Appunti Su Wittgenstein

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Da L.W. PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, BY R.ARRINGTON- biblioteca filosPRELIMINARI pubblicazione 1953.In Phil.Grammar egli aveva scritto che il linguaggio is self contained and autonomous (nonsuscettibile di validazione pragmatica). Che le regole grammaticali che regolano il linguaggio arenot accountable to any reality. Esse danno significato ai temini del linguaggio. In questo senso leregole della grammatica stabiliscono una connessione tra il linguaggio e la realt. Il linguaggio

rappresenta and conveys information about the reality. Nella discussione filosofica sul linguaggio isemployed la categoria dell 'uso , e non del significato o della conoscenza.

Secondo i filosofi empircist-minded impariamo le parti del linguaggio riferendole alle nostreesperienze interiori associando il nome con una particolare esperienza e poi usando il nome to refer to e parlare di questa esperienza. Questo metodo viene esteso anche a parole come dolore, cheindica un inner experience.Funziona nel seguente modo:Io ho un' esperienza del dolore--------------------------------imparo il significato della parola dolore

do all'esperienza il nome of pain.

Poich nessun altro pu avere la mia stessa esperienza del dolore nessuno pu capire cosa intendo per dolore. Certo qualcuno potrebe indovinarlo inferendolo dalla stessa esperienza che loro hannoavuto quando io mi comporto in modo analogo ai modi con cui essi si comportano quando essihanno ci che chiamano dolore.Quindi le parole denotano o designano le cose nel mondo. Impariamo il significato delle parole byhaving an appropriate experience.

Nel caso del dolore solo io posso dire dato che solo io posso esperenziare cosa il nome painsignifichi. Una parte del mio linguaggio deve essere privato

dogma empirico

264: Once you know what the word stand for , you understand it, you know its whole use.Secondo W. L'uso of pain non deriva solo dall'esperienza di pain.L'esperienza del dolore non mostra tutte le propriet del dolore.

Quindi da dove deriva l'uso di x termine?L'uso del termine prima di tutto implica un attivit pubblica, una funzione e conseguenze pratiche.L'uso is matter of the grammar of the world, which is part of stage setting that must be in place if a

person is to understand the termns. The stage setting is presupposed by designating something.L'uso proper dei termini indipendente dall'esperienza stessa.

Ci sono criteri per cui posso dire che I am in pain?290: to repeat an expression. This is the beginning of the language grammar. In the beginning weare always reminded,________ there is an activity____of repeating an expression and thenmastering its proper use..

Per sapere cosa una sensazione dobbiamo consulatare the language game in cui usiamo le parolesensation etc. Questo gioco linguistico is what is basic, they anda the forms of life in which they

are embedden are the given.

Da OTHER MINDS ,UNDERSTANDING W., G.VESEY biblioteca filosofica


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What possible reason could i have to think that other people even have what i mean by pain?Risposta del solipsismo: nessuna ragioneRisposta dell' argomento dell'analogia.

Il contributo di W. Per dissolvere tale problema si pu dividere in due particolare1- negativo: attacco alla spiegazione esperenziale del significao of pain language in tems of the

facting itself2- positivo:a fact-presupponing explanation of the meaning of pain language.2the fact-pain expression of the meaning of pain language is in terms of things that happen naturally.

Esempio: people moan and cry when they are in pain. And other people reach to their moaning andcrying by tending a part that has been hurt. Moaning and crying are natural ( primitive) expressionof pain. L'uso ordinario della parole che stanno per delle sensazioni dipendono dalle mie naturaliespressioni (behaviour) of sensation.Linguistic game with expression of sensation are based on games with expression whose we don'tsay the may lie.Ci sono linguistic expression natural expressiones I am afraid es facial expression(non deve mentire).Entrambi le espressioni devono essere giustificati tramite osservazioni:non del loro behaviour

by an inner feeling of pain. Le osservazioni introspect the feeling and then express it in language.Linguistic expression is a substitute for the natural expressionthere is not a shared line between the linguistic and the natural expression of a feeling.

' i have tootache' ha significato of pain language taking the place of moaning. I have a tootache non l'espressione di un feeling or a behaviour, esso stesso un behaviour.

Quindi alla domanda ci sono dolori che io non sento e che ..nelle altri menti?__________________

L' experential explanation of the meaning derives from the fact that it is thought to having lernt themeaning della parola 'pain' da qualche sorta of internal ostensive definition.

1attacco alla exp.expl.Primo attacco: attacco agli elementi principali nell e.ethe idea that all words have meaning by being names of things referred to by them, and that learning/leaving, that meaning of a word is a matter of finding out what thing is/it refers to, what thing beats

the name... produzione dell argomento from analogie to justify a generalisation of pain language to others.Inferenza dal behaviour to feeling.

Perch siamo inclini ad accettare la e.e?Nel caso del dolore sembra che lo consideriamo un sostantivo e non il nome di un oggetto

materiale. We come under the spell of Descartes per cui dato che la mente distinta dal corpo, ildolore deve essere mentale privato.

Alla base

idea that language is not a thing apart from the rest of life, and relate to it only via what goes on inthe mind of the language user


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le componenti del linguaggio non hanno significato per noi in virtu of standing for objects di cuiveniamo consapevoli attraverso such kind of ostensive definition.

The meaningfull of some of the things we say is dependent on contigent fact of nature.

Fact of nature- physicshuman- form of life

' the concept of pain is characterized by its particular function in our life. Pain has this position inour life, ha this connexions.

Da L.Wittgenstein SEP

3.6 Private Language, Grammar and Form of Life PRELIMINARI

Three celebrated notions, which are closely related, ensue in the Wittgensteinian conversation: private language, form of life, and the notion of grammar. Directly following the rule-followingsections in PI, and therefore easily thought to be the upshot of the discussion, are those sectionscalled by interpreters the private-language argument. Whether it be a veritable argument or not(and Wittgenstein never labeled it as such), these sections point out that for an utterance to bemeaningful it must be possible in principle to subject it to public standards and criteria of correctness. For this reason, a privatelanguage, in which individual words are to refer to whatcan only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations (PI 243), is not agenuine, meaningful, rule-governed language. The signs in language can only function when there

is a possibility of judging the correctness of their use, so the use of [a] word stands in need of a justification which everybody understands (PI 261).

Wittgenstein adopts the term grammar in his quest to describe the workings of this public, sociallygoverned language, using it in a somewhat idiosyncratic manner. Grammar, usually taken to consistof the rules of correct syntactic and semantic usage, becomes, in Wittgenstein's hands, the wider and more elusivenetwork of rules which determine what linguistic move is allowed as makingsense, and what isn't. This notion replaces the stricter and purer logic which played such an essentialrole in theTractatus in providing a scaffolding for language and the world. Indeed, Essence isexpressed by grammar Grammar tells what kind of object anything is. (Theology as grammar)

(PI 371, 373). The rules of grammar are not mere technical instructions from on-high for correctusage; rather, they express the norms for meaningful language. Contrary to empirical statements,rules of grammar describe how we use words in order to both justify and criticize our particular utterances. But as opposed to grammar-book rules, they are not idealized as an external system to beconformed to. Moreover, they are not appealed to explicitly in any formulation, but are used incases of philosophical perplexity to clarify where language misleads us into false illusions. Thus, Ican know what someone else is thinking, not what I am thinking. It is correct to say I know whatyou are thinking, and wrong to say I know what I am thinking. (A whole cloud of philosophycondensed into a drop of grammar.) (PI, p.222).

Grammar is not abstract, it is situated within the regular activity with which language-games areinterwoven: the term language-game is meant to bring into prominence the fact that


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the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life (PI 23). What enables languageto function and therefore must be accepted as given is precisely forms of life. In Wittgenstein'sterms, agreement is required not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in

judgments (PI 242), and this is not agreement in opinions but in form of life (PI 241). Used byWittgenstein sparinglyfive times in the Investigationsthis intriguing concept has given rise to

interpretative quandaries and subsequent contradictory readings. Forms of life can be understood aschanging and contingent, dependent on culture, context, history, etc; this appeal to forms of lifegrounds a relativistic reading of Wittgenstein. On the other hand, it is the form of life common tohumankind, the common behavior of mankind which is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language (PI 206). This is clearly a universalistic turn, recognizingthat the use of language is made possible by the human form of life. Lest this universalism be takento an extreme, Wittgenstein reminds the reader that as philosophers we are not doing naturalscience, nor yet natural history (PI p.230). [ c' qualcosa in ROSSO].

Da PRIVATE LANGUAGE SEP

The idea of a private language was made famous in philosophy by Ludwig Wittgenstein, who in243 of his book Philosophical Investigations explained it thus: The words of this language are torefer to what can be known only to the speaker; to his immediate, private, sensations. So another cannot understand the language.What Wittgenstein had in mind is a language conceivedas necessarily comprehensible only to its single originator because the things which define itsvocabulary are necessarily inaccessible to others.

Immediately after introducing the idea, Wittgenstein goes on to argue that there cannot be such alanguage. The importance of drawing philosophers' attention to a largely unheard-of notion and thenarguing that it is unrealizable lies in the fact that an unformulated reliance on the possibility of a

private language is arguably essential to mainstream epistemology, philosophy of mind andmetaphysics from Descartes to versions of the representational theory of mind which became

prominent in late twentieth century cognitive science.

1. Overview: Wittgenstein's Argument and its Interpretations

Wittgenstein's main attack on the idea of a private language is contained in 244271of Philosophical Investigations (though the ramifications of the matter are recognizably pursueduntil 315). These passages, especially those from 256 onwards, are now commonly known as the

private language argument, despite the fact that he brings further considerations to bear on thetopic in other places in his writings; and despite the fact that the broader context, of 243315,does not contain a singular critique of just one idea, namely, a private languagerather, the

passages address many issues, such as privacy, identity, inner/outer relations, sensations as objects,and sensations as justification for sensation talk, amongst others.

Nevertheless, the main argument of 244271 is, apparently, readily summarized. The conclusionis that a language in principle unintelligible to anyone but its originating user is impossible. The


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reason for this is that such a so-called language would, necessarily, be unintelligible to its supposedoriginator too, for he would be unable to establish meanings for its putative signs.

2. The Significance of the Issue PRELIMINARE

The issue's significance can be seen by considering how the argument is embedded in the structureof Philosophical Investigations. Immediately prior to the introduction of the argument (241f),Wittgenstein suggests that the existence of the rules governing the use of language and makingcommunication possible depends on agreement in human behavioursuch as the uniformity innormal human reaction which makes it possible to train most children to look at something by

pointing at it. (Unlike cats, which react in a seemingly random variety of ways to pointing.) Onefunction of the private language argument is to show that not only actual languages but the very

possibility of language and concept formation depends on the possibility of such agreement.

Another, related, function is to oppose the idea that metaphysical absolutes are within our reach,that we can find at least part of the world as it really is in the sense that any other way of conceivingthat part must be wrong (cf. Philosophical Investigations p. 230).

In the case of sensations, the parallel temptation is to suppose that they are self-intimating. Itching,for example, seems like this: one just feels what it is directly; if one then gives the sensation aname, the rules for that name's subsequent use are already determined by the sensation itself.Wittgenstein tries to show that this impression is illusory, that even itching derives its identity onlyfrom a sharable practice of expression, reaction and use of language. If itching were a metaphysicalabsolute, forcing its identity upon me in the way described, then the possibility of such a shared

practice would be irrelevant to the concept of itching: the nature of itching would be revealed to mein a single mental act of naming it (the kind of mental act which Russell called acquaintance); allsubsequent facts concerning the use of the name would be irrelevant to how that name was meant;and the name could be private. The private language argument is intended to show that suchsubsequent facts could not be irrelevant, that no names could be private, and that the notion of having the true identity of a sensation revealed in a single act of acquaintance is a confusion.

The suggestion that a language could be private in the way described appears most openly in thesecond of Bertrand Russell's published lectures The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, where

Russell says:In a logically perfect language, there will be one word and no more for everysimple object, and everything that is not simple will be expressed by acombination of words, by a combination derived, of course, from the words for the simple things that enter in, one word for each simple component. A languageof that sort will be completely analytic, and will show at a glance the logicalstructure of the facts asserted or denied. A logically perfect language, if itcould be constructed, would not only be intolerably prolix, but, as regards itsvocabulary, would be very largely private to one speaker. That is to say, all thenames that it would use would be private to that speaker and could not enter intothe language of another speaker.


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A name, in the narrow logical sense of a word whose meaning is a particular,can only be applied to a particular with which the speaker is acquainted, becauseyou cannot name anything you are not acquainted with.

One can use this as a name to stand for a particular with which one is

acquainted at the moment. We say This is white. But if you try to apprehendthe proposition that I am expressing when I say This is white, you cannot do it.If you mean this piece of chalk as a physical object, then you are not using a

proper name. It is only when you use this quite strictly, to stand for an actualobject of sense [i.e., a sense-datum], that it is really a proper name. And in that ithas a very odd property for a proper name, namely that it seldom means the samething two moments running and does not mean the same thing to the speaker andto the hearer.

[I]n order to understand a name for a particular, the only thing necessary is to be acquainted with that particular. When you are acquainted with that particular,you have a full, adequate and complete understanding of the name, and no further information is required.

For example, a still very common idea, often attributed to John Locke and openlyembraced by Jerry Fodor in the nineteen seventies, is that interpersonal spokencommunication works by speakers' translation of their internal mentalvocabularies into sounds followed by hearers' re-translation into their owninternal vocabularies. Again, Descartes considered himself able to talk to himself about his experiences while claiming to be justified in saying that he does notknow (or not until he has produced a reassuring philosophical argument) anythingat all about an external world conceived as something independent of them. Andhe and others have thought: while I may make mistakes about the external world,I can infallibly avoid error if I confine my judgments to my immediate sensations.(Compare The Principles of Philosophy, I, 9.) Again, many philosophers,including John Stuart Mill, have supposed there to be a problem of other minds,according to which I may reasonably doubt the legitimacy of applying, say,sensation-words to beings other than myself.

3. The Private Language Argument Expounded

3.1 Preliminaries

As already noted, the private language sections of Philosophical Investigations are usually held to begin at 243 (though we shall see that Wittgenstein relies on points made much earlier in the book). The methodological issues canvassed above arise at the outset, in the interpretation of 243'scrucial second paragraph.


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On a substantial/non-Pyrrhonian reading, Wittgenstein begins to clarify what kind of philosophically important notion of private language is to be examined, i.e., one that is necessarily private and which refers to one's immediate private sensations. In the remarks that follow,Wittgenstein argues that the idea of such a private language is nonsensical or incoherent because itis a violation of grammar (i.e., Wittgenstein draws on his substantive views on meaning).

On a resolute/Pyrrhonian reading, it is emphasized that the reader is asked in the first sentence of the second paragraph whether one can actually imagine a language for one's inner experiences, for

private use. Wittgenstein at this point reminds the interlocutor that we already use ordinarylanguage for that. But the interlocutor quickly replies in the last three lines of 243 that what he isasking is whether we can imagine a private language that refers to what only the speaker can know.In the following sections, Wittgenstein examines whether there is a way of meaning the words of the penultimate sentence [of 243] that does not simply return us to a banality, whether in fact hisinterlocutor means anything in particular with those words (Mulhall 2007, p. 18). The question iswhether the notion of a language which only I myself can understand can be given any substantialmeaning to begin with. On this latter reading, 258 and 270, for example, are attempts to give theinterlocutor what he says he wants, but which, in the end, amount to nothing (in the case of 258) or

bring us back to a publicly understandable language (in the case of 270).

As we saw above, in section 1.2, it is not clear that we must choose between these two readings. Oneither, the point of the private language argument is that the idea is exposed as unintelligible when

pressedwe cannot make sense of the circumstances in which we should say that someone is usinga private language.

So, having introduced the idea of a private language in the way already quoted, Wittgenstein goes

on to argue in a preliminary discussion (244255) that there are two senses of private which a philosopher might have in mind in suggesting that sensations are private, and that sensations as theyare talked about in natural languages (such as English and German) are in fact private in neither of them. He then turns, at 256, to the question whether there could be a private language at all. Hecontinues to talk of sensations, and of pain as an example, but one should remember that these arenot our sensations, the everyday facts of human existence, but the supposed exemplarsof philosophical accounts of the everyday facts. Thus, for instance, they might be the sensations of something like a Cartesian soul (perhaps one associated with a physical body, as indicated in 257and 283), something which has no publicly available mental life and whose experiences are

accordingly private. (It is worth noting that the Anscombe translation is misleading here: in 243,for example, where the idea of a private language is introduced, it loses the crucial contrast, soevident in the original German, between the ordinary human beings described as solitary speakersin the first paragraph and the second paragraph's mysterious one who is the speaker of a privatelanguage and whose nature is carefully left unclear. See the translation of part of this paragraph, inthe first sentence of this article, to find a version closer to the original.) Consistent with this point isthat in 256 Wittgenstein suggests that one cannot arrive at the idea of a private language byconsidering a natural language: natural languages are not private, for our sensations are expressed.But neither can we arrive at the idea by starting with a natural language and just subtracting from it

all expression of sensations (temporary paralysis is clearly not in question), as he considers next, for as he says in 257, even if there could be language in such a situation as this where teaching isimpossible, the earlier argument of Philosophical Investigations (3335), concerning ostensive


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definition, has shown that mere mental association of one thing with another is not alone enoughto make the one into a name of the other. Naming one's sensation requires a place for the new word:that is, a notion of sensation. The attempt to name a sensation in a conceptual vacuum merely raisesthe questions of what this business is supposed to consist in, and what is its point. But, for the sakeof getting to the heart of the matter, Wittgenstein puts the first of these questions on one side and

pretends that it is sufficient for the second to imagine himself in the position of establishing a private language for the purpose of keeping a diary of his sensations.

However, to investigate the possibility of the imagined diary case by exploring it from the inside(the only way, he thinks, really to expose the confusions involved) requires him to use certain wordswhen it is just the right to use these words which is in question. Thus he is forced to mention in258 examples like ostensive definition, concentrating the attention, speaking, writing,remembering, believing and so on, in the very process of suggesting that none of these can reallyoccur in the situation under consideration (261).

This difficulty has often gone unnoticed by commentators on the argument, with particularlyunhappy results for the understanding of the discussion of the diary example. Fogelin [1976], for instance, a paradigm representative of Orthodoxy, treats this as a case where he himself , a livingembodied human being, keeps a diary and records the occurrences of a sensation which he finds itimpossible to describe to anyone else. But we are not to assume that the description of the keepingof the diary is a description of a possible or even ultimately intelligible case. In particular, we arenot to think of such a human being's keeping a real diary, but of something like the Cartesianinternal equivalent. It is thus vital to the argument that the diary case is presented in the first person,without our pressing the question, Who is speaking? At this stage we are simply not to worry

about whether the diary story ultimately makes sense or not. But the fact that it may not make sensemust be remembered in reading what follows, which in strictness should constantly be disfiguredwith scare quotes. (We shall, as we have already, occasionally supply them as a reminder, reservingdouble quotes for this purpose.)

To summarize the argument's preliminary stage: In 256 Wittgenstein asked of the private language, How do I use words to stand for my sensations?, andreminded us in 257 that we cannot answer As we ordinarily do. So thisquestion, which is the same question as How do I obtain meaning for theexpressions in a private language? is still open; and the answer must be

independent of our actual connections between words and sensations. In theattempt to arrive at an answer, and explore the question in its full depth, hetemporarily allows the use of the notions of sensation and diary-keeping (despitethe objections of 257), and imagines himself in the position of a private linguistrecording his sensations in a diary. The aim is to show that even if this concessionis made, meaning for a sensation-word still cannot be secured and maintained bysuch a linguist. The crucial central part of the argument begins here, at 258.

3.2 The Central Argument

Wittgenstein points out of the diary case first of all that a definition of the sign cannot beformulated. (The translation here obscures the reason why. Wittgenstein's word is aussprechen,


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better translated as expressed than formulated: the point follows by definition from the fact thatthe case is one where the definition is private.) So if meaning is to be obtained for the sign, thismust be achieved through a private exercise of ostensive definition, where I concentrate on thesensation and produce the sign at the same time. (In these circumstances, meaning cannot beextracted from a pre-existing practice of private use, since what is in question is how such a use

could be established in the first place.) But if this exercise is to be genuine and successful ostensivedefinition, it must establish the connection between sign and sensation, and this connectionmust persist. As Wittgenstein says, I impress [the connection] on myself can only mean: this

process brings it about that I remember the connection right in the future. For I do not defineanything, even to myself let alone anyone else, by merely attending to something and making amark, unless this episode has the appropriate consequences.

3.4 The Central Argument Continued

Now that we are clearer about what the connection is which has to beremembered right, we can return to the exposition of the argument. I am toimagine that I am a private linguist. I have a sensation, and make the mark S atthe same time, as I might in an ordinary case introduce a sign by ostensivedefinition. Afterwards, I believe myself to have established a meaning for thissign S, and I now use it to judge that I am again experiencing the samesensation. What do I mean by S on this second occasion? Wittgenstein considerstwo possible answers.

The Second Answer

The second answer Wittgenstein considers to the question of what I mean by S is this: I mean byS, not this current sensation, but the sensation I named S in the past. We have already seen, inKenny's rejection of the Orthodox reading of the argument, that scepticism about memory has no

place in the discussion of private language; the text simply does not support it. But at this pointwe must break with Kenny too. For according to his account the crucial claim becomes: If it is

possible for me to misremember my previous ostensive definition of S, then I do not really knowwhat S means. (See, e.g., Kenny [1973] p. 194.) This is just conventional scepticism aboutmemory extended to include meanings as well as judgments. And it is an elementary point of epistemology that knowing something does not obviously entail just as a result of the definition of knowledge that it is impossible for one to be wrong about that thing, only that one is not in factwrong.

What has gone wrong? The answer is that Kenny's and the Orthodox accounts share an unnoticedassumption: that even in the circumstances of the private language there is actually an applicationof a sign to a private sensation by a private linguist. The problem as Kenny then conceives it is oneof later remembering this earlier application in order that S should have retained its meaning. The

question then seems to be whether one's admittedly fallible memory is adequate for the maintenanceof meaning. But why should this assumption be allowed? What entitles us to assume that a privatelinguist could even ostensively define his sign to himself in the first place? As we have seen, this is


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one of the matters in question; and 260 and 261 show that Wittgenstein was not prepared to let anargument in favour of private language proceed from this assumption. In these two sectionsWittgenstein reminds us that his arguments in the earlier sections (e.g., 3335) of PhilosophicalInvestigations showed that ostensive definition was not achieved by any performance unless certaincircumstantial conditions are fulfilled; and nothing about the diary case as so far described shows

them to be fulfilled. It is only later (270271) that Wittgenstein imagines a partial fulfilment of them, and the result there is to render the language public.

One cause of the muddle is Wittgenstein's insistence that there must be a distinction betweenobeying a rule and merely thinking that one has. This does not result, as the Orthodox havesupposed, in a demand for, and eventual rejection of, memory-infallibility in a private language:demand and rejection being based respectively on the grounds that without infallibility one couldalways be going wrong and would never know if one were, and with infallibility one would collapsethe distinction between obeying a rule and merely thinking one was obeying it. Rather, theargument is this. The private linguist cannot legislate a meaning for a sign by private ostensivedefinition merelyfor this has to establish a technique of using the sign (260). The techniquecannot function by means of repeated ostensive definitions, as we saw in examining the firstanswer, since this collapses the distinction between meaning and truth and thus destroys the

possibility of making factual judgments. So the so-called definition has on some other basis toestablish a constancy in use of the sign.

But this is just what is in question. What would be constancy here? What would be using the sign inthe same way as before? How was the sign used in the first place? As there cannot be assumed to bea way of using the sign which the linguist succeeds even in determining, let alone establishing, and

which is the correct way, independent of the linguist's later impression of the correct way, then adefender of private language would have to show that there was. It might now seem as if onecould show this by appealing to the private linguist's memory. He simply remembers how he usedthe sign before. And this looks straightforward enough, because one thinks: he certainly didsomething before, for he remembers it. And we do not require his memory to be infallible. But thememory does at least have to be a memory: that is, accurate or not, it has to be of somethingdeterminate which existed independently of the memory of it; and the memory alone cannot bringsuch a thing into existence.

This is the argument of 265, which has often been mistakenly given an epistemological

interpretation. Again we cannot assume that there has been an actual table (even a mentalone) of meanings in the case of the private linguist, a table which is now recalled andabout which the linguist must rely on recall since the original has gone. Rather, as 260 264 show, there may be nothing determinate other than this remembering of the table.So when we think that a private linguist could remember the meaning of S byremembering a past correlation of the sign S with a sensation, we are supposing whatneeds to be itself establishedthat there was indeed some independent correlation to beremembered. Fallibility of memory, even of memory of meaning, is neither here nor there: the point is not that there is doubt now about the trustworthiness of memory, but

that there was doubt then about the status of what occurred. And this original, non-epistemological, doubt cannot later be removed by recollections of a status inherentlydubious in the first place. That is, if there was no genuine original correlation in the first


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place, a memory will not create one. But if, alternatively, we do not suppose that therewas something independent of the memory to be remembered, again what seems right isright; the memory of the correlation is being employed to confirm itself, for there isno independent access to the remembered correlation. (Not even the independent accessthat we have as posers of the example, since the question is, can we pose such an

example? The typical mistake commentators make here is to disguise the problem bythinking of S in terms of some already established concept, such as pain, which they bringto the example themselves.) This is why Wittgenstein says in 265, As if someone wereto buy several copies of the morning paper to assure himself that what it said was true.

The Closing Stages

So far the argument has been conducted in terms of an I not essentially related to

body or related only to an inert body. At 269, however, it moves to exampleswhere there is bodily behaviour but despite this there is still the temptation tothink of private meanings for words independent of their public use. This suggestsa further chance for a defender of the idea of a private language: that a privatelinguist might secure a meaning for his sign S by correlating its private use withsome public phenomenon. This would apparently serve to provide a function for the noting of S in the diary (260) and thus give a place for ostensive definition,and would give as well a guarantee that there is some constancy in the linguist'suse of the term S independent of his impression of such constancy. Wittgenstein

uses the example of the manometer in 270271 to consider this idea, and hiscriticism of it is in effect that this method of securing meaning works, but that thesecured meaning is public: the so-called private object, even if there were sucha thing, is revealed to be irrelevant to meaning. Presumably a defender of privatelanguage would hope that the example would work like this: if I keep saying, onthe basis of my sensation, that my blood pressure is rising, and the manometer shows that I am right, then this success in judging my own blood pressure showsthat I had in fact established a private meaning for the sign S and was using thesign in the same way each time to judge that my sensation was the same each

time. However, all the example really shows is that just thinking that I have thesame sensation now as I had when my blood pressure rose formerly, can be agood guide to the rising of my blood pressure. Whether in some private sensethe sensation was actually the same or not becomes completely irrelevant to thequestion of constancy in the use of Sthat is, there is no gap between the actualnature of the sensation and my impression of it, and S in this case could meanmerely sensation of the rising of the blood pressure; indeed, for all we are toldof the sign's role, it could even mean just blood pressure rising.

Da OTHER MINDS SEP


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1. What is the Problem of Other Minds?

That other human beings are mostly very like ourselves is something about which almostall of us, almost all of the time, are certain. There are exceptions, among them

philosophical sceptics, and perhaps those suffering from some abnormal mental condition.We do not, of course, believe that we always or even mostly know about others' inner livesin detail, but we do not doubt that they have an inner life, that they experience the physicalworld much as we do, rejoice, suffer, have thoughts, beliefs, feelings, emotions, and so on.But what, if anything, justifies our certainty?

There is general agreement among philosophers that the problem of other minds is concerned withthe fundamental issue of what entitles us to our basic belief that other human beings do have inner lives rather than whether we are able in specific cases to be sure what is happening in those inner lives.

However, there are (at least) two problems of other minds. There is the epistemological

problem, concerned with how our beliefs about mental states other than our own might be justified. There is also a conceptual problem: how is it possible for us to form a concept of mental states other than our own.

1.1 The Epistemological Problem

The epistemological problem is produced by the radical difference that holds between our access toour own experience and our access to the experience of all other human beings. We often knowdirectly that we are in a certain mental state. Typical cases would be where we are in serious pain,are itching, are smelling a rose, seeing a sunflower, are depressed, believe that today is Tuesday, andso forth. We do not always know directly that we are in the mental state we are in but what isstriking is that we never have direct knowledge that other human beings are in whatever mentalstate they are in. It is this stark asymmetry that generates the epistemological problem of other minds.

The asymmetry is a matter of what is known directly and not known directly, and the specific kindof knowledge. It is not a matter of what can be observed, perceived, felt, as opposed to what cannot

be observed, perceived, felt. Were I able to observe the mental states of another human being thatwould not mean that I did not have a problem of other minds. I would still lack what I needed. What

I need is the capacity to observe those mental states as mental states belonging to that other human being. They would have to be experienced by me as someone else's mental state. My experience of the other would have to come accompanied by that guarantee, attached as it were to anepistemological label. The situation would only then be as it is in my own case. I would only then

be in possession of the direct knowledge that I and all of us forever lack.

It should be noted that just as direct observation is not what we relevantly lack (thoughmost of us mostly do) neither is it direct knowledge as such that is crucial. If we taketelepathy, then were it to be accepted that some have this supposed gift, they might beallowed to have the capacity to have direct knowledge of (some of) the inner lives of others. They still would not know directly that those others have any inner life at all. Evenif they were to be as it were plugged in to another's mental states, they would need what


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they do not have, direct knowledge that what they are plugged in to is, indeed, the inner life of another. They would know directly that there is a pain but not that it is someoneelse's pain. So, the asymmetry that generates the epistemological problem of other minds isthat each of us sometimes knows directly that we are in the mental state we are in and wenever know directly that someone other than ourself is in the mental state they are in.

Three solutions to the other minds problem in its epistemological form seem to be the most popular.Arguably the most common view among those philosophers who have interested themselves in the

problem is that the solution takes the form of an inference to the best explanation: that other human beings have inner lives is seen as the best explanation of their behavior. The guiding thought is thatthe mental states of human beings are what cause them to behave as they do. So, the inference totheir having minds is one based on that being the best explanation for the way they behave.

Ordinary persons are most likely to believe in the traditional analogical inference, appealing to thesimilarity that holds between ourselves and others, as the basis for our certainty about the inner

lives of other human beings. The traditional solution to the problem of other minds has been thisanalogical inference to other minds. Other human beings are very like me. They behave very muchas I do in similar circumstances and they are made of the same stuff. When I burn myself it hurtsand I cry out and wince. When other people are burned they do the same. I can thus infer that theyare in pain too. There are multifarious such similarities. Put more generally, I know directly that Ihave beliefs, emotions, feelings, sensations and the like. So I am enabled to infer, on the basis of these multifarious similarities, that other people also have beliefs, emotions, experiences and thelike. In short, I am entitled to infer that other human beings have as I do, an inner life and that it isvery like mine.

The criterial solution insists that the link between behavior and mental states is not aninference to the best explanation, and nor is it any kind of inductive inference. However,nor is the link an entailment (as in behaviorism). The relationship between mental statesand behavior is claimed to be conceptual and characterized as criterial.

Conceptual problem

The conceptual problem can arise from a different route: how can I extend my concept of pain beyond my own pain? If the response is to enquire what the difficulty is becausesurely others just are thought to have what I have when I am in pain, we have

Wittgenstein's famous rejoinder But if I suppose that someone has a pain, then I amsimply supposing that he has just the same as I have so often had. That gets us no further.It as if I were to say: You surely know what It is 5 o'clock here means; so you also knowwhat It's 5 o'clock on the sun means. It means simply that it is the same time there as it ishere when it is 5 o'clock. (Wittgenstein 1953, 350). Kripke thinks Wittgenstein's positionon this issue can be linked with Hume and his failure, on looking inside himself, to findany self (Kripke 1982, Postscript). If there is no self to whom a pain belongs then there isno question of moving from my pain to that of others'.


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2. History

It is noteworthy that the other minds problem came to prominence as a philosophical problem onlyas recently as the nineteenth century, when John Stuart Mill gave us what is generally regarded as aversion of the analogical inference to other minds. Mill's version has as its centerpiece the causallink between our mental states and our behavior. The problem was clearly enough waiting to benoted as far back as Descartes and his separation of mind from body and his view that only humananimals had minds. However, it does not seem that Descartes noticed it as a separate problem. Asimilar situation would seem to apply with John Locke, given his belief that the mind of another isinvisible (Locke, 111.ii.1, 404405).

Before Mill, it would seem that Thomas Reid should be credited with seeing that there was a serious philosophical issue concerning other minds (Avramides 2001, ch., VI). Indeed, it seems that the firstfrequent use of the words other minds is to be credited to him (Somerville 1989, 249). However,those minds are not observable. Nor is our belief that they exist to be reached or supported by

reasoning. For Reid it is self-evident, an innate belief, that there are minds other than one's own.The analogical inference to other minds held sway until about the middle of the twentieth century.Increasingly argued to be problematic, the analogical inference lost ground within philosophy. Itwas widely thought to be inadequate because of two of its features. The first was that the conclusionwas not only uncheckable but was such that it was logically impossible to check up on it. Thesecond was that the argument seemed to be an inductive generalization based on only one case. Thissecond feature was thought to be problematic in itself but was thought by many to have as aconsequence that each of us learns only from our own case what it is to be in pain or some other mental state. This consequence was thought to be completely unacceptable.

The more favoured notion that emerged from these difficulties besetting the analogical inference(strongly influenced by Wittgenstein's writings on the nature of first and third person psychologicalstatements) was that criterial evidence could deal with the problem in a way that avoided the

problems besetting the analogical inference. An adjacent view, though distinct, was that we are able,at least in enough cases, to know directly that other human beings have minds.

Widespread dissatisfaction with the views outlined so far increasingly led Anglo-American philosophers to the view that the best explanation for how other human beings behave isthat they behave as they do because their behavior is caused by (their) mental states.

However, all of the views remain in play and (variously) contested.Though philosophical theories of mind tend to accept the asymmetry, and thus cannot escape the

problem of other minds, it is not generally thought that those theories are faced with a uniformlydifficult problem of other minds. Philosophical behaviorism in particular is a theory of mind that is

believed to have no difficulty in solving the problem. Where it is thought that being in a mentalstate is a matter of how one behaves or is disposed to behave, there is no great difficulty in knowingabout the behavior and even the behavioral dispositions of another human being.

Another theory of mind, functionalism, would seem to accept that there is a problem of other minds but one which presents little difficulty. Mental states are conceived of as inner states which are themeans by which an organism responds to its surroundings. The different mental states arecharacterized by their various roles, their typical causes and effects. They are in this way alone


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distinguished one from another. So a burning pain is that inner state typically caused by being burned and typically leading to wincing and crying out and such like behavior. It follows that allthat is required to reach the conclusion that other human beings have such inner states is merelycareful observation of how they behave and in what circumstances.

Eliminative materialism boldly banishes mental states from existence and so the problemof other minds completely vanishes. If there are no minds there can be no problem of other minds.

3.1 The Analogical Inference

The traditional solution to the problem of other minds has been the analogical inference to other minds. Other human beings are very like me. They behave very much as I do in similar circumstances and they are made of the same stuff. When I burn myself it hurts and I cry out andwince. When other people are burned they do the same. I can thus infer that they are in pain too.

There are multifarious such similarities. Put more generally, I know directly that I have beliefs,emotions, feelings, sensations and the like. So I am enabled to infer on the basis of thesemultifarious similarities that other people also have beliefs, emotions, experiences and the like. Inshort, I am entitled to infer that other human beings have an inner life and that it is very like mine.

Defenders of the analogical inference to other minds now generally present it in a hybrid formincorporating an inference to the best explanation (scientific inference, hypothetic inference)(Melnyk 1994). That there are, inevitably, different hypotheses about human beings to which the

present one is to be preferred requires that the argument incorporate a hypothetic inference. But theroles played by the similarities between ourselves and others and by the analogical arguer's ownexperience remain crucial in this hybrid analogical/hypothetic inference.

Given the asymmetry which is at the heart of the problem of other minds this inference is,however, an inference to a conclusion that cannot be checked up on. It is not a matter of contingent fact that it cannot be checked up on. It is logically impossible to do that. This isthe first classical objection to the analogical inference. That it is logically impossible tocheck up on the conclusion has been viewed as a decisive objection to the inference (Ryle1949, 15). However, hypotheses endemic in science are in practice such that they cannever be directly checked up on. This impossibility is empirical, not logical, but thedifference seems irrelevant to the evidential status of the respective inferences. So theobjection in its present form fails.

3.3 Criteria and Other Minds

The criterial solution depends on the claim that the link between behavior and mentalstates is not an inductive inference. Nor is the link an entailment (as in behaviorism). Therelationship between mental states and behavior is claimed to be conceptual andcharacterized as criterial (Malcolm 1962b). So behavior is regarded as a criterion for the

presence of mental states. Wittgenstein (1953) is the philosopher most famously associatedwith criteria


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The relationship that holds between itching and scratching is claimed to be an example of such a non-inferential link. Itching is claimed to be conceptually linked to scratching andnot merely contingently correlated with scratching. Our concept of itching links itchingwith scratching. To itch causes the itcher to scratch or disposes the itcher to scratch. It isthen urged that scratching is thereby evidence of itching (Aune 1963).

6. Private Language and Other Minds PRELIMINARI

It has been universally accepted that natural languages are a communal, shared activity, a kind of public property. Some have insisted that they are essentially public. One way of understanding thisclaim is famously associated with Wittgenstein. A necessarily private language, one which is suchthat it can, in principle, be understood by only one person, is (logically) impossible.

The connection with the problem of other minds emerges out of the grounds advanced for the claimthat a necessarily private language is impossible. The case made out for the impossibility threatens

directly the analogical inference to other minds.It is argued that a language has to be, in principle, subject to checking by someone other than anindividual user of the language (Wittgenstein 1953, 258). A necessarily private language would beunable to meet this condition. Generally, a user of the analogical inference to other minds is in

breach of this principle. That inference assumes that each of us knows what psychological termsmean (or,at any rate, some of them) from our own case, and only from our own case. Were such anassumption true, it would follow that the relevant usage would not then be, in principle, one thatcould be checked for consistency. Functionalists, by contrast, do not make such an assumption. Sothe private language argument connects with the problem of other minds only where a particular solution to that problem involves a dependence on such an assumption.

The argument that it must be possible in principle to check that a language user is using a term inthat language correctly, has generally been that in the absence of that possibility no distinction can

be made between its seeming to the language user that their usage is consistent, and its being so.They have nothing to go on other than how it seems to them. So error has no purchase. The issuehas been vigorously contested (Blackburn 197475; Candlish 1980; Canfield 2001; Strawson1954).

The impossibility of a private language has not generally been used directly as an

argument for the existence of other minds. Nor should it be. After all, the claim is that alanguage has to be such that a user could in principle be checked up on, whether or notthey could, in actual fact, be checked up on. So Robinson Crusoe can be allowed thecomfort of language.

DA W. On criteria and the problem of other minds- The oxford handbook of W.

I criteri per i concetti psicologici sono importanti per l'applicazione di mental stateconcepts to other people. La discussione di W about criteria is an answer to the skepticism

view about other minds.

Criteria on the Blue Book


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introduciamo la nazione di criteria come parte of examination of the grammar (the use) of the word to know. Shall look getting to know-- getting to know that so has a pain. Thequestion is how can i learn the grammar of so has a pain. A possible answer might be :when somone esibisce certain kinds of behaviour. In this case the behaviour esibitodiviene il criterio.

Symptoms is the phenomenon di cui experience has taught us that it coincided , in someway or other, with the phenomenon which is our defining criterion.

C : features that define a ph.

S: features that are empirically correlated with a ph

da cui deriva la conoscenza by criterion and knowledge by symptoms.

Interpretation of criteria in Albritton'On W 's use of the term criterion

a pain itself is something inner, not reducible to or definible in terms of behaviour. In PIcriteria are not features that defines or constututes that state but criteria of state areobservable features that can justify one in judging that the state obtains.

La difference between criteria and symptoms is that criteria are necessarily connected withthe state di cui sono criteria. La giustificazione del mio giudizio che un tale uomo con untale behaviour ha il mal di denti dipende dal grammar della parola mal di denti.

Secondo Albritton la nozione di criterion is meant to answer alla questione se una personao una cosa in un particolare stato o no. Nel caso specifio degli inner states in cui il

particolare stato in questione non pu essere direttamente osservato , i criteria sono

considerati for provide the most definitive possible way of judging if so is in particular inner state, but they not provide a guarantee of the truth of that judgment.

Criteria in the pi

354-355 es della pioggia

se in BB attraverso l esempio dell angina , si detto che se il criterion for angina ( the particular bacillus in the blood) is present, that the pacient has got the angina by definitionand if i find the bacillus in the blood of pacient that i know that she has angina.

By criteria i say that in a raining day i walk on the street and percepisco la pioggia. Fromthis derives a no-mediate knowledge. This knowledge is not falsificable.

By symptoms i say in a raining day i look at the barometric reading and i am perceivingindicators that it is raining. This knowledge is mediate by a causal hypotheses that justifiesl'inferenza that it is raining. La conoscenza acquisita per symptoms is falsificable.

La priorit logica dei criteria sui symptoms is that there is a conceptual link between

criteria and what di cui are criteria, which there is not between symptoms and what di cuisono symptoms.


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So criteria for a phenomenon specifica cosa che deve essere quel fenomeno. So that we candefine what is the rain For W non si pu definire la pioggia con cio che produce senseimpressions of it perch potremmo avere quelle sense impressions senza che piova.

So criteria tell us what we call apparences of rain normally presents to normal observersin normal conditions. This reasoning can be esteso al caso about criteria for state of mind:criteria for state of mind will be the apparances that that state of mind tipically presents toobsevers. Apparances are manifestazioni actual or genuine expressions of what they areapparances of. Tuttavia vi sono anche false apparances.

Dal momento che quindi i criteria non implicano la presenza dei loro stati corrispondentiappare che possano essere altro che especially well-confirmed correlates of the phenomenawe wish to know about.. poiche secondo questo ragionamento sono essenzialmenteindicatori del phenomena of interest e poich la correlazione tra criterial apparances e

pioggia basata sull'esperienza it look as if there were nothing at all but symptoms

Connessione tra inner states and criteria for inner states

Avviene la connessione by expression. Per imparare come applicare la parola painfacciamo affidamento alle tipiche espressioni of pain: ci alla base della connessioneconcettuale. Sapere cosa pain requires that some behaviour are expressions of pain.

PI 580 an inner process stands in _ of outward criteria cio significa non che one observer necessita di outward criteria in order to attribute an inner state to a subject but it means thatil processo stesso ha bisogno di outward criteria perch l'inner process costituito by whatwould be the outward expression of it.

Da W MEANING AND MIND VOL 3.1 P.M.S. HACKER ANALITICALCOMMENTARY ON THE PI PRELIMINARI

Private language arguments 243-315. gli arguments trattati hanno il compito di mostrarel'incoerenza di una certa immagine della natura umana, della mente e del rapporto tra

behaviour and mental, della conoscenza dell'esperienza delle altre persone che hadominato la filosofia sin da Descartes. Secondo la filosofia tradizionale la fonte dellaconoscenza e materials of thought is the experience or the 'given'. The foudation of

knowledge is costituted by 'ideas' given by inner/outer sense. Alla base vi la concezioneof a inner/outer picture of mind.

Dall'altra parte seguendo la lezione agostiniana si pensava che il linguaggio avessefondamento in oggetti mentali e soggettivi e che il nome stesse per the thing. So that thename linked language to reality.

[ la definizione ostensiva una forma legitimate of explaining the meaning of a world. Itgives a rule for the use of a word, tipically introduces a sample to function as a standard of correct application.]

W vuole dimostra che il sensation language is essentially sharable. The refutation of thesupposition of the possibility of a private language is a reductio ad absurdum of an array of


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deep pre suppositions. For here there are and can be no rules, a fortiori no ostensivedefinitions, but only an illusion of meaning.

Ogni persona ha esperienze mentali o fisici states. Diciamo tautologicamente che queste

esperienze sono le sue. Esse sono espresse spesso dal suo behaviour. Numerose psicologiche espressioni sono nomi di esperienze che una persona enjoys or endures. Seuna persona conosce what such a psychological predicate means, he knows what it standsfor. Conoscere cosa la parola pain means is to know that it stands for a certain kind of sensation. Una persona che has mastered a language can say what experiences he ishaving. His ability to do so is indipendent of his observation of his own behaviour, andwhat he says does not rest on the evidence of what he does. Non pu dubitare che he is in

pain. Cio che una persona dice di own experience ha uno status privileged.

Il regno mentale consiste di oggetti mentali, processi e stati . Per avere un'esperienza si

deve instaurare una relazione con un tipo di oggetto, processo o stato. La naturadell'oggetto pu essere sui generi , irrudicible and distinct from physical. Pu essereneurale (modificazione del brain) o oggetto funzionale con a neural ' realization'. Una

persona non pu avere un'identica esperienza di un altro ma solo una simile. So experienceis inalienable 'private property'.

Nomi del mentale

one can only know what such an experience means if one is acquaintance with what itstands for. Se il significato di una parola la cosa for which it stands, to know its meaning

is to know that thing. Alternatively, if the meaning of the word is denied to be what theword stands for, it is still plausible to argue that a world which cannot be defined by ananalytical definition must be explained by an ostensive definition.

Un bambino impara il nome di un'esperienza mentale by first having the experience , then being brought to give himself a mental ostensive definition by concentrating on theexperience.

Una volta che il significato stato assegnato ad un nome , subsequent uses of the word can be explained by causal theorist, as a matter of 'habit memory' , or by normative theorist ,asa sort of calling up an exemplar stored in the memory.

Conoscenza del mondo soggettivo.

Quando i experience x, i cannot doubt about x

la mia conoscenza della mia esperienza certa.

Dato che having an experience is standing in a relation to mental objects and so on, andsince that relation yields knowledge, there must be an inner analogue of the correspondingrelation with respect to 'outer objects'. This analogue is inner sense, introspection.

Una mente trasparente a se stessa. Gli oggetti mentali sono conosciuti immeditamentemediante l'introspezione. Le espressioni psicologiche della firs-person are descriptions di


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ci che rivelato to introspective scrutiny.dal momento che io posso descrivere le mieesperienze senza riferimento to my own behaviour , first-person psychological expressionsare logically independent of behaviour. Menatal states cause behaviour.

Knowledge of other'mental state

non si pu conoscere mental states of other people by introspection. Rather, one observestheir behaviour and one can infer from it what mental states or experiences are causallyresponsable of their behaviour.

Le experience and mental states of others are hidden, inaccessibili ad una direttaosservazione. Se anche altri ci dicessero a parole le loro esperienze essi potrebberomentire. Ugualmente, anche se essi behave in such-and-such ways, si tratterebbe solo di un

behaviour, not the expression itself, they may be dissimulating.

The behaviour of other people consists of bare moviments anda the emission of sounds.The body that behaves is a physical organism subject to the causal laws that determine themovements of alla physical bodies.

Dato che uno stato mentale o an experience can be enioyed senza alcun correspondig behaviour occurring, and behaviour may occur withouth the appropriate mental state or experience, it is not logically connected with the mental.

Dato che le esperienze e i mental states of other are known by inference from behaviouralexternalities, e dato che la connessione tra b e mental states is external, l'inferenza non puessere logica.

Non possiamo giungere alla conoscenza di altri exp and ms.

conseguenze

scetticismo about other minds and about communication: sembra impossibile per another person avere what i have when i have a pain, and if i define 'pain' by reference to what ihave than, given the assumptions about meaning which are in play, logicamenteimpossibile per altri conoscere cosa io intendo by the word pain. Il mio linguaggio sembra

privato. For it does not even make sense to suppose that what others have when they say ' ihave a pain' is similar to what i have pain. This can only be supposed if there is someoperative criterion of similarity. But although i surely have one in my case, it is logicallyimpossible for there to be one for the interpersonal case.

Da ROUTLEDGE PHILOSOPHY GUIDEBOOK TO W AND THE PI Mc Guinn

PRIVATE L.

243 definisce cosa un privato linguaggio

la domanda : possiamo immaginare un linguaggio simile?

Il metodo dell'introspezione can only lead to a psychological statement about theintrospection. Per W we achieve clarity concerning the nature of sensations or thought by

describing the use of the words 'pain' or 'to think'.


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Our ordinary sense language.

244 esempio del bambino. Mostra come l'introspection plays no part. L'interlocutorechiede: so u are saying that word pain really means crying?

If the word 'pain' is not introduced by means of a inner ostenstive definitions, surely what

the child feels is not part of its meaning. The meaning of the word pain would beconnected purely with the outward behaviour.

Witt answer: on the contrary, the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does notdescribe it.

The way that these words connect with what the child feels is through his learning to usethem as a technique for giving expressions to how he feels or we say that la connessionetra pain and cosa il soggetto sente is achieved not by where the child looks when he learnsthe word, but by the grammar of the concept that he is being taught.

246: in what sense are my sensation private?

Preliminare la comprensione della differenza qualitativa tra oggetti privati ( accessibili adun solo soggetto) e pubblici ( accessibili a tutti).

W la presenta come una differenza grammar tra due tipi di concetti. Un importantedimostrazione n questa distinzione grammar lies in a distinctive asymmetry thatcharacterize the use of the former concept.

First person:' i'm in pain' gives expression to pain

io non posso dire to learn of my pain

non posso dubitare se sono real in pain

third person: she is in pain' no gives expression

gli altri possono dire to learn of my pain

gli altri possono dubitare that i am real in pain

la complessit dell'uso dei nostri sensation concepts rivela la fondamentale distinzione trasensation and behaviour and their rispettivi concetti. Attraverso la grammatical differences

between kinds of concept that we distinguish the kinds of thing that our concepts describe.

'essence is expressed by grammar'.

253: 'another person can't have my pains'

'which are my pains?' what counts as a criterion of identity here?'

criterion of identity lo articoliamo by making ourselves aware of how we use the words'pain', my pain, his pain etc.

256: ' now, what about.... these names in description'


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l'uso del nome pu in qualche modo essere fissato per associazione, so that when iintroduce the name by associating it with the sensation it is already clear what it is, or i canderive knowledge of what sensation is.

257: what would ut be like if human beings showed no outward sign of pain?

Risp: then it would be impossible to teach a child the use of the world tootache. Tuttavia ilconcetto of tootache is not deprived of sense. Se noi pensassimo di poter derivare la nostraidea of what pain is on the basis of intrispection, il fatto che we can't teach someone theuse of the word is incidental to his ability to define it.

Si potrebbe pensare che ' the child is a genius and itself invents a name for sensation'.Potremmo pensare che il genius has to turn his mental attention to what he feels and repeatto himself the words i'll call this tootache'. Ma questo turning __non serve to fix acriterion of identity.

Per w l'atto of naming presuppone una grammar technic of employing a word within alanguage game. So the mere act of looking inwards does not supply this grammar.

258 esempio del diario.

Io associo a certain sensation with 'S' sign with a view to keeping a diary about recurrence.I introduce S 'by writing the sign down and at the same time concentrate my attention onthe sensation'. Questa cerimonia of looking inwards and repeating the sinf is f(?). how doesit serve to establish a meaning for S?

Well___talk about 'right'.

Private linguist (user of private language) introduces S associandolo con una sensazionema dato che l'originale sensazione is no longe available when he comes to use S in thefuture, non c' nulla che pu servire come esempio by reference to which this future use of S can be justified. Tutto ci che il private language ha la memoria della sansazione , mala memoria pu servire come criterio only if it itself is a correct memory, there is no no-circular means of justifying a future use of S.

S non ha meaning because there is no way of fixing that a future use of S is correct.

Rimedio: cercare una forma of independent check on the use of S, by linking its use with

public criteria of application. La morale non che i concetti psicologici must possess public criteria, but that it is only by reminding ourselves of the grammar of our ordinary psychological concepts that we can grasp the essence of a given kind of pshycologicalstate.

261: for sensation is a word of our common language, not of one intelligible to me alone.So the use of this word stands in need of a justification which everybody understands'

S is a sign for a sensation.

Appunti Su Wittgenstein

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