EVERY TIME implies more than one time. A token occurs only one time, so W cannot be talking about a singular token of the sensation. If he was talking about a singular token then the diarist would make only a single entry of ‘S’ in their diary, but W says “we’re supposing, aren’t we, that we write “S” every time.” EVERY TIME. — Luke

You don't get it Luke, Wittgenstein is not talking about types or tokens. "Every time" is clearly meant as every time the person has the sensation, just like every time I see the chair. The same chair, occurs to me many times, and it is only one token.. Therefore your claim that a token only occurs one time is false

He never makes that type/token distinction anyway, so I don't see why you're bent on applying it. . You are trying to apply that distinction to what he has said, and this misleads you because it is not applicable.
There is no "type" mentioned.. The result is a misreading. He is not talking about a singular token of a type of sensation, he is talking about "the sensation", as a named thing. How can you not apprehend this? Why must you apply this type/token conceptual structure when he makes no reference to it, or even implies that it is relevant.. You need to take what is written, as it is written, and quit trying to apply some type/token bullshit which is totally inapplicable.

He talks about criteria of identity (253 -256), then asks what it means to name a sensation (257), then he proceeds to describe the problems involved with this, trying to name a sensation (258-270).. There is no type/token distinction made. you are fabricating.

Do we at least agree on what is very clearly stated at 257, that he is talking about naming a sensation? If so, how do you jump from "naming a sensation" to "naming a type of sensation". This change is unjustified and is a clear category mistake.

I don't think we disagree greatly here, and that in part because what you are saying seems to me to be peripheral to the private language argument. That is, there is a great danger that we are bypassing one another. But there is the following.

Some approaches to phenomenology trap folk in a solipsistic world, preventing them from reaching past what they think of as private experiences to the world beyond. For many, escaping this cartesian trap is the most important lesson Wittgenstein taught. Anscombe describes the situation clearly:

For years, I would spend time, in cafés... staring at objects saying to myself: 'I see a packet. But what do I really see? How can I say that I see here anything more than a yellow expanse?' ... I always hated phenomenalism and felt trapped by it. I couldn't see my way out of it but I didn't believe it. It was no good pointing to difficulties about it, things which Russell found wrong with it, for example. The strength, the central nerve of it remained alive and raged achingly. It was only in Wittgenstein's classes in 1944 that I saw the nerve being extracted, the central thought "I have got this, and I define 'yellow' (say) as this" being effectively attacked.

I was just out weeding a poppy bed. To do this I was distinguishing weed of various sorts from the several types of poppies, each with their own leaf. I can describe the job in some detail, but I did not need to in order to do the job. Either I or an observer might well set out the process as the implementation of a series of rules involving decisions to pull or leave, and if a weed could be pulled by hand or needed the assistance of the fork. But those ruminations are post-hoc.

I see a long leaf amongst the poppies, reach for it and follow it to the ground, below the growth were I can not see it. When I find the base I push my fingers into the soil, twisting horizontally as I do so as to pull the root out rather than break it off.

All of this is done with a deliberation that had not been articulated until now.

But all of it can be articulated. And any detail you might choose can also be further discussed. Dividing the world up in accord with our language does not place any limits on what can be addressed. I could for example, by a combination of language, demonstration and practice, teach you the technique of holding the stem of a mugwort so as to twist it over your long finger and pull out the several inches of root without breaking it. Language does not work independently of the world, nor of the body that is speaking or hearing. Cognition is the same. It does not happen in one's mind alone, but in one's hands, in the feel of the root and the soil. Cognition is in the doing, language is a part of that doing.

And it is not just I who do these things; it is not hidden. The things you do are embedded in the world, and so not just available to yourself but available to others. You can tell and show what you are doing, we can listen and watch, and do the task with you, if need be.

But this is very much at odds with your account:

Whatever I do with the tree either alone or in the company of others is done from my vantage in my own way in relation to my own overarching framework of goals, intents , relevances. These are not wholly alien to some languaged culture that I interact with ( there are actually myraid languaged subcultures that I interact with) but neither are they simply ‘within’ the bounds of some normative frame. They are my own variation of practices and understanding and sense of the language. Becuase there is never ‘one’ language but as many languages as there are speakers of English. These are subtle but comprehensively unique variations. — Joshs

Meaning is not a thing in your mind. It is created in the way we interact with each other and with the world. there are not many languages, but one, that is as multiple and varied as all the situations in which all the folk of the world find themselves. That "variation of practices and understanding and sense of the language" is not private, it is shared, lived and ever-changing.

Now we have two pictures of how language works. For me, one view serves to lock one into a private phenomenological solipsism, the other opens to the world and all its people. You can make your choice as to which picture you prefer.

It is not a pedantic matter of "either/ or"... — Janus

Indeed, since in the end it is all public.

Something like that. Was there a question? — Banno

No, no question. Just needed to check if I was anywhere near the ballpark with Wittgenstein.

Because you are the person who said it (as in, not me). You didn’t keep it to yourself. The identity of the expression of pain is that it is yours, individually, not particularly. You own it--you either express or deny it. You stand by what you said or weasel out of it. — Antony Nickles

This seems similar to what I was saying in the other discussion: that I intend my use of the public language, but I do not invent the conventional uses/meanings that exist in the public language.

The point of disagreement seems to be this: I say that we use words intentionally to have a particular meaning (in accordance with conventional uses/meanings), whereas you say that we use words unintentionally and leave it up to others to decide what we mean by it. How is it that others can know what we mean by it but we cannot? That seems to imply that I cannot say what I want, or mean, or intend to say.

He never makes that type/token distinction anyway, so I don't see why you're bent on applying it. — Metaphysician Undercover

I raised it because it helps to clarify the different meanings of "the same". I started responding to your comment on the chair at PI 253 because the type/token distinction can dispel your confusion here:

The chair here today seems to be identical to the one here yesterday, but I can't be sure that they are the same chair, because they could have been switched in the meantime. — Metaphysician Undercover

For tokens:
If the chairs were switched then you would see a different (token of) chair.
If the chairs were not switched then you would see the same (token of) chair.

For types:
You would see the same (type of) chair regardless of whether the chairs were switched or not.

If you have an iPhone 12 and I have an iPhone 12, then we each have different tokens of the same type.

The problem which Wittgenstein is talking about in the PLA is the uncertainty involved in saying that this sensation I have today, is the very same as the sensation I had last week. — Metaphysician Undercover

You appear here to be talking about two different tokens of the sensation - the sensation you have today and the sensation you had last week. You are saying that they are "the very same" type of sensation, but two different tokens of that sensation - the one you had a week ago and the one you have today.

That is, I presume it is a different token of the sensation a week later and not the same token of the sensation that you have had continuously all week, otherwise there would be no need to question whether it was the same. If you have had the same token of the sensation continuously all week, then you would simply call it 'S'. The question Wittgenstein raises is whether or not you can justify calling it by the same name - that is, whether it is the same type of sensation - the next time it occurs so that you can also call the new token of the sensation 'S'.

I cannot appeal to the universal, and say that I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that these are instances of "pain", because there are many different types of pain, and the issue here concerns identifying one particular sensation, not a general class of sensations. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is where I see you as going wrong and confusing different senses of "the same". 'S' refers to a general class of sensation; the same type of sensation. 'S' does not refer to only one particular token of sensation. Otherwise, you would be giving a different name to each new token of 'S', and so you would not be calling it 'S' every time, despite the fact that it is meant to be the same type of sensation every time.

I hate to have to inform you of this Luke, but "a particular sensation" can in no way be interpreted as a number of different tokens indicating a "type of sensation" — Metaphysician Undercover

I hate to have to inform you Meta, but you cannot have the same token of the sensation "every time" when each token of the sensation occurs only one time. It only makes sense to have the same type of sensation every time.

Because you are the person who said it (as in, not me). You didn’t keep it to yourself. The identity of the expression of pain is that it is yours, individually, not particularly. You own it--you either express or deny it. You stand by what you said or weasel out of it.
— Antony Nickles

This seems similar to what I was saying in the other discussion: that I intend my use of the public language, but I do not invent the conventional uses/meanings that exist in the public language. — Luke

I would agree that we do not invent what is common amongst us, but I would not take "meaning" out of the internal and simply place it externally. Look at it as if "meaning" disappeared completely. Our shared judgments for doing one thing rather than another, what is important in an activity, what is crucial, what counts in failing, etc., is what is meaningful, in explaining, clarifying, distinguishing what is meant by an expression.

The point of disagreement seems to be this: I say that we use words intentionally to have a particular meaning (in accordance with conventional uses/meanings), whereas you say that we use words unintentionally and leave it up to others to decide what we mean by it. — Luke

It is not that we use words unintentionally (this is not the opposite of the picture of intention you propose). We do not intend or "use" (as if during) what we say, based on a private meaning nor in accordance with a public one. We say (do) something, and afterwards we can discuss the use (explain the meaning #560), ask what was intended, identify what conventions it followed, or failed at (one difference is we have a contex now). I'm not sure I can put the importance of the timing better (or am too lazy to) than @Banno does above in discussing his weeding example "articulated" "post-hoc". As I have said, we can choose what we say; we can even deliberately attempt to follow conventions, explicitly address (having considered beforehand) what might be a confusion between one use of an expression (concept) and another in this situation, to this person. However, in the same vein that, as you say, we do not "invent" the use of concepts, neither do we ensure an expression nor make it particular (in the sense of a certain instance) and neither does any rule we might "use".

How is it that others can know what we mean by it but we cannot? That seems to imply that I cannot say what I want, or mean, or intend to say. — Luke

The idea of an intention is the want (the desire) to ensure that what you say has the impact, interpretation, clarity, etc., that makes it complete and certain, without your being responsible for it, and its "meaning", afterwards. This would imply that you have said it according to the rules, rightly, and so my confusion, disagreement, bewilderment, is, as it were, on me, unless I disagree with whether you followed the rules correctly.

And that others can know what I mean but I might not is simply because of the public nature of how expression is meaningful. I know the same way you know (#504). The implication of Witt's realization that meaning is public must be pushed farther. On p. 223 (3rd Ed) there is a discussion of guessing at thoughts, and it is said that some people can be transparent to us. This is the sense in which I may know more about the meaning of what you have said than you. To say you alone can know what you mean defies the fact that once you say something, you can not, as it were, take it back (without saying you misspoke or literally taking it back)--you can not get out of it. Cavell puts this that we must mean what we say--that we can be read by what we have said; we are bound to it, wedded to its implications and consequences, fated to it Emerson says. You can "say what [ you ] want" but you can not make what you say mean what you "intend".

Look at it as if "meaning" disappeared completely. Our shared judgments for doing one thing rather than another, what is important in an activity, what is crucial, what counts in failing, etc., is what is meaningful, in explaining, clarifying, distinguishing what is meant by an expression. — Antony Nickles

Yes, but what is important, crucial and meaningful in an activity is not equivalent with what an expression means or the use it has, is it?

However, in the same vein that, as you say, we do not "invent" the use of concepts, neither do we ensure an expression nor make it particular (in the sense of a certain instance) and neither does any rule we might "use". — Antony Nickles

Right, but I don't think that intention entails ensuring an outcome. My intention to achieve an outcome does not ensure the outcome; that's not what "intention" means.

And that others can know what I mean but I might not is simply because of the public nature of how expression is meaningful. I know the same way you know (#504). — Antony Nickles

Yes, and this is why I can intend for my words to have a particular meaning. Again, there is no guarantee my words will have the meaning I intend, but they often do have the meaning I intend, and I think they often must (for everyone) in order for language to work as effectively as it does.

@Sam26 @Luke

@Metaphysician Undercover has long had issues with identity, numerical equivalence, and material equivalence. Better not to go down the garden path with him. — Banno

Not that I want to get lost in that jungle, but we say you and I have the same sensation/experience to the extent we express it and agree we do. "I have a scratchy throat." "Me too!" "But mine is raw and only scratchy on the back." "Mine too!" Then to say "But surely another person can't have THIS pain!" (#253) is to want to remain unknowable, unreadable, or to have a crisis about whether there is anything that is mine, there is anything to me (there very well may not be). But there is also a sense in which my pain is not the same as yours, not identical, and that is that mine is in my body, and yours in yours. Numerically there are two pains, in different places. But to say "I am in pain" is not necessarily to differentiate who is in pain, but to say "Help me!", to make a claim on you for myself (#405). Thus in saying your pain is not (I can't know it is) the same as mine, I am, in a sense, denying you. (Cavell, Knowing and Acknowledging)

You can "say what [ you ] want" but you can not make what you say mean what you "intend". — Antony Nickles

Not sure I follow this statement. I understand that we can say what we want, even if it's just babbling. However, the latter part of that sentence seems confusing. viz., "...you can not make what you say mean what you intend." If my intention is to mean something totally private (as in the PLA), then this makes sense, but if I intend to mean something within the framework of public meaning, then I can intend what I mean, if that intention is a public conveyance. So, I'm transporting, so to speak, my intentionality into the public domain where my intention gets in line with public meaning (is evaluated publicly) and rule-following. So, whether the latter part of this statement is true, depends on the source of the meaning of intend. Unless I completely misunderstood your point.

Dividing the world up in accord with our language does not place any limits on what can be addressed. I could for example, by a combination of language, demonstration and practice, teach you the technique of holding the stem of a mugwort so as to twist it over your long finger and pull out the several inches of root without breaking it. Language does not work independently of the world, nor of the body that is speaking or hearing. Cognition is the same. It does not happen in one's mind alone, but in one's hands, in the feel of the root and the soil. Cognition is in the doing, language is a part of that doing. — Banno

Good points @Banno not just this quote, but that post is very well said. It would be interesting, in light of what's being debated about consciousness, to talk of what we mean by consciousness in the light of some of these thoughts. It would seem that our consciousness, and the consciousness of others, shows up in the same way that cognition does, viz., in the doing, language or otherwise. This is one of the reasons I have a problem with others saying that consciousness or the self is an illusion.

if I intend to mean something within the framework of public meaning, then I can intend what I mean, if that intention is a public conveyance. So, I'm transporting, so to speak, my intentionality into the public domain where my intention gets in line with public meaning (is evaluated publicly) and rule-following. — Sam26

I addressed this in the post to Luke (and many other posts in my OP on Cavell and Rules), but my claim is that the concept of "intention" is discussed afterwards. There is no intention or cause beforehand or during every time. I can choose what I say, for a speech or when talking to my angry wife, but even then I do not intend what I "mean", even if I am intending a public "meaning". There is no "intention" in this way, and this is not how "meaning" works. I say something, and the context and the criteria of the concepts allow it to be judged as meaningful along the sense or uses of that concept in that context. We ask "What'd you mean?" or "Did you intend to shoot that donkey?" and these questions and our responsibility to answer can be endless. Your "intention" is not transported and does not align with a "meaning" or "rule", public or not. Such a picture of intention and meaning goes away. This is a little terse but I've been battling it with Luke over a number of weeks.

I haven't really considered this before, I'll have to give it more thought. Thanks for the reply.

I haven't really considered this before, I'll have to give it more thought. Thanks for the reply. — Sam26

As I said, I draw it out in more detail in the OP I titled "Bedrock Rules" (for lack of a catchier headline). Luke and I sidetrack into meaning and intention at a certain point as that needs to be cleared up to talk meaningfully about rules. It is an appropriate discussion here as what people call the private language argument is an example, not a conclusion, the fallout of which is not just taking the picture of "meaning" and moving it externally, publicly.

“Some approaches to phenomenology trap folk in a solipsistic world, preventing them from reaching past what they think of as private experiences to the world beyond. For many, escaping this cartesian trap is the most important lesson Wittgenstein taught.” — Banno

Husserl was the founder of modern phenomenology, and phenomenology has often been misread as introspectionism, solipsism , Cartesianism. That may be who you have in mind here. That view is changing. For instance, Evan Thompson recanted his earlier critique of Husserl here:

“READERS FAMILIAR WITH MY EARLIER BOOK, The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991), might be surprised by the importance I give to Husserlian phe-nomenology here, given the critical attitude toward Husserl that book expressed. What accounts for this change of attitude?

Our earlier interpretation of Husserl was mistaken. I now believe (i) that Husserl was not a methodological solipsist; (ii) that he was greatly concerned with the intersubjective and embodied aspects of experience.

My viewpoint has changed for two reasons. The first is that when Varela and I were writing The Embodied Mind (during 1986-1989; Eleanor Rosen joined the project near the end of 1989) our knowledge of Husserl was limited.

The second reason is that we accepted Hubert Dreyfus's (1982) influential interpretation of Husserl as a representationalist and pro-tocognitivist philosopher, as well as his Heideggerian critique of Husserl thus interpreted.”( Evan Thompson, Mind in Life)

Embodied enactivist approaches have found Husserl
and Merleau-Ponty to be among the most useful philosophical foundations for their models. You will also find that they embrace postmodern readings of Wittgenstein against more conventional interpretations. See Hutchinson and Reid for an integration of Wittgenstein and phenomenologically oriented enactivism.

So why is Husserl not a solipsist? For one thing, his account of how persons constitute their understanding of the objective world determines objective , empirical reality as an intersubjective accomplishment. The words we use to describe the things in our world point to entities that none of us see on our own. I see phenomena in my surroundings via constantly changing perspectives , which shift in correlation with the movement of my body. Others may have similar but not identical experiences of the same phenomena. Our words synthesize these multitudinous flowing changes in phenomena , experienced slightly differently by each of us, into objective entities that are presumed to be the same for all of us ( this tree , this rock, etc). Our everyday language assumes that each of us personally experiences an aspect of the one ‘real’ empirical object. This assumption is what makes science possible.

It is not just I who do these things; it is not hidden. The things you do are embedded in the world, and so not just available to yourself but available to others. You can tell and show what you are doing, we can listen and watch, and do the task with you, if need be. — Banno

The simper the task or coordinated social interaction ( navigating traffic) the more it appears that the senses of meaning invoked in the situation are transparent to everyone, that a common understanding is involved. But there are things we encounter just about every day that matter more profoundly to us , that impact our lives, our goals, our sense of ourselves. These are the everyday feelings of anger, guilt , sadness, anxiety. When we you feel any of these , it is because there is a rift between your understanding of a situation and the behavior of others that you can’t accommodate successfully. It is these feelings that remind us that the ‘public’ understandings are only superficial, involving aspects of situations that don’t matter greatly to us. You can teach me how to plant a mugwort and I can demonstrate to you that I understood your instruction. But what if I said I found gardening boring, or disputed your method of tending to your garden or of planting mugworts? You would would not likely become frustrated, angry or upset unless my sentiments violated your prior sense of how I felt about gardening and your skills with mugworts.
It is at this point that it is vital for you to be able to discern that my sense of these matters is not your sense, inspite of a supposedly shared vocabulary. Because that generic vocabulary masks imdividual differences in interpretation , and the fact that our interpretations of trivial , subordinate meanings of events is guided and determined by more superordinate schemes of understanding that comprise a worldview for each of us and determines each of us as subcultures within and beyond a larger culture. These relatively stable , but evolving personal world views orient even the most seemingly insignificant tasks , such as planting, in ways that are mostly hidden from others until a disagreement appears. But because our ‘shared’ language disguises the fact that others are often living in a different world than us, we ascribe our disagreements to stubbornness on their part, or irrationally, pettiness, perversity , arbitrariness. At the level of larger political groups , we blame polarized views on indoctrination and conditioning, ignorance or devious intent. The idea that the ‘same’ words we understand in one way evokes an entirely different universe to others is alien to our thinking.

Meaning is not a thing in your mind. It is created in the way we interact with each other and with the world — Banno

For Husserl meaning is neither in the mind nor is it merely ‘public’. It transcends the inner vs outer distinction. It is a radical intersection between my past and new experience that remakes who I am every moment through my exposure to an outside. I am already exposed to and altered by the otherness of the world every moment. I am already an other to myself and therefore ‘out in the world’ each moment. You begin too late when you determine the origin of the social, alterity, the alien, the world only at the point of interaction between persons. That is not the primary site of the social and the world. There is no ‘ inner’ to be contrasted with an outer , no private to be contrasted with a public.

That is, I presume it is a different token of the sensation a week later and not the same token of the sensation that you have had continuously all week, otherwise there would be no need to question whether it was the same. — Luke

That is what you presume, But it is not what Wittgenstein was saying. He is drawing our attention to a way of speaking in which we refer to internal, "private" feelings, sensations, and even ideas, as individual, particular things, like objects. That's why "S' refers to "the sensation". I refer to the recurring pain in my tooth as my tooth-ache, a particular thing. We refer to the recurring idea which is associated with "2" as the number two. This is what Wittgenstein is questioning, this way of speaking. The example he produces where "S" refers to a particular sensation is an example of this way of speaking

I'll refer you back to what Banno said near the beginning of the thread:

↪Luke A common philosophical error is to assume that a grammar implies a state of affairs. In the phone example, the similarity of grammar is taken to imply that pain is some sort of individual, or thing, and so leads to questions of observation and identity and so on, all of them misplaced, all of them the result of not noticing that the grammar hides a distinction.

@Metaphysician Undercover in particular makes this sort of mistake often and repeatedly, but doesn't see it.

We do use language to refer to pains and to phones. But pains are quite different to phones. Paying attention to the difference allows us to identify and explain certain philosophical errors - — Banno

I agree with you both, Luke, and Banno, that this is not a very good way of speaking. It would be better to refer to such inner experiences as types or something like that as Luke suggests. However, this way of speaking abounds, and it is this way which Wittgenstein is demonstrating with "the sensation", that is named "S". He is talking about the sensation as if it is an individual, some sort of thing. And he is talking this way deliberately avoiding calling it a type, or anything like that, to demonstrate the problems involved with talking this way. Look at 270 again Luke:

And what is our reason for calling "S" the name of a sensation here?
Perhaps the kind of way this sign is employed in this language-game,—
And why a "particular sensation," that is, the same one every time?
Well, aren't we supposing that we write "S" every time?

Obviously he is not saying "a type" of sensation he's saying "a particular". What justifies that "S" refers to a particular sensation? Nothing but the way S's use in the language-game, "S" is used that way. The sensation referred to by "S" is one particular sensation (not a type), because that's what we say it is by naming it this way. What justifies that "2" refers to an individual thing called a number, nothing but the language-game. The idea referred to by "2" is an individual, particular thing a number, because we use "2" this way.

Now look back at 254- 255:
"Thus, for example, what a mathematician is inclined to say about the objectivity and reality of mathematical facts, is not a philosophy of mathematics, but something for philosophical treatment.
255 . The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness."
Wittgenstein sees this way of speaking, which refers to features of our inner experiences as individual things, as an illness which needs to be treated.

Obviously he is not saying "a type" of sensation he's saying "a particular". What justifies that "S" refers to a particular sensation? Nothing but the way S's use in the language-game, "S" is used that way. The sensation referred to by "S" is one particular sensation (not a type), because that's what we say it is by naming it this way. — Metaphysician Undercover

Let’s suppose you are right and that Wittgenstein is talking only about a single particular token of the sensation. As he describes it at PI 258:

258. Let’s imagine the following case. I want to keep a diary about the recurrence of a certain sensation. To this end I associate it with the sign “S”

So I have a sensation and write ‘S’ in my diary. How is this problematic?

So I have a sensation and write ‘S’ in my diary. How is this problematic? — Luke

That is not problematic. What's problematic is the criterion by which you say that the next sensation is the same sensation. It's just like the example with the chair. How do I know it's the same chair, or just a different one which appears to be "identical"? So when the second occurs, you judge it as "the same" ,and this is why you call it by the same name, but the only real reason for it being the same is that you have called it the same.

But Luke does not believe that it is "the same", as you've argued. And I agree with you, that it really is not the same. So, if the only thing which supports the second occurrence being named with the same name as the first occurrence is your belief that it is the same, and you really do not believe it is the same, then this use of the symbol is just a sham (260 - the note has no function whatsoever). You could call anything "S", the decision might be totally arbitrary.

The tricky part to understand is his move toward "a justification which everybody understands", at 261. This need, for such a justification is produced when he introduces a common (public) word , "sensation" to replace "S" (private symbol). How can we say that "S" refers to something which is "a sensation"? At this point the private word "S", has to get introduced into, integrated into, the public language, so its use need to be demonstrated (justified). .

That is not problematic. What's problematic is the criterion by which you say that the next sensation is the same sensation. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's good to see you finally acknowledge that the issue concerns the recurrence of the sensation, and not just a single instance of the sensation.

How do I know it's the same chair, or just a different one which appears to be "identical"? So when the second occurs, you judge it as "the same" ,and this is why you call it by the same name, but the only real reason for it being the same is that you have called it the same. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is correct. I could be picky and say that it is not possible for a sensation to be "the same" in the sense of being the same token you had before. A different token of the sensation that seems identical to the previous token is supposedly what would prompt the diarist to write 'S' again.

But Luke does not believe that it is "the same", as you've argued. — Metaphysician Undercover

But I am Luke...?

So, if the only thing which supports the second occurrence being named with the same name as the first occurrence is your belief that it is the same, and you really do not believe it is the same, then this use of the symbol is just a sham (260 - the note has no function whatsoever). You could call anything "S", the decision might be totally arbitrary. — Metaphysician Undercover

Now you're getting it.

The tricky part to understand is his move toward "a justification which everybody understands", at 261. This need, for such a justification is produced when he introduces a common (public) word , "sensation" to replace "S" (private symbol). How can we say that "S" refers to something which is "a sensation"? At this point the private word "S", has to get introduced into, integrated into, the public language, so its use need to be demonstrated (justified). — Metaphysician Undercover

That's right. So I take it you no longer view what Wittgenstein is trying to do with the passages on the private language argument in this way:

He is drawing our attention to a way of speaking in which we refer to internal, "private" feelings, sensations, and even ideas, as individual, particular things, like objects. That's why "S' refers to "the sensation". — Metaphysician Undercover

What justifies that "S" refers to a particular sensation? Nothing but the way S's use in the language-game, "S" is used that way. The sensation referred to by "S" is one particular sensation (not a type), because that's what we say it is by naming it this way. — Metaphysician Undercover

Basic courtesy dictates that you respond to someone you has replied to your topic and in fact in length ...
(Re:¨https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/597942, 8 days ago)

This is correct. I could be picky and say that it is not possible for a sensation to be "the same" in the sense of being the same token you had before. A different token of the sensation that seems identical to the previous token is supposedly what would prompt the diarist to write 'S' again. — Luke

Right, but the diarist believes that the sensation is the very same what you call "token". That's why it receives the same name. It's not a type being named, it's the sensation itself. If the diarist believed that it was a different token it would be nonsensical to give it the same name. because the diarist is not naming a type.

That's right. So I take it you no longer view what Wittgenstein is trying to do with the passages on the private language argument in this way: — Luke

I don't see why you're saying that, I still see it the same way. I just refer now to the sensation which is named as "a token", to suit your way of speaking. The diarist (Wittgenstein) is marking the recurring sensations as the very same token. It is only you who is judging that they are different, and that somehow there is "a type" involved here.

It is not a pedantic matter of "either/ or"... — Janus

Indeed, since in the end it is all public. — Banno

To say it is all public is as pedantic as to say it is all private. To put it another way, it is just your preferred interpretation of the situation; other interpretations are possible and equally as valid from their standpoints.

Obviously language originates in a communal context. But each individual can do with it whatever they wish within the range of their imaginations. Think Joyce's Finnegan's Wake.

Obviously language originates in a communal context. But each individual can do with it whatever they wish within the range of their imaginations. — Janus

Of course they can. And if it does nothing, then like the beetle it drops out of the discussion. The utterance would be senseless. And if it does something, that something is shared.

Of course they can. And if it does nothing, then like the beetle it drops out of the discussion. The utterance would be senseless. And if it does something, that something is shared. — Banno

I agree that if the precise meaning of some imaginative construction could not be explained to others it would be senseless,in a sense. It would nonetheless be meaningful to the poet in the sense of evoking feelings that cannot be explicated. This is true of many poetical works; no precise meaning can be determined; the words are meant to allude and evoke some indeterminate feeling Try explaining what Joyce is saying in Finnegan's Wake.

Of course what you say is true of propositional language, but that is only one dimension of what we do with language.

It would nonetheless be meaningful to the poet in the sense of evoking feelings that cannot be explicated. — Janus

Isn't the point of poetry to explicate the inexpressible? Yet poetry is not private. No precise meaning can be determined because there is no precise meaning, only the use - in this case, the elicitation of feelings...

And this for sensations, too;

The sensation has the same grammatical structure as an object: "I have a pain in my hand" against "I have a phone in my hand". The phone is a thing; the pain is not. We refer to the phone, but give expression to the pain. — Banno

Both cases - poetry and sensation - lack a sense and reference but have use.

Isn't the point of poetry to explicate the inexpressible? Yet poetry is not private. No precise meaning can be determined because there is no precise meaning, only the use - in this case, the elicitation of feelings... — Banno

I would say 'express' or 'evoke' rather than explicate. My point is just that the feelings elicited by a poem are ultimately private, like sensation. Of course we all have feelings and we all have sensations, and in that sense some sharing is of course possible.

A good example is headache; I sometimes have one, and my friend has never had one. So when I tell her I have a headache, she can understand that the pain is located in my head, but she has no idea what it is to have a headache, just as I really have no really concrete idea what it is to give birth. The usual extreme example is that a person blind from birth has no idea what it is to see. Some people have a genetic abnormality that stops them from being able to feel pain at all. Because they have never experienced pain, they cannot know what 'pain' refers to, because it doesn't really refer to manifest behavior.

My point is just that the feelings elicited by a poem are ultimately private, like sensation. — Janus

No they are not. We share them; if it were not so then the poet could have no say in the responses of their readers. One's reaction to a poem is not arbitrary.

But now we are back to the same examples, and the presumption that there is a thing that is the pain, a thing that is what it is like to see; and this is the error Wittgenstein is dismissing. The pain is not located in your head, rather it is the head that pains. There is not a thing the blind person cannot do, rather there are things they cannot say.

Back tot he beginning.

No they are not. We share them; if it were not so then the poet could have no say in the responses of their readers. One's reaction to a poem is not arbitrary. — Banno

The poet does not have any say in the responses of the reader. Given that language has conventional associations there may indeed be limits to the range of feelings that might be elicited by a poem, of course.

But now we are back to the same examples, and the presumption that there is a thing that is the pain, a thing that is what it is like to see; and this is the error Wittgenstein is dismissing. The pain is not located in your head, rather it is the head that pains. There is not a thing the blind person cannot do, rather there are things they cannot say. — Banno

This is all just reads like idiosyncratic assertion to me. I find the suggestion that there is a difference between saying that a pain is in your head and that it is the head that pains absurd, or that there is not something, namely seeing, that the blind person cannot do. It makes me wonder what planet you've been living, on to be honest. It's like you are wanting to force reality to accord with your stipulations.

That's why it receives the same name. It's not a type being named, it's the sensation itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

What is supposedly being named is a type of sensation, not a token of the sensation. That’s my point.

If the diarist believed that it was a different token it would be nonsensical to give it the same name. because the diarist is not naming a type. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your iPhone 12 and my iPhone 12 are different tokens and are both named “iPhone 12” because they are the same type of phone. Likewise, the sensation the diarist had last week and the sensation the diarist has today are different tokens and are both named ‘S’ because they are (seemingly) the same type of sensation. There is nothing nonsensical about this.

It will turn out that the diarist is not naming anything, but Wittgenstein has us suppose at the outset that the diarist is naming a particular type of sensation.

The poet does not have any say in the responses of the reader. — Janus

Think on that. The implication is that the reader's response is unrelated to what the poet writes.

In which case it does not matter what the poet writes.

Think on that. The implication is that the reader's response is unrelated to what the poet writes.

In which case it does not matter what the poet writes. — Banno

It may well be that the reader's response is quite unrelated to what the poet felt or had in mind. It is the words themselves and their range of possible associations which do have some say in the reader's response. But who knows how wacky and unrelated to any 'normal' response some readers' responses might be?

I don't know if many people experience this, but when I am reading philosophical works I sometimes find myself visualizing some scene from my childhood, like the backyard of the girl who lived across the road, or the stretch of bush that ran from the back of my grandmother's house to my parent's house. Sometimes it's like the images in dream which don't make any describable sense. This only happens with philosophical works, possibly because they are not describing anything concrete that can be visualized. It's a very strange stream of images and feelings going on in the background.