Greg Detre
Thursday, 02 November, 2000
Mr Snowdon, Philosophy of Mind III
�Most of the propositions and questions of philosophers are meaningless as a result of our failure to understand the logic of our language�. Wittgenstein�s scattered remarks, concrete examples and inconclusive interlocutions are carefully deliberate. He is trying to force a change of attitude, rather than present a set of views to be distilled and adopted. His apparent unsystematicity of presentation is not because he is unable to write in a conventional format, but because his thought is characterised by, and best represented by, this style, this care in expressing thought with language without being led by or altered by language-in-use. �Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exerts on us.�
His system of �grammatical investigation� is intended to analyse, by demonstration, our particular way of expressing and using language with regard to a given area or concept. He gives concrete examples, discusses what we will accept as verification, how we would explain it to a child, where the areas of contention are � and in this way, the reader is forced to actively assemble his own understanding of how we talk about that area. There is no conclusion drawing it all together, only this wheeling around the topic, picking it up and examining it, by discussing it, coming to understand it and so see and avoid, the pitfalls surrounding it. This seems somewhat like the �intuition pump� that Dennett talks about and criticises as a means of illustrating a point in philosophy. For instance, when Searle came up with the Chinese room argument to attack the idea that symbolic rules could give rise to consciousness, you hear the thought experiment, and you immediately grasp his point � �though a list of rules might seem conscious, it would be an illusion� � Wittgenstein uses a similarly illustrative style, almost as a means of illustrating its limitations. He has no choice, because the means of communication here is the topic of discussion.
Wittgenstein�s intention is to expose how our use of language affects our thought processes. He talks about �grammatical differences�, where we use words differently when talking about an area or concept, so that the words take on different properties and relations to each other, i.e. altering their patterns of usage. By studying them in the wild as it were, by examining language-in-use, watching how we talk about examples and discuss the problems around them, we build up an appreciation of what we mean by the words. Indeed, he goes so far as to recommend that this should be philosophy�s approach to all discussion. To some, this feels almost as though he is recommending that we give up our attempts to penetrate and explain phenomena, instead merely describing them. McGinn styles this opposing attitude, the �theoretical attitude�. This �theorising� underlies the method of science. But Wittgenstein believes that it will not help us when discussing thought and meaning. In fact, looking for �discoveries� when trying to understand thought and meaning by analogy to questions like �What is the specific gravity of gold?� is what has led philosophers to metaphysics, i.e. �complete darkness�. Thus, we will find that �everything lies open to view [and] there is nothing to be explained�.
The problems that are thrown up by our use of language to reflect on language are deep, and the �theorising� path is enticing and passakble, hence well-trodden. When we attempt to explain meaning or sensation, we reify them; from being an �object of comparison�, a way of looking at things, we transform them with a literalness and explanatory force we don�t give them in ordinary life into �a preconceived idea to which reality must correspond�. He attacks the idea that our explanations, or �pictures� help us grasp the phenomena in two ways: firstly, by showing that these accounts and models do not tie in or resemble how we actually use language in describing these phenomena; and secondly, by showing that we don�t need explanations - all we need is to rearrange what we have always known, and the problem will cease to be, we will see how things are and we will be satisfied without having had to seek an explanation. For we are investigating the nature, or essence, of phenomena, and everything we need to know is contained in the structure of language-in-use, discernible by comparing how different regions of language differ, i.e. teasing out the �grammatical differences� � this is a �grammatical investigation�. Thus, when we can see the connections, see the pattern that emerges from our grammatical investigation, we have formed a �perspicuous representation�, i.e. a clear view of things, and so we understand them.
Wittgenstein�s consideration of a �private language� goes back to William James� idea (in the Principles of Pyschology) that we might form an ideal psychological language by which to refer to our subjective experiences, without reference to the objective world at all. This would allow us to better undertake the business of psychology, �discovering states of consciousness� by means of introspection. James argues that we need such a language, since even when we discuss the contents of our introspections and immediate sensations we are only able to describe them in terms of their outer world causes and instantiations, e.g. �a cheesy taste�, �a thunderous sound�, �an orange colour� etc. For him, we need to be able to describe our introspection, since this is how we access psychological phenomena, since �for an organism to have conscious experience at all � there must be something it is like to be that organism� (Nagel, 1979).
Tempting though it may be to try and learn about the nature of (our) psychological phenomena by introspection (turning our attention inwards), Wittgenstein deems this fruitless: one cannot learn about the nature of sensation by paying close attention to the feeling of a headache. On the contrary, we should not be concentrating our attention on the subjective feeling of actually being in pain, but rather look at the �kind of statement we make about the phenomena�. Just as James considers an ideal psychological language with which we could pin down and learn from our introspections, Wittgenstein plays around with the way we talk about sensation in order to show that introspection can never lead to a definition of a psychological term. Thus, his �private language argument� takes his usual form of considering in detail many concrete examples of our discussions and descriptions, so that our language-in-use becomes the object of study.
He looks at the way we teach and children learn language about pain. We teach them to replace their wailing and exclamations with words and sentences � new pain-behaviour. Using the word �pain� and talking in sentences about it replaces the grammatical concept of crying. There is no reference to internal states or subjective feelings of being in pain needed or involved in defining this new linguistic pain-behaviour. Neither the adult nor the child points inwardly to the headache and anchors or ascribes to it the notion of �pain�. The connection between �pain� and the feeling is established by looking at the grammar of the psychological concepts.
Wittgenstein attacks the idea that pain is private in the way that a picture in my head is private. One does not �know� that one is in pain � you just are in pain. Thus it is possible for someone else to know I am in pain, but I just am in pain. He is demonstrating that the public/private distinction is a grammatical one. The grammar of sensation and behaviour concepts enables us to differentiate their essences. �Essence is expressed by grammar�. Thus, to say �Sensations are private� is effectively tautologous. The psychological language-game differs from the physical language-game in its logic.
The problems we have in talking about pain are related to this public/private distinction we think there is. Can we talk about �pain� in the same way that we talk about �chairs� � �this one is qualitatively similar, but they are still numerically distinct�? We don�t have a means of identifying pains � looking inward and introspectively pointing to the pain doesn�t help. We cannot fix the boundary between the psychological and the physical in terms of what we can introspectively know and what is publicly visible/accessible then � we need to look to grammar to set the boundary and tell what kind of thing �pain� is � no other criterion or point of reference, e.g. introspectability, will help. So, Wittgenstein�s intention here has been to set up an opposition between introspection and grammar as the source of our grasp of what pain is. Now, with the private language argument, he�s going to attack introspection as a means of understanding what sensations in general are.
Wittgenstein starts by asking why I can�t just associate a name in my head with a given sensation that I feel. The interlocutor asks what would happen if adults displayed no pain-behaviour (did not groan, grimace etc.). The interlocutor answers that it would be impossible to teach a child the use of the word �toothache�. But the child would still be able to associate the actual sensation of a toothache with a word of its own in its head. Or would it? Apparently, our ordinary technique of talking about pain is bound up with our natural expression of pain, i.e. the word �pain� and how we use it in sentences (i.e. �pain� as a grammatical concept) grows up directly out of �Ouch� and a grimace. �Pain� as a grammatical concept refers to pain-behaviour, but not the feeling of pain.
So why can�t the child just call this sensation �pain� or whatever, by associating the sensation with a name? Because this naming that we are able to do so easily in normal language rests on a lot of preliminary stage-setting. We cannot simply name something; this presupposes a whole grammatical structure into which our new word can simply slot. Without a grammar for psychological language, we have no means of defining our new word�s meaning, since we cannot place it in context relative to other words.
So, we can�t name our sensations because: naming pre-supposes a grammar; and introspection doesn�t supply this grammar. He talks about marking a calendar on every occurrence of the sensation, in order to make explicit the connection between the sensation and its symbol/name, �S�. But without a criterion of correctness, how can we be sure that we know the bounds of the sensation, i.e. can exactly when we are and are not experiencing that sensation denoted by �S�. So the problem becomes: we are unable to parcel up our phenomenal landscape and so we are unable to define grammatical concepts and their connections to each other (i.e. name them). If we can�t talk of our use of �S� being �right� or not, we have failed to give �S� meaning. We�ll never know if we�re using �S� correctly because we�ll never be quite sure what �S� was referring to, and we�ll never have the original sensation to which we were referring to compare against our current use.
When we talk of a grammar of introspection as being necessary to name the contents of our introspection, we talk of a means of knowing what it is that we have named. He is not baldly saying that language cannot connect with the inner, only that it cannot connect through introspection. �Introspection can never lead to a definition�. There is a difference between a lack of grammar (to establish what it is exactly, i.e. which bounded area, of my total awareness that I am singling out with this name) and our inability to remember in future what I had meant by the name. Wittgenstein is more worried about the first part, that �S� doesn�t have a meaning because it doesn�t have a use because there�s nothing that determines and no way of knowing when to write it in the diary.
So, the private linguist has no non-circular usable criterion of correctness to apply against future uses of the name, �S�, and his memory of the original sensation is fallible. He needs public criteria against which to hold up his use of �S�. Without such an independent check (e.g. behavioural manifestation) a private language�s hold on our psychological concepts is tenuous and shifting. In short, in order for there to be language about sensation, it must refer to the public exhibition of sensation, rather than the direct, private introspection, because we have no other way of fixing what we mean by sensation-names.
Critics have labelled this as just a verificationist defence of logical behaviourism. It can be seen as akin to Galen Strawson�s broad definition of neobehaviourism as requiring all mental states to have behavioural implications. Wittgenstein is not suggesting in an ontological sense that mental states must have behavioural implications, but that if we are to know about them, then it is true (i.e. in an epistemological sense). McGinn wants to focus on the message that we cannot understand psychological concepts through introspection. So it�s not so much that psychological concepts must have behavioural implications, but that it is through a grammatical investigation of psychological concepts in language-in-use that we can come to know them best.
Since Wittgenstein starts talking about �pain� rather than �S� after PI 263, McGinn thinks he is using his remarks on private language to bolster a wider argument against our use of �sensation� as referring to something we point to inwardly, i.e. that introspection is not the source of our grammatical psychological concepts. It is tempting to think that the meaning of a sensation word is imparted to us (as from a teacher to a pupil) from observing others�/our own sensation-behaviour, but that introspection still plays a vital role in coming to understand what is meant by �sensation�.
Setting up an imaginary dictionary doesn�t help us any more than pointing inwardly: we still have no concrete point of reference. We cannot �exhibit� with the imagination in order to point to it, just as looking up a clock in the imagination determines the time. A person giving himself a private definition of a word is like the right hand giving the left hand a present.
It all comes down to how inwardly pointing to a pain helps us use the word �pain� in language. According to Wittgenstein, it doesn�t. So what is it about �S�, if not speculation about what is going on inside the speaker when he says it, that identifies it as a sensation-word? It�s grammatical usage: the characteristic first-person/third-person asymmetry, that ascribing properties of duration and intensity make sense, the possibility of pretence etc.
I think he introduces the caveat that someone who misuses �pain� but in an appropriate-seeming way (i.e. consistently, i.e. grammatically correctly) is like a wheel turning detached from the mechanism. The wheel is the word, and the mechanism is meaning. This is inconsistent with logical behaviourism. I think he is saying that correct grammatical usage is enough to distinguish and identify �pain�, without fixing it independently to introspection.
The problem with Wittgenstein�s account is that it seems to rid us of the notion that introspection defines our sensation-words without fully explaining how else we come to be able to use them. However, the private language argument is strong enough to force us to revise any Cartesian notions of the mental as being perfectly transparent, and that a language existing only in our heads is logically possible.