this:
suppose you've never performed the mathematical function "plus" with integers greater than 50. A is a teacher and YOU are B.
A: "17 plus 23 is..."
B: "40"
A: "yes! you got it! now, 58 plus 67 is..."
B [takes a bit longer. B computes in his head] "125."
A: "uh... i'm sorry. i don't think you understand. try again."
B [computes again]: "no i did it again in my head and.. well i was right. it's 125."
A: "uh... i think someone didn't teach you this right. 58 plus 67 is 5."
B: [baffled] "whaatt??"
so here's the trick. when you heard the word "plus" you thought that was a function where you combine numbers , such that
'plus (a,b)' = addition (a,b) --> 'a + b' when {x| -∞, ∞}
however, it is not logically inconsistent that "plus" really referred to the function of quaddition such that
'plus* (a,b)' = quaddition (a,b) ---> 'a+ b' when {x| -∞, 50} and '5' when {x| 50, ∞}
now, it's important to note that this skeptic who is proposing this skeptical scenario is not being a skeptic about the concept of addition. he's not saying that the concept of addition is vague in any way. he's just saying that it's not logically inconsistent to propose that it may be the case that whenever we use the word "addition" or the mathematical symbol of "+" we might be talking about quaddition instead of addition.
this skepticism, however, is not just an epistemological skepticism about whether we know we're adding or quadding, but it extends to a metaphysical skepticism about our own use of concepts. we can think we know what concept we're using but we could be mistaken.
i'm interested to see how or if kripke attempts to solve this...
20 October 2007
games
inspired in part by later wittgenstein, in part by pseudo-meta-ethical discussions with G, and in part by a quasimoto song called "players of the game," i've been thinking a lot about the concept of games for the past couple of months. and while there are many issues that involve the 'concept' (and i use the term loosely here) of games, there are some issues i want to touch on.
the majority of the times i've heard of 'games' in an inquisitive discussion, it has been in the context of devaluing the validity of a problem or a situation. this is not to say that these problems don't exist at some level, but that they are usually confined to problems that arise in the applications of the rules of the game; rules that were arbitrarily or accidentally chosen. in this context, life could be a 'game', as could dating (hence the term "players"), politics, and many other aspects of life. i'm not saying i agree with any of these, but they deserve a further look.
these examples might lend themselves more to this type of analysis because it seems, because of sociological norms, that there are a certain set of accepted actions in social interactions that could be analogous to 'rules' and in order to be successful in these 'games' one has to take advantage of the knowledge one has of these rules to either play by them to the best of one's abilities or to chose to disregard them for strategic purposes.
even though i've never taken any meta-ethics classes, it seems that some people think that ethical norms are really just games as well. because of the added human element of ethics and my personal ambivalence of what's right and wrong in certain extreme cases, i don't completely throw this idea out either (but on a personal note, it might be because i don't have very strong ideas about this kind of thing). is it okay to kill 20 to save 400? is our national security more important than our individual rights? at times, i think there should be some sort of utilitarian answer to these questions, yet of course there are some conflicting intuitions within myself.
but i think the conceptual tool of 'games' fails to account for what i believe to be real problems in metaphysics and epistemology. wittgenstein's second attempt to annihilate philosophy (after his first attempt in the tractatus with logical atomism) was with the concept of language games in his investigations. his way of solving philosophical problems--problems such as, say, what is knowledge, what is existence--is to access them as problems only arising in the application of the rules of language. so something could count as knowledge iff it resembles other applications of the family term "knowledge" sufficiently. in effect, this specific strategy would make many of the problems philosophers face problems only philosophers of langauge (or maybe linguists or maybe members of an academic english/lit departments) should face.
i think this is misguided for a couple of reasons: first of all, it would just put a lot of people out of work if completely accepted. that or lots of people would move to english departments and call it a day. [see: richard rorty]. but on a serious note, some of these problems can't be solved by linguistic analysis. furthermore, these problematic situations can't be fully explained by linguistic analysis either. eg take problems of epistemology. ppl like wittgenstein and some of his followers like rorty just want to get rid of the entire enterprise. but surely knowledge has some problems:
so here i used epistemology as a counter-example to a wittgensteinian "everything is a game" strategy of analyzing philosophical problems. but i think you can also provide real (here i mean real as in more than just linguistic) problems in metaphysics, although i'm not gonna provide an argument here. nevertheless, the strategy of games is helpful in understanding some things, especially activities arising from human social interaction.
ok, this has gone on long enough, and i probably didn't tie in a lot of loose ends in this post... but i'm gonna leave it like that. feel free to school me if you want :D
the majority of the times i've heard of 'games' in an inquisitive discussion, it has been in the context of devaluing the validity of a problem or a situation. this is not to say that these problems don't exist at some level, but that they are usually confined to problems that arise in the applications of the rules of the game; rules that were arbitrarily or accidentally chosen. in this context, life could be a 'game', as could dating (hence the term "players"), politics, and many other aspects of life. i'm not saying i agree with any of these, but they deserve a further look.
these examples might lend themselves more to this type of analysis because it seems, because of sociological norms, that there are a certain set of accepted actions in social interactions that could be analogous to 'rules' and in order to be successful in these 'games' one has to take advantage of the knowledge one has of these rules to either play by them to the best of one's abilities or to chose to disregard them for strategic purposes.
even though i've never taken any meta-ethics classes, it seems that some people think that ethical norms are really just games as well. because of the added human element of ethics and my personal ambivalence of what's right and wrong in certain extreme cases, i don't completely throw this idea out either (but on a personal note, it might be because i don't have very strong ideas about this kind of thing). is it okay to kill 20 to save 400? is our national security more important than our individual rights? at times, i think there should be some sort of utilitarian answer to these questions, yet of course there are some conflicting intuitions within myself.
but i think the conceptual tool of 'games' fails to account for what i believe to be real problems in metaphysics and epistemology. wittgenstein's second attempt to annihilate philosophy (after his first attempt in the tractatus with logical atomism) was with the concept of language games in his investigations. his way of solving philosophical problems--problems such as, say, what is knowledge, what is existence--is to access them as problems only arising in the application of the rules of language. so something could count as knowledge iff it resembles other applications of the family term "knowledge" sufficiently. in effect, this specific strategy would make many of the problems philosophers face problems only philosophers of langauge (or maybe linguists or maybe members of an academic english/lit departments) should face.
i think this is misguided for a couple of reasons: first of all, it would just put a lot of people out of work if completely accepted. that or lots of people would move to english departments and call it a day. [see: richard rorty]. but on a serious note, some of these problems can't be solved by linguistic analysis. furthermore, these problematic situations can't be fully explained by linguistic analysis either. eg take problems of epistemology. ppl like wittgenstein and some of his followers like rorty just want to get rid of the entire enterprise. but surely knowledge has some problems:
- what counts as knowledge?
- what is belief?
- what is justification?
- how does one account for evidence?
- is there a causal element in justification?
- is knowledge based on foundations or cohesion or both or neither?
- what is truth?
- gettier?
so here i used epistemology as a counter-example to a wittgensteinian "everything is a game" strategy of analyzing philosophical problems. but i think you can also provide real (here i mean real as in more than just linguistic) problems in metaphysics, although i'm not gonna provide an argument here. nevertheless, the strategy of games is helpful in understanding some things, especially activities arising from human social interaction.
ok, this has gone on long enough, and i probably didn't tie in a lot of loose ends in this post... but i'm gonna leave it like that. feel free to school me if you want :D
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