Abstract

In PI 246 Wittgenstein remarks: »In what sense are my sensations private?« This question is embedded in a broader context that deals with the possibility of a private language (cf. PI 243-315). Sensations can thereby be considered with respect to an epistemic as well as a possessive kind of privacy. In PI 246 Wittgenstein refers to statements of the form »Only I can know that I am pain whereas others can only surmise it«. He then argues that such expressions are in one sense false and in another nonsense. Although this remark refers to the epistemic aspect of privacy I shall argue that this semantic differentiation also holds for sentences stating the ownership of sensations