PHILOSOPHY

WITTGENSTEIN

Dr Carolyn Wilde Bristol University, on 6 December 1999

Dr Wilde is a distinguished philosopher and specialist in the later work of Wittgenstein. She is a member of the Philosophy Department of Bristol University and this is the third time that she has spoken at the Institution. Dr Wilde made comments and led the audience in the analysis of the following paragraphs of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.

Victor Suchar

255. The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness.

256. Now, what about the language which describes my inner experiences and which only I myself can understand? How do I use words to stand for my sensations? As we ordinarily do? Then are my words for sensations tied up with my natural expressions of sensation? In that case my language is not a :private: one. Someone else might understand it as well as I. —But suppose I didn't have any natural expression for the sensation, but only had the sensation? And now I simply associate names with sensations and use these names in descriptions.

257. What would it be like if human beings showed no outward signs of pain (did not groan, grimace, etc.)? Then it would be impossible to teach

a child the use of the word `tooth-ache'. Well, let's assume the child is a genius and itself invents a name for the sensation! —But then, of course, he couldn't make himself understood when he used the word. —So does he understand the name, without being able to explain its meaning to anyone? —But what does it mean to say that he has `named his pain'? —How has he done this naming of pain? In giving a name to his sensation one forgets that a great deal of stage-setting in the language is presupposed if the mere act of naming is to make sense. And when we speak of someone having given a name to pain, what is presupposed is the existence of the grammar of the word `pain'; it shows the post where the new word is stationed.

258. Let us imagine the following case. I want to keep a diary about the recurrence of a certain sensation. To this end I associate it with the sign `S' and write this sign in a calendar for every day on which I have the sensation. I will remark first of all that a definition of the sign cannot be formulated. But I speak, or write the sign down, and at the same time I concentrate my attention on the sensation — and so, as it were, point to it inwardly. But what is this ceremony for? For that is all it seems to be! A definition surely serves to establish the meaning of a sign. Well, that is done precisely by the concentrating of my attention; for in this way `I impress on myself' can only mean: this process brings it about that I remember the connection right in the future. But in the present case I have no criterion on correctness. One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we can't talk about `right'.

308. How does the philosophical problem about mental processes and states and about behaviourism arise? The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of processes and states and leave their nature undecided. Sometime perhaps we shall know more about them — we think. But that is just what commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter. For we have a definite concept of what it means to learn to know a process better. (The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one that we thought quite innocent.) And now the analogy which was to make us understand our thoughts falls to pieces. So we have to deny the yet uncomprehended process in the yet unexplored medium. And now it looks as if we had denied mental processes. And naturally we don't want to deny them.

309. What is your aim in philosophy? — To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.

373. Grammar tells what kind of object anything is. (Theology as grammar.)

374. The great difficulty here is not to represent the matter as if there were something one couldn't do. As if there really were an object, from which I derive its description, but I were unable to show it to anyone. And the best that I can propose is that we should yield to the temptation to use this picture, but then investigate how the application of the picture goes.

Victor Suchar