Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument

[@Zambito1]

I think you at least alluded to this, but I just want to write it like this because I think it was easier for me to understand the whole discussion of pain: You can hallucinate an external stimulus like the existence of a mug or a sound or something like that, because your mental perception of external stimuli can be wrong. It is not possible to hallucinate the sensation of pain. If you experience the sensation that you describe as pain, you are in pain by definition (as it is defined as an internal sensation). It makes sense to say that you "know" something only if it can be wrong. Thus, it linguistically makes no sense to say that you "know" you are in pain, because you can't be wrong about it.

[@AtticPhilosophy]

That's Wittgenstein's argument, yes. But he's probably wrong. If you have recurrent pain, you're often not aware of exactly when it begins.

[@davidtrindle6473]

What about “phantom limb” pain? Isn’t that a hallucination?

[@CIMAmotor]

@@davidtrindle6473 Pain is generated by the brain so regardless of whether the pain is in a 'phantom' limb or not it's pain nonetheless.

[@Nebuch]

Very valuable video. If we want to understand the current analytical side of philosophy, we need to understand investigations and after kripke on it ^_^

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Thanks! Yes I agree

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

Lee's Elucidation: A finite number of words must be made to represent an infinite number of things and possibilities. Language Habits in Human Affairs, 1941, Irving J. Lee.

[@thomasdanch]

W. thinks that whenever we try to understand the formation of language we fail, because the formation is unknowable, ergo undefinable. Language occurs after the the inchoate activities progress, and absorbs the communal activity wherein descriptions, definitions, expressions lie. The activity is a maturing activity that infant brains are too unripe to do well with. The activity does follow rules, ( logical rules?) and it is because this activity is unknowable, W. muddles about with inept analogies , realizing he failed again.

[@ChristopherJamesQuion]

I think if you apply people act now a days if you apply morally charged words like justice, equality, superiority, goodness, duty you might be able to understand/empathize as to why some people act the way they do.

[@TheFelimon]

So the conclusion is that language is a social, communal activity thay gets its meaning through some form of verification with the norm of the language. Why are private sensations different? Toothache refers to a certain embodied feeling instructed by certain nerves which are shared by all *normal* humans. When we say toothache, we are referring to the same beatle, because we share the same physiology. Although It cannot be verified that someone is lying, or perhaps misunderstands the use of the word toothache or each part of it, tooth and ache. This does not matter, these are isolated cases. To return to the conclusion, i can verify my own pain as a sensation caused by certain nerve endings, and perhaps even due to something i.e lack of brushing. This has meaning in the language due to our shared physiology. Am i misunderstanding something?

[@derendohoda3891]

If I grant you the ability to assign meanings to signs so that they signify wholly private experience, how would you do that in a way that shows it is different from how your parents / peers taught you the signs of ordinary language? What form of life is this private language [game] embedded in? I don't know if Wittgenstein would deny qualia, only that neither affirmation nor denial can be played with qualia. I don't know enough languages to say whether his observations on "to know" and their scope in this game obtain everywhere or if it a quirk of germanic or indo-european languages. Anyway, the moment you could demonstrate to someone this private language then it's no longer private basically by definition; and if you can't show it, then what are you actually talking about? This is a mistake of philosophy, supposing that private referents exist in public languages. He has to undo the beguiling "picture theory" everywhere, including in the cartesian theater. We run the risk of falling out of one picture theory into another by overemphasizing the criteria by which we can judge that we have given meaning to a sign, which is essentially a return to the rule-following paradox, in disguise. None of it is skeptical. The possibility of being mistaken comes with the possibility of being right. But if we strip away too much of the forms of life surrounding a language game we lose the meaning as well and so having thrown out the whole external world to bracket our private experience then nothing could possibly apply. This is the very error inherent in the entire Tractatus, that we can strip away coincidental facts to get at the heart of the correspondence of words to reality and the correspondence of words to other words themselves as a map of reality. The varnish that wore away the coincidental facts wore away everything else too. Well we all say "pain" so we must be referring to something ---- picture theory, in disguise, as if to say the grammar of our expression must have ontological import. "We must be referring to something" --- our words have meaning, yes, there are language games around pain, go to the doctor to play one, but it would be our job as philosophers to understand this game, and maybe the job of linguists to explain why the grammar of "things" was used here. But short of re-writing the Tractatus, how would our grammar have ontological import like that?

[@acbatenburg]

Nice! Could you in the near future (◇A or ◯ A or ▢ A) make a series about Saul Kripke and the connections between his thougts about philosophy and (modal) logic)? I would appreciate that. Have a nice day.

[@septillionsuns]

I'm nearly certain that even Wittgenstein would want you to jettison 60% of his material, perhaps even 100%.

[@CIMAmotor]

So you're not really that certain then.

[@Opposite271]

To me it is not obvious that rule following is necessary or sufficient to establish a reference relation between a sign and its referent. The reason for this is that I tend to think that any reference relation has to be reducible to resemblance or correlation or causation or a combination of them. Otherwise the reference relation would seem like something supernatural. And even worse, this time it seems like there can be no argument from introspection to justify it like with qualia. It’s existence would be mere speculation. So this might be the reason why I never found the private language argument very convincing. It always seemed to me that we are just dancing around the central problem by focusing on rule following. Rule following has the same problem as well. Either it can be reduced to a physical fact. or it is supernatural or there is simply no such thing.

[@hss12661]

Geist (to use a Hegelian term) cannot be reduced to Natur but it doesn't mean it is "supernatural". It just means that, like with morality, no amount of knowledge about arrangements of elementary particles or fields or strings or whatever will tell you whether some sentence is true or not.

[@Opposite271]

@@hss12661 Yes, „supernatural“ might have not been the best choice of words. Maybe „unknown“ is better. Either reference can be reduced to other known relations. Or reference is a primitive relation. Or reference can be reduced to some relations from which at least one is unknown. I don’t think it is plausible to think of reference as a primitive relation. After all language is just a human invention. And the process of connecting a sign with a entity is I think to complex for that. And any explanation on the basis of a unknown relation would be shallow. Nothing could be said about the unknown relation except that it composes the reference relation. So it makes more sense to bet on a combination of known relations.

[@sandworm9528]

A relation is just another name for a rule

[@Opposite271]

@@sandworm9528 I would say it is the other way around.

[@frankavocado]

Could my assertion that 'I know I am in pain' just be the flip-side of unjustified true belief? As knowledge cannot be based on a lucky guess, neither can it be based on a situation in which 'guessing' cannot apply. So, grammatically, here, 'I know' only adds emphasis to 'Ow!'.

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Yes that's an interesting idea, broadly what W is saying: you can't be wrong about being in pain, so 'I know' doesn't apply. (Although it's an interesting question - can you be wrong about being in pain? Some think you can.)

[@matepenava5888]

A great video again, congrats. I especially like Mullhal's book on the issue and also Stern's interpretation. R. Crusoe could not make up his own language unless he writes it down for others to see, private ostension in impossible.

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Thanks! Yes that's an interesting book.

[@ai_serf]

As someone living a solitary life by choice, the idea that I can apply rules to myself is a crucial question. At the very least, I'll say it can be difficult, maybe impossible, but certainly, there are some major rules that would seem nigh impossible to apply, yet I do, which is an act of extreme willpower and agency. I'm not just a mote of dust living in a Brownian sea. So, I know solitary minds can make rules. I also believe the hierarchical nature of the mind (conscious vs subconscious) allows for a horizon and true propositions that can be given to the conscious, from a subconscious trained by the conscious. It all intersects with virtue and the rules of reality as well. Great and interesting stuff.

[@hss12661]

Great video! You should've discussed Sellars' discussion of Ryle's logical behaviorism in EPM, however, to contrast Wittgenstein's moderate behaviorism with the reductive behaviorism of Ryle.

[@hss12661]

The Concept of Mind was published in 1949 and Philosophical Investigations were published in EDIT: 1952 so naturally many people thought that Wittgenstein's argument is related in some way to that of Ryle (not in the sense that W read Ryle of course).

[@5driedgrams]

This is a argument against solipsism?

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Sort of - it allows that solipsism is possible, but unintelligible. If you were the only person in existence, you couldn't meaningfully say (or think) whether you were the only person.

[@amihart9269]

Ontology is all ultimately secondary as it is derivative of norms applied in real-world context. There is no privileged role given to the subject from its conceptual foundations, and in fact the subject-object distinction would itself be interpreted as something normative, something public that only has real ontological significance in the context of its application, in a language game. The lack of a privileged starting point for the subject makes it seem like it would be just as incoherent to argue that "only the subject exists and there is no object" as arguing that "only the object exists and there is no subject." I'm not really sure how you could reach solipsism from that point, logically speaking it would be incoherent. Subjectivist philosophies like solipsism often implicitly tie what is _thought of_ to the subject itself (such as by describing it as "subjective experience" or "consciousness") while positing that _thought_ is also part of the subject (conceptual metaphysical objects are part of the internal "phenomenal world" for example). If both of these are true, then clearly both _thought_ and what is _thought of_ are part of the subject, and there is no access to anything outside the subject, you run into solipsism or forms of idealism, etc. To say something is "subjective" is to presuppose the existence of the "objective," and such presupposition does not exist at the foundations of this kind of Wittgensteinian philosophy. What is _thought of_ is just _reality,_ which _is what it is._ There is no private separate world of conceptual objects within the mind. It is a category mistake to even assign _being_ to metaphysical objects and concepts, it is only sensible to talk about their reality when applied in a particular context of a language game, when what is _thought_ (objects) are actually applied alongside what is _thought of_ (that is to say, in context, in reality). The _subject_ actually doesn't come into play here in its foundations at all. In Chalmers' argument for dualism, for example, the surface level appearance of a rock (what is _thought of)_ would qualify as "conscious," and "consciousness" tends to implicitly bring in assumptions about subjectivity, which is necessary to reach the conclusion he does. Such presuppositions don't exist at the foundations of Wittgenstein's philosophy (and its derivatives like contextual realist philosophy of Jocelyn Benoist). Its starting point is not "subjective experience" or "consciousness" or "mind" which brings in implicit baggage of subjectivity, but just _experience,_ just _reality,_ just what is _thought of,_ alongside the second category of _thought._ Given that the subject-object distinction, the notion of "I" in relation to "you," only comes in later and secondary, makes it unclear how such a philosophy could ever reach something like the mind-body problem or the "hard problem" or get lost in something like solipsism or subjective idealism. To reach those conclusions you necessarily always have to presuppose a privileges position of the subject at the foundations of the philosophy. If you do not presuppose it, then trying to introduce it later would always be incredibly arbitrary as there is no clear reason as to why the subject or the object should be given a privileged position. They would be treated on equal footing, the subject-object relation is, as a whole, normative.

[@RickB500]

"Ahhhhh" means, I like it. More like Aha ;-) From W. I follow the PWA - private world argument - downside of intersubjektivity. And my PLA, personal logic arg. But its a little more difficult. In logic, if there is any reason to introduce a posited assertion instead of an axiomatic justification, then you are implying that there might be others (conditions of possibility - Kant) that can share this posited assertion (and not necessarily must, as in the case of justification). There must be (possible) beings who can freely consent. Question: do we need to fullfill the PLA other people or just the possibility of other people? There is a nondualistic solution: we need possible factual others, not possible theoretical others. So we have two different realms of possibility. A problem for all idealists ;-)

[@BrutusMyChild]

Try New Ithkuil.

[@dominiks5068]

Imho the private language argument preupposes the very thing it is meant to show: externalism about meaning. It is therefore implicitly circular. Why on earth would an internalist accept that meaning is in any way related to criteria of correctness? Even if in the beetle or diary case it were the case that there *are* no definite criteria of correctness accessible to the speaker... so what? If, for example, a Chomskyan view of language is right, then that's completely irrelevant to the meaning of a word (cf. his distinction between I-language and E-language). I gotta be honest, I just find the argument very overrated. Your video is of course excellent - insane level of depth!

[@Walter10065]

Utterly incoherent

[@AtticPhilosophy]

I’m not even sure W is best thought of as an externalist, certainly not Putnam-style. That would have sensation-words referring to something external. On one reading, W doesn’t think they refer at all - he’s an expressivist about eg pain, on that view.

[@dominiks5068]

@@AtticPhilosophy Semantic externalism is usually taken to be a theory about meaning, not about reference. It's the thesis that meaning doesn't solely depend on the mental states of the speaker/speakers in general, which Wittgenstein would almost certainly have agreed with. My impression is that very few Wittgenstein scholars think he believed meaning doesn't exist wholesale. (Of course he wasn't a Putnam-style causal reference theorist, that's true)

[@dominiks5068]

@@Walter10065 If this sounds incoherent to you, then you should take a philosophy 101 class. Everything in my comment is perfectly coherent. You can of course disagree with me, though - but then you need to give an argument, or else you are just embarrassing yourself.

[@Walter10065]

@@dominiks5068 be humble or be humbled, eh? You are right, I am much too untutored to understand the complexities involved in determining that we need a community of speakers to make a language and define reference. You could help me with one other thing if you would: I read somewhere that Wittgenstein, addressing the question of whether esthetics resides in the viewer or the artwork, said something along the lines of “you may as well take a drug.” I listened to readings of the Tractatus & the Invesrigations but didn’t find it, though admittedly I did my research using KZbin philosophy lectures in the middle of the night as a sleep aid. I’m an art guy, thus my particular interest.

[@HABLA_GUIRRRI]

we apologise ---- Brighton really is a thing

[@coldblackfire]

This means 'it's offensive' really translates to 'I am offended,' or as you've brilliantly put it, 'aaaargh.' Discussing one's own mental state is not truth-apt, nor does it have a criterion of correctness, according to Wittgenstein's insights. Yet, we not only reify our own sensations but also often talk about others' mental states as if they're concrete objects, labeling people as having a 'problematic mental state - ist.' We then act upon these labels, affecting lives through law enforcement or public humiliation, based on our own behaviorist interpretations of the actions of those in question. We call out and prosecute not merely based on actions but on the mental states we presume to understand from those actions. This is a profound area for contemplation. Wittgenstein, who argued that language is a communal activity and cannot express truly private experiences like the 'beetle in a box,' would likely find the current state of discourse, especially the censorious nature of our progressive values that operate through claims of knowing others' mental states, deeply problematic. There's much to ponder here as we navigate this nebulous terrain of understanding and assigning mental states.

[@lv4077]

I think old Ludwig was quite interesting

[@AtticPhilosophy]

He definitely was!

[@lv4077]

@@AtticPhilosophy Definitely one of a kind.His observations showed a truly unique perspective on human behavior and communication

[@amihart9269]

If you like him, check out Jocelyn Benoist's book _Toward a Contextual Realism._ His viewpoint seems to build off of Kripke's view that the rule-following problem is solved in the application of the rule, and constructs a whole philosophy from the ground-up, from its philosophical axioms, in this respect, whereby concepts are presumed to be meaningless (to not be able to possess _being)_ unless applied in a particular context (the gulf between the "ideal" object and the "real" is closed _in the application_ of the object to reality).

[@andreasbrey6277]

ahhhhaaaaahhhhh!!

[@VoidHeart696]

Aye Yo Dare I Ask How One Feels Bout Carl Gustav Jung...

[@VoidHeart696]

From What I Understand there's No Such thing as Objective thinking Because Your Being Chooses to Act Not Due to Existence But instead Simply Just Self Determinism... Based Upon Your Video Words Until the Half Way Mark... Like i Feel Wittgenstein Solved Inequality of Education and the Grateful's Problem With Work and Rewards Psychology Via Telling us of the Key to Your Own Ability to Reason.

[@geoffreynhill2833]

Semaphore Alert !!! Enough already !!!!

[@DrDress]

You go into this video thinking that you will hear about one of the most difficult and important thinkers ever. But instead you are invited to thing about the grammar of "Uaaarhg!"

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Yes, that is one thing Wittgenstein asks us to consider in the PI!

[@bobodontsurf1425]

Great subject. I wonder if Ludwig was murdered because of his genius, he seems to have died quite suddenly. Three of his four brothers committed suicide, seems odd. A Catholic-Jewish family amalgamation, Like, lithium and water. Wittgenstein meets Schrodinger in the nether. Speaking with a Quantum Lisp My brother and I had our own language as young identical twins, but we were assimilated into the collective.

[@keithstump1712]

Don't assume your viewers have a background to understand what you're talking about.

[@shaunkerr8721]

Don't assume they are speaking to anyone except those who can understand them. Some speak in undemocratic fashions, Wittgenstein being one of those people...

[@Risenoph]

⁠​⁠@@shaunkerr8721What is an ‘undemocratic fashion’?

[@shaunkerr8721]

@Risenoph to speak in a democratic way is to attempt to appease the mob at the cost of authenticity; to curry popular favor. Wittgenstein avoided this regardless of mob: plebian or aristocratic; Christian or Positivist.

[@sandworm9528]

Funny seeing this comment under a video about private languages 😂