PAPEREVISED

A CRITIQUE OF WITTGENSTEIN'S PRIVATE LANGUAGE ARGUMENT

This essay aims to discuss Ludwig Wittgenstein's argument against the possibility of a private language.

As the vast literature on the argument already indicates, the issue is hard to be seized in all its dimensions

because of both the ambiguity of Wittgenstein's style of writing and the inherent difficulty of the subject-

matter itself. Therefore, I will confine myself to a brief examination of a particular aspect of the

argument. Besides pointing out the obvious idea that language is a social phenomenon, the argument has

a crucial dimension which extends into the role of language in our apprehension of the outer world and

our own experiences¹. In its strong sense, the negative argument about the possibility of a private

language seems to claim that the world as it is apprehended by us is given by the language that we learn

in our upbringing and it is only through the concepts we acquired through language that we are able to

organize not only our experiences of the outer world but our sensations as well. Hence, it seems to claim,

the familiar immediacy of the world to us is only the immediacy of some order of things that we come to

learn in language: an immediacy of the mediation of language, which is not an immediacy at all. I will

argue that this strong sense cannot be drawn from Wittgenstein's argument.

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… I speak, or write the sign down, and at the same time I concentrate my attention

on the sensation -and so, as it were, point to it inwardly. But what is that ceremony for? For that is all

it seems to be! A definition surely serves to establish the meaning of sign. Well this is done precisely

by the concentrating of my attention; for in this way I impress on myself the connexion 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'.

Wittgenstein's point is that the utterance of the sign 'S' when the private language speaker has a certain

sensation cannot establish a meaning for the sign for its correct future applications. Why this cannot be

done -hence the claim "Whatever is going to seem right to me is right"- may be examined from two

viewpoints. One position considers the ostensive definition of the sign 'S' upon the occurrence of a certain

sensation. And the most plausible readings of Wittgenstein's argument underline this view point.³ This

explanation considers that the sign cannot take on a proper use by the mere act of associating it with a

sample sensation. Because the link between 'S' and the sensation cannot have an independence from the

memory of the sensation which is the only means upon which another occurrence is to be identified.

Hence, in this way of association with ostensive definition, the private language speaker has no other

criteria to judge his identification of the sensation as S than the sample memory by which s/he already

identified the sensation as S. Here there is the use of the same memory twice, and for the private language

speaker, 'whatever seems right to her/him is right'. The second position, I hold, from which Wittgenstein's

argument can be approached considers that the sign 'S' can have an independence from the sample

memory of sensation as to denote a certain kind of sensation while retaining in the memory of the

speaker. This possibility is not entailed entirely in the former explanation of Wittgenstein's argument.

Because, what is underlined is a general problem of ostensive definition even in public use of language

and a shortcut is made to the case of private language. It is argued, in this way of reading Wittgenstein's

argument, that the private language speaker's problem is not only a problem of memory, as it might be

supposed to be at a first glance. Because, as already suggested, association of the sign with a sample

sensation does not itself elevate 'S' to a status of a word which has meaning in the form of 'the kind of

sensation' to signify a certain class of sensations. Hence there is nothing to remember for another case of

'S' other than the first memory of the sensation. That is, for the scheme of 'identifying something as

something' -identifying a present sensation as the kind of sensation S'- the second 'something' is missing

as it is collapsed into the first one. The explanation why it is so focuses on the impossibility of a private

ostensive definition. It is claimed that for an ostensive definition to be successful in the public use, the

necessary background -'stage-setting' in Wittgenstein's terms- is prepared by language in advance. So, the

thing referred to by the word ostensively defined is only located within a network provided by the public

language without which the ostensive definition cannot succeed. And the shortcut to the private language

is taken by arguing that such a background is not available for the private speaker. I argue, as a supporter

of the second position, that this shortcut is not convincing. The background to satisfy the conditions of an

ostensive definition is available for the private speaker as the unity of her/his consciousness. And if a

public ostensive definition is successful within the network of concepts language provides, then there is

no reason for a private ostensive definition not to be successful within the unity of the network of

experiences that the speaker's consciousness sets up. I will call this network of experiences 'unity of

consciousness' throughout the paper and, appealing to intuition, suggest that our conscious phenomenal

states display a coherent network both synchronically and diachronically only in which we can take hold

of them.

My argument for the private speaker is that the sign can take on a meaning independent from the sample

memory of sensation. Because, the sensation, to be a conscious mental state in the first instance, should

be in such a way that the experience already occurs as 'such and such a sensation' to the speaker; that is,

the sensation is to be identified -in its distinct character- within the unity of consciousness to become an

experience at all. If consciousness is, in one sense, awareness of our experiences, to be aware of a

sensation's identity should be in such a manner that the sensation is not exhaustive of all one's

consciousness at any given time but resides in its identity among the other contents of consciousness

where a characterization of the sensation is possible. Hence, the criteria for later applications of the sign

to denote a certain kind of sensation can be established by this characterization via which the sensation is

taken into our vocabulary of experiences which is always in the form of a characterization of the

sensation as to its relations to other experiences. The route for such an argument is that this unity of

consciousness is an indispensable element of meaningful public discourse and our continuous interaction

with the world. Without the unity of our consciousness, no organization of our experiences would be

possible in the first place and there would only be fleeting sensations. Hence, no successful identification

of any state of affairs would take place in the absence of a coherent sensation/experience taxonomy,

which is the only means by which we can correlate words and experiences in our public use of language.

In order to clarify the argument, a more detailed examination is in order.

To understand the target of Wittgenstein's argument, we should scrutinize the case of the utterance 'This

is S'. Obviously, this is an introspective judgement: 'This, what I feel now is S'. This judgement, like all

perception and introspection judgements, is in the form of 'identifying something as something' and

comprised of two components. One is the current sensation, the first 'something'. The other is our

characterization of it as an experience of some kind by the help of our memory, the second 'something'.

Our perception or introspection judgements are functions of these two instances. And, that these two are

inseparable seems to be the kernel of Wittgenstein's argument. Because it is always the case that 'What I

feel is what I feel' or 'What I see is what I see'. The possibility of a mistake here is senseless for the reason

that what you believe your experience to be is already determined by your memory of what this sort of

experience is. When the speaker expresses her/his judgement as 'This is S', s/he identifies a sensation s/he

remembers to be S. And there is no point in asking whether s/he identified the sensation wrong or s/he

misremembered the sensation to be S: 'whatever seems right to her/him is right'. However, understood

that way, the private speaker's position is not altogether different from situations we encounter as public

language users. All our sensation judgements are in the form that whatever seems right to us is right. We

identify our experiences as to what we believe -or remember- them to be. Nevertheless, even the two

instances of current sensation and our characterization of it are inseparable; they are not to be thought as

indiscernible for that matter. Indeed, because they are discernible that we can make successful

identifications and have coherent experiences without having the illusion to do so. That is, our

discriminative capacity does not elude us, otherwise all our interaction with the world would lose its

cohesion. This performance is successful not only when we identify our experiences employing concepts

acquired through linguistic practice independently of our private experiences , but also in the case of

occurrences of new and unfamiliar sensations which we have no concepts at all. In a sense, we can make

private ostensive definitions in the form of 'such and such a sensation' for new and unfamiliar experiences

which we cannot describe with our concepts, yet recognize them in the future without the slightest

hesitation.

One of the major difficulties of the way Wittgenstein formulates the argument is that he pictures the

sensation which the private diarist is to record in such a manner that two instances of the judgement seem

to become indiscernible for the subject. For he imposes at the outset the criteria for the sensation that no

definition or description can be given and there is also no natural expression but only the sensation.

The

diarist seems to be in a position that he cannot introduce a sign by ostensive definition, and in the absence

of any criteria other than a presumably faint sample memory he is thought to be indecisive in a future

occurrence, for there is nothing to remember in the form of 'such and such a sensation'. Leaving aside the

question of figuring out a sensation of the implied kind, I shall suggest another source of difficulty.

Wittgenstein does not clarify whether, for 'S' to become a word denoting a certain kind of sensation,

subjective criteria established in independence from the sample experience is sufficient or the criteria

should also be independent from the subject as well. He, on the other extreme of a faint sample memory,

introduces a publicly accessible criterion exterior to the speaker her/himself to resolve the crux of his

argument. He suggests that if the speaker notices, for example, that a manometer indicates a rise in her/his

blood pressure along with the sensation, 'S' can satisfy the necessary condition to become a word to

indicate a certain class of sensation.

But this time, 'S' already becomes a public word independent of its

use by the private diarist. Because now it has a use publicly confirmable by the help of a manometer.

What Wittgenstein does not discuss is the alternative that 'S' can become independent of the mere sample

memory by the speaker's characterization of the sensation in the manner that 'S' is now associated with

'such and such a sensation' in general. In this alternative, 'S' seems to become a private word for the

speaker in the sense that s/he can judge another sensation with the criteria he establishes -'such and such a

sensation'- in the act of prior characterization. And this case seems not different from our characterization

of a new experience or an unusual sensation and that we recognize it successfully in another instance.

However two things should be mentioned here. First, the criteria still reside in the speaker; that is, the

problem, in Wittgenstein's terms, that 'whatever is going to seem right to me is right' is not purged off.

But this time it is only a problem of memory as much it always is in our public use of language, for we

also have to remember, hence identify, certain sensations. Second, whether 'S' is still a private word or

already becomes a public word by its association with some criteria is an issue open to discussion. On the

one hand, it can be suggested that it is still a private word; for, the criteria that define it are established by

the speaker and known only to him in the sense that they are related to his other mental states. However,

on the other hand, it can be suggested that these mental states are not private as far as they are expressible

in public language; hence, the criteria that the word is associated with are public and it becomes a public

word in principle. Leaving the second issue aside,

I will discuss the first one only.

Both our introspection and perception judgments bear the bi-polarity outlined above as instances of the

present experience at any given time and our characterization of it as an experience of some kind. And

none is immune to the weakness that 'whatever seems right to us is right'. The judgement 'This is S' is in

fact in the form of 'This what I feel now is that kind of sensation and it is S'. And when 'S' is correlated

with some criteria, the problem the private diarist has is the same as we have in identifying a certain

sensation and the correct word for that sensation. And I think we can ignore the problem of remembering

the name for some sensation which is a problem we always face with. What differs between the diarist

and us is that he has no further possibility to check his memory for the word 'S' as we can ask to others a

name that we cannot remember for something even when we know what that something is. But this

difference only shows an obvious triviality of the idea of a private language and nothing more than this at

all.

On the issue of identifying a certain sensation, I suggest that in all our judgements we use a

discriminative capacity based on the unity of our experiences. And, our identification of an experience

and application of a specific concept to this experience are disjoint events. It is a possible situation that a

certain pain can begin to disturb you. Even though it is a pain you have never felt before, it is possible

that you learn this pain in its distinctiveness and you can judge your sensations as 'Yes, this is that pain' or

'No, this is not that pain' without any need of verification. This seems to be a primitive ability without

which we cannot even survive. Without making use of any general concepts we possess we successfully

identify our experiences. Or conversely, even if we possess the concepts, there are cases in which we

cannot identify successfully our sensations. It is a commonplace that kidney pain and spinal column pain

are usually mistaken for each other even by the people who experienced both of them separately. That we

can recognize our experiences in their distinctness, I suggest, is a function of the unity our consciousness

displays and this capacity precedes our conceptual and linguistic abilities

. And the possibility that we can

make ostensive definitions of private signs for even unfamiliar sensations can be grounded by this unity.

Like the 'stage-setting' of language for public ostensive definitions, where the referent for a word is

located in a network of other concepts to which it establishes certain inferential relations, unity of our

consciousness supplies this setting for our experiences. The sensations we have are already located into

the fabric of our experiences. For, we cannot think of a sensation which is non-relational, overarching and

singly exhaustive of all consciousness. This would be like a sensation without your consciousness of it:

not a sensation at all. However unique a sensation may be, it seems that it is still a sensation of such and

such sort for our consciousness to be a sensation for us in the first place. And the fact that we come to

identify new experiences and take hold of them seems to show that even an unfamiliar experience is

relational as to its differences and similarities within our taxonomy of experiences, and this process seems

to mean that the differences are apprehended in a certain way via which the unfamiliar sensation is

registered.

If we deny ostensive definition to the private diarist, it seems that the argument threatens our public

discourse as well. First of all, if our experiences had arbitrarily changed without our awareness of this

change, and if our sensation/experience taxonomy were not coherent and our memory of sensations had

always deceived us in a way that it is impossible to discern between the instances of current sensation and

our characterization of it, we could not even have the ability to discriminate consistently between, for

example, fresh and rotten food. On the other hand, it seems, we use the very same capacity to correlate

words and experiences for the mapping between the linguistic and the non-linguistic. And that the

conditions of public ostensive definition are not available for the private language speaker seems not

convincing. Because even if the word ostensively defined is to be related to some phenomenon from a

specific viewpoint set in language, the linguistic background cannot itself assure the mapping between the

linguistic entity and its non-linguistic counterpart which can be understood as a specific experience. And,

I suggest, to understand the meaning of a word in the sense of being able to think of an object is also a

function of this mapping. Wittgenstein, to emphasize the inadequacy of mere ostensive explanation,

suggests: "If someone points to a piece and says 'This is the king' this does not tell me the use of the piece

-how to move it, its importance, etc.- unless I already know the rules of the game and am merely

unfamiliar with the shape of the piece."

However, even if an acquaintance with the bearer is different

than understanding the meaning of a word, the chess analogy seems to be a strong one. Because one can

in no way understand how 'king' has a role in the game by examining the piece itself, as the relation

between the actual material piece and its 'meaning' is totally arbitrary, here we cannot even talk about an

ostensive definition. However, when we think of, for example, 'This is pain', many connections of the

phenomenon, hence a lot about the use of the word 'pain', can be derived from the specific sensation.

While it seems true that not all the use for the word 'pain' may be fixed in one single act of ostensive

explanation, the sensation itself seems not totally arbitrary as in the 'king' analogy. Because our pain-

language seems to have indispensable relations to the sensation of pain itself, even if it is not just a

reflection of the individual pains we have. Kenny claims that an ostensive definition "will help me to

understand the word; but [it] will not suffice by itself, because it can always be variously interpreted."

While it seems plausible that the interpretations of ostensive definition may vary without the background

language provides, I do not think there are no limits, for the phenomenon itself as apprehended by us is

likely to define certain boundaries by its demonstration. And if we cannot contribute to the functioning of

language by our conscious experience, I claim, the background set in language will be of no help to us.

While it is true that how the word relates to the phenomenon is specified by this background, without the

unity of consciousness we possess, the phenomenon will not even be apprehended from such a viewpoint

in the first place. And if we cannot take hold of such an experience in its distinctiveness -hence our

experiences in general- before anything else, I claim, our whole interaction with the world and among

ourselves, hence the coherency of our public discourse, will not be possible at all.

Wittgenstein many times underlines that for meaning to occur in language what goes on with the speaker

is of no relevance. His idea of meaning of a word, very roughly, is that it is the word's use in language

and that it has no relation to the inner states or inner pictures of the speakers of the language:

"Imagine a 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. Here, I should like to say: a wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with it,

is not part of the mechanism.

…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 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 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.

Likewise, Wittgenstein's urge that "always get rid of the idea of the private object in this way: assume that

it constantly changes, but that you do not notice the change because your memory constantly deceives

you" is explained by Kenny to be accompanied with the question "what possible difference could it

make?"

Cases of misremembering meanings or wrong identifications of things are indifferent to

linguistic meaning and this view of language seems in no way concerned with the consciousness of the

speaker. Still it is pending how it is possible for someone that he uses a word as we do, but himself

always refers to different things. Or, how there is the word 'beetle' but no beetles at all. Unless, it is the

case that all what we take as our conscious experiences are illusions mediated by conceptual structures

acquired through linguistic practices. Certainly, this subject is much beyond the scope of this short essay.

The only thing I shall claim is that Wittgenstein's private language argument seems not to be an advance

for one view or another on this issue. Because it seems that the argument -at least in its most entertained

version in the literature of the philosophy of mind- denies the possibility of the unity of consciousness to

the private language speaker already as its premise and then concludes that he cannot have a coherent

taxonomy of his own experiences in the absence of a necessarily public language.

Notes:

This aspect of the argument seems to be "a major source for eliminativist sentiment" as suggested by

Joseph Levine ("Colour and Qualia" Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 1.0, Routledge:

London and New York, 1998). The following passage clearly explains the sentiment:

"The solipsist has neither a standard, a sample nor a customary practice of using the word ‘pain’ against

which the inclination to apply the concept can be judged. There is nothing independent of this inclination

that enables the solipsist to determine whether the application is correct or incorrect. But in so far as there

is nothing to determine whether the application is correct or incorrect, the idea of using the word correctly

or incorrectly makes no sense. And in so far as the solipsist lacks a criterion of correct application, the

solipsist lacks a concept of pain." McGinn, M., "Criteria", Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy,

Version 1.0, London: Routledge, 1998.

See also Churchland, P. M., Matter and Consciousness, MIT; Cambridge, 1988, pp. 51-66, Dennett, D.

C., Consciousness Explained, Brown; Boston, 1991.

Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations, Macmillian; New York, 1958, p. 92.

See Kenny, A., Wittgenstein, The Penguin Press, 1973, pp. 178-202, Candlish, S., "The Real Private

Language Argument", Philosophy, 55, pp. 85-94, and Candlish, S., "Private Language Argument",

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 1.0, Routledge: London and New York, 1998.

Wittgenstein, L., op.cit., sections 256 and 258.

Ibid. p. 94.

I think our language about perceptual experiences bears the same conditions as our language about

sensations. With perceptual experience, still we do not have any access to its private correlate in the other

person, to his/her experience, how s/he picks up the object in question. However, using shared concepts,

we describe what we see and make ourselves understood. Here, it seems, a conceptualization of the

experience takes place and our communication is secured on this base. A new experience is taken into

language or a new language activity about a new experience is established by our capacity to

conceptualize. And there seems no reason why things should be different for our sensations. Again like

sharing a perceptual experience through concepts, we communicate our sensation, we make ourselves

understood by using our capacity to conceptualize.

This account of communication on the basis of shared concepts seems more plausible than determination

of our experiences by concepts already possessed. It seems not that we identify our experiences by

shaping them into known concepts. Rather we are able to identify our experiences in their distinctness

and, only then, we can conceptualize them to communicate what we identify. For example there are cases

where we encounter with new and unusual experiences of which we cannot even make sense in their first

instance. It is pending that despite our inability to handle these sort of experiences in our conceptual

network, we take hold of them in their distinctiveness.

I think we can suggest that non-linguistic animals and human infants have a coherent

experience/sensation taxonomy even in the absence of conceptual abilities.

Kenny, A., op.cit., p. 157.

Ibid.

Ibid. 154-157.

Wittgenstein, L., op.cit., p. 95.

Ibid. p. 100.

Kenny, A., op.cit., p. 195.