Can Language Be Private?

Research record

Some areas of human experience seem highly private—pain, itch, fear, sensation of color, memory, internal images, desire. I feel my pain; The other person would not have felt it directly exactly like mine. This fact raises the easy question: Is it possible to have an entirely private language in which the meaning of words depends solely on the private experience of the speaker, and whose criterion for correct or incorrect usage is known only to that person? The later Wittgenstein raises this question as a private linguistic dispute. His goal is not to prove that private experience is nonexistent. The question is not the privacy of experience, but the publicity of linguistic meaning. If we keep the “s” symbol for our private sensation, and recall only the next private sensation to check the correct use of this symbol, how can there be a distinction between correct and “seeming correct”? Wittgenstein's famous box–beetle example highlights this problem. Imagine each person has a box, only that person sees what is inside, and everyone calls it a “beetle”. If public linguistic usage does not depend on the comparison of objects within the box, then private objects would not play a decisive role in determining the meaning of words. The basic assertion of this chapter is that while private experience may be possible and real, entirely private rules of linguistic meaning are hard to sustain self-sufficiently. Meaning demands practice in which distinctions of right–wrong usage are possible, and these distinctions cannot rely solely on momentary private feelings or memories. The word “pain” means more than just a secret nomenclature with a private object called pain. Children learn the linguistic use of pain between crying, hurting, consoling, treating, questioning, remembering, comparing and social training. Private feelings are part of the language game, public criteria are not a replacement. Wittgenstein’s objection “there is no inner world” is not such a pragmatic denial. He raises the question of linguistic grammar—how do words about inner experience become publicly meaningful?

Structured debate

Pūrvapakṣa

The first form of the former states that I have direct authority over my pain; Another person would not be able to know my experience. Why, then, should a private vocabulary for private experience be considered impossible? The second premise says that private diaries, secret codes, or personal symbols are indeed private languages. The individual makes his own rules and understands himself. The third antecedent is the charge of pragmatism. If the meaning of the word mental is connected with public behavior, does philosophy reduce inner experience to behavior? The fourth premise is from the Indian perspective. Nyaya makes different claims about the soul and inner perception, Buddhist philosophy about the mind-moment and the non-soul, yoga and other traditions about insight. It would then be unfair to call these traditions linguistic illusions by private language disputes.

Uttarapakṣa

Answer to the first premise—the privacy of direct perception is accepted. The dispute is not over the fact, but over the claim that private feeling alone can give stable rules of linguistic meaning. Answer to the second premise—secret codes cannot be entirely private languages ​​if their cues, repetitions, memories, sequences, and rules are already dependent on learning language practice. Privacy is not the absence of a public rule-structure. Answer to the third premise—Wittgenstein would not have made behavior a substitute for the metaphysics of experience. Bodies, reactions and contexts are part of the grammar of mental terms; Private feelings remain real. The answer to the fourth precedent—the Indian soul–anatma or direct controversy—is a separate philosophical project. A parallel philosophy would use private language disputes only as questions of linguistic criterion, not as decisive judges of Indian doctrine.

Parallel conclusion

Private language disputes do not preclude the existence of private experiences. Wittgenstein’s question is about the criterion of linguistic meaning—how is it possible to distinguish between right and “seeming right” in entirely private rules? Mental terms like pain find meaning within public training, natural expression, social behavior and life forms. Private feeling is the subject of this linguistic network, not its replacement. The can–beetle example shows that the meaning of public words does not necessarily depend on the similarity of secret private goods. Dialogue with Nyaya, Buddhist, Mimansa and other Indian traditions opens up separate questions of inner experience, soul, mind, pain and verbal proof; Not historical parallels.

Section index

1. Problem and scope · 5 source passages
2. Central thesis · 5 source passages
3. Major arguments · 10 source passages
4. Pūrvapakṣa · 4 source passages
5. Uttarapakṣa · 4 source passages
6. Indian philosophical dialogue · 5 source passages
7. Mithila’s parallel perspective · 7 source passages
8. Contemporary applications · 7 source passages
9. Chapter conclusion · 6 source passages
10. Chapter bibliography · 14 source passages

Cite this record

Gajendra Thakur. “Can Language Be Private?.” Videha Digital Research Archive: Mithila–Vajji–Anga. Videha — https://www.videha.co.in/ · ISSN 2229-547X · GitHub mirror: https://videha-ejournal.github.io/videha/ · Digital Research Archives on GitHub: https://github.com/videha-ejournal. https://videha-ejournal.github.io/mithila-vajji-anga/records/idea/philosophy-v2-18/