A C A D E M I C Y E A R 2 0 1 3 – 2 0 1 4

E R A S M U S I N S T I T U T E F O R P H I L O S O P H Y A N D

E C O N O M I C S

E R A S M U S U N I V E R S I T Y , R O T T E R D A M

ON ACTION

WITTGENSTEINIAN INVESTIGATION

Oscar Copp ie ters

Research Maste r in Phi losophy and Econo mic

15 January 2014

Wit tgens te in ’ s la ter Phi losophy

Dr. F. H. H. Schae ffe r

Preface

In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein (in)famously introduced a number of

interrelated characteristics that belong to the activity of philosophy. The aim of this essay

is to engage in a philosophical investigation à la Wittgenstein. This implies not only that I

artistically copy his style of doing philosophy, but also that I build upon some of his ideas.

The first section of this essay is hence largely devoted to a recapitulation of Wittgenstein’s

later philosophy. The second section attempts to apply this type of philosophy to

interrelated issues concerning human conduct.

Wittgenstein held that “when philosophizing, it will often prove useful to say to

ourselves: naming something is rather like attaching a name-tag to it.”1 The second

section of the essay is focused on attaching divergent name-tags to two distinguishable

things that do show significant family-resemblances. The one thing can be roughly referred

as to act and/or action; the other as to behave and/or behavior. This philosophical

investigation originates in interrelated suburbs of our language; in a multitude of language-

games that analyze empirical phenomena according to different rules. It resonates with a

host of traditions in academic literature, but is deliberately not constructed in a standard

academic narrative. Rather, it may be an alienating read for the schooled contemporary

academic. It is hoped that this will trigger the reader to consider the touched-upon topics in

a different light.

I am fully aware that the writing-style does not exactly fit within the boundaries of the

rules of the particular language-game I am currently enrolled in. The justification for

embarking on this project despite considerations about academic training, grading,

publishing, word-count, promoting, citations, and so on – is threefold. First; I truly enjoyed

the process of writing it – I (secretly) hope you enjoy reading it. Second; philosophy might

provide fruitful insights when it is enacted as the sketching of landscapes over meandering

journeys. Third; if ever – in my academic career – an opportunity is to come up for drafting

a personal investigation in this format, it is in light of a course that studies the witty

insights of a philosopher who once proclaimed that “if people never did silly things,

nothing intelligent would ever get done.”2 (Hint: this is not a definition of Moses.)

Tenerife, January 2014.

1 Wittgenstein, 1953: p 10, #15

2 Wittgenstein, 1980: p 50

2

Section 1:

1. Language is a host of games. Each game consists of rules that can be

intersubjectively comprehensible. Often, language-games get intertwined and cause

confusion. This creates messiness that impedes intersubjective understanding.

2. What is language? This is – but might not be; that is the question. Whether it is

depends on whether a reader could understand the language-game.

<But what is a language-game?>

3. Language-games can take various forms. In fact, any given language-game

consists of a particular grammatical structure. To learn the language-game is to find

one’s way in the structure; only then can one make sense of the utterances made

within the framework of the language-game.

4. In articulating a language-game to another person for the purpose of teaching, it is

often presented in the form of a chart. In order to grasp the language-game, one can

apply the chart – and say “that this element corresponds to this sign […] in deciding

certain disputed cases”.3

Henceforth, the conceptual element under investigation is highlighted by putting it

within brackets to communicate the following: the respective {concept} corresponds

to such-and-such sign in this language-game. As such, the aim is to construct an

instrumental chart that enables grammatical understanding.

5. <When you claim that there are disputed cases, does that mean that a given

element can be claimed by various language-games? Certainly this cannot be the

case?>

Of course this is the case. Consider the worn shoes of a football star; let’s name the

star CR7. The object – {CR7’s shoes} – means something different to different

people. In the language-game of CR7 oneself, the object means: “not worth that

much anymore”. (S)he tosses them out and receives a new pair from his/her

multinational sponsor. Now postulate a kid who grew up in a Brazilian Favela: crazy

about football and dreaming about the day that (s)he may have the same shoes as

his/her favorite player – i.e. CR7. (In fact, this kid from the Favela never had a pair of

football shoes). In the language-game of the kid, the object might mean something in

the trend of: “worth more than any of the other possessions that I have”.

(Ideally, CR7 would donate every used shoe to a favela kid who aspires to have one.

Yet, unfortunately, even CR7 is not likely to play enough games to supply every

desiring favela kid.)

3Wittgenstein, 1953: p 30, #53.

3

6. Now substitute the element (CR7’s shoes) into {freedom}, and substitute the charts

of the language-games (CR7’s life-world vs Favela Kid’s life-world) into ‘Liberal

theoretical framework’ vs ‘Marxist theoretical framework’. Does the meaning of the

element {freedom} not alter when analyzed by means of different charts? What

counts as freedom is dependent on how freedom is conceptualized.

That is, in the same way that {CR7’s shoes} had different meanings in different

language-games, the name-tag {freedom} can also have different meanings in

different language-games – “Liberal theoretical framework” and “Marxist theoretical

framework” being instances of different language-games

7. <So are you a liberal or a Marxist?>

‘Neither, both, or everything in between: that depends on your understanding of the

notions {liberal} and {Marxist}.’

8. By a similar token; whether or not an element can be name-tagged {freedom}

depends on which of these – or any other – language-game we employ. An analyzed

phenomenon (say: the favela-kid who embarks on hard labour works in order to buy

a desired pair of CR7’s shoes) may signify an instance of {freedom} in one

framework, while be a state of {non-freedom} in the other.

9. Relativity of meaning of a name-tagged element is the different functions that

element may embody in the language-games wherein it is embedded. When analyzed

by means of two different charts, one element may be taken to mean different things.

Philosophy is concerned with clearing up the linguistic mess that obstructs our

grammatical understanding; it draws boundaries. Drawing a boundary around {a

concept} and assigning it to a particular language-game makes the concept usable in

that particular language-game.

10. <Is this – or is it not – {an apple}?> you may ask, holding up an apple in your

hand.

‘Yes it is,’ I would answer.

11. You take bite out of the apple, chew on it, swallow it.

<And is this – or is it not – {an apple}?> you ask.

Would I answer that it is {an apple}, despite the fact that it is now missing part of the

object that I denoted as {an apple} before?

(Maybe I’d add that it is {an apple} in a qualitative sense, but in reduced quantitative

format?)

4

12. Let’s consider the questions by using a potential chart of an apple. You hold up

the whole apple and ask: <Is this (1+2+3+...+8+9) – or is it not – {an apple}?>

‘Yes it is.’ I answer.

You take a bite and ask: <And is this (-3+1+2+3+...+8+9) – or is it not – {an

apple}?>

The answer to this second question is dependent on what you consider to be the

proper {composite}4 of what an apple is. A {composite} of an apple is the picture of

an apple that sufficiently fits the grammatical boundaries that are drawn in your

framework of understanding. A {composite} is made up of constituent parts. If the

first picture is {an apple}, then [1, 2, 3, ..., 8, 9] are taken to be the constituent parts

of an {composed apple}. Whether the bitten apple is – or is not – {an apple}, is

dependent on whether (-3+1+2+3+...+8+9) is a sufficient picture of the constituent

parts an apple.

Whether or not an element fits a particular name-tag depends on the relationship

between the whole (‘composite’) and the parts of which the whole is made up (‘parts

to be composed’). These are the boundaries of a grammatical sign. How exact should

they be? Is there a definite condition of exactness (i.e. can you say <this is the

minimal sufficient picture of {an apple}; anything less is not {an apple}>)?

13. The correct answer to the question <Is the visual image of this apple composite,

and what are its constituent parts?> might be “that depends on what you understand

by ‘composite’. (And that, of course, is not an answer to, but a rejection of, the

question.)”5

4 Dutch being my mothertongue, I have more affinity with Wittgenstein’s original

German name-tag for ‘composite’: i.e. ‘zusammengesetzt’. This is translatable in the

Dutch ‘tesamengezet’ or the English ‘puttogether’. It subtlety shows the meaning of a

‘composite’ as multiple parts ‘puttogether’. One way to bring ‘composite’ more

towards its German original, is to alter it into the noun a {composed}. A Something

is a ‘composite’ when it is a {composed Something}. 5 Wittgenstein, 1953: p 27, #47.

5

(What the exact sufficient condition is, is a philosophical question; in real life I

recognize an apple when I see one.)

14. A subsequent problem would arise if you analyze each of the constituent parts.

Because are not each of the constituent parts (e.g. 1) composed of constituent parts

(1=A+B+C+….+Z)? And are not each of the constituent parts of those constituent

parts (e.g. A) composed of constituent parts (A=&+é+”+’+…+à)? And so on, and so

on?

(What is now an ultimate causal explanation? How many language-games should we

consider to explain a phenomenon? When do we ‘know’ whether or not this is such-

and-such ‘composite’? When is my answer – ‘yes this is an apple’ – justified? Is the

choice of which language-game to apply a purely arbitrary one, or are some langue-

games more useful – or perhaps more true – than other language-games?)

15. I am looking at the ocean. The ocean is composed of water. Water is a chemical

compound, composed of molecules (H2O). Each molecule is composed of two

hydrogen atoms covalently bonded to a single oxygen atom. Each atom is composed

of protons, neutrons and electrons, bound together by an electromagnetic force. And

so on.

16. Now consider that you ask me <Is this – or is it not – water?>, signaling towards

the ocean. Do I now need to investigate whether all the theoretically assumed

constituent parts are in the ocean? Or am I justified in answering the question natural

and commonsensical: ‘yes, it is water’.

17. An analysis of one phenomenon can be derived by means of a multitude of

grammatical frameworks of understanding. We could analyze a phenomenon by

means of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, social sciences, philosophy, and-

so-on. It is one thing to attain perfect understanding about a multitude of language-

games: it is another thing to grasp how different language-games relate to one

another.

18. A concept does nothing on its own: it is always embedded in a grammatical

structure of meaning. The linguistic grammar that surrounds the use of a word

contains the role of the word in that grammar. Or put differently; the function of the

word in a framework of understanding is determined by this particular framework of

understanding. Any framework of understanding is a language-game.

19. “For a large class of cases of the employment of the word ‘meaning’ – though

not for all – this word can be explained in the following way: the meaning of a word

is its use in the language.”6

6 Wittgenstein, 1953: p 25, #43.

6

This seems to imply that before one can access the meaning of a word, one needs to

know how to apply the rules that govern the use of a word within a particular

language-game.

20. “And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.”7

Yet this bearer doesn’t need to be an object. In a grammatical structure encoded in

language, the bearer may well be a theoretical construct that does not refer to a

material object. And what about a future theoretical positions that has not yet been

articulated; is it already an object, or need it be created – if the latter: who creates it?

If a bearer is not an object, can it be considered anything more than an imaginary

entity?

21. Let’s recap: ‘The meaning of a word is the use in its sentence. The meaning of a

proposition is the use in its framework of understanding. A constructive grammar

connects propositions into an intersubjectively accessible framework of

understanding. Understanding a claim presupposes being able to frame it within the

framework of understanding wherein the claim is uttered.’

22. And a proposition consists of a meaningful structure of name-tagged concepts.

Propositions build a theory; such a grammatical framework reaching towards an

understanding of reality. Often are propositions – albeit being the building-blocks of

a theory – implicitly assumed; when one is familiar with the framework of

understanding, the proposition presents itself as self-evident.

23. Propositions can be true, not entirely true, not true at all, and everything in

between. Their truth-ness depends on what they signify in the particular framework

of reference in which they are uttered. The same proposition – <this is {X}> – can be

true in one language-game, while wrong in another language-game.

24. Understanding a language-game is being aware of how the name-tags are used.

Yet in seeking to attain new understanding, one needs to attach new name-tags to

discovered {thing}. Someone might utter the following: ‘I found something new; I

name it concept {X}.’

25. <Yet how do you know it is something new? Maybe somebody else already

discovered it and named it {Y}.>

This is perfectly possible, but it would still be justifiable for me to name it {X}; the

reason is that – even though you can recognize Y when approaching it from your

framework of understanding – I do not recognize it as Y from my framework of

understanding. I therefore name it {X}, and {X} – in my framework of understanding

– now denotes the thing that you recognize as {Y} in your framework of

understanding.

7 Wittgenstein, 1953: p 25, #43.

7

26. <But then it seems that you are not talking about the same thing anymore, while it

is the same; why rename {Y} into {X} when they both refer to the same thing?>

You seem to misunderstand me; I never claim that {X} is identical to {Y}; to the

contrary: i.e. it refers to the same thing differently – by you and me – through our

respective frameworks of understanding. If we have different frameworks of

understanding, we might be talking passed each other when referring to the same

thing, because that thing has a different meaning to you than it has to me.

27. “When language-games change, then there is a change in concepts, and with the

concepts the meanings of words change.”8

28. Consider a bottle of wine. Suppose that I – a 25-year old student – do not have

any clue about charted qualities of wine; you, on the other hand, are a renounced

expert on the charted quality of wines – i.e. you master the specific language-game of

a sommelier. Does the particular bottle mean the same to us? Or are we

conceptualizing the object differently?

‘This is a {bottle of wine},’ I proclaim.

<This is not just a bottle of wine,> you respond, <this, is a {Viña Acentejo}.>

‘So what?’ I wonder.

29. The connoisseur might be inclined to convince the student that the object is not

just a bottle of wine, and instructs him/her into the grammar of wines. The student

eventually embarks on a course that teaches him the variety of families of wines;

such-and-such grapes, such-and-such maturing process, such-and-such type of wood

used in the barrels, and so on. The student develops the sense of taste to distinguish

different types of wines, and can even classify the wines of particular families

according to quality.

After the course, the teacher asks the student: <now; how do you recognize this

object?>

‘As a bottle of wine.’

(The student might add: ‘I recognize that different wines exists and can be charted,

but – not only does this merely taste like an ordinary wine – I actually just want to

drink my drink on before I hit the nightclub and am not that concerned with the

quality.’)

30. Frameworks of understanding are only relevant for those who are interested in the

subtleties that they introduce in our language. One might not be interested in

attaining such-and-such understanding.

31. One can derive such-and-such understanding of the use of a word by learning and

‘mastering the technique’ of how a word is used. Yet inevitably: knowing one

8 Wittgenstein, 1969: #65

8

language-game to analyze a phenomenon is but a limited picture of reality if other

language-games would understand and name that phenomenon differently. Or in

other words: “here we must be on our guard against thinking that there is some

totality of conditions, corresponding to the nature of each case (for example, for a

person’s walking) so that, as it were, he could not but walk if they were all

fulfilled.”9

32. Language-games present us with rules that function as signposts: a framework of

understanding trains us to react in a particular way to a particular sign. Theories are

language-games. But also more mundane grammatical frameworks exist: culture – as,

e.g., articulated through television commercials – is a language-game, a democratic

system is a language-game, an economic system is a language-game, MTV-clips to

which youth mirrors itself is a language-game, and so on. Language-games induce us

to interact with the world in a particular manner. Yet to be trained to follow a rule

doesn’t mean one is forced to follow that rule, even when it is custom to do so.

(And what if rules collide?)

33. A language-game is something like a yard-stick; it is employed to compare the

possible meaning of a phenomenon vis-à-vis the meaning in another language-game.

If you want to challenge the predominant meaning – firmly rusted in commonsensical

understanding –, one needs to introduce a comprehensive framework of

understanding that is able to challenge the predominant language-game.

34. “But, surely you can see…!”10

is an exclamation that shows the relativity of

understanding that one can derive by means of a multitude of frameworks of

understanding. It is only when I am fine-tuned to the system of rules wherein you

utter the claim that ‘I should surely see this particular understanding!’

35. "’I know’ often means: I have the proper grounds for my statement. So if the

other person is acquainted with the language-game, he would admit that I know.”11

36. There is no ‘objectivity’, only a gradual spectrum of intersubjectivity within

particular language-games. ‘Closely accessing Truth’ can at best signify: ‘having the

proper grounds for my final claims within the grammatical framework of

understanding.’

(“Let me recall the situation where Wittgenstein was raving on about something and

one of his students asked: ‘but is it the Truth?’. Wittgenstein answered: ‘well it’s true

enough!’ And this means a great divide has been crossed when you can say that;

because it means that you can understand now that you are no longer a fairy in a

Platonic Superworld, but that you are actually a monkey with a brain full of mush,

9 Wittgenstein, 1953: p 80, # 183

10 Wittgenstein, 1953: p 93, # 231

11 Wittgenstein, 1969: #18

9

trying to sort out what is right in front of you. ‘True enough’ is what we should

probably rest with.”)12

37. <If you believe that your country is occupied to subtract natural resources for

commercial institutions; how would you name the individuals occupying your nation-

state? Invaders? Or ambassadors of democracy?>

I would name-tag them invaders. But this depend how I conceptualize them; whether

or not I believe that and so on. The underlying question then seems to be: what

description of those individuals is true enough for them to deserve this name-tag?

(So, actually, I could name them both invaders and ambassadors of democracy; if I

consider both grammatical frameworks to be true enough?)

38. “Two metaphors dominate the theory of voluntary interchange among actors

each acting with exclusive concern for his own self-interest. The first is that of the

invisible hand. […] The other commanding metaphor is the prisoner’s dilemma”13

A relevant phenomenon can be analyzed by applying either one of the above

metaphors: this shows grammatical relativity of understanding. Even if one fully

understands how to apply the respective grammatical frameworks, how much can one

know? What’s its relation to Truth? Is our understanding exhaustive? Is it exact?

How exact need our understanding be for it to count as knowledge?

(What if we relax the assumption that each actor acts with exclusive concern of one’s

own self-interest; how much understanding do the two metaphors offer then?)

39. So what frameworks of understanding are taught to us? Who decides how we

grammatically conceptualize phenomena? Who or what is the gatekeeper to our

understanding? Does that philosopher-king have knowledge?

(If Marx’ writings would not have induced {historical communism} – whatever that

may entail in your framework of understanding – to materialize; would {Marxism}

be a warranted topic of study?)

12

McKenna, 2013: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoMMNlX6Ny4 13

Lomansky, 2011: p 139

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Section 2:

40. This section attempts to de- and reconstruct grammatical frameworks by means of

which we could conceptualize action and behavior. The aim is to derive a refreshed

intersubjective understanding of action and its relation to behavior.

In this section, {behavior} refers to hard-wired responses that are an effect of causal

mechanisms; {action} refers to conscious experience of autonomous choice on how

to conduct oneself.

41. The following proposition is a customary academic position: <all human conduct

is an automated mechanistic result of neurophysiological processes.>

The main question I raise in this section is roughly the following: ‘why should we

even talk about human conduct in this manner?’ – for that is the way of talking that

causes confusion. Instead, ask yourself: in what sort of case, in what kind of

circumstance, do we say: ‘Now I choose to act such-and-such’?

42. A choice is, arguably, underpinned by deliberated reasons that justify the

particular course of action (argumentative reasons, not mechanistic biophysical

causes).

Yet how deliberate is deliberate? How do I choose what I choose? Why do I choose

such-and-such? What is a sufficient justification for my action?

43. A protagonist of the customary philosophical position might argue the following:

<If you would grasp the causal power of a deterministic framework of understanding,

you would be likely to utter ‘choice is an illusion – everything is automated’. You’d

explain the conscious experience of action as a mere ornament not connected to any

causal mechanisms. Although it seems a decisive knob, which looks as if it could be

used to adjust a great deal in the machine, it is nothing but epiphenomenal decoration.

You might be conscious, but your behavior is automated.>

(“A wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with it is not part of a

mechanism.”)14

44. An interrogating reply could be:

‘So in a deterministic framework of understanding, there is no choice, and hence no

action and only behavior? Although I may consciously experience choice, you claim

that it can be understood as a wheel that is turned, but does not induce anything else

to move with it? Do you imply that ‘all steps are already taken’ means: “I no longer

have any choice.”15

Or what do you mean?’

14

Wittgenstein, 1953: p 10, # 271 15

Wittgenstein, 1953: p 91, # 219

11

45. Let’s take a step back. Before we consider the questions ‘how we make a choice?’

and ‘what it is like to make a choice?’ we should attain an understanding on ‘what it

is like to have a conscious experience?’, because a choice is a conscious experience.

46. Consider the following chart. Each composite part (1, 2, 3, …, 9) is a well-

defined part of the human brain (1-9).

Every time someone claims to experience the color red, brain-scans show the

following picture of the brain, highlighting active brain-parts.

Now imagine that somebody claims to have a unique experience. The brain of the

person in scanned while (s)he claims to have that experience. It shows the charted

picture of a person who is experiencing red.

<You are experiencing the color red>, you tell the person.

‘No, I am not’, (s)he answers you, ‘I know what it is like to experience the color red,

and this is not it.’

Who is correct?

47. Assume that a brilliant person, Jane, would have been locked up in a room for her

whole life. She had only one option: i.e. to investigate the world from a black and

white television monitor. She specializes in neurophysiology and obtains all possible

physical information on what goes on we experience {a rose}, without actually

having had that experience: she knows everything physical about its ‘red color’, ‘its

stingy thorns’, and its ‘distinguished smell’.

Having all that physical understanding, does Jane acquire new understanding when

she is handed a red rose and experiences it for the first time? Would she answer the

question ‘what is in the name of the rose?’ differently now she experienced the rose

consciously?16

16

See Jackson, 1982.

12

48. <You should ask Jane. I do not know what she experiences – what the subjective

character of her experience is. That is like asking how it is like to be a bat that derives

understanding by means of echolocation. I cannot access that experience, so I cannot

know what it is like.>17

49. If Jane does experience something unique, then it can be conceptualized as

{qualia}.18

Jane’s qualia experience –in this case: the first smell, touch and sight of a

particular red rose – can be name-tagged {beetle}.19

The issue at hand is: how does the beetle appear as Jane’s experience. Is the beetle a

composite, and what are its constituent parts? If it is a wheel, then what induced it to

turn: is the beetle anything more than the outcome of mechanisms? If you and I both

see, touch and smell that rose, is our beetle the same? How can we know if I can’t

access your beetle and you cannot access mine – and thus we cannot compare? (What

is a sufficient yardstick for comparison?)

50. Anthon goes for a field-trip in the Amazon. He experiences a flower that was

unknown to him. He name-tags it {DragonBlood}. In fact, the flower has not been

experience by anyone but one other person, a botanist named Peter. Peter name-

tagged the flower {SwedishPrincess} when he experienced it, because it belongs to a

family of flowers with significant leave-structure that are all named after royalty.

Now: if Anthon would explain {DragonBlood} to Peter, would he recognize it as

{SwedishPrincess}?

<That depends on whether Peter can sufficiently understand Anthon’s grammar.>

51. Ok. Assume that Anthon’s depiction of {DragonBlood} is extremely developed,

and involves a detailed account of the leave-structure. Given that Peter had never

experienced that breed of flower, could he still recognize it as being part of a family

of flowers that are named after royalty because of its leave-structure?

<You should ask Peter after Anthon’s depiction… I cannot know how it would be

like to have that experience. I am not even a botanist!>

52. But whether or not Peter can understand Anthon: Anthon needs to get the beetle

out of his inner experience and articulated into the world. That is why we need

language and grammatical frameworks. To attain mutual understanding that is

17

See Nagel, 1974 18

“Qualia are those properties of experiences or of whole persons by which we are

able to classify experiences according to ‘what they are like’ — what it is like to

smell roasting coffee beans, for example” (Kirk, 2012). 19

Wittgenstein uses the metaphor of a beetle (in/out a box) towards the end of a

section that commentators coined ‘private-language argument’. The upshot of it

seems to be that an utterance can be meaningful only if it is possible “in principle to

subject it to public standards and criteria of correctness” (Bilitsky & Matar, 2011).

The private-language argument starts at #243 (Wittgenstein, 1953: p 95); one can

find the metaphor of beetle at #293 (Ibid.: p 106).

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intersubjectively accessible. However qualia might get in – whatever the causal

mechanism involved –, and however it might be subjectively experienced: the beetle

needs to get out by articulation.

53. The upshot for our discussion on action is the following: if an action is to be

justified by deliberated reasons, then it is vital that those reasons could be articulated

in a manner that is intersubjectively accessible (especially if that action affects

others). Any conduct that cannot be publically justified in this manner, cannot be

anything else than behavior. But what counts as a sufficient justification?

54. The confusion between {automated behavior} and {conscious action} – this is a

grammatical collision that our intersubjective understanding faces “by running up

against the limits of language.”20

Yet in return for cleaning up the mountain of

collided frameworks of understanding, we might derive at a slippery ice where we are

unable to hold stable ground: we have to recognize that it is simply not

knowledgeable whether one acts or behaves – not from a third-person perspective,

nor after fierce introspection.

(But is it is not a shame to know that we do not know. Some might claim that this is

the highest flight of human wisdom.)

55. ‘You say that neither you nor I can know whether I am {acting} or {behaving}.

I recognize your earlier claim – that one cannot know what it is like to be another

person – to be true enough.

Yet I do know what it is like to be me! And I am taking action – at least it is like as if

I am free to act, and as if I deliberately choose to engage in this conversation, for

instance. That is what it is like to be me.

Moreover, I value this ability to make deliberate choices myself. It is, to a great

extent, what defines me as a human being – and we should nurture this natural ability

instead of explaining it away.’

56. You are making two distinct claims. Let’s analyze them separately from their

respective grammatical framework.

The first claim is phenomological and refers to your experience. I grant you that you

experience {conscious action} from a direct framework of understanding. Yet surely

the reader is likely to have some notions of the mechanistic laws of the natural

sciences. A framework of understanding has been developed that challenges the idea

that this {conscious experience of action} is anything more than the mechanistic

interactions. From their grammatical point of view, mechanisms in the brain – that

interact through the body with the external world – give rise to the ornamental

illusion that you make a choice that is entirely of your own making; while your

conduct is determined indirectly of your consciousness. Those mechanisms precede

your choice, and determine both your choice and your experience of choosing. It is

20

Wittgenstein, 1953: p 54, # 199.

14

claimed that you behave as if you act. (That is their claim; in my opinion it is not a

question of truth whether the one or the other conceptualization of the phenomenon is

correct; it is a question of grammatical understanding.)

The second claim is normative and refers to the value of the freedom to choose

between alternatives in everyday life. How the ability to choose comes about (or

whether {choice} exists tout court) is a different issue than the normative valuation

of having a choice. Even when we are internally hard-wired to behave such-and-

such, we still have the experience of acting such-and-such. <How do we come to

behave?> is a different question than ‘how should I act?’.

Yet this does not imply that the web of normative questions is entirely analytically

disjoint from the web of phenomenological frameworks. (‘In normative issues, I do

believe it is safest to assume that I can make decisions; I do not like the idea of

mechanisms taking decisions for me, and triggering an illusionary Matrix of

experience into my consciousness. I would like to have as autonomous as an

existence is possible, not a fixed essence of natural laws. If we fail to settle the truth

on whether I am free or determined, I choose to be free.’)

57. But – given that you are a trained actor of introspection – you must also recognize

that your state of mind is influenced by those privileged encounters that your life has

thrown at you: customs like self-reflection, public institutions like education, beliefs

like freedom, and other contextual factors like the news on TV and in newspapers,

the Facebook-pictures you like, and the Tweets that are prevalent, and so on. How

much freedom do you have if even <your {autonomous} desires and talents are

causal products of {external circumstances} x {internal hard-wire}>?

(Even if one would have the phenomenological experience of action, that action is

necessarily limited those instances that one – or has not – experienced in life.)

58. Consider the following metaphor: a human has a cord of finite longitude around

his/her body that (s)he cannot remove from his/her body. The cord is tied to a pole

that cannot be dislodged. It is this human’s condition to swirl around the pole for as

much as the cord grants him/her. Yet (s)he exclaims: “I am free!”.

Do you believe him/her?

How much does (s)he differ from you?

59. “Even if it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, go out and sweep streets like

Michelangelo painted pictures; sweep streets like Handel and Beethoven composed

music; sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry; sweep streets so well that all the

host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, ‘Here lived a great street

sweeper who swept his job well.’.”21

(One wonders whether MLK read Camus’ Sisyphus.)

21

Martin Luther King (1968), addressing high school students in Philadelphia.

15

60. <I am thrown into this world. I had no option to not have grown up in the

particular cultural embeddedness – if I had any options, they were at least limited. So

the potential framework of understanding I can apply to analyze my current situation

is limited: I do not have notion of all possible grammatical instruments of analysis.

My choice is inevitably limited by my understanding. Am I – or am I not – free?>

‘Yes, you are boundedly free.’

<How paradoxical can it be?>

61. ‘Given that you inevitably bound to those circumstances that life throws at you,

consider the following characterization. If following a rule is a custom, and one is

automatically following that rule; then one is behaving. If one deliberately is – or is

not – following that customary rule, one is acting.’

<So my choice of action is limited? I can only choice between a) complying to, and

b) defying established behavioral customs?>

‘Or you could alter norms before internalizing them. Or you could choose your role-

models, choosing to opt for some behavioral norms, while rejecting others. And so

on.’

(To have autonomy is to consider the choice of going against the grain, and to be able

to justify that choice.)

62. ‘If a conduct was first consciously chosen, and then becomes a trait of character,

can it not be habituated action?’

<I guess it could: but how does this habituated action differ from behavior?”>

‘Behavior is never consciously chosen.’

63. <So to act deliberately is to concentrate your attentions on reasons for acting?

Behavior is just behaving without concentrating attention on reasons for behaving?>

‘It is not so clear-cut. What does ‘concentrate attention on reasons for conduct’

entail? Suppose I am playing an official football-game in rainy weather. The game, a

local derby with vocal supporter-clans, has been quite fierce, with dangerous tackles

flying in on players from both sides (somebody hit my ankle real bad before, and it is

still hurting) - tackles that have often not been punished by the referee.

All of the sudden, the ball is in between me and a player from the other team – a 50-

50 challenge. In a split-second I decide to go in for a tackle. I break the other

player’s leg…’

‘.. I am – or am I not? – responsible for the breaking of the leg. The ability to make a

deliberate choice implies a notion of {responsibility} for one’s actions. But I

decided in a split-second, so I did not really concentrate all my attention on reasons

for acting. In retrospect, I claim to have had the intention to win the ball – although I

must confess there was always the change I’d hurt the other player. But the game has

been full of hard challenges (including one that really hurt my ankle), so if I did not

go in for this challenge, I would not understand the particular nature of this game.

My action was definitely shaped – yet not per se determined – by the particular

16

context of the game. Yes, my understanding of the game influenced my conduct –

but does that necessary imply that my subsequent action was justified?’

64. <So if you made a decision that had as a consequence that you break someone

else’s leg – even if you intentionally went for the ball – then you are responsible for

your action. But at the same time, that tackle was embedded in a particular

framework of understanding that preceded the moment, and induced you to go in

hard on the challenge. In this sense, the tackle was behavioral disposition, induced by

a variety of circumstances prior to the challenge. If the tackle was behavior, then you

are not responsible; in fact, the responsibility might have been dispersed over a

variety of circumstances: the fact that it was a derby, fierce supporters on both sides

heightening the tension, hard challenges from minute one that have not been

punished by the referee, the hurting of your ankle, the occurrence of the 50-50

challenge that engaged both you and the other player, the misty rain – making the

field blurrily & slippery –, and so on. You could not have considered all these factors,

which are likely to have had some influence over the tackle and its consequences, in

one split-second. You could not have focused all your attention on all these factors in

merely one split-second. So: your tackle was behavior.>

‘True – but also untrue: conceptualizing behavior is only a partial picture, derived

from a particular framework of understanding. Another grammatical structure would

shed a different light on the issue.’

65. {Action} and {behavior} are ideal conceptions at the outer ends of a gradual

spectrum; depending on the language-game by means of which we understand

particular human conduct, that tackle – or any other possible example of human

conduct – can be placed anywhere on the spectrum.

66. <Does action have a significant boundary, or can I use the name-tag {action}

without a fixed meaning? Doesn’t a whole range of different phenomena share a

family-resemblance with that which we experience as {action}? Is all this {action}:

walking in the park, recognizing a rose and taking it, signing a contract, buying now

popular clothes, computing X-ray vision, kicking a ball, and so on.>

‘It could all be action; but it could all be behavior.’

67. <This is too confusing. I need clarity. I therefore maintain that there is no such

thing as {action} once it is analyzed from a behavioral language-game. Not only are

our actions, also our very experiences of acting are wholly determined by causal

mechanisms.>

(Here, brain-states are taken to explain our ornamental experience of acting)

68. So then you would hold that one language-game can sufficiently explain a

phenomenon that is understood in the first place by reference to another language-

game. Yet I beg to disagree: a behavioral language-game approaches the given

17

phenomenon from another perspective – experiencing the phenomenon is something

different than analyzing it afterwards: the phenomenon derives a different meaning.

When comparing action and behavior, we are talking about the same phenomenon

that represents different functions within their respective frameworks of

understanding.

69. <Surely one thing cannot be two things.>

Certainly not and certainly yes; that depends on your definition of {to be}. It remains

{to be} the same (singular, one) phenomenon, but it {is} something different when its

meaning is analyzed employing (two) different grammatical charts. Here, I could

utter the claim that “our investigation is directed not towards phenomena, but rather,

as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena.”22

(Seeking to understand the relations between divergent meanings – each derived from

divergent grammatical framework – to one single phenomenon is what may be called

{analyzing}.)

70. <If I grant you that a phenomenon may mean two different things in different

frameworks of understanding, then surely one framework must have primacy over the

other. Or put differently; surely one meaning precedes and explains the meaning of

the other framework.>

I am afraid you are missing the point, but I may grant you the claim nevertheless.

Sometimes we need to take things at face value. Do not think too much; just be. At

times “we must stick to matters of everyday though, and not to get on the wrong track

where it seems we have to describe extreme subtleties.”23

Even if all conscious

deliberation that seems to characterize action is – in a particular language-game –

reducible to physical brain-states mechanistically responding to external stimuli; it is

not how we experience it in another language-game.

71. “Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.”24

Primary experience precedes third-person analysis; even if this third-person

perspective is derived through introspection.

72. Forms of life precede grammar of understanding: although a conscious action

could be understood as behavior, the form of life occurs as it does: people seem to

have the experience that they have the conscious ability to affect ones life. The

human condition may well be that a person consciously deliberates his/her actions as

if (s)he is free.

22

Wittgenstein, 1953: p 47, #90 23

Wittgenstein, 1953: p 51, #106 24

Kierkegaard, 1996 (1843): p 161

18

73. “ ‘How am I able to follow a rule?’ If this is not a question about causes, then it

is about the justification for my acting in this way in complying with the rule. Once I

have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned.

Then I am inclined to say: ‘This is simply what I do.’ ”25

74. ‘No Mr. Wittgenstein. In certain circumstances, I demand a justification for your

some of your conduct! You can have the experience of choosing whether or not you

follow a rule. And, at times, you should aim to understand the implications of your

choice – you need to get acquainted with the social language-game. For your action

may affect me, you see – &, by same token, my choices might affect you. This world

is as much mine as it is yours. Ergo, you should aim to justify those choices that

affect others; our social system requires a language-game that addresses

responsibilities.’

(Now: does this make me a {Marxist} or a {Liberal}?)26

Bibliography

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of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =

<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/wittgenstein/>.

Jackson, F. (1982) "Epiphenomenal qualia", The Philosophical Quarterly, 32 (127):

127-136.

Kierkegaard, S. (1996) Papers and Journals, London: Penguin.

Kirk, Robert, "Zombies", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2012

Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =

<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/zombies/>.

Lomasky, L. E. (2011) "Liberty after Lehman brothers", Social Philosophy and

Policy, 28 (02): 135-165.

McKenna, T. (Jul 7, 2013) "Mckenna discusses if reality is real ",

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoMMNlX6Ny4>

Nagel, T. (1974) "What is it like to be a bat?", The philosophical review, 83 (4): 435-

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Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophical Investigations, fourth edition ed. Oxford, UK,

Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

--- (1969) On Certainty, Cambridge, Blackwell.

--- (1980) Culture and Value, Oxford: Blackwell.

25

Wittgenstein, 1953: p 91, #217 26

That depends on what you understand by the {conceptual composites}. (And that,

of course, might not be an answer to, but a rejection of, the question.)