Evaluate the notion of private language

Hello Aspirants,

The notion of a private language is a philosophical concept that refers to the idea that an individual can have a language that is completely private to them and cannot be understood by anyone else. This idea was first proposed by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his later work.

The notion of a private language has been the subject of much debate and criticism in the philosophical community. One of the main criticisms is that a private language would be impossible because language requires communication and shared understanding. If a language were truly private, it would be impossible for the individual using it to communicate with anyone else.

Additionally, some argue that the idea of a private language is self-contradictory because the very act of inventing a language presupposes that there is a shared understanding of the concepts being communicated. The creation of a private language would thus be an impossible feat.

Overall, the notion of a private language remains a controversial and debated topic in philosophy. While some argue that it is impossible, others continue to explore the idea and its implications for our understanding of language and communication.

Download GK Notes 

• Vajiram and Ravi Polity Handwritten Notes PDF
• Vision IAS Polity Notes PDF In Hindi
• laxmikant polity handwritten notes pdf in hindi Download
• Drishti IAS Indian Polity notes PDF in Hindi
• Indian Polity Handwritten Notes in Hindi PDF Download
• Vision IAS Indian Geography Notes PDF In Hindi
• Mahesh Barnwal Geography Book in Hindi
• Drishti IAS Indian Geography notes PDF in Hindi
• Ankur Yadav Handwritten Notes PDF Download
• Alok Ranjan Geography Handwritten Notes PDF Download
• Khan Sir History Notes PDF Download In Hindi
• Vision IAS History Notes PDF Free Download
• Drishti IAS Indian History Notes PDF In Hindi
• Modern History of India Notes PDF In English
• Indian history notes pdf download In Hindi
• History of Medieval India by Satish Chandra PDF Download

Evaluate the notion of private language

Wittgenstein defines the notion of a private language in §243 of the Philosophical Investigations (PI): The words of this language are to refer to what can be known only by the speaker – to his immediate, private sensations. So another cannot understand the language. Such a language would be logically private, in that the signs that make it up would be necessarily inaccessible to others. (Thus, it would be mistaken to think of a private language as being in any way similar to a public language used to refer to sensations.)

I shall now spell out what I take to be the correct interpretation of the private language argument (PLA), as an attack on Cartesian philosophies (which must at least implicitly assume that such a language is possible in order to get off the ground).

First though, I shall briefly consider some interpretive questions:

A: Clarifications about the PLA

• Is there a PLA at all?

Some commentators have questioned whether the passages in the PI which concern the notion of a private language are properly identifiable as a sustained argument.

However, the idea that there actually is no PLA depends for its plausibility on a very narrow conception of ‘argument’ (as a kind of proof with identifiable premises and a firm conclusion).

We may conceive of PI as presenting a PLA in the general sense that Wittgenstein clearly intends to make a philosophical point – though a series of reasoned statements, he wants to correct a confusion about the possibility of a logically private language.

• The significance of the PLA

What does the PLA attempt to show? One function of the argument is to show that the very possibility of language/concept formation depends on the possibility that there could be some agreement in human behaviour (as to what the correct technique for the application of the language/concept in question is).

A second function of the argument is to show that there are no metaphysical absolutes: the meaning of any sign (that refers to a sensation) depends on the rules for the use of that sign (and not just on whether you have correctly named that sensation).

If sensations were metaphysical absolutes then the possibility of a shared practice (of how we use sensation-concepts) would be irrelevant to their meaning, and our sensation concepts could be private. The PLA is usually taken to be arguing that the possibility of such shared practices are essential to the meanings of all concepts, and thus that no language can be logically private.

So Wittgenstein appears to be hunting big game: He’s attacking fundamental assumptions that prop up a number of philosophical schools of thought. (For example, the Cartesian conception of the mind if often taken to presuppose the possibility of a logically private language which allows you to be certain about your own sensations even in the face of doubt about whether anything else at all actually exists.) It looks like he is challenging such philosophical views by claiming that their core assumption that such a language is possible is mistaken.

B: The Private Language Argument

The PLA is typically taken to occur between §§243-315 of the PI, and its conclusion can be summarized as follows: A language which is in principle unintelligible to anyone other than its originating user is impossible. This is because such a language would also be unintelligible to its supposed originator, for he would be unable to establish meanings for its putative signs.

So W is arguing that the notion of a private language is incoherent because it is a violation of grammar. Attempts to formulate such a language will either be i) incoherent, or ii) result I a language that is actually public.

The PLA can be divided into three stages.

1)  Private languages aren’t like public languages

In the first stage of the PLA, Wittgenstein argues that a private language can’t be arrived at by making alterations to any public language:

There are two sense of ‘private’ which a philosopher might have in mind when suggesting that sensations are private. Sensations, as they’re talked about in natural language, are private in neither of them.

We might say that only I can know if I have a sensation; another person can only surmise it – in this way, sensations are private. But 1) if we are using the word ‘know’ as we ordinarily use it then people often know of my sensations, so they are public. Alternatively, 2) we might argue that uniquely I can’t doubt that I’m having a particular sensation. W claims that in this case I can’t really be said to ‘know’ at all – knowledge requires the possibility of doubt.

So we can’t arrive at the idea of a private language by considering a natural language: natural languages aren’t private, since our sensations can be expressed to others in them.

Neither can we conceive of a private language by starting with a natural language and subtracting all expression of sensations from it. Even if there could be language in a situation like this (where teaching is impossible), mere ‘mental association’ of one thing with another is not enough to make one name into another. (This is because one object may have several properties, and it must be established which of them a sign is supposed to pick out. This can be established only if we specify a technique for the signs use as well as which object it stands for.)

Naming a sensation requires more than just a correlation between a sign and a sensation – we also require a notion of what a sensation is (so that there is a place for the new word in our language).

2)  The diary case

The essential pillar of the PLA can be found in his discussion of the diary case. In this discussion we must temporarily assume it makes sense to conceive of someone recording their own sensations in some private language. Wittgenstein aims to show that even if this concession is made, the imagined private linguist will not be able to secure the meanings of sensation-words.

The basic ideas in the diary case are: 1) That the ‘statements’ in a private language of sensation would have content only if there was a substantial distinction between what seemed right to the private linguist and what actually was right. 2) That there can be no such distinction.

The absence of this seems right/is right distinction would render a private sensation-language impossible because a private linguist would be unable to generate a semantics for his private language out of his own intentions.

Roughly: The correct identification of a sensation would involve applying the identifying symbol to a sensation of the type the linguist wished it to be associated with when he attempted to establish the symbols meaning. The supporter of private language has an obligation to ensure that there’s a coherent notion of intention of the kind the private linguist needs – one such that by forming an intention on a ‘baptismal occasion’ I can (even in circumstances of privacy) create facts about the proper description of sensations that await me in the future.

Wittgenstein’s argument is that this can’t be achieved by any notion of intention.

i)  The Seems Right/Is Right Distinction

According to the Cartesian conception of the mental which Wittgenstein is examining, the truth of any linguist’s judgements concerning his sensations will originate in the truth of a contingent report of observation: it will be a matter of depicting an appropriate truth-conferring state of affairs (manifest to consciousness but distinct from the judging itself) whose content is precisely that such a state of affairs obtains.

The existence of a distinction between what seems right and what is right is a requirement of this comparison: The distinction is required for it to be appropriate to think of matters in terms of a possible fit between the linguist’s judgements concerning his sensations and the character those sensations actually have.

If judgements about sensations are to be viewed on the Cartesian observational model, we should conceive of their correctness (when they are correct) as rendered by something distinct from the judgement: the fact that it falls under the concept under which it is judged to fall.

ii)  What would suffice to establish a seems right/is right distinction?

What would suffice to establish a seems right/is right distinction? The implied answer of §258 is: some independent criterion of correctness – some method by which the linguist could check his judgements that initially strike him as correct.

Wittgenstein appears to argue that the privacy of the subject matter necessarily precludes the possibility of any such criterion: Is seems that no content can be established of the needed idea of congruence between the linguist’s successive convictions and the putative states of affairs they concern (and hence here we can’t talk about ‘right’).

iii) Privately defining signs

In the diary case, the definition of a sign can’t be expressed/formulated. If a meaning is to be secured for a ‘sign’, this must be achieved through a private exercise of ostensive definition (where I concentrate on the sensation and produce a sign at the same time). To see whether this is possible, I must:

Imagine I’m the private linguist. I have a sensation and make the mark ‘S’ at the same time. After this, I ‘believe’ myself to have established the meaning of ‘S’, and use it again to judge that I’m experiencing the same sensation.

What do I mean by ‘S’ on this second occasion? There are two possible answers: i) What I mean by ‘S’ is the sensation I am now having. Ii) What I mean by ‘S’ is the original sensation that I had in the past.

•  (i) – whatever seems right, is right

Wittgenstein rejects (i) on the grounds that it doesn’t allow for us to distinguish between right and wrong applications of S – I have not successfully established a technique for its use.

For there to be a factual assertion there must be a distinction between truth and falsehood. For there to be a distinction between truth and falsehood, there must be a further distinction between the source of truth and the source of the meaning of what is said (so that I may something that is meaningful but false).

Since we can’t intelligibly claim that “this is S” without appealing to the object in question, the claim is not a factual assertion. (So I have failed to establish the meaning of S.)

•  (ii) – can the linguist establish a technique for the use of S?

Wittgenstein rejects (ii) on the grounds that the private linguist can’t assign a meaning to a sign by private ostensive definition alone – for a sign to be meaningful we must also establish a technique for its use. The technique can’t function as a series of ostensive definitions, since as we saw in (i) this makes it impossible to make factual judgments. So the use of S must be established some other way. Can there be such a way?

We can’t assume that there is some way of using the sign that the private linguist succeeds in determining (let alone establishing) and which is the correct way – a defender of private language must show that there is.

iv)  Appeal to memory?

A defender of private language might attempt to show that the private linguist has established a technique for the use of S by appeal to his memory: he simply remembers how he used the sign before.

But the memory does at least have to be a memory – it has to be something determinate which existed independently of the sensation in question, and the ‘memory’ alone can’t bring such a thing into existence.

You can’t know (at the time of ostensive definition) the technique for S’s future use, and doubt about this can’t be removed by future ‘recollections’ of S. (If there was no genuine correlation in the first place, a memory will not create one.)

3) Private use can’t be correlated with any public phenomenon

The final part of the PLA looks at cases where there is bodily behaviour, yet there is still temptation to think of the private meanings of words as independent from their public use. This suggests a further tactic for the defender of private language: A private linguist might be able to secure a meaning for his sign by correlating its private use with some public phenomenon. In this way we might secure a function for the noting of S (making ostensive definition possible), and provide some guarantee that S will be used consistently.

Wittgenstein rejects this suggestion on the grounds that, while this method of securing meaning works, the secured meaning is public: The so-called ‘private object’ is revealed to be irrelevant to the meaning of S.

For example, is might be argued that: If I keep saying (on the basis of my sensation) that my blood pressure is rising, and a manometer shows I am right, then this success in judging my own blood pressure shows that I had managed to establish a meaning for ‘S’ (and was consistently using it in the same way).

However, all the example really shows is that just thinking I have the same sensation now as I did when my blood pressure rose previously can be a good guide to when my blood pressure has risen. Whether in some ‘private sense’ the sensation was actually the same (or not) becomes completely irrelevant to the question of the consistency of use of ‘S’. There is no gap between the actual nature of the sensation and my private impression of it, and S could simply mean “the sensation of my blood pressure rising”.

C: Is the PLA successful?

So far I have spelled out what I believe to be the correct interpretation of Wittgenstein’s intentions when penning the PLA. Now we have arrived at this conception of the PLA as a grandiose attempt to fell a well-entrenched philosophical tradition, we can ask: Is the argument successful?

Wittgenstein certainly considers several possible objections to his line of argument in the course of presenting the PLA via his interlocutor, but is this enough to force us to accept his point?

Unfortunately, it looks like all Wittgenstein has really provided us with is a sketch of what a conclusive argument might look like – as presented in PI, the PLA has a lot of gaps which need to be filled in.

1)  2 possible lines of defence

Wright considers two possible responses a defender of private language might offer:

Firstly, she might contest whether the linguist really does irredeemably lack all means for a principled appraisal of his own judgements.

The suggestion is that by constructing a sufficient system (theory) around his judgements, the linguist could establish conditions for acceptability which related to principled holistic restraints (as well as the judgements initial appeal).

In this way, in certain circumstances the linguist could have compelling reasons to overturn initially compelling judgements that he would otherwise have accepted. So the linguist could have a criterion of correctness by which to appraise his judgements (and so could follow rules properly).

Secondly, she might question whether – in order for the linguist to be entitled to the needed distinction between his judgements and the states of affairs being judged – a further criterion is necessary beyond his initial judgement.

This position argues that the difficulty in establishing such a contrast is to be expected, because our judgements about our own sensations are infallible.

The promise of this strategy is that if there can be such a thing as infallible judgement then there will be both i) a genuine distinction between the judgement and the states of affairs being judged, and ii) no possibility of an ascertainable contrast between the two.

I shall not consider the merits of this first strategy here, since I believe Wright to have shown its prospects to be unpromising elsewhere. (c.f.  “Does Philosophical Investigations I, §§258-60 Suggest a Cogent Argument against Private Language?”, Subject, Thought and Context, Pge209-266) My concern will be to argue that, contrary to Wright’s claims, the second strategy is a live option for certain theories that presuppose private languages.

2) Can judgements about sensations be infallible?

But how could a defender of private language establish that our judgements about sensations are infallible?

That the way a sensation feels to someone is just the way it feels precludes the analogies that many philosophers employ to show that other modes of perception are fallible. (e.g. bad lighting, background noise, etc.) However, Wright notes that these considerations only limit the possible sources of error – they don’t establish infallibility.

To establish the infallibility of our sensation-recognition mechanisms, we would need some reason for thinking those mechanisms never misfire.

• Prima Facie fallibility?

At this point I would say that there there’s some prima facie evidence that such mechanisms do misfire: Have you ever touched a surface and been unsure whether it was extremely hot, or extremely cold? Have you ever noticed that a sensation which in the past filled you with fear is now exciting?

3)  The Differentiation Problem

Our judgements about what sensations we are experiencing may be mistaken whenever the concepts we have at our disposal are not fine enough to distinguish between existing categories.

Wright considers the following example: Imagine a case where a child who is learning language for the first time can correctly use the concepts red and blue to identify red and blue objects. However, he does not grasp the concept ‘purple’, and wrongly classifies purple objects as either blue or red.

This is not a grammatical mistake; he is not misusing the term ‘blue’ to wrongly express his true beliefs – for this to be the case he would need the conceptual resources to entertain thoughts about purple things. Since grasping the concept ‘purple’ involves grasping a mastery of linguistic boundaries, and since this precisely what he lacks, the mistake the child is making is about states of affairs in realty.

By analogy: A private linguist’s judgements about sensations will be fallible just in case the sensation-concepts he defines for himself are not fine enough to distinguish between actually different types of sensation. If the private linguist must build up his language from scratch then there is every reason to believe that his judgements about when any two sensations are the same are fallible, since there is no way of guaranteeing that his private ostensive definitions adequately pick out single sensation-types.

(This argument is slightly different from the one Wright advances. He argues that a private linguist, having learnt to use all the relevant concepts, may later forget how to properly use them, or mistakenly conflate two similar concepts. I am not certain that Wittgenstein intended the PLA to hinge on a sort of scepticism about memory, since if it did the argument would appear to self-defeatingly undermine the possibility of all language. For this reason I have presented a slightly different kind of objection based on the same analogy.

However, both the problem I present and Wright’s argument may be combatted in the same way, so even if I am mistaken here it will not affect the ultimate conclusion of my argument.)

4) Infallible and Innate private language

While this objection certainly looks troubling for anyone who argues that a private language can be formulated from scratch, it by no means rules out all possible kinds of private language. Specifically, it will not affect anyone who claims that we have a private sensation-language that is both infallible and innate.

If our sensation-language is pre-programmed into us then there is no need for us to learn the concepts we use to differentiate between different sensation-types, and plausibly no reason to worry about us forgetting or conflating different types of sensation-concept.

Wright correctly concludes that infallibility requires more than just that the classificatory beliefs our private linguist succeeds in forming be error-proof: it also requires that there be no possibility of being deluded that he has a true belief when he does not.

Yet it looks like this further condition will be met automatically if the linguist’s differentiation mechanism is innate to him.

Although the PLA may demonstrate the falsity of any theory that maintains that a logically private language can be learnt (if there ever has been such a theory), it will not impact against a theory which presupposes an innate sensation-language (which would preclude the possibility of errors in judgement and thus mean that it’s unnecessary to identify a difference between ‘seeming right’ and ‘being right’ when making judgements about whether a sensation accords with a sensation-concept).

D: Additional Worries about the PLA

1) The PLA is question begging

It looks like the PLA is question begging. Generally, a reductio argument doesn’t demonstrate the falsity of a single proposition – it shows that a group of propositions leads to a contradiction, but leaves open exactly which assumption is the cause of the contradiction.

This is the case in the PLA: The reasoning of the PLA depends on certain grammatical observations, which form hidden premises in the argument. (For example, “Any ostensive definition must introduce a sample”, and “A sample can function only within a practice”.) For the reductio to successfully show that a logically private language is impossible, these hidden premises must be beyond doubt – yet they can be challenged!

So does Wittgenstein’s reasoning commit the fallacy of petito principi?

He holds that the main problem with the private linguists explanation of the sign ‘S’ is the failure to specify criteria in virtue of which he can distinguish correct from incorrect applications of S. In other words, he lacks the criteria for judging whether his later application of S exhibits understanding or misunderstanding of the sign.

But it might just be denied that it’ necessary to provide public criteria for understanding symbols – why can’t these criteria also be private? (A consistent Cartesian would surely do this.)

2) Ostensive definition does not fix meanings by associating things

Wittgenstein insists that every genuine symbol must have a meaning that persists over time. He then notices a problem with private language 0 sensations themselves are occurant, and eventually cease to be.

But it might be responded that it’s mistaken for him to go on to argue that the private linguist needs something else (an image of the sensation) to permanently accompany ‘S’ in order for it to have a permanent meaning. All that’s necessary is a permanent possibility – the possibility of linking S with the same sensation.

An enduring image of this sensation is no more necessary for guaranteeing the meaning of S than is a sample of sepia preserved in a glass case for guaranteeing the meaning of the word ‘sepia’.

3)  Mental images need not be means for association

It might be denied that mental images must function as the means for associating images with what they signify. The very idea of ‘association’ if often coupled with the exclusion of mental mechanisms of any sort, at least among modern empiricists.

By treating images as the mechanism of association underpinning private language, Wittgenstein narrows the scope of the PLA so that forms of empiricism that deny this assumption are left untouched by his criticisms.

4)  W conflates images and sensations

W appears to conflate sensations and images: Most empiricists make an emphatic distinction between sense-impressions and copies of them. Consequentially, the hypothesis that the private linguist associates a sensation with the sign ‘S’ is not the same as the hypothesis that he associates an image with ‘S’.

But it is the first hypothesis, not the second, which was the target of the PLA. So the reasoning attributed to W dies bit succeed in refuting the hypothesis of the existence of a private language as it is actually formulated (in §243).

E: Alternative Interpretations of the PLA

So it seems that the anti-Cartesian interpretation of the PLA opens Wittgenstein up to multiple accusations of fallacious reasoning. If this is indeed how he intended the PLA to be understood, a lot of further argument would be required before it could be thought of as establishing its intended conclusion.

To close this piece, I shall briefly consider whether the interpretation I have presented is indeed the correct way to conceive of the PLA by looking at some alternatives and considering whether any of them better cohere with the text in PI, or with Wittgenstein’s other writings. (They do not.)

1)  The Community View

The community view really concerns Wittgenstein’s rule following considerations, but it’s worth mentioning here because a consequence of the view (if correct) is that we must radically alter our conception of the PLA: According to this view, Wittgenstein is arguing that it’s impossible for a solitary rule follower to follow a rule because the criteria for a rules correct application must be determined by the members of a community. (Since language is rule-governed behaviour, the criteria for the correct use of the terms in a language must also be determined by a community.)

If this claim is accepted, then it follows immediately that a private language is impossible, since in such a language there would be no community to determine when the ‘speaker’ is using its terms correctly.

So on this view, the PLA has been concluded well before the discussion of sensation-language beginning at §243.

• What’s the point of the diary case?

This is puzzling – it seems to render Wittgenstein’s discussion of a logically private language superfluous: If he has already established the community thesis in his discussion of rule following, what’s the point of this discussion? What’s the point of the diary case?

Proponents of the community view argue that sensation language seems to be an obvious counterexample to the community thesis that we can only follow rules if we are part of a community of rule followers, and so requires separate and special treatment.

I shall not focus on whether the community view is correct here – that is something I plan on doing in my essay on the rule following considerations. This issue with this view for my current discussion is: Even if the community view is correct, the problems with Wittgenstein’s reasoning in his discussion of sensation language means that he fails to establish that sensation-language isn’t a counterexample to his claims about private language.

Thus, if this is the correct way to interpret Wittgenstein, the problems with his discussion of sensation language mean that not only does he fail to establish that a private language is impossible, but his claims about under which conditions we are able to follow rules are false as well.

Clearly this is not the most favourable way to interpret Wittgenstein, and it fails to avoid the problems found with my favoured interpretation of the PLA.

More Related PDF Download

Maths Topicwise Free PDF >Click Here To Download	English Topicwise Free PDF >Click Here To Download
GK/GS/GA Topicwise Free PDF >Click Here To Download	Reasoning Topicwise Free PDF >Click Here To Download
Indian Polity Free PDF >Click Here To Download	History  Free PDF > Click Here To Download
Computer Topicwise Short Tricks >Click Here To Download	EnvironmentTopicwise Free PDF > Click Here To Download
UPSC Notes >Click Here To Download	SSC Notes Download > Click Here To Download

Topic Related Pdf Download

Evaluate the notion of private language

pdfdownload.in will bring you new PDFs on Daily Bases, which will be updated in all ways and uploaded on the website, which will prove to be very important for you to prepare for all your upcoming competitive exams.

The above PDF is only provided to you by PDFdownload.in, we are not the creator of the PDF, if you like the PDF or if you have any kind of doubt, suggestion, or question about the same, please send us on your mail. Do not hesitate to contact me. [email protected] or you can send suggestions in the comment box below.

Please Support By Joining Below Groups And Like Our Pages We Will be very thankful to you.

• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/onlyupsc/