Abstract
It would be misleading to call this chapter ‘The private language argument’. The term derives from the critical literature on Wittgenstein and usually refers to what is regarded as his main contribution to the philosophy of mind. But the unanimity of the critics does not go beyond this appreciation of the argument’s importance and opinions differ widely on the content and even the location of the argument in the Philosophical Investigations. The earliest tradition, headed by Kenny, has the argument begin at § 243 and end at § 257… or at § 265, or 270, or 293, or 315! In the latest tradition, led by Kripke, the argument starts much earlier, at § 143, and ends much earlier too, at § 243, where it begins according to the old school.
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Notes
See Strawson (1954, p. 85), Ayer (1963, p. 4), Fodor (1975, p. 71), and Malcolm (1986, pp. 157 and 171). Authors who also criticize the sociologism fallacy and hence the purported impossibility of Robinson Crusoe speaking a rule-guided language are McGinn (1984, pp. 78–79) and Baker & Hacker (1985, pp. 169–179).
Kripke interprets rules as such corrective measures when he says: ‘When the community denies of someone that he is following certain rules, it excludes him from various transactions…’ (1981, p. 287).
According to Kripke, the private language argument is the application of general conclusions about language reached in § 138–242 to the ‘problem of sensations’ (1981, pp. 239–240).
He writes for instance: ‘Mozart writes in a famous letter that he could see a complete musical work in a flash in his mind’. How is that possible, did he hear it played in his mind at breakneck speed; or thus that all the tones resounded simultaneously? And what justified him to say that he perceived a piece of music in his mind? How did he know that a piece of music corresponded to what he perceived? (MS 124, pp. 216–217).
See also RPP I, § 382–408 and 765–786 (see chapter 7, % 1).
Hallett (1977, pp. 53–54).
Wittgenstein is not out to eliminate subjective experiences from language-games. On the contrary, he wants to emphasize that language-games of subjective experiences are different from language-games of objective experiences. For his and Köhler’s use of ‘subjective experience’ versus ‘objective experience’, see chapter 7, note 18.
These terms were introduced by Kenny (1975, pp. 185 ff.). For my criticism of Kenny, see note 16.
There are passages in MS 105 and MS 107 where Wittgenstein countenances a phenomenalistic description of the visual space, for instance MS 105, pp. 49–51: ‘Now it is a proposition to say: Red is here. ‘Here’ is here a designation of a place in the visual field and this designation also indicates the form of the red spot, for the form stems from the position of the red spot. But how is this position really to be described?’
See Blue Books, p. 64. The same distinction is made in MS 156b.
In Philosophical Investigations, § 400 Wittgenstein says that the ‘visual room’ seems like a discovery, but is in fact only a new way of speaking. In MS 120 he indicates why it seems like a discovery: ‘For it is precisely because of the fact that we are not always conscious of it that we think we discovered it’ (MS 120, p. 87).
See the quotation from MS 113, p. 249 in chapter 1, p. 14.
See Blue Books, pp. 61 ff.
This view of Wittgenstein has been called by Strawson the ‘No-ownership-theory’ (1959, pp. 95–99).
Kenny’s use of ‘inalienability’ (see p. 81 and quotation 8) does not sufficiently distinguish between ‘I-as-subject’ and ‘I-as-object’, for he treats the sentences ‘Only I can have my pain’ and ‘Only I can have my bank account’ in the same way, whereas Wittgenstein would precisely emphasize that these two examples cannot be compared, since in the latter case the use of ‘my’ is possessive but in the former merely reflexive. See Kenny, 1975, p. 188.
The contrast between an epistemological and a logical phrasing of the question is suggested in this fragment: ‘Do not ask: “how can I name my sensation?” so much as: “how can one apply the names of the sensations?”’ (MS 179, p. 25).
See for instance Ayer (1985, p. 98).
In chapter 7, § 1 I will refer to this strategy as Wittgenstein’s physiological agnosticism; see p. 3 and note 4.
See for instance Vesey 1974, p. 152).
‘(As a man can travel alone, and yet be accompanied by my good wishes; or as a room may be empty, and yet full of light.)’ (PI, § 673).
An exception has to be made for Hintikka (1986, pp. 284–286). See also subsection (d).
See for instance Gustafson (1979, pp. 149–166).
See Carnap (1928) and especially Carnap (1932–1933).
The tradition headed by Kenny (1973, p. 258) and Pitcher (1972, p. 137). More specifically, this tradition qualifies the application of all the concepts in terms of one general criteriological relation. Hence it has often ignored the very typical ‘criteriologcial relation’ between expressions and their ‘content’, which is incorrigible. That is, in this kind of language-game criteria for truth and falsity of statements are not used. For the same point of view, see Hintikka (1986, pp. 284–286).
After writing this chapter I saw that Hacker (1987) in his revision of Hacke (1975) corrects his ‘avowal’ interpretation by also attributing to Wittgenstein descriptive use of first person utterances.
See James (1890, I, pp. 185–187). Köhler (1929, pp. 7–8) has the same objection as James.
Köhler (1929, pp. 8–9) remarks about the introspective definition of ‘direct experience’: ‘You cannot, as the physicists seem to do, make your two statements about one and the same event… You have two events in two experiences. What is your evidence for assuming that under the same conditions the ultimate data of experience are the same for both of you?’ For Köhler’s positive account of ‘direct experience’, see chapter 7, note 18.
For instance, we can indicate the place where we feel pain or hear the noise (cf. PI, § 671).
See Brentano (1924, pp. 49–50).
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Ter Hark, M. (1990). My Mind: First Person Statements. In: Beyond the Inner and the Outer. Synthese Library, vol 214. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2089-7_4
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