Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Feb 09, 2021 3:44 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Tue Feb 09, 2021 5:22 am
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 12:25 pm
Wittgenstein's 'On Certainty' did not mark a radical departure from his ideas in 'Philosophical Investigations' and other later writings. On the contrary, in 'On Certainty', he was extending and developing his insights into the autonomy of grammar and the nature of language games - for example the expression of doubt against the background of certainty.
I agree, the title 'On Certainty' in general is about the question of certainty.
One of the main focus of 'On Certainty' was to counter Moore's taking up Kant's challenge of the Scandal of Philosophy re the certainty of the independent external world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_is_one_hand
Here is where W veered towards Philosophical Anti-Realism as a neo-Kantian.
I just wanted to point out VA's misunderstanding of the later Wittgenstein. And the monotonously repeated charge that my thinking is aligned with the Tractatus and the mistakes made by the logical positivists, partly because of their misinterpretation of the Tractatus - demonstrates VA's ignorance. The claim that the later Wittgenstein became an anti-realist is a gross and farcical misrepresentation.
I admit I was not very clear with the Tractatus earlier.
Now that I had zoomed in the Tractatus in more detail, I noted the Tractatus was W transition to philosophical anti-realism.
My intention was, your sense of 'what is fact' are in alignments with the elements of philosophy of early-W when he was with Russell and Frege who had contributed to Analytic Philosophy.
Btw, I did not claim you are fully with the Logical Positivists, but your sense of facts has certain [not all] similar elements from the defunct LP philosophy.
The claim that the later-Wittgenstein became an anti-realist is a gross and farcical misrepresentation.
Even in the Tractatus and PI where W has mixed-views there are already signs W was transitioning into a philosophical realist. I learned this from Robert Hanna re the 'death of Analytic Philosophy.'
It is definite he was an P-anti-realist in his writings in 'On Certainty'.
Explain why W is not a philosophical realist in the Neo-Kantian sense?
Btw, I claimed you were ignorant and conflated "fact in the Humean Sense" with "fact in the Functorial Sense," thus has no grounding and credibility to your claim of what is fact.
What say you?
1 In as much as I understand it, I think the Humean/functorial distinction is incoherent. I reject its premises.
I believe you found it incoherent due to ignorance.
The ascribed features of Humean and Functorial facts are so obvious.
You cannot conflate what is Humean facts with Functiorial facts.
If you disagree, explain why?
2 The claim that, in discussing Moore's problem - of what can we be sure? - and exposing what Fergus Kerr called the 'assurances of realism', Wittgenstein was espousing anti-realism (if such a position is even vaguely coherent) is false. The later W's aim was to circumvent philosophical theories, such as realism and anti-realism, because they're mistakes - misfiring answers to incoherent questions.
Moore's proof [which failed] was he took up Kant's challenge re the greatest scandal of philosophy where Philosophical Realists claim there is an external world that is independent of the mind.
In his paper 'Proof of an External World', Moore referred to Kant's accusation in Kant's CPR Bxxxix, i.e.
G E Moore wrote:In the Preface to the second edition of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason some words occur, which in professor Kemp Smith's translation, are rendered as follows;
- it still remains a scandal to Philosophy and to Human Reason-in-General that the Existence of Things outside us (from which we derive the whole material of Knowledge, even for our Inner Sense) must be accepted merely on Faith,
and that if anyone thinks good to doubt their Existence, we are unable to counter his doubts by any satisfactory proof.
Kant's CPR Bxxxix
As such the original contention and Moore's proof is a case of Philosophical Realism versus Philosophical Anti-Realism [Kant's position].
In W's 'On Certainty' W made reference to Moore's 'Proof of an External World', thus in this case when W countered Moore's view, W is taking a Philosophical anti-Realist' stance.
Note my point;
A Philosophical Realist is an Empirical Idealist
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=32009
There is a lot of nuance to the above, thus while the later-W was seemingly a realist to you, he was a philosophical anti-realist in the ultimate sense.
At present I am reading Robert Hanna
THE FATE OF ANALYSIS: Analytic Philosophy From Frege To The Ash-Heap of History
where he discussed extensively on W.
I have not fully grasp the details of the book YET, but the direction is the later-W is ultimately a Philosophical anti-Realist in the very late part of his life.
I will get to the references on that matter later.