Philosophy is nothing but personal ideology/propaganda

, but solipsism is just something that I don't like the idea of. It's not something that I know how to refute. Ho hum.

The cluster of arguments - generally referred to as "the private language argument" - that we find in the Investigations against this assumption effectively administers the coup de grâce to both Cartesian dualism and solipsism. (I. § 202; 242-315).

Wittgenstein offers a comprehensive critique of this view. He attacks the notion that experience is necessarily private. His arguments against this are complex, if highly compressed and rather oracular. (For more detailed accounts, cf. Kenny, A., Malcolm, N. (b), Vohra, A.).

Wittgenstein distinguishes two senses of the word "private" as it is normally used: privacy of knowledge and privacy of possession. Something is private to me in the first sense if only I can know it; it is private to me in the second sense if only I can have it. Thus the thesis that experience is necessarily private can mean one of two things, which are not always discriminated from each other with sufficient care: (a) only I can know my experiences or (b) only I can have my experiences. Wittgenstein argues that the first of these is false and the second is true in a sense that does not make experience necessarily private, as follows:

Under (a), if we take pain as an experiential exemplar, we find that the assertion "Only I can know my pains" is a conjunction of two separate theses: (i) I (can) know that I am in pain when I am in pain and (ii) other people cannot know that I am in pain when I am in pain. Thesis (i) is, literally, nonsense: it cannot be meaningfully asserted of me that I know that I am in pain. Wittgenstein's point here is not that I do not know that I am in pain when I am in pain, but rather that the word "know" cannot be significantly employed in this way. (Investigations, I. § 246; II. xi. p. 222). This is because the verbal locution "I am in pain" is usually (though not invariably) an expression of pain - as part of acquired pain-behavior it is a linguistic substitute for such natural expressions of pain as groaning. (I. § 244). For this reason it cannot be governed by an epistemic operator. The prepositional function "I know that x" does not yield a meaningful proposition if the variable is replaced by an expression of pain, linguistic or otherwise. Thus to say that others learn of my pains only from my behavior is misleading, because it suggests that I learn of them otherwise, whereas I don't learn of them at all - I have them. (I. § 246).

Thesis (ii) - other people cannot know that I am in pain when I am in pain - is false. If we take the word "know" is as it is normally used, then it is true to say that other people can and very frequently do know when I am in pain. Indeed, in cases where the pain is extreme, it is often impossible to prevent others from knowing this even when one wishes to do so. Thus, in certain circumstances, it would not be unusual to hear it remarked of someone, for example, that "a moan of pain escaped him" - indicating that despite his efforts, he could not but manifest his pain to others. It thus transpires that neither thesis (i) nor (ii) is true.

If we turn to (b), we find that "Only I can have my pains" expresses a truth, but it is a truth that is grammatical rather than ontological. It draws our attention to the grammatical connection between the personal pronoun "I" and the possessive "my." However, it tells us nothing specifically about pains or other experiences, for it remains true if we replace the word "pains" with many other plural nouns (e.g. "Only I can have my blushes"). Another person can have the same pain as me. If our pains have the same phenomenal characteristics and corresponding locations, we will quite correctly be said to have "the same pain." This is what the expression "the same pain" means. Another person, however, cannot have my pains. My pains are the ones that, if they are expressed at all, are expressed by me. But by exactly the same (grammatical) token, another person cannot have my blushes, sneezes, frowns, fears, and so forth., and none of this can be taken as adding to our stockpile of metaphysical truths. It is true that I may deliberately and successfully keep an experience to myself, in which case that particular experience might be said to be private to me. But I might do this by articulating it in a language that those with whom I was conversing do not understand. There is clearly nothing occult or mysterious about this kind of privacy. (Investigations, II. xi, p. 222). Similarly, experience that I do not or cannot keep to myself is not private. In short, some experiences are private and some are not. Even though some experiences are private in this sense, it does not follow that all experiences could be private. As Wittgenstein points out, "What sometimes happens could always happen" is a fallacy. It does not follow from the fact that some orders are not obeyed that all orders might never be obeyed. For in that case the concept "order" would become incapable of instantiation and would lose its significance. (I. § 345).

With the belief in the essential privacy of experience eliminated as false, the last presupposition underlying solipsism is removed and solipsism is shown as foundationless, in theory and in fact. One might even say, solipsism is necessarily foundationless, for to make an appeal to logical rules or empirical evidence the solipsist would implicitly have to affirm the very thing that he purportedly refuses to believe: the reality of intersubjectively valid criteria and a public, extra-mental world. There is a temptation to say that solipsism is a false philosophical theory, but this is not quite strong or accurate enough. ]As a theory, it is incoherent. What makes it incoherent, above all else, is that the solipsist requires a language (that is a sign-system) to think or to affirm his solipsistic thoughts at all. Given this, it is scarcely surprising that those philosophers who accept the Cartesian premises that make solipsism apparently plausible, if not inescapable, have also invariably assumed that language-usage is itself essentially private. The cluster of arguments - generally referred to as "the private language argument" - that we find in the Investigations against this assumption effectively administers the coup de grâce to both Cartesian dualism and solipsism. (I. § 202; 242-315). Language is an irreducibly public form of life that is encountered in specifically social contexts. Each natural language-system contains an indefinitely large number of "language-games," governed by rules that, though conventional, are not arbitrary personal fiats. The meaning of a word is its (publicly accessible) use in a language. To question, argue, or doubt is to utilize language in a particular way. It is to play a particular kind of public language-game. The proposition "I am the only mind that exists" makes sense only to the extent that it is expressed in a public language, and the existence of such language itself implies the existence of a social context. Such a context exists for the hypothetical last survivor of a nuclear holocaust, but not for the solipsist. A non-linguistic solipsism is unthinkable and a thinkable solipsism is necessarily linguistic. Solipsism therefore presupposes the very thing that it seeks to deny. That solipsistic thoughts are thinkable in the first instance implies the existence of the public, shared, intersubjective world that they purport to call into question.

"solipsism" is indeed perverse within an act of communication such as this !

As for "unobserved reality" this I suggest is a mental "sleight of hand". Its another version of the celebrated "tree in the forest" game. Those who say there is an "unobserved tree" falling somewhere forget that they are seeing that tree in their "minds eye".....think about it ! (along with Occams razor).

For me, the easiest way "in" to nondualism is to imagine the "perceptions" of a nonhuman species such as birds. Irrespective of language use, would "trees exist" for birds or only the relationship of "perchness" ?
Indeed no separation would be made beteween any "object" providing such "perchness" (roofs, areals, telephone wires etc). By expolation, if "worlds" are species specific with respect to their perceptual apparatus and needs, there can be no ultimate "reality".

sorry solipsism ends in meaninglessness as does all philosophy
your god wittgenstien showed this

"solipsism" is indeed perverse within an act of communication such as this !

Oh dear, instead of the fly spray I might have to use a rolled up paper on which the first point in my last post was written:

Quote:

"solipsism" is indeed perverse within an act of communication such as this !

...maybe somebody should explain to him that my self-quote was a potted version of his cut'n paste Wittgenstein...but it won't be me !

Frescos continual expousing of his views in the face of their demonstrated meaninglessness- with out any attempt to rebut dean or wittgenstien - shows that his philosophy is nothing but unbudgable ideology/psychology- thus demonstrating the premise of this thread very nicely

if there is no objective reality and all reality is just mediated through language then
then what reality was kuhn talking about in his book "the structure of the scientific revolution" where all those examples he gave objective reality/truth or just a game of language
if there is no objective reality that must apply to kuhns arguments/ conclusion as well
so your adopting his point must rest on your own ideolgy/language and not on any objective reality/truth-in which case kuhn is just as good as his refuters for if there is no objective reality then all must be just arbitary language games - thus you support deans claim that all philosophy is ideology based upon ones psychology

But your form of negative nihilism destroys itself. Your position in particular suggests a glaring psychological pressure. I've nothing against psychological pressures; they are what drive us to great accomplishments. It's just that your's participates in your very argument as a contradiction. I've nothing against contradiction itself, either (reality is more complex and subtle than it is symmetrical and elegant) . But I do think that your thesis requires attention to yours.

I must say that if there is one truly intellectual person here it is Fresco. He has done us the great favor of having read extensively and he has tracked down many relevant links for us to exploit

yet time and time again he refuses to address deans and my demonstrations that he and all philosophy ends in meaninglessness
when asked to reply to a criticism of his views he just avoids doing so

agrote,

The Hegelian "trick" is to move on from antithesis to synthesis. Any talented undergraduate learns this as part of the format of "the critical essay". And at the same time this dialectical groundwork is being laid down in a receptive mind, so too is a potential blueprint for the understanding of general nondualistic principles.

The objection to your view is very very simple. If everythign ends in meaningless, then whatever you, dean or wittgentein has to say must also end in meaninglessness. If you are right, then you are talking a load of nonsense (as is everyone on the planet). Right?

right
but then all that meaninglessness will end in meaninglessness to

dont forget i showed maths and science ends in meaninglessness-but it still works