I’m not clear how you’re using “form of life” here and how it contrasts with “substance.” I take form of life to be an underlying commonality among speakers that allows consistency of meaning when we use words. As in, if a lion could speak, we wouldn’t understand it because it’s biology, history, sociology, shared practices, etc are so distinct we don’t form a common usage.
It’s only arguably metaphysical to the extent it says there is an inherent difference among certain groups of speakers (which could even apply to human groups (in more limited instances and to lesser degrees than a lion obviously), for example, the religiuos versus scientists, rain forest tribes versus modern societies, etc, but it never attempts to say what that difference is. It just admits we can’t meaningfully use words with a speaker whose usage is so unrelated to another speaker.
It has certain AI implications (as to whether ChatGPT is the lion here), but I don’t follow your concern otherwise with the form of life issue.
We might say that its the “average” of this very doing. We “do” life together and this group has a “blurry average” tendency that is distinguishable from that group over there.
To be clear, I think we agree. I just want to emphasize how visceral these “forms” are. In the US, millions of cars “really are” moving toward their headlights on the right side of the road and not the left. It’s not “inside mind stuff.”
I’m with you. I don’t love the word “metaphysical.” But that’s a side-issue. Philosophy is strongest at its most radical. If philosopher so-and-so makes easy and immediate sense to you, that’s not a good sign. The strong philosophers are disturbing. This does not mean that an obscure text is necessarily worth the investment. A good philosopher really really wants to be understood, at least by an ideal audience. But the more they “see around” what Everybody Knows, they less they make sense to this Everybody.
Physics is not “easier.” But it proves itself to the sense organs, to the needs of meat. I have to understand a difficult philosopher to respect his or her book. I don’t need to understand the theory that allows for microwaves or airplanes. I respect “whatever the hell” can prove itself through its power in the sensory-affective world.
So “strong philosophers” will always be dismissible as obscure, long-winded fools. I think we should embrace this and learn from it. It helps show the huge gap between science proper as a theory that enables technology and “just more philosophy” that is pragmatically helpless but of great spiritual interest to people as one “cosmic vision” among others to choose from.
I suggest that “science proper” be understood in terms of potent technology. It’s this “miracle working” technology that speaks to our mammalian “power is knowledge” root-epistemology. Philosophy, on the other hand, is a helpless “flower” next to these steel jaws.
I rate Wittgenstein highly, but I basically agree with you that every thinker has a specified perspective. I don’t like “metaphysics” as a term and I think “post-truth” philosophy is legit. But I grant that philosophers try to emit chains of signs of enduring value for this or that ideal audience. I think this generalization covers “post-truth” philosophy without being biased to old-fashioned mirror-philosophy or representationalism.
In phenomenology, we get the concept of “formal indications.” So that is pointing rather than mirroring. But invention is also an alternative to mirroring. Basically the “effect” of Wittgenstein’s work need not be grasped as analogous to a map of the terrain that promises a treasure at location X. I’d even suggest that we look at the total effect of a total persona. The “life” of Wittgenstein “signifies” as a possibility of human personality. To simply witness new personalities is — seems to me — to have one’s sense of the world enlarged. In my view, strong personalities don’t imitate others exactly but incorporate some of their perceived virtues that make sense in a later context that has its own singular constraints.
I’m saying that we can optionally play with seeing the work of a great philosopher as a complex painting or work of music. Perhaps it has a “representational” tendency. Perhaps not. Nietzsche, for instance, is hard to appropriate as a man of a single unambiguous doctrine. And I’d even say that this is a bad way to approach his work. We might instead ( for instance) approach him as we approach Hamlet. And we might also appropriate Shakespeare as a great philosopher, whose work is especially indirect.
I sort-of agree with what you’re saying, but I would not be so dismissive of philosophy. Science has proven its own worth, many times. But it is equally clear that it is not the best tool for all jobs. Philosophy still bears (some of) that burden. But I see no point in a binary science vs. philosophy argument.
Perhaps you misread me on this particular point. I love philosophy. I am trying to point out what I take to be a good demarcation. This is itself a philosophical gesture.
Sorry, you appeared to characterise philosophy as a poor and weak alternative to science. I’m perhaps too sensitive to the slightest whiff of sciencism. My bad, as our transatlantic cousins say.
This is very problematic and ambiguous. Therefore it may be a significant misinterpretation of Wittgenstein.
Each instance of use is particular, under particular circumstances, so there is not a specific “how we publicly use it”, except as a faulty conclusion of inductive reasoning. Therefore “how we publicly use it” really needs to be interpreted as, the meaning of each instance of use is determined by the subjective will of the user, what is “meant” by the author in that particular case. This puts meaning as something within the author’s head.
Notice the English translations use “use”, not “usage”. Wittgenstein is not saying “meaning is usage”. The latter would indicate the inductive conclusion which you seem to be referring to, the former indicates particular subjective instances of use .
Public confirmation implies that meaning is determined by the audience. “Use” implies that the speaker, as the user of the language, determines the meaning. There is two very distinct contexts for the possibility of meaning, the mind of the speaker (user), and the mind of the hearer. “Meaning is use” implies the former, the mind of the author determines the meaning.
If one is to argue that “public confirmation” is some sort of public agreement, like a conventional interpretation, concerning what the meaning of a specific statement is, then this is completely different from “meaning is use”. That is because it puts meaning on the side of the audience rather than the author, who is the one using the language, in any specified instance.
