Again, this is incorrect, and the example is inapt. The statement "all dogs are dogs" is true a priori. We know this prior to, and independent of, any experience, because it's a tautology, and any statement of the form, "All Xs are Xs" is necessarily true.

What is incorrect? You have just agreed with me.

For example, we learn the meaning of the word "dog" empirically. But, when we have learned the word "dog", and we understand want the statement, all dogs are dogs, means, we then know, a priori, that it is true, that all dogs are dogs. That all dogs are dogs is not an empirical contingent truth. It is an a priori, and necessary truth.

Furthermore, the examples you've used represent precisely the kind of linguistic analysis that W wasn't advocating. For W, the important thing was to look and see how the language games are actually played. He wasn't interested in trying to arrive at general principles or observations about the meaning of words like "existence" independent of their use in particular language games or across various contexts. On the contrary. And he would have thought that the expression "all dogs are dogs" was probably meaningless.

Perhaps you can give an example from the Investigations, or from any of W's later work, in which he engages in the kind of "a priori" reflection that you're talking about.

No, I'm afraid I haven't. Here's what you said:


You say here that after we first learn the meaning of the word "dog" empirically, we can then know that the statement "All dogs are dogs" is true. (The italicization of "then" is yours, not mine). The reason your example is inapt is that I don't need to know the meaning of the word "dog" (empirically or in any other way) to know that "all dogs are dogs" is true. Any statement of the form, "All Xs are Xs" are tautologically true. I don't need to know what "X" is.

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Funny. "War is war" is not a tautology, nor is, "business is business".

But to make you happy, I will change my example to, "All bachelors are unmarried men". Now, am I right?

Probably not, but neither of these is a statement of the form: "All Xs are Xs."

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They aren't? All war is war is not of the form, "All Xs are Ys" How did that happen? (I really must get a new pair of glasses).

Do you mean to say that it's of the form "All Xs are Ys" or "All Xs are Xs"?

Those statements are not of the form "All Xs are Xs:" If they were, they would be rendered: "All wars are wars" or "All businesses are businesses," in which case they would be tautologous.

But they are not tautologies, Each of them is not true. Some wars are not wars, and some businesses are not businesses. Some wars never come to fighting, and some businesses are just fronts for illegal operations.

To say that "I can know that "All bachelors are unmarried men" is true, prior to, and independent of, any experience of the world. The statement is true by definition" seems to ignore the possibility that being true by definition is not independent of experience, since language is experienced, and that experience tells us what language IS and how to use it, in addition to the content of the assertion.

"The latter statement can be known to be true just from understanding what it means." Just so. But my question was about what is entailed in "understanding what it means" since language may be seen as a particular kind of experience. We know the definitions from looking up the words in a dictionary, and we know in the same way what a tautological utterance is. The sentence doesn't seem to have quite the same status as "A=A."

To say that "I can know that "All bachelors are unmarried men" is true, prior to, and independent of, any experience of the world. The statement is true by definition" seems to ignore the possibility that being true by definition is not independent of experience, since language is experienced, and that experience tells us what language IS and how to use it, in addition to the content of the assertion.

I wouldn't agree that language is experienced or that it's something we use, exactly, but I think there's something correct in the observation above, from W's point of view. Statements of the sort, "All bachelors are unmarried men" don't really have much of a use in ordinary life, except in teaching a person how to use the word "bachelor."

Which is why it's clear that a wrong turn has been taken if people are discussing W's view by insisting that he's engaged in a priori analysis of some kind or by reference to traditional philosophical examples of tautological propositions. To try to force his thought into this kind of framework would be like trying to formulate Heidegger's argument in B&T by using the Cartesian vocabulary of subject and object (such as Sartre is often accused of having attempted). Even if it were possible to do such a thing, why would anyone want to, when Heidegger is clearly rejecting it?

"The latter statement can be known to be true just from understanding what it means." Just so. But my question was about what is entailed in "understanding what it means" since language may be seen as a particular kind of experience. We know the definitions from looking up the words in a dictionary, and we know in the same way what a tautological utterance is. The sentence doesn't seem to have quite the same status as "A=A."

Good point. Language itself is learned from experience. So tautologies in a language really don't in the strictest sense provide a priori knowledge. Even the language of mathematics must be learned first from experience before we can recognize a tautology as a tautology.

But without experience in mathematics, can't we know X=X? What I mean is, I think we can know some X is some X, without knowing anything about mathematics. We must know what "X" and "=" mean to communicate the thought, but that doesn't mean we understand the notion previously, does it?

I don't know. This touches the difficult question of whether we can think without a language. I'm inclined to say that we can't think without a language, but I don't suggest that I can prove it. (I just realized how others might think of thinking differently. Do animals think? I suppose they do. We need a verb for thinking in a language. Something narrower.)