Wittgenstein on rule-following

Whether solitary rule-following is possible, according to Wittgenstein's PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS
- Individual and Community Views
- Form of life as foundation for justification or the cause of justification

[deadman]

I love how you put it that the world reinforces rules. Four words are the proverbial *it.* Everything important about the relationship between an external reality and internal cognition flows from that wellspring.

Take that, Numb Chumpsky!

[ai_serf]

Powerful stuff. Great conversation... This is something I think about time right now. I'm up in the air about it. I would wish to think solitary humans can have total power over their lives, but it seems an extremely hard proposition to demonstrate in the praxis. Regardless, massive stuff is going on when one is living on an island, which many of us our living in a hyper capitalist society.

[АндрейК-пк]

Thanks a lot! Personally I like Searle's position on rule-following

[derendohoda]

I have never felt that rules could possibly be justified in the way that a lot of the philosophers he was moving around with wanted. It always read to me like LW was pointing out that there is no escape from the rule-following paradox within the language game, it is that the language game is embedded in the form of life which permits the escape from some kind of unstoppable regress. Eventually I just act etc. Justification itself is another language game and couldn't possibly do any work to hold up another in the way the philosophers want. But the whole argument is in some way motivated by considering not the master of a language reflecting on language but rather considering the child learning to speak it without having any prior mastery at all. The child learning without prior rules—this is the (only?) fact that needs to be understood. And in this context the stated paradox is very plain, since indeed nearly any action can be made to accord with the rule (pointing at an object and "meaning" its shape, it's color, it's texture, etc.). We are very easily led astray by considering our own case where we have mastered a language up to this point: learning the new word / name / etc. That nearly invisible prior of the philosophers must be fought at every turn to get to the heart of the matter. And nearly all of the examples in the book leading up to that point serve as guideposts to help us avoid straying into that unfair and beguiling prior.

[havenbastion]

Ethics is a formalized system of understanding the story of behaviors that lead to the best collective outcomes, to the extent the formalization process accounts for the good of every individual.

Rules are always only guidelines. If you know better than the rules, such as having information outside of what the rules accommodate, your responsibility is to accept the better understanding.

Likewise if a rule forbids something that harms no one, there is no Reason it ought to be followed. If there are no unaccounted exceptions, that's a logical rule.

[chocolatefigure]

If logic and grammar were not external to the mind, there could not be a possibility to attach meaning to a proposition, thats what he argued in philosophical investigations.

[dna]

What is a " correctness condition " ?

[rockyfjord]

It's better to be capable of thinking than to be in bondage to rules, as the latter can cause a misinterpretation of reality. With rules, person's think they know something whereas they really only believe they know something. Rules based order is tantamount to fascism and the banality of evil. Authority is a key consideration, as well as power to enforce rules. A dichotomy of words and the gun. Poets and police, which are the real killers? In situ v in actu.

[martinmills]

Paula, I don’t understand your point about mathematics being anchored in the social realm. Surely not! A circle’s circumference is 2πr no matter whether you happen to agree, isn’t it?

[steveurick]

Negative comments are pretty worthless. But, seriously, why is it that we need rules or need to think about them?

[paulmilligan]

The random hand waving is very distracting. Sorry, but it makes the video too difficult to watch.