Wittgenstein's Beetle, Solipsism & the Private Language Argument

Wittgenstein asks us to imagine that everybody has a matchbox with a beetle in it (init?). No-one can see inside anybody else's box, but we all agree that what's in the box is 'beetle'. The point is that it doesn't actually matter what's in the box, we could all have different things, or nothing at all, as long as we 'play' the language game referring  to the things in the boxes as 'beetle' it doesn't matter. The meaning of the word exists in the 'language use' about the things in the boxes; the meaning is dependent on this community of language users. The meaning of the word does not depend on what's in the box, but on the language use in which it is referred to. The meaning is not in the 'label' that the mind attaches to the sense impression, it is in the 'negotiation' and interaction with other language users that the meaning comes about. 

This is most relevant for us because it sheds light on the empiricist idea that words name sense impressions that are 'sealed' inside the heads of individual observers, hidden away from everyone else just like the beetles. Because we cannot share the sense impressions, but we clearly share meaning, the meaning must be outside our heads in the use of language within our language community. The notion that we all name the same ideas inside our heads - the notion that all our beetles just happen to be identical is clearly absurd. (well, when I say 'clearly' ...) Nigel Warburton in his excellent book Philosophy the Classics describes it like this;  

I have privileged access to the contents of my own mind that does not extend to the contents of yours. It is as if I have special access to a private cinema in which my thoughts and feelings are displayed; no one else has any idea of what happens within my private cinema. My experience is private to me, and yours to you. No one can really know my pain or my thoughts. I can describe my inner experience to myself, and no one else is able to judge whether or not my descriptions are accurate.

SOLIPSISM

Once you have fully grasped the notion of ‘sense impressions’ as things that exist inside the mind then it’s not difficult to see how empiricism falls into solipsism. 

Be certain you really get what is implied when Hume says,‘The mind never has anything present to it except the perceptions, and can’t possibly experience their connection with objects.’  Although Hume has little in common with him, it might be useful to think of this as a little like Plato’s ‘cave’ analogy. All the prisoners had were the shadows on the wall, they could not turn their heads or leave the cave to check the status of the shadows; it would never occur to them to do so because, to them, the shadows were reality. Similarly we cannot leave our heads to check how fully sense impressions mirror reality. 

Hume didn’t see this as problematic, but the kind of philosophers who want to find some objective ground, some ‘certainty’ beyond the particular circumstances of time and chance do. The kind of philosophers who want to escape the ‘cave’ and see the ‘reality’ behind the appearance, do. But Hume insists that, ‘We never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions, which have appeared in that narrow compass.’  For Hume, we just are inside our heads with the ideas that are ‘dimmer’ copies of the original sense impressions. 

So if we are locked into our heads with our own individual sense impressions then how do we come to attach any meaning to the ‘ideas’ that the sense impressions leave us with? 

PRIVATE LANGUAGE

Wittgenstein's so called 'private Language Argument' makes  the point that a language that attempts to 'name' or give meaning to private sensations is impossible because it has no 'touchstone', no point of reference to keep its meaning consistent. This argument seems to rely on the very concept of 'meaning ' being almost synonymous (meaning the same thing) with 'sharing'.  If it isn't then you wouldn't need a 'touchstone'.  

If language is an intrinsically public phenomenon, and language sets the limits of our thoughts then the contents of our minds doesn't seem as private as we might have believed.  Certainly it seems to make the notion of solipsism illogical. How can we define ourselves as solitary and locked in when the very use of the word shows us to be part of a language community.

If a private language is impossible then simply knowing a language refutes solipsism. We cannot be locked in if we are part of a language community and simply knowing a language confirms us as members of a language community. 

I'm beginning to repeat myself, so I'll stop.

You should be aware that this interpretation of Wittgenstein's views is known as the 'community view' for obvious reasons, it is not the only view, but it is the one that makes the most sense to me. (And Nigel, I believe.)

Locke's Primary & Secondary Qualities (late final)

This is a little out of order, but it occurred to me that we (I) hadn't blogged anything about this and I should have done. (I've also pasted it into an earlier Locke note, but you might not notice it there. Or here probably.)

We saw how Locke’s views on ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ qualities emphasise his belief in the physical world as grounding the sense data that empiricism relies on.

Locke’s famous snowball has primary qualities of ‘solidity, extension, figure and mobility’, in other words it takes up a certain round space in the world, you can see it and if it hits you, you’ll feel it! These qualities are in the snowball itself and will not vary according to the circumstances of the person experiencing it: they are what we might call (although I don’t think Locke does) objective qualities.

On the other hand the secondary qualities such as colours sounds and tastes vary as the circumstances of the person experiencing the snowball vary: the first snowball to hit you feels colder that than the fifth, the colour and sound it presents to your senses varies according to when, where and how you experience it.

So, if Locke thinks that the objects in the real world have primary qualities that are independent of observers then he is a ‘realist’. He thinks the world is, and is in a particular way.

David Hume (The first Humean Being)

We saw how Hume, writing some 60 years later, builds on Locke's empiricist foundations and develops many of his views. Hume also rejects innate ideas and believes that all our thoughts are given through the senses.

Hume believes that;

we can divide the mind’s perceptions into two classes, on the basis of their different degrees of force and liveliness. The less forcible and lively are commonly called ‘thoughts’ or ‘ideas’.

For Hume, these ideas are pale copies of the more direct and immediate perceptions we have when we are actually experiencing something rather than thinking about it. He calls these more direct perceptions ‘impressions’, and explains that he uses this term to mean, 'all our more lively perceptions when we hear or see or feel or love or hate or desire or will.'

So Hume thinks that ideas are got from the way we experience the world physically, emotionally and intellectually (although I'm not sure if he would approve of those divisions of our experience) but that all our ideas are 'fainter perceptions of ... our impressions.' As he puts it, 'all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones.'