In the early-to-mid 1930s, Wittgenstein investigated solipsism via the philosophy of language. In this paper, I want to reopen Wittgenstein's ‘grammatical’ examination of solipsism.Wittgenstein begins by considering the thesis that only I can feel my pains. Whilst this thesis may tempt us towards solipsism, Wittgenstein points out that this temptation rests on a grammatical confusion concerning the phrase ‘my pains’. In Section 1, I unpack and vindicate his thinking. After discussing ‘my pains’, Wittgenstein makes his now famous suggestion that the (...) word ‘I’ has two distinct uses: a subject-use and an object-use. The purpose of Wittgenstein's suggestion has, however, been widely misunderstood. I unpack it in Section 2, explaining how the subject-use connects with a phenomenological language, and so again tempts us into solipsism. In Sections 3–4, I consider various stages of Wittgenstein's engagement with this kind of solipsism, culminating in a rejection of solipsism via reflections on private languages. (shrink)

Esta enciclopédia abrange, de uma forma introdutória mas desejavelmente rigorosa, uma diversidade de conceitos, temas, problemas, argumentos e teorias localizados numa área relativamente recente de estudos, os quais tem sido habitual qualificar como «estudos lógico-filosóficos». De uma forma apropriadamente genérica, e apesar de o território teórico abrangido ser extenso e de contornos por vezes difusos, podemos dizer que na área se investiga um conjunto de questões fundamentais acerca da natureza da linguagem, da mente, da cognição e do raciocínio humanos, bem (...) como questões acerca das conexões destes com a realidade não mental e extralinguística. A razão daquela qualificação é a seguinte: por um lado, a investigação em questão é qualificada como filosófica em virtude do elevado grau de generalidade e abstracção das questões examinadas (entre outras coisas); por outro, a investigação é qualificada como lógica em virtude de ser uma investigação logicamente disciplinada, no sentido de nela se fazer um uso intenso de conceitos, técnicas e métodos provenientes da disciplina de lógica. O agregado de tópicos que constitui a área de estudos lógico-filosóficos é já visível, pelo menos em parte, no Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus de Ludwig Wittgenstein, uma obra publicada em 1921. E uma boa maneira de ter uma ideia sinóptica do território disciplinar abrangido por esta enciclopédia, ou pelo menos de uma porção substancial dele, é extrair do Tractatus uma lista dos tópicos mais salientes aí discutidos; a lista incluirá certamente tópicos do seguinte género, muitos dos quais se podem encontrar ao longo desta enciclopédia: factos e estados de coisas; objectos; representação; crenças e estados mentais; pensamentos; a proposição; nomes próprios; valores de verdade e bivalência; quantificação; funções de verdade; verdade lógica; identidade; tautologia; o raciocínio matemático; a natureza da inferência; o cepticismo e o solipsismo; a indução; as constantes lógicas; a negação; a forma lógica; as leis da ciência; o número. (shrink)

In this paper, I first review previous interpretations of Wittgenstein's remarks on private language, revealing their inadequacies, and then present my own interpretation. Basing mainly on Wittgenstein's notes for lectures on private sensations, I establish the following points: ‘remembering the connection right’ means ‘reidentifying sensation-types’; the reason for ‘no criterion of correctness’ is that nothing, especially no inner mechanisms nor external devices, can be utilised by the private speaker to tell whether some sensations are of one type or different types; (...) and private names are not really names, private language is not really a language, therefore, private language is a grammatical illusion. My interpretation has the advantage of being able to reconcile Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy, which is to dissolve philosophical problems by rearranging grammatical facts, with his actual philosophical practice, at least in the case of private language. (shrink)

A "concept" in the sense favoured by Wittgenstein is a paradigm for a transition between parts of a notational system. A concept-determining sentence such as "There is no reddish green" registers the absence of such a transition. This suggests a plausible account of what is perceived in an experiment that was first designed by Crane and Piantanida, who claim to have induced perceptions of reddish green. I shall propose a redescription of the relevant phenomena, invoking only ordinary colour concepts. This (...) redescription is not ruled out by anything the experimenters say. It accounts for certain peculiarities in both their descriptions and their subjects', and suggests that instead of discovering forbidden colours the experimenters introduced a new use of "-ish". Still, there is a point in speaking of "reddish green" in their context, which can be motivated by invoking what Wittgenstein calls a "physiognomy". (shrink)

This dissertation presents an objection to Wittgenstein's concept of family resemblances, three possible solutions to the objection, evaluations of the solutions, and a sketch of Wittgenstein's approach to the objection. My thesis is that none of the three proposed solutions is satisfactory, but that Wittgenstein can deal with the objection. ;Chapter I presents the Problem of the Under-Determination of Extension, the claim that family resemblances are not enough to explain the extension of a concept, since resemblances may be postulated between (...) cases falling under different concepts. ;Chapters II and III discuss three solutions proposed by commentators on family resemblances. The Basic Predicates Solution claims that points of family resemblance are sufficient conditions, and is incorrect since Wittgenstein denies that one can infer the applicability of a concept based on the presence of a resemblance to an instance of the concept. The Simple Properties Solution claims that only some concepts are family resemblance concepts, and depend upon concepts which are not family resemblance concepts, and is incorrect, since Wittgenstein does not require that family resemblance concepts be reducible to non-family resemblance concepts. The Bi-Directional Determination of Concepts Solution is the claim that a concept is determined by an interaction between facts about cases subsumed under it, and needs and purposes of language-users. This solution is non-Wittgensteinian by ignoring the ramifications of his concepts of grammar and language-games. ;Chapter IV argues that Wittgenstein deals with the original objection by developing new models for understanding language, involving the concepts of grammar and language-games. (shrink)

Much of recent philosophy of perception is oriented towards accounting for the phenomenal character of perception—what it is like to perceive—in a non-mentalistic way—that is, without appealing to mental objects or mental qualities. In opposition to such views, I claim that the phenomenal character of perception of a red round object cannot be explained by or reduced to direct awareness of the object, its redness and roundness—or representation of such objects and qualities. Qualities of perception that are not captured by (...) what one is directly aware of or by representational content are instances of what Gilbert Harman has called “mental paint” (Block, 1990; Harman, 1990). The claim of this paper is that empirical facts about attention point in the direction of mental paint. The argument starts with the claim (later modified) that when one moves one's attention around a scene while keeping one's eyes fixed, the phenomenology of perception can change in ways that do not reflect which qualities of objects one is directly aware of or the way the world is represented to be. These changes in the phenomenology of perception cannot be accounted for in terms of awareness of or representation of the focus of attention because they manifest themselves in experience as differences in apparent contrast, apparent color saturation, apparent size, apparent speed, apparent time of occurrence and other appearances. There is a way of coping with these phenomena in terms of vague contents, but vague contents cannot save direct realism or representationism because the kind of vagueness required clashes wth the phenomenology itself. (shrink)

This paper compares Wittgenstein's conception of ?objective certainty? with Descartes's ?metaphysical certainty?. According to both conceptions if you are certain of something in these senses, then it is inconceivable that you are mistaken. But a striking difference is that for Descartes, if you are metaphysically certain of something it follows both that the something is so and that you know it is so; whereas on Wittgenstein's conception neither thing follows. I try to show that there is a form of ?scepticism? (...) in Wittgenstein's outlook on the concept of certainty, although it is not the familiar Philosophical Scepticism. The Appendix takes issue with a recent essay by John Cook which argues that the ?hinge propositions? of On Certainty are based on ?the metaphysics of phenomenalism? (shrink)

In this paper, a Wittgensteinian account of the human sciences is constructed around the notions of the surface of human life and of surface phenomena as expressions. I begin by explaining Wittgenstein's idea that the goal of interpretive social science is to make actions and practices seem natural. I then explicate his notions of the surface of life and of surface phenomena as expressions by reviewing his analysis of mental state language. Finally, I critically examine three ideas: (a) that the (...) goal of interpretive inquiry is realized through a descriptive, context-constructing method that enables investigators to grasp the instincts, mental states, and experiences (Geist) expressed in surface phenomena; (b) that uncovering rules plays a minor role in this enterprise; and (c) that surface phenomena not only can be made natural but also have causes and are subject to causal explanation. (shrink)

One reason why the problem of other minds keeps cropping up in modern philosophy is that we seem to have conflicting intuitions about our access to the mental lives of others. On the one hand, we are inclined to think that it is wrong to claim, like Cartesian dualists must, that the minds of others are essentially inaccessible to direct experience. But on the other hand we feel that it is equally wrong to claim, like the behaviorists, that the mental (...) lives of others are completely accessible to an outside spectator. This paper attempts to address the problem of the accessibility of other minds while staying faithful to both these intuitions. Central to this undertaking is the idea that we express our mental lives in our bodily behavior. With a firm grasp of the notion of expression, as it is developed in the writings of Wittgenstein and Levinas, we can understand how other minds can be directly perceivable and yet retain a certain inaccessibility. The key is to emphasize the difference between the expressive appearance of a human being and the way an object appears in perception. (shrink)

Qualia inversion thought experiments are ubiquitous in contemporary philosophy of mind. The most popular kind is one or another variant of Locke's hypothetical case of.

In this paper we put forward the thesis that qualia are tropes (or qualitons), and not (universal) properties. Further, we maintain that Wittgenstein hints in this direction. We also find in Wittgenstein elements of an account of language acquisition that takes the presence of qualia as an enabling condition. We conclude by pointing out some difficulties of this view.

endorsed one kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis and rejected another. This paper argues that the kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis that Wittgenstein endorsed is the thin end of the wedge that precludes a Wittgensteinian critique of the kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis he rejected. The danger of the dangerous kind is that it provides an argument for qualia, where qualia are contents of experiential states which cannot be fully captured in natural language. I will pinpoint the difference between the innocuous (...) and dangerous scenarios that matters for the argument for qualia, give arguments in favor of the coherence and possibility of the dangerous scenario, and try to show that some standard arguments against inverted spectra are ineffective against the version of the dangerous scenario I will be advocating. The leading idea of the paper is that an argument for qualia based on spectrum inversion does not require that the inversion be behaviorally indistinguishable. At one crucial point, I will rely on a less controversial version of an argument I gave in Block. Wittgenstein's views provide a convenient starting point for a paper that is much more about qualia than about Wittgenstein. (shrink)

In 2003 I published a survey of Wittgenstein’s lectures in Public and Private Occasions. Much has been learned about his lectures since then. This paper revisits the earlier survey and provides additional material and corrections, which amount to over 25%. In case it is useful, I have provided interlinear pagination from the original publication.

While Wittgenstein wrote unconventionally and denied that he was advancing philosophical theses, most of his interpreters have attributed conventional philosophical theses to him. But the best recent interpretations have taken the form of his writing and his distinctive way of doing philosophy seriously. The 1980s have also seen the emergence of a body of work on Wittgenstein that makes extensive use of the unpublished Wittgenstein papers. This work on Wittgenstein's method and his way of writing are the main themes of (...) this literature review.Section 1 surveys Wittgenstein's conception of philosophical method and its reception. Section 2 is a review of recent work on rule-following and the methodological issues it raises. Section 3 concerns research on the WittgensteinNachlass and its implications for the interpretation of his philosophy. (shrink)

This is a critical discussion of selected chapters of the first volume of Scott Soames's _Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century. It is argued that this volume falls short of the minimal standards of scholarship appropriate to a work that advertises itself as a history, and, further, that Soames's frequent heuristic simplifications and distortions, since they are only sporadically identified as such, are more likely to confuse than to enlighten the student. These points are illustrated by reference to Soames's discussions (...) of Russell's logical system and the place of the theory of descriptions in his ontological development. It is then argued that Soames's interpretation of the point of G. E. Moore's famous 'proof' of an external world, while not straightforwardly undermined by the textual evidence, is nonetheless questionable, and plausibly overlooks what is novel in Moore's discussion. This, it is argued, in his attempt to offer a common sense 'refutation of idealism', rather than (as is more commonly supposed) an antiskeptical argument 'from differential certainty'. (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, Volume 45, Issue 2, Page 200-219, April 2022.

While thinking philosophically we see problems in places where there are none. It is for philosophy to show that there are no problems.Those of us who are not colour blind have a happy command of colour concepts. We say of trees that they are green in spring, that they are the same colour as grass and a different colour from the sky. If we shine a torch with a red bulb upon a white surface, we say that the surface looks (...) pink although it is white. And if we suffer a bout of jaundice we claim that white things look yellowish to us, although they are not yellow, nor do they look yellow. We employ this tripartite distinction unworriedly and unthinkingly. But when, in doing philosophy, we are called upon to elucidate colour concepts it becomes evident that these elementary concepts present intricate problems to the philosophical understanding. It is extraordinarily difficult to obtain a proper surview of colour grammar, and the temptations of philosophical illusion are legion. We go wrong before the first step is even taken, and hence do not notice our errors, for they are implicit in every move we make. We multiply impossibilities seriatim, getting better, like the White Queen, with practice. We then either slide into scepticism, or alternatively exclude it on empirical grounds - appealing, as is so popular in American philosophical circles, to the wonders of science, in particular physics and neurophysiology, to keep the malin genie from the door. (shrink)

Over 60 years ago, the influential language philosopher L. Wittgenstein suggested that there is no need to use "understanding" and "meaning" to understand how language works and, in fact, that the two theoretical terms are part of a primitive idea. Today, both remain two of the most frequently used terms in education. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate a discussion about abandoning these terms from the theoretical discourse of education in the way these are commonly used. Case materials (...) from the research literature chosen from a large database on knowing and learning in science are used to exemplify the approach that does not require either concept. Implications are drawn for education research and practice. (shrink)

Este texto faz considerações introdutórias sobre o argumento externalista no contexto do debate filosófico atual. Não é um resumo, um retrato fiel ou uma história do externalismo, mas uma apresentação a partir de um certo ângulo, traçando um cenário precário onde o problema da subjetividade (e os temas a ela associados, como conhecimento e racionalidade) remete à pergunta sobre qual a relação entre a mente e seus conteúdos e o mundo físico-social-lingüístico circundante.

When he formulated the program of neurophenomenology, Francisco Varela suggested a balanced methodological dissolution of the hard problem of consciousness. I show that his dissolution is a paradigm which imposes itself onto seemingly opposite views, including materialist approaches. I also point out that Varela's revolutionary epistemological ideas are gaining wider acceptance as a side effect of a recent controversy between hermeneutists and eliminativists. Finally, I emphasize a structural parallel between the science of consciousness and the distinctive features of quantum mechanics. (...) This parallel, together with the former convergences, point towards the common origin of the main puzzles of both quantum mechanics and the philosophy of mind: neglect of the constitutive blindspot of objective knowledge. (shrink)

This paper compares the treatment of private sensations in the works of Wittgenstein and Klossowski. Its aim is to show that, despite the differences between their traditions and methods, they align in at least one important respect: rejecting relations of reference between signs and private sensations. The paper briefly contextualises their lines of attack on these relations, situating the two thinkers’ commonalities amidst what are undeniably divergent wider purposes. It proceeds to argue for two more specific conclusions. Firstly, Klossowski’s own (...) rejoinder directed at reference to private sensations is rooted in his comparison of linguistic meaning to economic valuation in Living Currency. Secondly, Klossowski goes beyond Wittgenstein in arguing that, regardless of the status of reference of this sort, no complete account of sensation can view it only as private. (shrink)

The traditional and prevailing definition of lying is that lying is some variation or combination of: “an untruth told with intent to deceive.” I establish that this is the case, and that, as a result, contradictions and injustices arise. An alternative definition is proposed which is shown to avoid these difficulties. It is also shown that and how on the new definition the alleged “Liar paradox” is easily dissolved.

In this paper, we would like to discuss Wittgenstein’s critique of the idea that a person’s experiences are necessarily private, and these experiences can only be expressible in a private language. Taking a clue from Wittgenstein, we intend to say that the person’s experiences though private, can also be known by others. In the following sections 243 of his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein argues against the possibility of a private language about the subject’s inner experiences. He contends that by coining names/words (...) to name sensations and our inner experiences, we cannot create a private language. If we have a list of names, that cannot function as a language. We need predicate terms; we need the syntax to link the words in the form of a sentence. If we use private names and use the predicates from the language that everyone knows, then the private words will acquire public status like the terms ‘pain’ and ‘sensation.’ These terms are already part of the public language, and if private experiences like pain and sensation cannot be made public, we would not have these terms in our language at all. This is the reason why any application of words is public, and therefore, there is no possibility of a private language. Wittgenstein concentrates on the public rules that govern the correct application for the use of words. And the expressions are meaningful only when these are used according to rules of grammar; if these expressions do not follow any rules of grammar, these are simply meaningless. (shrink)

Understanding alterations of selfhood (termed self-disorders or self-disturbances) that are considered typical of the schizophrenia-spectrum is a central focus of phenomenological research. The currently most influential way of phenomenologically conceiving self-disorders in schizophrenia is as disorders of the so-called most basic or “minimal self”. In this paper, we first highlight some challenges for the minimal self-view of self-disorders, focusing on (1) problems arising from the supposedly “essential” or “universal” nature of minimal self with respect to phenomenal awareness and (2) the (...) critical implications of alterations of self-experience in schizophrenia that involve heightened or exaggerated sense of self. In the second part, we tentatively explore how a (non-egological) transparency-view of consciousness may offer an alternative way of understanding the experiential abnormalities involved in self-disorders in schizophrenia. We discuss how such a transparency-view (1) may account for loss-of-self experiences; (2) is compatible with the key notion of “hyper-reflexivity”; and (3) can help explain instances of self-disorder involving increased sense of self. In conclusion, we consider some possible advantages of this alternative view for research on self-disorders and clinical approaches. (shrink)

RésuméĽauteur propose ?illustrer et ?expliquer le concept de comprehension en reprenant le probleme de I'asymetrie des sujets et des predicats tel que P. F. Strawson ľa posé et partiellement résolu. II s'agit de comprendre, en un sens fort, le phénomene de ľasymétrie. Un rapprochement entre philosophie logique et sémantique linguistique permet de généraliser la solution strawsonienne: ?une part, on peut traiter simultanément le cas de la predication monadique et celui des relations dyadiques; ?autre part et surtout, la cause profonde de (...) ľasymetrie ainsi généralisée semble se trouver dans une autre asymétrie que ľauteur identifie sous le nom ? asymétrie quantitative ≪. Ce résultat confirme que, tant en philosophie logique qu'en linguistique, une methode informelle est féconde, et en même temps aussi rigoureuse que la méthode formelle.SummaryBy way of illustrating and clarifying the concept of understanding in the theoretical sense in which to understand something is tantamount to being able to explain it, the author takes up the problem of the asymmetry of subjects and predicates with regard to negation in philosophical logic. How much explanation can we hope achieve in such a field? If we bring to bear on the problem of the asymmetry recent results in linguistic semantics, we get a generalization of P. F. Strawson's proposed solution: an abstract structure is shown to be common to monadic predication and dyadic relations, and the cause of the asymmetry which is characteristic of that structure is identified as a new, probably “quantitative” asymmetry between subjects and predicates. These results contribute to substantiate the case for an informal method, both in philosophical logic and in general linguistics. (shrink)