This is important to understand. It reaches into the issue of consciousness itself, and it's why Descartes is wrong about "I think, therefore I am." There is no such conclusion to be drawn. I simply think. — Sam26
Well, then, what am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wants, refuses, and also imagines and senses.
Although it makes no sense to say that I am in pain but I do not know it or I am not conscious that I am in pain, that I do not know that I am in pain is a grammatical claim. I think you are reaching into the wrong issue. — Fooloso4
Something that does not think cannot be deceived, and only something that can think can doubt. I cannot be deceived about or doubt that I exist unless I am a thing that thinks. — Fooloso4
And of course "...I do not know that I am in pain is a grammatical claim," so I'm not sure of your point. — Sam26
My point is that in terms of what I can know ... — Sam26
There is no internal language-game ... — Sam26
Descartes was just confused on this point. — Sam26
A. In what sense are my sensations private?
B. – Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it.
A. – In one way this is false, and in another nonsense. If we are using the word “know” as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know if I’m in pain.
B. – Yes, but all the same, not with the certainty with which I know it myself!
A. – It can’t be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I’m in pain. What is it supposed to mean
B. – except perhaps that I am in pain?
I spoke earlier of the dissimilarity between "I have a pain in my hand" and "I have an iPhone in my hand". The temptation is to think that because the grammar is the same, the pain is a thing in the way the iPhone is. As a matter of exegesis, the next few pages of PI show Witti to be rejecting this. He talks of how the length of a rod seems obvious, but not the length of a sphere; the notion of length ceases to have application, because we cannot imagine the opposite, the "width" of a sphere. He points out how a dog might simulate being in pain, but that the situations in which this occurs shows the dog isn't. He talks of feeling another's pain.
Then he asks of our use of "the language which describes my inner experience" (§256), and "how we "simply associate names with sensations..." But note the use of the em-dash at the end of this comment. Because he next moves into what is considered the heart of the private language argument, §259 &c.
And the upshot of that is that it is improper to talk of representing our own pains and pleasures. "I have a pain in my hand" is not like "I have an iPhone in my hand"; it is more like "Ouch!"
If one were to treat of a private, subjective world, it seems one may not be able to name items therein. — Banno
Naming is not yet a move in a language-game – any more than putting a piece in its place on the board is a move in chess. One may say: with the mere naming of a thing, nothing has yet been done. Nor has it a name except in a game. This was what Frege meant too when he said that a word has a meaning only in the context of a sentence. — PI §49
A. In what sense are my sensations private?
B. – Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it.
A. – In one way this is false, and in another nonsense. If we are using the word “know” as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know if I’m in pain.
B. – Yes, but all the same, not with the certainty with which I know it myself!
A. – It can’t be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I’m in pain. What is it supposed to mean
B. – except perhaps that I am in pain? — Banno
Feynman perhaps misses that there is a difference between the brown-throated thrush and the brown thrasher, for which it is often mistaken. To know the name of the bird is to be able to distinguish it from other birds. — Banno
Why need there be a something that is being named? What does "Ouch!" name? Perhaps the game is not one of naming at all. — Banno
"Ouch!" is not a name for some group of behaviours. It is a behaviour. — Banno
For Wittgenstein:
1) The word "ouch!" replaces a behaviour.
2) Naming means attaching the word "ouch!" to a behaviour, ie, the word "ouch!" names a behaviour.
3) Therefore, "attaching" a word to a behaviour means "replacing" a behaviour by a word. — RussellA
“Ouch” is an expression of pain, not naming the behaviors that commonly associated with pain — Richard B
Talk of pain has a superficial resemblance to talk of objects, "I have an iPhone in my hand" looks very much like "I have a pain in my hand". — Banno
"Ouch!" can only name the behaviour. — RussellA
"Ouch" is not the name of a behaviour; it is an expression of pain — Luke
Wincing is the name of a behaviour, but "ouching" is not. — Luke
I would agree that the act of saying "ouch" names a behaviour, but I would not agree that the word "ouch" names a behaviour. — Luke
I would agree that the act of saying "ouch" names a behaviour, but I would not agree that the word "ouch" names a behaviour. — Luke
I agree that the word "ouch" has to be in context. It could be the Organisation for the Understanding of Cluster Headache, a BBC website reflecting the lives and experiences of disabled people, a term in the dictionary or a speech act from someone having a rock dropped on their foot. As Wittgenstein said "The question is: "In what sort of context does it occur?" — RussellA
Uttering those words becomes, for the child, a new form of pain-behavior; and for others it serves as a criterion for the child's being in pain." — Richard B
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