Category: Writegenstein Blog

Writegenstein #8: Examples Over Evidence

Britton William Frost2 Comments

A main cause of philosophical disease – a one-sided diet: one nourishes one’s thinking with only one kind of example.

-Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations, 593)

We already know that sufficient proof is never in empirical observation, but perhaps it is not in the form of the argument either. Sure, logical form gives an argument structure so that it can sustain itself, and that is arguably what is most important (some of us can think in pure conceptual terms, and others simply cannot, we must accept) but proof is not exactly that sort of thing. Rather, proof shows how an argument which is true is true or how an argument which is false is false, and this is done through example.

One will not be very convincing if he can only apply the form of his argument to one kind of example – one category – in which he simply substitutes different objects for the variables contained within the argument form. Different examples are shown through different areas of reference. This requires sufficient nuanced knowledge of two or more areas, and perhaps that is hard to come by, for different areas of study have their own unique vocabularies and require some degree of subjective interest in order to learn. Regardless, if a concept is true, it should have some universal degree of truth to it so that the form of the argument transcends the material realm and therefore can be applied in any observable context. Therefore, there should be no limit to the number of examples one could come up with to show the thrust of the argument.

Writegenstein #7: Disagreement as Misunderstanding

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“611. Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and heretic.”

-Ludwig Wittgenstein (On Certainty)

Disagreements don’t exist — only misunderstandings do — if we take truth to exist. For a relativist, there is no difference between the two.

Furthermore for the relativist, definitions don’t exist at all.

Nor does anything exist for the relativist. To follow relativism through to its conclusion, one must be nihilistic and solipsistic, which are also unsustainable because it would follow that identity itself is impossible.

For one who accepts truth (in conscious thought, that is — for we all do in action), however, understanding is a prerequisite to opinion. An opinion is a sort of judgement. To understand is to have thought critically, and to think critically is to have observed impartially. Few who practice this method would consider their views to be mere opinions, worth just as much consideration as that of one who has no conscious basis.

Have well-reasoned perspectives, not opinions. Some “opinions” have a basis, and some do not, so we should not consider them to be of the same category. When they do, it is by coincidence. What serves as the intentional value determines which is which.

An opinion is never put forth with the intention of being true. It is either a nonsensical impulse or an attempt to be right. It will be fought for by way of rhetoric rather than reasoning. Any tools of reasoning that it employs will be inverted. For example, one might commit the appeal-to-pity fallacy in order to win the argument rather than avoid it as to not be fallacious in one’s reasoning. All well-reasoned perspectives have, at the very least, the intention of truth. Otherwise, the end is chosen at random by man, all means are justified, and logic is inverted to serve that end if it is used at all.

In summary: rhetoric is the art of debate — i.e. inverting logic to persuade someone to your side, for your ends.

Rhetoric, indeed, has a solipsistic aura to it. It is not motivated by what is good for one and for all, but rather for oneself alone. The gain can be of finances, power, status, or the appearance of virtue, all of which are superficial and, in the end, not good for oneself either. It leaves one alone, imprisoned, on one’s own island.

To reason well, by contrast, one’s only concern should be that which is true is revealed. One must be indifferent to the specifics of the outcome. To be virtuous in one’s faith is to believe that what is true is also good — to not allow one’s own motivations to intervene with that inquiry. To be naive in one’s faith is to put one’s trust in the motivations of man.

One should not even trust one’s own motivations if one cannot first observe them.

To be made in the image and likeness of God means that we have all the power we need within us — to discern deception and to speak and act in favor of what is good for good’s sake. To have the power of God within us is to have the power of Truth within us.

God, goodness, and Truth are the same concepts, dressed differently.

Logic itself is not good or true. It is a tool that we have been given with which we can choose good or evil, true or false. The human will is the only entity that possesses the power of good and evil. We have the conscious ability to use our tools for either at any point. To lack this ability is to be imprisoned.

It should be regarded as good that logic does allow us to follow a perspective or opinion through to its conclusion. In a disagreement between two people, no more than one participant is doing this. Disagreement happens when one person has a more tightly knitted sifter for information than the other, so he can see what is relevant and irrelevant more clearly, thus formulating a more solid basis for a perspective. The one who has not tightened the knitting of his filter jumps to conclusions, perhaps not from sifting at all, but from constructing a viewpoint on the basis of his data. This is the composition fallacy.

As we know, a philosophical argument has three parts: assumption, evidence, conclusion. For a reasonable discussion to occur, it treats the assumption(s) as a foundation for the evidence, and so all participants agree on that foundation. If this is not the case, then the discussion should be about that basis itself before moving forward with evidence. Otherwise, the participants will have different ideas about what constitutes evidence to begin with. This will leave the discussion at a stalemate.

It is that which is not being questioned in the argument that should first be understood.

A spiritual being is a truth-centered being. To be spiritual is to value truth and goodness above all and to have intended it even if one falls short of it in action.

To mull over a disagreement is to expect that the other understands what you understand. This is a mistake.

Even if you have put forth your position in clear, logical terms, it may not be the case that your message has been received as you intended. Do not expect anyone to understand. Speak simply and authentically, as if to allow your message to flow through you.

If your message is true, then it is not yours to begin with. You are merely the vessel for truth, so take no offense to how it is received. Anticipate that it will be met with great resistance. Surprise about this will cause you much unnecessary anguish, as will anything that you seek to control but cannot.

Understanding human perception more broadly will afford you forgiveness in particular cases.

Understanding that what is true is good will afford you the willingness to investigate assumptions before the evidence.

It is not your job to convert someone’s assumptive basis, for that might entail a deeper spiritual journey that they are yet to embark upon. One can only pursue that journey from their own will. They may have to experience hell before they enter into that darkness.

To disagree with someone may spark a volatile response. He will, as Wittgenstein implies in the quotation above, commit argumentum ad hominem. This is proof enough that there is something deeper that they misunderstand. They are frustrated neither with you nor your argument, but with themselves. If you engage them, you are showing the same incompetency in your own way, whether it be regarding your assumptions, evidence, or the reasons for their disagreeing and an inability to forgive them for that.

To show indifference toward what they say but concern for why they say it is to love them.

Similarly, to lack the ability to release yourself of their struggle reveals a struggle of your own that you must address. To simply present what you have concluded as true, and step away, is to love yourself.

The paths to both heaven and hell are dark. The latter is guided by one’s own senses, which is to say that one abandons oneself and others in an attempt to serve oneself. The former is guided by intuition — i.e. faith that the light at the end is already self-contained, is also something greater of which one is a part, and is therefore also best for all others involved.

Writegenstein #6: Meditations on Perception

Britton William Frost1 Comment

We find certain things we see puzzling because we don’t find the business of seeing puzzling enough.

-Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations 212)

Vision affords us a picture of reality. It needs no context or explanation unless our goal is to understand it, for most things, we merely see, and we don’t understand them. We so often take what we see at face value or, the opposite, infer something from it that is not there, based on conditioned expectations. Since we all possess different modes of perception and judgment and have different conditioning, there are unlimited interpretations of every picture.

To say that what is in our visual frame is the basis of our understanding, a full picture would be necessary — all of what came before, what is happening now both in and out of frame, and what is to come. This is impossible. Our visual field would be overloaded if we had access to everything at once.

It is, rather, the nature of human perception to filter all sense data and extract only what is relevant to the current intention, based on the knowledge and awareness of those objects present. We do not, conversely, see all that is present and construct a viewpoint on that basis. There will be very little construction, if any at all.

We mostly derive the meaning of objects from their uses. We do not define a pencil as a long, cylindrical stick filled with graphite. We define it as a writing utensil. If one had never encountered a pencil, he may not define it as a writing utensil, but perhaps as a stabbing tool.

Indeed, some who do know the intended use of a pencil may still define it as a stabbing tool.

However, if an object had no known utility, and one could not be found, then would it also lack an identity? Usage is an expression of a particular kind of understanding.

Objects that are known to us carry baggage in our minds. We have preconceptions of them.

It is not usage itself, but the totality of collective preconceptions that define a thing in itself.

We see a physical object at the low end of analysis, a concept at the highest end, and usage is somewhere in the middle. We exercise our will not to observe more of an object than we need to. If we have a conception of it already, we in fact need to see very little of it for the purposes of usage or understanding.

Philosophy is a study of concepts. It is also the study of distinctions – such as the one between physical objects, uses, and concepts that I am making right now. A distinction is a kind of concept.

The most common question a philosopher should ask is “what do you mean?”. Understanding meaning implies the understanding of a concept.

Definitions in response to the question “what do you mean?” are often frustratingly pragmatic, for most people think in pragmatic terms as to serve their own ends. This does not satisfy a truth-seeking philosopher, however. Pragmatism reduces to relativism – that we can create our own ends, and that attempts to justifies any means. It is the ends, however, that need questioning. Ends are products of the human will, and the human will alone has the capacity for moral judgment.

We sift through our visual field for relevant concepts. Higher cognitive functioning does so by spreading known concepts across all available objects, scanning them for a match. Lower functioning perception attempts to identify particular objects that the subject is familiar with.

Excluding intuitive knowledge (which is neither pragmatic nor empirical in nature), a wider range of objective knowledge will theoretically give us a larger pool of data from which to realize relevance. However, regardless of how large that pool is, realizing relevance must be founded on something deeper. We do not only sift objects based on what we know, for that would only allow us to apply existing knowledge without providing a basis for learning new concepts.

Whether conscious or unconscious, values provide a basis for action. The concepts that we associate with objects direct us to the relevant path for acting on those values. When the foundation of values is from inclination rather than conscious cultivation, we can merely observe our behaviors. It is not until we catch ourselves in an act that we can notice patterns in those behaviors over time. Then we go ahead correcting the values from the bottom-up. This is to learn life’s lessons the hard way. If we were more introspective, we would give more careful consideration to the values themselves.

Materialists mistake the brain for the input receiver when really it is the eyes and other sense apparatuses that receive input. The associations we make between objects and concepts are conditioned and can therefore be unlearned.

Fluid/creative intelligence is roughly the ability to see beyond the limited range of utility of an object as identified by convention, to virtually unlimited uses, and to be able to apply alternative uses when relevant. This is why tool use was such an important step in our evolution. This takes new forms today with the birth of a new technological device.

A severe lack of fluid intelligence is demonstrated by the creators of a device who intend a singular purpose or category of purposes for that device. They may be as low in fluid intelligence as they are high in computational intelligence. I would bet that there exists a negative correlation here, for the more intelligent one is, the more complexly they see the world. Everything is infinitely simple just as it is infinitely complex, however. This is why an unintelligent person is every bit as likely, perhaps even more so, to be wise.

One can intend a use for a new device, but that is not to say that people will not go about finding new uses for it. Technology itself, with its limited programming, cannot account for the infinite creativity of the human mind.

People who lack fluid intelligence lack foresight – they have to be shown that an idea works before they can see that it would.

However, we all see an object in accordance to its relevance to our existing knowledge and intended purposes.

Whether to see an object as a tool for a defined goal or an unconscious psychological one, such as to preserve the ego, makes no difference. This is still to limit the essence of a thing to a pragmatic conception. Whether or not that conception is in accordance with what is the case depends on how the drive for that goal is founded. The essence of the object can only be realized outside of the pragmatic context set by a subject.

We so often jump to a judgment, not only without thinking about and understanding what we have observed, but without thinking about and understanding how we are observing. Our data will be insufficient in this case, and so will our judgment be a reaction based on preconditioned beliefs and modes of perception.

Truth is not relative, however, insofar as we can observe ourselves and sharpen our perceptive tools.

To believe that truth is relative is to presuppose that improvement is impossible. “Improvement toward what?”, I would ask.

Relativism also presupposes the existence of truth. To claim that truth does not exist is a truth-claim.

Self-awareness is a prerequisite for real objective knowledge. You cannot know others until you know yourself. You cannot understand others until you understand yourself. You cannot love others until you love yourself. This goes for group as well as individual settings.

To be self-aware is to understand your own conditioning. It is your responsibility to to work diligently to peel back those layers so your core may be exposed and so that you may operate without those conditioned restraints. The result is vulnerability which causes many short-term struggles for the benefit of deeper connections, and authenticity which leads to the elimination of superficial connections for the sake of infinite long-term potential in every area on your life.

You have no control over your environment, but only over how you respond to it.

Writegenstein #5: The Grounding of Belief

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“If we have a belief, in certain cases we appeal again and again to certain grounds, and at the same time we risk very little — if it came to risking our lives on the ground of this belief… There are instances where you have a faith — where you say ‘I believe’ — and on the other hand this belief does not rest on the fact on which our ordinary everyday beliefs normally do rest.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lecture I on Religious Belief)

Though Wittgenstein didn’t write explicitly about ethics and moral philosophy, he admitted that the whole business of philosophy was of a moral kind. Statements like the one above make that clear.

He continues from this statement to flesh out the logic of the different “states of mind” that one will possess (or be possessed by) in the case of stating whether or not one believes in Judgment Day versus the case of actually facing judgment directly. These cases, of course, are very different things. In simply stating whether or not one believes in Judgment Day, one is risking nothing. In the face of judgment, however, a matter of speaking the truth could mean a matter of life or death.

One cannot consider this scenario without its psychology. To state beliefs is merely to speak. One’s ego is all that is needed to do this. It is one’s being, however, that acts. Assuming our goal is to become more morally-upstanding beings, we should accept as our task to integrate our ego with our being. Deeper truth of our beliefs is in our action. Speak less, perhaps, observe our actions more, and then speak in accordance with our actions. We may be inclined to stay silent until we correct those actions, for, more often than not, we are not embodying that being we’d hope to be — i.e. the very ground on which our beliefs and statements regarding our beliefs should stand.

Writegenstein #4: The River-bed of Thoughts

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“The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I distinguish between movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift of the bed itself; though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other… And the bank of that river consists partly of hard rock, subject to no alteration or only to an imperceptible one, partly of sand, which now in one place now in another gets washed away, or deposited.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (On Certainty, 97, 99)

This excerpt, of those I have read, best illustrates my affinity with Wittgenstein’s thinking which is likely just as profound as it seems scattered. The analogy of movement of water, the soil underneath, and lack of that on the bank, to the process and changeability of one’s thinking — so clear that I feel no need to explain it much further.

However, I will note that each person might identify with a different part of the river in how they think. Some are as fluid and malleable as the water itself, having virtually no thoughts of their own. Others may, like the river-bed, have much surface malleability and fundamental flux only over medium-term spans of time, but to inevitably give into influence from the turbulent, surface currents — i.e. they are not swayed by superficial fashion but are still strongly influenced by others.

And the fewest, I would suspect, have a standpoint analogous to the bank. These are more secure in their thinking and more objective in their perspective. With nothing more than the occasional crumble of dirt or rock breaking off into the river — pieces that perhaps they could do without — they can securely observe the flow of the river and willfully choose if and when to let those pieces get carried away as not to compromise their foundation.

As per Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous quote, the river is he who speaks of people, the river-bed is he who speaks of events, and the bank is he who speaks of ideas… because only he can.

Writegenstein #3: The Beginning

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“It is difficult to find the beginning. Or better: it is difficult to begin at the beginning. And not try to go further back.”

-Ludwig Wittgenstein (On Certainty, 471)

What, though, IS the beginning?

It is in our nature as spiritual beings to believe, and so it is the case, that all things are on some level connected. This is an intuition we have that coherence matters, and it serves as the basis for all religions. Can we mortals, however, really connect all of the dots?

Of course not. But, this is why we must submit to faith — faith in truth, God, or whatever it is that we regard as ‘the beginning’. The nature of that thing evades us. It must, for it is everything all at once — the 12th House, in astrological terms — and is therefore that of which we are a very small part. It is a logical necessity and is the same thing for all rational/spiritual beings.

To lack fear and acknowledgment of something of this nature is to simply not be in tune with ourselves, others, or reality in the broadest, metaphysical sense. It is to sell ourselves short of something transcendental. Even our rejection of it is a willful choice which we could not make had we not been part of it to begin with.

Writegenstein #1: Does this look right to you?

Britton William FrostLeave a comment

We do not typically think of Wittgenstein as an aesthetic philosopher, but he was. So much of his writing, regardless of the perceived topic, was not strictly about the topic we attribute to it. It was most fundamentally about intuition.

“Does this look right to you?” (Lectures on Aesthetics, 1.)

Things of an aesthetic nature (art, music, wine, etc.) are things whose objective critiques — insofar as those can be made — are founded in intuition. Sometimes that intuition is shared among a group, and sometimes it is not. Nevertheless, we often criticize the validity of the critique itself as often as we criticize the aesthetic object.

Funnily, we seem to reserve “critique of critique” for the greatest thinkers and artists, at least before they’re dead and gone. Wittgenstein himself is no exception. Ironically, it is establishment critique that is most worthy of such criticism but least often receives it, e.g. mainstream journalism that simply parrots whatever cherry-picked information will most easily push along their political agenda.

Critique of what is good and true, however, is an endeavor that is too far removed from the very art, music, or idea in question. This is an act of ego, fueled by preconditioned hate, based on a willful misunderstanding of the object. That ego encompasses one’s identity. That which one hates, one in fact cares about deeply, and that about which one deeply cares, one is.

Wittgenstein wrote on every topic of philosophy, but when you read him closely, it is clear that he was always writing with one intention: to conceptualize ‘the person’. What we are cannot be sufficiently described on material grounds. Our perception sets us apart from other beings as as it does from one another.

What it looks like to me — taking ourselves as aesthetic objects worthy of critique — is that we are things that care about things. Ironically, the less you care about something, the more clearly you will be able to conceptualize it. This is the job of the philosopher. This is why Wittgenstein, not limiting his work to one topic or another but focusing on how to conceptualize each part as an aspect of the grander reality of the human condition, should be regarded as a pure philosopher — one who is indifferent to the outcome as long as that outcome is true.

Writegenstein #2: Philosophy of Psychology 205 (Seeing-As)

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‘How does one play the game: “It could also be this”?

[…] “I see (a) as (b)” might still mean very different things.

Here is a game played by children: they say of a chest, for example, that it is now a house; and thereupon it is interpreted as a house in every detail. A piece of fancy is woven around it.‘

— aphorism 205 of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “Philosophy of Psychology” from Philosophical Investigations

It could be this and I see (a) as (b) point to different ways in which one could interpret a material object. That object alone has limited value, if any at all. In a sense, the material aspects of the object are arbitrary compared to the conceptualization of the object on the whole. What is conceptualized of it, i.e. how it is understood, depends on its place in its environment – what use it is to its environment. When children are playing house, they are playing a game. They see a chest as something to use in a game which mimics the game the child sees its parents playing daily and of which they are a part. They do not see it as something with material, mechanical parts as the builder might see it (that is what it would mean simply to see, though the builder may see the bigger picture as well.) They ask “What can we do with this?” and understand the chest to be a house, having already established, and taken for granted, the rules for what constitutes a house.

It does not end there. Playing the game of house is itself a very sophisticated perceptual process. Our ability to formulate and make use of abstraction is perhaps what separates human perception from the perception of other animals – not in terms of form, importantly, but in terms of degree. A cat, for example, will definitely see the chest as something other than a bundle of wood and nails assembled in a particular way. It will almost certainly see it as a scratching post or a place on which or in which to sit or sleep (depending on whether the chest is open or closed and on how tired the cat is), but the cat lacks the ability to conceptualize the chest as anything more than that with which it is afforded these very basic “cativities”, if you will. The reason for this, from an evolutionary standpoint, is that these cativities are all the cat needs to achieve its potential. So, the cat’s abstraction is of the same sort but of a much lower degree than that of the child. The cat’s abstraction is more like that of an infant’s than the young child’s, for an infant, like the cat, only seeks in objects the fulfillment of very basic needs. The only difference between the cat and the infant is the potential of growth and development.

One still might ask “what objective or quantifiable relation is there between a chest and a house?” One should see now, unless one is blinded by a materialist view of reality, that this question now becomes arbitrary because one cannot speak of perception in this example without qualifying the individual subjects’ understanding of it. Perception as we experience it does not seem to be a mere material process. One does not need to understand anything about brain matter to understand something. In fact, it is that understanding that is indeed the goal. One could say that in the cat’s mind there is very little understanding taking place at all, while in the child’s mind there is no limit, especially since the child’s capability for abstract thought will continue to develop. The child understands much more than the cat does. To understand an object, I should say, is to make an abstraction of it – an abstraction that has utility in the greater context of its environment – to allow one to be successful at a game. To see-as, then, is to understand, and vise versa.