Is Wittgenstein an evolutionary biologist?

Evolutionary biologists might claim that the evolutionary history of humans associated feelings with the productions of associated sounds, e.g. see the motivation-structure rule of Morton (American Naturalist). This would imply that even when a person is alone on a deserted island, the person will express feelings via sounds to be defined as language in an evolutionary social framework? The ghost of the evolutionary past expressed?

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Lambrechts,

Wittgenstein was a philosopher and one of the most influential philosophers of language of the last century. Surely, though, he would have to acknowledge the facts of evolutionary biology. 

The term "evolution" may be the key to your question. We can certainly imagine that language arose from sounds expressive of feelings. But we may doubt that sounds expressive of feelings amount to a language. We seem to need something more --of an evolving social framework. A person alone on an island could utter sounds expressive of feelings, and could certainly have feelings. But if there is no way to check on correctness, then, the argument is, there is no proper language. For a term to be correctly applied, it must be possible that it is incorrectly applied. Letting out a moan, say, is no more an element of a language than is flinching back in pain. Right?

H.G. Callaway

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein

http://www.roangelo.net/logwitt/

Dear Prof. Callaway,

This is an extremely interesting question. I will not attempt a definitive answer, but I believe I have an insight or two that may inform the discussion. 

The focus here should be on "useful communication", not an expression of "feelings". Restricted to feelings, Wittgenstein’s arguments may well be correct.

On the other hand, I believe it breaks down in terms of communication. As an example, many prey animals emit sounds or other gestures - to both their own species and others - warning that a predator is near. In more "evolved" cases, the communications vary, and may include information on the number, location and identity of the predator detected.

I don't recall the exact number, bu peoples of high Northern latitudes have dozens of different words for snow and ice, each word communicating a (perhaps subtle) but significant difference in the nature of the "snow" or "ice" being referred to. 

A person stranded on a dessert island may notice that when a certain type of storm passes through, a windfall a stranded fish and other marine life can be found on certain beaches of the island. The castaway may make a drawing or mark to capture the memory of this observed correlation. These marks may become more refined by say, seasonal difference. The same castaway may find that a certain plant, when applied to a wound, provides relief. Again the castaway may develop a catalog of symbols relating to the usefulness of certain plants. Should at some point another castaway - say a very young child with no language skills - show up on the island, it is likely that the new castaway would be taught the meanings of the "language" developed by the original castaway.

By this reasoning, there certainly can be a private language - it would be a tool for memory and self-communication.

    Keith 

What are the characteristics of the founder effect, e.g. the skills of the person that stranded? Was the person able to read and write, or not? This will make a big difference how the person will apply and develop language in isolation?

my dear, i agree with Marcel M. Lambrechts 

The core of Wittgenstein’s arguments is that "he thinks that we need to appeal to the practice and “customs” of our linguistic community". From this it follows that "there can be no (meaningful) private language. The reason should by now be clear. If I wanted to use a term to refer to some private mental state, what would be the criteria governing whether I used the term correctly or not? There would be no public criteria (since the state is private) yet all internal criteria have been ruled out. So, there would be nothing to determine when I used the term correctly and when I did not. So, the term would be meaningless"

The entire problem with this argument is that "a term" does not need to be restricted to "some private mental state".

If a person can read and write, they are by definition are already using a language. If such a person finds themselves isolated, they may well use a diary to record private mental states or "sensations" that simply reflect an unstable state of mind. The same person may also note that every time a cyclone comes through an windfall of fish wash up on the south side of the island. This is not a "sensation", but an existential fact recorded privately using language. Wittgenstein’s arguments seem to be completely flawed in the case of a stranded person who is already in possession of a language. Language is not restricted to recording mental sensations - it is also the vehicle by which observations and reasoned conclusions are recorded. Are the writings of Marco Polo - or any private investigator or explorer - meaningless because during times of privacy they possessed no meaningful language?

The question is more interesting if we assume that the isolated individual has been isolated before being able to acquire any language from others - the "blank slate castaway" scenario. It seems that there are three basic "founder" questions involved here. First (1), do humans have an innate ability to use symbols and symbolism? Second (2) , when do symbols become the equivalent to words? Third (3), as a corollary to questions (1) and (2), where is the boundary between symbols and symbolism on one hand,  and words and language on the other?

We must define terms:

Symbol - a mark or character used as a conventional representation of an object, function, or process, e.g., the letter or letters standing for a chemical element or a character in musical notation.

Symbolism - the practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning or character.

Word - a single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or sometimes alone) to form a sentence and typically shown with a space on either side when written or printed.

Language (a) - the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way.

Language (b) - the system of communication used by a particular community or country.

Note that Wittgenstein acknowledges only definition (b) of language. 

Does the "blank slate castaway" have an innate human ability to develop and use symbols? (Question 1). If not, then in this scenario no private meaningful language appears to be possible. But, if our castaway can symbolically represent things, and especially if these "things" include both objects and actions, a meaningful private language is not clearly impossible. Connecting symbols for "storm", "fish", "go to south shore" and "eat" certainly seems to qualify as a language according to  definition (a). The symbols appear to qualify as words - they have distinct meanings. They are "structured or conventional way" - in this case by an individual. Structure and convention need not be be associated with a community - all individuals display their own unique preferences for structuring their world. A structured group of symbols used by our blank slate castaway as a reminder to walk to the south shore and eat fish tossed up after a storm could hardly be called meaningless, unless the choice between life and death requires some unknowable "criteria for correctness". It is meaningful private self-communication. 

Unless humans do not possess innate symbolic capacities, Wittgenstein's argument seems to fail even for the blank slate castaway. Not every blank slate castaway needs to have a symbolic capacity for Wittgenstein's argument to fail - his claim is that no (meaningful) private language is possible; therefore, it would only take one precocious castaway to completely disprove his theory.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all,

Here's a quotation, also from a very short article, published in The Guardian (2010), by Giles Fraser:

Imagine, Wittgenstein suggests, that you decide to write a diary and in it to jot down every time that the sensation you name S occurs. But how does the meaning of S maintain its link with the sensation to which it is supposed to refer? Here is Wittgenstein's response:

"Well, that is done precisely by the concentrating of my attention; for in this way I impress upon myself the connection between sign and sensation. But 'I impress it upon myself' can only mean: this process brings it about that I can remember the connection 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 to me right is right. And that only means that here we cant talk about right."

(Philosophical Investigations, 258)

---End quotation

See:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/feb/15/wittgenstein-private-language-argument

'The direct quotation from Wittgenstein seems helpful here. Fraser seems to almost follow the contributions above in leading up to the point of my quotation. But in spite of such quotations from Wittgenstein, people have often puzzled over what the claim amounts to. What does it mean to say that there can be no private language? 

If I read this passage correctly, the Wittgenstein is saying there can be no language such that it involves no public (or potentially public?) criteria of the correct application of its terms. Language is a social art, and it involves public criteria of its correct usage.

Lambrechts wrote:

What are the characteristics of the founder effect, e.g. the skills of the person that stranded? Was the person able to read and write, or not? This will make a big difference how the person will apply and develop language in isolation?

---End quotation

But the point would be, apparently, that no amount of prior linguistic skill or development would facilitate formation of a private language. Such a thing there cannot be. I take it that this is quite different from claiming that no one could develop a language (or reform of language) --involving public criteria--only later taught to others. 

Likewise, when Constantine writes:

I don't recall the exact number, bu peoples of high Northern latitudes have dozens of different words for snow and ice, each word communicating a (perhaps subtle) but significant difference in the nature of the "snow" or "ice" being referred to. 

---End quotation

This seems beside the point. Presumably the Eskimo language for describing snow has public criteria and outsiders could eventually learn it. In consequence, this is not a private language in the sense that Wittgenstein rejects. 

H.G. Callaway

I was about to say, "I believe that story about the arctic peoples having scads of words for snow has been researched and that the they really don't have such a huge number of such words.  I would expect they have a few more than us since they do or used to be able to be in the snow and ice much more than most of us.   But I don't know the exact number."  So I googled the question "how many words for snow do the inuit have?" and got the surprising answer below.  The tide has swung on this question, it seems.  Always good to check your info, maybe a few times would be better.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/there-really-are-50-eskimo-words-for-snow/2013/01/14/e0e3f4e0-59a0-11e2-beee-6e38f5215402_story.html?utm_term=.ba2588abf11c

Is this a bit like wondering whether a tree falling in the forest makes any noise, if no one is there to hear it? The answer is yes, it makes a noise, the same noise in fact, whether anyone is there to hear it or not. (In this example, because the source of the noise is totally unrelated to any sensors that might detect that noise. Cause-effect.)

It seems to me that private languages do exist. Even if there's some question about the stability of the relationship between a sound and the sensation that elicits that sound, when a single person creates the private language, this should not be seen as a an insurmountable obstacle. Surely, even in actual languages, the meanings of words can change over time.

Besides which, we know that twins frequently, or maybe always, create their own private language, as they learn to talk. (This is why twins are often slower at developing language skills that others can comprehend.) I suppose that a philosopher can argue that having just one other person speaking the language is enough to make it a "real language," because the other person can validate that the sensation, and the sound used to identify that sensation, remain in sync. But honestly, just how much do we want to hang our disbelief that private languages can exist, on such a minor technicality?

Presume I am a castaway on an island, with no inherent language. I have, however, learned the value of fire, initially by eating things cooked as a result of fires initiated by lightening strikes.

I overcome my fear of flame and, there being abundant kindling and timber on my island, I learn to keep a "perpetual" fire lit. On cold nights I find that the fire keeps me warm. I associate this with a drawing of myself lying next to a fire, and I associate this with a vocalization "Ahhh....". One particularly cold night I let my fire go out. I shiver and make a sound "Brrrrr.....". I capture this in a drawing of me lying next to partially burned logs.

Some time later I discover three types of freshwater snails in a pond in the middle of the island a - red one, a yellow one and a black one. I taste black one raw and it is delicious. I utter something like "Yumm....". Knowing that anything new can be dangerous, I only eat a little. Nothing bad happens. I eventually eat several and continue to utter "Yumm ..." with no ill effects. I draw a picture of the snail and color it black with stain I have found. Having found a mirror long ago, I know what my facial expressions look like. I draw a smiling face next to the black snail. The yellow snail and the red snail taste bitter, with the red snail being particularly bad. I also feel a little ill after eating just a bit of a yellow snail, and I get extremely sick after eating a little bit of a red snail. After eating a bit of a yellow snail I utter "Hmmm ...". After eating a bit of a red snail I utter "Echhh...".

After some time I've eaten nearly all of the black snails. I'm hungry, and I know that fire changes other types of food. I collect a number of yellow and red snails and cook them. To my delight, I find that the yellow snails are "Yumm..." after being cooked, and I can eat as many cooked yellow snails as I wish without being ill. I draw a picture of a yellow snail, a fire and me smiling. I also draw a picture of a yellow snail with an image partially burned logs representing no fire (no "Ahhh....) with an image of me with a grimace. In this way, I capture both my positive (yellow snail - fire -good to eat) and negative (yellow snail - no fire - bad to eat) experiences with the yellow snails. The red snails taste horrible even after cooking, and I once again become very ill after eating a little bit of a red snail, even after cooking it. I draw a simple picture of a red snail with me grimacing. 

When I think of black snails the sound "Yumm... echoes in my mind. When I think of yellow snails, I associate "Hmmm....", "Ahhh...." and "Yumm..." ,as well as "Hmmm...", "Brrrr...", "Echhh..." with my knowledge that yellow snails are good to eat if I cook them, but make me sick if I eat them raw. For red snails, I only associate them with the sound "Echhh..." - they are no good, raw or cooked.

Have I created a meaningful private language? If not, why not?

Philadelphia, PA

Dear O'kennon & contributors, 

Many thanks for your link concerning the Eskimo language for snow and ice. Quite properly, you point to the question of empirical evidence on the question. (I had no doubts myself, though thinking the matter not exactly to the point here.) That certain people have many words describing and distinguishing kinds of snow and ice suggests to me merely their greater familiarity with related phenomena and the relation of their everyday practices to the differences expressed. 

I wonder, though, if you could also provide a link to a related scientific report on the matter. While I have no reason to doubt of the newspaper article, it would be helpful to have reference to a journal article in addition.

Again, your contribution is much appreciated. We want to resist any tendency there might be to get off onto mere philosophical speculation.  

H.G. Callaway 

P.S., Have a look at the following, from a Princeton U. webpage:

https://www.princeton.edu/~browning/snow.html

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Manfredi & readers,

I suspect that you answer the question a bit too easily. It may be that you have not quite got hold of Wittgenstein's concept--of what it is he is rejecting. I do not think that Wittgenstein's claims imply an anti-realism as suggested by your analogy to the tree falling in the forest. Again, I think no one doubts that there are languages that only some people have and use--as in your discussion of the languages used between twins. In terms of Wittgenstein's arguments, a private language would be one lacking public criteria of its correct usage and application. 

I came across a recent article, on line, which may be helpful in clarifying the claims in Wittgenstein. Perhaps this will be helpful. 

Here is the abstract:

Abstract

In this paper, I first review previous interpretations of Wittgenstein’s remarks on private language, revealing their inadequacies, and then present my own interpretation. Basing mainly on Wittgenstein’s notes for lectures on private sensations, I establish the following points: (i) ‘remembering the connection right’ means ‘reidentifying sensationtypes’; (ii) the reason for ‘no criterion of correctness’ is that nothing, especially no inner mechanisms nor external devices, can be utilised by the private speaker to tell whether some sensations are of one type or different types; and (iii) private names are not really names, private language is not really a language, therefore, private language is a grammatical illusion. My interpretation has the advantage of being able to reconcile Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy, which is to dissolve philosophical problems by rearranging grammatical facts, with his actual philosophical practice, at least in the case of private language.

---End quotation

See, "Wittgenstein’s Private Language Investigation" by Francis Y. Lin, Philosophical Investigations (2016).

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/phin.12148/epdf

I hope this link will be helpful. What is rejected seems to be a matter of a language that could only be understood by a single person. Since no one is aware of my sensations in the way that I am, e.g., it might be thought that I am the only one who can talk about them meaningfully. But the argument is that such a supposed language is impossible and would not be meaningful. 

H.G. Callaway

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all,

From the Wikipedia article on the private language argument:

The private language argument is a philosophical argument introduced by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his later work, especially in the Philosophical Investigations.[1] The argument was central to philosophical discussion in the second half of the 20th century, and continues to arouse interest. The argument is supposed to show that the idea of a language understandable by only a single individual is incoherent.

---End quotation

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_language_argument

From this and the other sources linked above, I would conclude that Wittgenstein"s argument is not directed against the possibility of a language only understood by a single person (or small group), but instead, it is directed against the possibility of a language that could only be understood by one person. This notion would apparently be based on the idea that what is referred to by terms of a supposed private language cannot be known by others. That is why the story of the man on the isolated island is especially relevant. 

Wittgenstein often says, "Don't look for the meaning," (i.e., a private object of reference), "look for the use." If we want to understand language, we must look primarily to usage--a public phenomenon. In fact, in writing dictionaries, people first collect examples of word usage, and decide on how to best define words on the basis of the empirical evidence of usage. In those terms, the notion of meanings which could not be captured from public usage is incoherent. In consequence, there can be no such thing as a language private in principle. Right?

H.G. Callaway

Thanks for the info on snow vocabulary  in Yupik et al .  Since Yupik and Inuit are highly agglutinative languages,  I wonder how fair it is to count every word built by agglutination with another word as base, instead of counting only the base word.  I'm sorry not to have learned to any extant any of those languages, only a bit of Kichwa and to some extent Turkish.  Is there another base word, like "rain", which takes the same extensions and generates similar new words.  Maybe someone can give examples of this in another highly agglutinative language and opine as to whether or not each derivation can honestly be counted as a new word. Note that in such a language a concept is built up out of a few to many extension morphemes, and the result is analogous to what would be a multi-word construction in English.  Fascinating group of languages!

Philadelphia, PA

Dear O'kennon & contributors,

It struck me that the article I linked to, concerning Yupik, was more skeptical about the multiplicity of words for snow, while the article you linked, from the Washington Post (and which originally appeared in the New Scientist) was more positive --and supportive of the traditional view coming down from Boas' work in Northern Canada. 

The fact of agglutination, as it seems to me, would not count against the multiplicity view, if the specific agglutinate compounds related to snow are very common --and work somewhat like set phrases in languages not prone to such compounds. Clearly, some natural languages are simply more precise, concerning particular subject-matters than are others. It should be no great surprise that the Eskimo languages are very precise, making many distinctions we generally ignore, concerning snow and ice. But this does not make of them anything like private languages in Wittgenstein's sense. 

In addition, in the article you linked to, there was related evidence connected with the languages of the Sami in northern Scandinavia. They have many words used in description of reindeer, though they do not form compounds in the way the Eskimo languages do. Consider an additional parallel: Organic chemists have a vast (and generative) vocabulary for the naming and description of organic compounds --of which, I assume, there are indefinitely many. Their vocabulary matches the complexities of the objects of their interest and study. But like other languages, the language of organic chemistry can certainly be learned, by students, say, and in reference to public criteria of correct usage. 

According to Wittgenstein, what we cannot have is a private language completely independent of public criteria of its correct usage and application. As has been emphasized, along the way, this represents a problem for Cartesian views of mind or consciousness. 

H.G. Callaway

Hi, HG, I know nothing about Saami language.  Did anyone ask the Yupik or Inuit whether agglutinativity increased or decreased total snow-word count?

Philadelphia, PA

Dear O'kennon,

Take a look back at the article from the Washington Post which you introduced here. That is where I got the information concerning words for describing reindeer. I suppose you do not wish to question the argument there.

I wonder whether the Yupik or the Inuit may have any linguists parsing their languages? If not, they may not be in a good position to decide where to count morphemes as the same or different. Right? 

H.G. Callaway

I only added it because it was up on top of the google search.  Sorry if it's old info again.

Actually I don't know how I got to following this thread.  I'm sure others will enjoy it though!

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all, 

If we are agreed, so far about what it is that Wittgenstein claims in the private language argument, then I think the next step is to come to terms with "the beetle in the box." (This is a simple analogy of the question about how we know about the contents of other minds.)  

I am going to provide a quotation on this from another, short, article available on line, which goes into some detail on the theme:

At §272, in what appears to be a prelude to the ‘beetle-in-the-box’ parable, Wittgenstein states:

“The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person possesses his own exemplar, but that nobody knows whether people also have this or something else. The assumption would thus be possible – though unverifiable – that one section of mankind had one sensation of red and another section another.”

At §293 the ‘beetle-in-the-box’ argument itself suggests a similar but more general conclusion. Public words that refer to inner sensations do not get their meaning from the sensations themselves. All these words tell us is that there is a sensation, not what the sensation is. To Wittgenstein, linguistic meaning is the use of words, and as mentioned above, the use of the word ‘pain’ is to express rather than to describe the sensation:

“Suppose everyone has 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...The thing in the box has no place in the language game at all”

What Wittgenstein is saying is that the word ‘beetle’ cannot be referring to the beetle itself, because if it did then only I could know what I meant by the word ‘beetle’, as only I know what is in my box. In the same way, we can see that the word ‘pain’ cannot refer directly to the sensation, because only I could know what that sensation is: if the word did refer to the sensation, the word would mean nothing to anyone but me (as a word in a private language would). Clearly our sensation words have to tell us something about what kind of sensation they’re referring to, otherwise it would be difficult to see any difference between ‘pain’ and ‘pleasure’. But what Wittgenstein is trying to show is that what we actually feel – which no one else can really know – is irrelevant to the meaning of the word.

Wittgenstein’s position therefore seems to be that sensations definitely are private, and that sensation words do not have sensations themselves as their meaning, and in fact the exact nature of the sensation has no bearing on the meaning (use) of the word whatsoever. The word merely indicates that a certain kind of sensation is present.

---End quotation

See:

The Private Language Argument

"Richard Floyd explains a notorious example of Wittgenstein’s public thought." which appeared in Philosophy Now.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/58/The_Private_Language_Argument

The entire article is well worth reading through, for those interested in the private language argument. Some of what is said here is not exactly what I would say here, but I like this article for its conciseness --and its introductory character. 

H.G. Callaway

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Pedersen & readers,

If you see indications of skepticism, what would they be? I don't see any myself. 

In his later work, Wittgenstein is noted for his efforts to show the way around such philosophical problems as radical skepticism--which he thinks of as matters of linguistic confusions. It may be that you are caught in the puzzle of the beetle in the box? (How could we know that others have sensations, say?) But, of course, we do know that others have sensations, pains for example. We know that others see colors, the red and green of the traffic lights, for example. They stop on red and go on green. 

Reflecting on such points, we see that the meaning of our words, such as "sensation," or "perception of red" or "perception of green" cannot be identified with our inner and purely private state of mind or consciousness. Meanings must be something publicly accessible, since we all learn how to use such words to (correctly or incorrectly) ascribe and attribute inner states of mind to others.

We can all engage in the public discourse of the beetles in the boxes, though we never get to look inside anyone else's box --other than our own. Just because of this, we come to see that the meaning of "beetle" (in this analogy) cannot be what I find inside the box I have. likewise, the meaning of "sensation of red" cannot be any inner experience of mine. Language and meaning must be public--even though, we talk of things that are private. To understand what is going on in the language of minds and consciousness, we must look to the usage of words and not to inner happenings. It is the public character of language and meaning which allows us to sensibly talk and understand minds and experiences. A language that only one person could understand is an incoherent notion; there cannot be a purely private language. 

Wittgenstein does remark that it is conceivable that half the human race experiences things red in the fashion of green --and visa versa. (Though he also says this is unverifiable.) That is perhaps puzzling. But I think the point here is to understand why such a puzzle does not get in the way of our ordinary understanding that others see things red or green. It tells us something about the character of the language of mind and perception. One might also consider, I think, that the mere statement of such a unverifiable hypothesis does not amount to skepticism about the inner states of others. The point is a subtle one!  

H.G. Callaway 

Since we learn to use language through communication with other, the meaning of words is obtained through public concensus that we constantly verify.  So through learning a language we learn to name our experience in concensual fashion and so learn that our experience  are similar to each other.  It is not an untested hypothesis, it is verified hundred thousand of time through our successfull communications.  Our personal experience are communal experiences.  

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Pedersen,

I think that is a good question. I wonder if you could sketch out how you see the "beetle in the box" argument as leading to a rebuttal of Artificial intelligence. You seem to say both that the argument is used in this fashion and that you "can't see how it could be a challenge to A.I." Can you suggest a source or provide a quotation? It may be important to understand how you might come at the related issues --in order to try to answer the questions you pose. 

As I see the matter, since the beetle in the box argument does not lead us on to skepticism concerning the attribution of mental states to others, this point, rather than the emphasis on our private access to our own states, is suggestive of a functionalist account of our ordinary psychological language--including the attribution of contents. (The point would need a lot of filling in.)  

Questions connected with A.I. are many and varied. One kind of question, which we might regard as inspired by Wittgenstein and his emphasis on ordinary language, would be to ask how well, or to what degree, our ordinary psychological discourse fits onto interaction with computer systems. The question is somewhat like those which might be formulated concerning our interactions with other animal species--the ways we tend to think about dogs and cats, say. We assume that the internal mental states of other people are sufficiently similar to our own. But consider the extreme cases, say psychotics or people with serious brain damage. Reflection on such cases, and the wealth of related empirical evidence, might lead us to ask, "Just how similar must internal states and processes be in order to count as sufficiently similar (to our own)?

Your question is inspired by the beetle in the box argument --which is very suggestive, indeed. But which way do you want to go here? I think we might also go, e.g., in the direction of criticism of Cartesian dualism. 

BTW: Those reading along may find the following, short cartoon video of interest, which comes from the Open University (about 1 Min.). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x86hLtOkou8

This is a short rendering of the beetle in a box argument. 

H.G. Callaway 

Stephen,

Although it may be difficult to specify in a discourse what is a game, what is a game is self-evident for any mammal.  All mammal plays.  We do not understand in words what it is but we implicitly understand what playing is and recognize it when we observe animal playing as we understand eating when we see eating taking place. 

When we play chess against a computer, we really play the game against a machine.  If we would have a chess tournament that is remotly played with no knowledge of the identity of your opponent, then there would be no way to discriminate machine participant from human participant.  I am not an expert.  Maybe an expert could detect style of playing and discriminate machine styles versus human styles.  But all player follow the rules.  IN a way for the purpose of chess playing, the Turing Test is passed by the chess playing machines.  But since playing such very machinal game, it is not surprising that machines can pass such a test  because playing test take place totally into a world of rules, a machine world.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Brassard, Pedersen & readers, 

Good that you mention the Turing test in the present context. It is also much to the point, I think, that a Turing test for chess is not a general Turing test. In any case, sketching out what the Turing Test amounts to would seem to involve surveying and detailing of the ordinary language of psychological description.

In my own limited experience, I find that ascription of psychological states to computer systems seems often limited and anthropomorphic. This is more or less on the order of "The computer doesn't want to do x," or "The computer doesn't like y." Sometimes this sort of thing seems a variety of comedy. In spite of that something useful can be communicated. 

By analogy, we might be inclined to say that "John's cat knows that John has come home." But, if John is e.g., a famous Professor of Mathematics, then we still wouldn't be inclined to say that "John's cat knows that a famous Professor of Mathematics has come home." Its a matter of conceptual limitations. Cats may recognize people familiar to them, but they don't distinguish the varieties of professors.

We may wonder, of course, whether the computer has a beetle in its box. Again, it is a different question whether ever more sophisticated computers may come to have a beetle in their box.

H.G. Callaway  

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Pedersen,

Whatever in the world makes you think you have got the conversation off track?

Quite the contrary. You are making valuable contributions to this thread. 

H.G. Callaway 

Stephen,

We see many science fiction movies and series where one of the character is a ''intelligent robot''.  In general the robot look like other human although the producters put some odd feature, an accent, a kind of social weirdness but overall the robot has feeling, is their friend and behave as such.  In fact the robot is impersonated by human actors.  But lets play the game and lets asssume that these robots are real robots.  As an audience we end up relating to these characters in the same way than the other characters in spite of the fact that the we pretend to believe they are machines. Our feelings says otherwise, our feelings are a testimony that we do not believe they are machines.  The ambiguity of these robot character is a cognitive conflict within us where on a superficial level we accept the plot that the character is a machine but our theory of Mind treat the character as a human, a weird one, but one.   These robots in fact have passed our Turing Test because we psychologically relate to them as if they were humans.  If ( with a .00 ... 0000001 probability to be realized)  in the future, such robots were produced, they woud passed our Turing Test.  When we deal with other humans, we do not check if under their skin, they are the same as us and so they pass our Turing Test.  Turing simply design his test the way we naturally attribute humanity to one of our fellow human being.  We do not check the brain of our fellow human being, we simply observe their behavior and how they relate to us.   I do not think that it is a possible in the future for anthropomorphic robot to pass the Turing Test .  Not a simple conversation on baseball accross a curtain.  But to have robot we can genuinly relate as with other human being. In social network, we do not see each other, are presented with an image which might be anything, do not each other voice, do not know our past or countries or circumstance and only small posts from each other and this far than enough to pass each other Turing Test. Have you ever been paranoid and doubting that one regular RG participant is actually a machine.  I did'nt.  I do not think we can fake billion of years of life evolution. We watch animation movies, especially the old one that were not realistic with very weird character, such as a jumping ball, and the animators have no problem convincing us that these weird character are real living one. Everyone persons of my generation has cried when bambie lost her mother although we all knew that bambie is the product of a pen.  We know that at one level, but we do not believe that when we enter the story. Entering that story is achieved by temporarilly suspending that knowledge.  This is what playing is about.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Brassard, 

You make some interesting comments, and I wonder if you can clarify how you see the relationship between the Turing test and Wittgenstein on private language and the beetle in the box. This would help keep the thread on theme. Do you regard the Turing test as capturing all that is involved in the interactive complexities of human relations which facilitates our attribution of mental states to others? 

You wrote:

When we deal with other humans, we do not check if under their skin, they are the same as us and so they pass our Turing Test.  Turing simply design his test the way we naturally attribute humanity to one of our fellow human being.  We do not check the brain of our fellow human being, we simply observe their behavior and how they relate to us.   I do not think that it is a possible in the future for anthropomorphic robot to pass the Turing Test .  Not a simple conversation on baseball across a curtain.  But to have robot we can genuinely relate as with other human being.  I do not think we can fake billion of years of life evolution.

---End quotation

Its interesting, I think, that in the present context, we are not interacting directly with other human beings, but instead we assume we are interacting with other human beings via a computer system--and those who monitor it. I take it that it is not inconceivable that when I see a message from "Louis Brassard," this might in fact have been written by someone else and published in your name. Or, it is conceivable, at least, that the messages carrying your name were actually produced by some intelligent A.I. agent. I've long supposed, if fact, that it was similar kinds of social problems which stood, motivationally, behind the withdraw into the philosophical position of Cartesian doubt. 

Though we do not check on the brains of people before entering into conversation or other human relationships, we do sometimes want to know who they are and something of their pre-existing relationships, affiliations, convictions, etc. Not always, of course, but sometimes. If we were to discover, for instance, that some one of our correspondents was acting on behalf of a committee of some sort and had resources not generally available or acknowledged, then that is the kind of thing we would want to know. We can imagine in similar terms, I think, how the Turing test might be faked --with something other than merely the computer system behind the screen. Systems of background support may be important, since they may not be motivated by the overt aims of the discussion or debate underway. In somewhat that way, the evaluation of the conclusions on offer might be faked. We often hear that it is the victors who write the histories. 

I do not know, of course, whether any computer system will ever pass the Turing Test or interact more generally in such a way that we would become convinced that there is indeed a "beetle in the box." But however the test might be run, I think it clear that we might well want to check to see that the computer system is acting on its own.  Its like the stoics of ancient times. Having seen the results of Socrates interacting in the open market place with all comers, they understandably withdrew to the edge of the market, where they could watch who was coming along and engage or disengage in their varied philosophical discussions based on knowledge of who was listening and who was not. The withdraw was, then, based on estimates of the value of particular interactions for their philosophical purposes. Its not of course that they thought that some of those coming along were not human, but instead that some of them were perhaps inhumane.

In general, then, the particular social context reasonably influences the discussion and the evaluation of contributions. To pass the Turing test, it seems that the computer system would also have to enter into similar social contexts and evaluations. This is perhaps a broader concept than what we find in the Turing test.

H.G. Callaway

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all,

RE: the prospect of computerized super intelligence and "the singularity."

Readers may find the Wikipedia article of interest, I quote from the opening:

The technological singularity (also, simply, the singularity)[1] is the hypothesis that the invention of artificial superintelligence will abruptly trigger runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization.[2] According to this hypothesis, an upgradable intelligent agent (such as a computer running software-based artificial general intelligence) would enter a 'runaway reaction' of self-improvement cycles, with each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing an intelligence explosion and resulting in a powerful superintelligence that would, qualitatively, far surpass all human intelligence. John von Neumann first uses the term "singularity" (c. 1950s[3]), in the context of technological progress causing accelerating change: "The accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, give the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, can not continue".[4] Subsequent authors have echoed this viewpoint.[2][5] I. J. Good's "intelligence explosion", predicted that a future superintelligence would trigger a singularity.[6] Science fiction author Vernor Vinge said in his 1993 essay The Coming Technological Singularity that this would signal the end of the human era, as the new superintelligence would continue to upgrade itself and would advance technologically at an incomprehensible rate.[6]

---End quotation

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

I still don't know if any computer system will ever pass the Turing Test. but some people, at least, seem to think that maybe they won't need to do so! Might some non-human intelligence come to formulate the tests? That is perhaps reason enough to want to understand in detail the human activities, practices and concepts which facilitate our attribution of mental states and processes to others --which should take us more directly back to Wittgenstein. 

H.G. Callaway

Among the early thinking about the machine singularity is :

Darwin Among the Machines

[To the Editor of the Press, Christchurch, New Zealand, 13 June, 1863.]

by  Samuel Butler

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-ButFir-t1-g1-t1-g1-t4-body.html

http://www.singularitysymposium.com/samuel-butler.html

There is an alternative singularity view where the machines are the instruments, the nervous system linking humans into a super-organism.  From the time of the invention of the telegraph and inter-continental communication, this idea  was developed in many forms.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all, 

What! Another singularity! 

In either case, it seems to be a matter of power relationships, in preference to human relations based on openness, trust, discourse, discussion and evidence--all the way down. In one case, the machines take over outright, in the other human beings are incorporated --into the Borg, perhaps. 

If we are looking for an explanation of why the fashionable left (as e.g., with "New Labour" and Clinton's "New Democrats") failed to prevent the excesses of globalization, then I think you clearly point the way, Brassard. The way to get ahead is to keep on the side of the powers-that-be --whoever they may be. This seems to be the origin of the illiberal left, generally. Now, as we see, this is reflected in an equally illiberal right. Is this result not enough? 

Might we now get back to Wittgenstein and the private language argument? Would this be inconvenient to your doubtlessly higher purposes? 

H.G. Callaway

Dear Callaway,

I see no relation between my last post and your response about politic in your last post.  Since it was off topic, I will pass.

I will give a response to your  previous post.  

First, I think that Turing conceive the idea of the Turing Test based on the following problem.  How to assess intelligence of a machine without an universal definition of what ''intelligence'' is. Since the word ''intelligence'' is a word in our language and that we thus know how to use this word among humans then why not to use exactly the same way with machine.  So for that to be possible, we have to hide wether or not an agent is a machine and see if a human woud assess if the agent is intelligent through a conversation which is the most common way that we assess each other intelligence.  We do not know exactly how we do it but we do it each time we qualify someone as intelligent or as non-intelligent in our conversation.

A lot of concept such as ''freedom'', ''conscious'' are words that have came into use in our language and machine agent could also be assess based on our common use of the word as long as the agent is treated as human.  Also we can inquire in language use what ar the meaning of these words.  

''Or, it is conceivable, at least, that the messages carrying your name were actually produced by some intelligent A.I. agent. I've long supposed, if fact, that it was similar kinds of social problems which stood, motivationally, behind the withdraw into the philosophical position of Cartesian doubt. ''

The cartesian doubt is a kind of non acceptance of our normal language game used.  In the Metaphysical mediation at some point Descartes said that he was observing people in the street and that it was possible that these were not people but machine looking like humans and there were no difference in their behavior.  A bit the Zombie thought experiment.  This kind of doubting is similar to the thought experiement that doubt that other that said that see green actually see red.  It has nothing to do with language use.  Doubting that someone is not conscious be a zombie is also something totally outside an healthy human being language use.  

If we investigate the meaning of the word ''machine'' an of the word ''conscious'' then based on this, ''conscious machine'' is nonsensical and might explain why most people do not believe in such notion.  They do not based their judgement on technical knowledge about how to build machine but make a judgement on the meaning of ''conscious machine'' based on their language used and find it nonsensical. And I agree with this judgement.

We are not allowed to recast words to our liking - a 'private language."  Words all have meanings already which are not subject to modification to suit our own purposes. 

Wittgenstein - and Searle, showed us that reality is immanent - a person groaning and clutching his head IS having a headache issue of some kind, presuming that the conditions of satisfaction are met - which do not depend on our translating the message into something else.   

This is what W.'s message about "private language" means:  it's not up to us.  Language is already there, and if we, like kindergardeners 'invent" our own language, that's not really what we're doing.  

Can we invent our own air? 

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Boon & readers,

Thanks for your comment on the private language argument --and the status of customary usage. 

I have a little story about usage, which I have told before on occasion, but I wonder what you might say about it in light of your comments. 

When I was growing up we said that the wax of a candle melts when you light it, and equally, that sugar melts when you put it in your coffee. This was (a?) common usage--which failed to distinguish between change of state, from solid to liquid, on the one hand and a solid dissolving in a liquid on the other. This distinction is of some importance in chemistry (say quantitative analysis), where there is much use and specification of standardized solutions. So, we might want to say that by now distinguishing sharply between "melting" and "dissolving"  we introduce an innovation of usage --to suit specific purposes. Usage, surely, can and does become more precise, on occasion, in somewhat this way. Either way of talking, I think, would now be understood in ordinary speech--but I suspect that the older, broader usage of "to melt" has faded in degree. 

While agreeing that established usage is important in mutual understanding, it does not seem to me that this point should suggest rigidity of ordinary usage. Sometimes we do invent new modes of usage, and these may even amount to recognized improvements. What is to be avoid is capricious departures. Right?

H.G. Callaway

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Brassard, 

I think you really fail to elucidate the details of common usage which facilitate the recognition of mental states in others --or what may come to much the same thing, the relationship between the Turing Test and the Wittgensteinian argument against private language. Admittedly, that is a tall order, but something similar seems to be needed in order to relate the two themes for present purposes. If the Turing Test is supposed to be able to decide for us when a computer system is intelligent (and whether it has a beetle in its box, perhaps), then surely this must involve our ordinary criteria for intelligence in others. But does it actually do so? 

Equally, I don't see that you cast much light on the theme of the withdraw into Cartesian skepticism and the relationship of this to social problems regarding the development and need of trust in human relationships --such as may become involved in our open discussion of Wittgenstein. You do recall Descartes in the Meditations thinking that apparently human figures in the distance may be only cleverly disguised devices of some sort rather than the human beings we would ordinarily take them to be. It is worth remarking that the Cartesian position of claimed certainty about one's inner states ("ideas") combined with generalized skepticism about the reality of people and things in the "external world" would seem to be incoherent on Wittgenstein's views.

But my general point was that lack of trust often evokes withdrawal and that we can reasonably view the retreat into Cartesian doubt as an epistemological reflection, or even a metaphor, for the related social problems--threatening breakdown of ordinary mutual understanding and exchanges. Notice that trust in the prospects of technological developments--say, in the direction of a singularity-- has often been at a minimum of late. Though it exceeds the question of intelligence, it does seem to me that regarding any prospective A.I. device, we would want to test it regarding its reliability in ethical terms. That someone (or something) can enter into such a complex relationship of trust and the questioning of the grounds of trust belongs to our general concept of human intelligence --and morally appropriate status. As with the stoics of old, we may prefer not to interact more fully with those less trustworthy. We might even come around to a familiar old question: "Just who or what are you working for?" 

In an age of computerized dissimulation, related questions take up enhanced significance. 

H.G. Callaway

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all,

Here's a bit more, from a brief, on-line discussion, on Wittgenstein's "Beetle in the box."

September 26, 2006

Wittgenstein and the Beetle in the Box

In Philosophical Investigations (1.293) Wittgenstein introduces a famous and memorable analogy: the beetle in the box. Suppose everyone has a box that only they can see into. No one can see into anyone else's box. Each describes what he or she sees in the box as a 'beetle'. I know what a beetle is from my own examination of what is in my box, you from yours. Wittgenstein points out that in this situation while we all talk about our beetles, there might be different things in everyone's boxes, or perhaps nothing at all in some of them. The thing in the box, could be changing all the time. Whatever it is, he maintains that it cannot have a part in the 'language-game'. Analogously (and this is only implied rather than fully spelt out by Wittgenstein), if I say that I know what 'pain' means from personal introspection, on the model of what he calls 'object and designation' - like the ostensive definition (or, as non-philosophers put it, pointing) that tells us 'that's a cat' when I point at the furry animal in the garden - then whatever 'internal' object I'm pointing at (the equivalent of the cat) drops out of consideration. It is irrelevant to the meaning of 'pain'. It is like the beetle that may or may not be in the box.

---pause quotation

The analogy to pain is important here, since we all believe that we know when we are in pain and that we cannot literally feel the pain of others --in the way that they can (see the beetle inside the box of others). One is then perhaps inclined to the idea that we know what pain is, and the meaning of the word pain, by having these private experiences; and consequently, certain internal experiences must be the very meaning of the word. But if the meaning of my word pain is certain private experiences of mine, and I cannot possibly feel the pain of others in the way that they do, then it appears that the meaning of the word, must be something private--I have a private language of pain. Of course, Wittgenstein want to reject the concept of any such language --private  in principle, and it would seem to follow that my private experience cannot be the meaning of the word. Again, we all learn to use the word pain, by references to public discourse and behavior, and understood in any similar terms, language and meaning must be public. But it is of some importance, I think, to emphasize that this account of the meaning of the words does not prohibit our referring to inner experiences. (We have to distinguish meaning and reference of words.) 

The final passage reads as follows:

This is part of Wittgenstein's so-called Private Language Argument (of which there are numerous competing interpretations). The gist of this is that the assumption that introspection governs the meaning of our sensation language is false: language is rule-governed public behaviour (though, perhaps perversely, Wittgenstein denied that he was a logical behaviourist, though some of his interpreters find this disengenuous). Language is far more enmeshed with the world and our forms of life than those who (perhaps influenced by Descartes and his legacy) see the mind as essentially a private theatre would have us believe...

---End quotation

That Wittgenstein is not a behaviorist, I take to follow from the fact that he does not deny the existence of inner experience; what he does hold is that we only have any genuine understanding of inner experience (our own or that of others) in virtue of our publicly learned language. The grasp and details on this publicly acquired language would then seem to be essential to our very understanding of the mind; and we can perhaps imagine a sufficiently diminished conceptual system ( or level of conceptual accomplishment) for psychological descriptions which would abrogate the level of self-understanding which human beings have attained to.  Our human self-understanding heavily depends on the publicly acquired language of psychological description. A genuine behaviorism would, from that perspective, be an impoverishment.  

See, Nigel Warburton's webpage:

http://virtualphilosopher.com/2006/09/wittgenstein_an.html

Comments invited.

H.G. Callaway

Dear readers,

Quote:

“The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person possesses his own exemplar, but that nobody knows whether people also have this or something else. The assumption would thus be possible – though unverifiable – that one section of mankind had one sensation of red and another section another. ‘’

Quote End.

I disagree that nobody knows whether his private experience is similar to that of other.   I hold onto the common sense that our experience are similar and shared.

We know that a skillfull magician can foul our visual perception and make us see rabbit appear out of thin air;  but since we left childhood, we do not believe it to be true.  We know that the magician has attracted our attention in such a way that we did not pay attention this created the illusion.  Philosophers are magician of language and so they can control our attention in such a way that to create argument that proof nonsensical reality, rabbit appearing out of thin air, rabbit such  as : ‘’ nobody knows whether people also have this or something else ‘’.   This is philosophical magic and like all magic it works by focusing attention on one thing and making us forget everything else.  It is a form of hypnotism or spell philosophically thrown onto someone mind.  So lets see if we can counter Wittgenstein’s magic.

The trick here to shake our confidence that we share experience, have similar experience of each other is to focus the attention on a very specific type of experience neglecting to mention that it is a special and generalizing for all sensations.   

 ’Through our past experience of interacting and observing and conversing with other humans we become convinced that our personal experience are similar to other since through interaction and conversation we confirm this and even consider that it is an experience of a common world.  I am completely sure that when I see a sphere on the table that the person next to me also see a sphere and that her experience is similar (except from the small different of perspective) than mine.  I am certain because, if question about the sphere appearance, we would answer similar answers.  Our ancestors, those that invent this language and the ones before, were also convinced of this and all the language convention assume this, do not question this and if this would have caused problems in the interaction of humans, this would have been deal with. 

Why should we doubt such assumption?

  It is said that we cannot prove nor disprove that my red is like your red.    If we cannot proof something that we find important to assume while there is no proof that it is wrong, then why doubting?  If it is'nt broken , why doubting it is.  There are many reasons that we should wave out any doubt on the identy of colours.  It shake the confidence that we share a common experience which is a very important for our sense of community, sense of communion.  That would need elaboration but it would be off topic.  It also has a bad consequence of making us doubt of our intuition/common sense/imagination and make rely us more on superficial logic thus making us vulnerable to philosophical magic manipulation.  Too long to elaborate also. 

We know that we have similar physiologies.  For instance, all human with normal colour vision, have 3 type of cone cells on the retina, each one with photochemical protein with specific spectral response.  This aspect of our physiology explain why our perceptual colour space are three dimensional.    Since we have more or less the same physiology, although transformed slightly differently by our life experience, then it is reasonable to assume that my sensation red which exist on the basis of the interaction of this physiology would be totally random while the physiology is not.  For that to happen, it would require no intimate connection between experience and physiology.  While we know there is an intimate connection.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Brassard & readers,

You make a very convincing argument, or series of arguments for the similarity of our inner experiences under similar conditions. I completely agree with what you say along these lines. 

What you fail to notice is that your argument doesn't dispute the very passage from Wittgenstein which you quote above, viz.:

“The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person possesses his own exemplar, but that nobody knows whether people also have this or something else. The assumption would thus be possible – though unverifiable – that one section of mankind had one sensation of red and another section another.‘’

The point here is much narrower than what you seem to want to dispute. Wittgenstein doesn't suggest that our inner experiences are not similar. What he says is that no one knows if they are "this or something else." It is reasonable to understand this as the claim that no one knows whether our inner experiences are exactly the same--identical in all details. One plausible interpretation of this is the hypothesis of the "inverted spectrum," for example; say, for the sake of simplicity, my experience of red is like your experience of green. This is an extreme example and lessor differences might be more plausible, as with the color blind--who can still stop at red lights, of course, and tell when the light is red --in a significant sense. They know when to stop and they can see the light. (They don't perhaps distinguish red and green in isolation.) 

Consider the perception of H2S --an odious smelling gas. I believe they normally put a bit of this in piped gas for home heating and cooking--so that people will notice a leak. For most or many people, if they detected this odor, its perhaps just a funny or strange and pungent smell. People say, "I smell gas." But the odor is so distinctive that the trained chemist will recognize it immediately as H2S--hydrogen sulfide. For the trained chemist, the detection of H2S is directly observational, while for most people it is not. We are accustomed to say, in such cases that the chemist's observation is "theory laden." Its immediately recognized as a specific chemical compound. I submit that this is an example of a difference in the perception of the gas by different people. Still the perceptions are highly similar. 

We can't get inside the heads or minds of other people to see whether their experiences are precisely the same as our own. Of course, as long as my perception of green things has some constancy to it, then whether or not this constancy is quite the same as that of someone else won't matter a great deal. This strongly suggests, whatever the actual degree of similarity may be, that psychological descriptions have a functional character to them--particularly in relation to the ordinary language of psychological and behavior description and judgement --which facilitates our self-understanding. Things serving the same function may still differ in many ways. 

This should be no great surprise, I think, since many words in common usage have a functional character. A chair, for instance, need not have exactly the same shape or be made of the same material as another chair--in order to count as a chair. A chair is made for sitting, and there are many different and distinctive ways of accomplishing that end. 

In any case, you and I and Wittgenstein, so it appears, can all agree about significant similarities among our inner experiences. (This is a kind of question worth some detailed consideration.) Wittgenstein's chief point, of course, is that this is something we can only understand and come to know on the basis of public language.  

H.G. Callaway

Dear Callaway,

‘’We can’t get inside the heads or minds of other people to see whether their experiences are precisely the same as our own.’’

Yes but we do not need to in order to know that they are approximately the same because we constantly talk to each other. 

As you said: ‘’  Wittgenstein's chief point, of course, is that this is something we can only understand and come to know on the basis of public language.  ‘’

Also through training we change our perception  I had identical twin brother in my class in grade 6 and at the beginning the year, I could not distinguish Paul from Pierre.  At the end of the years I was seeing them very different and with no possibly to mix them. When we listen to an unfamiliar song, especially in a style of music we are not so familiar, our perception change rapitly if we often listen to it.  After buying a new car of a certain colour, I tend to discrimate the other car of that same colour much more distinctly than before.  Perception of sound of an unfamiliar language change very rapidly when we learn that language.  Subtle change OK, change in perception of details OK but not a radical change of colour from red to green for people of normal vision. 

A word such as ‘’chair’’ do not denotate a particular form although we are familiar with the form of a lot of manufactured chair.  Chair may more refer to an affordance (as you said ‘’functionality’’), the affordance ‘’chair’’ correspond to any form that would allow me to sit.  While in need of sitting, I will see the tree trunc there as affording me the opportunity to sit while not tired, no in need of sitting, this trunc will not even been noticed. 

I tried a pair of glass that was inverting left to right and I had to use my hand.  It took me three minutes and the world return to normal.  The left was still left and the right was still right in spite of wearing these glasses.  Very quick neural plasticity that allow hand eye coordination.

But when we consider people with  conditions such as dyslexia, autism, etc, then perception started to have a very different world like the case of the man who mistook his wife for a hat or those having psychotic episodes.  I had a friend that had a severe form of dyslexia and although he was telling me he had this condition, I did not realize how what exactly his difficulty was.  He did not read easily but I did not how hard it was for him and did not even realize it was the reason why he was relunctant to read the books I was proposing.  Only much older , he explained that he was not able to read linearly and so he had to look at the whole paragraph rapidly, and that was giving him words but not in their order and then he had to reconstruct a meaning out of these random words. 

 ‘’you and I and Wittgenstein, so it appears, can all agree about significant similarities among our inner experiences. ‘’

Nice to be on the same page.  

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Brassard & readers, 

O.K., good that we see eye to eye on the matters just above concerning Wittgenstein's rejection of the private language! We can talk about inner experiences, but these are not the meanings of the related words. Meanings have to be publicly available. I think it reasonable to understand W's talk of the possible "disappearance" of the beetle in the box, as indicating the way in which non-functional differences in our inner experience tend to fade out in relation to the public language. Though the fellow is red-green color blind, e.g.,, we still want to talk about his seeing the red light, when he knows to stop at the signal. 

This may provide a basis to go a bit further on related topics, but I want to first pause at bit. I am wondering whether others, reading along, might have any questions or problems with the private language argument and what we have been doing so far. I notice that some new people have joined the thread. Again, the literature on Wittgenstein and related topics in the philosophy of language and mind is vast. That implies that there are many plausible directions of development in attempting to get hold of the significance of the private language argument. People may have developed some firm perspectives on the matter which could add to the discussion. I think we should pause a bit for new contributions. 

H.G. Callaway

I apologise for not having looked at the source material in detail. However, I wonder if Wittgenstein is actually, more than anything, providing an argument for the impossibility of a public language. If nobody can be sure whether or not others are learning to associate words with the same ideas as us we can never be sure our public language is conveying meaning appropriately. I am personally totally unconvinced by the island gedankenexperiment. As a birdwatcher I routinely write marks in books to indicate an experience I have had that I suspect is due to a species I have not seen before and hope to find in my book. On a long walk in a new habitat I might record this several times. Later I look at books and get new experiences from them and judge that my previous marks are likely to indicate either a new species or a series of irrelevant appearances of birds I have met before. I also quite often go through phases when I notice 'that pain' again and wonder if I should be worried by it. Mostly my classification never gets further than 'that pain' and it passes into oblivion.

So I am unclear why private language is any more precarious than public language. In fact I would have thought it likely to be more reliable, precisely because of Wittgenstein's concern.

Just a comment.

Language may be regarded by definition as a shared medium of communication but still might have an origin in one person before being shared ie Esperanto We might say it is not formally a language untill shared. But a Language unlike a Code contains Phonemes and Morphemes. Units of Sound and Meaning. But A Code has no Morphemes and requires Translation back into a Language to supply conceptual significance and meaning

Wittgenstein seems to think visually- spatially and sees the origin of language in pictogram Hieroglyphs in the Tractatus thus seeing propositions as a "picture" of reality..But European Romance Languages are not Pictogram based. Letters are only phonemes and only in association form words and syllables having morphemes or units of meaning and conceptual significance.

Later in his life Wittgenstein who, perhaps wrongly, regarded Gottlieb Frieg's Symbolic Formal Logic Code as a language, Spoke of Logic being "Truth Functional" in a "language game". I think he was voicing primarily Discontent with the Symbolic Formal Logic Code of Frege and Russel. Which contains no morphemes, or meaning of its own, these supplied by artificial associations with a true language - English or German which have morphemes and conceptual significance.. 

Dear John,

Is this really accepted as a way of distinguishing code from language? What about International Sign Language for the deaf and written Chinese? Neither has phonemes but I think most linguists would say both are just as much languages as spoken English. I am not sure about morphemes, but my understanding is that neither are necessary for a language, which is defined by some form of semantics built with syntactic structural rules.

I have always thought Wittgenstein was confused about private language and reading the discussion I am even more convinced. His argument seems to involve a sting of non sequiturs. Now that I remember, Chomsky of course made the point that there are no public languages, only pragmatic aggregates of private I-languages.

A point that may not have been covered is that Wittgenstein is almost certainly wrong to say that half the population might sense green when they look at red tomatoes and that we can never tell. Rather, there will be no fact of the matter because there cannot be any truth or falsity in a proposition that cannot involve a comparison in principle. So at root I think Wittgenstein's problem may be that he sees truth as something external, like the correspondence theory. As far as I am concerned truth has to be entirely internal and is one of the most intriguing and unstudied aspects of neural function. A truth is the concordance of two ideas in the same consciousness - a concept of a predicate that is consonant with a concept of a subject. And nobody much is trying to work out what that consonance is based on biophysically or even computationally.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all, 

Consulting the ordinary definition of the word language may help here: 

Webster's says:

Definition of language

1a :  the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community studied the French language b (1) :  audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs (2) :  a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings the language of mathematics (3) :  the suggestion by objects, actions, or conditions of associated ideas or feelings language in their very gesture — William Shakespeare (4) :  the means by which animals communicate the language of birds(5) :  a formal system of signs and symbols (such as FORTRAN or a calculus in logic) including rules for the formation and transformation of admissible expressions (6) :  machine language 1

2a :  form or manner of verbal expression; specifically :  style the beauty of Shakespeare's language b:  the vocabulary and phraseology belonging to an art or a department of knowledge the language of diplomacy medical language c :  profanity shouldn't of blamed the fellers if they'd cut loose with some language — Ring Lardner

3:  the study of language especially as a school subject earned a grade of B in language

4:  specific words especially in a law or regulation The police were diligent in enforcing the language of the law.

---End quotation

The italicized words and phrases here are examples of usage illustrating the particular definition. 

As a general matter, it is often held that spoken language is primary, in some sense, and that written language takes its meaning from the spoken forms; at the least, human beings seem to have engaged in spoken language before written forms developed. In spite of that we can imagine, without too much difficulty, individuals incapable of speech who nonetheless are articulate in their use of written (or sign) language. This strongly suggests that the fact that one form takes its meaning from another does not show that the second is not genuinely a language. 

H.G. Callaway

Dear HG,

I am reminded of a deaf-mute blind teenage patient of ours whose language consisted of her and her father writing signs on each other's skin with a finger. They could communicate almost as quickly as we do using a sort of Braille shorthand. I am sure that was a language.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Edwards & readers,

Yes, I think we agree about the status of sign language and symbolic languages. But let's see what Tarran may have to say. Isn't there also, say, a symbolic language of transformational grammars? 

On another issue, I think you might want to go back through the links to the (short) private language articles. I'm not convinced that you really respond to Wittgenstein's arguments. As I see it, its a matter of the impossibility of a language, private in principle--one that only one person could have or understand, since the meanings would be (not public or evident from usage) but private experiences available only to one person. 

Our having the same or similar ideas, as in ""Did he get the central idea?" or "Did he understand your idea?" depends on public accessibility of meanings.

H.G. Callaway  

I think I know what Wittgenstein thought he was trying to prove and I think I know he made a muddle of it. I am not sure how much further one can go. The problem is that he conflates the issue of the ineffability of the nature of others' experiences with a view of language meaning based on usage. I don't think he gets very far with either issue.

In relation to the privacy of experiences it may be worth noting that everything in physics is private in the same way. If we place a weight B of 6Kg on a table A we conclude that A will experience a force of 6Kg weight. However, the only thing that can actually have access to the force on A is A. As the term indicates only A is experiencing this force. For a scientist to judge what it might be she has to pick up B and feel how heavy she experiences it to be or to place it on a scale C counterbalanced by a weight D of 6Kg and find a match. She then has to pick up D if she wants to know what A is likely to be experiencing. Which goes to show that there is nothing particularly special about the 'privacy' of human experience. And we talk happily about weights and weighing machines without worrying about meanings.

In short a much more subtle analysis is needed to do the issue justice.

Then there is the issue of meaning being use. This has been revived by Tyler Burge in the form of 'expert use'. A word is said to mean what an expert in the field would mean by it. Ironically Burge uses the term arthritis and I happen to have been a world authority on arthritis and have even written a paper about the meaning of arthritis. My conclusion is that for an expert it is a term of no determinate meaning. It is largely used by lay people who do not really know what they mean by it. Rheumatoid arthritis is a meaningful term but not just arthritis. And fairly soon rheumatoid arthritis will become an obsolete term.

I don't believe in the idea of 'public accessibility'. It is just lots of people having private accessibility of a form that allows for learning fairly closely matching behavioural dispositions. As indicated above, all physics is actually private. So the adage that science is only about publicly available events is wrong. And for language it does not work either, as Chomsky has discussed at some length in some of his more philosophical essays.

Jonathan,

My grand-mother had ''arthritis'' and I know almost nothing of what actually for medical specialists what is related to the word and their used of it.  But I have observed my grand-mother and we talk about her arthritis and when I use this word with other that do not know much more than me , I use appropriatly to discuss the type of pain, etc.  I do not use it with any pretention of knowing what is going on internally to the body as a medical specialist would do.  The medical specialist either research some medication or some treatment and their use of the word is in a totally different world that the world of human experience into which I use that word.  I learn my usage of the word from public discourse with that word and my own observation and conversation with my grand-mother.  It is all publicly accessible.  And you usage of that word in your world of bio-chemistry , you have learn it from reading and your own observation and conversation.  

I did not read Wittgenstein so I am not sure if what he really mean by the meaning of words to be publicly accessible correspond by what I meant above.

The words by themselves have no meaning, they mean what the mental state of yours tells you when you hear o read it.

The words associated with tangible things seem to have the same meaning. For anyone who knows English and experienced some life, the word "dog" means in the first instance a four legged mammal of a particular characteristics. The word "pies" means the same for that who knows Polish, but in English it means entirely different thing.

In more abstract context the words such as simultaneity, synchroneity, synchronicity, in some dictionaries mean the same, although they are also shown to have more specialised meanings.

The meaning depends on the consensus of a group which uses the word in communication and when they tend not to disagree what it means.

A word is just a handle to a complex concept. That is why discussions are difficult when each person has a different scope of the same word

Dear Louis,

Wittgenstein probably did take usage to be roughly what you refer to. Burge found that unsatisfactory so he invented this idea of expert usage, which crashes in his chosen example. What I would be uncertain of is that you use the word arthritis 'appropriately to discuss the type of pain. Surely the pain will be private, so how could it be publicly accessible? And your grandmother probably referred to her arthritis because some nice doctor thought that telling her she had arthritis would raise them in her estimation of wisdom and give her something to gossip about. So you gossiped to your grandmother about her arthritis when in fact it might have been tendonitis or muscle pain or whatever. In fact nothing is publicly accessible in this case. She may not even have had an x-ray so her GP may have been ad libbing.

I think we all agree that in a public language we learn meanings of word from public discourse but why does this imply that we cannot have a private language in which we learn the meanings of words from ourselves. For instance I mentioned that I often think to myself 'oh there is that pain again' and worry it might be serious. I have had this recently with a pain in my right flank. And over a period of time I have come to understand my private terminology of that pain in recent months to refer to a sensation that I first thought I had about four years ago. But then I remembered that I had a similar pain after robotic prostatectomy from the robot arm that went in to my right flank. That made me think that that pain was now due to some sort of scarring late after the operation since it had become regular. But then it became clear to me that that pain was occurring in a new pattern in relation to movement. The meaning of that pain changed to indicate, again, a pain of known source in my right flank and I established that it was associated with rib tenderness. I am now pretty convinced that that pain is coming from the scoliosis in my back. So I am beginning to establish what was RIGHT and what was not despite this all being based on a private sensation. SO I would challenge Wittgenstein's assertion that there is no arbiter of what is right. We can make comparisons to help us understand the meaning of terms referring to our own sensations from within just as much as we make comparisons to help us understand the meaning of terms referring to patterns of sensation triggered by external objects like honey buzzards that other people may also get sensations from while watching from the same hilltop. I use that example because birdwatchers including myself misattribute the term honey buzzard more often than they use it correctly because the bird is hard to distinguish from a common buzzard but is much more exciting to think one has seen.

I think Wittgenstein's basic problem is that he was anti-science and did not like to test his ideas by seeing if they actually worked biologically. Chomsky showed that he had got things upside down. But Wittgenstein will continue to be popular with those who prefer an armchair analysis of the world!

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Edwards,

I still don't see that you are responding to Wittgenstein or to Brassard. You also seem not to respond to what I had to say about people having the same or similar ideas. 

Generally, a word is said to have a meaning in relation to a language or a linguistic system. The business of "expert usage" is something of a distraction from that perspective. The experts may be regarded as having a special technical language. We can concern ourselves with expert usage of words used in a specialized field of knowledge, or alternatively, we can concern ourselves with ordinary language. Notice that every technical or specialized subject-matter will plausibly have its own specialized dictionaries. Since you are yourself a specialist, I am sure you must be aware of dictionaries for the terminology of your field. These specialized dictionaries are also based on empirical study of usage --among specialists. 

What we can't do is conflate the ordinary usage of "arthritis" with the language of the specialists--which will distinguish many different varieties and conditions. 

Language of any sort is publicly accessible and this is how it is learned and taught. Do you aim to defend the concept of a language that could only be understood by one person? That seems to be what is in question.  

H.G. Callaway

Dear HG,

In relation to 

'What we can't do is conflate the ordinary usage of "arthritis" with the language of the specialists--which will distinguish many different varieties and conditions.' My point was that Burge had argued that 'ordinary usage' is a myth and undefinable so we have to rely on 'experts'. He is clearly wrong but he improbably right about the illusory nature of 'ordinary usage'. Chomsky dealt with this years ago. I don;t remember the relevant texts but he pointed out that there are only private I-languages. Public languages are merely arbitrary aggregates of I-languages. I think that is now a pretty standard position in linguistics. 

Words on the radio may genuinely be 'publicly accessible' but as someone has pointed out that in no way means that their meanings are publicly accessible. Everything has to be bootstrapped up from deixis. And my original point was that if there is no way of knowing that one persons experience 'matches' another and all meanings are cashed out in experience then Wittgenstein is primarily providing an argument for the impossibility of public language - the argument Chomsky later fleshes out. To be honest I would have thought that Wittgenstein's thoughts on language are now considered dry and dusty quirks of history.

I think I have made myself as clear as I can!

Best wishes

Jo E

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Edwards & readers,

Ordinary usage is a general phenomenon and somewhat diffuse, no doubt; but it is nonetheless a useful concept, in my estimation. I don't see anything "illusory" about it. Our conception of ordinary usage is based on survey and collection of examples. Expert usage of related words is something distinct, as I see the matter. I would think that few illustrations are better suited for making the distinction than the ordinary usage of arthritis and rheumatism, in contrast with the medical and research-related terminology --concerning which only very few have any comprehension or overview.

If we are interested in the ordinary usage of the term, then we look into a general purpose dictionary. On the other hand, to consult the expert usage, we look into a medical dictionary, or perhaps a diagnostic handbook. I don't see that you have more than suggested an illusory character of the concept of ordinary usage. You tell us that Tyler Burge thinks it a myth. Fine, by why does he say this? Is this to be an argument from authority based on a source--without even mention of any item from the literature? Your claim, with reference to Chomsky that "there are only private I-languages," and that "Public languages are merely arbitrary aggregates of I-languages," is also remarkably unsupported by either argument or reference. 

I notice that you do not explicitly address my question concerning the impossibility of languages private in principle, that only one person could understand. You seem to avoid the crux of the matter. 

I can understand that someone might want to defend the theme of Cartesian linguistics, or flesh out an alternative to empiricist accounts of language and meaning, but if you are going to do anything similar, then it takes more than simply stating a contrary position. It needs argument and evidence. 

I would recommend to readers, in this connection, some detailed attention to the topic of lexicography--the art and science of writing dictionaries. Lexicography is based in the empirical study of usage and depends on the collection of examples of usage into a corpus. A good introduction is the following book: 

Sidney I. Landau, Dictionaries

The Art and Craft of Lexicography, Cambridge University Press.

http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/semantics-and-pragmatics/dictionaries-art-and-craft-lexicography-2nd-edition?format=HB&isbn=9780521780407

I quote from the publisher's description:

This second edition of Sidney I. Landau's landmark work offers a comprehensive and completely up-to-date description of how dictionaries are researched and written, with particular attention to the ways in which computer technology has changed modern lexicography. Landau has an insider's practical knowledge of making dictionaries and every feature of the dictionary is examined and explained. Written in a readable style, free of jargon and unnecessary technical language, it will appeal to readers with no specialist knowledge of the field, as well as to professional lexicographers.

(Features): 

Comprehensive and completely up-to-date description of how dictionaries are researched and written

Particular attention to the ways in which computer technology has changed modern lexicography

Written by an author who has an insider's practical knowledge of making dictionaries

---End quotation

What I found particularly interesting in this book is the author's account of how the lexicographer formulates definitions on the basis of examples of usage. As I see the matter, this involves both empirical and more theoretical elements. Examples of usage have to be sorted out in terms of plausible differences in meaning or the different senses a word can have: (For example, a bank may be an institution in which you keep your money; or it may be the side of a river suitable for sitting on a Summer's afternoon.) Given an initial sorting, definitions need to be so formulated to comprehend, and explain examples of usage. The accounts of ordinary usage, contained in dictionaries are, then, both empirically based and theoretically vetted by reference to the assembled evidence. 

In contrast to this, your mere claim that ordinary usage is a myth, and that it is rejected in linguistics, seems pretty thin. You certainly do not convince me, either that there are no public meanings based on ordinary usage or that you have shown a way around the private language argument.

H.G. Callaway

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all, 

Looking for arguments by Tyler Burge, concerning arthritis, I have found some of his papers, and related literature on line. Here is one such argument. I wonder who will be convinced by it that "ordinary usage is a myth":

Tyler Burge (especially Burge (1979) and Burge (1986)). Burge makes use of similar arguments to show that social institutions also play a role in determining the contents of some beliefs and thoughts, including those that do not involve natural kind concepts.

In one such argument, we are to imagine an English-speaking individual, say Jane, who suspects she has arthritis as a result of having an ailment in her thigh. This individual, not being a doctor, does not know that arthritis is a condition of the joints only, and so when she sincerely utters “I have arthritis in my thigh” she is expressing a false belief. Burge then asks us to consider a counterfactual situation where Jane has the same internal state and history, except that she grew up in a community where the word “arthritis” is used to apply to a different disease, say tharthritis, which includes rheumatoid ailments of not just the joints but also the thighs. According to Burge, in this counterfactual situation, Jane lacks the belief that she has arthritis in her thigh, or any other beliefs about arthritis, as no-one in her linguistic community possesses the concept of arthritis. When she sincerely utters “I have arthritis in my thigh”, she is instead expressing the true belief that she has tharthritis in her thigh. Since the intrinsic facts about the individual are the same, but the beliefs are different, this is taken to show that externalism is correct. Furthermore, because the two situations differ only in the linguistic usage of the community, it is suggested that mental contents depend in part on communal linguistic practice.

---End quotation

See:

"Externalism About Mental Content" by Joe Lau and Max Deutsch,

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/content-externalism/#Bib

This argument seems to me very doubtful, and I can explain why is some detail. But I am wondering if anyone will want to take up its evaluation and examination. Readers will recall that I have been wondering about Edwards' sources and the basis of his claim, against Wittgenstein and the private language argument. 

I would say here, briefly, that the fact that we depend upon the public accessibility of meanings, both in common sense discourse, and in specialized discourse, tells us little or nothing of genuine interest concerning the sort of elaborate science fiction or alternative reality scenario imagined in this argument. The argument here is of a kind with the famous "Twin Earth" arguments --equally defective and conjectural.

But this might turn out to be a long story in the present context, and there are perhaps more favorable means and methods to further the aims of the present question and thread of discussion.

What seems of particular interest, though, is to examine the consequences and significance of the private language argument for our ordinary (or scientific) understanding the mind and internal states of mind. Notice that our very vocabulary for the description of mental states is borrowed, quite generally, from the things in the world which the mental states are about: say, "a red image,"  (though we equally suppose that nothing in the mind is actually or literally red), "the belief that Socrates is mortal," --though surely the ancient Greek philosopher is no part of your belief about him. Etc. How are we to understand the specifically intentional language of psychological descriptions, given Wittgenstein's argument against private language?

H.G. Callaway

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all, 

RE: "Externalism" 

See the following lecture by Hilary Putnam (1926 – 2016), given in 2011 to the Royal Swedish Academy, and focused on the topic of "externalism" = "Meanings are not in the head."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_a0ANCypGw

There is a good deal of more conversational and biographical elements early in the lecture explaining how he came to the view, and the discussion of externalism proper begins at about 18.00 Min. into the video.

Putnam lauds Tyler Burge, but explains his own views in semantics and how he arrived at them. The entire lecture runs about 35 Min. 

Externalism involves a reaction against two themes or theses: 1) that linguistic meanings are given by analytic, or purely conventional and unchanging definitions (as contrasted with viewing definitions as defeasible--and defeasible on empirical grounds); 2) that the goal of empirical semantics must include an account of semantic competence which would explain the ability to understand a language of interest --by means of semantic rules.

Putnam provides a helpful introduction to a central theme of Burge's work. The entire business might be viewed as a hyper-reaction to Wittgenstein's argument against the possibility of private language. In any case, externalism is far from being universally accepted in philosophy. 

Notice in particular that Putnam insists that the ordinary meaning and the specialist's meaning must be the same! (But, why, in that case, would different dictionaries be needed?) 

H.G. Callaway 

Wittgenstein was a self conscious Solipsist . Who Lived in a "World composed of Facts not of things" (Tractatus ) Ideas expressed in Language and Propositions.Like Many who were convinced by the first part of Descartes Experimental Ontology "Je Pense donc je sui" - I think therefore I am .But not the Second part of the Meditations that an Ontological Argument for Gods Existence gives us certainty that God would not allow us to be deceived in perceptions of Phenomena and provides an Ontological basis confidence in Empirical Observations.

I acknowledge Sign Language for the handicapped is a special case without Phonemes or units of sound. But the Function of a Language is to communicate meaning and covey conceptual significance essential to cognition. There surely cannot be a true Language without Morphemes, or units of Meaning 

Frege's tedious analysis of Logic dissected decision Flow charts and assigned a mere alphabet letter artificially to signify a proposition. A Formal Logic Code.  Something Wittgenstein under the Tutelage of Russel ,(Like the Nazi Code - breaker Alan Turing ) worked hard to render meaningful.But this culmination of an inevitable direction in European Metaphysics (alike to the Point where Bradley was stumped) failed to provide a sound Ontological Foundation for Certainty in Empirical Observation, nor Gods Existence.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Tarran & readers, 

You makes some interesting comments on your impression of Wittgenstein's philosophical work --generally. However, I think that an overall evaluation of Wittgenstein is nor really to the point here--unless you show that your critical points of interest implicate the private language argument.

I see no reason to suppose that Wittgenstein's work in philosophy should be evaluated by reference to philosophical goals which Descartes set for his own work--something you seem to suppose. Otherwise, the criticism you suggest seems to depend on a vague analogy between Descartes and early Wittgenstein. In any case, the doctrines of the Tractatus are not obviously implicated by the private language argument. Early on, Wittgenstein held to a so called "picture" theory of propositional meaning, where propositions mirror the structures of facts. In his later work, on the contrary, the constant refrain is "Don't look for the meaning, look for the use."  Early Wittgenstein is an advocate of an ideal logical language, while later Wittgenstein focuses on ordinary language and ordinary usage.

I am not aware that anyone on this thread has suggested that there could be a language without morphemes --or units of meaning. In consequence, I do not see why you make this assertion. No remark without remarkability. 

The use of the letters of the alphabet to stand for propositions in Frege, Russell and standard logic texts, functions to highlight logical forms which different compound propositions can have in common. For example, the expression p or q, is a general representation of any disjunction; and p & q is a representation of any conjunction. These expression don't need to be rendered meaningful--because they are already meaningful. They are means for talking about any disjunction or any arbitrarily selected conjunction. Think of it this way: Whatever conjunction p & q may be, if it is true, then so is p.  This is a specialized language for talking about classes of sentences or statements and there is nothing here of removing morphemes from language. 

Again, I see no reason to suppose that the supposition of providing for "ontological certainty in empirical observation" or proving God's existence should be considered appropriate criteria of the evaluation of the private language argument or of Wittgenstein's philosophical work generally. I do not believe that this was the sort of thing he aimed to do. He did aim to clarify our use of language in describing or expressing our inner mental states. By analogy, we would not criticize Darwin or Einstein on such grounds, so why should the absence of such goals or aims in Wittgenstein counted against the goals he did attempt to accomplish? 

The claims in question on this thread are connected with Wittgenstein on the relationship between meaningful language, usage and public accessibility of meanings. Specifically, Wittgenstein claimed that there could be no language private in principle such that only one person could understand it. The question concerns the significance of this argument. 

If someone is convinced that this is true, they may still go on to consider the questions you seem to focus upon. Do you mean to suggest that any philosophical project must first focus on those question? If so, this seems a strange supposition --and external to Wittgenstein and his work. Pursuing alternative philosophical questions does not amount to an evaluation of Wittgenstein's argument. 

H.G. Callaway

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all, 

Perhaps the following brief passage from the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Wittgenstein will help things along a bit here:

Language games, for Wittgenstein, are concrete social activities that crucially involve the use of specific forms of language. By describing the countless variety of language games—the countless ways in which language is actually used in human interaction—Wittgenstein meant to show that “the speaking of a language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.” The meaning of a word, then, is not the object to which it corresponds but rather the use that is made of it in “the stream of life.”

Related to this point is Wittgenstein’s insistence that, with regard to language, the public is logically prior to the private. The Western philosophical tradition, going back at least to Descartes’s famous dictum “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”), has tended to regard the contents of one’s own mind as being foundational, the rock upon which all other knowledge is built. In a section of Philosophical Investigations that has become known as the private language argument, Wittgenstein sought to reverse this priority by reminding us that we can talk about the contents of our own minds only once we have learned a language and that we can learn a language only by taking part in the practices of a community. The starting point for philosophical reflection, therefore, is not our own consciousness but our participation in communal activities: “An ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria.”

This last remark, along with Wittgenstein’s robust rejection of Cartesianism generally, has sometimes led to his being interpreted as a behaviourist, but this is a mistake. He does not deny that there are inner processes, nor does he equate those processes with the behaviour that expresses them. Cartesianism and behaviourism are, for Wittgenstein, parallel confusions—the one insisting that there is such a thing as the mind, the other insisting that there is not, but both resting on the Augustinian picture of language by demanding that the word mind has to be understood as referring to some “thing.” Both theories succumb to the temptation to misunderstand the grammar of psychological descriptions.

---End quotation

The article was written by the British philosopher Ray Monk. Monk has written more than one book on Wittgenstein:

See:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ray-Monk/e/B000AQ6LCA/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1492230646&sr=1-1

For the Encyclopedia article see: 

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ludwig-Wittgenstein

The idea that we can only know and describe our inner experience, once we have a language, seems to me straightforward and very difficult to get around. Likewise, it seems clear that we first obtain a language only by means of various forms of social interaction. If there were no public criteria for the application of words, then it is difficult to see how they could be learned or inter-subjectively agreed or adjusted. Our facility to describe and understand our own inner experience depends on conceptual accomplishments already in place when we arrive on the scene; and it is consequently very difficult to imagine how a language, private in principle could be thought possible at all. Even the origin of language or specific conceptual resources of language --suitable for communication-- implies social interaction: what Wittgenstein calls (various and sundry) "language games" --and which, I would emphasize, can be (but are not always) as serious and weighty as anything in life.   

H.G. Callaway

Dear Callaway,

I can only agree with your last post.

1. Language is a communication practice among member of a community.  

2.  We learn language from our interaction with locutors.  We  have empirical study that demonstrate that this learning starts way before birth.  Pre-born baby  learn to decode the intonation in a way that is specific to the mother language;  a pre-born baby whose mother speak English is developing a different tone decoding than a Pre-born baby whose mother speaks French.   Also eye contacts between baby and mother during breast feeding is a also important in language aquisition. It is a language in itself.  Human gazing is unique in the animal kingdom and permit us to indicate to each other where our attention is.   Mother naturally speak into a singing manner to the babies and this is interpretated as the traced of an ancient epock where singing and speaking were not yet separate activities.  Body language of all sorts are also natural and are most probably traces of earlier language.  We also have knowledge of the genealogical trees of cultures and languages.

3.  The infants do develop private/internal speech not in the initial stage of learning language but only after it has been mastered in the interaction with other.  So the private speech is a late development.

4. There is such an asymetry between the lifespan of a human life and the period of times where what is learned is put in place:

- Evolution of the language and society

- Evolution of all society and culture

-Evolution of primate to humans and to first language

- Evolution of mammals, etc

Then we cannot expect that the part that the individual has in his own mind to have a lot that is unique compared to what is learned previous to the birth of that individual.

5.  Taking language use serioiusly in the philosophical investigation is something that happen at the Socratic turn in Greek philosophy.  The first pre-soccratic period was more Descates like and did not involve much attention to culture, society and lanaguage while it became central after Socrates.  Descartes is a return to this pre-socratic era where the new science is more concern with inanimate world but very soon after Descartes when the concern of understanding life and society resurface with people such as Vico, Reid and Herder and their followers, and they focus on Language , imagination, culture and history.  

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Brassard,

Overall, your comments sound a bit like "Two cheers for Wittgenstein and the private language argument." (!) 

Though you make a point of agreement, you write "Language is a communication practice among member of a community." I would agree that it is that at least, but it is also, relevantly a cognitive means --e.g., the means of our understanding or reporting inner experience. Not every imaginable communicative language might equally serve the cognitive functions. 

You also wrote, " So the private speech is a late development." Presumably, you mean the facility to describe our private experiences. So, interpreted, Wittgenstein would agree; but at the same time, endorsing "private speech," you may appear to suggest a disagreement with the private language argument? 

Might we say, with Newton that our cognitive accomplishments (including our facility to describe or report private experience) presuppose that we have "stood on the shoulder of giants?" You seem to suggest that Descartes, in any case, refused needed support. (The usual view is that he was intent on overturning the Scholastic opposition to the new developments of early modern science.) 

I think it one of the remarkable traits of Wittgenstein's much needed emphasis on the relation of linguistic meaning to public usage, practices and "forms of life," that there is virtually no mention of any specifics of actual cultures and societies. In this way, the private language argument, in particular, appears comparatively independent of our specific cultures or cultural commitments.

Do you have lingering doubts on the private language argument? --or is it perhaps some reluctance to give credit where credit is due?    

H.G. Callaway

Dear Callaway,

''reporting inner experience''

Why do we use the expression ''inner experience'' ?  Why not simply ''experience''?  

When I said " So the private speech is a late development." I was not understanding what ''private speech'' means for Wittgenstein.  I was thinking that ''private speech'' was simply the stream of thoughts/consciousness which is more or less a stream of self-enact dream-like experience, a self-generate mix experience narrative. 

But now I think that Witttenstein would not consider the above as ''private speech'' .  Only what cannot be in a form common with others would qualify as ''private speech''.  

I think Descartes made very important contributions, the biggest is his vision of experiemental science (not alone on this chapter) and his second : analytical geometry.  It is on this second that Newton/Leibniz built Calculus and mecanic.  For that Descartes clarified Galileo. Galileo invented space time but it was not totally clear.  Analytical geometry made it clear.  Each clarification , new focus of attention more often than not is achieved by conceiling other aspects of reality.  There is two sides to each focus.  The dark side of this new thinking, mathematically focus was a distanciation from the other aspects of our being expressed in our ordinary languages.  The anthropomorphic aspects had to be suppress as much as possible because it is not communicable into the mathematical language.  I will take a few century for that to become clear for a few philosophers.  The dark side of the enlightment, this new way of thinking.

Dear Callway

                    I make my points partly from an early attempt at 19 yrs old to disprove the alleged Impossibility of having a  private language by trying to construct one . When I realised what I had constructed was a code that found definition in English equivalents . Not a True Language.

We can similarly codify the logical step "therefore" with a triangle of three dots (as we do ) but its meaning is in the English word and its associated Morpheme or translatable equivalents in true languages having morphemes of their own in a language family and defined in Aristotelian Deductive and Inductive Logic .

I also speak as primarily a Metaphysician. Seeing the whole project of Philosophy bound up in fulfilling the Goals of First Philosophy "Ti To On' What really exists and has being ? in foundational Ontology. Philo-Sophia - the Love of and seeking of Wisdom: the universal truth behind particulars. On which score Wittgenstein's entirely valid attempt to build a purely logical philosophy  without a basis in an ontology to justify sense experience of the phenomenal world . Stood entirely Language dependant. I think he may have been a yet better Philosopher if not seconded into Russell's project of Formal Symbolic Logic and forced to study Frege partly as interpreter.The Private language of Frege at one stage as inventor of it ...but was it a Language ? Or just a Code ?

Similarly if "S" refers to a particular sensation . If the castaway has a pre-existing Language who is on the desert Island in Wittgenstein's example. It is no more than a Code. A shorthand defined by the morphemes of their pre-existing language  .

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Tarran & readers,

I suspect you are having trouble with the linguists' technical concept of the morpheme?--this corresponds, more or less, to the ordinary (non-technical) concept of a word in a language. 

Websters' says, 

Definition of morpheme

:  a distinctive collocation of phonemes (as the free form pin or the bound form -s of pins) having no smaller meaningful parts. 

---End quotation

The chief point here is that both pin and -s as in pins are morphemes, though, of course, we would not be inclined to regard the -s of the plural ending as a word. 

Regarding phoneme, in turn, Websters' says,

Definition of phoneme

:  any of the abstract units of the phonetic system of a language that correspond to a set of similar speech sounds (as the velar \k\ of cool and the palatal \k\ of keel) which are perceived to be a single distinctive sound in the language. 

---End quotation

Since phonemes are understood to be a "units of a phonetic system of a language," and morpheme is defined in terms of phonemes, it follows, I think, that a morpheme is to be understood as a morpheme of some particular language or other --thought, for sure, different languages may share similar phonemes and morphemes. Morphemes are said to have no smaller meaningful sub-units. 

Now it seems, too, that your related ideas turn heavily on your use of the word code. There seems to be an ambiguity or indefiniteness here about whether a code can be a language and whether the specialized logical and mathematical systems of Frege, Russell and early Wittgenstein are to count as languages --or are they merely codes--and therefore not languages? 

What then is a code? and can the distinction to be made out between a language and a code be so weighty and definite? 

Regarding code, the relevant definition would seem to be the following.

Websters' says:

3

a : a system of signals or symbols for communication

b : a system of symbols (as letters or numbers) used to represent assigned and often secret meanings

---End quotation

3b, seems to have to do with secret codes, but even secret codes would seem to be used for communication as in 3a. Our question seems to be the following, Would a code, that is, a system of signals or symbols for communication, count as a language? If so, this would presumably be a special purpose language, not a common or everyday language for ordinary use. Specifically, would a code in this sense have morphemes, that is units of meaning? Well, clearly, if something is being communicated by means of the special signals or symbols of the code, then it must have units of meaning, that is morphemes, in the linguists' technical usage. 

But part of your point is that the meanings involved are borrowed from another language, or a language in the usual sense. O.k. suppose they are. I think this a common character of specialized or technical languages--that they borrow from ordinary language and introduce technical developments of various sorts. Likewise, various languages of ordinary usage are known to borrow their meanings from other languages --as English, for example borrows from Latin and Greek --and many other languages. Yet the borrowed meanings of symbols in technical languages often become standardized in the usage of the specialized language. An example here is c. In the specialized language of physics, c = the speed of light. (The physicists' c is then a word, not merely a letter.) Likewise, in the specialized language of logic and logical theory, &  often stands in for and, and v stands in for or--though there is some regimentation or technical development of the meanings of the ordinary words. (Still & is usually spoken and, and v is spoken or.) Insofar as the usage of symbols in specialized languages become standardized, they would seem to count as morphemes of the specialized technical languages. This contrasts in degree with the idea of a once-off code, put in place for one occasion and later changed or falling out of usage. The same would seem to go, by the way, for the technical language of transformational grammar.  

I think there is little doubt, by the way, that later Wittgenstein, in the private language argument is involved in a criticism of Russell's (Cartesian) epistemological doctrines from The Philosophy of Logical Atomism--and equally in a criticism of his own views in the Tractatus. He comes out closer to Frege (given Frege's stress on the distinction between meaning and reference) than to early Russell. 

Notice, again the following entry from the definition of language.

Websters' says:

(5) : a formal system of signs and symbols (such as FORTRAN or a calculus in logic) including rules for the formation and transformation of admissible expressions (6) : machine language. 

H.G. Callaway

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Brassard, 

Thanks for the clarification.

You wrote:

But now I think that Wittgenstein would not consider the above as ''private speech'' . Only what cannot be in a form common with others would qualify as ''private speech''.  

---End quotation

That is much closer to understanding what Wittgenstein was rejecting in the private language argument. It is not that he is rejecting the possibility of our silently thinking to ourselves about our experience.

H.G. Callaway 

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all,

Readers of this thread may find the following question of interest:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_consciousness_scientifically_ineffable_or_instead_specified_by_content

Please have a look.

H.G. Callaway

Dear all,

Language has its own path and constitutive power in generating and organizing life; “to imagine a language means to imagine a life-form” (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations,1967, I 19, p. 8). Language precedes a priori the creation of any concept, perception, theory, symbolic form or any key constituent of understanding and thought, or any fundamental mental ingredient and principle. Language reveals its fundamental true nature by approaching reality through life, intellect and science. Life, as it is merely lived, is senseless without language’s mediation. It is perhaps conceivable that we may have a direct apprehension or intuition of life, but the meaning of life can be neither apprehended nor expressed, except through language. By approaching reality either through understanding or in an intuitive way, language is always initially there, in its real sense; ergo, the limits of my language are the limits of my subject matter, my reality, my world. Language, as a primordial source of human existence, is the essential starting point of human thought, inasmuch as it is revealed in its most creative and vital phases of existence. By discussing the meaning of language, we are discussing what counts as belonging to the world; our idea of what belongs to the world is given in the use of language. The world is what is presented through concepts; if our concepts change, then our concept of the world – i.e., our reality – changes correspondingly.

Israel,

'' Life, as it is merely lived, is senseless without language’s mediation.''

This would mean that life is senseless for other animals.  Which is surely not the case.  A life without language is probably not a human life but it would not be senseless.  Animals make good use of their senses.  And language for human is not the only way we make sense of it.  All the arts are making sense of life, not only language.  Language is an art among many.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Idalovichi, 

You wrote:

Life, as it is merely lived, is senseless without language’s mediation.

---End quotation

It strikes me that the word "senseless" in this context suggests "meaningless." The point would be that it is by use of language that we give meaning to life. In context, you seem clearly to be concerned with human life, not animal life. "Senseless," is used in many similar contexts, as when we speak of senseless violence or senseless behavior. This usage parallels the German, "sinnlos." I do not take you to imply that human life without language would thereby give up the senses. You also wrote: "the meaning of life can be neither apprehended nor expressed, except through language."

On the other hand, there are many thing we see and hear, which animals cannot see or hear. I take it, for instance, that the family cat cannot see that it is a delivery man at the door, though it sees the man at the door.

H.G. Callaway 

Life cannot have any communicable meaning without language. The animals are having their ways of communication bu it is not human. Even if I am living in solitude, I am trying to find a scope, a meaning to my life by referring to the meaning of my life through language.

Revelation or feelings or sensual perception are communicable only through language.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Idalovichi & readers,

When you say, "life cannot have any communicable meaning without language," this strikes me as quite in the spirit of later Wittgenstein. So, we might ask, could there be such a thing as non-communicable meaning? Or, to put the question in another way, could we know that life had non-communicative meaning, if it did? 

But allow me to challenge your claim. Is the idea of non-communicable meaning an oxymoron? A contradiction in terms? Are there things of significance to life, things which give it a sense, which cannot be communicated? (I stress the word cannot.) It is true, of course, that I cannot have your exact experience, and you cannot have mine. But does this amount to meanings which cannot be communicated? Or should we prefer to say that meanings are just the kind of things which can always be communicated, though perhaps they sometimes remain unarticulated? 

H.G. Callaway