The Private Language Argument

[Philosophy Now]

Richard Floyd explains a notorious example of Wittgenstein’s public thought.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/58/The ... e_Argument

[Terrapin Station]

I'm the anti-Wittgenstein. In my view, it's ALL private language, or at least it might as well be. Only individuals know just how words correspond to the meanings they assign, and there's no way to share that with other people. Meanings are inherently private. (Meanings being different than definitions on my view.)




A couple specific comments about things brought up in the article:

One problem that arises from the private nature of this definition is that it is impossible to tell whether one has remembered the connection correctly. Whatever seems to be right will be right. There is no difference between believing one is right and actually being right about the connection [because you are the deciding judge], and thus a mistake in the application of the private word is impossible

At time T1 you might believe that you're associating term/symbol/etc. "#" with private sensation "@" just as you've always done, whereas it's not actually true that you've always associated "#" with private sensation "@," at time T2, you might recall this--you might remember, "Wait a minute, I was associating '#' with '!' instead--I made a mistake at time T2." So mistakes are not impossible. They just hinge on memory.

And that only means that here we can’t talk about right.

You can get right or wrong that you previously associated a meaning with a term, but re meaning in general, there aren't right or wrong meanings in the first place. There are common or conventional meanings versus uncommon or uncoventional ones, but it's not wrong to be uncommon or unconventional. Consensus usage certainly doesn't determine correctness. That would be an argumentum ad populum.

What Wittgenstein is saying is that the word ‘beetle’ cannot be referring to the beetle itself, because if it did then only I could know what I meant by the word ‘beetle’, as only I know what is in my box. In the same way, we can see that the word ‘pain’ cannot refer directly to the sensation, because only I could know what that sensation is: if the word did refer to the sensation, the word would mean nothing to anyone but me (as a word in a private language would).

And that is indeed the case--meaning is subjective, it is inherently private. That's a signficant part of how language works. There are public aspects to language obviously, such as the fact that I'm typing these words and you can see the text on your screen, but those pubilc aspect to not literally include meaning. Meaning is only had by you assigning whatever meanings you do mentally, and those can't be shared. You can only share marks on a screen, sounds with your mouth, etc.

[Impenitent]

beetle in a box indeed



-Imp

[TSBU]

[Terrapin Station]

beetle in a box indeed



-Imp

Or this:

[creativesoul]

I'm the anti-Wittgenstein. In my view, it's ALL private language, or at least it might as well be. Only individuals know just how words correspond to the meanings they assign, and there's no way to share that with other people. Meanings are inherently private. (Meanings being different than definitions on my view.)




A couple specific comments about things brought up in the article:

One problem that arises from the private nature of this definition is that it is impossible to tell whether one has remembered the connection correctly. Whatever seems to be right will be right. There is no difference between believing one is right and actually being right about the connection [because you are the deciding judge], and thus a mistake in the application of the private word is impossible

At time T1 you might believe that you're associating term/symbol/etc. "#" with private sensation "@" just as you've always done, whereas it's not actually true that you've always associated "#" with private sensation "@," at time T2, you might recall this--you might remember, "Wait a minute, I was associating '#' with '!' instead--I made a mistake at time T2." So mistakes are not impossible. They just hinge on memory.

This totally misses Witt's point, by virtue of neglecting to think about the qualitative aspect of Witt's candidate.

Your candidate requires thinking about one' own thought/belief. As such it is an example that requires metacognition. Metacognition necessarily presupposes cognition. Cognition is thought/belief. If you have no language all you can have is cognition. Witt is objecting to the notion of totally private languages. Those cannot be existentially contingent upon language, or meanings that are existentially contingent upon connecting words to other things. Your example of being mistaken, is better described as one about becoming aware of own's own prior mistake. As such it requires metacognition. Metacognition requires language. Thus, you've aimed at the wrong target.

It is not possible for one who has no language to identify, isolate, and think about their own thought/belief because they have no means of giving their own thought/belief a namesake for future reference; no means of setting it aside in order to isolate and focus upon it; no way to think about their own mental ongoings.

We do it all the time with one another by virtue of making statements. Assuming sincerity, a speaker believes that they say true things, that they make true statements. We are isolating and talking about our thought/belief by virtue of sensibly using the words "thought" and "belief".

In a situation where we have a non-linguistic candidate, one does not have an appropriate 'measuring rod' by which they can see and/or recognize that anything at all is suspect about their own thought/belief. If they cannot recognize that much, there is no possibility of them recognizing the fact that they misattributed meaning at time T1 as compared to time T2. In order to do that, one must be first able to think about their own thought/belief. Language is necessary for thinking about one's own thought/belief for all the reasons just given.

[Terrapin Station]

This totally misses Witt's point, by virtue of neglecting to think about the qualitative aspect of Witt's candidate.

First, do you understand that I was only commenting on exactly what I quoted from the article, directly above my comment? What I quoted was written by Richard Floyd, not Wittgenstein. He wasn't quoting Wittgenstein there. And nowhere did I promise that I was going to be saying something about "Wittgenstein's point." Rather, I explicitly said that I wanted to make a couple specific comments about things brought up in the article. I'll comment on the next part of your post after you comment on whether you understand what I just said above.

[creativesoul]

The article is about Witt's point. The author's comments were meant to further elucidate upon Witt's point. If you're not talking about Witt's point, then I'm not the least bit interested, seeing how the thread itself is also about Witt's point.