This is jargon-free, so there will be no talk of _____ists or _______ism or any other philosophical mumbo jumbo.
The context is explaining and critiquing the concept of 'meaning' in language. For various reasons, this ties in to talk about mental states such as belief, knowledge, desire, fear, etc.. I mention this because so many on this site are interested in theories of consciousness (which arguably encompass such 'states') and not necessarily interested in philosophy of language. Hopefully, the connection will be sufficient to interest some of you in the discussion (or I will just talk to myself).
If I say 'I believe that it will rain tomorrow' - what is the object of my belief? If beliefs are like sensations, then it will be just like saying 'I seeOne can imagine an animal angry, frightened, unhappy, happy,
startled. But hopeful? And why not?
A dog believes his master is at the door. But can he also believe his
master will come the day after to-morrow?—And what can he not do
here?—How do I do it?—How am I supposed to answer this?
Can only those hope who can talk? Only those who have mastered
the use of a language. That is to say, the phenomena of hope are modes
of this complicated form of life. (If a concept refers to a character of
human handwriting, it has no application to beings that do not write.)
"Grief" describes a pattern which recurs, with different variations,
in the weave of our life. If a man's bodily expression of sorrow and
of joy alternated, say with the ticking of a clock, here we should not
have the characteristic formation of the pattern of sorrow or of the
pattern of joy.
"For a second he felt violent pain."—Why does it sound queer
to say: "For a second he felt deep grief"? Only because it so seldom
happens?
But don't you feel grief now? ("But aren't you playing chess now?")
The answer may be affirmative, but that does not make the concept
of grief any more like the concept of a sensation.—The question
was really, of course, a temporal and personal one, not the logical
question which we wanted to raise.
"I must tell you: I am frightened."
"I must tell you: it makes me shiver."—
And one can say this in a smiling tone of voice too.
And do you mean to tell me he doesn't feel it? How else does he
know it?—But even when he says it as a piece of information he does
not learn it from his sensations.
For think of the sensations produced by physically shuddering:
the words "it makes me shiver" are themselves such a shuddering reaction;
and if I hear and feel them as I utter them, this belongs among
the rest of those sensations. Now why should the wordless shudder
be the ground of the verbal one?
a tree over there.' The object of my sight is a tree. The object of my belief is a proposition or thought - or belief.
When I say 'Azure means the same thing as light blue' I have in mind one color which is designated by both phrases. The meaning of the words are objects unto themselves - whether thoughts, or concepts or images. They are the things referred to by the words; but they are not physical objects - or physical objects are just a special case of meaning called 'naming.' Thus, all words have meanings; words which name physical objects have those objects as their meaning.
The above two paragraphs are examples of some explanations of meaning and belief which Wittgenstein is calling into question. Modeling beliefs and other mental states on perception breaks down at many points. Modeling meaning on naming also breaks down.
When we believe that 'p', or hope that 'p' or know that 'p' we are part of a relationship between ourselves and a proposition (sentence; and its parts- words). Dogs and other beings who have no language can have no relationship with propositions because propositions are wholly linguistic.