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A Defence of
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Private Language Argument

presented by

Kichang Nam

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A DEFENCE
OF
WITTGENSTEIN’S PRIVATE LANGUAGE ARGUMENT

BY

KICHANG NAM

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Philosophy

1993

 

 

 

ABSTRACT

A DEFENCE
OF
WITTGENSTEIN'S PRIVATE LANGUAGE ARGUMENT

BY

Kichang Nam

Ayer argues that without assuming the criterion of
verification Wittgenstein cannot prove that private language
is impossible. Hintikka thinks that the aim of the private
language argument is not to deny the existence of Cartesian
private objects. Kripke asserts that what Wittgenstein
really does in the private language argument is to show that
private model of rule following, not private language, is
impossible. According to Kripke, Wittgenstein has found the
"most radical skepticism" in the history of philosophy,
i.e., ‘rule following skepticism.’

These are mistaken interpretations of Wittgenstein's
private language argument. Wittgenstein does not use the
criterion of verification to prove that private language is
impossible. Wittgenstein would not say that there are
private objects in the full-fledged Cartesian sense.
Wittgenstein would not accept any kind of skepticism,
including Kripke’s rule following skepticism.

There must be some elements in Wittgenstein's
philosophy that lead these philosophers to propose such
incorrect interpretations. In my dissertation I attempt to

identify such elements and remove the temptations that make

 

philosophers misunderstand Wittgenstein’s private language
argument. Removing such temptions will open up a road for a

correct understanding of Wittgenstein.

For Mieun

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my appreciation for Professor Ronald
Suter who afforded many valuable criticisms of my interpre-
tation of Wittgenstein. Without his guidance I could not
have finished my dissertation. My thanks also go to
Professor Richard Hall who supplied detailed comments on
earlier drafts of my dissertation. It was by his direction
that I came to choose Wittgenstein's private language
argument as my dissertation topic. I thank these two
Professors not only for their expertise, but also for their
kindness and support during the preparation of my
dissertation. I am also grateful to Professor Herbert
Hendry and Professor Charles McCracken who read the final
draft of my dissertation and removed many errors. Finally,
I take this opportunity to thank all the Professors of the
Department of Philosophy at Michigan State University from

whom I have learned a great deal.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction

1. Private Language as It is Defined by Wittgenstein . .2
2. The Distinction between Epistemological Cartesians and
Semantical Cartesians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

1) The Distinction between Epistemologically Skeptical
Cartesians and Epistemologically Non-Skeptical

Cartesians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
2) The Distinction between Semantically Skeptical and
Semantically Non-Skeptical Cartesians . . . . . . .7

3. The Possibility of Becoming Philosophers Who are
Semantically Non-Cartesians, though Epistemologically
Cartesians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
4. The Aims of Private Language Argument . . . . . . . . 10

II. Wittgenstein Vs. Non-Skeptical Cartesians

1. Possible Objections from the Epistemologically and
Semantically Non- -Skeptical Cartesians . . . . . . . . . 13
2. How to Show That the Epistemologically Non- Skeptical
Cartesians are making Self- -Contradictory Claims: Malcolm’s
Suggestion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3. How to Show That the Epistemologically Non-Skeptical
Cartesians are Making Self- -Contradictory Claims: My

Suggestion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4. Can I Know That Others Have Pains without Using any
Criteria? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

vi

III. Wittgenstein Vs. Skeptical Cartesians

1. The Epistemologically and Semantically Skeptical
Cartesians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
2. Private Language as It is Defined by Wittgenstein is the
Language of Epistemologically and Semantically Skeptical

Cartesians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3. The Core of the Private Language Argument: the Internal

AttaCk O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 3 5
4. The Irrelevance of Crusoe’ 5 Language to the Problem of

Private Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

IV. Wittgenstein's Positive Account of Pain - Preliminary
Remark

1. Six Theses of Wittgenstein's Positive Account of Pain. 54

2. Wittgenstein’s Account of Criteria . . . . . . . . . . 57
1) Criteria as Having a Semantical Aspect . . . . . 57
2) Criteria as Having an Epistemological Aspect:
Criteria as Noninductive Evidence . . . . . . . . . 58
3) Criteria and Symptoms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6O

3. Wittgenstein's Views on the Nature of Knowledge. . . . 60

V. Critical Examinations of Wittgenstein's Positive Account
of Pain

1. An Examination of Wittgenstein's Claim That Pain-Behavior
is a Criterion for Determining That Someone is in Pain . 63
1) We Can't Understand the Meaning of a Word ‘Pain'

without Grasping the Connection between Pain and Pain-

Behavior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2) Pain-Behavior is Noninductive Evidence by Which We
Determine that Someone is in Pain . . . . . . . . . 66

2. An Examination of Wittgenstein's Claim That it does not
Make Any Sense to Say That I Know That I am in Pain . . 72
3. An Examination of the Thesis That Uttering "I Am In Pain"
is a New Pain- -Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4. An Examination of the Theses That I Do Not Identify My
Sensation by Criteria, and That I Do Not Make Any Mistake

about My Pain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
1) The Diarist Section Revisited . . . . . . . . . . 81
2) Another Kind of Alleged Inconsistency . . . . . . 87
5. More than Two Persons Can Have the Same Pain . . . . . 92

vii

VI. The Interpretation of the Private Language Argument by
Those Who are Epistemologically Cartesians but Semantically
Non-Cartesians

1. Hintikka’s Interpretation of the Private Language

Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
2. An Examination of Some of Wittgenstein’ s Writings That

Appear to Confirm the Existence of Private Sensations . 97
3. Wittgenstein’s Real Position about the Status of Private
Sensations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
4. The Distinction between a Public and a Private Component
of the Meaning of a Sensation-Word . . . . . . . . . .108

VII. Kripke’s Interpretation of Wittgenstein

1. Wittgenstein’ s Skeptical Paradox . . . . . . . . .111
2. How Kripke Supports His Claim That There Is No Such Thing
as Following a Rule . . . . . . . . . . . .113
3. Wittgenstein’ s Skeptical Solution . . . . . . . .115
4. An Application of Kripke’ s Argument to the Private
Language Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119
5. My Criticisms of Kripke’ 5 Interpretation . . . . . .120

1) Kripke Does not Consider Cartesian Private

Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

2) A Reflection about Kripke’ 5 Description of a Private
Model of Rule Following: Private Model of Rule
Following, the Diarist’s Rule Following and Crusoe’s

Rule Following. . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
3) Wittgenstein Would Not Accept Kripke’ 5 Rule
Following Skepticism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

VIII. Conclusion

viii

I . INTRODUCTION

In this introduction, I will explain Wittgenstein’s
definition of private language, along with the basic
structure of the private language argument. A distinction
between epistemological and semantical Cartesianism will be
made. For Wittgenstein attacks epistemological
Cartesianism, I think, by showing that epistemological
Cartesianism implies semantical Cartesianism, which he
believes to be an absurd theory. Also, I will try to
present the different views about the aims of the private
language argument. I will raise a question about whether or
not Wittgenstein is right in believing that epistemological
Cartesianism implies semantical Cartesianism. For if
epistemological Cartesianism does not imply semantical
Cartesianism, it is possible to accept epistemological
Cartesianism, while rejecting semantical Cartesianism. Some
philosophers, after arguing that epistemological
Cartesianism can be separated from semantical Cartesianism,
assert that Wittgenstein’s private language argument can

refute only semantical, not epistemological, Cartesianism.

2

1. PRIVATE LANGUAGE AS IT IS DEFINED BY WITTGENSTEIN

In P! §243“Wittgenstein asks whether people can imagine a
language "the individual words (of which) are to refer to
what can only be known to the person speaking; to his
immediate private sensations. So another person cannot
understand the language." And in P1 $256 and PI 5269
Wittgenstein gives another type of characterization of
private language. In PI §269 he says "sounds which no one
else understands but which I ‘appear to understand’ might be
called ‘private language’." In PI 5256 he raises a question
about "the language which describes my inner experiences and
which only I myself can understand." From these
characterizations together with other similar
characterizations found in some other places in the
Philosophical Investigations, we can form the following kind
of picture of private language.

First of all, it is a language whose individual words
refer to the speaker’s sensations. And these sensations are
private in the senses that only the speaker can have them

(PI §253), or only the speaker can know that he has them (PI

 

1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations,
3rd edition., ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and Rush Rhees, Trans.
G.E.M. Anscombe, (New York: Macmillan, 1958). Hereafter
this work will be cited in parentheses as PI followed by a
number which refers to a paragraph in part I of
Philosophical Investigations. For part II of Philosophical
Investigations, page numbers will be given.

 

3
5246). Hence private language is a language whose words
allegedly refer to this kind of private sensations. And
also it is the language which no one other than the speaker
can understand.

Note that when Wittgenstein says that no one other than
the speaker can understand private language, he is not
saying that it is possible for the speaker to understand it.
All he says is that if there is anyone who can understand
private language, then he must be the speaker, and no one
else. Wittgenstein examines whether or not this possibility
can be realized, that is, whether or not the language which
only the speaker "appears to understand" (PI §256) is the
language which he really can understand. The result of the
examination is that it is not possible even for the speaker
to understand private language. Since the speaker cannot
understand private language, private language turns out to
be the language which no one can understand. So it could
not be called ‘language’ at all. Hearing it would be like
hearing an emission of "an inarticulate sound" (PI 5261).
This is what Wittgenstein means by the impossibility of
private language. The core of private language argument
lies in Wittgenstein’s attempt to establish this claim. Let
me summarize what we have so far said in the form of an

argument.

1. Suppose that private sensations are what only
their owners can know that they have.

2. Suppose that private sensation-words refer to
the speaker’s immediate private sensations.

3. If a word refers to what can be known only to
the person speaking, then no one other than the
speaker can understand it.

4. That is, if there is anyone who would
understand the word which refers to a speaker’s
immediate private sensation, then he must be the
speaker himself and no one else.

5. But it is not possible for the speaker to
understand that kind of word.

6. Hence no one can understand a word which refers
to a speaker’s immediate private sensation.

7. Uttering such a word is like making a noise.

8. Hence, there cannot be a word which refers to
its speaker’s private sensation.

I am not presenting here the private language argument.
The private language argument consists of proving the
premises of the above argument, especially the third and
fifth premises. At this stage, let’s not worry about how to
prove these individual premises. I will do it later.
Another point I want make now is this. Though Wittgenstein
uses the term ‘private language,’ we will apply our
discussion primarily to what we may call ‘private sensation-
words,’ that is, those words which are said to refer to
their speaker’s private sensations. This would not hurt the
purpose of private language argument. For it would be the
case that if it is impossible for anyone to understand the

meaning of a private sensation-word, then it must also be

5
impossible for anyone to understand private language, which

is supposed to consist of such private words.

2. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN EPISTEMOLOGICAL CARTEBIANS AND
SEMANTICAL CARTESIANS

In general, we may define a Cartesian as one who holds that
a person’s mental states, including sensations, can be
known only to himself and to no one else. In what follows I
will try to divide the Cartesians into various groups.2
First of all, I want to distinguish between what I call
the ‘epistemological Cartesians,’ and what I call the
‘semantical Cartesians.’ By the epistemological Cartesians,
I mean those who hold that the sensations are what only
their owner can be directly acquainted with, and what only
their owner can have. Corresponding to the epistemological
Cartesians, there could be what I call the ‘semantical
Cartesians.’ It is not as easy to describe the semantical
Cartesians as it is to describe the epistemological
Cartesians. But primarily I will mean by the ‘semantical
Cartesians,’ those who hold that the meaning of a sensation-

word is the sensation which it refers to. Publicly

 

2 The classification made below is done simply for the
purpose of making what I will argue later more clearly. It
would be probably the case that no single philosopher may
belong to one of those groups.

 

6

observable sensation-behaviors do not play any role in
learning and understanding the meaning of a sensation word.
Hence one learns the meaning of a sensation word purely by
recognizing the connection held between the word and the
private sensation, which is grasped by the method of private
ostensive definition. Unless one experiences the sensation
oneself, one can never be said to understand the sensation—
word. We may put Locke in the group of this kind of
Cartesians. In order for a certain sound to become a word
with a meaning, Locke says:

it was further necessary that he should be able to

use these sounds as signs of internal conceptions;

and to make them stand as3 marks for the ideas

within his own mind, ...

So far as words are of use and signification, so

far is there a constant connection between the

sound and the idea, and a designation that the one

stands for the other; without which application of

them, they are nothing but so much insignificant

noise.4
Since it is Locke’s contention that the ideas within one’s
own mind can be known only to that person, we can say that

for Locke the meaning of the word ‘pain,’ i.e., the idea of

pain, is private in the sense defined above.

 

3 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,
ed. Peter Nidditch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975),
Book 3, Ch.1, §2, p.402.

4 John Locke, Book 3, Ch.2, § 7, p.408.

7

1) THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN EPISTEMOLOGICALLY SKEPTICAL
CARTESIANS AND EPISTEMOLOGICALLY NON-SKEPTICAL CARTESIANS

Now I further divide the epistemological Cartesians into two
categories, i.e., the epistemologically non-skeptical
Cartesians and the epistemologically skeptical Cartesians.5
By the epistemologically skeptical Cartesians I mean those
who assert that insofar as I can be acquainted with only my
sensations, I cannot know that others have sensations. The
epistemologically non-skeptical Cartesians, however, would
reject such solipsism, and assert that we can know that
others have sensations. They hold that, though sensations
are private, it is still possible for me to know that others
have sensations. For I can have a good reason to believe
that others have sensations by using, e.g., the argument

from analogy.

2) THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN SEMANTICALLY SKEPTICAL AND
SEMANTICALLY NON-SKEPTICAL CARTESIANS

We also can divide the semantical Cartesians into two
groups, the semantically skeptical Cartesians and the
semantically non-skeptical Cartesians. The semantically
skeptical Cartesians would assert that if pain is private
and the meaning of the word ‘pain’ is the very private
sensation, then only I can understand the meaning of ‘pain,’

and I cannot be sure that others use the word ‘pain’ in the

 

5 This is the distinction commonly used by many
philosophers.

8
same way as I do. Thus, the semantically skeptical
Cartesians deny the possibility of mutual understanding of
‘pain.’ They may be called ‘meaning-solipsists.’6‘The
semantically non-skeptical Cartesians would assert, however,
that, though the meaning of ‘pain’ is the very private
sensation, it is still possible for me to understand the
word ‘pain’ used by others. For, they might say, I can have
a good reason to believe that others use the word ‘pain’ in
the same way as I use it.

We can make four combinations out of the above four
groups. 1) The epistemologically non-skeptical, and also
semantically non-skeptical Cartesians; 2) the
epistemologically non—skeptical, but semantically skeptical
Cartesians; 3) the epistemologically skeptical but
semantically non-skeptical Cartesians; 4) the
epistemologically and also semantically skeptical
Cartesians. Among these, only the first and the fourth are
actually held by philosophers. Among these two, the fourth
is the most consistent position. As we will see shortly, an
important part of the private language argument is to show
why the first type of non-skeptical position cannot but

collapse into the fourth type of skeptical position.

 

6 This is close to what Ronald Suter calls ‘conceptual
solipsists.’ Suter makes a distinction which is similar to
my epistemological and semantical Cartesianism. See, Ronald
Suter’s Interpreting Wittgenstein (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1989) pp.112-113.

 

 

 

 

 

 

9

3. THE POSSIBILITY OF BECOMING PHILOSOPHERS WHO ARE
SEMANTICALLY NON-CARTESIANS, THOUGH EPISTEMOLOGICALLY
CARTESIANS '

Some might assert that all of those who hold epistemological
Cartesianism have to accept semantical Cartesianism. But it
is not that easy to say conclusively whether or not this is
the case. In fact there are philosophers who would assert
that the epistemological Cartesians do not necessarily need
to become semantical Cartesians. That is, there might be
philosophers who are epistemologically Cartesian but
semantically non—Cartesian. By ‘semantically non—
Cartesian’ I mean those who would say the following.72n1
order to talk about private sensations meaningfully, we do
not need to contend that one must be able to learn the
meaning of a sensation-word privately, i.e., by grasping the
connection between the word and the sensation. For we have
to name private sensations by way of their connection with
publicly observable things, for example, by way of pain-
behaviors which are connected with pain. So we learn the
meaning of a sensation-word by grasping the connection

between private sensations and sensation-behaviors.8

 

7 Note that those who are semantically non-Cartesians
are different from semantically non-skeptical Cartesians.

8 It may not be correct to call them ‘non-Cartesians’
because they still assert that we can name and talk about
the Cartesian private sensations which really exist. Those
who hold this kind of view might say that their view is the
correct Cartesian semantical theory, and the semantical
Cartesians’ View described by us above is not a correct one.

10
Keeping the possibility of this kind of combination in mind,
i.e., the combination of epistemological Cartesianism with
semantical non-Cartesianism, let’s examine what the purposes

of private language argument would be.

4. THE AIMS OF PRIVATE LANGUAGE ARGUMENT

Suppose that the private language argument is successful.

If so, should we discard both epistemological and semantical
Cartesianism? I believe that Wittgenstein would answer
"Yes." But not all philosophers who are in favor of
Wittgenstein’s private language argument would agree with
me. Some philosophers would say that the private language
argument refutes only semantical Cartesianism, leaving
epistemological Cartesianism intact.

For example, Hintikka asserts that the direct purpose
of the private language argument is to discredit the belief
athat we can name a sensation purely by the method of private
ostensive definition. In other words, Wittgenstein wants to
show, according to Hintikka, that in order to name private
sensations and to talk about them we need a public language

framework. From this, Hintikka asserts, it does not follow

 

But how we name the view is not really important. Let’s
just call them philosophers who are semantically non-
Cartesians.

I‘ll

 

11

that private sensations "in a perfectly straight forward
Cartesian sense" do not exist. Thus Hintikka interprets
Wittgenstein as really not giving up the existence of
Cartesian private objects. Let’s see what Hintikka actually
says.

What follows from Wittgenstein’s general
philosophy of language is not that there are no
private objects or that we cannot speak of such
objects. All that follows is that we can use
language to name them, to describe them, etc.,
only by means of a public framework. But from the
public character of this framework it does not
follow that the experiences themselves are not
completely private. ... ,

Hence no reason emerges for thinking that we
cannot, according to Wittgenstein, have private
experiences in a perfectly straightforward
Cartesian sense. The whole problem is how we are
to talk about them. Sensations (pains, itches,
hot flushes, twinges of pleasure, etc.) do not
admit of private ostensive definitions. I cannot
refer to them without enabling you to do likewise.
But from the public nature of the framework needed
to do so it does not follow that the experiences
themselves are public; or that they do not play
any role in public language-games.

We can put what Hintikka asserts here as follows.
Wittgenstein leaves open the possibility that
epistemological Cartesianism remains true. 80, according to
Hintikka, Wittgenstein may be epistemologically Cartesian,
though semantically non-Cartesian.

Again, not all of those who accept the private language

argument agree about what Wittgenstein can really achieve by

 

9 Merrill B. Hintikka and Jakko Hintikka, Investigating
Wittgenstein , (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986) p.267.
Italics are mine.

12
it. Hence if we want to say that the purpose of private
language argument is to discredit both epistemological and

semantical Cartesianism, then we have to be able to show

where people like Hintikka go wrong.

II. WITTGENSTEIN VS. NON-SKEPTICAL CARTESIANS

The Cartesians would vehemently oppose Wittgenstein’s idea
that a word which refers to the speaker’s private sensation
is nothing but a noise which cannot be understood by anyone
including the speaker himself. For they would never doubt
that those words, which refer to the speaker’s private
sensations, are understood by people or at least by their
speaker. In what follows I will examine both the non-
skeptical Cartesians’s objections against Wittgenstein and

Wittgenstein’s reply to them.

1. POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS FROM THE EPISTEMOLOGICALLY AND
SEMANTICALLY NON-SKEPTICAL CARTESIANS

Note, one of the premises of the private language argument
is that if a sensation is something which only I can know,
then no one else can know it. The epistemologically non-

skeptical Cartesians would assert that this premise is

false.10

 

m But the skeptical Cartesians wouldn’t.

13

ii -. ......

14

Let’s see first how Locke could challenge it. Locke
talks about the possibility that the meaning people could
attach to the word ‘pain,’ i.e., the idea of pain, may
differ from person to person. But he dismisses the
possibility on the following curious grounds.

[It does not matter even if] the same object

should produce in several men’s minds different

ideas at the same time; v.g. if the idea that a

violet produced in one man’s mind by his eyes,

were the same that a marigold produced in another
man’s, and vice versa. For since this could never

be known... neither the ideas hereby, nor the
names, would be at all confounded, or any
falsehood be in either ... I am nevertheless very

apt to think that the sensible ideas produced by
any object in different men’s minds, are most
commonly very near and undiscernibly alike. For
which opinion, I think, there might be many
reasons offered: but that being besides my present
business, I shall not trouble my reader with them;
but only mind him, that the contrary supposition,
if it could be proved, is of little use, either
for the improvement of our knowledge, or
convenience of life, and so we need not trouble
ourselves to examine it.11

If Locke’s belief that "the sensible ideas produced by any
object in different men’s minds, are most commonly very near
and undiscernibly alike" is true, then we do not need to
accept the premise that if only I know my sensations, no one
else can know them. The problem lies in, however, Locke’s
way of justifying his belief. He asserts that his belief
must be true because "the contrary supposition ... is of

little use, either for the improvement of our knowledge, or

 

“ John Locke, ESsay, Book 2, Ch. 32, §15, p.389

15
convenience of life..." Most Cartesians would not accept
Locke’s method of justification, and so attempt to provide
an alternative method.12

The alternative method of justification the
epistemologically non-skeptical Cartesians would propose is
the argument from analogy. By using this method, they would
show that the premise that if a sensation is something which
only I can know, then no one else can know it is false. For
I can have a good reason to believe that other people have
sensations by some kind of analogical reasoning, and in a
similar way others can also believe justifiably that I have
sensations.

How would Wittgenstein reply to this kind of objection?
Basically Wittgenstein would advise the epistemologically
non-skeptical Cartesians to think seriously about a claim
like "Pain can be known only to me.", For if it is true,
then its consequence must be that I cannot know that others
have pains. As Wittgenstein says, "[t]he essential thing

about private experience is really not that each person

 

m At least one contemporary philosopher, however,
agrees with Locke’s method of justification. Carl Wellman
asserts that, though it "cannot be established by logical
analysis" nor "is it easy to see how it can be empirically
established" that each of us has qualitatively similar
sensation, we can assume it to be the case, "since our
experiences of apparent communication can be explained in
part by the assumption that different selves have similar
sensations, these experiences constitute evidence to support
this assumption." See, Carl Wellman, "Wittgenstein and
Egocentric Predicament," Mind, (Apr., 1959) pp.223-233.

 

16
possesses his own exemplar, but that nobody knows whether
other people also have this or something else" (PI 5272).
Wittgenstein seems to say that a consistent Cartesian should
be skeptical about the existence of other minds. How would
Wittgenstein support this important claim?

Before answering this question, let me first say
something about the kind of strategy Wittgenstein seems to
.use. We can say that if Wittgenstein is successful in
showing that a consistent Cartesian should be skeptical
about other minds, then he is thereby proving the
untenability of the epistemological Cartesians’ position.
For most Cartesians are likely to say that it is a serious
defect of their theory if it is really the case that under
their epistemological assumption there is no way of one’s
knowing that others have sensations. This kind of strategy
which I think Wittgenstein takes is called by Malcolm
Wittgenstein’s ‘external attack on the Cartesians.’ Thus
Malcolm says:

Wittgenstein employs another argument that is an

external, not an internal, attack upon private

language. What is attacked is the assumption that
once I know from my own case what pain, tickling,

or consciousness is, then I can transfer the ideas
of these things to objects outside myself.l3

 

B Norman Malcolm, "Wittgenstein’s Philosophical
Investigations" in Wittgenstein and Philosophical
Investigations, George Pitcher, ed., (New York: Doubleday,
1966), p.75; first published in Philosophical Review, (63),
pp.530-559; Also in The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, John
Canfield, ed., (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1986),
vol.4.

 

 

 

17

What is established by the external attack is that the
Cartesian philosophy falls into skepticism. All non-
skeptical Cartesians’ attempts to get out of this
consequence will fail. Hence the Cartesians have to choose
either skepticism or giving up their epistemological theory

of sensations.

2. HOW TO SHOW THAT THE EPISTEMOLOGICALLY NON-SKEPTICAL
CARTESIANS ARE MAKING SELF-CONTRADICTORY CLAIMS: MALCOLM’S
SUGGESTION

Wittgenstein sees something fundamentally wrong in the
epistemologically non-skeptical Cartesians’ claim that even
though senSations are private in the Cartesian sense, I can
know that others have sensations. It is that they are
making self-contradictory claims. Let’s see how Malcolm
attempts to show this point in his article "Knowledge of
Other Minds."l4

Malcolm asserts that those who conclude that others
have sensations by using the argument from analogy have to
ask themselves whether or not they understand the
conclusion, which would be like this: "It is probable that

human figure" (pointing at some person other than oneself)

 

” Norman Malcolm, "Knowledge of Other Minds," in G.
Pitcher, ed., p.372; first published in JOurnal of
Philosophy, 55 (1958), pp.969-978; Also in his Knowledge and
Certainty, (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1963). Also in
J. Canfield ed., vol.8.

 

18
has thoughts and feelings." In order to understand this
sentence, they have to understand the sentence "That human
figure has thoughts and feelings" (I’ll use the sentence
"Others have sensations" from now on.) If they understand
it, they have to have criteria for determining that others
have sensations. Unless they have such criteria, they
cannot say that they understand it. But once they have such
criteria, then they already know how to establish that one
knows that others have sensations. For they can just apply
the criteria, and as a result they can know, without
depending on such an argument from analogy, that others have
sensations.

Those non-skeptical Cartesians, who are using the
argument from analogy, are making contradictory claims if
they say that they understand the sentence "Others have
sensations," though they do not know that others have
sensations. For when they say that they understand the
sentence "Others have sensations," they are admitting that
they have criteria for determining that others have
sensations; when they say that they do not know that others
have sensations, they are denying that they have criteria
for determining that others have sensations. In short, they
are asserting that they do and do not have the criteria for
determining that others have sensations.

On the other hand if they insist, in order not to make

contradictory claims, that they do not have any criteria for

 

19
determining that others have sensations, then they have to
make a bizarre claim that they do not understand the
sentence "Others have sensations." But if they do not
understand it, then how could they even begin asking
questions about other minds?

Malcolm attempts to draw Wittgenstein’s views on
sensations from this kind of criticism of the
epistemologically non-skeptical Cartesians. Let me explain
how he does it. Malcolm believes that we cannot deny that
we understand the sentence "Others have sensations." If so,
then we have to have criteria, Malcolm asserts, for
determining whether or not others have sensations and they
must be "open to View," i.e., publicly observable.” If
they are not publicly accessible, e.g., if the criterion is
that we have to be able to feel others’ sensations, then we
could never say that we understand the sentence. For by
deploying this kind of criterion, we can never determine
whether or not others have sensations. Hence such things as
feeling others’ sensations is ruled out as a valid candidate
for the criteria for determining whether or not others have
sensations. Then what would be acceptable criteria? They
must be the sensation-behavior of others. For they are

publicly observable.16 From this we seem to be able to

 

” Norman Malcolm, p.372.

m Strictly speaking, it is wrong to say that what is
publicly observable must be only the sensation-behaviors of
others. For their neurophysiological features are also

 

20

derive Wittgenstein’s View that sensation behaviors are
conceptually, i.e., criteriologically, not just
contingently, connected with the meaning of sensation-words.

Let me now raise some questions about Malcolm’s
criticisms of the non-skeptical Cartesians. Malcolm does
not argue for his claim that to understand the sentence
"Others have sensations" we must have some criteria for
determining whether or not someone has sensations. But
should we know, in order to understand the meaning of a
sentence, the criteria for determining whether or not it is
true? Let’s take as an example the sentence "This movie is
good." Should we have criteria for determining whether or
not a movie is good in order to understand the sentence
"This movie is good"? Wouldn’t it be possible for someone
to assert that he does understand "This movie is good" even
though he does not know the criteria for determining whether
or not a movie is good? After all, we could say that there
are no such criteria.

What I want to say would be explained better by using

the following kind of distinction, i.e., the distinction

 

publicly observable. Observing people’s neurophysiological
features would be proposed as criteria for determining
whether or not others are in pain by the identity theorists.
However I do not think that Wittgenstein would accept it as
a valid criterion for determining whether or not others are
in pain. One reason can be given here: Wittgenstein would
point out that we do not learn how to use the word ‘pain’ by
grasping the connection between a person’s
neurophysiological features and pain.

 

21
between what we might call ‘epistemological criteria’ and
‘semantical criteria.’ Roger Buck points out the
ambivalence about the notion of criteria as it is used by
Malcolm.

The use of the term ‘criteria’ to stand for ‘that
by means of which (or through the noticing of
which) we verify our statements’ would not by
itself be objectionable. But the notion of
‘criteria’ has other liaisons. It is intimately
tied to the idea of meaning, in such a fashion
that the meaning of a sentence is given by giving
the criteria for its use.17

Note that Malcolm is implicitly assuming that the semantical
criteria are the same as the epistemological ones. But
Malcolm needs to argue for rather than just assume it. For,
as Buck points out, "[a]ctually there is no such total
divorce as this would suggest, nor is there so direct and
intimate a connection as Malcolm supposes."18

(There is) the ambivalence as to whether
ascertaining someone’s criteria for the use of ‘y’
is a logical investigation directed to finding out
what he means by ‘y’ or an epistemological inquiry
aimed at finding out what he would count as
conclusive verification of some statement in which
‘y’ is used by him. For all we know so far it
might be possible to ‘judge’ whether (someone) has
that knowledge’ (i.e., of the use of an
expression) without investigating what would
‘settle’ whether in a given use of that expression
to state something the expression rightly applies
to what in that use it is applied to.19

 

l7Roger Buck, "Non-Other'Minds," in Canfield, ed., vol.9,
p.196; first published in Analytical Philosophy, R.J. Butler,
ed., (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966).

w Roger Buck, p.199

” Roger Buck, pp.198-l99

 

22

What I was getting at was that we may be able to
understand "This movie is good" if we know the criteria for
its use, i.e., the semantical criteria, even though we do
not know the criteria for verifying whether or not a certain
movie is good, i.e., the epistemological criteria. If this
is possible, then so is it for the non-skeptical Cartesians
to assert that they understand the sentence "Others have
sensations," even though they do not know that others have
sensations. For they could say that they have the criteria
required for understanding the sentence "Others have
sensations," though they do not have the criteria for
knowing that others have sensations.

Hence Malcolm has to argue for the claim that we have
to know the criteria for determining whether or not a
sentence is true to understand what it means. To establish
it, then, Malcolm has to accept, it seems, the problematic
verificationistic criterion of meaning. As Buck says "To
run together one use of ‘criterion’ which is oriented
towards verification with another whose orientation is
towards meaning is to make the notion of ‘criteria’ carry
essentially the burden of a verificationist theory of
meaning."20 William Lycan expresses the same view. He
asserts that Malcolm "deploys [the] principle" that "[f]or

any expression ‘0’: if we have no criterion for establishing

 

m Roger Buck, p.197

 

 

 

23

the truth of ‘Q’, then ‘Q’ is unintelligible and
meaningless" against Mill’s argument from analogy.21

It is unfortunate that Malcolm formulates his argument
in the verificationistic framework. But Malcolm is correct
in pointing out that the Cartesian epistemological claims
have absurd semantical counterparts, and once the Cartesians
realize it, then they should discover that they are making
inconsistent claims. Wittgenstein would agree with Malcolm
about this. In what follows, I will try to establish
exactly this point, i.e., that the Cartesians’
epistemological claims have absurd semantical counterparts,

in a different and hopefully non-problematic way.

3. HOW TO SHOW THAT THE EPISTEMOLOGICALLY NON-SKEPTICAL
CARTESIANS ARE MAKING SELF-CONTRADICTORY CLAIMS: MY
SUGGESTION

The so-called epistemological problem of other minds is said
to be raised because of the privacy of, e.g., pain. So the
question, "If pain is known only to me, then how can I not

know that others feel pain?" But note that the privacy of

 

” William Lycan, in "Noninductive EvidencezRecent Work
on Wittgenstein’s Criteria," in J. Canfield ed., vol. 7,
p.120; first published in American Philosophical Quarterly,
(8), pp.109-125. Saul Kripke would also agree with Buck and
Lycan in that Malcolm is using a verificationistic criterion
of meaning in his article "Knowledge of Other Minds." See,
Saul Kripke, in Wittgenstein: On Rules and Private Language,
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), p.120 n.

24
pain should as well raise what may be called a "semantical
problem of other minds", e.g., "If the meaning of the word
‘pain’ is the private sensation, pain, which only its
speaker can directly be acquainted with, then he cannot know
that others mean the same thing as he means by the word

I "22

‘pain. Consider the following claim of Wittgenstein’s.

If, therefore, I doubt or am uncertain about this

being my hand (in whatever sense), why not in that

case about the meaning of these words as well? 3
Others may mean by ‘pain’ what I mean by ‘pleasure,’ and
there is no way of disproving this bizarre claim insofar as
the Cartesians assert that the meaning of the word ‘pain’ is
the private sensation pain. To say that one cannot know

that others mean the same thing that he means by the word

‘pain’ is to say that ‘pain’ is not understood by one

 

n This latter problem could be called an
‘epistemological problem’ too. But if so, then it is the
problem of knowability about the meaning of a word ‘pain’,
whereas the former one is the problem of knowability of
pain. Also it may not be entirely correct to say that the
privacy of pain raises both epistemological and semantical
problem of other minds. Strictly speaking, we should say
that the privacy of pain plus the claim that the meaning of
‘pain’ is that private sensation raise the semantical
problem of other minds. Since the Cartesians would hold
both, they should raise the semantical problem of other
minds. We can also say that the epistemological problem of
external world has as its counterpart the semantical problem
of external world.

” Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, Translated by
Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe (New York: Harper and Row,
1969) S456. Hereafter this work will be cited in
parentheses as DC followed by a number which refers to a
paragraph in CC. Here Wittgenstein is saying that if we can
raise the epistemological problem of the external world, so
can we the semantical problem of the external world.

 

 

— nu. ‘ujc veg-3‘ _ '___...' ' r. .. ._._ .. ,

25
another. Of course this is an absurd consequence which, I
believe, most Cartesians would not accept.

So if philosophers want to raise the so-called problem
of other minds, then they have to raise it on both
epistemological and semantical level. Now if a Cartesian
believes that it is absurd to raise such semantical doubt,
then he must also say that it is no less absurd to raise
such epistemological doubt.24

If the Cartesians have such a deep conviction that
people mutually understand the word ‘pain,’ then it means
that they have the way of answering positively the
semantical question "Given the privacy of pain, how can one
know that others mean the same thing as one means by
‘pain’?" The only possible positive answer they can give,
insofar as they assert that the meaning of the word ‘pain’
is the private sensation pain which it refers to, would be
that one can experience the pain that others feel. If this
is the reason why they do not raise the semantical problem,
then they are making contradictory claims. For they deny
that one can experience the pain that others feel when they
raise the epistemological problem of other minds. Note that

we can use the claim that one can experience the pain others

 

“ It seems to me that many philosophers think that,
though it looks absolutely preposterous to doubt that one
can understand what others mean by ’pain’, it looks less so -
even looks intelligent - to doubt that one knows that
others feel pain.

 

26

feel as a positive answer to the epistemological problem of
other minds.”

I believe that all Cartesians, if they are reasonable
in the sense that they do not want to say that such
sensation-words as ‘pain’ are not mutually understood by
people, have to give up their theory of meaning of
sensation-words, which would in turn lead them to give up
their epistemological theory of sensations. But the
Cartesians would not accept the above type of criticisms.
Let’s see some ways in which the Cartesians can respond to

Malcolm’s and also my type of criticisms.

4. CAN I KNOW THAT OTHERS HAVE PAINS WITHOUT USING ANY
CRITERIA?

To the criticisms made above, the Cartesians might respond
as follows. There are ways of understanding the sentence
"Others have sensations" or knowing that others have

sensations without employing any criteria. The Cartesians

could assert that since I know what pain is like in my own

 

” These two problems are the same problem in that they
require the same answer. Wittgenstein says that "Questions
differ if their answers are different. To understand a
question means to know what kind of proposition the answer
will be." See F. Weissman, Wittgenstein and Vienna Circle,
trans. B.F.M. McGuiness and J. Schulte, (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1979), p.227.

27
case, what I need to do is just to assume that others have
the same as I. As Malcolm says:

There is a familiar inclination to make the
following reply: "Although I have no criterion of
verification still I understand, for example, the
sentence ‘He has a pain.’ For I understand the
meaning of ‘I have a pain,’ and ‘He has a pain’
means that he has the same thing as I have when I
have pain. m

Wittgenstein says:

But if I suppose that someone has a pain, then I
am simply supposing that he has just the same as I
have so often had. (PI S350)

This method, however, cannot succeed. Wittgenstein
counters as follows:

It is as if I were to say: "You surely know what
‘It is 5 o’clock here’ means; so you also know
what "It’s 5 o’clock on the sun’ means. It means
simply that it is just the same time there as it
is here when it is 5 o’clock."- the explanation by
means of identity does not work here. For I know
well enough that one can call 5 o’clock here and 5
o’clock there "the same time", but what I do not
know is in what cases one is to speak of its being
the same time here and there.

In exactly the same way it is no explanation
to say: the supposition that he has a pain is
simply the supposition that he has the same as I.
For that part of the grammar is quite clear to me:
that is, that one will say that the stove has the
same experience as I, if one says:it is in pain
and I am in pain. (PI S350)

Here Wittgenstein is showing that the attempt to escape out
of the skeptical hole by using the phrase "the same as" is a
mere sidestep from tackling the real problem. Buck makes it

clear:

 

m Norman Malcolm, "Knowledge of Other Minds", p.373.

 

 

 

28

Thus if one says ‘Thomas Jones is a Unitarian and
Goldwin Smith is the same’ what one says about
Smith is clear enough supposing Smith and Jones
are both persons and one knows what the criteria
are for calling a person a Unitarian. But let
Jones remain a person, and Goldwin Smith be a
building, and then what is said by the use of
‘same’ here becomes quite unclear. One’s
understanding of ‘Goldwin Smith [the building] is
a Unitarian’ is not improved by noting that to say
this of Goldwin Smith is to say the same thing of
it as was said of Jones. The form of words ‘x has
F and y has the same’ commits the speaker to the
assumption that x and y are of a sufficiently
Similar type for F to apply unambiguously to both.

We have to know, according to Buck, what ‘I’ and ‘some other
man’ are, and also the criteria for saying some other man is
in pain, before we say that others have the same pain as I.
But if we know all of these, then we would not need such an
indirect method as the argument from analogy. For we would
already have the answer. As Buck says, " ‘the same’ is a
concept whose intelligible employment is parasitical on the
existence of criteria for other concepts."28
There is another method that the Cartesians could
suggest. It may be the case that I can know others’
sensations without using any criteria if I am able to
imagine others’s sensations, just as I sometimes can
imagine, e.g., my past sensations. Wittgenstein considers

this kind of method. He asks:

 

” Roger Buck, "Non—Other Minds", pp. 189-190.

R Roger Buck, p.189.

 

29
Is it that my education has led me to it by
drawing my attention to feelings in myself, and

now I transfer the idea to objects outside myself?
(PI §283)

His answer is "No."
If one has to imagine someone else’s pain on the
model of one’s own, this is none too easy a thing
to do: for I have to imagine pain which I do not

feel on the model of the pain which I do feel. (PI
§302)

But why is it-difficult to imagine someone else’s pain
on the model of my own? Kripke raises a question as
follows.

If I see some ducks for the first time in Central

Park, and learn my ‘concept’ of ducks from these

‘paradigms,’ it may be plausible to suppose that

these very ducks could not have been born in the

fifteenth century. ... It by no means follows,

whether these essentialist claims are correct or

not, that I cannot form the concept of ducks

living at a different time...from the paradigms I

used to learn the ‘concept of duck’.

Kripke is missing the point here. Wittgenstein would not
deny that we can imagine a duck in some other places on the
model of a duck we are now seeing. What he is saying is
that there must be criteria for using "I imagine A on the
model of B." In the case of imagining ducks we surely have
such criteria, whereas in the case of imagining others’s
sensations on the Cartesian model we don’t. Buck would say,
I think, that "‘imagining’ is a concept whose intelligible

employment is parasitical on the existence of criteria for

other concepts."

 

” Kripke, Wittgenstein: On Rules and Private Language,
p.116.

 

 

 

30

The problem the Cartesians face results from their
rejection of the normally used criteria for saying that
others have the same pain as I. Since they rule out using
such criteria, we do not know how we could understand them
when they assert that others have the same pain as I. In
this respect, they are like a character of Lewis Carroll’s
"The Two Clocks". This character has two clocks; one is a
clock which loses a minute a day, the other is a stopped
clock, which always points to 8 o’clock. He says that he
can tell when 8 o’clock comes by using the stopped clock.
For example, he may say that he can see when 8 o’clock comes
by seeing his stopped clock when it is exactly 8 o’clock.
He may assert that he is not using the stopped clock just
for a fun. He may assert that he cannot but use it. For it
tells the time correctly twice a day, while the other clock
only once in two years. At any rate, he is like the
Cartesians in that he rejects using normal criteria for
telling the time. Since he rejects using normal criteria,
we cannot know how we understand him when he says that he
can know when 8 o’clock comes by using the stopped clock.

Lewis Carroll, like Wittgenstein, is showing here

just how empty this explanation by means of

identity is. It really explains nothing. The

objector is quite right to feel dissatisfied with

the explanation given to him. For we still do not

understand when Carroll’s clock is right or when
another person can have the same kind of

 

 

 

31

experience we have, given the Cartesian
assumptions.30

w Ronald Suter, Interpreting Wittgenstein, p.117. The
story IS in Lewis Carroll, "The Two Clocks", in The Complete

gggfs of Lewis Carroll (New York: Random House) pp.1230-

 

  

lllIIlIIIH

   

III. WITTGENSTEIN VS. SKEPTICAL CARTESIANS

1. THE EPISTEMOLOGICALLY AND SEMANTICALLY SKEPTICAL
CARTESIANS

In chapter II we have seen how Wittgenstein could show that
the attempts of the non-skeptical Cartesians to get out of
the skeptical consequence would fail. Let’s assume that
Wittgenstein is right in holding that there is no way out of
such skeptical consequences. But this may not make the
Cartesians give up their belief that our sensations are
private in their sense. For they may convert to another
type of Cartesianism, the epistemologically and semantically
skeptical Cartesians. These Cartesians would accept both
epistemological and semantical claims like "It is impossible
for me to know others’ sensations, if sensations are
private." and "It is impossible for me to understand the
sensation-words used by others, if the sensation words refer
to private sensations." They are in a sense very close to
Wittgenstein. For Wittgenstein himself accepts the above
two kinds of claims. But they are also different from
Wittgenstein in one important respect. Wittgenstein would
say that if sensation words refer to private sensations,
then even their speaker cannot understand them, while the

32

 

33
skeptical Cartesians would say that their speaker, though
not anyone else, can understand them.

These Cartesians would accuse the non-skeptical
Cartesians of using a wrong method, just as Wittgenstein
does. They assert that the Cartesians have to give up the
hope of justifying the claim that I know that others feel
pain. So they would not accept such methods as the argument
from analogy. They hold fast to their original claims like
the one that pain is only known to its owner. This position
looks certainly more consistent than that of the non-
skeptical Cartesians. But it has its own problem that it is
a skeptical position, sometimes called the ‘egocentric
predicament.’ Carl Wellman writes:

If all factual knowledge is grounded in

experience, how can one know any reality which is

independent of experience? If experience is

private, how can one person know anything about

the experience of another person? If words derive

their meaning from private experience, how can one

person explain to another what he means? The

picture (i.e., the Cartesian epistemological

picture) seems to imply that I can know only my

own experience and that I can understand only my
own words. This is the egocentric predicament.‘

 

” Carl Wellman, "Wittgenstein and Egocentric
Predicament," p.223.

 

34
2. PRIVATE LANGUAGE AS IT IS DEFINED BY WITTGENSTEIN IS THE

LANGUAGE OF EPISTEMOLOGICALLY AND SEMANTICALLY SKEPTICAL
CARTESIANS

What I wanted to say in the previous section was this.
Suppose that there is no way out of the so-called egocentric
predicament. If so, would Wittgenstein’s external attack on
private language succeed in persuading the Cartesians to
give up their theories of sensations? The answer is "No."
For it could not persuade the epistemologically and
semantically skeptical Cartesians. Note that these
philosophers would say that the egocentric predicament is
something that we have to accept as a fact. These die-hard
Cartesians might endorse the view that people in fact do not
understand one another when they use the word ‘pain.’ For
only the speaker of ‘pain’ can understand it. It is just an
illusion, they might say, that people do.32

Now we can understand why Wittgenstein defines private
language as the language which it is logically impossible
for others except its speaker to understand. For it is the
conception of language that the most consistent Cartesians,
i.e., the epistemologically and semantically skeptical
Cartesians would accept. Wittgenstein intends to demolish
this conception of language by showing that even the speaker

of a private language cannot understand it. If even the

 

” It seems to me that there is no philosopher who holds
this position. But it is a possibility.

 

35

speaker of a private language cannot understand it, then no
one can understand it. The language which no one can
understand cannot be language. This is what Malcolm calls
‘Wittgenstein’s internal attack upon private language.’
"The argument that I have been outlining has the form of
reductio ad absurdum: postulate a private language; then
deduce that it is not a language."33 What Malcolm says will
help one to understand what I am getting at.

It [that is, the claim that "I know from

introspection what acts of thinking and perceiving

are..."] is the most natural assumption for a

philosopher to make and indeed seems at first be

the only possibility. Yet Wittgenstein has made

us see that it leads first to solipsism and then
to nonsense." “

3. THE CORE OF THE PRIVATE LANGUAGE ARGUMENT: THE INTERNAL
ATTACK

Now we are entering probably the most controversial part of
the private language argument. It begins with a simple
question of whether or not someone, who asserts that he is
using a private sensation-word, is able to identify the

private sensation which is supposed to be its meaning. The

 

” Norman Malcolm, "Wittgenstein’s Philosophical
Investigations", p.75.

” Norman Malcolm, "Knowledge of other-minds", pp. 378-
379. '

36
answer to this question is "No" according to Wittgenstein.
Let me explain why Wittgenstein believes that the speaker of
a private sensation-word cannot identify the private
sensation which is supposed to be its meaning. First,
consider the following well-known section of Philosophical
Investigations.

Let us imagine the following case. I want to keep
a diary about the recurrence of a certain
sensation. To this end I associate it with the
sign "S" and write this sign in a calendar for
every day on which I have the sensation.- I will
remark first of all that a definition of the sign
cannot be formulated.- But still I can give myself
a kind of ostensive definition.- How? Can I point
to the sensation? Not in the ordinary sense. But
I speak, or write the sign down, and as it were,
point to it inwardly.- But what is this ceremony
for? for that is all it seems to be! A
definition surely serves to establish the meaning
of a sign.- Well, that is done precisely by the
concentrating of my attention; for in this way I
impress on myself the connection between the sign
and the sensation.- But "I impress it on myself"
can only mean: this process brings it about that I
remember the connexion right in the future. But
in the present case I have no criterion of
correctness. One would like to say: whatever is
going to seem right to me is right. And that only
means that here we can’t talk about ‘right’. (PI
5258)

How could the diarist identify the sensation correctly
whenever it occurs? In order to identify the sensation, he
must have certain criteria for identifying it. But what
would be the criteria which the diarist could use? There
seems to be only one criterion which is available for him.
It would be like this. He determines to use the sensation
he is now having and baptizing with the sign ‘8’ as a kind

of model-image. He then will compare the sensation he will

37
be having some time in the future with the model-image he
will then bring up out of his memory. If the sensation he
has in the future is the same as the model-image, then he
calls it ‘S.’ If not, he doesn’t.

This criterion at first sight appears to be harmless.
But it has a serious problem, which Wittgenstein reveals in
this way. The diarist may not remember the model-image
correctly. Certainly memory is not infallible. Hence his
judgments that the sensation he is now having is or is not
the same as the model-image will at least sometimes be
wrong. But the diarist cannot know that he makes a mistake
when he actually is wrong.

Well, why not? Isn’t it possible to imagine that the
diarist gives up his judgment and confesses that he was
wrong? Yes, it is possible to imagine such a thing. But
the problem is that there is no way of checking that what he
is saying is right or wrong. Someone’s simply saying that
he made a mistake does not confirm that he really made a
mistake. He may have been wrong in judging that he made a
mistake. Hence he has to be able to present some criteria
by which he judges that he made a mistake, just as he needs
criteria by which to judge that he did not make any mistake.
That is, he has to have criteria for determining the
correctness of his memory-judgments. However the diarist
could not offer such criteria. "In the present case, [he

has] no criterion of correctness" of determining whether or

 

38
not he remembers the model-image correctly. Without the
criteria for judging the correctness of his memory-
judgments, the above ‘criterion’ for identifying the
sensation is not a criterion at all.

Why must it be the case that the diarist has no
criterion of correctness for determining whether or not his
memory judgments are true? It is because there is nothing
other than his memory that he can depend on. In order to
check the veracity of one memory that looks suspicious, he
should appeal to another memory. Now he has to give a
reason why he believes the truth of this particular memory-
judgment. For it is possible that he makes a mistake about
that judgment. The reason he can give must appeal to
another memory. This kind of process will go on and on
infinitely, insofar as he is not able to check his memory-
judgments by something other than his memory-judgments. But
he cannot use something other than his own memory judgments.
Hence he will never be able to confirm his own judgments.

"But surely I can appeal from one memory to

another. For example, I don’t know if I have

remembered the time of departure of a train right

and to check it I call to mind how a page of the

time-table looked. Isn’t it the same here?" - No;

for this process has got to produce a memory which

is actually correct. If the mental image of the

time-table could not itself be tested for

correctness, how could it confirm the correctness

of the first memory? (As if someone were to buy

several copies of the morning paper to assure

himself that what it said was true.)

Looking up a table in the imagination is no
more looking up a table than the image of the

result of an imagined experiment is the result of
an experiment. (PI §265)

 

39‘

For the diarist, Wittgenstein says, "whatever is going to
seem right to [him] is right," and so "we can’t talk about
right."

Some philosophers like Ayer think that Wittgenstein is
unfairly rejecting our memory as a legitimate source of our
knowledge. But this is a misunderstanding. Wittgenstein is
not a memory-skeptic at all. What he is saying is that only
in a certain case, like the situation in which the diarist
is, can we not trust our memory. Let’s examine Ayer’s
criticisms of Wittgenstein, and how Wittgenstein would
respond to them. Ayer says:

Let the object to which I am attempting to refer

be as public as you please, let the word which I

use for this purpose belong to some common

language, my assurance that I am using the word

correctly, that I am using it to refer to the

"right" object, must in the end rest on the

testimony of my senses. It is through hearing

what other people say, or through seeing what they

write, or observing their movements, that I am

enabled to conclude that their use of the word

agrees with mine. But if without further ado I

can recognize such noises or shapes or movements

why can I not also recognize a private

sensation?35
What Ayer tries to say is not entirely clear to me. But it
seems to me what he wants to assert is this. When we

identify anything, public or private, we depend ultimately

on our memory and sensations. Note that the diarist also

 

” A. J. Ayer, "Can There be a Private Language?" in
Canfield ed. vol.9, p.6; first published in Aristotelian
Society of Proceedings, Supplementary volume 28, pp.63-76;
Also in Pitcher ed.;Also in The Private Language Argument,
O.R. Jones, ed., (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1971).

 

40

should depend on his memory and sensations to identify the
sensation at issue. Hence the situation the diarist faces
when he identifies his private sensation is not different
from the one we face when we identify public objects. Now
Wittgenstein asserts that the diarist cannot identify the
private sensation because he can use only his memory and
sensations to identify it, and as a result he cannot give
any meaning to the private sign. But if that is the case,
then, Ayer asserts, neither can public objects be
identified, and neither can public objects-words be endowed
with meanings. This shows that Wittgenstein is wrong in
believing that the diarist cannot rely on his own memory to
check whether or not he is applying the sign ‘8’ correctly.
Thus Ayer says:

Wittgenstein is wrong in taking the corroboration

of one memory by another, or that of a memory by

an item of sense experience, as an inferior

substitute for some other method of verification.

There is no other method. Whatever I have to

identify, whether it be an object, an even, an

image, or a sign, I have only my memory and my

current sensation to rely on. There is a

difference only in the degree to which the

memories and sensations are cross-checked.36

Is this a good criticisms of Wittgenstein? I think
not. Let me explain. Surely it appears to be the case that

our sensations and memory play essential roles in learning a

language. If we do not have any sensations, or if we cannot

 

“ A.J. Ayer, Wittgenstein (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1985) p.76.

 

 

41
remember anything, then we could not learn any kind of
language. But from this, it does not follow that there are
no differences between the ways we use sensations and memory
to check whether or not we identify public objects correctly
and the ways the diarist uses them to check whether or not
he identify the private sensation correctly. In fact, there
are many differences between them, which we cannot simply
dismiss as insignificant as the difference "only in the
degree to which the memories and sensations are cross-
checked."

For example, the diarist cannot rely on other peoples’
testimony, whereas I can. It is true, as Ayer might say,
that I have to receive others’ testimony through my senses.
But this does not make others’ testimony in any way less
valuable. Compare this real testimony with an imaginary
testimony. Suppose that the diarist imagines someone’s
giving testimony to him. He may even speak out this
imaginary testimony to himself. Then, he is receiving this
imaginary testimony through his sense, i.e., auditory sense,
just as I receive real testimony through my auditory sense.
Should we say, then, that the real testimony I have is the
same as the imaginary one he has, because both are
ultimately received by our senses? The answer is obviously
"No". Suppose further that next day both he and I want to
confirm the testimonies we have had. First, both he and I

can appeal to the testimonies of our memories. So far

 

 

42
there is no difference. But I can go out and check my
memory claim, whereas he can’t. Admittedly I also receive
this confirming testimony through my auditory sense. Again,
now should we say, because of this, that the real testimony
I have is no more and no less valuable than the imaginary
one the diarist has? Surely not. Imaginary testimony is
not testimony at all, as an imaginary present is not a
present at all.

Thus, the ways we use memory and sensations are
different from the ways the diarist has to use his memory
and sensations, although in both cases everything must be
received finally through his and our senses. This
difference originates from the conditions that the diarist
has to impose on himself when he attempts to use the sign
‘5’. Recall that it is assumed that no one other than the
diarist himself logically can check whether or not the
diarist is using the sign ‘8' correctly. Hence if he says
that he is right about his judgments about S, then we cannot
dispute it. If he says that he just made a mistake, then we
also cannot dispute it. If he says that he is not sure
about whether or not he is right, then we cannot dispute it.
If he says that he can never go wrong, then we cannot
dispute it. He may even say that he has been joking all the
time. To this we cannot raise any question at all. This is
no small defect. Even Ayer agrees about this point.

There are passages in the Philosophical
Investigations in which Wittgenstein appears to

 

43

mean by a private language one that it is

logically impossible for anyone but the speaker to

understand. If this were all that he meant, I

doubt if anyone would dispute his claim that there

can be no such language. Certainly I should not

wish to do so.37 ”

There is one more thing we have to consider before we
finish our examination of the core of private language
argument. Let me explain. It is true that by definition no
one other than the diarist himself can check his use of the
sign ‘8’. But it does not exclude the possibility that the
diarist can use something publicly observable to check his
use of the sign ‘8’. Why can’t he use this kind of method?

Because if he did, he would be doing the same thing as we

do. Let me explain.

 

” A.J. Ayer, Wittgenstein, pp.74-75.

” If we do not pay attention to the logical sense of
‘can’ here, it is easy to make the following kind of charge.
Wittgenstein is wrong in believing that the diarist cannot
give any meaning to the sign ‘S"because no one other than
himself can check his use of it. Those who make this kind
of charge would use an example of Crusoe, living alone since
birth, and point out that Crusoe is likely to end up with a
language however primitive it might be. The possibility of
Crusoe’s language shows, they would assert, that the
assumption that if no one other than the speaker can
understand it, then he himself cannot understand it is
false. It should be now clear that private language is not
to be compared with Crusoe’s language. For it is logically
impossible for the third party to understand private
language, whereas it is certainly logically possible for the
third party to understand Crusoe’s language. Shortly I will
talk about Crusoe’s language in more detail. There I will
show that the possibility or impossibility of Crusoe’s
language does not exercise any influence on how we solve the
problem of private language. Moreover, I will show there
that Wittgenstein would welcome the claim that Crusoe’s
language is possible.

 

44

It is possible to imagine that the diarist’s sensation
is correlated to certain observable phenomena. For example,
it may be the case that whenever he thinks he has the
sensation which he wants to name by the sign ‘8’, he finds
that the temperature of the place he is in is 5 degree below
0, i.e., the freezing point. Suppose that he now thinks
that he has the very sensation and says that he has it now.
But after a second thought he is not sure that he is now
having the sensation. So he checks a thermometer and finds
that it does not point to the freezing point. This shows
that he is wrong in thinking that he has the sensation. In
this way, the diarist alone, without any other’s help, could
check his own usage of the sign ‘8’.

Now what is wrong in this method? What is wrong is
that the reading of a thermometer plays an essential role in
identifying the sensation. Strangely enough, the sensation
itself does not play any role. Not only does it not play
any role, but also it would not really matter whether or not
it really existed, insofar as he identifies it by reading a
thermometer.”

The upshot of this discussion is that the diarist

cannot rely on some observable phenomena which are

 

” If he wants to use his sensation at all, then he has
to say that he is right about his sensation, and the
correlation is not obtained for this case. This would make
his sensation important. But once he gives up the
correlation, he falls into the dark situation he was in
before.

 

45
correlated to his private sensation in order to check the
veracity of his judgment about the very private sensation,
without making the private sensation useless.40 Read the
following comment made by Wittgenstein about this kind of
method.

Let us now imagine a use for the entry of the sign
"8" in my diary. I discover that whenever I have
a particular sensation a manometer shews that my
blood-pressure rises. So I shall be able to say
that my blood-pressure is rising without using any
apparatus. This is a useful result. And now it
seems quite indifferent whether I have recognized
the sensation right or not. Let us suppose I
regularly identify it wrong, it does not matter in
the least. And that alone shews that the
hypothesis that I make a mistake is mere show. (We
as it were turned a knob which looked as if it
could be used to turn on some part of the machine;
but it was a mere ornament, not connected with the
mechanism at all.) (PI §270)41

It should be now clear why the diarist cannot rely on
his memory. It is because there is nothing public or
external that the diarist can depend on. John Cook

describes the diarist as a disembodied being.

 

w Saying that private sensations are useless may lead
some to think that Wittgenstein is some kind of
instrumentalist. But I do not think that it is a correct
interpretation of Wittgenstein. I will try to provide what
I think to be the correct meaning of ‘useless’ as it is used
by Wittgenstein later.

“ Many philosophers confuse what Wittgenstein is saying
here with the verification principle. But this is wrong.
Wittgenstein is not using the verification principle here at
all. If he uses it, then the private language argument
could have been much simpler than the one we know now. That
Wittgenstein’s account of pain is not dependent on
verificationism will become clearer when we examine his
positive account of pain.

 

46

For if we take seriously the supposition that this
disembodied being whose ‘words’ or ‘signs’ play no

is a
role

in any language-games, and then ask ourselves how this

notion of association is supposed to account for
whatever he is supposed to do with their signs, we

really find ourselves in difficulties. ... That is,

given the supposition that this is a disembodied being
who neither does nor seems to participate in any form

of life, there could per hypothesis be nothing
whatsoever that differs between a supposed case in
which he remembers and a supposed case in which he
mistaken.42

We have so far described the very thing the diarist

wants to name with the sign ‘8’ as sensation. But note
describing the diarist’s private sensation as sensation
similar to attempting to describe it by way of publicly
observable things. For ‘sensation’ is a word of public
language which is understood by almost everyone. Hence
is wrong for the diarist to describe what he has as
‘sensation’. For if he does, his supposedly private
sensation is not private anymore.
What reason have we for calling "S" the sign for a
sensation? 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
justification which everybody understands. - And
it would not help either to say that it need not
be a sensation; that when he writes "8", he has

something - and that is all that can be said.
"Has" and "something" also belong to our common

language. - So in the end when one is doing
philosophy one gets to the point where one would
like just to emit an inarticulate sound. - But

such a sound is an expression only as it occurs in

 

a John Cook, "Solipsism and Language", in Ludwig

is

that

is

it

Wittgenstein: Philosophy and Language, ed. Alice Ambrose and
Morris Lazerowitz, (New York: Humanities Press Inc., 1972),

pp.65-66.

 

47

a particular language-game, which should now be
described. (PI §261)43

4. THE IRRELEVANCE OF CRUSOE’S LANGUAGE TO THE PROBLEM OF
PRIVATE LANGUAGE

Some Cartesians think that by showing that someone
(‘Crusoe’) who is isolated from other human beings from the
birth can develop his own language, they can refute
Wittgenstein’s argument against private language. I will
try to show in this section that the possibility of Crusoe’s
language cannot exercise any influence on the possibility of
private language.

In order to see the difference between private language
and Crusoe’s language, it is important not to forget that
the core of private language argument is designed to
demolish the epistemologically and semantically skeptical

Cartesians’ point of View. It means that the diarist must

 

” It would be helpful if we compared the diarist’s
report about his supposedly private sensation with our
report about dreams. We report our dreams in public
language. Suppose that there is a person who wants to assert
that his dream, even though he can report it in public
language, is still something only he can know or only he can
have. If he says that this is the essence of dream, then
let him say so. Insofar as he cannot say anything about it,
it does not play any role in our dream-language game. It
would not matter even though there were no such a thing
after all. The diarist is similar to this person. Either
he is silent about his private sensation or he says
something about it. If he says something about it, then it
is not any more something that only he can know. For he has
to use public language to describe it. If he is silent
about it, then he may keep it private. But then it is
useless.

 

48

be understood as an epistemologically and semantically
skeptical Cartesian. This in turn means that the diarist
cannot use any of his publicly observable behaviors or
environments to check whether or not he is using the sign
‘8’ correctly. He also will not admit that other people can
know how he is using the sign ‘8’. As a third party, there
is nothing we can gain from the diarist’s public behaviors
or surrounding environment which we can use to guess how he
is using the sign ‘8’. We can use this point to show the
differences between Crusoe’s language and private language.

It is not difficult to figure out a reason why private
language has nothing to do with Crusoe’s language. The
sensation which the sign ‘8’ is supposed to name is what can
only be had by the diarist. Can we say that the objects
which Crusoe is experiencing can be observed only by him?
No. It is certainly possible for others to observe the poor
man’s environment which he may be talking about.44 So here
is the difference: in the case of the diarist it is
logically impossible for others to observe the sensation he

is talking about.”, whereas in the case of Crusoe it is

 

“ Would the person who discovers Crusoe dare to say
that he cannot observe anything Crusoe appears to observe?
He is likely to be judged to be confused if he says such a
thing.

“ Even though someone other than the diarist reports
that he cannot experience the sensation the diarist is
supposed to be experiencing, he is not likely to be regarded
as confused.

 

49
logically possible for others to observe his environment.
J.J. Thomson makes it clear.

Now what is remarkable is that some philosophers
who have understood the thesis in this way
nevertheless take it to be relevant to discuss the
question whether or not a man who grew up alone on
a deserted island could have invented a language
for his own use. But why should a man’s growing
alone make the language he invents (if he can
invent a language) of necessity unintelligible to
anthropologists who discover him? And if what is
in question is the possibility of a language which
is of necessity unintelligible to anyone else but
its speaker, then having shown that a man who grew
up alone couldn’t have such a language you would
still have to do the job of showing that a man who
grew up in company couldn’t have such a
language."46

The Cartesians might respond as follows. We have to
compare the diarist’s sign ‘8’ with Crusoe’s sensation
words, not with his physical objects-words. If so, then the
person who discovered Crusoe - let’s say he is an
anthropologist- may report that he cannot experience
Crusoe’s sensations.47 If we compare the diarist’s sign ‘8’
with Crusoe’s sensation-words, then there does not seem to
be any difference between them. For in both cases, it makes
a sense under the Cartesian assumption of privacy that we
cannot have the sensations which both Crusoe and the diarist

are supposed to have. Hence we cannot simply say that

 

“ Thompson, J.J. "Private Languages," in Canfield, ed.
vol.9 p.196; first published in American Philosophical
Quarterly, (1), 20-31; Also in O.R. Jones, ed.

a In this case we would not say that the anthropologist
who reports that he cannot have Crusoe’s sensations is
confused.

 

50
Crusoe’s language is different from the diarist’s language
because Crusoe’s language is about what many can observe
while the diarist’s language is about what only he can have.
For, assuming Cartesian privacy, there seems to be nothing
wrong in saying that Crusoe’s sensation-language is also
about what can only be known to him. So the analogy between
the two languages seems to be revived.

But once the Cartesians reestablish the analogy between
private language and Crusoe’s language, then they have to
realize the following. It is assumed that we, as the third
party, cannot understand the private, i.e., the diarist’s
language. In order to keep the analogy alive, then, they
have to say that they cannot understand Crusoe’s sensation
language. But note that the Cartesians want to say that
they can understand Crusoe’s sensation language. Can’t the
Cartesians assert, reversely, that since we can understand
Crusoe’s sensation-language, we must also be able to
understand private language? No. Let me explain.

Assume that the anthropologist asserts that he has
discovered that Crusoe has a sensation language, or Crusoe
has sensations. Further assume that the Cartesians accept
it. What is wrong here? It is this. Wittgenstein would
immediately ask the Cartesians how they can be sure that
what the anthropologist asserts to be Crusoe’s sensation-
words are really sensation-words. If they say that they are

sure because the anthropologist has some observable evidence

 

51

to determine which are Crusoe’s sensation-words, then the
analogy between Crusoe’s language and the private language
breaks down. For in the diarist’s private language, we rule
out the possibility of using any publicly observable
evidence to determine that the diarist’s sign ‘8’ is a
sensation-word. In order to keep the comparison intact, the
Cartesians, who are using the anthropologist’s report, have
to say that the anthropologist does not use any public
evidence to tell which are Crusoe’s sensation-words. But if
the anthropologist does not use any public evidence, how can
he know which are Crusoe’s sensation-words? Can the
Cartesians believe that the anthropologist somehow is
capable of feeling Crusoe’s sensations? No. They cannot
believe it. If they do, they are rejecting their own notion
of privacy. For it means that I can have another’s
sensations in the Cartesian sense. Hence the correct
comment which the consistent Cartesians have to make about
the anthropologist’s report should be that the
anthropologist cannot use any publicly observable behaviors
as the evidences for determining which are Crusoe’s
sensation-words. In short, they have to say that they
cannot know whether Crusoe is using sensation-language or
whether he has sensations.

The Cartesians cannot use the discovery to support the
claim that private language is possible. If they use it,

then they are refuting themselves. For what they must

 

52
assert is that I cannot be sure that others are using the
sensation-words in the same way as I do, or that others have
the sensations which are the same as mine. 80 they should
be no less skeptical of Crusoe’s use of sensation-words than
of other normal people’s use of them.

If the Cartesians insist that the anthropologist’s
report is a valuable discovery, then they have to admit that
the publicly observable behavior of Crusoe is the evidence
for determining whether or not Crusoe is using a sensation-
word, or whether or not Crusoe feels sensations. If so,
then they also have to admit that behavior is the criterion
for determining that Crusoe has sensations. However they
cannot do it. For it will go against their own beliefs
about the privacy of sensations.

To conclude: Wittgenstein would gladly welcome the
report that an anthropologist discovered Crusoe, and
understood his sensation-language. For it helps establish
that the Cartesians are wrong, and he is right.
Wittgenstein’s own words seem to support the claim that
Wittgenstein himself believes that Crusoe’s language is
possible.

In MS 165 Wittgenstein imagines a solitary cave-

man who uses a picture-language on the walls of

his cave. Such a language, he says, would be

readily intelligible. Later he imagines a

solitary cave-man who speaks only to himself,

gives himself orders, etc. Provided he uses

simple signs which we could interpret, we could

come to understand him. A few pages further on

Wittgenstein concludes that to describe a language
which someone speaks only to himself is to

53
describe a regularity of his behavior, and not
something which can happen only once. (of, MS 129,
p.89)48
It is wrong, I think, to give a once-and-for-all type
answer to the question whether or not Crusoe can invent a
language. But one thing for sure is that Crusoe’s language

has absolutely nothing to do with private language in the

sense in which that term is used by Wittgenstein.

 

“ G. Baker, and P.M.S. Hacker, Scepticism, Rules and
Languages, (OxfordzBlackwell, 1984), p.21.

IV. WITTGENSTEIN’S POSITIVE ACCOUNT OF PAIN - PRELIMINARY
REMARK

We may term what we have so far discussed ‘Wittgenstein’s
negative account of pain’ in that it is basically a
criticism of Cartesian theory of sensations. Let me now
present what we may call ‘Wittgenstein’s positive account of
pain’, which consists of several theses. During the process
of examining Wittgenstein’s positive account of pain, we
will encounter Wittgenstein’s views on the nature of

criteria and of knowledge.

1. SIX THESES OF WITTGENSTEIN’S POSITIVE ACCOUNT OF PAIN

The first thesis of Wittgenstein’s positive account of pain
is the claim that pain—behavior including facial expressions
are the criteria for determining whether or not someone is
in pain. Some could object to this thesis by pointing out
that the criteriological view has at least one serious
defect: it cannot explain what appears to be an undeniable
fact that pain could exist without any pain-behavior, or
vice versa. This objection comes from confusing
Wittgenstein’s notion of criteriological connection with
logical entailment. If we adequately understand what

54

 

55
Wittgenstein means by ‘criteria’, we will realize that we
cannot raise this kind of objection against Wittgenstein.

Wittgenstein asserts that I do not use any criteria at
all for determining whether or not I am in pain. This is
the second thesis of Wittgenstein’s positive account of
pain. Another thesis related to it is the claim that it
makes no sense to say that I make a mistake in determining
whether or not I am in pain.

Some philosophers point out that the second and third
theses are not compatible with what the first thesis
implies. For example, the second thesis - that I do not use
any criteria for determining whether or not I am in pain -
is not compatible with the claim that behaviors are criteria
for determining whether or not someone is in pain. Also the
third thesis - that it makes no sense to say that I do not
make any mistake about my own pain - is said to be
incompatible with the claim that behavioral criteria
sometimes lead us to make mistakes. These philosophers are
misunderstanding Wittgenstein. If they understand
adequately Wittgenstein’s views on the nature of criteria
and knowledge, they would realize that there are no such
inconsistencies.

Some philosophers suggest that we use Wittgenstein’s
claim that uttering "I am in pain" is a new pain-behavior in
order to explain some of Wittgenstein’s theses such as "I do

not use any criteria for determining whether or not I am in

 

56
pain," or "I cannot make any mistake in determining whether
or not I am in pain." The claim that uttering "I am in
pain" is a new pain-behavior is the fourth thesis.

There are two other perplexing claims Wittgenstein
makes about pain. One is the claim that it does not make
any sense to say that I know that I am in pain. This is the
fifth thesis, which has caused hot debates among
philosophers. The other claim - the sixth thesis - is that
two or more than two persons can have the same pain.

The following are the six theses which consist of

Wittgenstein’s positive account of pain.49

THE THESES OF WITTGENSTEIN’S POSITIVE ACCOUNT OF PAIN

1) Pain-behavior is criteriological evidence for
Idetermining whether or not someone is in pain.

2) I do not use any criterion for determining
whether or not I am in pain.

3) I cannot make any mistake at all in determining
whether or not I am in pain, or it makes no sense
for me to be mistaken about my pain.

4) Uttering "I am in pain." is like groaning or
moaning.

5) It does not make any sense to say that I know
that I am in pain.

6) More than two people can have the same pain.

 

w I do not mean that these six theses exhaust all the
theses which could be classified under the title of
"Wittgenstein’s positive account of pain." I select what
seems to me essential.

 

57

2. WITTGENSTEIN’S ACCOUNT OF CRITERIA

Let me present various aspects of Wittgenstein’s account of
criteria to see what bearings they have on our problem of

explaining Wittgenstein’s account of pain.

1) CRITERIA AS HAVING A SEMANTICAL ASPECT
For Wittgenstein, the notion of criteria has what I call a
‘semantical aspect.’ By the claim that ‘criteria’ has a
semantical aspect, I mean that we cannot learn how to use a
word like ‘pain’ without learning to catch the connection
between pain-behavior and pain. Anyone who does not catch
the connection between pain-behavior and pain would not know
how to use the word ‘pain’ correctly. So Wittgenstein says:

When we learnt the use of the phrase "so-and-so

has toothache" we were pointed out certain kinds

of behavior of those who were said to have

toothache.50
Anthony Kenny correctly points out this point.

X is not a criterion for Y if someone could learn

the meaning of ‘Y’ without having grasped the

connection between X and Y.‘1

Wittgenstein sometimes describes this semantical

characteristic of criteria by using the terms like

 

m Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, 2nd
edition, (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), p.24, Hereafter
this work will be cited in parentheses as BB followed by
page numbers.

5‘ Anthony Kenny, "Criterion," in P. Edward, ed., The
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (New York: MacMillan and Free
Press, 1967), vol.II, p.259.

 

58
‘grammatical truths’ or ‘grammatical rules.’ See P.M.S.
Hacker’s following claim.
Hence the proposition that p is a criterion for q

is a grammatical truth or grammatical proposition
which explains a rule for the use of words.52

2) CRITERIA AS HAVING AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL ASPECT: CRITERIA AS
NONINDUCTIVE EVIDENCE

Wittgenstein obviously believes that a criterion is evidence
that helps us determine whether or not that for which it is
a criterion is true. But it is a special kind of evidence,
sometimes called ‘noninductive evidence’.

What is meant by ‘noninductive evidence’? It means
that a criterion is direct evidence for the truth of a
judgment for which it is a criterion. Shoemaker writes:

For present purposes, we may characterize the

criteria for the truth of a judgment as those

states of affairs that are (whose existence would

be) direct and noninductive evidence in favor of

the truth of the judgment.’3
But this is hardly helping clarify the notion of
noninductive evidence. Shoemaker gives a further
explanation.

If so and_so’s being the case is a criterion for

the truth of a judgment of4>identity, the

assertion that it is the evidence in favor of the
truth of the judgment is necessarily (logically)

 

” P.M.S. Hacker, Insight and Illusion, p.310.

” Sidney Shoemaker, Self Knowledge and Self Identity,
(Ithaka, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1963) p.3.

59

rather than contingently (empirically) true.54
What Shoemaker is saying is that it is necessarily - not
contingently - the case that a criterion is the evidence for
judging that what it is a criterion of is true. For example
if groaning is a criterion for someone’s being in pain, then
it is necessarily the case that his groaning is an evidence
for judging that he is in pain. But what does it mean? It
means that if someone raises a question why someone’s ‘
groaning is evidence for judging that he is in pain, then we
"will be at a loss to answer the question, and find that
here we strike rock bottom..." (BB p.25) In this context,
we can understand the following comment from G.H. von
Wright’s about criteria.

The evidence which we produce for the truth of a

proposition which we claim to know consists of

propositions which we accept as true. If the

question is raised, how we know these latter

propositions, further grounds may be offered to

show how we know them and further evidence given

for the truth of the propositions thus claimed to

be known. But the chain of grounds (evidence) has

an end, a point beyond which no further grounds

can be given. This is a thing which Wittgenstein

often stressed.”

Don’t misunderstand Shoemaker’s claim that if A is a
criterion of B, then it is necessarily the case that A is an

evidence for B’s being true as meaning that A entails B.

For example, Shoemaker would not say that if groaning is a

 

“ Sidney Shoemaker, p.34.

” G.H.von Wright, "Wittgenstein on Certainty", in
Canfield ed., vol.8, p.170; originally in his Wittgenstein,
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982).

60
criterion for someone’s being in pain, then someone’s
groaning entails that he is in pain. All he is saying is
that it is a necessary truth that groaning is an evidence

for pain.

3) CRITERIA AND SYMPTOMS
Wittgenstein contrasts criteria with symptoms. Since
criteria are said to have two aspects, we can contrast them
with symptoms in two ways. First, symptoms would be things
which are not needed to understand a certain word, though
they are related to it. Second, a criterion is noninductive
evidence, whereas a symptom is inductive evidence. For
example, Hacker says:
This is the point of contrasting symptoms with
criteria. We then discover the symptoms of X in
experience, and such discoveries presuppose an

understanding of ‘X’ and the possibility of its
non-inductive identification.

3. WITTGENSTEIN’S VIEWS ON THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE

Wittgenstein asserts that there are many propositions about
which it makes no sense to raise any doubt. Such
propositions as "Here is my hand," "The earth existed before

I was born," belong to the class of the propositions about

 

“ Hacker, P.M.S. Insight and Illusion, p.310.

 

61
which it makes no sense to doubt.57 These propositions
"stand fast," as Wittgenstein says, because they have a
peculiar logical role in our system of knowledge. He
writes:
When Moore says he knows such and such, he is
really enumerating a lot of empirical propositions
which we affirm without special testing;
propositions, that is, which have a peculiar
logical role in the system of our empirical
propositions. (CC 5136)
But what kind of peculiar logical role do those empirical
and indubitable propositions have in "the system of our
empirical propositions"? The following remark of
Wittgenstein helps answer this question.
That is, we are interested in the fact that about
certain empirical propositions no doubt can exist
if making judgments is to be possible at all. Or
again: I am inclined to believe that not
everything that has the form of an empirical
proposition is one. (0C §308)58
For those people who still continue to try to doubt
these propositions by employing various arguments,

Wittgenstein prepares the following kinds of replies.

If I wanted to doubt whether this was my hand, how-
could I avoid doubting whether the word "hand" has

 

” Incidentally these are the propositions that G.E.
Moore asserts that he can know for certain. Wittgenstein’s
0n certainty is said to be written to respond to G.E. Moore.
See his "A Defence of Common Sense", "Proof of an External
World," in Philosophical Papers, (London: Allen and Unwin,
1959).

” Compare this to the peculiar characteristics of
criteriological or noninductive evidence. To say that if A
is a criteriological or noninductive evidence for B’s being
true is to say that if we want to make judgments, we cannot
deny that A is a criterion for B.

 

62

any meaning? So that is something I seem to know
after all. (CC 5369)

The same claim is made in another place.
If, therefore, I doubt or am uncertain about this
being my hand (in whatever sense), why not in that
case about the meaning of these words as well? (OC
$456)
In general, Wittgenstein asserts:
If you are not certain of any fact, you cannot be
certain of the meaning of your words either. (0C
m

$114)

There is one important thing I should mention.
Wittgenstein asserts that it makes no sense to say that we
know that these propositions are true. For it makes no
sense to say that we know what is beyond doubt, according to
Wittgenstein. Hence Moore had better not say that he knows
that here is my hand, Wittgenstein says

Instead of "I know...", couldn’t Moore have said:

"It stands fast for me that ..."? And further:

"It stands fast for me and many others..." (0C

$116)

In the previous two sections I have tried to sketch
Wittgenstein’s views on the nature of criteria and

knowledge. Keeping them in mind, let’s examine

Wittgenstein’s positive theses one by one.

 

” Compare this with what we will say about criteria
after a short while. We will say that if someone denies
that pain-behaviors are criteria for pain, then we have to
question that he really understand what is meant by ‘pain.’

V. CRITICAL EXAMINATIONS OF WITTGENSTEIN’S POSITIVE ACCOUNT
OF PAIN

1. AN EXAMINATION OF WITTGENSTEIN’S CLAIM THAT PAIN-BEHAVIOR
IS A CRITERION FOR DETERMINING THAT SOMEONE IS IN PAIN

It is Wittgenstein’s belief that pain-behaviors are the
criteria for pain. Now this could mean at least two things.
First, it could mean that we cannot learn the meaning of the
word ‘pain’ without grasping the connection between pain and
pain-behavior. Second, it could mean that pain-behavior is
noninductive evidence by which we can determine whether or

not someone is in pain. Let’s examine these two claims.

1) WE CAN’T UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF A WORD ‘PAIN’ WITHOUT
GRASPING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN PAIN AND PAIN-BEHAVIOR

Could we make counterexamples to this claim? In order to
offer a counterexample, someone must explain how we can
understand the meaning of a word ‘pain’ without considering
anything about publicly observable things. Strawson
attempts to offer this kind of counterexample. He says:

Wittgenstein gives himself considerable trouble

over the question of how a man would introduce a

name for a sensation into this private language.

But we need imagine no special ceremony. He can
get into the habit of making a certain mark in a

63

64

different place everytime it occurred.60
It should be easy to guess how Wittgenstein would respond to
this type of criticism. Wittgenstein’s diarist section can
be used to abolish exactly this kind of reply.

Wittgenstein considers the possibilities that someone
might invent a name for a sensation. This person may be
such a genius that he understands the meaning of ‘pain’
without any other’s help, as he might discover how to prove
Pythagoras’ theorem all alone. If this is possible, then
the claim that without grasping the connection between pain
and pain-behavior no one can learn the meaning of ‘pain’ is
not true. How would Wittgenstein reply to this?

"What would it be like if human beings showed no
outward signs of pain (did not groan, grimace,
etc.)? Then it would be impossible to teach the
child the use of the word ‘tooth-ache’." Well,
let’s assume the child is a genius and itself
invents a name for the sensation! - But then, of
course, he couldn’t make himself understood when
he used the word.- So does he understand the
name, without being able to explain its meaning to
anyone?- But what does it mean to say that he has
‘named his pain’?- How has he done this naming of
pain?! And whatever he did, what was its purpose?
-When one says "He gave a name to his sensation"
one forgets that a great deal of stage-setting in
the language is presupposed if the mere act of
naming is to make sense. And when we speak of
someone’s having given a name to pain, what is
presupposed is the existence of the grammar of the
word ‘pain’; it shows the post where the new word
is stationed. (PI §257)

Even though it may be possible to think that someone

 

w Peter Strawson, "A critical notice of Wittgenstein’s
Philosophical Investigations", in O.R. Jones ed. p.44; first
published in Mind, (63), pp.77-100; Also in Pitcher ed.; in
Canfield ed., vol.4.

65
could invent a name for the sensation, e.g., pain, it does
not mean that he can understand the meaning of pain somehow
without knowing the connection between pain and pain-
behavior. For in order for him to make himself understood,
he has to explain the meaning of ‘pain’ to us, and when he
explains it, he has to connect pain to pain-behavior. That
is, he has to point out the conceptual connection between
pain and pain-behavior to explain the meaning of ‘pain.’
This is the only way he can show to us that he understands
‘pain.’ Can he offer something which we cannot offer as an
explanation of the meaning of ‘pain’ because he learned it
all alone? No. Hence there is no difference between him
and us about the meaning of ‘pain.’

The Cartesians might respond as follows. What really
matters in understanding what ‘pain’ means is not whether or
not he can explain it to others but whether or not he can
feel pain all by himself. Somehow he has to feel pain.
Otherwise he can never understand what ‘pain’ means. On the
contrary, if he has ever felt pain, then he is understanding
what ‘pain’ means even though he cannot explain it to
others. The Cartesians might continue this line of
objection by saying that it is possible to imagine that
someone, who has never felt pain in his life, is using the
word ‘pain’ in the same way that we use it. We cannot say,
they would assert, that this person knows the meaning of

‘pain’. How would Wittgenstein respond to this type of

66

objection?

The person, who, though he never felt pain, uses ‘pain’
in the same way as we do, is not unlike the person

whose memory could not retain what the word ‘pain’

meant - so that he constantly called different

things by that name - but nevertheless used the

word in a way fitting in with the usual symptoms

and presuppositions of pain.’ - in short he uses

it as we all do. (PI §271)
Does Wittgenstein say that this latter person does not
understand the meaning of the word ‘pain’? No.
Wittgenstein says that the thing this latter person fails to
retain in his memory is "a wheel that can be turned though
nothing else moves it" (PI §271). We can apply this kind of
answer to the former person’s case. That is, the pain he is
supposed to have never felt is "a wheel that can be turned
thought nothing else moves it." In other words, it does not

matter whether or not he has ever felt pain if he really

uses the word ‘pain’ in the same way we use it.

2) PAIN-BEHAVIOR IS NONINDUCTIVE EVIDENCE BY WHICH WE CAN
DETERMINE THAT SOMEONE IS IN PAIN

According to this view, it is necessarily the case that
observing pain-behavior is evidence by which we can, in
principle, tell that someone is in pain. A common question
raised to it is how Wittgenstein can explain that we
sometimes make mistakes in judging that someone is in pain
on the grounds that he displays pain-behavior. For example,

it may be the case that someone may just pretend to be in

67
pain.

To this type of objection Wittgenstein first would
point out that we do not need to worry about the possibility
of pretension at least for babies and animals. So he
asserts:

Are we perhaps over-hasty in our assumption that

the smile of an unweaned infant is not a

pretence?- And on what experience is our
assumption based?

(Lying is a language-game that needs to be learned

like any other one.) (PI 5249)

Why can’t a dog simulate pain? Is he too honest?

Could one teach a dog to simulate pain? Perhaps

it is possible to teach him to howl on particular

occasions as if he were in pain, even when he is

not. But the surroundings which are necessary for

this behavior to be real simulation are missing.

(PI §250)

A child has much to learn before it can pretend.

(A dog cannot be a hypocrite, but neither can he

be sincere.) (PI II, p.229)

However, that babies do not pretend to be in pain does
not guarantee that we can be always correct about babies’
pains. Also, adults can pretend to be in pain, and so they
could certainly deceive us. So it is the case that we go
wrong at least sometimes in judging that someone is in pain
by observing his pain-behavior. Wittgenstein has yet to
answer the above kind of question.

Wittgenstein would say that though we sometimes fail to
determine correctly whether or not someone is in pain by

observing his pain-behavior, it does not make false the

claim that there is a criteriological connection between

68
pain and pain-behavior. Thus Hacker writes:

In this sense, the claim that the satisfaction of

the criterion for p confers certainty, proves or

is decisive for the truth of p is compatible with

the claim that the criteria are defeasible.61

.We can put the above objection in the following type of
philosophical jargon. If a criterion is noninductive
evidence, that is, if criteriological evidence is neither
inductive nor deductive one, then how can we be sure of the
truth of what it is a criterion of? Since it is not a
deductive evidence, that is, since it does not entail what
it is a criterion of, it cannot give us a deductively
certain ground on which we can determine the truth of what
is a criterion. Also, since it is not an inductive
evidence, it does not seem to give any probabilistically -
low or high -certain ground on which we can determine the
truth of what it is a criterion of. Either way, a criterion
seems to fail to insure the truth of what it is a criterion
of.

This is a misunderstanding. When Wittgenstein says
that criteriological evidence of pain is neither deductive
nor inductive, he is not saying that we can always doubt the
truth of what it is evidence for. For he makes it clear
that when criteriological evidence is present, it is

sometimes, in a certain context, beyond doubt and so

certain, that what it is a criterion of is the case. If

 

“ P.M.S. Hacker, Insight and Illusion, p.317.

69

someone still raises a doubt, then we have to wonder what he
means by the word ‘pain.’ That is, he is displaying that he
does not understand the meaning of the word ‘pain.’ We had
better quote Hacker again.

Doubt in such circumstances would betoken a

failure of understanding, lack of mastery of the

concept of pain, not admirable caution.62

Fodor and Chihara attempt to come up with a case in
which we confirm the truth of a statement neither by
depending on criteria nor by symptoms.63 If there is such a
case, then it surely opens the possibility that we identify
someone’s pain not by criteria nor by symptoms, but by
something else. Let me examine their argument.

Their counterexample to the above claim is this.
C.T.R. Wilson, who is the inventor of the Wilson cloud-
chamber, determined that charged particles move through his
chamber by observing "the formation of tiny, thin bands of
fog on the glass surface of the instrument". Chihara and
Fodor assert that observing these streaks of fog is neither
a criterion nor a symptom for the motion of particles. It
is not a criterion, because "Wilson did not learn what ‘path

of a charged particle’ means by having the cloud-chamber

explained to him: he discovered the method". It is not a

 

” P.M.S. Hacker, Insight and Illusion, p.316.

“ C.S. Chihara and J.A. Fodor, "Operationalism and
Ordinary Language, A Critique of Wittgenstein", in Canfield.
ed., vol.7, pp.71-85; first published in American
Philosophical Quarterly, 2 (1965), pp.281-295; Also in G.
Pitcher ed.

7O
symptom either, because there is no "observed correlations
between streaks and some criterion of motion of charged
particles."64 What Wilson does is rather to formulate a
hypothesis that explains as well as possible why such
streaks of fog appear. They suggest, then, that we explore
the possibility of explaining the concept of ‘pain’ in the
way scientists explain such theoretical concepts as
‘electrons.’ They say that "we may instead form complex
conceptual connections which interrelate a wide variety of
mental states."“ Pain is one of such mental states which
are assumed to exist. By using the existence of such things
as pain, we can explain people’s behaviors. The better we
explain people’s behaviors by using them, the greater the
"evidence for the existence of the mental processes we
postulate," they assert.66 The conclusion they draw is that
"it is, at least, conceivable that a non-Wittgensteinian
account ought to be given of theway children learn the

"m and so it is also conceivable that

mental predicates,
there is no conceptual connection between pain and pain-
behavior.

What is wrong in their argument? I think they do not

notice the difference between the past situation in which

 

“ C. Chihara and J.A. Fodor, p.81.
“ C. Chihara and J.A. Fodor, p.82.
“ C. Chihara and J.A. Fodor, p.83.

" C. Chihara and J.A. Fodor, p.83.

71
Wilson proposed his discovery for the first time and the
current situation in which his discovery is now accepted.
When Wilson proposed his method, scientists would not have
immediately accepted it as established. To confirm it,
other scientists would also have tried the method
themselves. Imagine what we would do now with Wilson’s
method if it turned out that it was actually a fabrication.
No one would say that the streaks on the surface of the
glass, though he now obtains the same result as that of
Wilson’s, indicate the motion of particles. But as a matter
of fact it did not happen. Other scientists were also able
to obtain the result that Wilson proclaimed he obtained.
Wilson’s method was confirmed and accepted as a correct
method to detect particles. It is true that Wilson did not
learn the meaning of ‘particle’ by grasping the connection
between the streaks and motion of particles. He invented
the meaning, as Chihara and Fodor say. Compare Wilson with
the genius who invented the meaning of ‘pain.’ In the
genius example, we have seen that the possibility that a
genius could invent and learn all alone the meaning of
‘pain’ does not falsify the claim that there is a conceptual
connection between pain and pain-behavior. Similarly, the
fact that Wilson learned the meaning of ‘particle’ all alone
does not falsify that there is a conceptual connection
between the streaks and the motion of particles. These days

grasping the connection between the streaks and the motion

72
of particles, I believe, would be surely one of the ways of
understanding the meaning of ‘particles.’ Hence observing
the streaks on the surface of glass, I think, will be
regarded as a criterion for the motion of particles at least
by scientists. It is true that at the time that Wilson
proposed his method, it was not regarded as a criterion.
But that does not make it impossible that it later becomes a

criterion, as it really happened.

2. AN EXAMINATION OF WITTGENSTEIN’S CLAIM THAT IT DOES NOT
MAKE ANY SENSE TO SAY THAT I KNOW THAT I AM IN PAIN

We have seen before that Wittgenstein holds in his book On
Certainty that it makes no sense to say that we know what is
beyond doubt. We can find a similar claim in Philosophical
Investigations, where he gives a kind of way of testing
whether or not one is using correctly the phrase "I know
such and such."

"I know..." may mean "I do not doubt..." but does

not mean that the words "I doubt ..." are

senseless, that doubt is logically excluded. (PI

II, xi, p.221)
For example, consider the sentence "There is a mountain on
the backside of Moon." I know that it is true. But it is
still possible to doubt, i.e., it is not logically excluded

to doubt its truth. Compare it with the sentence "I am in

pain." Wittgenstein asserts that "I can’t be in error" in

73
judging that I am in pain, or that "it means nothing to
doubt whether I am in pain," or that "[t]hat expression of
doubt has no place in the language game" of pain (PI 5288).

I turn to stone and my pain goes on. - Suppose I

were in error and it was no longer pain? - But I

can’t be in error here; it means nothing to doubt

whether I am in pain! - That means: if anyone said

"I do not know if what I have got is a pain or

something else", we should think something like,

he does not know what the English word "pain"

means; and we should explain it to him. (PI 5288)

It is impossible, i.e., it is logically excluded to doubt
that I am in pain when I am in pain. Hence it makes no
sense to say that I know that I am in pain.

"I know what I want, wish, believe, feel, ....... "

(and so on through all the psychological verbs) is

either philosophers’ nonsense, or at any rate not

a judgment a priori. (PI IIxi, p.221)

If we use it, i.e., if we say that I know that I am in
pain, it can mean nothing other than saying simply that I am
in pain.

It can’t be said of me at all (except perhaps as a

joke) that I know that I am in pain. What it is

supposed to mean except that I am in pain? (PI

§246)

Many philosophers would deny that it is nonsensical to
say that I know that I am in pain. "Isn’t that so much
better?", some philosophers might ask, "if doubt is not

merely psychologically but logically impossible, then the

corresponding knowledge must be so much the more secure."68

 

“ Anthony Kenny, "Verification Principle and the
private language argument", in Canfield ed., p.217; first
published in O.R. Jones ed.

74

That is, why doesn’t Wittgenstein simply say that since I
cannot be in error about my pain, or it is logically
excluded to doubt that I am in pain, I know that I am in
pain? Isn’t Wittgenstein wrong in asserting that it makes
no sense to say that I know that I am in pain? Richard
Rorty says:

it is not clear whether we should accept the

(above Wittgenstein’s) analysis and get rid of the

(potentially) embarrassing fact that we possess

incorrigible knowledge, or whether we should

reject the analysis because it does not cover a

certain sort of knowledge, while trying to

overcome our embarrassment by other tactics.69

I will not try to defend Wittgenstein’s views on
knowledge against the above kind of objection. What I will
do in the following is to discuss an objection of a
different kind. Wittgenstein and the Cartesians appear to
agree on the substantial point that I cannot be wrong in
judging whether or not I am in pain. The Cartesians might
use this similarity to criticize Wittgenstein. For example,
they could assert that the reason why I cannot doubt about
my own pain is that pain is private in their sense. How
would Wittgenstein deal with the claim that I cannot doubt

about my pain because it is something only I can have?

It is important to note that when Wittgenstein says

 

w Richard Rorty, "Wittgenstein, Privileged Access, and
Incommunicability, in Canfield ed. vol.9, p.163; first
published in American Philosophical Quarterly, (7), pp.192-
205.

75

that I cannot be wrong about my pain, the pain here is not
the Cartesian private sensation. He is talking about pain
as it is ordinarily understood. If we understood pain here
as Cartesian private pain, then, Wittgenstein would assert,
I can make a doubt about whether or not I identify my pain
correctly. This is the point, of course, Wittgenstein makes
in the private language argument. Wittgenstein says:

That expression of doubt has no place in the

language-game; but if we cut out human behaviour,

which is the expression of sensation, it looks as

if I might legitimately begin to doubt afresh. My

temptation to say that one might take a sensation

for something other than what it is arises from

this: if I assume the abrogation of the normal

language-game with the expression of a sentence, I

need a criterion of identity for the sensation;

and then the possibility of error also exists. (PI

§288)

Wittgenstein, however, suggests one legitimate or
sensible use of saying "I know that I am in pain." He says
that we can understand such sentences as "I know that I am
in pain" as a grammatical proposition, which teaches us how
to use the sentence "I am in pain." That is, we can use it
to teach people that it makes no sense to say that I cannot
doubt that I am in pain, once I am in pain. Note that he
says something similar about propositions like "I know that
here are my hands." He says that we can use them to remind
people of the fact that in normal language game we can never
doubt the proposition that here are my hands. It is

Wittgenstein’s view that in general "I know p," where p is

filled with a proposition whose truth we cannot doubt, can

 

76
be understood as a grammatical proposition which states a
grammatical rule.. Only in this way such claims as "I know
that I am in pain," "I know that here are my hands" can be
legitimately used, Wittgenstein asserts.

We have said that it is Wittgenstein’s view that it
makes no sense to say that I know that I am in pain. Now,
what about the proposition that you have pain? Would
Wittgenstein say that it makes a sense to say that I know
that you are in pain? The answer is "Yes and No." Let me
explain. Imagine a case in which a person is wounded in an
accident. He is bleeding and showing every imaginable pain-
behavior. Would Wittgenstein say in this case that it is
possible to doubt that this person is in pain? Would
Wittgenstein say that in this case I can make a mistake
about his pain? I think not. He would certainly say that
it is beyond doubt that this person is in pain. Recall that
it is Wittgenstein’s view that if criteriological evidence
is present, it is sometimes, in a certain context, beyond
doubt that what it is the evidence of is true. Hence,
Wittgenstein would allow us to say, I think, that it makes
no sense to say that I know that he is in pain. Of course,
I am not denying that Wittgenstein would also let us use
such a sentence as "I know that he is in pain" in some other
occasions. What I want to say here is that there are
situations - probably many - in which we can be certain that

others have pains. Thus, Wittgenstein can say, it seems to

77

me, first that it does not make any sense to say both that I
know that I am in pain and that I know that he is in pain;
second that I do not make any mistake either about my pain
or his pain.70

In the passing, I want to mention some differences
between the proposition that I am in pain and the
propositions like "Here are my hands." Wittgenstein would
say that it is logically excluded for me to doubt that I am
in pain. But it does not seem to be sure that Wittgenstein
would also say that it is logically excluded for me to doubt
that here are my hands. Maybe he can say that it is
logically excluded for me to doubt such propositions as
"Here are my hands" in the sense that if we doubt it, we
have to give up the entire system of knowledge. But if this
is the sense of ‘logically excluded from doubt,’ then we
have another problem. Would Wittgenstein say that it is
logically excluded for me to doubt about my pain, because if
I doubt it, then I have to give up the entire system of

knowledge? The answer seems to be "No." Wittgenstein would

 

m That Wittgenstein would say that it is nonsensical to
say that I know that he is in pain because it is beyond doubt
that he is in pain shows that it is not Wittgenstein’s concern
to answer the skeptical question of other minds by saying that
I can know that he is in pain. If he wants to answer
positively to it, he is likely to assert that I know that he
is in pain because it is beyond doubt that he is in pain.
Wittgenstein would never admit that there is such a problem of
other minds. Hence he would not provide any solution for the
problem. What he does is to show that the problem of other
minds is not a real problem. We will talk more about
Wittgenstein’s treatment of the problem in the last chapter of
this dissertation.

78
not say, I think, that it is logically excluded to doubt
that here is my hand. For he would say that, though in
normal situations it is beyond doubt that here are my hands,
in some situations I can doubt that what I believe to be my
hand is really my hand. Would there be such situations in
which I can doubt that what I think to be pain is really
pain? I think not. In whatever situations if I think that
I have pain, then I have pain. But in the case of my hand,
I may be wrong in some situations in judging that what I am
seeing now is my hand, though I sincerely believe it.
Another difference I can think of is this. It seems that it
is awkward to say that I stand fast to the claim that I am
in pain, though it is less so to say that I stand fast to

the claim that here are my hands.

3. AN EXAMINATION OF THE THESIS THAT UTTERING "I AM IN PAIN"
IS A NEW PAIN-BEHAVIOR

Wittgenstein says that uttering "I am in pain" is like

groaning or moaning. The difference between them is that we

learn to utter "I am in pain," whereas we do not learn how

to groan or moan. See the following paragraph where

Wittgenstein asks how people can learn the meaning of

‘pain’? One possibility, Wittgenstein asserts, is this.
Here is one possibility: words are connected with

the primitive, the natural, expressions of the
sensation and used in their place. A child has

79

hurt himself and he cries; and then adults talk to
him and teach him exclamations and, later,
sentences. They teach the child new pain—

behavior.
"So you are saying that the word ‘pain’ really
means crying?" - On the contrary: the verbal

expression of pain replaces crying and does not

describe it.

(PI 5244)

Some philosophers think that we can use this kind of
claim of Wittgenstein’s to explain some of his difficult
claims. For example, some philosophers become perplexed why
Wittgenstein says that it does not make any sense to say
that I know that I am in pain. The answer they come up with
is that saying "I know that I am in pain" is senseless in
the same way as saying "I know when to cry, limb." is.71

I do not think that this is a correct way of explaining
some of Wittgenstein’s theses on pain. First, it will lead
us to ignore many important points about Wittgenstein. For
example, if we think that Wittgenstein asserts that it is
nonsensical to say that I know that I am in pain because
uttering "I am in pain" is like groaning, we would miss the
real reason which we have seen before. Second, it can lead
people to think - wrongly - that Wittgenstein asserts that
"I am in pain" is not a sentence. If someone understands

Wittgenstein here as asserting that "I am in pain" is not a

sentence, then he is wrong. It is wrong, because when we

 

n Norman Malcolm, "Knowledge of Other Minds", p.383.
Also, Anthony Kenny, "Verification Principle and the Private
Language Argument", in J. Canfield, ed., vol.9, p.217; first
published in O.R.Jones ed.

80

say "I am in pain," we seem to say certainly something which
is true or false, whereas when we groan, we are not making
any statement which could be said to be true or false.
Wittgenstein himself does not seem to wish to deny that the
sentence "I am in pain" is also a descriptive sentence. In
part II of Philosophical Investigations he says that "I am
in pain" is a descriptive sentence.

"I am in pain" which replaces crying is not merely

another cry, it can be used to describe a

sensation, a cry cannot. (PI II, IX, p.189)

I do not think that Wittgenstein intends to deny that
"I am in pain" is a descriptive sentence when he says that
uttering it is a new pain-behavior. There are occasions in
which uttering it is really like a pain-behavior. But there

are also occasions in which uttering it is a making a

statement about pain.

4. AN EXAMINATION OF THE THESES THAT I DO NOT IDENTIFY MY
SENSATION BY CRITERIA, AND THAT I DO NOT MAKE ANY MISTAKE
ABOUT MY PAIN

Wittgenstein asserts that I do not use any criteria for
determining whether or not I am in pain.

What I do is not, of course, identify my sensation by
criteria: but to repeat an expression. But this is not the
end of the language-game: it is the beginning. (PI 5290)
This thesis, together with another that I do not make any

mistake about my pain, has given rise to much controversy.

81
In this section, I will examine some objections that can be
raised against these two theses, and try to answer them
without using a wrong method, i.e., the method of

identifying uttering "I am in pain" with pain-behavior.

1) THE DIARIST SECTION REVISITED
John Canfield asserts that some may find inconsistencies
between these two theses and what Wittgenstein says when he
criticizes the diarist. One inconsistency that they can
find, according to Canfield, is this. Recall that the
reason why the diarist fails to identify the sensation he is
supposed to name with the sign ‘5’ is that the diarist
cannot come up with any criteria. But why wouldn’t it be
possible for the diarist to identify the sensation without
using any criteria, if, after all, I do not use any criteria
for identifying my pain?72

The other alleged inconsistency is this. Recall again
that Wittgenstein rejects the diarist’s claim that he can
identify the sensation, because for the diarist "whatever is
going to seem right to [him] is right." Now compare this
with the thesis that, on the assumption that I am sincere
and have no intention of lying, whenever I say I am in pain,

I am in pain. Hence we can say that "for Wittgenstein, our

 

n John Canfield, "Private Language" in Wittgenstein’s
Philosophical Investigations, R. Arrington and H. Glock,
ed., (London: Routledge, 1991), p.123.

82
public talk of pain is such that for the speaker "Whatever
is going to seem right is right." Now am I not "in a
position similar to the [diarist] for whom ‘whatever is
going to seem right is right’"?73

Are there really inconsistencies of these kinds in
Wittgenstein’s account of pain? Canfield answers "No." I
would agree with Canfield. But I disagree with some of the
interpretations of Wittgenstein that Canfield makes to
support his answer. Let’s see how Canfield tries to show
that Wittgenstein is not making the first kind of
inconsistent claims.

According to Canfield, the first kind of inconsistency
arises from the following kind of consideration. Suppose
that Wittgenstein argues in the diarist section this way.
First Wittgenstein assumes the verificationistic principle
that "one ought in general to have such a criterion" of
identifying a sensation to give the meaning to a sensation-
word. Then, Wittgenstein examines whether or not the
diarist can have the criterion of identity. Wittgenstein
finds out that the diarist cannot have one. Therefore,
Wittgenstein concludes that the diarist cannot give any
meaning to the sign ‘S.’ But Wittgenstein says that it is
all right for me not to have such a criterion. If the above
principle, assumed in the diarist section, is used, then

Wittgenstein has to say that I also cannot give the meaning

 

B John Canfield, p.124

83
to the word ‘pain.’ But in fact, he does not say it. Hence
he is making inconsistent claims.

Now what is wrong in this kind of argument that some
could use to show the first kind of inconsistency?
Canfield’s answer is that Wittgenstein does not use the
above kind of verificationistic principle in the diarist
section. So Wittgenstein can say, without any
inconsistency, that I do not use any criteria for
determining whether or not I have pain.74

Canfield points out that the verificationistic
principle is not employed in the core of private language
argument. I agree with him. We have already seen that
Wittgenstein does not use such a general principle at all to
show that the diarist cannot identify his private sensation.
What he does is to show that the conditions the private
diarist has to impose on himself puts him first in a
situation in which he cannot rely on his memory, and so
finally in a position in which he cannot say anything about
his supposedly private sensation. Those conditions are not
arbitrarily imposed by Wittgenstein in the disguise of the
name of criterion from the outside. As Canfield says:

Note that it is one who assumes ‘the abrogation of

the normal language-game with the expression of a

sensation’ - that is, one who is in the grip of

the picture of private language - who needs a
criterion of identity. And again, the demand is

 

" John Canfield, p.123.

84

not imposed from without, dogmatically.75
Canfield concludes: The conditions that the diarist has to
impose on himself make us judge that he does not have any
criteria. Whereas since I do not need to impose such
conditions on myself, it is all right for me to say that I
do not use any criteria. This is why Wittgenstein says that
"if we cut out human behaviour, which is the expression of
sensation, it looks as if I might legitimately begin to
doubt afresh" (PI §288). Let me quote the full section.

That expression of doubt has no place in the

language-game; but if we cut out human behaviour,

which is the expression of sensation, it looks as

if I might legitimately begin to doubt afresh. My

temptation to say that one might take a sensation

for something other than what it is arises from

this: if I assume the abrogation of the normal

language-game with the expression of a sensation,

I need a criterion of identity for the sensation;

and then the possibility of error also exists. (PI

5288)76

Now I want to correct one misunderstanding that
Canfield has about Wittgenstein. It is correct to say that
Wittgenstein does not use such a general principle in the
diarist section. But, though we assume that it is used in
the diarist section, the inconsistency at issue does not
seem to follow. For when Wittgenstein asserts that I do not

use any criteria for determining whether or not I am in

pain, he is not saying that there are no criteria at all.

 

” John Canfield, p.133.

n Quoted by John Canfield in his "Private Language
Argument", p.133.

 

 

 

85
What he is saying is-that even though there are such
criteria, I do not use them. Ronald Suter makes this point
clear.

[W]hile there are criteria for first-person,

present-tense psychological statements, but the

speaker does not (normally) employ such criteria

in making these statements, but we do employ these

criteria when making the second or third-person

psychological statements.77
I do not use any criteria not because I do not have any, but
because I do not need to use them. I have to learn how to
use the sentence "I have pain." When I learn it, I have to
know the relevant criteria. But once I learn the criteria,
I do not need to apply them. The diarist, on the other
hand, cannot use any criteria because he can’t have any.
Canfield seems to think that it is Wittgenstein’s view that
I can use "I am in pain" without having any criteria.

Note, though I do not use any criteria, still others
can check whether or not I am telling a lie etc. If there
are no criteria for governing my use of the sentence "I am
in pain," then other people cannot detect that I am telling
a lie. Since other people can detect it, it means that
there are such criteria. But in the diarist case, other
people cannot tell whether or not he is telling a lie. For
there are no criteria for governing his use of sign ‘S.’

This is the important difference that needs to be

emphasized. I will use it to dismiss the second alleged

 

W Ronald Suter, Interpreting Wittgenstein, p.151.

86
inconsistency.

The second type of inconsistency was this.

Wittgenstein seems to assert that for my pain it is all
right to say that whatever seems to be right to me is right,
whereas for the diarist’s private sensation it is not
permissible to say that whatever seems to be right to him is
right. Putting it another way, why can’t Wittgenstein allow
the diarist to be the incorrigible judge about his
supposedly private sensation, if he allows me to be the sole
incorrigible judge about my pain?

The answer is basically the same as the first one. It
is because of the condition the private diarist faces and
the one we face are different. Note that it is possible for
someone else to make a mistake about my pain. For instance,
he may judge that I am not in pain even though I am in pain;
or he may judge that I am in pain even though I am not in
pain. It is also possible for someone else to recognize
that I am telling a lie when I say that I am in pain.
Wittgenstein would not deny these possibilities when he says
that I do not make any mistake about my own pain. But, as
has been said before, for the diarist’s judgments about his
private sensation, there could be no such exchanges between
him and anyone else. For instance, we can never detect that
the diarist is telling a lie when he intends to tell a lie
about his private sensation: We cannot imagine the case in

which we may judge that he does not have his private

87
sensation, though he says that he does have: We cannot
imagine the case in which we may judge that he does have his
private sensation, though he says that he does not have. We
cannot do these things, because we have to accept whatever
the diarist says. If it has to be the case that we have to
accept whatever the diarist says, this means - ironically -
that we cannot but be suspicious about his judgments about
his private sensation.

It might be said that if we assume that the speaker of
the sentence "I am in pain" is sincere, then we have to
accept whatever he says, and so there is no difference
between public speaker of ‘pain’ and the private speaker.
But those who come up with this kind of claim have yet to
understand what has been said above. What we have said is
that there is no distinction between sincerity and
insincerity on the part of the diarist, whereas there is
such a distinction on the part of the public speaker of
‘pain.’ Even though the diarist intends to tell a lie when
he says that he has his private sensation, we cannot but

accept his claim that he has his private sensation.

2) ANOTHER KIND OF ALLEGED INCONSISTENCY

J.M. Shorter in his article "Other Minds" attempts to show
that a paradox that I both can and cannot make any mistake
about my pain follows from Wittgenstein’s thesis of the

incorrigibility of first-person pain statement and his other

88
claim that someone else can be in error in determining
whether or not I am in pain. If Shorter is right, then of
course we should reject Wittgenstein’s positive account of
pain. Let’s see Shorter’s argument about this problem.

Or "(1) "I have pain," said by me about myself, is
the contradictory of (2) "I have not a pain," said
by me about myself. Therefore, since (3) "He has
a pain," said about me by someone else, is also
the contradictory of (2), (1) and (3) must both be
the same statement. Consequently, if (3) is
logically connected with certain behavioral
statements, (1) must also have these connections.
This makes it difficult to see how (1) can be
incorrigible. If I can be mistaken about my own
behavior, as is the case, and if there is a
logical connection between my pain and my
behavior, then, it would seem, I can be mistaken
about my pain." ”

This argument has at least one false premise which is
not stated explicitly. Let me reformulate the above
argument.

1) "I have not a pain" said by me about myself is
the contradictory of "He has a pain" said about me
by someone else.

2) Hence "I have a pain" said by me about myself
and "He has a pain" said about me by someone else
are the same statement.

3) "He has a pain" said about me by someone else
is logically connected with certain statements
about my behavior.

4) "He has a pain" said about me by someone else
is about my behavior.

5) Hence, "I have a pain" said by me about myself
is logically connected with certain statements
about my behavior. (by 2,3)

 

" J.M. Shorter, "Other Minds", in The Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, Paul Edwards, ed., (New York: Macmillan and Free
Press, 1967), vol.6, p.8.

89

6) Hence, "I have a pain" said by me about myself
is about my behavior. (by 2,4,5)

7) I can make a mistake about my behavior.

8) Hence I can make a mistake about my pain. (by
6,7)

Shorter does not state the fourth premise - "He has a pain"
said about me by someone else is about my behavior -
explicitly. But I think he has to use it as one of the .
premises of his argument. For without it, the conclusion
does not follow. But, as stated explicitly, it is false.
Hence we cannot guarantee the truth of the conclusion. But
why is it false? The reason is simple. It is because "He
has a pain" said about me by someone else is about my pain
not about my behavior. The third premise that "He has a
pain" said about me by someone else is logically connected
with certain behavioral statements, which Wittgenstein would
accept, should not be equated with the fourth premise that
"He has a pain" said about me by someone else is about my
behavior, which Wittgenstein would reject. It is not about
my behavior but about my pain, even though it is logically
connected with certain statements about my behavior.

There is another point that Shorter fails to notice.
It is that there are two senses of ‘corrigible’ that can be
assigned to the statements like "I am in pain," or "He is in
pain." This is made clear by Suter who explains that the
statement "He is in pain" said about me by someone else

could mean two things in the following way.

90

First it is a way of saying that third-person

present-tense pain statements are not beyond

correction; so someone might discover that ["He is

in pain"] is false when made by one speaker about

another person. Second, the statement that ["He

is in pain" said about me by someone else] is

corrigible might mean that even the speaker can be

mistaken when he or she judges that "He has a

pain", assuming that the speaker does not use the

pronoun "he" in the fashion of de Gaulle to talk

about himself. n

If we apply these two senses of corrigibility to the
statement "I am in pain" made by me about myself, then we
can get the following result. To say that it is
incorrigible is not to say that whenever I say that I am in
pain the statement "I am in pain" is always true. I could
deliberately tell a lie. In this case, the statement "I am
in pain" made by me about myself is false. To my statement,
then, someone else can contradict me by saying about me "He
is not in pain." (He may have sufficient evidence to
believe that I am telling a lie.) In this sense, the
statement "I am in pain" said by me about myself is
corrigible. But if I do not intend to tell a lie, then the
statement "I am in pain" cannot be false. In this sense,

the statement "I have a pain" made by me about myself is

incorrigible. Shorter fails to distinguish between these

 

n Ronald Suter, Interpreting Wittgenstein, p.150.

91
two senses of ‘incorrigibility.’80

We have said that Wittgenstein would assert that "He
has pain" said about me by someone else is about my pain,
not about my behavior. This is probably the most distinct
feature of Wittgenstein’s account of pain that distinguishes
him from logical behaviorists. Wittgenstein clearly
distinguishes between pain and pain-behavior. Wittgenstein
says:

"But you will surely admit that there is a
difference between pain-behavior accompanied by

pain and pain-behavior without any pain?" - Admit
it? What greater difference could there be? (PI
5304)

But Wittgenstein now gets another kind of criticism.
It is that if he distinguishes pain from pain-behavior, then
he must believe that there are pains in the Cartesian sense.
We will see what is wrong in this kind of charge in the next

chapter.

 

w Ronald Suter, Interpreting Wittgenstein, pp.150-151.
Another way of explaining is this. It is possible to
contradict the sentence "All bachelors are unmarried adult
males" by simply negating it. But this possibility does not
affect that the sentence "All bachelors are unmarried adult
males" is logically true. Similarly, the possibility of
someone else’s contradicting my claim that I am in pain does
not affect that my claim is incorrigible.

 

92

5. MORE THAN TWO PERSONS CAN HAVE THE SAME PAIN

How does Wittgenstein show that more than two persons can
have the same pain? Wittgenstein would say that there have
to be criteria governing the use of the sentence "He and I
have the same pain." For without them, no one can use it
legitimately.81 But what makes Wittgenstein so confident in
believing that there are such criteria? It is, I believe,
because it is an indubitable fact that in real life we talk
about our having the same pain. So Wittgenstein says:

In so far as it makes sense to say that my pain is

the same as his, it is also possible for us both

to have the same pain. (PI 5253)

What would be the criteria for determining whether or
not two persons have the same pain? One of them would be
this. If two persons give the same descriptions about their
pains, then they have the same pain. See Malcolm’s claim
about this topic.

If the description of my backache is the same as

the description of yours, then you and I have the

same backache. This is how the expression "same

backache" is used. If your backache answers to a

different description then it is different. There

is no other sense of "same" and "different" in

regard to sensations.82

How would the Cartesians counter this? They could

 

m We have seen before how confused it is for some
Cartesians to propose to use such a sentence without having
any criteria.

” Norman Malcolm, "The Privacy of Experience", in
Canfield, ed., vol.8, p.42; first published in his Thought
and Knowledge, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977).

93
counter in two ways. First, they would assert that it is
possible that others could give the same descriptions of
pain as mine even though they do not feel any pain. Second,
even though others have pains, their pains can be the same
as mine only in the sense that theirs and mine are
qualitatively similar. That is, we can never have
numerically the same pain.

Let’s examine the second way first. I will show that
it does not deserve any serious examination. What can the
Cartesians get by holding that each of us has numerically
different pain? It must be that they believe it is
philosophically significant to say such a thing, although it
may not have any significance in ordinary language. In my
opinion the only philosophical significance it has is that
it is essential to the formulation of the skeptical problem
of other minds. But I will show that the possibility of
numerical difference does not help formulate a skeptical
problem of other minds.

First, when the Cartesians say that each of us has
numerically different pain, they may allow that you and I
could have qualitatively the same pain. If so, then such
skeptical problem of other minds does not arise. You and I
could have qualitatively the same cars though they are
numerically different. From this, any interesting skeptical
question about your car does not arise.

So it may have to be said that you and I must have

94
qualitatively different as well as numerically different
pains. But still it seems that you and I have the pain,
though different qualitatively and numerically. Insofar as
we have pain, then the skeptical question cannot arise. You
and I may have cars which are both numerically and
qualitatively different. But from this we cannot ask
whether or not you have any car at all, or your car may be
just an illusory one.

Hence what the Cartesians have to say to formulate the
skeptical problem of other minds is that you may not have
any pain whatsoever, even though your descriptions of your
pain are exactly the same as mine. Note that we are not
here using the distinction between numerical and qualitative
identity at all. We have already seen how Wittgenstein

deals with this kind of claim.

VI. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PRIVATE LANGUAGE ARGUMENT BY
PHILOSOPHERS WHO ARE EPISTEMOLOGICALLY CARTESIANS BUT
SEMANTICALLY NON-CARTESIANS

We have brought up before the possibility that some
philosophers could partially accept Wittgenstein’s private
language argument. They would agree with Wittgenstein’s
claim that only by grasping the connection between pain and
pain-behavior do we learn how to use the word ‘pain.’ But
from this, they assert, it does not follow that we have to
conclude that there is no such thing as private sensation
pain in the full-fledged Cartesian sense. What must be
established, they might say, is only something like the
claim that "An ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward
criteria"(PI §580). If these Cartesians are correct, then
private sensations, which are identified by outward
criteria, still exist. We can say that these philosophers
are epistemologically Cartesians but semantically non-
Cartesians. Let me introduce briefly Hintikka’s
interpretation of Wittgenstein’s private language argument,
which claims that Wittgenstein holds this version of

Cartesianism.

95

96

1. HINTIKKA’S INTERPRETATION OF THE PRIVATE LANGUAGE
ARGUMENT

Hintikka says that Wittgenstein rejects the view that we
need a special language to talk about such things as sense
data, phenomena, or what is immediately given. According to
Hintikka, Wittgenstein holds that we can talk about sense
data or phenomena using our ordinary public language, not a
special language. Hintikka asserts that when Wittgenstein
rejects such a special language, he does not reject the
existence of such sense data or phenomena themselves. This
is why Wittgenstein continues to use the term
‘phenomenology,’ according to Hintikka, after he rejects the
possibility of phenomenological or private language.
Hintikka asserts:

his aim still was to understand ‘phenomena’, i.e.,

what is immediately given to us in our experience.

This aim survived the change of his basic

language. It is Wittgenstein’s rejection of

phenomenological language as an independent basis

language, combined with his continued interest in

phenomenological problems (problems concerning

"the given" or immediate experience) that lends

its characteristic flavor to his later use of the

terms "phenomenology" and "phenomenological."

Since there is no pure phenomenological language,

there cannot be any systematic science of

phenomenology of the kind that, e.g., Husserl

attempted to build, but there are phenomenological

problems. ”

Hintikka quotes Wittgenstein’s following remarks as the

evidences for his claim.

 

” M. Hintikka, and. J. Hintikka, Investigating
Wittgenstein, p.151.

97

There is no phenomenology, but there are

phenomenological problems.

[T]he world we live in is the world of sense-data;

but the world we talk about is the world of

physical objects. “
So "the real purpose of Wittgenstein’s private language
argument," according to Hintikka, is "to Show how people
manage" to talk about the private sensations with the public

language,86 not to show that there are no such things as

private sensations in the Cartesian sense.

2. AN EXAMINATION OF SOME OF WITTGENSTEIN’S WRITINGS THAT
APPEAR TO CONFIRM THE EXISTENCE OF PRIVATE SENSATIONS

Hintikka’s interpretation does not come out of nowhere.
There are indeed places where Wittgenstein seems to admit
the existence of private sensations in the Cartesian sense.
Consider the following paragraph in Philosophical
Investigations.

"But you will surely admit that there is a

 

M Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on Cplor, I sec.53, and
III, sec. 248. quoted in Investigating Wittgenstein, p.151.

” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein’s Lectures in
Cambridge, 1930-1932, p.82, quoted in Investigating
Wittgenstein, p.141.

86'M.Hintikka and J.Hintikka, Investigating'Wittgenstein,
p.247.

 

98

difference between pain-behavior accompanied by

pain and pain-behavior without any pain?" - Admit

it? What greater difference could there be? -

"And yet you again and again reach the conclusion

that the sensation itself is a nothing." - Not at

all. It is not a something, but not a nothing

either! (p1 5304)

Wittgenstein says that the sensation pain itself is not a
something but not a nothing either. And he seems to say in
the ensuing sentences that he is not making a definite
conclusion about the existence of pain itself.

The conclusion was only that a nothing would serve

just as well as a something about which nothing

could be said. We have only rejected the grammar

which tries to force itself on us here. (PI §304)
Wittgenstein says that he has only rejected the grammar.
Here Wittgenstein asserts, it seems, that there are private
sensations. At least he seems to leave the problem about
the status of private sensations open. Moreover this kind
of evidence does not seem to be isolated. Consider the
following section in Philosophical Investigations.

Of course, if water boils in a pot, steam comes

out of the pot and also pictured steam comes out

of the pictured pot. But what if one insisted on

saying that there must also be something boiling

in the picture of the pot? (PI §297)

What Wittgenstein may want to say is this: Though in
the pain language-game pain itself does not play any role,
it does not make pain nonexistent, as, though in a picture
of a water boiling in a pot the water itself is not

pictured, it does not make water nonexistent. Wittgenstein

seems to assert that in the pain language-game, though the

99

picture of pain does not play any role, the image of pain
may as in the picture of a water boiling in a pot, though
the picture of water is not pictured, the image of water may
be imagined. Consider the following section.

It is - we should like to say - not merely the

picture of the behaviour that plays a part in the

language-game with the words "he is in pain", but

also the picture of pain. Or, not merely the
paradigm of the behaviour, but also that of the

pain. - It is a misunderstanding to say "The
picture of pain enters into the language-game with
the word ‘pain’." The image of pain is not a

picture and this image is not replaceable in the

language-game by anything that we should call a

picture. - The image of pain certainly enters into

the language game in a sense; only not as a

picture. (PI §300)
Wittgenstein says "[t]he image of pain certainly enters into
the language game in a sense; only not as a picture." This
seems to be similar to his claim that "Pain is not a
something but not a nothing either."

The upshot of all of these is that we seem to have

evidence for saying that Wittgenstein does not deny that

private sensations in the Cartesian sense exist.

3. WITTGENSTEIN’S REAL POSITION ABOUT THE STATUS OF PRIVATE
SENSATIONS

Let me say again that Hintikka’s interpretation of
Wittgenstein raises the possibility that those who are
epistemologically Cartesian do not need to become

semantically Cartesian. That is, he raises a possibility

100
that those who are epistemologically Cartesians may become
semantically non-Cartesians. If this is the case, then, as
has been said before, Wittgenstein’s private language
argument cannot refute epistemological Cartesianism, though
it can refute semantical Cartesianism. Hence Wittgenstein
needs to show that private sensations do not exist. Only
after this is shown, can Wittgenstein’s private language
argument succeed in defeating epistemological Cartesianism.
In this section, I will try to show how Wittgenstein would
establish that there are no private sensations in the
Cartesian sense.

There is an incorrect way of showing how Wittgenstein
would deny that there are private sensations. So let me
first clear it away. I will show, then, a correct way of
establishing why Wittgenstein would never say that private
sensations exist.

Note that an epistemological Cartesian, who holds non-
Cartesianism semantically, asserts that we cannot name and
talk about private sensations - which really exist - without
depending on public language framework. Wittgenstein’s
attack against the epistemological Cartesians and semantical
non-Cartesians would be directed towards this claim, i.e.,
the claim that, though sensations are private, we cannot
talk about them otherwise than by way of public language
framework. Wittgenstein would assert that it is tantamount

to saying that private sensations do not play any role in

101
our language game. If they do not play any role in our
language game, then they are useless. Hence they do not
exist. Let me formulate this argument.

1) If there is anything which does not play any

role in our language game, then it is useless.

2) What the epistemologically Cartesians but

semantically non-Cartesians is holding is

tantamount to saying that private sensations do

not play any role in our language game.

3) Hence private sensations are useless.

4) If anything is useless in the sense that it

does not play any role in our language-game, then

it does not exist.

5) Hence private sensations do not exist.

Some could attack this kind of argument in the
following way. They would say that the second and fourth
premises are false. They would reject the second premise
because they believe that private sensations do play a role
in our language-game. They would reject the fourth premise
on the following grounds. Though private sensations do not
play any role in our language and so are useless, it is
absurd to claim that they do not exist because they are
useless.

Among these two objections, Wittgenstein would reject
the first one, but would accept the second one. That is, he
would say, unlike the above objectors, that it is the case
that private sensations do not play any role in our language

game. But he, like the above objectors, would say that it

is absurd to assert that since private sensations are

102
useless, they cannot exist. Let’s see first how
Wittgenstein shows that private sensations do not play any
role in our language game. Wittgenstein says:

Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is
only from his own case! --- Suppose everyone had a
box with something in it: we call it a ‘beetle’.
No one can look into anyone else’s box, and
everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by
looking at his beetle.--Here it would be quite
possible for everyone to have something different
in his box. One might even imagine such a thing
constantly changing. —- But suppose the word
‘beetle’ had a use in these people’s language?--
If so it would not.be used as the name of a
thing. The thing in the box has no place in the
language-game at all; not even as a something: for
the box might even be empty.-- No, one can ‘divide
through’ by the thing in the box; it cancels out,
whatever it is.

That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the
expression of sensation on the model of ‘object and
designation’ the object drops out of consideration as
irrelevant. (PI §293)

That is, insofar as the Cartesians assert that sensations
are what can only be known to and had by their owners, they
"have no place in [our] language-game at all." For the word
‘sensations,’ as it is used in our language, is not used to
refer to such private things. Such private sensations,
which do not play any role in our language-game, are like a
"wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with it"
or in short are useless.

[A] wheel that can be turned though nothing else

moves with it, is not part of the mechanism. (PI

5271)

Now some philosophers would not agree with

Wittgenstein’s claim that private sensations do not play any

role in our language-game. They would say that there is one

103

important role that such private sensations or phenomena
play in our language-game. It is that they play the role of
the foundations of our knowledge. Isn’t it the case that
all of our knowledge is founded on our immediate
experience? Wittgenstein would answer "No." Wittgenstein
does not say that the foundation of our knowledge is our
immediate experience. The foundation of our knowledge, if
we have to use the term ‘foundation,’ consists of such
propositions as "Here are my hands" etc., which are not
about our immediate experience.87

Now let’s examine why Wittgenstein would reject the
fourth premise. Intuitively it seems that it is one thing
to say that private sensations are useless and another to
say that private sensations do not exist. Wittgenstein
would not go against such intuition. That is, he would not
say that since private sensations are useless, they do not
exist. Claiming that private sensations do not exist
because they are useless is no less absurd than saying that
the wheel does not exist because it is useless. Hence, if
the reason Wittgenstein can give for the denial of the
existence of private sensations is only that they do not

play any role in our language-game, then we had better

 

W Though we concede that our immediate experiences are
foundations of our knowledge, it doesn’t necessarily mean
that we have to assume the existence of such things as sense
data. For example, Chisholm’s adverbial theory does not
assume the existence of sense data distinguished from public
objects.

104
reject the very reason, and leave the problem of whether or
not private sensations exist open.

We can find Wittgenstein’s real reason for denying the
existence of private sensations, I think, in the core of
private language argument. There we have said that when the
diarist tries to talk about his private sensation, he is
finally falling into the position in which he cannot but
utter "inarticulate sound." We may better say that private
sensations are useless in this sense, i.e., in the sense
that the diarist cannot but utter inarticulate noises when
he tries to talk about his supposedly private sensation. It
would not be possible for us even to say that the diarist’s
private sensation does not exist. For there are criteria
for using ‘exist,’ and ‘not-exist.’ We cannot apply them to
the diarist’s private sensation. (Wittgenstein never says,
it seems to me, that private sensations in the Cartesians
sense do not exist.) John Cook asserts that Wittgenstein in
the private language argument tries to explain something he
believes that he cannot really do.

How, then, are we to tell a suitable ‘private

language’ story? — The answer is: Don’t even try!

But does Wittgenstein not try? In a sense he

does, and it is important to recognize just what

sort of attempt he makes.88

To summarize: To the question whether or not it is

possible to say that private sensations in the Cartesian

sense exist, though they have to be named and talked about

 

“ John Cook, "Solipsism and Language", p.40.

105
by way of the public language framework, Wittgenstein would
answer as follows. The question of the existence cannot be
applied to private sensations. For private sensations are
things for which we cannot say that they exist or do not
exist. This is, I think, a claim which is stronger than
saying that private sensations do not exist.

But, then, why does Wittgenstein say things like
"[pain] is not a something, but a nothing either" (PI §304)
or "the image of pain enters into the language—game, though
the picture of pain doesn’t"? (PI 5300) I do not think
Wittgenstein is here talking about private sensations in the
Cartesian sense. He is talking about sensations that we
talk about in real life. So when he says that "pain is not
a something but a nothing either", he is not saying that
Cartesian private pain is not a something but a nothing
either. Suter clarifies:

What he means is that it is not a something like a

cow or a car, but it is not a nothing either,

since it makes a difference if you have it.

Sometimes the difference between having and not

having a pain is slight, sometimes it is enormous:

a pain can be inconvenient or horrible, even

frightful. When people have a pain, however, this

is not to possess or own something; in this

respect, as well as others, it differs from having

a vehicle or a ballpoint. When it is asserted

that "Mary feels joy or pain," we avoid needless

trouble, then, if we do not take this to imply

that there are two things - Mary and the thing she

feels, namely joy or pain. Such an assertion

should be contrasted with, say, "John feels the

table," which does not imply that there are two
things - John and the table he feels.89

 

” Ronald Suter, Interpreting Wittgenstein, p.131.

106
I might add here the following remark of Wittgenstein.

That is to say, if we construe the grammar of the

expression of sensation on the model of ‘object

vand designation’ the object drops out of

consideration as irrelevant. (PI §293)

In other words, we should not take the word ‘pain’ as the
name of an object, pain, in the way we take the word ‘table’
to be the name of the object, table. This is, I think, what
Wittgenstein means by the claim that the objects drop out of
consideration as irrelevant. But to say that pain is not
like a table does not mean that pain is nothing.

What about another claim that the image of pain enters
into the language game, though the picture of pain doesn’t?
Doesn’t Wittgenstein want to say here that the Cartesian
sense of private pain enters into our language—game as the
image of pain, though not as the picture of pain? I do not
think so. Immediately after Wittgenstein talks about the
image of pain, he makes this important statement.

If one has to imagine someone else’s pain on the

model of one’s own, this is none too easy a thing

to do: for I have to imagine pain which I do not

feel on the model of the pain which I do feel.

That is, what I have to do is not simply to make a

transition in imagination from one place of pain

to another. As, from pain in the hand to pain in

the arm. For I am not to imagine that I feel pain

in some region of his body. (Which would also be

possible.) (PI §302)

Here Wittgenstein is explaining what is a correct and
incorrect use of the image of pain. For example, we cannot

use the ‘image of pain’ to refer to another’s pain

understood in the Cartesian sense. For, in this case, we do

 

107

not have any criteria for using the phrase.90 On the other
hand, it is a correct use if we use the ‘image of pain’ to
refer to another’s pain understood in ordinary sense. For
example, we can imagine another’s pain in his arm.91 For in
these cases, we have criteria for using the phrase. The
following passage brings this out:

It is conceivable that I feel pain in a tooth in

another man’s mouth; and the man who says that he

cannot feel the other’s toothache is not denying

this. The grammatical difficulty which we are in

we shall only see clearly if we get familiar with

the idea of feeling pain in another person’s body.

For, otherwise, in puzzling about this problem, we

shall be liable to confuse our metaphysical

proposition "I can’t feel his pain" with the

experiential proposition, "We can’t have (haven’t

as a rule) pains in another person’s tooth". (BB

p.49)
Hence we must understand Wittgenstein as saying that the
image of pain, used correctly, enters into our language-
game, not that Cartesian image of pain does. So
Wittgenstein is not saying anything about the Cartesian
sense of private pain when he talks about the image of
pain’s entering into our language-game. On the contrary, he

is talking about pain as it is used in real life.

But why does Wittgenstein say that the picture of pain

 

” Again, we have seen before how confused it is to say
that I can imagine another’s pain on the model on my own
without having any criteria for determining whether or not
someone is in pain.

m It is Wittgenstein’s belief that I can have another’s
pain in his arm or tooth, although I cannot have another’s
pain understood in Cartesian sense of private pain.

108
does not enter into our language-game, although the image of
pain does? Isn’t it the case that we cannot have the image
of pain unless we have the picture of pain? Can we know
what the image of water is even though we do not know what
the picture of water is? This may appear to be a perplexing
problem. However the solution has already been given
before. Wittgenstein describes the relation between a name
and the thing it names just like the relation between a
picture of something and that something. Hence to say that
‘table’ is the picture of table is to say that ‘table’ is
the name of the thing, table. But in the case of ‘pain’ we
cannot say that ‘pain’ is the name of pain in the sense that
‘table’ is the name of a table. Hence we cannot say that
‘pain’ is the picture of pain either. This may be what
Wittgenstein means when he says that the picture of pain

does not enter into our language-game.

4. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN A PUBLIC AND A PRIVATE COMPONENT
OF THE MEANING OF A SENSATION-WORD

Many Cartesians, I think, try to make a distinction between
public and private meaning of a sensation-word. According
to Crispin Wright, it is not surprising because it is a
"pre—philosophical conception."

We tend to view the understanding each of us has

of a word like ‘pain’ as possessing both a public
and a subjective component. The public component

109

is conceived as graspable by one incapable of
feeling pain: it is constituted by our shared
concept of what pain-behavior is and of the
consequences, personal and social, of someone’s
being in pain. The subjective component, in
contrast, is fixed by the character of painful
experience; only one who can suffer pain can imbue
his understanding of the word with such a
component, and the component is, in the nature of
the case, idiosyncratic.”

Wittgenstein also considers this possibility.

Or is it like this: the word ‘red’ means something

known to everyone; and in addition, for each

person, it means something known only to him? (Or

perhaps rather: it refers to something known only

to him.) (PI 5273)

The Cartesians can use this kind of distinction
effectively, it seems, to respond to Wittgenstein’s charges
against them. For example, to Wittgenstein’s charge that
they are making our sensation-words incommunicable, they
would point out that those words also have publicly shared
meanings which can be used for a mutual communication. They
would also say that it is an overreaction on Wittgenstein’s
part to ignore the subjective felt quality of pain.

Wittgenstein would not accept this kind of view. For
once we allow the subjective component, we cannot get out of
skepticism. Crispin Wright makes this point clear:

Now, the niche here granted to a public component

may be held to obviate any implication that the

language of sensation, and of the passions
generally, is already, for each of us, a private

 

n Crispin Wright, "Does Philosophical Investigations
1.258-60 Suggest a Cogent Argument against Private
Language?" in P. Pettit and J. McDowell, eds., Subject,
Thought and Context, (New York: Oxford Press, 1986), pp.211-
212.

 

110

language. But if the felt quality of my
experience has some part to play in determining
the content of the relevant parts of my
vocabulary, and if it is accepted that this
quality can be known only by myself, it must
follow, it seems, that we cannot have reason to
think that we fully understand each other’s talk
of sensations, and so on....The pre-philosophical
conception, even if it escapes the outcome that
the language of sensations is already, for each of
us, private, must at least, it appears, be
committed to the possibility of a private
language. Accordingly, a demonstration of its
impossibility will be a demonstration that this
conception cannot contain the germ of a
satisfactory philosophical understanding of the
language of mind.93

 

That is, insofar as the Cartesians admit the subjective
component of the meaning of a sensation-word, they have to
conclude mutual understanding of a sensation-word is
impossible, however well the so-called public component is

communicated.

 

93Crispin Wright, p. 212.

VII. KRIPKE’S INTERPRETATION OF WITTGENSTEIN

Recently Kripke proposed an intriguing interpretation of
Wittgenstein’s private language argument. In this chapter,
I will examine Kripke’s interpretation of Wittgenstein
keeping in mind what implications it has for Wittgenstein’s
account of pain.94 Let me first explain Kripke’s

interpretation of Wittgenstein.

1. WITTGENSTEIN'S SKEPTICAL PARADOX

Kripke asserts that Wittgenstein finds a serious problem in
the notion of rule-following in our language. The problem
is that we cannot justifiably believe that we are following
a rule when we use our language. Kripke thinks that this
claim implies that our language is not language. For
language requires, Kripke thinks, that we be able to justify
that we follow rules in our language. Kripke calls this

problem ‘skeptical paradox’ of Wittgenstein: It may well be

 

“ In fairness to Kripke, he is not claiming that his
interpretation is a correct one. Rather he says that his
book is written "to present the argument as it struck me, as
it presented a problem for me." Saul Kripke, Wittgenstein:
On.Rules and Private Language, viii.

111

 

 

 

 

112

’” which

called ‘Wittgenstein’s rule-following-skepticism,
Kripke thinks to be a radical and original form of
skepticism. Kripke says:

Wittgenstein has invented a new form of

scepticism. Personally I am inclined to regard it

as the most radical and original sceptical problem

that philosophy has seen to date, one that only a

highly unusual cast of mind could have produced.96

What implications does this claim have for
Wittgenstein’s account of pain? Recollect the diarist
above. It was said there that the diarist cannot justify
that he is applying the sign ‘8’ correctly. In other words,
the diarist cannot justify that he is following a rule when
he uses the sign ‘S.’ Kripke would say that this is not
surprising. For we cannot justify that we are following a
rule when we use any word either. Hence the same problem

arises with words like ‘desk’ which are supposed to refer to

a public objects.

 

” We can call it ‘meaning-skepticism’ too. But I
prefer ‘rule-following skepticism.’ For ‘meaning
skepticism’ could refer to the semantically skeptical
Cartesianism, which is certainly skeptical about meaning in
that it denies mutual understanding. But the semantically
skeptical Cartesians would say that rule-following is
possible in the speaker’s own private language. Kripke’s
rule-following skepticism would deny this possibility too.

% Saul Kripke, p.60.

113

2. HOW KRIPKE SUPPORTS HIS CLAIM THAT THERE IS NO SUCH THING
AS FOLLOWING A RULE

Let me briefly present Kripke’s ingenious argument for his
claim that there is no such thing as following a rule.
Kripke presents his arguments with the mathematical sign
‘+.’ Suppose that I am now computating a mathematical
problem, e.g., "68+57=?" When I give an answer ‘125’ to
this problem, I think that I am following a rule which I am
supposed to follow when I use the sign ‘+.’ But suppose
that someone challenges me by saying that I have to answer
‘5’ rather than ‘125.’

Most of us would find no problem in the claim that I
can justify my rule-following here because my present use of
sign ‘+’ accords with my past use of that sign. But Kripke
thinks that this is not a good way of justifying that I
follow a rule. For it is possible, Kripke asserts, that my
present use of that sign may not accord with my past use of
that sign. How? In the past I might mean quaddition by
‘+,’ not addition. Quaddition means the same thing as
addition if the sum of a calculation is less than 57, but
otherwise means just ‘5.’ Hence since the sum of "68+57" is
more than 57, I should have given as an answer ‘5’ rather
than ‘125’ to the problem "68+57=?". Hence the past usages
cannot justify that I mean addition by ‘+’ rather than other
things, say, quaddition.

‘Could there be any other way of justifying my rule-

114
following when I use the ‘+’ sign? Kripke thinks that to
justify a rule-following, we have to find out the fact or
truth-conditions that constitute my rule-following. Kripke
thinks, however, that there is no such fact.97 Then, how
does Kripke show that there is no such fact?

Kripke considers three possible candidates for such a
fact; actual application of a sign, mental states
accompanying a sign, and dispositions to apply a sign.98
These candidates, according to Kripke, exhaust the
possibilities of all facts, and all fail. Which means that
there is no such fact. Hence I cannot justify that I mean
addition by ‘+’ rather than other thing, say, quaddition.
McGinn summarizes Kripke’s reasons for rejecting each of
these candidates as follows.

Actual applications underdetermine meaning since

alternative meanings (e.g., quaddition) are

consistent with the applications that have so far
been made out of the sign; states of consciousness
are (a) not always forthcoming and (b) can always

be variously interpreted and applied; and

dispositions are inadequate to determine meaning

because (a) they are finite whereas the meaning of

‘=" has an infinitary character and (b) people can

be disposed to make mistakes, so that there can be

a systematic divergence between what one means and

the answers one is disposed to give. Kripke’s

contention is that these candidates exhaust the

field, and so there is nothing for meaning to
consist in.99

 

” Collin McGinn, Wittgenstein on Meaning, (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1984), p.62.

” Collin McGinn, p.140.

” Collin McGinn, p.141

115

3. WITTGENSTEIN’S SKEPTICAL SOLUTION

Let me now introduce what Kripke thinks is Wittgenstein’s
solution to the skeptical paradox. If Wittgenstein’s
skeptical paradox is not solved, then we have to say that
our language is not a language. Wittgenstein does not like
this consequence. Hence Wittgenstein tries to offer a
solution. What is that solution? Kripke says:

The solution turns on the idea that each person

who claims to be following a rule can be checked

by others. Others in the community can check

whether the putative rule follower is or is not

giving particular responses that they endorse,

that agree with their own.100
That is, a use of a word must be checked by a community.
That is, if a rule is followed only by one single person,
then we cannot say that he is following a rule. On the
contrary if a rule is followed by many people and there is a
way of confirming whether a certain person is following a
rule correctly in accordance with others’ usage of the word,
then we can say that, in that sense or to that extent, rule-
following is possible.

This is the solution, which Kripke thinks Wittgenstein
is not satisfied with. Wittgenstein does not like it for
much the same reason Hume did not like his solutions for the

problem of induction. So Kripke compares Wittgenstein’s

solution to Hume’s solution to the problem of induction,

 

‘m Saul Kripke, p.101.

116

when he says "A certain problem, or in Humean terminology, a
sceptical paradox is presented concerning the notion of
rule. Following this, what Hume would have called a
"sceptical solution" to the problem is presented."101

Why would Hume have called his solution ‘skeptical’?
Hume thinks that we can never completely justify the causal
connection between certain events A and B. This is Hume’s
skepticism about induction. In order to solve this
skeptical problem Hume proposes to think that "not an a
priori argument but custom is the source of our inductive

'“m However, since this solution is made by

inferences.
giving up establishing a priori and necessary and sufficient
sources of inductive inferences, it cannot be regarded as a
satisfactory solution to skepticism. In fact, Hume still
concedes that his skepticism is unanswerable. Hence Hume’s
solution cannot be called a "straight solution" because it
does not show that skepticism is wrong.103

In the same fashion, according to Kripke, Wittgenstein
proposes to reconsider the claim that "facts or truth
conditions are of the essence of meaningful assertion." For

insofar as we insist on that claim, "it will follow from the

sceptical conclusion that assertions that anyone ever means

 

1m Saul Kripke, pp.3-4.
1” Saul Kripke, p.66.

1” Saul Kripke, p.66.

 

117

anything are meaningless."104 So we have to give up the hope
of providing the kind of justification which satisfies the
truth condition for following a rule. In other words, we
have to give up the generally accepted assumption of the
theory of meaning, i.e., the assumption that the meaning of
a sign is exhausted by stating its truth conditions, i.e.,
by stating the facts which make it true. For the effort to
try to find a complete justification for using a sign is
essentially related to this assumption. If the meaning of a
sign is not given by stating the facts which make it true,
then what would we be doing with a sign? What we are doing
is asserting some things. The meaning of a sign is
warranted by the fact that "there [are] roughly specifiable
circumstances under which they are legitimately assertable,
and that the game of asserting them under such conditions
has a role in our lives."105 That is, what we should do is
to give another kind of justification for following a rule.
This justification satisfies what Kripke calls the
‘assertibility conditions’ or ‘justification conditions,’106
for following a rule. Kripke writes:

Wittgenstein replaces the question, "What must be

the case for this sentence to be true?" by two

others: first, "Under what conditions may this

form of words be appropriately asserted (or
denied)?"; second, given an answer to the first

 

1“ Saul Kripke, p.77.
1% Saul Kripke, p.78.

1“ Saul Kripke, p.74..

 

118

question, "What is the role, and the utility, in
our lives of our practice of asserting (or
denying) the form of words under these
conditions?"107

It is important to see that the second question has to be
asked. So Kripke says:

Now, Wittgenstein’s general picture of language,

as sketched above, requires for an account of a

type of utterance not merely that we say under

what conditions an utterance of that type can be

made, but also what role and utility in our lives

can be ascribed to the practice of making this

type of utterance under such conditions.108

Kripke asserts that Wittgenstein would not be satisfied
with this solution and still concede that his paradox is
unanswerable. For the assertibility condition does not
describe the conditions which make a sentence true. This is
why Kripke calls the solution a ‘skeptical’ not a ‘straight’
solution. Kripke says:

Wittgenstein’s sceptical solution concedes to the

sceptic that no ‘truth conditions’ or

‘corresponding facts’ in the world exist that make

a statement like "Jones, like many of us, means
addition by ‘+’" true.109

 

1m Saul Kripke, p.73.
1" Saul Kripke, p.92.

1m Saul Kripke, p.86.

119

4. AN APPLICATION OF KRIPKE’S ARGUMENT TO THE PRIVATE
LANGUAGE ARGUMENT

Now what bearing do these solutions have on the celebrated
section about the diarist? Kripke thinks that ‘pain’ can be
thought as a counterexample to the skeptical solution. For
it appears that we do not need any other’s help to check
whether or not I am following a rule for the word ‘pain’
correctly. It not only is unhelpful but also may be harmful
to do so. For it seems that I am the sole, incorrigible
judge about how to follow the rule for the word ‘pain’.
Thus, if I can follow the rule for the word ‘pain’
independently of other members of the community, then the
above solution should be given up. To dismiss this type of
counterexample, Wittgenstein shows in the diarist section
that since the sign ‘8’ is never checked by others, it
cannot be given any meaning.

Again, what Wittgenstein is doing in the private
language argument is to show that private language is
impossible, because it lacks one essential element which
makes ordinary public language possible. That is,
Wittgenstein intends his private language argument to
support his skeptical solution for the skeptical paradox.
So Kripke says, "It is his solution... that contains the

argument against ‘private language’; for allegedly, the

 

 

120

solution will not admit such a language."110 But isn’t it
the case that Wittgenstein never talks about rule-following
in the diarist section? No. Kripke says that what
Wittgenstein is indeed denying in the private language
argument is not that a word which is supposed to refer to
private sensation can be understood by anyone, rather that
the private model of rule following is unacceptable. Kripke
says:

What is really denied is what might be called the

‘private model’ of rule-following, that the notion

of a person following a given rule is to be

analyzed simply in terms of facts about the rule

follower and the rule follower alone, without

reference to his membership in a wider
community.111

5. MY CRITICISMS OF KRIPKE’S INTERPRETATION

In the following I will try to establish three things: One
is that Kripke is mistaken in not considering Wittgenstein’s
criticisms of the Cartesian private objects. He also needs
to clarify his notion of private rule following. Finally,
Wittgenstein would never accept Kripke’s rule following

skepticism.

 

1” Saul Kripke, p.60.

1“ Saul Kripke, p.109.

121
1) KRIPKE DOES NOT CONSIDER CARTESIAN PRIVATE OBJECTS
The problem for Kripke is to justify that we mean something
by a word. For example, how I can justify that I mean plus
rather than quus by the plus sign. In order to justify that
I mean something by a word, I have to find out, Kripke
asserts, some fact. Kripke asserts that when we examine
(the candidates for the) facts that would justify my meaning
something by a word, we have to examine all kinds of (the
candidates for the) facts that we can associate with my
meaning or intending something by a certain sign.
Justifying my meaning something by a word is so important a
matter, Kripke seems to think, that we have to examine
whatever is available for us to achieve it. Kripke writes:

Another important rule of the game is that there
are no limitations, in particular, no behaviorist
limitations, on the facts that may be cited to
answer the sceptic. The evidence is not to be
confined to that available to an external
observer, who can observe my overt behavior but
not my internal mental state. It would be
interesting if nothing in my external behavior
could show whether I meant plus or quus, but
something about my inner state could. But the
problem here is more radical. Wittgenstein’s
philosophy of mind has often been viewed as
behavioristic, but to the extent that Wittgenstein
may (or may not) be hostile to the ‘inner’, no
such hostility is to be assumed as a premise; it
is to be argued as a conclusion. So whatever
‘looking into my mind’ may be, the sceptic asserts
that even if God were to do it, he still could not
determine that I meant addition by ‘plus’.112

As we all now know, after examining all kinds of candidates,

Kripke proclaims that all fail to justify that I mean

 

1n Saul Kripke, p.14.

122
something by a sign.

But does Kripke examine all the candidates? I don’t
think so. There is one important candidate for a fact that
he does not consider. Recall that philosophers like Locke
assert that the meaning of a word is the idea in our mind
that only its owner can know. Kripke does not examine the
possibility that the meaning of a word is some idea in our
mind. Kripke might say that he examines it when he talks
about meaning as a mental, introspectible, or inner state.
For example, he says:

Why not argue that "meaning addition by ‘plus’"

denotes an irreducible experience, with its own

special quale, known directly to each of us by

introspection? (Headaches, trickles, nausea are

examples of inner states with such gualia.)113
Is ‘irreducible experience’ here the same as the Cartesian
private experience? I think not. First of all, Kripke does
not say explicitly, e.g., that it is something that only I
can have and another person can’t. He does say that it is
something that we directly know by introspection. But this
is different from saying that only I can have my experience.

What Kripke does when he talks about meaning as an
irreducible experience is to examine whether or not meaning
is like such mental states as "[d]epression, excitement,
pain." It is right that Wittgenstein does examine and reject

the claim that meaning is a mental state like headache, or

pain. But Wittgenstein also examines the claim that meaning

 

‘” Saul Kripke, p.41.

 

 

 

123
is something private which only I can know. There seems to
be nothing wrong, I think, in proposing this Cartesian
private idea as a candidate for a fact that might justify my
meaning something by a word. Kripke might say that since
having such an idea in the mind is a mental state, he would
be in fact examining it when he examines whether or not
meaning is like pain or headache. This would be acceptable,
if Kripke qualifies ‘pain,’ ‘headache,’ ‘emotion’ etc. with
‘private’ in the Cartesian sense. But Kripke never does it.
He just thinks of these things in their ordinary senses.

It is bizarre that Kripke does not talk about Cartesian
private objects at all. It is more so, considering that
since Descartes’ time, mental states have been considered by
many philosophers to be private in the Cartesian sense.
Kripke says that if Wittgenstein is hostile to ‘inner,’ then
it must be argued as a conclusion, not assumed as a
premise.114 But Wittgenstein is not hostile to ‘inner’ used
in ordinary way. He is hostile to ‘inner’ understood in the
Cartesian private sense. He tries to show why he rejects
such Cartesian private inner states, e.g., in the private
language argument. Kripke does not seem to be interested in
this kind of problem at all.

I am not saying that if Kripke examined the Cartesian
idea in the mind as a candidate for a fact, he would find

that Wittgenstein proposes it as a fact. Not at all.

 

‘” See above quotation 112.

 

124
Wittgenstein would not say that such an idea is a fact that
could justify my meaning something by a word. What I want
to say is that Kripke’s not considering it as a possible
candidate for a fact leads Kripke to misinterpret the
private language argument, which is an essential part of
Wittgenstein’s attempt to criticize the claim that the
meaning of a word is the private idea in the mind.

According to Kripke, Wittgenstein designs the private
language argument for the following purpose. Wittgenstein
first establishes that only the community-dependent model of
rule following is possible. Then, he notices that the rule
following of private language cannot be that of the
community dependent model of rule following. Hence he has
to show that the rule the private linguist is following must
be impossible. And the reason why it is impossible must be
that its rules are not community- dependent ones.

But the matter of fact is that the reason why the
diarist cannot follow any rules for the sign ‘8’ is not
simply because its rules are not community dependent.

Recall our discussion of the core of private language
argument. There we have interpreted Wittgenstein as arguing
as follows: The diarist’s rule following cannot be checked
by other people. But it does not rule out that the diarist
himself may check his rule following without depending on
other people. For example he can use the public objects he

is observing to check his rule following, even though he

 

 

125

lives all alone. In fact, this is the way Crusoe would
follow rules, if he follows rules at all. What Wittgenstein
is saying is that the diarist cannot use the public objects
to check his rule following. For by doing it, he makes his
supposedly private sensations useless. As a result, there
is no way the diarist can check his rule following.

Note that insofar as the private language argument is
concerned, we can never find evidence that Wittgenstein

would deny that Crusoe can follow rules. Hence, if we

 

consider only the private language argument, then
Wittgenstein does not rule out the possibility that there is
a community-independent model of rule following like that of
Crusoe’s. So, in order to support the claim that only the
community rule following is possible, it has to be shown not
only that private language is impossible but also that
Crusoe’s language is impossible. But Kripke does not argue
for the impossibility of Crusoe’s language.“5

Does Wittgenstein hold that only the community model of

 

‘” We will see in the next section that Kripke thinks
that Crusoe may follow rules. Kripke’s view on Crusoe’s
language causes a serious trouble for him, as we will see
later. I think he has to say that Crusoe’s language is
impossible. It will make his interpretation consistent,
though still wrong. Maybe it is because of the concern of
this kind of consistency that Malcolm, who, like Kripke,
believes that Wittgenstein asserts that only the community
model of rule following is possible, works hard to show that
Wittgenstein also believes that Crusoe cannot follow rules.
I think Malcolm is right about this, though he is wrong in
believing that it is Wittgenstein’s view that only the
community dependent model of rule following is possible.
See his Wittgenstein: Nothing is Hidden, (Oxford, UK: Basil
Blackwell, 1986) See ch.9.

 

126
rule following is possible? I think not. As I have said
before, Wittgenstein never says that a person like Crusoe
cannot invent a language. If it is possible for Crusoe to
invent a language, then it must mean that there is a
community-independent model of rule following. McGinn says
as follows:

Let us re—examine 198-202 in which Wittgenstein is
putting forward his positive view and opposing it
to the View he rejects. The most glaring feature
of these sections in the present connexion is that
the words ‘custom’, ‘practice’ and ‘use’ are never
qualified with ‘social’ or ‘community’ - and
‘social custom/practice’ is not pleonastic.

Surely Wittgenstein would have inserted these
qualifying adjectives if he really meant to
maintain a social conception of rule-following,
especially in view of the fact that the
introduction of the community is taken to be a
surprising result of signal importance - as
sharply conflicting with what we antecedently
expect.116

If what McGinn says is correct, then it is wrong to claim

that Wittgenstein holds that only the community-dependent

model of rule following is possible. I tend to agree with
McGinn on this point. Wittgenstein says:

Is what we call ‘obeying a rule’ something that it
would be possible for only one man to do, and to
do only once in his life? ...

It is not possible that there should have
been only one occasion on which someone obeyed a
rule. It is not possible that there should have
been only one occasion on which a report was made,
an order given or understood; and so on.- To obey
a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to
play a game of chess, are customs (uses,
institutions)

To understand a sentence means to understand
a language. To understand a language means to be

 

‘“ Collin McGinn, Wittgenstein on Meaning, p.78.

 

 

127

master of a technique. (PI §199)
But can we say that the diarist is following a rule only
once in his life when he tries to use the sign ‘S’? Yes!
It is so, because he cannot know that each time he tries to
identify the sensation S and name it with ‘S,’ he is doing
the same thing he does before. For him, each occasion of
using the sign ‘8’ is an unique event, which would exist
only once in his life.

Kripke misses this point, probably because he does not
consider seriously the notion of Cartesian privacy, which is

different from the notion of community-independency.

2) A REFLECTION ABOUT KRIPKE’S DESCRIPTION OF PRIVATE MODEL
OF RULE-FOLLOWING:PRIVATE MODEL OF RULE-FOLLOWING, THE
DIARIST’S RULE-FOLLOWING AND CRUSOE’S RULE-FOLLOWING

Kripke defines ‘private model of rule following’ in the
following ways. A person is following the private model of
rule following, if he is "considered in isolation" or, more
specifically speaking, if his following a rule "is to be
analyzed simply in terms of facts about the rule follower
and the rule follower alone, without reference to his
membership in a wider community."”7Kiipke asserts that

showing the falsity of the private model of rule following

is a "more basic" matter for Wittgenstein than showing the

 

1” Saul Kripke,Wittgenstein: On Rules and Private
Language, p.109.

 

 

128
impossibility of private languageJm‘Hence Kripke treats
the private language argument as if it has only a secondary
importance. In this section I will attempt to show that it
is the other way around by examining the notion of private
model of rule following as it is described by Kripke. That
is, I will show that the notion of private language is more
important for Wittgenstein than the notion of a private
model of rule following. For the notion of a private model
of rule following, it will turn out, gets its philosophical
significance only if it is connected to the Cartesian
private objects which are supposed to be the meanings of the
words of private language. To do this job, I begin by
examining how Kripke would talk about the relationship
between Crusoe type of rule following and private model of
rule following.

Most would think that Kripke would consider someone,
who has been living alone since birth, as being isolated
from other people. Hence many would think that Kripke would
say that Crusoe is committed to the private model of rule
following and so cannot follow any rules. But it is not
what Kripke says. He writes:

Does this mean that Robinson Crusoe, isolated on

an island, cannot be said to follow any rules, no

matter what he does? I do not see that this

follows. What does follow is that if we think of

Crusoe as following rules, we are taking him into

our community and applying our criteria for rule
following to him. The falsity of the private

 

‘” Saul Kripke, p.110.

129

model need not mean that a physically isolated

individual cannot be said to follow rules; rather

that an individual, considered in isolation

(whether or not he is physically isolated), cannot

be said to do so.119
In a word, Kripke does not say that the falsity of a private
model of rule following implies the falsity of Crusoe’s kind
of rule following. It means that Crusoe does not,need to be
considered in isolation, though he is physically isolated.
Hence by ‘a person considered in isolation’ Kripke must not
mean such thing as ‘a person who lives alone since his
birth.’ If he does not mean by ‘a person considered in
isolation’ a physically isolated person, then what would he
mean by it? Let’s see if we can find the answer to this
question in Kripke’s treatment of the diarist. Kripke
correctly alludes to private language as it is defined by
Wittgenstein, i.e., the "language that is logically
impossible for anyone else to understand".“20 Since he must
obviously believe that the person using private language or
the diarist is committed to the private model of rule
following, Kripke may mean by ‘a person considered in
isolation’ the person like the diarist. But what is so

peculiar about the diarist that makes Kripke consider him as

the person in isolation? Whatever it is, it must be

 

1” Saul Kripke, p.110. Here Crusoe is not the Crusoe
who is a hero of a novel. Crusoe is the Crusoe described by
philosophers like Ayer, i.e., the person who lives alone
since birth in a complete isolation from other people.

1m Saul Kripke, p.109.

130
something that Crusoe lacks. Otherwise, Kripke cannot say
that the diarist can be considered in isolation, whereas
Crusoe cannot. That is, we want to know why Kripke thinks
that we cannot take the diarist into our community and apply
our criteria for rule following to him, whereas we can to
Crusoe. One thing that would distinguish the diarist from
Crusoe is certainly this: The sign ‘8’ the diarist is using
is supposed to refer to what can only be known to him,
whereas the words Crusoe uses, if he uses them at all, do
not need to be the words which refer to only what he can
know. Now we can give a meaning to the phrase ‘a person
considered in isolation.’ It is that if a person claims
that he is using a word which refers to what only he can
know, then he is the person who must be considered in
isolation.

Now I claim that the person considered in isolation or
the person who is using the private model of rule following
must be one and the same person as the person who is using
the word which is supposed to refer to what only he can
know. If anyone insists that he uses the sign ‘8’ to refer
to something that only he can know, he should be considered
in isolation from others and as following the rules for it
all alone. On the other hand, if anyone says that he is
following a private model of rule following for a word, then
he must mean that it is the word that refers to what only he

can know.

 

131

Would Kripke agree with me? I think he has to.121 But
if he does not accept it, then he has to show us other kinds
of private model of rule following, which are, however,
different from the diarist kind of private model of rule
following. I will show in the following that it is
something Kripke cannot do.

The kind of private model of rule following we are
looking for, whatever it would be like, must have the
following characteristics. First, it must be similar to the
diarist’s case in that it must be a kind of private model of
rule following. But it must be different from the diarist’s
kind of private model of rule following in order to be
distinguished from the latter. What kind of private model
of rule following would it be like? I cannot think of
another case other than this: A person is following a
private model of rule which is, however, different from the
diarist’s kind of private model of rule only if he can
attach a private rule for a word which refers to what can be
known to other people as well as him. But can Kripke say
that there is such kind of private model of rule following?
The problem is not whether or not Kripke can call it

‘private.’ He can certainly call it that. The real problem

 

1” Maybe he could not agree with me. For it means a
shift of our attention from the private model of rule
following to the Cartesian notion of privacy. This would
not be good for Kripke, because he would say that the real
issue of the private language argument is the nature of rule
following, rather than the Cartesian privacy.

 

132
is whether he can say that this kind of rule following is
impossible. Note that it is Kripke’s intention that all
kinds of private rule following are impossible. Hence if he
wants to call it private, he must also say that it is
impossible. However it seems to me that the above kind of
rule following cannot be impossible.

Kripke has a dilemma. Kripke should say either that
the above kind of rule following is private but possible or
that it is not private and so is possible. If he chooses
the former, then he goes against his own claim that all
kinds of private model of rule following is impossible. If
he chooses the latter, then he is saying that there is no
other kind of private model of rule following other than the
diarist’s kind of rule following.m’I think Kripke has to
choose the latter for the following reason. First, it
appears to be a contradiction to say that a person has a
word which refers to something everyone can know but that
the rules for the word are private. For if a word is about
something that everyone can know, then it seems, the rules
for using it must also be knowable to everyone.

But couldn’t Kripke opt for the former and say that the
above kind of model of rule following is private and so

impossible? After all, my reason why Kripke has to choose

 

122Once Crusoe kind of rule following is excluded from
the set of private model of rule followings, then it would
be extremely difficult for a philosopher like Kripke to come
up with an example of a kind of private rule following
different from the diarist’s kind of rule following.

 

 

133
the latter does not show conclusively, it seems, that the
above kind of model of rule following is still private and
so impossible. Hence, let’s assume that there is such a
kind of rule following. Now the question I want to ask here
is this: "Are there any philosophically important ideas we
can learn from such a private model of rule following?"
None.123 That is why I want to assert that we can find
interesting philosophical points in the notion of a private
model of rule following only if it is connected to the
Cartesian private objects which are supposed to be the
meanings of the words of private language.

Kripke asserts that "the incorrectness of the private
model is more basic, since it applies to all rules."“24 That
is, the incorrectness of the private model is more basic
than the impossibility of private language. But if what I
have said above is correct, then it would not make any sense
to say that the former is more basic than the latter. For

they are in fact one and the same thing. If we have to use

 

1” Again, if Kripke allows that Crusoe’s rule following
is private, then we can draw some philosophically
interesting points by examining that kind of private model
of rule following. For example, if Crusoe’s rule following
is possible, then the claim that only the community
dependent model of rule following is possible must be
rejected. Hence those who hold that only the community rule
following is possible must argue that Crusoe cannot follow
any rule. This is what Malcolm does explicitly in his book
NOthing is Hidden. That is, Malcolm thinks that Crusoe’s
rule following must be private. But Kripke himself denies
that Crusoe’s rule following is private, thereby causing a
problem for himself.

1“ Saul Kripke, p.110.

 

 

134

the term ‘basic,’ then it seems that we may as well say that
the impossibility of private language is more basic than the
incorrectness of the private model of rule following. It is
so in the sense that without talking about private language
whose words are supposed to refer to the Cartesian private
objects, we cannot draw any philosophically interesting
points from the private model of rule following.

To conclude: Kripke has to take the Cartesian privacy,

as it is described by Wittgenstein, into a consideration.

 

But he does not do it.

3) WITTGENSTEIN WOULD NOT ACCEPT KRIPKE’S RULE FOLLOWING
SKEPTICISM.

In this section, I will try to sort out what is right and
wrong among Kripke’s various interpretations of
Wittgenstein. It will make us see clearly why we cannot say
that Wittgenstein holds Kripke type of rule following
skepticism. Let’s think about how Kripke would raise his

skeptical doubt for the word ‘pain.’ First read the

 

following:

I think that I have learned the term ‘table’ in
such a way that it will apply to indefinitely many
future items. So I can apply the term to a new
situation, say when I enter the Eiffel Tower for
the first time and see a table at the base. Can I
answer a sceptic who supposes that by ‘table’ in
the past I meant tablair, where a ‘tablair’ is
anything that is a table not found at the base of
the Eiffel Tower, or a chair found there?125

 

‘” Saul Kripke, p.19.

135
Suppose that I am in France. I see a French man groaning
and moaning. So I say that-he is in pain. Now imagine that
a skeptic challenges my use of the word ‘pain’ here. He
might say that perhaps I meant paippy in the past by ‘pain.’
‘Paippy’ means the following: When I see a person groaning
and moaning in my country, I say that he is in pain. But if
I see a person groaning and moaning in France, then I say
that he is happy. The skeptic would say now that I cannot
find the necessary and sufficient conditions that could
justify conclusively that I meant pain, not paippy, in the
past by ‘pain.’ So perhaps I should have said "He is
happy," not "He is in pain," the skeptic would conclude.
Now would Wittgenstein agree with Kripke about the claim
that we cannot answer the skeptic? Would Wittgenstein say
that I cannot justify that I mean pain, not paippy, by
‘pain’? Let’s examine this.

First, both Wittgenstein and Kripke would agree in that
no internal facts, or nothing that is going on in our mind,
can justify that I mean pain by ‘pain.’”‘5 But what about
external facts like publicly observable things?
Wittgenstein would say that there are some among external
facts that could justify that I mean pain by ‘pain.’ For
example, Wittgenstein would say that we can justify that

someone means pain by ‘pain’ by examining how he uses the

 

1“ However there is a difference too. Kripke does not
consider the Cartesian private mental idea as a candidate
for a fact, whereas Wittgenstein would.

 

 

136

word. If he uses it in most occasions in which he sees a
person groaning or moaning, which are some of our
criteriological evidence for being in pain, then we are
justified in saying that he means pain by ‘pain.’ Also,
there are many things we do when we use the word ‘pain.’
They constitute what Wittgenstein calls ‘custom.’ If he has
displayed that he is practicing such a custom, then we are
justified in believing that he understands the word ‘pain.’
It is because of these that I can justify that in the above
kind of example I mean pain by ‘pain,’ Wittgenstein would
answer to the skeptic, even though it is possible - i.e., a
priori or logically - that I may have meant paippy by ‘pain’
in the past. _But couldn’t I imagine following a rule for
‘paippy,’ for example, by imagining a custom related to
paippy? Yes. However, imagining such a custom is not
enough. Wittgenstein says:

And if it is now said: "Isn’t it enough for there

to be an imaginary application?" the answer is:

No. (Possibility of private language.) (REM VI,

§32)
If the skeptic insists that he could say that the French man
is happy in the above kind of occasion, even though he

cannot abandon the custom related to the usage of the word

‘pain’ — for example, he may still feel a pity for him, or

 

1” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Fbundations of
Mathematics, ed. by G.H. von Wright, R. Rhees, G.E.M.
Anscombe, (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The
MIT Press, 1956). Hereafter, RFM followed by part and
section numbers.

 

 

137
try to help him - then what he is doing is just uttering
the sentence "He is happy." He would indeed be like a
person who believes that he can follow a rule only once.
Wittgenstein says:

The application of the concept ‘following a rule’

presupposes a custom. Hence it would be nonsense

to say: just once in the history of the world

someone followed a rule (or a signpost; played a

game, uttered a sentence, or understood once; and

so on.)(RFM VI 521)

It is important to notice that Kripke and Wittgenstein
agree on one thing, at the same time they disagree with each
other. Wittgenstein and Kripke would agree with one another
that such external facts are not necessary and sufficient
conditions that could justify conclusively that I mean pain
by ‘pain.’ But they would disagree with one another about
the following point. Kripke would say that from the claim
that such facts are not necessary and sufficient conditions,
it follows that there are no facts that could justify

conclusively that I mean pain by ‘pain.’ Wittgenstein,

however, would not say that such a conclusion follows.

Suter says:

[I]t is a mistake to suppose that, because
[Wittgenstein] mentions no fact, or nontrivial
truth conditions, that could prove whether a
person meant ‘quus,"plus,"cross,"many,"blue,’
or something else by the plus sign, he must
somehow accept [Kripke’s] doubts and concede to
him that there is no fact that I meant ‘plus.’
That would be like saying there is no fact that
someone has a headache if we cannot, as seems to
be the case, give nontrivial truth conditions for

 

 

138
someone’s having a headache.128

There are two propositions, that appear to be hard to
reject. One is that it makes no sense to doubt that we mean
something by a word, or that we follow rules when we use our
language. The other is that to justify that we mean
something by a word, or that we follow rules when we use our
language, we have to have the necessary and sufficient
conditions that could justify my meaning or rule following.
Note that Wittgenstein believes the first proposition,
whereas Kripke believes the second one. Their different
choices combined with their common belief that there are no
necessary and sufficient conditions that could conclusively
justify my meaning something by a word produces different
conclusions. The difference and sameness between them can
be seen in the following way.

Wittgenstein

It makes no sense to doubt that we mean something
by a word, or that we follow rules when we use our
language.

There are no necessary and sufficient conditions
that could justify conclusively that we mean
something by a word, or that we follow rules when
we use our language.

Hence we do not need to look for such necessary
and sufficient conditions for justifying that we
mean something by a word or we follow rules when
we use our language, or we can justify that we
mean something by a word or we can follow rules
without having such necessary and sufficient
conditions.

 

1” Ronald Suter, Interpreting Wittgenstein, p.213.

 

 

139
Kripke

We have to have the necessary and sufficient

conditions to justify conclusively that we mean

something by a word, or that we follow rules when

we use our language.

There are no necessary and sufficient conditions

that could justify conclusively that we mean

something by a word, or that we follow rules.

Hence it makes sense to doubt that we mean

something by a word or that we follow rules when

we use our language.

I do not know whether or not there could be any
philosophical knock—down arguments for showing which, of the
two arguments, is right. But one thing for sure is that
Wittgenstein would not opt for the second proposition that
Kripke opts for. It is his firm belief, I think, that it
makes no sense to doubt that we are following rules in our
language. For example, Wittgenstein says:

Following according to the rule is FUNDAMENTAL to

our language-game. It characterizes what we call

description.(RFM VI, 28)

Also it is evident that Wittgenstein believes that we do not
need necessary and sufficient conditions to justify our rule
following. He says:

How can he know how he is to continue a pattern by

himself - whatever instruction you give him? -

Well, how do I know? -- If that means "Have I

reasons?" the answer is: my reasons will soon give

out. And I shall act, without reasons. (PI, 5211)
See other similar remarks.

"How am I able to obey a rule?" - If this is not a

question about causes, then it is about the

justification for my following the rule in the way
I do.

 

140

If I have exhausted the justifications I have
reached bedrock, and my space is turned. Then I
am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."
(PI, 5217)

We need have no reason to follow the rule as we
do. The chain of reason has an end.(BB p.143)

 

 

VIII. Conclusion

Kripke’s interpretation of Wittgenstein has this merit. It
reminds us of Wittgenstein’s firm belief in our ordinary
language. It is of utmost important for Wittgenstein to
consider how people succeed in learning various words and
using them in our language. Stanley Cavell says:

What motivates Wittgenstein to philosophize, what

surprises him, is the plain fact that certain

creatures have speech at all, that they can say

things at all.129
Kripke, however, raises a doubt about the very claim - which
Wittgenstein strongly believes - that we succeed in
communicating with one another by our language.‘3° However,
it is not Kripke alone who raises a doubt against our
language. Wittgenstein would say that there are many such
philosophers. The difference between Kripke and the other
philosophers is this: Kripke directly challenges the
legitimacy of our language and knows what he is up to,

whereas many philosophers do not know that what they are

doing is in fact tantamount to challenging the legitimacy of

 

‘” Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason, (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1979) p.15.

‘” Strictly speaking, Kripke would say that it is not
he but Wittgenstein himself, or Wittgenstein as he
understands him, who raises such a doubt.

141

 

 

142
our language. We have already seen how Wittgenstein shows
that Cartesians are inadvertently making our language
impossible. Thus one thing we have to keep in mind is that
if there is such a thing as philosophical foundation for
Wittgenstein - if he allows to use such a term as
‘foundation' - then it is our language.

But what I want to argue for in this final chapter of
my dissertation is not Wittgenstein’s belief in our
language. I want to talk about whether we can say that
there is anything that we learn from our discussion on
Wittgenstein’s private language argument. The following
remark of an ancient Chinese buddhist monk, named Ch’ing-
Yuan, may be helpful for our discussion.

Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains
as mountains, and waters as waters. When I arrived at a
more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw
that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters.
But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest.

For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains,
and waters once again as waters. 13‘

I think that we, like this monk, may just come back to
our position — I mean the position we were in before we
study philosophy - as a result of studying Wittgenstein.
But it is not entirely correct to say that the position we
end up with is the same as the position we were in before.

There must be some differences. Then, in what sense we come

back to our original position, and in what sense we are

 

‘“ Allan Watts The Way of Zen, (New York: Mentor Books,
1958), p.126.

 

143

different than before? I will use Wittgenstein’s succinct
remarks on the difference between common-sense man and
common-sense philosopher to answer them. He writes:

Now the answer of the common-sense philosopher -

and that, n.b., is not the common-sense man, who

is as far from realism as from idealism - the

answer of the common-sense philosopher is that

surely there is no difficulty in the idea of

supposing, thinking, imagining that someone else

has what I have. But the trouble with the realist

is always that he does not solve but skip the

difficulties which his adversaries see, though

they too don’t succeed in solving them. (BB p.48)
Wittgenstein is here talking about how the common-sense
philosopher and the common—sense man would answer the
skeptical question "Can’t I feel another person’s pain?"
Wittgenstein says that they would answer it differently.
Then, what is the difference between the common-sense man
and the common-sense philosopher about the problem "I can’t
feel his pain"? The common-sense philosopher, Wittgenstein
explains, confuses the "metaphysical proposition ‘1 can’t
feel his pain’ with the experiential proposition, ‘We can’t
have (haven’t as a rule) pains in another person’s tooth’ "
(BB p.49) The common-sense philosopher thinks that it is
possible that I can have pain in another person’s tooth.132
And he thinks that this is the answer to the metaphysical

question "Can’t I have his pain?". But it cannot be the

answer to such a metaphysical question, Wittgenstein

 

1” Note that Wittgenstein agrees with the common-sense
philosopher about this point, i.e., that I can have pain in
another person’s mouth.

 

 

144
asserts. It is the answer to the empirical question "Can’t
I have pain in another person’s tooth?". The metaphysical
question "Can’t I have his pain?" is not answered in this
way, Wittgenstein says, for the following reason. When a
metaphysician asks "Can’t I have his pain?", he is talking
about pain understood as the Cartesian private pain. But
when we ask an empirical question "Can’t I have pain in his
mouth?", pain must be understood in a non-Cartesian sense,
i.e., in the sense we ordinarily use it. That I can have
pain in another person’s body cannot be used as an answer
to the metaphysical question about pains. For both the
empirical and metaphysical questions deploy the different
senses of ‘pain’.

Is Wittgenstein saying here that we cannot answer the
metaphysical question and must be skeptical about other
minds? No. What he wants to say is that there is no such
metaphysical question at all. For it makes no sense to ask
whether or not I can feel another’s pain understood in the
Cartesian sense. Wittgenstein asserts:

Another such trouble, closely akin, is expressed

in the sentence: "I can only know that I have

personal experiences, not that anyone else has". -

Shall we then call it an unnecessary hypothesis

that anyone else has personal experiences? - But

is it an hypothesis at all? For how can I even

make the hypothesis if it transcends all possible

experience? How could such a hypothesis be backed
by meaning? (Is it not like paper money, not

 

 

 

145

backed by gold?) (BB p.48)133

Wittgenstein might say that he is like the common-sense
person in the following respect. Both would not say that
there are such problems as the problem of other minds. I
think Wittgenstein is right in this point. Most people
would have never thought that there are such problems as the
problem of other minds or the problem of the external world
before they read philosophy. In this sense, by learning
Wittgenstein we come back to our original position. For we
do not learn from Wittgenstein the answers to such problems
as the problem of other minds. What we learn from him is
that there are no such problems, and nothing to answer. And
this is indeed the position we were in before studying
philosophy. But there is one difference. We can now defend
ourselves against those who challenge us by raising such
metaphysical and skeptical problems as that of other minds.

In this sense, we are different than before.

 

‘” Kripke would disagree with me. He asserts that
Wittgenstein concedes to skepticism of other minds.
According to Kripke, "As in the case of the main text,
Wittgenstein has presented us with a sceptical problem - it
seems impossible to imagine the mental life of others on the
model of our own." But Wittgenstein, Kripke asserts, offers
a skeptical solution to the skepticism of other minds.
Wittgenstein proposes, according to Kripke, to "abandon the
attempt to ask what a ‘self’ is, and the like; and let us
look, instead at the actual role ascriptions of mental
states to others play in our lives. Thus we may obtain a
‘sceptical solution' to our new sceptical paradox."

Kripke's interpretation here is again wrong which is the
result of his not paying attention to some of Wittgenstein's
remarks on the problem of other minds like this one we
quote.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. WORKS ORIGINATING FROM WITTGENSTEIN

Philosophical Investigations, 3rd edition., ed., G.E.M.
Anscombe and Rush Rhees, trans., G.E.M. Anscombe, (New York:

Macmillan, 1958).

The Blue and Brown Books, 2nd edition., ed., R. Rhees, (New
York: Harper and Row, 1969).

Philosophical Remarks, ed., R. Rhees, trans., Raymond
Hargreaves and Roger White, (Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1975).

Philosophical Grammar, ed., R. Rhees, trans., Anthony
Kenny, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974).

On Certainty, ed., G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H.von Wright,
trans., Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe, (New York: Harper
and Row, 1969).

Remarks on color, ed., G.E.M. Anscombe, trans., Linda L.
McAlister and Margarete Schattle, (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1977).

Zettel, ed., G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H.von Wright, trans.,
G.E.M. Anscombe, (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1967).

Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, vol.1, ed., G.E.M.
Anscombe and G.H.von Wright, trans., G.E.M. Anscombe; vol.
2, ed., G.H.von Wright and H.Nyman, trans., C.G. Luckhardt
and M.A.E. Aue, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1980).

Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, 2nd Edition, ed.,
G.H.von Wright, R. Rhees and G.E.M. Anscombe, trans., G.E.M.
Anscombe, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978).

Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology, vol.1, ed.,

G.H.von Wright and H. Nyman, trans., C.G. Luckhardt and
M.A.E. Aue, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).

146

 

 

147

Culture and value, ed., G.H.von Wright, trans., P. Winch,
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980).

Philosophical Occasions, ed., J.C. Klagge and A. Nordmann,
(Indianapolis and Cambridge, Hackett Pulbishing Co., 1993).

Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, (Conversations recorded
by Friedrich Waismann, 1929-1931), ed., B.F.McGuiness,
trans., Hoachim Schulte and Brian McGuiness, (New York:
Barnes and Noble, 1979).

Wittgenstein’s Lectures, cambridge, 1930-1932 (from the
notes of John King and Desmond Lee), ed., Desmond Lee,
(Totowa, N.J.:Rowman and Littlefield, 1980).

Wittgenstein’s Lectures, cambridge ,1932-1935, (from the
notes of Alice Ambrose and Margaret Macdonald), ed., Alice
Ambrose, (Totowa, N.J.:Rowman and Littlefield, 1979).

 

"Wittgenstein’s Notes for Lectures on ‘Private Experience’
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"The Language of Sense Data and Private Experience," notes
of Rush Rhees, in Philosophical Investigations, 7 (1984),
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G.E. Moore, "Wittgenstein’s Lectures in 1930-33," Part I,
Mind 63 (1954), pp.1-15; Part II, Mind 63 (1954), pp.289-
315; Part III, Mind 64 (1955), pp.1-27; "Two Corrections,"
Mind 64 (1955), p.264. Also in Moore’s Philosophical
Papers, (London: Allen and Unwin, 1959), pp.252-324.

2. WITTGENSTEIN BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fann, K.T., "Wittgenstein Bibliography," International
Philosophical Quarterly, 7 (1967), pp.311-339.

Frongia Guido and Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein, A
Bibliographical Guide, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990).

 

148

3. ANTHOLOGIES

Ambrose, A. and M. Lazerowitz, ed., Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Philosophy and Language, (New York: Humanities Press, 1972).

Arrington, R. and H. Glock, ed., Wittgenstein’s
Philosophical Investigations, (London: Routledge, 1991).

Canfield, J.V., ed., The Philosophy of Wittgenstein; A
Fifteen Velume cellection , (New York and London: Garland
Publishing, Inc., 1986)

Vol.1 The Early Philosophy - Language as Picture
Vol.2 Logic and Ontology

Vol.3 "My World and Its value

Vol.4 The Later Philosophy - Views and Reviews
Vol.5 Method and ESsence

Vol.6 Meaning

Vol.7 criteria

Vol.8 Knowing, Naming, certainty, and Idealism
Vol.9 The Private Language Argument

Vol.10 Logical Necessity and Rules

Vol.11 Philosophy of Mathematics

Vol.12 Persons

Vol.13 Psychology and cenceptual Relativity
Vol.14 Aesthetics, Ethics, and Religion

Vol.15 Elective Affinities

Jones, O.R., ed., The Private Language Argument, (London and
Basingstoke: MacMillan and Co Ltd, 1971).

Klemke, E.D., ed., Essays on Wittgenstein, (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1971).

Pitcher, G., ed., Wittgenstein: The Philosophical
Investigations, (New York: Doubleday, 1966).

Puhl, K., ed., Meaning Scepticism, (New York: de Gruyter,
1991).

Shanker, 5., ed., Ludwig Wittgenstein, Critical Assessment,
4 vols. (London: Croom Helm, 1986).

vol 1. From the NoteBooks to Philosophical Grammar: The
Construction and Dismantling of the Tractatus.
vol 2. From Philosophical Investigations to On certainty:
Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy.
vol 3. From the Tractatus to Remarks on the Foundations of
Mathematics: Wittgenstein on the Philosophy of
Mathematics.

 

149

vol 4. From Theology to Sociology: Wittgenstein's Impact on
Contemporary Thought.

Teghrarian, S., et al., eds., Ludwig Wittgensetin: A
Symposium on the Centennial of his Birth, (Wakefield:
Longwood Academic, 1990).

4. BOOKS

Ayer, A.J., Wittgenstein, (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1985).

Baker, G. and P.M.S. Hacker, Scepticism, Rules and Language,
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1984).

Bartley, W. W. III, Wittgenstein, (LaSalle: Open Court,
1973).

Budd, M., Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology, (London
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Canfield, J. V., Wittgenstein: Language and World, (Amherst:
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Cavell, S., The Claims of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism,
Morality and Tragedy, (New York: Oxford University Press,
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Fogelin, R.J., Wittgenstein, 2nd Edition, (London: Routledge
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Grayling, A.C., Wittgenstein, (Oxford: Oxford University
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Hacker, P., Insight and Illusion, (Oxford: Oxford University
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Hintikka, M. B., and J. Hintikka., Investigating
Wittgenstein, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986).

Janik, A and S. Toulmin, Wittgenstein’s Vienna, (New York: A
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Kenny A., Wittgenstein, (Cambridge: Harvard University
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-------- , The Legacy of Wittgenstein, (Oxford: Basil
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150

Kripke, S., Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language,
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Malcolm, N., Nothing is Hidden, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
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McGinn, C., Wittgenstein on Meaning, (Oxford: Basil
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Monk, R., Ludwig Wittgenstein; The Duty of Genius, (New
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Nieli, R., Wittgenstein: From Mysticism to Ordinary
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Pears, D., Ludwig Wittgenstein, (Cambridge: Harvard
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-------- , The False Prison, two volumes. (Oxford: Oxford
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Saunder, J.T. and D.F. Henze, The Private Language Argument,
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Schulte, J., Wittgenstein, an Introduction, trans., Brenner,
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Shoemaker, 5., Self Knowledge and Self Identity, (Ithaka:
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Suter, R., Interpreting Wittgenstein, (Philadelphia: Temple
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Wright, G.H.von, Wittgenstein, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
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