Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument And Its Practical Applications

[Patrick1000]

Many claim that though interesting, the study of philosophy seldom, if ever, and perhaps never, provides a concrete and useful "result".

As a counter to that argument, some Wittgenstein disciples, if not passionate advocates of the great philosopher's views, still being serious students of the Austrian/Brit, suggest, and rather persuasively at least in my opinion, that Wittgenstein's PRIVATE LANGUAGE ARGUMENT is not only a valid and objective concrete philosophical result, but one with profoundly useful applications. For example, in the study of pain management by anesthesiologists and others so interested, the admonitions of Wittgenstein's PRIVATE LANGUAGE VIEWS might be helpful in our understanding what pain is exactly, if anything can exactly be so said of a sensation that might be construed as objective. The PRIVATE LANGUAGE RESULT may be helpful in our understanding as to what someone "means" when they say they have pain, whether that person be a patient in a medical clinic, or someone complaining of pain outside such a context, even a child complaining of emotional pain.

How do others view the PRIVATE LANGUAGE ARGUMENT of Wittgenstein? Is it a valid, OBJECTIVE, concrete, repeatable finding? Is it useful? Might it help us understand things like "pain"?

Are there other philosophers besides Wittgenstein who have provided us with something interesting and special that might more than simply pass casually for an objective result, indeed be something representing a very solid, objective and even repeatable discovery/condition of the world as it were, just as a result from an important mainstream scientific analysis/study would be viewed as one that was important, solid, repeatable, and as such, be a finding/discovery ultimately having valuable practical applications?

If your answer is "yes", please share with us who these philosophers were and what they had to say about our world that was in a very real sense objective, concrete and perhaps most importantly, practically useful as such. This, owing to the result's objective, if not ultimately scientifically repeatable quality.

 

[Twiler]

Perhaps you should give a brief summary of the argument. While we could look it up, it'd be useful to establish some common terminology.

 

[Patrick1000]

The Argument

Perhaps you should give a brief summary of the argument. While we could look it up, it'd be useful to establish some common terminology.

Wittgenstein's claim is difficult to articulate in brief. It is a broad statement in a very real sense, with even broader implications.

That said, Wittgenstein's claim in outline states that there is no such thing as a PRIVATE LANGUAGE.

For example, the chair upon which you sit has "objectivity", and you use the word "chair" to objectively reference it. The object and words match in a sense. Some people would go so far as to say that this is what language is all about. Wittgenstein himself did just this when he was a relatively young, and incredibly important philosopher. Bertrand Russell thought the young Wittgenstein to possess the very best philosophical mind in the world. With regard to what language is all about, the views of that fine young mind would change dramatically over the course of time, becoming all the more and more interesting and unconventional.

Consider "pain". Pain is not like a chair. Let us say that it is my pain, Patrick1000's pain. For the sake of argument, to get us started, I will say my pain, unlike the chairs upon which we sit, constitutes a PRIVATE OBJECT. You cannot see or feel my pain. But for me, it is an object of sorts, and in a "mainstream" sense, most would say that we name our private objects, just as we do the chair. We see/feel/recognize internal objects and attach a word to them in reference. This makes some intuitive sense, actually a lot for most people, myself included, when I first came to this years back. (I discovered Wittgenstein in earnest 25 years ago by way of an interest in the philosophy of mathematics, another story altogether.)

Wittgenstein says to us, "NO!!!!, there is no such thing as a PRIVATE LANGUAGE that names and deals with PRIVATE OBJECTS such as pain. When I say, "I have pain". I am NOT naming a private object with a word belonging to a PRIVATE LANGUAGE. I am doing something else entirely.

In a sense, Wittgenstein's claim is that language more or less belongs to our objective THIRD PERSON WORLD. There is no such thing as a PRIVATE LANGUAGE, no such thing as an exclusively "FIRST PERSON LANGUAGE" that deals with/operates in the realm of naming my private objects such as my pain. I can name a chair. This is valid. According to Wittgenstein, on the other hand, I CANNOT name my pain. Words, NONE OF THEM, belong to the private world.

So then, what are we to make of our use of such words? What is pain? If this is correct in an objective sense, THE DENIAL OF PRIVATE LANGUAGE, the implications are over the top interesting and profound, perhaps even useful.

"Philosophical Investigations" is the name of the primary Wittgenstein reference for this. It was a book written over many years time.

I cut plenty of corners above. This is one of the most blue collar views of the world in a sense by one of our great philosophers, perhaps the most important of the 20th century. Certainly, Wittgenstein hands down ranks among the most important half dozen. It is rather easy to get going with a study of this, but much is nevertheless counter intuitive.

That's a good start, see what you can find out Twiler. It is over the top interesting, very beautiful idea, beautiful.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Short answer, yes.

I have found the argument useful in discussing various topics about our conscious minds as well as ethics/morality. Just as a private language is meaningless I think that a private ethical system is meaningless. Both language and ethics/morality have their origins in individuals but neither reach their fruition without interaction with other individuals; neither have any real meaning except through interaction with others.

When it comes to words, we could speak of pain just as easily as 'blue'. What is blue? We can talk about wavelengths of light hitting photoreceptors, but there are several wavelengths in the right context of brightness, etc. that can be perceived as blue. 'Blue' is, in some sense, a social convention anchored to a limited number of stimuli; it is not an objective fact about the world in and of itself (the actual wavelength of light), but rather an interaction between the light, photoreceptors, and neural processing in the context of language use within a community.

 

[Minoosh]

When it comes to words, we could speak of pain just as easily as 'blue'. What is blue?

Why is it always blue? At least, it was blue in Season 3 "Mad Men." But, a bunch of people could be shown paint samples and I suspect most would agree on what is "blue" vs. "yellow." Pain seems more individual. I know mine is.

 

[Trent Wray]

Why is it always blue? At least, it was blue in Season 3 "Mad Men." But, a bunch of people could be shown paint samples and I suspect most would agree on what is "blue" vs. "yellow." Pain seems more individual. I know mine is.

Bruising ?

 

[HikakaGirl]

Many claim that though interesting, the study of philosophy seldom, if ever, and perhaps never, provides a concrete and useful "result".

Are there other philosophers besides Wittgenstein who have provided us with something interesting and special that might more than simply pass casually for an objective result, indeed be something representing a very solid, objective and even repeatable discovery/condition of the world as it were, just as a result from an important mainstream scientific analysis/study would be viewed as one that was important, solid, repeatable, and as such, be a finding/discovery ultimately having valuable practical applications?

If your answer is "yes", please share with us who these philosophers were and what they had to say about our world that was in a very real sense objective, concrete and perhaps most importantly, practically useful as such. This, owing to the result's objective, if not ultimately scientifically repeatable quality.

Well, this may not be exactly what you are asking for, but I think it definitely addresses the question in an indirect but very powerful way. The way I'm reading your post is that you are asking for examples of philosophers whose discussions have generated scientifically testable and/or practically useful concepts, processes, etc. There have been many philosophers of science, and I think the one-two punch of Kant and Popper laid some heavy duty foundations for practical processes in the study of science, which in turn have lead to innumerable discoveries with theoretical and practical implications.

Briefly, Kant laid the ground work for Popper with the distinction of a "thing in itself" versus the "object of perception".

Popper then took this and proposed that there were "three worlds" -- physical reality (Kant's "thing in itself"), sensational phenomena (sensory input), and mental constructs (things [concepts] built on sensory perceptions). These three worlds have become the cornerstones for establishing what is known as construct validity within the social sciences (this is my background, I can't speak for other areas, but Popper is/was very influential). That is, the connections between how we describe something, how we measure it, and it's presence in the real world. Construct validity is a methodology by which we attempt, as best we can, to make sure that our concepts of things -- constructs, like the example of pain you use in your follow-on post -- match up with reality, and further that we can measure that construct with a certain amount of accuracy. I'm sort of paraphrasing here, I'll admit, for the sake of explanation. It's a serious endeavor for social scientists, because we study things that are often times not very concrete or easily described. We need to establish that we're talking about a phenomenon that is real and that it is indeed measurable and replicable. At any rate, the process is definitely not perfect, and there are certainly some things that we are able to get a very good handle on describing, measuring and determining the reality of the phenomenon (fairness), and some things we struggle with (pain).

So Popper's "result", that is, the establishment of the concept of what we know as construct validity, is itself a process by which we have generated many, many other "results" in the social sciences, which in turn have very real practical implications.

Really interesting question! I'm looking forward to reading others' responses.

HG

 

[Robrob]

On a similar note, I find it interesting that terms in (seemingly) phonetically unrelated languages can have the same logical basis. In English, your "right" hand and being "right" have a relationship of correctness as do all our other words using "right."

In French, "droite" shares an obvious phonetic lineage with the English word.

OTOH, in Russian, the relationships are the same (hand/correctness) but the word "право" (prh-vah) doesn't come close to the English word.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Why is it always blue? At least, it was blue in Season 3 "Mad Men." But, a bunch of people could be shown paint samples and I suspect most would agree on what is "blue" vs. "yellow." Pain seems more individual. I know mine is.

My answer depends a bit on exactly what you are asking since there are several possibilities, but a few things first............

It isn't always blue. Blue depends on environmental context -- what the ambient surrounding light consists in (same color swatch in white light looks quite different in red light), the available contrast between the color and its surroundings, the amount of light available, etc. It also depends on the 'receiver' since if you are color blind you will see blue differently than someone who is not (thinking receptor based color blindness here), and if I muck about in your inferior occipital lobe you won't see any color, etc.

A short answer that might help, I think is this: our thinking is swayed by language conventions. When we see a car that looks blue we say -- look a blue car. But the 'blue' depends on what happens in our brains. When we see a sharp stick we say -- look a sharp stick. We don't say -- look a pain stick. But if you think about it the same process happens with pain as with other perceptions -- they depend on environmental cues interacting with receptors and being processed in our brains.

Our language convention is to internalize the pain process and to externalize visual phenomena.


ETA:

Though the convention exists probably because we get constant visual information and we don't tend to have sticks poking us except on rare occasions and stick do other things as well -- like poke other people or things -- where we feel nothing at all.

 

[Minoosh]

Though the convention exists probably because we get constant visual information and we don't tend to have sticks poking us except on rare occasions and stick do other things as well -- like poke other people or things -- where we feel nothing at all.

Yes, usually the pointed stick is only impaling one person at a time. If it's pointed on both ends it could stick two people at once. But the "pain" is not broadcast and in a sense blue is. We experience the blue in our brain, but so will most other people, exposed to the same stimulus.

In addition I believe it's more subjective. Listening to blaring rap coming out of someone else's car while stuck in traffic might be painful to me, pleasure to the person blaring it.

But really, this has nothing to do with Wittgenstein. That I know of.

 

[Pulvinar]

That said, Wittgenstein's claim in outline states that there is no such thing as a PRIVATE LANGUAGE.

I see a problem with this.

We have to allow communication between parts of a single brain to be a language, or else we're just begging the question here. Given that, think about split-brain subjects, where the two halves may operate independently as though they're two persons. Then consider what we should call the communication that goes through a normal intact corpus callosum between the two halves. Why isn't that a language of sorts? It's certainly private.

If the brain can be divided left-right, it seems that any subdivision could be made and the communication across that interface be taken as a private language, even down to the communication between any single neuron and the rest of the brain.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I see a problem with this.

We have to allow communication between parts of a single brain to be a language, or else we're just begging the question here. Given that, think about split-brain subjects, where the two halves may operate independently as though they're two persons. Then consider what we should call the communication that goes through a normal intact corpus callosum between the two halves. Why isn't that a language of sorts? It's certainly private.

If the brain can be divided left-right, it seems that any subdivision could be made and the communication across that interface be taken as a private language, even down to the communication between any single neuron and the rest of the brain.

Presumably all brains use the same internal 'language'. So it is not private; that 'language' (mentalese) would be closer to universal than any human language used to communicate between people.

Wittgenstein meant that a language that a single person would create to speak to him or herself makes no sense.

 

[Pulvinar]

Presumably all brains use the same internal 'language'. So it is not private; that 'language' (mentalese) would be closer to universal than any human language used to communicate between people.

Wittgenstein meant that a language that a single person would create to speak to him or herself makes no sense.

Kind of hard to talk about private language until we can settle some differences in this public one: I'm not limiting "language" to spoken ones nor conscious ones, as those limits would beg the question. Instead I'm looking at a repeatable patterns of information that have meaning to the sender and recipient (not necessarily the same meaning). In that sense, any pattern of information traveling on nerve axons is potentially in a private language.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Kind of hard to talk about private language until we can settle some differences in this public one: I'm not limiting "language" to spoken ones nor conscious ones, as those limits would beg the question. Instead I'm looking at a repeatable patterns of information that have meaning to the sender and recipient (not necessarily the same meaning). In that sense, any pattern of information traveling on nerve axons is potentially in a private language.

It's OK with me if you want to define language as communication among neural structures. But you have kept as the private space the individual. When discussing language use within a brain in this way the individuals would be different neural networks that communicate with one another. It wouldn't make sense for one structure to 'talk to itself'. Communication is between individuals, whether they are defined as people, neural structures, or whatever; that is what Wittgenstein was on about.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Yes, usually the pointed stick is only impaling one person at a time. If it's pointed on both ends it could stick two people at once. But the "pain" is not broadcast and in a sense blue is. We experience the blue in our brain, but so will most other people, exposed to the same stimulus.

In addition I believe it's more subjective. Listening to blaring rap coming out of someone else's car while stuck in traffic might be painful to me, pleasure to the person blaring it.

But really, this has nothing to do with Wittgenstein. That I know of.

Blue is no more broadcast than a stick might be. Imagine a world of sticks flying through the air, broadcast to every living thing just as light rays are in our world. Would we not speak of pain being broadcast in that world? Would we speak of these flying things as pain-sticks more readily, or possibly just pain?


There is no primary difference between seeing blue and feeling pain in terms of the environment affecting receptor and perception depending on neural processing. There is a big difference in the way we view these different processes for at least two very big reasons -- we are primarily structured as visual creatures (light and the information it carries is very important to us), and pain elicits an entirely different and much more profound emotional response than seeing blue does.

That there is considerable variability in pain perception in the general population as opposed to light perception is an interesting fact, but it doesn't change the basic neurology of the situation.

 

[Pulvinar]

It's OK with me if you want to define language as communication among neural structures. But you have kept as the private space the individual. When discussing language use within a brain in this way the individuals would be different neural networks that communicate with one another. It wouldn't make sense for one structure to 'talk to itself'. Communication is between individuals, whether they are defined as people, neural structures, or whatever; that is what Wittgenstein was on about.

Then the next question is: why doesn't it make sense for one structure to talk to itself? If a person (or neural network) can generate language and can also receive and process it, the path can certainly be fed back from output to input, for example, listening to yourself talk (possibly silently).

I've read his beetle in a box argument, but never found it convincing for distinguishing public and private language. It seems that in the sense he's referring to, *all* language is private.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

On a similar note, I find it interesting that terms in (seemingly) phonetically unrelated languages can have the same logical basis. In English, your "right" hand and being "right" have a relationship of correctness as do all our other words using "right."

In French, "droite" shares an obvious phonetic lineage with the English word.

OTOH, in Russian, the relationships are the same (hand/correctness) but the word "право" (prh-vah) doesn't come close to the English word.

I wonder how far back that goes. It certainly shows up in latin (sinister and dexter) as they've come to be used in english*. I wonder if those positive and negative connotations already existed in latin usage.

*OK, the relationship between dexter and "correct" isn't quite there but it gives us "dexterity", meanwhile "sinister" is definitely negative.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Then the next question is: why doesn't it make sense for one structure to talk to itself? If a person (or neural network) can generate language and can also receive and process it, the path can certainly be fed back from output to input, for example, listening to yourself talk (possibly silently).

I've read his beetle in a box argument, but never found it convincing for distinguishing public and private language. It seems that in the sense he's referring to, *all* language is private.

Feedback only makes sense within a system Feedback to change behavior based on prior input, feed-forward to anticipate future behaviors generally. Imagine a single neuron, the only neuron in existence, that feeds back on itself. Is there any way to call that language? Seems like simple self-repetitious behavior to me. I don't see how that could be characterized as communication.

 

[Pulvinar]

Feedback only makes sense within a system Feedback to change behavior based on prior input, feed-forward to anticipate future behaviors generally. Imagine a single neuron, the only neuron in existence, that feeds back on itself. Is there any way to call that language? Seems like simple self-repetitious behavior to me. I don't see how that could be characterized as communication.

You're forgetting the temporal aspect. I can surely write a note to myself in a language and read it later. Someone else could actually read or write it-- the mental processing on my end would be the same if the note was the same. So now if I experience something (creating an episodic memory) and recall that later, it seems that one one level at least those processes would be the same as if I had written down that experience and read about it later.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

You're forgetting the temporal aspect. I can surely write a note to myself in a language and read it later. Someone else could actually read or write it-- the mental processing on my end would be the same if the note was the same. So now if I experience something (creating an episodic memory) and recall that later, it seems that one one level at least those processes would be the same as if I had written down that experience and read about it later.

That is not what Wittgenstein discussed, however. His answer to you would be, sure you can do all that. But you didn't create that language in the first place to write yourself the note. He would also say, sure you could create your own language just to spite him, but it would be based on a language that you already learned from others.

However we want to discuss this, language is a means of communication between individuals (however defined); that is simply what it is. As such, if there were only one person alive on the planet, ever, with no other companion, ever, what sense would there be in constructing a language? That being, one living in isolation, would be entirely different from anyone raised in a language community. I don't even see how the concept of creating a written language to leave oneself a note in the future could even arise in such a situation.