thinking it through an introduction to contemporary philosophy mar 2003

[...]... need another “mark” that names the experience of naming the twinge? If every memory needs a name to help us remember it, then we seem to be caught in an infinite regress Hobbes’s use of marks seems to be like the old Indian theory that the world is supported on the back of an elephant If the world 16 Thinking It Through needs supporting, then the elephant needs supporting too And if the elephant doesn’t... term means by pointing to the thing it refers to Thus, suppose we were trying to explain to someone—a person who didn’t know English—what “red” meant We could point to some red things and say “red” as we pointed to them That would be an ostensive definition of the word “red.” WITTGENSTEIN: But for an ostensive definition to be possible, one must be able to point to something, and in this case pointing... following If Mary claims simply to know when it is appropriate to use the word but we cannot discover what it is that makes her use of the word appropriate, then we have no reason to think she is following a rule Unless we can check on whether it is appropriate for Mary to use the word “tonk,” we cannot say that there is a difference between Mind 13 Mary’s following a rule, on the one hand, and Mary’s simply... twinge and, since I don’t know what caused it in me, I don’t know how to produce one in you either My twinge is essentially private: I know about it and nobody else can This story seems to make sense But Wittgenstein thought that if we analyzed the matter a little further, we could see that it does not Here is the passage where Wittgenstein makes his objection to the sort of Hobbesian private language... we have broken it with our own creations We should be careful to avoid such an important conclusion until we have really thought it through However natural it seems to take it for granted that computers can think and act, then, we shouldn’t just assume it In philosophy we often find that what we normally take for granted—the “commonsense” point of view—gets in the way of a proper understanding of the... true, I Thinking It Through 6 would have had no reason to believe that I existed; I knew from this that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature was only to think, and that had no need for any place to exist and did not depend on any material thing; so that this “I,” which is to say my mind, through which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from my body, and even that it is easier to know than my... sensation.—But “I impress it on myself” can only mean: this process brings it about that I remember the connection right in the future But in the present case I have no criterion of correctness One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right And that only means that here we can’t talk about “right.” Thinking It Through 14 Before we try to work out what the argument is that Wittgenstein is... “twinge” to refer to a private state involves conforming to the rule that you should say to yourself “twinge” only when you experience that private state But the idea of trying to conform to a rule essentially involves the possibility that you might fail to apply it correctly, and in this case there is no such possibility “Whatever is going to seem right to me is right And that only means that here we can’t... don’t seem to have anything special to do with the point about privacy If I had introduced the word “twingle” to refer to a kind of marble, there would need to be some criterion of correctness to decide whether I was using the word correctly It would not be enough for me to say “Yes, a twingle” or “No, not a twingle” when each marble is shown to me: that could be like Mary’s using the word “tonk.” You... degrees An analysis of what something has to be like to do this job can be stated in a little theory of the thermostat Thinking It Through 20 A thermostat has to have three working parts The first, which is the heat sensor, has to have two states: in one state the heat sensor is ON, in the other it is OFF It should be ON when the external temperature is below 60 degrees and OFF when it is above It doesn’t . T hinking It Through AN INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY Kwame Anthony Appiah Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul. you set out to introduce the range of it to people who are approaching it for the first time. That is a good part of the reason I set out to write an introduction to con - temporary philosophy. . should be careful to avoid such an important conclusion until we have really thought it through. However natural it seems to take it for granted that computers can think and act, then, we shouldn’t