Wherefore The Failure Of Private Ostension?

I. Introduction

The private language sections (§§243-415) of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations speak to many issues, among them privacy,1 identity,2 inner/outer relations,3 sensations as objects,4 and sensations as justification for sensation talk.5 Also at issue is the nature of the meaning of our sensation words and expressions, and how they acquire meaning. Wittgenstein introduces the idea of a private language at §243 as a way to get at these issues. Often §258 is seen as a key remark in what is often thought of as “the private language argument.” However, in addition to Wittgenstein’s methodological remarks,6 the variety and complexity of issues discussed in the remarks from §§243-315, and their very subtlety, suggest that there is not one single argument that could be labeled “the private language argument.” The remarks appear to approach related issues from different directions,7 rather than to be a sustained critique of one particular issue. This, however, does not diminish the importance of §258, though it may make it less central in the overall discussion of sensations, their expressions, and sensation language and its meaning.

It seems clear in §258 that Wittgenstein is critiquing the efficacy of associating a word with a sensation in the absence of either a preexisting practice or natural expression of the sensation. However, it is not entirely clear why the attempted private ostensive definition in §258 fails. This is evidenced by the wide variety of conflicting interpretations as to why the private ostensive definition does fail. In particular, interpreters have had great difficulty in agreeing on what role the last four lines of §258 play in that and related remarks. Why exactly there is no criterion of correctness is a key question. Answers vary, for example, from i) there being problems with memory (Norman Malcolm, Robert J. Fogelin, and ultimately Anthony Kenny), to ii) the original association of sign and sensation failing so that nothing was established that could be a criterion (Barry Stroud, David G. Stern, Fogelin, Hans-Johann Glock, and P.M.S. Hacker), to iii) the special kind of criterion needed simply not being available in the context of the private diarist (John V. Canfield). The requirement of a linguistic stage-setting is often cited as a reason for ii. I will argue for this interpretation and subject the alternatives to scrutiny. In particular, we will examine Kenny’s and Canfield’s denial that the stage-setting requirement is relevant to §258. I will attempt to show that both their interpretations and objections to the stage-setting requirement applying to §258 are unconvincing. My purpose is to show the strengths of the no-stage-setting interpretation of §258 in light of the weaknesses of the other interpretations.

II. Background of the Private Language Discussion

Wittgenstein opens the Philosophical Investigations with these lines from Augustine: “When they (my elders) named some object, and accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that the thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it out” (§1). Augustine describes here his learning of language. An aspect of this description that might call our attention is that in the absence of any linguistic ability (i.e., he cannot yet speak or understand the words and sentences of his elder’s language), Augustine was able to see that when his elders pointed at a chair and said ‘chair’ that they were naming the object, and the object was called ‘chair’. This first sentence of the Philosophical Investigations already contains several of the issues, i.e., naming, meaning, and ostensive definition, that Wittgenstein focuses on throughout the book, though especially in the beginning and in the discussion of a private language. The ideas that one can understand an ostensive definition or give a name to something in the absence of a sufficient linguist setting, whatever that might come to, and that names become meaningful simply by association with an object come under severe criticism. One of the key points drawn from Wittgenstein’s remarks on ostensive definitions is that outside of particular, disambiguating contexts, it is not clear from pointing, for example, to a red ball while saying “Red!”, that something is being named, much less that it is the color and not the kind of object that is being named. Examples of contexts that are insufficient for successful naming are where the recipient of the ostensive definition is not familiar with the act of naming, does not know what a color or a ball is, or is completely without linguistic ability.8 In such cases the ostensive definition will not be understood nor will a meaningful connection be established between the name and thing named. Sufficient contexts are where, for example, the recipient is familiar with naming and has learned to talk of differences in shapes, colors, and the like.9 Presumably, it is such considerations that lead one of the voices of the Investigations to say: “So one might say: the ostensive definition explains the use—the meaning—of the word when the overall role of the word in language is clear”.10 The role of the word, much less that it is even a word’s use being explained, will not be clear for a person who does not yet possess a language. Hence, concerning Augustine’s description of language acquisition: “And now, I think, we can say: Augustine describes the learning of human language as if the child came into a strange country and did not understand the language of the country; that is, as if it already had a language, only not this one.”11 For it is in the context where one already knows one language and is learning another that it makes sense to say that one learns the new language, that language’s names for objects, merely by watching others point to objects while saying their names.

III. The Remarks on Private Language

In the first sections of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein critiques certain philosophical notions of naming and ostensively defining public objects. It is argued, or at the very least we are reminded, that ostensive definition and naming require a linguistic context of some sort. At §243 and following, names and ostensive definitions are once again at issue; however, now it is a critique of the naming of supposedly private sensations. We are reminded of the earlier discussion: “When one says ‘He gave a name to his sensation’ one forgets that a great deal of stage-setting in the language is presupposed if the mere act of naming is to make sense. And when we speak of someone’s having given a name to pain, what is presupposed is the existence of the grammar of the word ‘pain’; it shews the

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