Abstract

In Wittgenstein"s discussion of first person psychological statements, we find a number of remarks that point to a semantic difficulty in the use of such ascriptions. The meaning ambiguity is due to the fact that one and the same proposition can both be used to state a matter of fact and a metaphysical assumption. Hence a sentence such as, e.g., "Only my pain is real pain� might mean that all others except me are only pretending. In a solipsistic context, however, the claim is supposed to express that nobody except me can be in pain