Mozhgan Khalili: How Can We Re-establish Our Relationship with the World? (Part Three)

How Can We Re-establish Our Relationship with the World?

Mozhgan Khalili[1]

Part Three:

Modernity and the Severance of Connection with the World

Read Part One here and Part Two here

 

Rupture from the World:

Stanley Cavell^[2], interpreter of Wittgenstein's philosophy, in his book "The World Viewed"^[3], during his particular philosophical reflections, which he carries out by drawing on numerous artistic and literary examples such as painting and film, writes:

"...Previously, what painting sought, beyond a connection to reality, was not to compel the world to reveal itself to us, but on the contrary, it wanted us to appear for the world and reveal ourselves to it. At one point, 'the coming out of our consciousness from the hinge of the world'^[4] placed our mind between 'us' and 'our presence' in the world. As a result, our subjectivity became what is present to us, and individuality became isolation. Previously, the path to believing in reality was through the affirmation of this very endless presence of ourselves!" (WV:22)

According to Cavell, the philosophical problems that, as a result of the event of modernity, led to this separation of human consciousness from the world and placed the modern human mind between him and the world, have led to a form of "skepticism" which, in order to recover itself, has emerged in various forms in the writings of Descartes, Hume,^[5] Kant,^[6] Emerson,^[7] Nietzsche,^[8] Heidegger^[9] and Wittgenstein. (PoH: 245)

On the one hand, the effort to understand ourselves within the world, in a comprehensive, general, and all-encompassing way, emerges above all from within a life of wisdom, "in other words, to have a well-ordered life and society, the primary and foremost concern was the 'good human being' and his existential, economic, cultural, etc. conditions." (H, p. 157) The good human being himself opens his way to the virtue-bestowing ethics suited to him and his form of life. (ibid.) On the other hand, access to this general and comprehensive view has been endangered by the event of modernity and has completely diverted us from the path to attaining wisdom.

The wisdom that has the power to enlighten human beings so they may know themselves; Socratic philosophy, with this very aim, tries to alleviate the deficiencies of life and ultimately restore the health of his nature and teach him that what he must find within himself, he should not seek outside. (ibid., p. 63)

William Rothman^[10], interpreter of Cavell's philosophy, writes that Cavell sees the separation of our consciousness from the world as a result of the event of modernity, like a historical and mythological event such as the Fall in the Bible, which has caused a spiritual, psychological, and political catastrophe in the life of modern man, confronting him with a new kind of consciousness, different from the old and previous one about his human condition. Now, for the 'human being' separated from the world, it is this subjectivity and being-a-subject that exists, not the world that was objectively present to him. And because this being-a-subject exists for him only subjectively, he does not understand the objectivity of this subjectivity; therefore, the degree of his consciousness's separation from this subjectivity and being-a-subject is no less than his consciousness's separation from the world. (Rothman, 2000, p: 64)

The beginning of this event, according to Cavell as Rothman recounts, is founded upon the starting point of modern philosophy and the Cartesian type of doubt, according to which we cannot attain a comprehensive view and a holistic picture of the totality of the world, and see it as it is purely in itself from somewhere outside it, from the perspective of an omniscient knower. To the extent that philosophers after Descartes, including the three famous philosophers Locke, Hume, and Kant, consider our metaphysical conditions and finitude to be a limitation pertaining to the forms of our own experience and an obstacle to understanding "that which is metaphysically beyond reach." ^[11] For philosophers such as Hegel,^[12] Marx,^[13] Kierkegaard^[14] and Nietzsche as well, the totality of the world is beyond reach and our metaphysical limit. It is on this basis that we must conclude that to overcome this situation and gain access beyond this metaphysical limit, a fundamental transformation must occur not only in our consciousness of the world, but also in our understanding of our "form of life." (Ibid, p:175)

Cavell also says of the private language argument and Wittgenstein's purpose in section 258, that the point is not that recording our memories privately is logically impossible, but rather that someone is saying and writing something, yet what they write is not understandable to another; that is, they are expressing a feeling and placing a sign for its expression, but because their criterion and sign does not follow a universally agreed-upon, law-governed pattern, they can never express their personal feelings to anyone with this manner of using signs and recording memories (Cow: 343-354), because they lack a generalized criterion for this recognition. The private language argument refutes the conception of the distinction between mind and object, inner and outer, whose correctness has been wrongly taken for granted as the foundation of cognition and knowledge in mainstream philosophy, just as Rothman explained, the path of this philosophy went astray with modernity, confusing the possibility of attaining a comprehensive view with becoming omniscient and the possibility of standing outside the reality of the world, and deemed it impossible and beyond the reach of human experience.

Wittgenstein, criticizing what became the goal of conventional philosophy after modernity, turning it into a kind of scientific epistemology, says: "They have before their minds the temptation to ask and answer questions in the scientific method, a tendency which is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness." (BB: 18) And as a result of this error, philosophers "construct metaphysical questions that express a confusion about the grammar of concepts and words in the form of a scientific question." (Ibid:35) Whereas the relationship that "man" establishes with the world occurs in the manner of his being and his use of language, and through the set of meaningful grammatical criteria of his language, and cannot be of the type of certain knowledge sought in mainstream philosophy.[15]

Ray Monk writes; Wittgenstein believed that explanation and theory in philosophy are, in a way, linked to the worship of science—in the contemporary era—philosophers, intoxicated by the success of science, have forgotten that there is another kind of understanding. (Monk, 2005, p:68)

According to Hacker's Wittgenstein, we should not theorize in philosophy as we do in science and seek confirmation of our theories and the growth of knowledge. Because science and philosophy are not of the same category. In science, with the theory we construct, we explain and predict events and occurrences, we test our theory against experience, and this work may only bring us closer to the truth. But the task of "philosophy" is to solve and dissolve philosophical problems by clarifying what is meaningful, and this task is prior to experience and is considered the presupposition of the correctness and incorrectness of everything. (Hacker, 1396, p. 11)^[16]

Fogelin^[17] says: the proper and fitting task for philosophy—in fact its entire task—is to compel us to abandon our previous false views. To show their falsity and how we can become captive to false pictures through an inappropriate orientation, Wittgenstein uses many similes and metaphors. He points to section 103 of the Investigations as an example, where Wittgenstein likens these pictures to a pair of glasses through which we look at the world, and his recommendation is not that we replace our glasses with a better pair, but that we must simply be able to take them off, in order to become conscious of the incorrect and incorrigible way we had made them the starting point for viewing the world. (Foglin, 1996, P:34)

Cavell says that with what has happened in the course of mainstream philosophies, meaning has been separated from its use, and for this reason we have encountered numerous philosophical problems. Because in these philosophical systems of thought, the emphasis on a specific set of terms and phrases, detached from the set of criteria for their grammatical and logical use in the stream of life, has caused the main point of uttering them to be lost and has rendered them lacking the capacity and ability for human understanding. Therefore, perhaps the process these philosophies have undergone could be called: “Philosophy and the Inability to Understand and Accept the Human”!^[18] (CoW: 206-207)

Cavell writes that Wittgenstein’s motivation is to return the human being to its nature, to language grounded in human conditions, and consequently to genuine philosophy. For this reason, he undertakes the valuable task of describing this history to show how, in the course of investigating our human selves, we have gone astray and been led toward speaking “outside language-games”^[19], and have used phrases in a way detached from and contrary to their natural language—the schema arising from a “form of life”—allowing them to gain power, because we have overlooked an important point: that when we use these phrases outside the “language-game,” not only do they not apparently lose their meaning, but they retain the same conventional meaning we can also find in the dictionary; however, our point in using them in their proper place is lost, and we have lost the purpose we had in uttering them. (Ibid: 206-208)

Cavell says, if I want to show how great and significant this loss and damage is, I must emphasize the extent of Wittgenstein’s primary motivation for writing the Philosophical Investigations. He wants to say that what we have lost is not the meaning of words—we have the meanings, and even all these definitions and explanations of them in hefty dictionaries have not replaced what we have lost.—What has been lost is the full realization of our utterances and words, and the result is that we understand the meaning but do not comprehend the point and purpose of it. (Ibid) Therefore, in practice, by relying on the foundations of traditional philosophy^[20], we are seeking a self-secure^[21] foundation for accepted semantic pictures that are outside the language-game and on holiday, in order to fortify our edifice of knowledge; but as the history of traditional philosophy itself testifies, the result has been that we have become disoriented and continually end up in the dead ends and byways of the city of language.

Cavell, emphasizing the role of the set of “criteria” in understanding the central axis of the Investigations, says that on the one hand, for “every concept we employ when speaking about something, we have an essential need for ‘criteria.’” (Ibid, p: 14) And on the other hand, the demand of others and society from us is the search for the why and the “reason” for the criteria we use, which is why we seek a rational basis for them. (Ibid, p:20) But although criteria are a necessary condition for the human use of language, they lack the power to provide cognitive certainty or assurance of the existence of something, and we cannot, by relying on them, arrive at a reassuring rationality; therefore, due to this inherent limitation, they “face denial from us.”^[22] It is on this basis that, in Cavell’s view, skepticism is always a potential natural possibility^[23] in the human use of language. He believes that Wittgenstein shifts the weight of the theory of skepticism and says that, in general, our relationship with the world as a whole, and also with others, cannot be based on such cognition, and in conventional philosophy we have wrongly accepted defining knowledge acquired in this way as meaning certainty! (CoW: 45-47) Whereas the task of genuine philosophy is to acknowledge precisely this point: that “the basis of human existence in the world as a whole, in relation to the world insofar as it is the world, is not founded on knowing.” (Ibid: 241)

Cavell explains this truth in the form of the expression “the truth of skepticism or the moral of skepticism”^[24] and believes that this situation is the same as the bewitchment and constant deception of our intelligence by language in Wittgenstein’s interpretation, and it is through this very entry point of language that we fall prey to intellectual whisperings. Since this issue arises from a natural possibility in human language, it is always with him, but this spell and bewitchment, as a result of the event of modernity, has occurred so strongly and severely that it has become a chronic illness and has caused the language of conventional philosophy to suffer from delirious ravings resulting from falling out of the “form of life.” Therefore, instead of trying to deny or eliminate this natural possibility of language’s rebellion and error and its bewitching power—which has led to the illness of modern reason and afflicted it with murmurings and whisperings arising from a chronic fever—we must learn the way of taking a stance toward and confronting it through constant and genuine philosophizing, and understand why Wittgenstein writes: “Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” (PI, §109) Cavell, referring to Kant’s text of pure reason^[25] and the idea that “reason has insight only into that which it produces after a plan of its own,” says we can only accept or reject content that is possible to construct with a “particular form” of language. (Ibid: 242) But conventional philosophical systems, by constructing a hypothetical edifice of epistemology, have tried to ultimately bring all our knowledge and awareness to a self-secure and certain foundation, which are themselves rationally self-evident and need no proof, and consequently, they present their entire cognitive system as a combination of the foundational propositions of this epistemic edifice.

Whereas Wittgenstein says that all our beliefs are built upon primitive action and behavior, an instinctive and natural behavior that we do not choose! Wittgenstein writes that from the very beginning of birth, the human being reacts to the world with his instincts, and in this respect there is no difference between the human in the primitive state and the animal. In his view, “the child learns to react in such-and-such a way; and in so reacting it doesn’t so far know anything. Knowing only begins at a later level.” (OC: 538) Even in Wittgenstein’s view,^[26] the child does not learn but rather, with an instinctive and natural trust in those around him, acquires it through observation and instruction.^[27]

And what, in the course of prevalent philosophical thought, ultimately reached its culmination with Kant's philosophy is that the structures of our knowledge and experience, which make it possible to distinguish between right and wrong, cannot themselves be objects of experience. However, Kant believed these structures were rooted in the human mind, whereas, according to Dilman's account of Wittgenstein, in Wittgenstein's later philosophy, he transferred these structures from the mind to natural language and showed that language naturally develops over the course of human history in different parts of the world through the mutual interaction of human beings who live together and engage with their surroundings, and in this way, it grows into their understanding. Therefore, the world we live in does not depend on us; rather, we are creatures of that human world (Dilman, 2002, p:37). This very point, in Dilman's view, also shows the important difference between Kant and Wittgenstein. The Kantian structure is a fixed and unchangeable structure within the transcendental subject that does not change over time. But the linguistic structure that Wittgenstein introduces is transforming over time and history, and the various possibilities of reality are organized through it, and it is for this reason that our linguistic forms are not independent of our "forms of life." We are in a two-way relationship with the structure of language, a structure that has the possibility of change at any moment and, unlike the Kantian structure, is not fixed. In this context, reality in itself or the noumenon has no place in Wittgenstein's later philosophy, and there is no need to assume this concept, because every viewpoint is formed within language and from its perspective (Ibid, p: 81) and is always considered a part of it.

World-Picture:

Wittgenstein believes that from childhood, we gradually acquire a framework for viewing the world and calls it "world-picture"^[28]. The "world-picture" is the set of beliefs we have accepted without reason and in which doubt has no place; we acquired them in childhood and they need no justification. We adopt them, but we did not invent them. This "world-picture" shows our way of looking at matters and phenomena, and in short, it is not the result of our personal examination and selection, but arises from our mode of action, our form of life, and the teachings we willy-nilly inherit, and it is even the basis of any inquiry we will conduct in the future, and every truth and falsehood for us is determined within it.^[29] We can transmit it to another.^[30] In other words, each person's "world-picture" is the set of fundamental propositions that shape their view^[31] of the world, and they have not accepted them through a process of trial and error and hypothesis. Yet, at the same time, without these groundless beliefs, we cannot bring coherence to our interaction with the surrounding world and expand our knowledge.^[32] Therefore, the intention and purpose we employ to participate in various "language-games" is already equipped with a view of the world, or our "world-picture," and through it, we participate in the emergence of "meanings and their criteria." (Minoo Hojjat, 1391, pp. 85-103)

Conway says: Wittgenstein's intended "world-picture" is a mold of "practice without belief and belief without reason" of meanings and activities that constitute the "foundation" of the human view of the world, and it is by no means a conceptual model or his mental image of the world, but rather a structure of patterns of activity that have arisen from a single, unified "form of life" and have gradually, alongside one another, found the necessary coherence of an integrated structure, and only after this stage can they be consciously narrated and depicted in conceptual models. (Conway, 1989, pp: 83-85)

Thus, the foundation of our view of the world is not a correct presupposition or a self-evident, certain rational proposition; rather, whatever it is, it is the reflection of the outside into our interior and our mind, mediated by language, and even this very outside is the origin of our primary “world-picture” and constructs it. Therefore, we need to grasp what has appeared to us from the complex relations within our “form of life” and entered our minds, so that we can extract from its core what knots, confusions, and illnesses we have from this accumulation. And until we undertake a fitting philosophical investigation into these relations and connections and reorder them from the beginning, we will not become self-aware of our current situation, nor will we be able to understand our relationship with the world or fathom the wisdom of living well.

Hacker says that, in Wittgenstein’s view, people are immersed in philosophical or conceptual-grammatical confusions and perplexities. If we want to bring them out of this state and make them self-aware, we must reveal to them the network of relations, the diverse and complex connections of different kinds of language, and pull them out of the trap they have fallen into. This means giving all their concepts order and arrangement, from the beginning and anew. (Hacker, 1396, pp: 13-14) It is the understanding and grasp of this very order that shapes and directs our thought and insight, so that our awareness can reconnect with the world and we can attain a synoptic view of our situation.

Hence, as stated at the outset, for philosophizing in this new sense, it is essential to obtain a picture of the world with the aim of reaching “what is the case.” However, what is meant by “what is the case” is not a reflection of reality and an explanation of what is going on in reality, but rather the attainment of an insight and wisdom that shows the perspective of the “philosopher-researcher” on the picture they have obtained of their world. In other words, here the philosopher engages in a kind of philosophical seeing and describing, which is not a purely contemplative activity; rather, without tampering with the facts, they “assemble” them in such a way as to construct for themselves a secure and satisfying “picture” that resolves the deep problems of their life. This picture is precisely what Wittgenstein means by a “synoptic view.” This picture is a kind of painting, that is, “describing,” which is achieved only through precise and continuous seeing and is by no means a copying of reality or a mere empirical matter, although it has connections with reality. In fact, in this form of philosophizing, on Wittgenstein’s advice, we must “see,” “describe,” and “be astonished” at how strange what we see before us is. (Adapted from: VH, pp. 80-81)

According to Malek Hosseini, Wittgenstein introduces the idea of the synoptic view in sections 5, 92, 122, 125, and 132 of the Philosophical Investigations, the most famous of which reads:

“... A perspicuous representation produces just that understanding which consists in ‘seeing connections’. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate cases. The concept of a perspicuous representation is of fundamental significance for us. It earmarks the form of account we give, the way we look at things. (Is this a ‘Weltanschauung’?)” (Section 122, as cited in VH, p. 87)

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References:

Hosseini, Malek. (1389). Wittgenstein and Wisdom. Tehran: Hermes: VH

Hosseini, Malek. (1388). Wisdom. Tehran: Hermes: H

Hojjat, Minoo. (1391). The Groundlessness of Belief. Tehran: Hermes Publishers

Shayegan, Dariush. (1393). New Enchantment. Translated by Fatemeh Valiani. Tehran: Farzan Rooz

Cavell, Stanley. (1976). Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays. Cambridge University Press: WV

Cavell, Stanley. (1981). Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood comedy of Remarriage. Harvard University Press: PoH

Conway, Gertude D. (1989). Wittgenstein On Foundations. Atlantic Itiglands: Humanities Press International

Diman, Ilham. (2002). Wittgenstein's Copernican Revolution (The Question of Linguistic Idealism). PALGRAVE

Grayling, A. C. (1988). Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press

Rothman, William. ( 2000). Reading Cavell's The world viewed. Publisher: Wayne State University Press

Wittgenstein, L. (1958). Blue and Brown Books. Cambridge University Press: BB

Wittgenstein, L. (1969). On Certainty. G. E. M. Anscombe & von Wright. (ed.). translated by: Denis Paul & G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell

[1] PhD in Philosophy from Allameh Tabataba'i University

[2] Stanley Cavell: (1926 – 2018)

[3] The World Viewed

[4] Unhinging: I have taken the translation and interpretation of this word as "the coming unhinged of human consciousness from the world" from Saleh Najafi: Abbas Kiarostami, Film and Philosophy, 2017, Lega Publishing: p. 19

[5] David Hume ( 1711-1776)

[6] Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

[7] Emerson (1803-1882)

[8] Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

[9] Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)

[10] William Rothman

[11] beyond our reach metaphysically

[12] Hegel(1770-1831)

[13] Karl Marx(1818-1883)

[14] Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

[15] In this research, "conventional," "common," "traditional," and "academic" philosophy are used synonymously.

[16] See: BB: 125

[17] Robert John Fogelin ) 1932- 2016)

[18] "Philosophy and the Rejection of the Human"

[19] outside language games

[20] In this study, the terms “conventional,” “common,” “traditional,” and “academic” philosophy are used synonymously.

[21] Fail-safe: I have taken this term from Stanley Bates’s article and translated it as “self-securing” [khod-iman]:

Bates, Stanley. (1980). The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy Review.Philosophy and Literature.Vol.4. No.2. p: 266-273

[22] denial of our criteria

[23] a natural possibility

[24] the truth of skepticism, or the moral of skepticism

[25] Immanuel Kant: (1724-1804)

[26] “Children do not learn that books exist, that armchairs exist, etc., etc.,—they learn to fetch books, sit in armchairs, etc...” (OC: 476)

[27] See: (OC:279-313)

[28] World- picture

[29] See: (OC: 167)

[30] See: (OC: 262)

[31] attitude

[32] Propositions such as “the earth did not begin with me and existed long before,” “I cannot make it rain,” “I have two hands,” and so on, are not subject to doubt and require no inference or argument to be justified. Thus, the foundation of our beliefs is constituted by “action” or “shared, public practices”—the very “reference system and world” based on a “form of life”—and gradually, the totality of this practice and belief forms our “world-picture” and the part that constitutes the non-linguistic activity in which our “language-game” takes place.

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