CHAPTER 6 Rules, Privacy, and Physicalism J I M H OPKINS T he main themes of Witt genstein's later philosophy are particularly con-centrated in his remarks on sensation and private language. Among these are the role of rules in thought and language; the role of "pictures" in generating philosophical problems; the aspects of our "form of life" which render our practices possible; and his far-reaching critique of what might be called the Cartesian picture of the mind. As I hope to indicate, Witt genstein's work on these topics can be seen as consonant with more recent philosophical thinking about the mind, and also as providing ways to extend it. I hope also to support the idea that there is another aspect to Witt genstein's work, linked with the ideal of self-knowledge which has been central to philosophy from its beginnings. It might be said that in Witt genstein's late work, "Know thyself " becomes "Understand your own philosophical errors and confusions." So he writes in such a way as to evoke and intensify his reader's allegiance to sources of error and confusion, at the same time as criticizing them. As long as the reader retains these allegiances, he will think that it is Witt genstein who is mistaken, confused, or putt ing in question what is obviously true. Th is also is particularly salient in the remarks on sensation (cf. the "But you will surely admit that there is a diff erence . . . " or the "And yet you again and again reach the conclusion . . . " of PI §304); and I hope in passing to suggest something of its role in the remarks on rules as well. Witt genstein's repeated evoking and dispelling of confusion and accusation in this way is part of a patt ern-together with direct statements, such as the "And your scruples are misunderstandings" of PI §120, or the "Now, ask yourself: what do you know about these things" of PI §158-in which he establishes a particular relation of authority in regard to his reader. Negotiating this relation, in turn, is an important part of learning-or failing to learn-from Witt genstein's work. (Th us some readers lose patience and turn away; others submit by trying to assume-and so inevitably 0001483288.INDD 107 12/26/2011 9:16:01 PM [ 108 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind failing to earn-what they take to be a similar position themselves; and so on.) Th is is a matt er of independent interest, which we will not pursue here. 1. THOUGHT AND CONTENT To compare Witt genstein's ideas with some now current it will be useful to begin with the Tractatus . One achievement of this book was to concretize the account of thought which Witt genstein had encountered in the "great works of Frege." In 1897 Frege had contrasted the objectivity of thoughts with the subjectivity and privacy of sensations, ideas, and other mental items. He argued that "a man never has somebody else's mental image, but only his own; and nobody even knows how far his image (say) of red agrees with somebody else's." As regards thoughts, by contrast, "it is quite otherwise . . . [since] one and the same thought can be grasped by many men" ( Frege 1952 , 79). Th is antipsychologism left it unclear how thought (or Frege's act of "grasping" a thought) might actually take place. Witt genstein made good this lack, by framing an account of thought as realized by internal representations. Th ese had as yet unknown "psychical constituents" with "the same sort of relation to reality as words"; and they were mapped to possible states of aff airs in complex abstract relations which "it would be a matt er of psychology to fi nd out." 1 Th is was part of a more general account of representation, according to which all representations were such "pictures," and hence among the facts of the world. On this account a person who thinks (or believes, intends, desires, etc.) that P, does so by framing a thought-token which bears a referential and structural relation to the state of aff airs in which P. 2 As Witt genstein says at TLP 5.542, constructions such as "A believes that P," "A has the thought that P," and "A says P" all involve "the correlation of facts by means of the correlations of their objects." Th ese "correlations of facts" hold between the psychical facts constituting mental representations on the one hand, and the possible states of aff airs represented by them on the other. Th us the mental representation which realizes the thought that I add 2 does so because the "psychical constituents" which make it up are correlated with such things as myself 1 . His fuller account, as expressed in a lett er answering questions by Russell, goes as follows: "But a Gedanke [thought] is a Tatsache [fact]: what are its constituents and components, and what is their relation to those of the pictured Tatsache?" I don't know what the constituents of a thought are but I know that it must have such constituents which correspond to the words of Language. . . . [Th e] kind of relation of the constituents of the thought and of the pictured fact . . . would be a matt er of psychology to fi nd out . . . "Does a Gedanke [thought] consist of words?" No! But of psychical constituents that have the same sort of relation to reality as words. What those constituents are I don't know. (NB App. III, 130–131) 2 . Th is partly relies on a further feature of the Tractatus , namely that the correlation of thoughts and sentences with possible states of aff airs is eff ected via their correlation with actual objects, as analysis would ultimately reveal. 0001483288.INDD 108 12/26/2011 9:16:01 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 109 ] and the act of adding 2, so that the thought as a whole can be correlated with the situation in which I add 2. When many men grasp or express the same Fregean thought-when they all have or express the (abstract) thought that P-this is because their individual thought-tokens are related to the same state of aff airs-the state of aff airs in which P-in the same referential and structural ways. We can summarize this by saying that as 5.542 suggests, the Tractatus account of thought provides an approach to content as a whole. We describe a range of phenomena, including intention, thought, and meaning, in a way which we can regard as assigning a (propositional or sentential) content to the items described. Th us we use a sentence "P" ("I add 2") to describe a thought as the thought that P (the thought that I add 2), and we apply this mode of description to a range of related phenomena. We speak of an utt erance or sentence as meaning or saying that P (My utt erance of "I add 2" says or means that I add 2), and likewise of a perception as a perception that P, of an intention, hope, fear, or desire as the intention, hope, fear, or desire that P, and so on. All these phenomena, on the Tractatus account, are unifi ed and explained by their relation to the mental representation of the possible situation that P, which in one way or another constitutes the thought, perception, meaning, intention, and so on. Th e relevant representations and relations, moreover, are (at least in principle) empirically accessible: for they are among the facts of the world, about which psychology might hope to fi nd out. Th ese content-sustaining correlations extend to "A says P," and hence to the linguistic expression of thought, because of the particular role which Witt genstein assigns to thought in animating language. He takes it that in meaning or understanding a sentence we think of it as relating to things in a certain way, and in doing this we confer meaning upon it. As he describes the idea in the Investigations : "'Th ought must be something unique.' When we say, and mean , that such-and-such is the case, we-and our meaning-do not stop anywhere short of the fact; but we mean: this- is-so " (§95). Th us for example we might utt er the sentence "Russell befriended Witt genstein" meaning by "Russell" the man Bertrand Russell, by "befriended" the (past) act of befriending, by "Witt genstein" the man Ludwig Witt genstein, and by the order in which we utt er these words that Russell was the befriender and Witt genstein the befriended of the two. In this we would "use the perceptual sign . . . (spoken or writt en, etc.) as a projection of a possible situation," namely that in which Russell befriended Witt genstein, and so would mean that this-was-so . Th e same holds for understanding the sentence, as utt ered by another. In both cases we "think the sentence-sense" ("Denken des Satz-Sinnes," TLP 3.11) and thereby determine the conditions in which the sentence, as we mean or understand it, is true. Th is illustrates how the "correlations of facts by means of the correlations of their objects" mentioned in TLP 5.542 constitute not only our thoughts but also the knowledge of language which enables us to communicate and coordinate our actions. And this also entails that according to the Tractatus the use of a word or sentence as we observe it in linguistic practice does not constitute its meaning. For this use is both animated and fi xed by something which is less public and more basic, namely the acts 0001483288.INDD 109 12/26/2011 9:16:02 PM [ 110 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind of meaning or understanding-the "thinking the sense"-which assign to these signs the referents and truth-conditions in accord with which we then proceed to use them. 3 So as Witt genstein says in the Blue Book meaning and understanding seem "processes through which alone language can function," and without which "the signs of our language seem dead" (BB, 3). Again, as Witt genstein says in "a mythological description" in the Investigations : "Th e rule, once stamped with a particular meaning, traces the lines along which it is to be followed through the whole of space" (§219). It is clear that if such a stamping with a particular meaning is done by a mental act or process, then this act or process will fi x what the correct use of the rule is to be. Th e idea that we mentally establish the relation which makes signs meaningful in this way naturally goes with another, namely that our mental act somehow links signs with a family of abstract objects. (In the Tractatus the link is with actual objects and their properties, and, via these, with possible objects in their combinations in states of aff airs. In other accounts the abstract objects diff er, encompassing senses, possible worlds, numbers, and so on.) Th is is no accident: for on the one hand only such abstract objects have the greater-than-empirical range and rigidity which we associate with meaning; and on the other the only contact we can have with such objects-and hence with the meanings we might suppose them to constitute-is via the remarkable reach of thought. 4 2. THE PROBLEM OF REPRESENTATION As is well known, a conception akin to the Tractatus account of mental representation was later spelled out in detail by Fodor and others, as part of an att empt to understand the mind as a symbol-processing mechanism. Having att ained this view Fodor realized that it left a basic question unanswered. As he said, "We must now face what has always been the problem for representational theories to solve: what relates internal representations to the world? . . . I take it that this problem is now the main content of the philosophy of mind." 5 Witt genstein had recorded a similar realization nearly half a century before- and prior to the development of the digital computer-in relation to his Tractatus account. Th us in Philosophical Grammar I, §§62–63 he wrote: 62 "Th at's him " (this picture represents him ) – that contains the whole problem of representation. 3 . Th is is closely related to the conception Kaplan describes as subjectivist semantics. See Almog, Perry, and Wett stein 1989 , 600. 4 . Despite Witt genstein's emphasis on the "hardness" and "crystalline purity" or the order of possibilities as conceived in the Tractatus , the role of abstract objects is minimized. Th oughts are naturally connected with actual concrete objects, and nonexistent possible objects are recombinations of the components of these actual ones. Th is eliminates the need for abstract objects which exist independently of concrete ones. 5 . Fodor 1981 , 61. See also the lucid exposition in Fodor 1990 . 0001483288.INDD 110 12/26/2011 9:16:02 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 111 ] . . . I have the intention of carrying out a particular task and I make a plan. Th e plan in my mind is supposed to consist in my seeing myself acting thus and so. But how do I know, that it is myself that I'm seeing? Well, it isn't myself, but a kind of picture. But why do I call it the picture of me ? . . . "I thought Napoleon was crowned in the year 1805." . . . What connection is there between your thought and Napoleon? – It may be, for example, that the word "Napoleon" occurs in the expression of my thought, plus the connection that word has with its bearer; e.g. that was the way he signed his name, that was how he was spoken to and so on. "But when you utt er the word 'Napoleon' you designate that man and no other" – "How then does this act of designating work, in your view? Is it instantaneous? Or does it take time?" – "But aft er all if someone asks you 'did you mean the very man who won the batt le of Austerlitz' you will say 'yes'. So you meant that man when you utt ered the sentence ." Yes, but only in the kind of way that I then knew also that 6 × 6 = 36. Th e answer "I meant the victor of Austerlitz" is a new step in our calculus. Th e past tense is deceptive, because it looks as if it was giving a description of what went on "inside me" while I was utt ering the sentence. ("But I meant him ". A strange process, this meaning! Can you mean in Europe someone who's in America? Even if he no longer exists?) 63 Misled by our grammar, we are tempted to ask " How does one think a proposition, how does one expect such and such to happen? (how does one do that?)" "How does thought work, how does it use its expression?" – Th is question looks like "How does a Jacquard loom work, how does it use the cards". . . . "How does thought manage to represent?" – the answer might be "Don't you really know? You certainly see it when you think." For nothing is concealed. How does a sentence do it? Nothing is hidden. . . . We are not in the realm of causal explanations, and every such explanation sounds trivial for our purposes. (Cf. BB, 117–118) Th ese remarks indicate both Witt genstein's dissatisfaction with his Tractatus approach and how he sought to improve it by moving toward that of the Investigations . In PG I, §62 he takes up the Tractatus explication of intention. My intention is realized by a Tractatus picture: a mental representation of myself performing the intended action, which serves as a blueprint for my doing so. (As he says in PR §21, "What is essential to intention is the picture: the picture of what is intended.") In fulfi lling my intention I follow out the rules which link the constituents of the picture-including those which represent myself-to the objects and situations for which they stand, and so bring about the situation I originally intended. (As he says at PG I, §58, "intention reaches up to the paradigm and contains a general rule.") Moreover, as §63 makes clear, Witt genstein also envisaged an account of the mind as a symbol-processing mechanism. Th e processes by which a representation 0001483288.INDD 111 12/26/2011 9:16:02 PM [ 112 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind which realizes an intention actually produces the intended action might be compared to those by which the punched cards which direct a Jacquard loom actually govern the weaving of the patt ern they also represent. Th is provides a simple kind of model, to which Witt genstein oft en returned, for the way mental representation as conceived in the Tractatus might admit of psychological investigation. Yet all this, as Witt genstein urges in §62, still leaves us facing "the whole problem of representation." For in approaching thought in this way we presuppose, but do not explain, the most basic connection: the content-fi xing link between the components of thought and things in the world. Without an understanding of this, we also have no account of the acts of thought (here that of meaning Napoleon by "Napoleon") by which we assign meaning to words and sentences; and such an act in any case seems mysterious and problematic. As §63 stresses, we are tempted to suppose that we might learn about these things by investigating the physical symbolic realization of thought, or its causal role. Th is, however, is not so. For as Witt genstein had earlier remarked, making use of another symbol-processing mechanism: But one might say something like this. Th e sentences that we utt er have a particular purpose, they are to produce certain eff ects. Th ey are parts of a mechanism, perhaps a psychological mechanism, and the words of the sentences are also parts of the mechanism (levers, cogwheels, and so on). Th e example that seems to illustrate what we're thinking of here is an automatic music player, a pianola. . . . And so shouldn't we say that the sense of the sign is its eff ect? – But suppose the pianola is in bad condition and the signs on the roll produce hisses and bangs instead of the notes. – Perhaps you will say that the sense of the signs is their eff ect on a mechanism in good condition, and correspondingly that the sense of an order is its eff ect on an obedient man. But what is regarded as a criterion of obedience here? (PG I, §33) Here Witt genstein is concerned with a particular variant of the Tractatus account of sense as a relation between a sentence and a possible situation: one in which this relation is fi xed by causal or functional role. On such an account the sense of a sentence used as an order will be understood in terms of its eff ect on the behaviour of another, and the sense of an inner representation in terms of its eff ect on the behaviour of the agent whose representation it is. (Th e two are presumably connected via the idea that the order achieves its sense-constituting eff ect on behaviour by causing an inner representation which realizes an intention to act in accord with the order, which in turn causes the obedience itself. So in this case both the external and the internal symbols would relate to the same situation, and so would have the same sense.) Hence, as he adds in the next paragraph, when we spoke of "the sense of the signs" . . . [we] were thinking rather of the purpose of the signs within the mechanism of the pianola. – And so you can say that the purpose of an order is its sense, only so far as the purpose can be expressed by a rule of language. (PG I, §33) 0001483288.INDD 112 12/26/2011 9:16:02 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 113 ] Such a causal account cannot solve the "problem of representation," since a sign can have sense but fail to have the right eff ects. Th e eff ects which we might take to be sense-constituting are those which obtain just when the agent acts in accord with the order, or again (to relate the example of the pianola here to §§62–63 above) when the inner representation supposed to constitute an intention causes an action in which the intention is fulfi lled . So it is this relation of accord (obedience, fulfi lment, etc.), which requires investigation: and this relation, as it appears, is expressed by a linguistic rule (e.g., a "grammatical" rule such as he describes at PI §458: "If an order runs 'Do such-and-such' then executing the order is called 'doing such-and-such.' "). Th is, however, also indicates the kind of solution to these problems he now entertains. He takes it that the role he has previously given to thought as linking words and things (the meaning Napoleon by "Napoleon" in PG I, §62 above) requires to be replaced by that of the practice of language itself. (What thought could not reach out to by itself, as one might say, can nonetheless be part of the social practice of using language, which is actually extended in both space and time, and further than any single individual can reach.) Likewise he seeks to understand the relation of accord which holds between intention and action, order and obedience, and so on, in terms of a rule for the use of language. As regards the explication of content, as we might say, it seems that where in the Tractatus thought about language was, there in the Investigations the practice of using languages is to be. Accordingly we see that the acts of meaning imagined in the Tractatus can also be located in the account of language with which Witt genstein begins PI §1. Augustine describes how he observed his elders refer to objects and grasped "that the thing was called by the sound they utt ered when they meant to point it out." In this we might take Augustine to be understanding that the elders meant particular things by their words, as one might understand that a speaker means Napoleon by "Napoleon." Learning the public use of words thus appears here as learning that others mean particular things by them, so that one can go on to mean the same things by them oneself. Witt genstein does not, of course, deny that we intend or mean things by our words. Rather he argues that such intentions presuppose the ability to engage in the practice of language (see, e.g., PI §§190, 205), so that we misconstrue them if we take them either to impart meaning to such practice or to explain our ability to engage in it. So in this fi rst remark he also gives an example of practice-that of the shopkeeper and his use of words-and aft erwards describes its basic explanatory role. "But how does he know where and how he is to look up the word 'red' and what he is to do with the word 'fi ve'?"--Well, I assume that he acts as I have described. Explanations come to an end somewhere.-But what is the meaning of the word "fi ve"?-No such thing was in question here, only how the word "fi ve" is used. (PI §1) Here he indicates both the basic role of practice (and in relation to reference and the postulation of abstract objects) and also briefl y poses the questions he will raise 0001483288.INDD 113 12/26/2011 9:16:02 PM [ 114 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind and answer about it when he comes to consider acting in accord with a rule. And shortly aft er introducing the notion of practice, he starts explicitly to question the idea of mental processes which might be supposed to give meaning to signs in it, and so would fi x both meaning and correctness in use. Th us in PI §19 he asks "how do you do this: how do you mean that while you say 'Slab!'?" and in §22 he cautions (using words closer to the Tractatus and Philosophical Grammar ) that "' meaning' (thinking) the sentence" is not a kind of act. He continues by introducing an example of interpretation in §32, and in §34, stressing that "neither the expression 'to intend the defi nition in such-and-such a way' nor the expression 'to interpret the defi nition in such-and-such a way' stands for a process which accompanies the giving and hearing." As we will see, this will prove a key notion in his argument. 3. CONTENT AND PRACTICE For present purposes we can describe this change as follows. Th e relation of thought to its objects can be regarded as a form of mental reference, and that of accord (as between intention and action, etc.) as a psychological analogue of truth. (As the thought that P-the thought described by "P"-is true just if P, so the intention that P-the intention described by "P"-is fulfi lled just if P; likewise the order that P is obeyed just if P, the hope, fear, or expectation that P realized just if P, etc.) So as the truth of a sentence secures the reference of its terms, this sort of accord secures the kind of mental reference with which Witt genstein was concerned. (Since the reference to myself in my intention is ensured by the fulfi lment of the intention-the intention will not be fulfi lled unless I act accordingly-this notion of reference can be explicated together with the notion of accord to which it is related.) But further, concentrating on this notion of accord, and in the particular case of following a rule, provides an alternative approach to thought, and one which renders speculation about mental representation and its relation to objects irrelevant. In Kantian terms we can regard thinking or judging as applying a concept in accord with a rule, and hence as a particular case of following a rule. We use the concept C to think of things as C's , as we do when we think, concerning some item, this is C . Th e ability to think of things in such a way is shown in the ability to describe them in the same way, as we might by saying "Th is is C." In this we follow a rule of language: a rule for correct description, where description of this kind refl ects a correct use of a concept, or the correct formation of a thought. Th e same holds in analogous cases, for example where someone responds to "Add 2" by adding 2, or regards an intention described by "Add 2" as fulfi lled if he has done so. In investigating such instances of following a rule, therefore, we investigate the correctness of thought together with the practice of using language in accord with rules. And in this, as Witt genstein says, nothing is hidden. We already assess our linguistic activities for correctness, so it is our public practice of assessment that we require to understand. 0001483288.INDD 114 12/26/2011 9:16:02 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 115 ] Th us the approach of the Tractatus , in which thought and content are explicated by inner representation, yields to that of the Investigations , in which they are explicated by the following of rules in linguistic practice. So Witt genstein's question of PI §198, "But how can a rule shew me what I have to do at this point? Whatever I do is, on some interpretation, in accord with the rule" 6 addresses, among other things, the correctness of my own thoughts and my fi rstperson account of them, including their relation to objects; and similarly his question of §206, what if one person reacts in one way and another in another to the order and the training? Which one is right? addresses the correctness of thought in general, including my own, as raised in §198 via the notion of interpretation. Witt genstein also makes the connection between concepts and rules explicit in his discussion. He oft en treats connected questions in succeeding remarks, and aft er raising the question of rules and correctness in §206 he indicates his answer there and in more detail in §207. Th en in §208 he makes clear that these remarks both relate to concepts, since to master a concept is to acquire the ability to act in accord with a rule. 208. Th en am I defi ning "order" and "rule" by means of "regularity"?-How do I explain the meaning of "regular", "uniform", "same" to anyone?-I shall explain these words to someone who, say, only speaks French by means of the corresponding French words. But if a person has not yet got the concepts , I shall teach him how to use the words by means of examples and by practice .-And when I do this I do not communicate less to him than I know myself. Th is also appears in details of his argument. For example in his discussion of the private use of a word "S" he has his interlocutor (who advocates the notion) exclaim: 260. "Well, I believe that this is the sensation S again." And he replies Perhaps you believe that you believe it! 6 . Here as elsewhere I have replaced Anscombe's "shew" by "show." 0001483288.INDD 115 12/26/2011 9:16:02 PM [ 116 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind Here the reply turns on the idea that the use of a word which was private in the sense under consideration would not accord with a rule, and so would not express a concept. In the absence of the concept S, there is no real thinking of an item as S, and so no real belief that I have the sensation S. One might believe that one had such a belief; but this would be mistaken. 4. EXAMINING CORRECTNESS In accord with this exegesis we can see Witt genstein's argument in the Investigations as having, among others, two connected aspects. First, he seeks to establish that linguistic meaning is constituted in linguistic practice, so that the ability to engage in such practice is basic to such states or acts as understanding or grasping meaning as well. Second, he seeks to explicate what such practice involves, and how correctness is determined within it. In both aspects of this argument, as we have noted, he opposes the basic role of practice to that of mental acts or processes, such as the "thinking the sense" of the Tractatus , which might seem to provide a link to an alternative source of meaning, and so would relegate practice to a secondary role. As we have noted, such meaning-constituting processes would have two connected features. Th ey would animate practice, giving otherwise dead signs the life we fi nd in use (Witt genstein mentions this succinctly at PI §403); and they would also determine what the correct practice in using signs was to be. In the Tractatus , as we saw, this idea took the form of the mental determining of reference and truth-conditions; in the Investigations it takes the form of the mental determining of correct use more generally. So as against this idea Witt genstein argues in a number of cases that there can be no such mental determination of use. Th us in PI §138 he asks how a Fregean grasping of a sense can determine a use which is extended in time. In considering this he urges that any mental act-such as my picturing a cube in connection with the word "cube"-admits of further interpretation as regards its content, and so could not "force a particular use on me" (§140). Rather, it seems, the correctness of my use, as otherwise ascertained, seems to determine whether my initial understanding itself has been correct. A comparable argument applies to the state of understanding itself, conceived as the source of correct use (§146); to the event of coming to understand (§147); and to the "state of a mental apparatus (perhaps of the brain)" which might be supposed to underlie this (§149). (Th is last argument repeats points considered in Philosophical Grammar above, for the "mental apparatus" is modelled on the pianola at PI §157.) Th is is how it would be if the meaning of signs was actually constituted by their use, rather than "breathed into it" (PI §432) from such an external source. We can follow this contrast through to the remarks in which Witt genstein raises the basic questions of correctness via the notion of interpretation. He initially approaches this via the example of a pupil being taught to continue a series by 0001483288.INDD 116 12/26/2011 9:16:03 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 117 ] adding 2. In his fi rst use of the example he assumes that the way we are trying to teach the pupil to go on is correct: "he continues the series correctly, that is, as we do it" (§145). In the next phase of his argument he brings this into question, by pointing out that it is possible that a pupil who seems to understand the teaching and examples as we do might actually not do so. Now we get the pupil to continue a series (say + 2) beyond 1000-and he writes 1000, 1004, 1008, 1012. We say to him: "Look what you've done!"-He doesn't understand. We say: "You were meant to add two : look how you began the series!"-He answers: "Yes, isn't it right? I thought that was how I was meant to do it."--Or suppose he pointed to the series and said: "But I went on in the same way."-It would now be no use to say: "But can't you see . . . . ?"-and repeat the old examples and explanations.-In such a case we might say, perhaps: It comes natural to this person to understand our order with our explanations as we should understand the order: "Add 2 up to 1000, 4 up to 2000, 6 up to 3000 and so on." (§185) In this the teacher does not at fi rst interpret the pupil's responses correctly, nor does the pupil rightly understand the examples and the teaching, although it seems to each that this is so. So the question arises as to how we know that we understand what we take to be our own rules correctly, as opposed to merely seeming to ourselves to do so. And since these include the rules which constitute our concepts, the question at once becomes radical. So as Witt genstein says in his next remark: To carry [the order "+2"] out correctly! How is it decided what is the right step to take at any particular stage?-"Th e right step is the one that accords with the order-as it was meant ." . . . But that is just what is in question: what, at any stage, does follow from that sentence [from "Add 2" meant as an order]. Or, again, what, at any stage we are to call "being in accord" with that sentence (and with the mean -ing you then put into the sentence-whatever that may have consisted in). (§186) Here the question carries to linguistically expressed thought in general: to the "being in accord" with a sentence which we fi nd between rule and instance, premises and conclusion, intention and action, order and execution, and all the rest. Th e question is both epistemic and constitutive, and relates to Witt genstein's basic notion of practice as well as to the mental acts he criticizes as seeming to animate or determine it. How do I know that I am following a particular rule-using a particular concept-correctly, as opposed to merely seeming to myself to do so? And how is such correctness constituted? (Cf. the "what this going-by-the-sign really consists in" of §198.) In order to connect these questions with more familiar work in philosophy, we might say that they concern the opposition between appearance and reality , as applied both to meaning and to thought. We are clear that it seems or appears to us 0001483288.INDD 117 12/26/2011 9:16:03 PM [ 118 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind that our sentences have meaning and our thoughts and experiences have content. But do we really think and mean as we take ourselves to? If meaning or content is real, what makes it so, and how do we distinguish this reality from mere appearance or seeming? Th ese questions are deep, and as Witt genstein raises them they seem particularly hard to answer. For of course-since these are exactly the claims we have been asked to justify-we cannot simply answer that we know this reality, or that we have fi rst-person authority with respect to it, in our intuitive knowledge of what we think and mean. Deprived of this kind of answer, we feel at a loss; for what we seem required to justify includes the traditional and supposedly indubitable starting points of philosophical enquiry (Descartes's cogito , the empiricists' immediate knowledge of impressions and ideas, Kant's "I think"), and hence the foundations apparently required for any philosophical investigation, including that of thought and meaning themselves. And as Saul Kripke observed in his pioneering exposition, if we take our inability to answer Witt genstein's questions as grounds for scepticism, "It seems that the entire idea of meaning vanishes into thin air." We seem left with the mere appearance of meaning, and so threatened with taking " all language, all concept formation, to be impossible, even unintelligible," so that "assertions that anyone ever means anything are meaningless." Such scepticism, as Kripke says, would be "insane and intolerable." 7 So once aware of these questions, how should we address them? 5. ESTABLISHING CORRECTNESS Despite the depth and apparent diffi culty of Witt genstein's questions, his answers to them are relatively straightforward. Th e diffi culty we encounter in his text arises not so much from his positive account, as from the way he uses his remarks to expose points of potential confusion. To bring this out let us fi rst take a basic but relatively simple part of his response to the questions, and then consider the rhetoric by which he treats them in more detail. From early in the Investigations Witt genstein notes that we can approach questions as to what rule a person is following by a kind of explicit interpretive observation, in which we discern and describe regularities in a person's behaviour. (Cf. the "am I defi ning 'order' and 'rule' by means of 'regularity'?" quoted from §208 in the previous section.) As we shall see, he discusses this most fully in §§206–207, where he uses the observation that "the common behaviour of mankind is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language" (§206) 7 . Kripke 1982 . Th e quotations are from pages 22, 62, 77, and 60 respectively. I trust it will be clear from what follows that my own account diff ers from Kripke's; but his recognition of the way meaning threatens to vanish under the impact of Witt genstein's arguments, as considered in the discussion of PI §198 below, marks him as one of the few who have really reckoned with their force. 0001483288.INDD 118 12/26/2011 9:16:03 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 119 ] to explain what constitutes following a rule correctly. Prior to this, however, he has already introduced the idea in some detail. Th us in §32 he considers how someone observing others in a strange land will have to guess at the meaning of the ostensive defi nitions the people try to give him there, and will "guess sometimes right, sometimes wrong." In §54 he says that we can say that a game is played in accord with defi nite rules when an observer "can read these rules off from the practice of the game-like a natural law governing the play." And he extends this to language by adding that such an observer can also distinguish between mistakes and correct play, since "Th ere are characteristic signs of it in the players' behaviour. Th ink of the behaviour characteristic of someone correcting a slip of the tongue. It would be possible to recognize that someone was doing so even without knowing his language." 8 Again in §82 he asks, "What do I call 'the rule by which he proceeds'?" and immediately off ers as a preliminary answer "Th e hypothesis that satisfactorily describes his use of words, which we observe . . . " 9 Later he extends this to going on with a number series by framing a "hypothesis" about the other's use in algebraic terms (§151); to considering which way of going on from examples is the correct one (§§206–207); and to interpreting the speech and other actions of people foreign to us, even if they talk only in monologue (§243). In these cases, as other remarks make clear, considering such interpretive observation is a way of making explicit the criteria we use in ascribing understanding, intending, and related states. (See for example §269.) As Witt genstein also considers (§§32, 82, 185, 207), we can go wrong in trying to understand another in this way. First, we may simply be mistaken as to what rule another is following-we may in eff ect frame the wrong hypothesis as to the regularity which the other's behaviour actually displays. Second, we may be mistaken in supposing that someone is following a rule at all: despite initial appearances her behaviour in using a term may be disordered or random. In the fi rst kind of case we may correct our hypothesis, and in the second we may fi nd that no hypotheses proves satisfactory. (And of course, as Witt genstein notes in §163, the presence of regularity, and hence the satisfactoriness of any such hypothesis, may itself be a matt er of degree. For while there are strict rules of language, as the example of the number series makes clear, these are not always obeyed, or rightly characterized, by those who obey them; and other cases, as he notes in §83, we may proceed without rules, or make them up or change them as we go along.) Th e argument about correctness which begins at §185 also turns on such a mistaken hypothesis. Th e reader observing the pupil's responses of "2," "4," "6," and so on at fi rst construes them as (hypothesizes that they are) instances of obedience 8 . Th is example as well as that of the reading-machines (PI §157) indicates that Witt genstein is including in his consideration rules which we learn to follow without ever learning to formulate, and hence without articulate beliefs as to what rules we are following. 9 . As he says in Th e Big Typescript , 199e: "I have indicated two ways of ascertaining the rule according to which he acts. One of them, the hypothetical, consisted in observing his actions, and then the rule was of the same kind as a proposition of science." 0001483288.INDD 119 12/26/2011 9:16:03 PM [ 120 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind to the order to add 2. In this case, taking the example in terms of what Witt genstein says in §82, this would seem to be "the hypothesis that satisfactorily describes his [the pupil's] use of words, which we observe"; and here also "Add 2" would be "the [sign] which he [the pupil] gives us in reply if we ask him what his rule is." Th is hypothetical construal, however, proves to be unsatisfactory, as emerges when the pupil continues past 1,000. Still, as Witt genstein says in §82, the teacher might be able "to see [a] clear rule," which he could describe by a further hypothesis ("Add 2 up to 1,000, 4 up to 2,000, etc."); and this might prove correct, in the sense that it would be borne out by further observation. Th is shows both that someone might take teaching and examples diff erently than we do, and also that just as diff erent hypotheses represent diff erent events as in accord with natural laws, so diff erent hypotheses about the rule someone is following represent diff erent behaviours as in accord with these rules. And again, these are both aspects of regarding the understanding of what rule a person is following as a kind of discerning of order in behaviour ("like a natural law governing the play"). We do not know in advance how much order we will discern, or what this order will be; and we may fail to discern it correctly. But of course in our own case we do not observe ourselves or interpret our own words in this way. We apply the criteria which such observation makes explicit in the case of others, but not ourselves (§377). As subjects and agents we simply use our words and concepts: we spontaneously think and act in accord with them, and take ourselves to do so correctly. So without interpretation we already know what we think and mean, and this fi rst-person authority extends to the contents of our mental states and acts more generally. But should this come seriously into question for us-should I have to ask myself, as prompted by §§185–186, which of two competing formulations rightly describes the rule I am following, or again what this rule requires of me at some particular point-then interpretation in my own case would provide no help. For since any interpretation I might off er is part of my own practice, it "still hangs in the air along with what it interprets, and cannot give it any support" (§198). Th is also applies to any justifi cation I might att empt for my judgments as to what I intend or mean, or for the way I follow a rule, or for holding that I am doing so correctly. If what is in question is my capacity to think correctly, and if my att empts at justifi cation are exercises of the same capacity as is in question, then such att empts are circular. So here, as Witt genstein says "my spade is turned," and I am inclined to say "Th is is simply what I do" (§217). We can thus see this part of Witt genstein's argument as focusing on an asymmetry regarding interpretation as between the fi rstand third-person cases. In the third-person case interpretation (as a form of investigation which proceeds by the tacit specifi cation and confi rmation of interpretive hypotheses) enables us to describe what rule a person is following, and hence what he must do to follow it. In the fi rst-person case, in which my interpretation does not serve as such an hypothesis about my own practice, but rather continues and amplifi es that practice, my interpretation "hangs in the air with what it interprets." Insofar as we fail to 0001483288.INDD 120 12/26/2011 9:16:03 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 121 ] distinguish these very diff erent cases we may take Witt genstein as arguing that as regards rule-following all interpretive understanding hangs in the air, and thus as advocating the kind of scepticism Kripke describes. But if we resist this confl ation, then we can also see that the diff erence in perspective highlighted by his remarks also provides straightforward answers to the questions he raises. For roughly, what makes it the case that my understanding of my own concepts (rules, etc.) in my own case is correct, as opposed to merely seeming so to me, is that I admit of understanding by others (via my participation in "the common behaviour of mankind" which, as Witt genstein says in §206, is "the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language"). Th is entails that there are regularities in my verbal and nonverbal behaviour which others might interpret, so that in this they might understand me as thinking and acting in accord with the same concepts (rules) as I take myself to, and as doing so correctly. So the fully objective correctness which I presuppose but cannot justify in my own case, can nonetheless be justifi ed on my behalf by the interpretive understanding of others. Such justifi cation does not require that others should actually understand me or share my concepts, but only that this should be possible. For insofar as it is possible that another should succeed in understanding me as correctly thinking as I take myself to do, then in fact I do think that way, and correctly. (So, as Witt genstein notes at §213, this approach does not require that we ever actually interpret one another in such an explicit and hypothetical way.) Th e reality as opposed to the appearance of meaning-and the justifi cation of our claims about this reality, including those as to the meanings of our sentences and the contents of our thoughts-is constituted by a discernable order in our behaviour, which we can make articulate by interpretation. 6. PERSPECTIVE AND PUZZLEMENT If this is right then a main reason for fi nding Witt genstein's discussion puzzling is a failure to distinguish the role of interpretation in one's own case from that in the case of others. Witt genstein in eff ect sets the stage for this, by introducing two quite distinct conceptions of interpretation, which we can describe as fi rst and third person. Th e third-person conception is that discussed in section 4 above, and concerns the interpretive understanding of one person by another . In interpreting another in this sense, I specify what that other means, and so speak in the third person. By contrast with this third-person conception of interpretation there is also a fi rst-person one. For I may also specify what I myself mean, as when I say "By 'Moses' I mean such-and-such a man." As noted in section 3 above, Witt genstein relates this to the idea of meaning as a mental state or process which gives meaning to a word (or stamps a rule with a particular meaning), and thereby determines what its correct use will be. He argues against this by stressing that what "comes before the mind" in meaning or understanding does not "force a use on us" since we 0001483288.INDD 121 12/26/2011 9:16:03 PM [ 122 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind can always interpret or specify it in more than one way. Th is again is the fi rst-person conception, that of interpretation in one's own case . Although these conceptions are clearly distinct, Witt genstein anticipates that his reader will be inclined to confl ate them, via the idea that in understanding either my own words or those of another I give them meaning by the same mental processes. So for example in learning to use a rule from another I become able to interpret the rule-to stamp it with meaning in my own case -in the same way as the other does, and hence in the way I might read from his behaviour in understanding him. 10 Th us at successive stages in his argument Witt genstein represents both conceptions of interpretation in the same way, that is, by means of an algebraic formula. Th us in PI §146 he implies that in thinking of understanding as "the source of the correct use" we are thinking of it as analogous to the grasp of such a formula, and remarks: But this is where we were before. Th e point is, we can think of more than one application of an algebraic formula; and every type of application can in turn be formulated algebraically; but naturally this does not get us any further.-Th e application is still a criterion of understanding. Th is turns on the fi rst-person conception: if I think of my own state of understanding as like my grasp of an algebraic formula, I can see that this state, like the formula itself before my mind, might be interpreted in more than one way, and so fails to determine what use on my part will actually be correct. (And rather than my understanding determining what use is correct, the correctness of my use determines whether I have actually understood.) But then in §151 Witt genstein considers an individual B who tries to understand what rule another individual A is following, and then says that he knows how to go on. What happened here? Various things may have happened; for example, while A was slowly putt ing one number aft er another, B was occupied with trying various algebraic formulae on the numbers which had been writt en down. Aft er A had writt en the number 19 B tried the formula a n = n 2 + n − 1; and the next number confi rmed his hypothesis. Th is is the third-person conception. Th e aim, as in §82, is to fi nd "the rule by which he proceeds," and so "the hypothesis that satisfactorily describes his use of words, which we observe." As Witt genstein here notes, we can frame such hypotheses and confi rm them like any others. True, the predictions of such hypotheses are potentially infi nite, and competing hypotheses might yield the same predictions over any fi nite range. But this applies to hypotheses in general, and presents no special diffi culty in the case of meaning-unless we are inclined to suppose that the fact that we 10 . Th us compare §213 with the "Now, how was it possible for the rule to have been given an interpretation during instruction, an interpretation which reaches as far as to any arbitrary step?" from RFM VI, §38. 0001483288.INDD 122 12/26/2011 9:16:03 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 123 ] mean such-and-such things, or obey such-and-such rules, cannot be a mere matt er of fact, and so answerable to observation and hypothesis in this kind of way. So when at §213 Witt genstein says that "this initial segment of a series obviously admitt ed of various interpretations (e.g. by means of algebraic expressions)" his use of "interpretation" is ambiguous. Indeed he characteristically deploys both conceptions in the same remark (§146 begins with the third person and moves to the fi rst, while §151 can be seen as starting with the fi rst and moving to the third), leaving the reader to distinguish their application. Th is again is not straightforward, for much of his argument holds for both. As §213 illustrates, since both can be exemplifi ed by the use of an algebraic series, both are subject to the claim that "we can think of more than one application of an algebraic formula, and every application can in turn be formulated algebraically." Th is in turn entails that on both conceptions, as Witt genstein's interlocutor complains at §198, "Whatever I do is, on some interpretation, in accord with the rule." Again, it entails that on both, as Witt genstein says at §201, "if everything can be made out to accord with the rule, then it can also be made out to confl ict with it." Despite these similarities, however, the two conceptions have diff erent roles and fates in Witt genstein's argument. Th e fi rst-person conception is shown to fail to sustain meaning on its own, and to be signifi cant only as it works in coordination with the other; the third-person conception is elaborated as part of an account of correctness in practice, in which the fi rst-person conception also plays a role, as the preliminary sketch in section 4 indicates. In that sketch we noted that Witt genstein's account required his reader to distinguish the role of interpretation in the fi rstand third-person perspectives. We now see that to do this in the context of Witt genstein's argument the reader must also distinguish the fi rstand third-person conceptions of interpretation which he introduces side by side. Accordingly his interlocutor struggles particularly intensely with this at §198: "But how can a rule shew me what I have to do at this point? Whatever I do is, on some interpretation, in accord with the rule."-Th at is not what we ought to say, but rather: any interpretation still hangs in the air along with what it interprets, and cannot give it any support. Interpretations by themselves do not determine meaning. "Th en can whatever I do be brought into accord with the rule?"-Let me ask this: what has the expression of a rule-say a sign-post-got to do with my actions? What sort of connexion is there here?-Well, perhaps this one: I have been trained to react to this sign in a particular way, and now I do so react to it. But that is only to give a causal connexion; to tell how it has come about that we now go by the sign-post; not what this going-by-the-sign really consists in. On the contrary; I have further indicated that a person goes by a sign-post only in so far as there exists a regular use of sign-posts, a custom. Here the interlocutor's "Whatever I do is, on some interpretation, in accord with the rule" apparently confl ates the two conceptions via their role in §185. Th e 0001483288.INDD 123 12/26/2011 9:16:04 PM [ 124 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind example of the pupil in that remark clearly raises the initial question "How can a rule show me what I have to do at this point?" For the pupil has apparently been using the rule "Add 2" correctly up to "1,004"; and as he has understood the rule this was, at that point, the right thing to say. Th e pupil has, however, learned that there is another interpretation of the rule-on which, at that same point, he should instead have writt en "1,002"-and this was apparently the interpretation the teacher had in mind all the time. Also, as the interlocutor is aware, when we consider a formula such as "Add 2" as "before the mind" of either the teacher or the pupil, we can see that there is more than one way to apply it, as is exemplifi ed here. So on the fi rst-person conception the argument so far seems to imply that the responses "1,002" and "1,004" can equally be justifi ed, and that this can be generalized, since "Whatever I do is, on some interpretation, in accord with the rule." But also the interlocutor has seen that when the pupil produced a response to "Add 2" which apparently confl icts with the rule, the teacher might still provide an interpretation ("Add 2 up to 1,000, 4 up to 2,000, etc.") on which this response would be correct. So on the third-person conception too it appears that "Whatever I do can be brought into accord with the rule," which is how the interlocutor puts his question the second time. Th us the interlocutor's successive expressions of puzzlement seem themselves to mark the confl ation, by the way the fi rst (with "show me") alludes to the fi rst-person case, whereas the second (with "brought into accord") fi ts interpretation by another as well. 11 Th e interlocutor's questions thus show that he has been participating fully in Witt genstein's dialectic so far. His fault lies only in not yet distinguishing clearly between the two conceptions of interpretation in play, and so in not yet seeing-as Witt genstein will bring out in the remarks that follow-that they yield diff erent answers to his fi nal question. But at this stage, and on both conceptions, his questions can be answered as Witt genstein initially replies. On both, interpretation in my own case "still hangs in the air with what it interprets, and cannot give it any support"; and on both "Interpretations do not by themselves determine meaning." (Th ird-person interpretations may ascribe meaning in describing the use of words, but as in the case of laws of nature it is the real regularity under description, and not the describing of it, which determines the meaning so ascribed.) It is thus appropriate that Witt genstein's interlocutor-or the reader who has followed the argument with equal tenacity-should now struggle with the way the constraints of meaning seem in danger of vanishing. (Kripke apparently did so, when his way of seeing Witt genstein's argument as putt ing these constraints in question "struck [him] with the force of a revelation" (1982, 1).) And the problem highlighted 11 . Th e same tacit shift in perspective occurs more clearly Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics : "How can the word 'Slab' indicate what I have to do, when aft er all I can bring any action into accord with any interpretation? How can I follow a rule, when aft er all whatever I do can be interpreted as following it?" (VI, §38). Here the "I can bring any action . . . " involves interpretation by myself, as opposed to "whatever I do can be interpreted . . . " which suggests interpretation by another. 0001483288.INDD 124 12/26/2011 9:16:04 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 125 ] by Kripke is not lessened but made more acute by the "answer" presented in §201, namely that "if everything can be made out to accord with the rule, then it can also be made out to confl ict with it. So there would be neither accord nor confl ict here." For if there were "neither accord nor confl ict" with a rule then meaning really would have vanished. To have meaning we require accord and confl ict, and these must not be just apparent but also real. Hence Witt genstein's reminder in the next remark that "to think one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule" (§202). He notes that we cannot make this distinction "privately"; but how the distinction is made non -"privately," and indeed what privacy is supposed to be, has so far not been explained. As subsequent remarks indicate, the interlocutor has yet to see that although on both conceptions of interpretation there is a sense in which whatever I do can be brought into accord with a rule, on neither is this actually relevant to my linguistic practice. It is not relevant as regards the fi rst person, because in practice "there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation , but which is exhibited in what we call 'obeying the rule' and 'going against it' in actual cases" (§201). And it is not relevant as regards the third person, for another who is seeking to understand the rule I am following in practice will perforce frame hypotheses which satisfactorily describe my utt erances and other actions. Th is requires formulations which specify both accord and confl ict, so as to admit confi rmation and disconfi rmation by what actually I say and do. (Th us the teacher in §185 was able to see his error, and consider another hypothesis, precisely because his initial supposition was disconfi rmed at "1,004.") By considering such hypotheses, particularly in the context of an explorer who seeks to interpret a language strange to him, we can see how our understanding of one another can be regarded as having foundations which are not abstract but rather concrete and empirical. Also we can see that these foundations enable us to extend such understanding even to others who are not members of our community and never speak to us. For as Witt genstein says at §243, we can also imagine observing and interpreting human beings who spoke only in monologue; who accompanied their activities by talking to themselves.-An explorer who watched them and listened to their talk might succeed in translating their language into ours. (Th is would enable him to predict these people's actions correctly, for he also hears them making resolutions and decisions.) 7. INTERPRETATION, ORDER, AND OBJECTIVITY Witt genstein makes explicit both this notion of interpretation and the kind or order he takes it to involve in PI §§206–207. 206. Following a rule is analogous to obeying an order. We are trained to do so; we react to an order in a particular way. But what if one person reacts in one way and another in another to the order and the training? Which one is right? 0001483288.INDD 125 12/26/2011 9:16:04 PM [ 126 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind Suppose you came as an explorer into an unknown country with a language quite strange to you. In what circumstances would you say that the people there gave orders, understood them, obeyed them, rebelled against them, and so on? Th e common behaviour of mankind is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language. 207. Let us imagine that the people in that country carried on the usual human activities and in the course of them employed, apparently, an articulate language. If we watch their behaviour we fi nd it intelligible, it seems 'logical'. But when we try to learn their language we fi nd it impossible to do so. For there is no regular connexion between what they say, the sounds they make, and their actions; but still these sounds are not superfl uous, for if we gag one of the people, it has the same consequences as with us; without the sounds their actions fall into confusion-as I feel like putt ing it. Are we to say that these people have a language: orders, reports, and the rest? Th ere is not enough regularity for us to call it "language". Th e fi rst paragraph of these remarks makes clear that Witt genstein intends them to address the question of correctness, as raised by the pupil who reacts diff erently in §185. He does this by taking up the interpretation of an "articulate language." Th is links his consideration of interpretation with the topic of thought, for he takes human thinking to have a complexity (or "multiplicity") which the sentences of such a language specify, 12 and which we cannot ascribe in their absence (§§25, 32, 342ff ., 650). As emphasized in the Tractatus , the combinatory syntax of human language ("part of the human organism, and no less complex than it," TLP 4.002) provides a potential infi nity of distinct but interrelated sentences, capable of sustaining the assignment of distinct but interrelated contents to an unlimited range of utt erances, actions, and states of mind. Still, as PI §207 argues, even such signifi cantly patt erned linguistic tokens cannot be understood in isolation from the activity and environment of the agent who produces them. (Trying to do so would be like trying to learn a foreign language by listening to the radio while having no information as to what the broadcasts were about.) So while deeds without words are inarticulate, words without deeds would be unintelligible. If the two are "regularly connected," however, we can understand each by relation to the other. Th is is because-as Augustine observes in describing 12 . Th us in Philosophical Remarks he says: I only use the terms the expectation, thought, wish, etc., that p will be the case, for processes having the multiplicity that fi nds expression in p , and thus only if they are articulated . But in that case they are what I call the interpretation of signs. I only call an articulated process a thought: You could therefore say 'only what has an articulated expression'. (Salivation – no matt er how precisely measured – is not what I call expecting.) (PR §32) And in this we may note also his use of "interpretation of signs," as relating to the Tractatus idea that such processes involve a sign which receives the projection of a possible situation. 0001483288.INDD 126 12/26/2011 9:16:04 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 127 ] bodily movement as "the natural language of mankind"-we can understand much nonverbal action without relying on speech. Th is enables us to tie the complex structure of language as it appears in utt erance to further points in action and context, and so to interpret sentences and words; and by this means we also understand nonverbal action as informed by thoughts which, like sentences, have fully articulate content. We can see this clearly in the example of the monologue people, whose verbal expressions of intention ("resolutions and decisions") are regularly connected with actions which accord with them. In understanding nonverbal bodily movements as actions-and hence, as Witt genstein says, as "intelligible" and "logical"-we relate them to intentions in ordered series. (Th us we might observe someone moving in certain ways, with the intention of arranging leaves, sticks, and other burnable things; this with the intention of making a fi re; this with the intention of cooking food; this with the intention of serving a cooked meal; and so on. As Anscombe says, all these ascriptions show "an order that is there" in the movements we observe.) 13 So we can imagine an explorer-interpreter A observing an interpretee B who in monologue uses sentences Σ 1 , Σ 2 , . . . Σ n to express intentions relating to everyday actions. In fi nding B's actions intelligible A relates each to a series of intentions which A articulates in A's own language, say by S 1 , S 2 . . . S n . In each instance of such understanding, therefore, A is in a position to hypothesize that some of A's own sentences (and hence words) have the same use in articulating intentions as some of B's, the use of which he observes; and so also that these sentences (and words) have the same use as A's own in specifying the observable conditions in which these intentions are fulfi lled (and again in specifying B's beliefs as to whether this is so). As Witt genstein notes, this could enable A to translate B's sentences into his own, and also to predict what B will do on the basis of what B says. 14 Such predictions would depend on three hypotheses: (1) that A rightly understands the intentions in B's nonverbal actions; (2) that B uses his sentences to express these intentions correctly (and hence with fi rst-person authority); and (3) that A also rightly understands these sentences as B uses them. Failure in prediction should be traceable to falsity in one of these hypotheses, and success tends to confi rm all three together, for the intentions and sentences concerned. In this hypothetical procedure, moreover, nothing is assumed or taken on trust. As A tests A's understanding of B's nonverbal actions against A's understanding of B's expressions 13 . I have discussed this order and the nature of hypotheses related to it in more detail in Hopkins 1999b . I relate it to psychoanalytic interpretation in Hopkins 1999a . Th ese and other papers of mine are available via the website of the Department of Philosophy, King's College London, www.kcl.ac.uk. 14 . Witt genstein's emphasis on the relation of verbal and nonverbal behaviour also appears in his Cambridge lectures. See for example "if that were the rule instead of the exception, if there were a race of men who always walked straight out of the room whenever they said 'I intend to play chess'-would we still say they used the phrase in the same way we do?" (LFM, 25). 0001483288.INDD 127 12/26/2011 9:16:04 PM [ 128 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind of intention, A's confi dence in A's own understanding is based on A's ability to predict what B does, and A's confi dence in B's fi rst-person authority is based on its coincidence with A's own and independent understanding of the utt erances and actions in which B expresses it. So given initial footholds in A's natural understanding of intention and B's observable and authoritative use of sentences in expressing it, this interpretive procedure would be both thoroughly empirical and capable of precise predictive testing. In acting in accord with their own expressions of intention the monologue people are already acting in accord with sentences, and so in the relevant sense they are already following rules (cf. the "'being in accord' with that sentence" of Witt genstein's original question at §186). Also, as indicated in the remarks on writing numerals in series (cf. §§143–145 as well as §§185ff .) we can readily imagine the same scenario as extended to expressions of intention such as "I will add 2" and verbal actions which accord with them, such as utt ering or writing "2" followed by "4" followed by "6" . . . For clearly the same kind of "regular connections" as hold between verbal expressions of intention and nonverbal actions also hold for verbal actions as well. And as §§206–207 make clear, the same considerations apply beyond the monologic case. In particular we can see that A's understanding of B is partly comparable with our understanding of one another, for it is especially important to us that we can predict the actions of others on the basis of what they say. Th is means that we can also use the example of A and B above to illustrate how the "regular connections" spoken of in §§206–207 secure mutual understanding in our own case. We constantly coordinate our own actions with those of others by assuming that if they are sincere in their expressions of intention and able to act as they intend, then they will act in accord with the intentions they express. (Without such coordination our actions would be liable to "fall into confusion," as Witt genstein "feels like putt ing it" in §207.) In this again we rely on forms of the three hypotheses above: that we can recognize the intentions on which others act, that they express these intentions with authority, and that we understand their expressions correctly. So our successes in everyday coordination (as well as failures which we can trace to inability or insincerity on the part of others) constantly but tacitly testify that these hypotheses are correct, and hence that others use the same sentences to express their intentions, and so relate these same sentences to the world, as we do. Such coordination, indeed, is an explicit feature of Witt genstein's examples of rules as orders (or imperatives more generally); for in these cases one person acts in accord with a sentence provid ed by another , thus showing how the "regular connections" of §§206–207 eff ect coordinations between utt erances and actions which are interpersonal and so fully social. In such interactions-as opposed to those of the monologue people-we both respond to the words of other and speak to them in turn. In adding this to our account, we also see how Witt genstein takes the two notions of interpretation in his discussion to work in harmony. Th us, again, as Witt genstein says in §87, I can explain what I mean by "Moses" by saying "I take 'Moses' to mean the man, if there was such a man, who led the Israelites out of Egypt . . . " Another seeking to 0001483288.INDD 128 12/26/2011 9:16:04 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 129 ] understand me might claim that this explanation is not fi nal, and that it could not be completed: "As though an explanation as it were hung in the air unless supported by another one." Th is, however, is a misapprehension. For, as Witt genstein says, "whereas an explanation may indeed rest on another one that has been given, but none stands in need of another-unless we require it to prevent a misunderstanding." So where we use our capacity to specify what we mean in this way-that is, to ensure understanding on the part of another -our fi rst-person specifi cations also do not "hang in the air." Rather, as we can now see, they add further and more elaborately articulated elements to the "regular connections" which enable us to understand one another, and so help to ensure that we do so correctly. In addition Witt genstein notes that by "nature" and "training" we are disposed to authoritative verbal expressions of other states of mind as well. He specifi cally mentions wishes, longings, and expectations (see, e.g., §§444–445 and the "if I have learned to talk, then I do know" of §441); but what he says also applies to desires, beliefs, hopes, fears, and other states with sentential content. In these cases B's expressive self-ascription should also describe further aspects of B's actions or environment, so that A could use this link in a way analogous to that above. Th us if A takes B's use of "S" as expressing an expectation, A will also hold that B will regard whether a situation is described by "S" as determining whether, in that situation, B should take his expectation as fulfi lled. Th is is a less direct prediction of the same general kind as we see in the case of the monologue people, but one which makes clear how the use of sentences links mental states with objects and events which are remote in space and time. So as Witt genstein says at §445, expectation and fulfi lment "make contact" in language, and in another of the "regular connections" by which interpretive understanding is sustained. Th is is how Witt genstein answers the questions he raises. Our ability to establish and follow rules rests on a system of empirical regularities, which hold over linguistic behaviour, nonlinguistic behaviour, and the environment. Th ese are common to human beings, and with training become part of "the framework on which the working of our language is based" (§240). Our coordination in them, therefore, is "not agreement in opinions but in form of life" (§241). We can make these regularities explicit by considering, as in the case of the monologue people, how a radical interpreter might characterize them, namely by taking sentences an interpretee utt ers as having regularly repeatable uses (as in the familiar "that P" constructions) in characterizing the interpretee's nonverbal actions, motives (or states of mind), and environment. In this the interpreter would represent the utt erances as meaningful, the motives, like the sentences, as directed on the environment ("propositional"), and the actions as rational ("intelligible" and "logical") in light of them. Th e interpreter's success in this would be marked by the ability to predict what others will do on the basis of what they say, as we do in the spontaneous and everyday coordination of activities which is central to our social form of life. So we can see that these same regularities-which can be extended indefi nitely to avoid misunderstanding in practice-enable us to regard one another as speaking a 0001483288.INDD 129 12/26/2011 9:16:05 PM [ 130 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind language which we all understand, as following rules (and using concepts) in the same ways, and as expressing what we think and mean with an authority for which our mutual understanding provides the prospect of continual ratifi cation. 15 Although these considerations are complex, they are refl ected throughout Witt genstein's remarks, and enable us to see how densely and precisely these remarks 15 . It may be worth noting that this account apparently contradicts a distinguished tradition in the interpretation of Witt genstein. In Th e Realistic Spirit Cora Diamond describes how John McDowell, in speaking of the kind of philosophical illusion from which Witt genstein in his later work tries to free us, uses the phrase "the view from sideways on" to characterize what we aim for, or think we need to aim for, in philosophy. We have, for example, the idea of ourselves as looking, from sideways on, at the human activity of following a rule, and as asking from that position whether there is or is not something objectively determined as what the rule requires to be done at the next application. To think of the question in that way is to try to step outside our ordinary saying what a rule requires, our ordinary criticisms of steps taken by others, our ordinary ways of judging whether someone has grasped what a rule requires. We do not want to ask and answer these ordinary questions, but to ask what in reality there is to justify the answers we give when we are unselfconsciously inside the ordinary practice. ( Diamond 1991 , 184–185) On the reading proposed here, by contrast, Witt genstein's discussion (particularly the material in §§206–7 and §243) aims to convey just the kind of understanding the seeking of which Diamond condemns as illusory. Witt genstein takes it that "when we are unselfconsciously in the ordinary practice" we may well not be aware how that practice depends on empirical regularities and can be regarded as ratifi ed by reference to them. Witt genstein is sometimes explicit about this, saying, for example, the description of the method and unit of measurement tells us something about the world in which this measurement takes place. And in this very way the technique of use of a word gives us an idea of very general truths about the world in which it is used, of truths in fact which are so general that they don't strike people, I'm sorry to say, and philosophers, too. ("Notes for the 'Philosophical Lecture,'" 449) To appreciate the role of empirical regularities in this case-which, as Witt genstein repeatedly reminds us (PI §§142, 242) are analogous to those which sustain measurement more generally-Witt genstein encourages us "to step outside of our ordinary saying what a rule requires," etc. For this we adopt the external perspective on our own practices which a radical interpreter would have, and for whom the regularities in which we unrefl ectingly participate might be a matt er of implicit empirical study. In this we regard the interpretive understanding of language not just "from outside" but, in the case of the monologue people "from sideways on." Taking things this way, moreover, enables us to understand the sense in which in the ordinary case, despite the ways in which "whatever I do can be brought into accord with a rule," there is nonetheless "something objectively determined as to what the rule requires to be done at the next application"; and again how in a "private" case there could be no such thing. Again this enables us to see "what in reality there is to justify the answers we give," e.g., when we speak with fi rst-person authority as regards how we follow a rule, or what we intend and mean more generally. Th is is particularly important, for in considering how our exercise of fi rst-person authority can be justifi ed we naturally look to our own case, and are thus liable to fail to see "what in reality there is"-namely the possibility of our own regularities being understood by others - which justifi es us. McDowell 1984 takes Witt genstein's central point to be "to att ack the assimilation of understanding to interpretation" (357); but in this McDowell seems mainly to have the 0001483288.INDD 130 12/26/2011 9:16:05 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 131 ] are interconnected. Th us Augustine's discussion of language in §1 serves not only to introduce errors from Witt genstein's early philosophy, but also, via the transition at §32, to bring forward a conception of the relation of verbal and nonverbal behaviour-both repeatedly illustrated in his simple language-games and taken as discernable in a fully fl edged "articulate language" by a radical interpreter-upon which his later account will turn. In this Augustine's "natural language of mankind" in §1 becomes "the common behaviour of mankind" which renders interpretation possible in §§206–207, and so elucidates how meaning is founded in our "form of life" in §241. So also we understand Witt genstein's later philosophy by imposing on its fi rst paragraph from Augustine the same shift -roughly, from a fi rst-person or Cartesian view of psychological and semantic concepts to one which sees them as rooted in interpretable practice-as Witt genstein seeks to eff ect in the course of the Investigations itself. In this we deepen and justify his claim at the end of §1 that explanations of meaning come to an end-not, as philosophers have long held, in mental reference which ultimately penetrates to abstract objects, but-in how we, as members of a social species, spontaneously act . Th us consider the following: Th e absent-minded man who at the order "Right turn!" turns left , and then, clutching his forehead, says "Oh! right turn" and does a right turn.-What has struck him? An interpretation? (PI §506) Brief as this is, it is connected with almost everything we have discussed so far. Th e clutching of the forehead is comparable to the behaviour Witt genstein mentions in §54 as characteristic of correcting a slip, which one could recognize "even without knowing his language." It occurs as part of a simple "regular connection" between utt erance and action, such as §§206–207 enables us to see as essential to the understanding of language (and hence of sententially expressible thought), and which in §243 we fi nd in "people who spoke only in monologue," as the soldier speaks here. Th is is a connection which another might interpret to fi nd "the rule that he is following" by framing "the hypothesis which satisfactorily describes his use of words, which we observe." Such interpretation would yield that "Right turn" can be taken as linked in this man's behaviour with turning right, as by "a natural law governing the play," but making allowance for error (or other forms of noncompliance or nonfulfi lment) on his part. Th is would make it possible to predict how he will act in accord with these words, as utt ered by himself or another, as we see in this case. So fi rst-person conception in mind. Although Witt genstein both raises the question and explicitly addresses it in §§206–207, McDowell does not consider how correctness in following a rule in practice is supposed to be established, nor why it is lacking in a private language. In particular he makes no mention of Witt genstein's linking this topic to interpretation involving "the common behaviour of mankind" which makes it possible "to interpret an unknown language" via "regular connection" between utt erance and action. Witt genstein's own explicit use of the notion of interpretation here is an "assimilation of understanding to interpretation"-but in the thirdas opposed to the fi rst-person case-which McDowell does not to take into account. 0001483288.INDD 131 12/26/2011 9:16:05 PM [ 132 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind the hypothesis could be strongly confi rmed, and (with the soldier's help if necessary) put beyond any doubt which might actually arise. In acting, however, the soldier is not himself interpreting the order. Rather, as in answer to Witt genstein's questions of §198, he is exhibiting a grasp of it (as imparted by training) "which is not an interpretation , but which is exhibited in what we call 'obeying the rule' and 'going against it' in actual cases" as in §201. (And his grasp, as in that remark, is exhibited both in his obedience and in his failure to obey.) 16 8. SUBJECTIVITY, PRIVACY, AND APPEARANCE Th is makes clear how in Witt genstein's account the practice of language renders human thought both social and objective. In learning language we come to participate in such a system of regularities, and so to speak and think in coordination with one another, and in ways which are subject to mutual interpretive assessment. So our participation in these regularities renders meaning and understanding objective, and thereby also demarcates them from their appearances. As Witt genstein says: there are certain criteria in a man's behaviour for the fact that he does not understand a word: that it means nothing to him, that he can do nothing with it. And criteria for his 'thinking he understands', att aching some meaning to the word, but not the right one. And, lastly, criteria for his understanding the word right. In the second case one might speak of a subjective understanding. And sounds which no one else understands but which I ' appear to understand ' might be called a "private language". (PI §269) Th is remark-like the "it is not possible to obey a rule 'privately'" of §202-serves to connect the topic of rules with that of private language. In the terminology Witt genstein introduces here, the deviant pupil of §185 has a subjective understanding of "+2," that is, something rightly regarded as an understanding, but one which he does not share with others. He att aches "some meaning" to 16 . Th is account also enables us to approach a problem which Witt genstein does not specifi cally consider, but which arises on any empirical approach to meaning. Our interpretive understanding of language and of others more generally is liable to empirical indeterminacy, as illustrated by Witt genstein's use of algebraic formulae, and later as particularly stressed by Quine. Th e embedding of an interpretee's sentences in the ascription of all propositional att itudes, as emphasized on Witt genstein's account, both spreads this indeterminacy across all sententially described states and events, and by this same means minimizes its practical importance, by making the test of each ascription at the same time a test of the interpreter's and interpretee's understanding of the sentence as well as the state of mind involved. Since our understanding of language is as it were repeated and tested for us in our understanding of each and every sententially described state of mind, we can regard it as both at the core of our understanding of ourselves and others, and also, by its role as the armature of interpretation, as being particularly strongly confi rmed. 0001483288.INDD 132 12/26/2011 9:16:05 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 133 ] the phrase-his practice shows a genuine regularity-but "not the right one." For the right regularity for a student of our language is not just any regularity, but that particular regularity which coordinates the student's practice fully with our own. Th is would render the case one of objective (as opposed to subjective) obedience to the teacher's order, which is what both teacher and pupil intend. Such a real but subjective understanding also contrasts with the mere appearance of understanding, which is all there could be if no hypothesis could satisfactorily describe a putative rule-follower's use of words. 17 Th is, by defi nition, is the case for a private language. So for a language to be private in Witt genstein's sense is just for it to be uninterpretable as explicated by §§206–207 and §243. Another person "cannot understand this language" since its words "are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations." In this case neither "the common behaviour of mankind" of §§206–207, nor anything else, can provide a "system of reference" for these words by which anyone besides their user might understand them. Such a language could perforce be used only in monologue; and this is why Witt genstein introduces it by explicit contrast to interpretable monologue in §243. Here, as we have seen, there are regularities which hold between fi rst-person expressive uses of the words in question and other behaviour, and these provide a mode of triangulation by which an interpreter can link them with the speaker's intentions and so with the environment. In the private language, by contrast, there are to be no such links (§256), nor anything else which would render the language subject to interpretive understanding. But since, as he remarks, "to think one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule"; and since this distinction turns on the possibility of the interpretive understanding of one putative rule-follower by another; there can be no such thing as following a rule "privately." Th us the conclusion as drawn in §258- that in such a case there is no "criterion of correctness" for the use of a word, so that "we cannot talk about 'right'"-already follows from the constitutive role of understanding by another as previously explicated. 9. INNERNESS, PRIVACY, AND OUR PICTURE OF THE MIND Still Witt genstein's redrawing of this conclusion has further and independent interest, both as regards his own philosophical steps and the methods by which he encourages his reader to retrace them. Witt genstein took philosophical problems to be rooted in misunderstandings of language fostered by "pictures" of the use of words, and this was particularly so as regards the problems of mind. As he says 17 . Here it is perhaps worth noting that when Witt genstein says "Th ere is not enough regularity for us to call it 'language' " in §§206–207 he is not excluding the idea that there is an order which we fail to fi nd. We can acknowledge that order renders language interpretable without holding that we can always fi nd such order when it is there. 0001483288.INDD 133 12/26/2011 9:16:05 PM [ 134 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind 425. In numberless cases we exert ourselves to fi nd a picture and once it is found the application as it were comes about of itself. In this case we already have a picture which forces itself upon us at every turn,-but does not help us out of the diffi culty, which only begins here. 427. "While I was speaking to him I did not know what was going on in his head." In saying this, one is not thinking of brain-processes, but of thought-processes. Th e picture should be taken seriously. We should really like to see into his head. And yet we only mean what elsewhere we should mean by saying: we should like to know what he is thinking. I want to say: we have this vivid picture-and that use, apparently contradicting the picture, which expresses the psychical. Th e picture to which Witt genstein here refers is that of the innerness we ascribe to mental items, when we regard them as in the mind, or again when we regard the mind as in the body. From early in his work Witt genstein noted that our notion of mental innerness seemed to separate the contents of the mind from the public world in which we live and act. As he says in Th e Big Typescript "Th e expression 'that something is going on in our mind' is supposed to suggest, I believe, that it can't be situated in physical space" (174e). Accordingly we picture the mind as a kind of nonphysical inner space , whose contents are psychological and phenomenological as opposed to physical or neural ("not thinking of brain-processes but of thoughtprocesses "), and detectable by a process analogous to sight (introspection: on this see also his emphasis in PI §305: "When one says 'Still, an inner process does take place here'-one wants to go on: 'Aft er all you see it.' "). But then since we picture the mind as in the body, we also relate this nonphysical space to the space internal to the body, as in somehow wanting "to see into his head." Witt genstein applies this notion in detail to the idea that we know what pain is only from our own case. 295. "I know. . . . only from my own case". . . . even if [this] gives no information, still it is a picture. . . . When we look into ourselves as we do philosophy, we oft en get to see just such a picture. A full-blown pictorial representation of our grammar. Not facts; but as it were illustrated turns of speech. 296. "Yes, but there is something there all the same accompanying my cry of pain. And it is on account of that that I utt er it. And this something is what is important-and frightful."-Only whom are we informing of this? And on what occasion? 297. Of course, if water boils in a pot, steam comes out of the pot and also pictured steam comes out of the pictured pot. But what if one insisted on saying that there must also be something boiling in the picture of the pot? In §297 the picture of the mind as an inner space in which we encounter the sensation of pain is compared to a picture of a pot in which water is boiling, and our idea that pain goes on in this pictured space to the idea that there is something boiling-not just in the pot, in which the boiling actually takes place, but-in the 0001483288.INDD 134 12/26/2011 9:16:05 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 135 ] picture of the pot. On this picture, as Frege says, "nobody even knows how far his image (say) of red agrees with somebody else's." But then, as Witt genstein observes, the privacy which this picture represents sensation as having provides a reductio of the use of the picture itself. 293. If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word "pain" means-must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly? Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case!- Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle.-Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something diff erent in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing.-But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language?-If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. Th e thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something : For the box might even be empty.-No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is. Th at is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant. Here the inner space is pictured as a box rather than a pot, but the basic metaphor 18 is the same. In applying it we take ourselves to recognize the contents of the inner space independently of anything else, and so hold that "it would be quite possible for everyone to have something diff erent in his box" and again that "the box might even be empty." If we take such things to be possible, we require grounds for judging which of these possibilities actually obtain. Since we can have no access to the containers of others, we can have no such grounds, and the contents of the containers are private. But then items which were private in this way could not be the referents of words in a public language. For such words, as noted in §229, are used in accord with public criteria, which serve to determine whether or not they are used correctly. So if a word is used in a public language-as "pain" or other words for sensation actually are-it cannot have a referent whose nature of existence is independent of these criteria and so private. Items which can vary or fail to exist while the conditions of truth or correct use for a sentence remain constant cannot be construed as referents of terms in that sentence. Hence, as Witt genstein says in his "Notes for the 'Philosophical Lecture'": "In fact the private object is one about which neither he 18 . Th e "pictures" in which Witt genstein takes philosophical problems to be rooted all seem instances of conceptual metaphor, as described by Lakoff and others. So (and remarkably) something close to Witt genstein's conception of philosophy also informs Lakoff and Johnson's Philosophy in the Flesh . Although the programme of this book seems to have been conceived in ignorance of Witt genstein, it nonetheless casts light on some of his most basic claims. As noted below, I discuss the connection between Witt genstein and conceptual metaphor in Hopkins 2000a . 0001483288.INDD 135 12/26/2011 9:16:05 PM [ 136 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind who has it nor he who hasn't got it can say anything to others or to himself." 19 Accordingly Witt genstein summarizes his argument at §304 as follows: "But you will surely admit that there is a diff erence between pain-behaviour accompanied by pain and pain-behaviour without any pain?"-Admit it? What greater diff erence could there be?-"And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a nothing ."-Not at all. It is not a something , but not a nothing either! Th e conclusion was only that a nothing would serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said. We have only rejected the grammar which tries to force itself on us here. Th e paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose: to convey thoughts- which may be about houses, pains, good and evil, or anything else you please. Th ese remarks also have the precise links with others noted above. Th e interlocutor's "again and again" relate respectively to the fi rstand third-person perspectives. Th e fi rst refers back to the discussion (§§258–259) establishing that the user of a word for a private object cannot speak about it in monologue (in a private language), to which the interlocutor responded in §260 by saying "Th en did the man . . . make a note of nothing whatever ?" Th e second refers to §293 quoted above, in which "the box might even be empty," so that, as far as interpretation by another is concerned, "pain" cannot be construed as referring to such an item in any case. (Th e interlocutor's response in §296 was that "there is something there all the same.") Witt genstein's allusions thus make clear that his argument aims to show that a private object-as opposed, from the outset (§246), to the actual sensation of pain-would be "a something about which nothing can be said." In this he rejects construing "the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation,'" by rejecting "the full-blown pictorial representation of our grammar" which "forces itself on us at every turn" and so "tries to force itself on us here." 10. SENSATION, THOUGHT AND PHYSICALISM So far, as we may put the point, Witt genstein's argument has not been so much about sensations themselves as about a picture we use in thinking of the mental as inner. He describes his procedure by saying in PI §374 that "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." His investigation shows how the use of the picture is self-refuting. Th e picture is supposed to depict how we think about 19 . "Notes for the 'Philosophical Lecture,'" 451. See also the "What I deny is that we can construe the grammar of 'having pain' by hypostatising a private object" at p. 451 or the dialogue at pp. 452–453: "'But if he is truthful, why shouldn't we take his word for it . . . ?' But we do! . . . 'Th en where do you disagree with us?'-When you talk about something incommunicable, private." 0001483288.INDD 136 12/26/2011 9:16:05 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 137 ] sensations and use language to describe them. In trying to use it, however, we fi nd that we are representing sensations as things about which we cannot speak or think, either to ourselves or others. Since the application of this picture would have the consequence that we could not use words as we do, and as the picture is supposed to depict us as doing, we must reject the picture. So as Witt genstein says at §305, his argument registers "our sett ing our faces against the picture of the 'inner process'. " For his argument shows in detail (in both the fi rstand third-person cases) how "this picture with its ramifi cations stands in the way of our seeing the use of the word as it is." In §293 and §304 Witt genstein also goes beyond this. He specifi es more precisely the way grammar and picture are linked, and also formulates his disagreement with Frege, who saw no diffi culty in the idea that we frame publicly understandable thoughts about sensations which we nonetheless regard as private. As §293 makes clear, in the picture in question we represent the sensation as an object , and so "construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation'. " Th is in turn leads us to regard the sensation as private and hence, ultimately, as "a something about which nothing can be said." So as Witt genstein remarks at §304, a main point of his argument is also that a sensation is not to be construed as an object. In "the grammar of the expression of sensation" the sensation itself is "not a something , but not a nothing either." 20 (If we construe the sensation itself as "a something," this will prove a something about which nothing can be said; so this is the point at which the grammar and picture force themselves on us, and also the point at which they are to be resisted.) Witt genstein rightly expects that his reader will fi nd this paradoxical, and stresses that "the paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way," namely, to convey thoughts, which may be about objects (somethings) as various as houses and pains. So in formulating this paradox Witt genstein explicitly forecloses a particular response to his argument so far. Th is is for the reader not actually to reconsider the grammar which "forces itself on us here," but rather simply to follow Witt genstein in holding that sensations are not private but public. According to Witt genstein's argument to do this is simply to remain confused: to think of sensations in a way which renders them private, but to insist that they are public all the same. And this certainly casts no light on the sense in which, according to Witt genstein, pain is "not a something " for us, nor on what it might mean for us to break with the apparently commonsense idea that we use 20 . Commentators have oft en hesitated to take this paradoxical formulation as part of Witt genstein's positive account of the "grammar of the expression of sensation," taking it that he is speaking here of the "grammatical fi ction" (PI §307) of the "private object." But Witt genstein makes his intention clear by demarcating the actual sensation from the grammatical fi ction by the use of contradiction. Th e grammatical fi ction is that the sensation itself is " a something " about which we cannot speak; the grammatical reality is that the sensation itself is " not a something, but not a nothing either," which remains a paradox on which litt le light has been cast. 0001483288.INDD 137 12/26/2011 9:16:05 PM [ 138 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind "pain" to formulate thoughts about pains, and in the same way as we do about other items. Th ese ideas remain genuinely challenging, and to understand them further it will be useful to link Witt genstein's discussion more explicitly to physicalism. As we have noted in considering Witt genstein's tacit specifi cations ("looking at his beetle" in §293), to construe a sensation as a something is to take it as comparable to something one might see: an everyday material object or process, a patch of colour, and so forth. We can, however, provide a diff erent but equally clear and relevant example of a something-although not that which Witt genstein targets-by using his own analogy in §297. Here as we saw, Witt genstein compares the inner processes he is discussing to those which go on inside a boiling pot, and the picture we frame of these processes to a picture of the pot. He thus compares the physical causes of pain to those of boiling in a pot and the expression of this activation in behaviour to that of steam from the pot. 21 Th is analogy straightforwardly represents pain as a physical process which occurs within our bodies (to carry it through would be to regard pain as a kind of neural boiling). 22 So the most natural reading of the remark (allowing for 21 . And of course he presents us with a series of physical causes which lead to a particular mental event, and a series of physical eff ects which that event causes. As is now familiar this provides premises for arguing that any such mental event should be identifi ed with the physical event which has exactly the same physical eff ects, and hence exactly the same causes and eff ects overall. An early version of this now standard argument is in McGinn and Hopkins 1978 , and is related to the claims about supervenience argued in Hopkins 1975 . Although this paper was published before zombies came into fashion, the treatment of the topic there and in relation to Witt genstein still seems to me to be correct. 22 . Although Witt genstein does not espouse physicalism, it is clear from his discussion that he took the picture he targets to isolate mental processes from neural processes with which we might link them conceptually. Th us in the Blue Book he considers the idea that "certain physiological processes correspond to our thoughts in such a way that if we know the correspondence we can, by observing these processes, fi nd the thoughts" (7). Here Witt genstein imagines this as "verifi ed experimentally" by the use of a device (as it were an imaginary version of a brain-scanner) which makes it possible for someone to watch his own brain while he is thinking. In such a case, he says, we could regard both the "train of images and organic sensations" available to introspection and the observed working of the brain as "expressions of the thought." Th is, he says, illustrates the sense of the phrase "thought takes place in our heads" as "soberly understood." And he insists straightforwardly that "Th is phrase has sense if we give it sense," and that we could give it sense by linking it with observation and experiment in this way. [In the thought experiment] we have given this expression its meaning by describing the experience which would justify the hypothesis that the thought takes place in our heads, by describing the experience which we would wish to call "observing thought in our brain". (BB, 8) Again, he says that "we could easily imagine" that we looked at a group of things in this room, and, while we looked, a probe was stuck into our brain and it was found that if the point of the probe reached a particular point in our brain, then a particular small part of our visual fi eld was thereby obliterated. In this way we might co-ordinate points of our brain to points of the visual image, and this might 0001483288.INDD 138 12/26/2011 9:16:05 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 139 ] reservations expressed elsewhere) 23 would be to take it as indicating that in using the picture under investigation we impose upon a physical reality a dualistic conception of the mind. (We take that as well as the physical boiling in the pot, there is also a boiling in the picture of the pot, which must of course-since it goes on in no material pot-be a process of some aethereal nonphysical kind.) In this we would take pain as occurring not in the nervous system, but in the inner space by which we represent to ourselves what happens in the nervous system. We insist that the boiling with which we are concerned is not that going on in the pot, but rather another going on in our picture of the pot; and in this we lose track of the very inner processes the picture was supposed to represent. Whether or not this is the correct reading of Witt genstein, it enables us to see that a standard physicalistic conception provides a particularly clear example of the idea that a sensation is an inner something -an inner physical event or process-to which we internally apply our concept of pain. Likewise this conception provides a clear account of the way in which sensations such as pain are private . When we think of pain make us say that the visual fi eld was seated in such and such a place in our brain . (BB, 9; emphasis supplied) In these passages Witt genstein indicates his openness to the kind of changes in philosophical thinking which have taken place with the acceptance of physicalism. Th e thought experiments he describes are ones in which the kind of interpretive triangulation described in PI §§206–207 and §243 is extended to include "regular connections" with neural structures and events as well. In terms of his discussion, such an extension might justify the adoption of new and explicitly physicalistic criteria for the location and typing of mental states. And of course in considering private language we must regard such criteria as tacitly excluded by the idea that the diarist of §256 has "only the sensation," about which, therefore, no one else can know. Witt genstein did not of course anticipate the Kripkean conception that the connection between sensation and neural event might be one of identity which was metaphysically necessary, as opposed to that of sensation to its characteristic causes and eff ects, which was a priori but ultimately contingent. But the acceptance of this formulation still requires to be properly integrated with Witt genstein's own conclusions concerning necessity and rules. It is now familiar that the fi rst of Witt genstein's formulations above confl ates the roles of types and tokens. As Davidson was later to argue, there might be a particular (token) physiological process which not only corresponded to, but was identical with, each particular (token) process of thought; while at the same time there were no physiological types (no types described via the concepts of physiology) whose instantiations strictly corresponded with those of types of thought as sententially described. Accordingly when Witt genstein returned to the same topic in Zett el he rightly stressed that the absence of a correlation of types might make it "impossible to read off thought-processes from brain-processes" (Z §608) On this see also note 23 below. 23 . E.g., in Zett el §§608ff . Still the relevance of this is not clear, since the anomalism of the mental, with which Witt genstein in concerned in Zett el , need not hold for pain. As I argue in Hopkins 1999b , the discussion in Zett el seems best understood as a response to the apparent contradiction between the three principles (anomalism, causation between mental and physical events, and the nomological character of causality) which Davidson discusses and reconciles in Davidson 1980 . Th ere can be no doubt that Witt genstein would have reconsidered the Zett el discussion had he realized that it was type/token ambiguous; and since the apparent contradiction depends on this ambiguity, we may assume that his reconsideration would have been radical. 0001483288.INDD 139 12/26/2011 9:16:06 PM [ 140 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind in our own case both our activity of thinking and the event we are thinking about are linked in the same nervous system, and so form parts of a single complex neural event. Th is shows how each of us really does have a unique and essentially unshareable conceptual perspective on his or her own sensations, and also why, as well as private, such events also seem to us to be subjective . For given the way pain and our act of conceiving pain are actually fused in our feeling pain as pain , the pain itself rightly appears to us as practically indistinguishable from our apprehension of it as such. Again, however, these are not the notions against which Witt genstein argues. For on this account it is not only possible for us to know what others are feeling, but to learn much more about this. We can compare both the neural activities which constitute our sensations and those which constitute our thoughts, and triangulate further on these via speech and other behaviour, in the ways Witt genstein describes in §207 and §242; and this, as is familiar, might enable us to calibrate the likeness (or unlikeness) of our sensations far more confi dently and precisely than we do at present. Taking pain as an inner something in this physical way also makes clear why the imposition of the picture Witt genstein targets has the consequences he explores. For in using the picture of the inner realm, we disconnect our representation of the application of the concept of pain from the actual object to which this concept applies. (In imposing this picture of pain as a something, we eliminate from the picture the something which pain actually is. Or again, in applying the model of "object and designation" in this way, we eliminate the object which we actually designate.) And of course once we eliminate the real object of our concept from our representation of the use of that concept, we are left representing the concept as one which no one could apply correctly, either from within or without; and so as a concept of a something about which nothing can be said. ("Th e decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made" (§308) so that the analogy "falls to pieces" in our att empt to take it seriously.) But of course it is very hard for us to recognize that this is so. For the picture so subtly masks the real object it represents that in using it we have no reason to suppose that we are in danger of thinking that real object away. Th e picture represents the neurologically explicable subjectivity and privacy of sensation as a kind of inner detection of objects whose whole and ostensibly nonneural nature is shown us in a realm to which we alone have access. Without reference to the neural object, as Witt genstein shows, this subjectivity and privacy would be unintelligible. We are left with an item we take ourselves to know internally, but which has no trace in the world outside the mind, and so cannot be made the topic of objective speech or thought. But since this thinking away does not alter the picture , nothing forces us to know what is wrong apart from repeated demonstration of our own failures of coherence in using it. (Our representation of the lost object is so satisfying that we take ourselves to have no need of the object itself.) So here, as Witt genstein says at §255, the treatment of a philosophical problem is like Freud's treatment of neurosis. In both cases the problems are rooted in representations which serve to mask the reality they represent, and which so completely substitute themselves for this 0001483288.INDD 140 12/26/2011 9:16:06 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 141 ] reality that we are unable to question them. What we require to release us from their grip is repeated demonstration of the irrationality to which they lead us, and by someone whose authority in this we are willing to tolerate. (And the creation of such a transference-like att itude may be one purpose of the evoking and dispelling of confusion and accusation so characteristic of the Investigations .) In addition this representation of the inner realm may play an important role in our cognitive functioning. For the neurological phenomena which the picture represents do actually have a double innerness (they are internal to the nervous system, which is internal to the body) which the picture succeeds in depicting (it shows them as in the mind, which itself is in the body). We depict such innerness in a whole family of examples comparable to Witt genstein's box and pot: they constitute the conceptual metaphor 24 of the mind as a container . To take a related instance, we think of anger as a hot fl uid, somehow contained within the body. Th e feelings of someone who is angry may seethe or simmer and so be agitated . A person who is hot under the collar in this way may be fuming as the anger rises , or wells up within; and so he may have to simmer down , or cool down , so as not to boil over . If he doesn't manage to let off steam , he may burst with anger , or explode with rage . We thus represent the spectrum of feeling between calmness and uncontrollable anger in terms of the temperature of the emotion-liquid, which may be cool (no anger), agitated or hot (some degree of anger), or boiling (great anger); and the pressure caused by the emotion-heat may ultimately cause the mind/body container to burst. And in using fl uids to represent inner happenings in this way we also dephysicalize them: for even if someone's anger really wells up , boils over , or spills out , we do not expect to fi nd it on the carpet. Th is is comparable to the dephysicalization of boiling in Witt genstein's example, if we take it as going on in the picture of the pot. We use this metaphor both consciously and unconsciously, 25 and we can see the use that Witt genstein targets as providing us with a way of thinking of the neural events which realize sensation. In this we represent events which are (1) by other standards perceptually and causally inscrutable and (2) hidden inside our bodies by mapping them to others which are (1) perceptually intelligible but which may be (2) hidden in containers in the external environment. Such an image modeled on the external environment portrays the events involved in sensation as both internal and intelligible. Indeed, as one might say, it seems that it is partly by imposing this picture that we are able to represent what occurs in our brains as 24 . For this topic and its relation to philosophy see Lakoff and Johnson 1999 . Although the programme of this book seems to have been conceived in ignorance of Witt genstein, it nonetheless casts light on some of his most basic claims; for his own examples of the pictures in which philosophical problems are rooted seem all to be among the metaphors Lakoff and Johnson discuss. As noted below, I discuss the connection between Witt genstein and conceptual metaphor in Hopkins 2000a . 25 . As I discuss in Hopkins 2000a , the unconscious use of such metaphor is obvious and pervasive in the expression of phantasies about the mind. 0001483288.INDD 141 12/26/2011 9:16:06 PM [ 142 ] Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind occurring in our minds, and hence as something we can consider and refl ect upon as it occurs. 26 Th is may be why while "sett ing our faces against the picture of the 'inner process'" Witt genstein also stresses that " Certainly all these things happen in you" and that he does not "dispute [the picture's] correctness " (§§423–424), as opposed to the use of it we make in philosophy. Th us the situation is not, as our subjectivity might lead us to suppose, that in our fi rst-person conception of pain we are aware of the whole nature of the object we conceive. Rather in this case our conception is partial , and leaves the full nature of the object mainly out of account. Th e events we conceive internally are hidden inside us, and irrelevant for us to see or touch. So we (or our brains) do not represent them as having visible or tangible extension, or as taking place in structures with insides or outsides or surface or volume. Rather in subjectivity we omit all this, and represent only part of the neural activity connected with the location of some injury, and that location mainly just as painful. 27 So putt ing Witt genstein's conclusions in these physicalistic terms, we can say that the error which leads to dualism is that of mistaking a partial conception of something which is complex, spatially extended, and public for a full conception of something which is simple, nonextended, and private. 28 Taking matt ers this way enables us to return to Witt genstein's dialectic. It is clear that the point of the interlocutor's use of "the sensation itself " in §304 is to invoke this fi rst-person-and as we now see very partial-conception. So, as we may put the point, in thinking of "the sensation itself " as in §304 we are not thinking of the sensation as a whole , or as the (neural, physical, extended) thing it actually is . From the perspective of physicalism it is no paradox to observe that in this thinking of 26 . Our main other method of eff ecting this seems essentially the same. In learning language we perforce learn to map the mechanisms which realize our desires, beliefs, and other motives to the sentences which describe their conditions of fulfi lment, satisfaction, and the like, and thereby render them thinkable by describing them as related to the situations to which their biological function relates them causally. We seem generally to conceive the brain as the mind by coming to map aspects of neural function to aspects of the environment which we are already able to represent, and thus to render these inner aspects thinkable by a process akin to metaphor. 27 . Th is may explain why philosophers such as Nagel and McGinn so emphasize the problem of relating consciousness to space. Nagel 1998 urges that mental concepts "don't give us the comfortable initial handle on the occupants of the familiar spatio-temporal world that prescientifi c physical substance concepts do" (339), while McGinn 1995 stresses the necessity for "'containing' the non-spatial (as we now conceive it) phenomenon of consciousness" (159). Th e idea that phenomena such as pain are not spatial, however, would involve a non sequitur: a move from the fact that pains (or conscious experiences more generally) are not conceived introspectively as having the spatial features linked with touch and sight, to the idea that they lack such features, and are therefore not extended, and so nonphysical. Since conscious events are neural events, consciousness is certainly a spatial phenomenon; and this is consistent with the fact that in introspection we do not represent things as having a full complement of spatial properties 28 . As noted, the ideas in this section are discussed more fully in Hopkins 2000a and Hopkins 2000b . Th ey are applied in detail to the problem of consciousness in Hopkins 2007 . 0001483288.INDD 142 12/26/2011 9:16:06 PM RU L E S, P R I VAC Y, A N D P H Y S I C A L I S M [ 143 ] "the sensation itself " we are precisely not thinking of the sensation itself , but rather of a single aspect of the sensation, and that as disconnected from the rest. Th is is a truth (and a break with Frege) which Witt genstein's "not a something " captures precisely, and which diff erentiates the inner from other objects of thought. If we think of a house by thinking of its nearest or most striking aspect, we take the aspect as of the house whose aspect it is. By contrast when we think of "the pain itself " we do not think of this as an aspect of something further (or physical), whose nature is also conveyed in its external natural expression. Rather we take it as the thing itself, whose nature is fully displayed within. Th is is "the decisive step in the conjuring trick," and the one Witt genstein's "not a something " is intended to correct. Likewise reference to the neural mechanisms of sensation clarifi es the way their internal qualities are (not incommunicable but) actually communicated. In considering this in §310 Witt genstein refers to natural expressions and their preconceptual empathic responses: "Imagine not merely the words 'I am in pain' but also the answer 'It's not so bad' replaced by instinctive noises and gestures." We see the relevance of this more fully when we consider how the expression of (the neural event of) pain in one person causes a corresponding event in the brain of another: an empathic neural shadow, as it were, but one which partly matches the original. 29 So again in thinking in this physicalistic way we part from the idea that language "always serves the same purpose: to convey thoughts-which may be about houses, pains, good and evil, or anything else you please" (§304). In these and other ways we can use the physicalism for which Witt genstein cleared the way not only to understand his remarks on the mental and its innerness, but also to improve our physicalistic account of these topics themselves. REFERENCES Almog, Joseph, John Perry, and Howard K. Wett stein. Th emes fr om Kaplan . New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Davidson, Donald. "Mental Events." In Essays on Actions and Events . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. Diamond, Cora. 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