Online research in philosophy

This book provides a novel interpretation of the ideas about language in Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Travis places the "private language argument" in the context of wider themes in the Investigations, and thereby develops a picture of what it is for words to bear the meaning they do. He elaborates two versions of a private language argument, and shows the consequences of these for current trends in the philosophical theory of meaning.

Simon Blackburn objects that Wittgenstein's private language argument overlooks the possibility that a private linguist can equip himself with a criterion of correctness by confirming generalizations about the patterns in which his private sensations occur. Crispin Wright responds that appropriate generalizations would be too few to be interesting. But I show that Wright's calculations are upset by his failure to appreciate both the richness of the data and the range of theories that would be available to the private linguist.

Wittgenstein's treatment of private language is the dissolution of some of the major problems in traditional philosophy. Philosophical problems, for Wittgenstein, are the conceptual confusion arising due to the abuse of language. They can be fully dispensed with by commanding a clear view of language. Language, for Wittgenstein, is on the one hand, the source of philosophical problems while, on the other hand, it is a means to dispense with them. Private language is one such issue which is ultimately rooted I a mistaken conception of language and is the sources of various philosophical problems/ puzzles.

A common complaint against Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language is that whereas the aim of “the real” Wittgenstein’s private language argument is to establish the impossibility of a necessarily private language, the communitarian account of meaning proposed by Kripke’s Wittgenstein (KW), if successful, would establish the impossibility of a contingently private language. I show that this common complaint is based on a failure of Kripke’s critics (a failure that is justified, in part, by Kripke’s text) to recognize and understand his distinction between a “physically isolated” individual (PII) and an individual “considered in isolation” (ICl) . It is only an ICI for whom rule following and language are rendered impossible by KW. l then show that an lel speaks a necessarily private language. Thus, KW’s private language argument gives us, at best, the same story about the impossibility of private language as pre-Kripke accounts of Wittgenstein’s private language argument.

Wittgenstein's private language argument in his philosophical investigations is explained and critically evaluated. The implications of Wittgenstein's conclusion that there can be no private sensation language are examined, in light of claims that Wittgenstein by the private language argument also proves that there can also be no private mental objects. The concept of a criterion of correctness is discussed as the key to Wittgenstein's reflections, and counterexamples are considered that raise doubts about the soundness of the private language argument. Difficulties identified in standard interpretations of Wittgenstein's argument indicate that the rejection of private sensation languages does not automatically imply a third-person hard psychological theory, such as logical behaviorism, nor does the argument effectively support reductivist or anti-intentionalist philosophy of mind.