[Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
- From: "swmaerske" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:58:25 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Cayuse" <z.z7@...> wrote:
>
> Stuart wrote:
> > Cayuse wrote:
> >> Looking at the world around us we see people, but not the
> >> "subjective experience" that is assumed to be associated with
> >> them (an assumption that is not grounded in observation).
> >
> > As Wittgenstein noted in his later phase, there can be no private
> > language. Thus our language is built up with other speakers in a
> > world of common observations. What is observable is people and
> > their behavior (among other things). The words we use about the
> > mental states of othes are keyed to observations of such behaviors.
> > Contra those who suppose we can never really KNOW if others have
> > minds, Wittgenstein made the interesting and, I think, telling point
> > that knowing such a thing depends on behavioral criteria and not
> > seeing into their heads, experiencing their experiences. The larger
> > question, though, is how this Wittgensteinian insight relates to our
> > own sense of being a subject. Whether this is a realization that's
> > innate in us as some argue (certainly babies seem to have such
> > recognitions before they have language, though perhaps it is only
> > rudimentary and builds up to our level with language) or whether it is
> > built entirely through our interactions with others, we do co me to
> > think of others who are like us as having a mental life as we do.
> > But this is connected to the behavior of the others as Wittgenstein
> > points out. Our language about others' experiencing anything hinges
> > on behavioral criteria.
>
>
> I don't dispute that "subjective experience" is imputed to others on grounds
> of structural and behavioral criteria. I only dispute that "subjective
> experience" is empirical (and therefore a suitable matter for scientific
> investigation).
>
I've already told you that I am talking about "subjective experience" as being
a subject, i.e., having experiences. We know what that is, at least for
ourselves, because that is what we are. We know others are like us in various
behavioral ways and associate that being "like us" with having similar if not
the same kinds of subjective experiences. Indeed, we can talk with others about
their private mental events even if we can never have them with them.
You want to use "subjective experience" to reference an idealist picture of the
mind (or use whatever other term you like if you don't like "mind"), i.e., it
encompasses "all". And we agree there is that aspect to all this. In a very
real sense each of us is his or her own world, both the sense of being a self
in that world and the objects, at whatever level, one encounters through one's
senses that together constitute the "external" part of the world.
But THAT, as you have often said here, is a use without any grammar, a word
without a definable or definitive referent. Such a use is simply outside of
language.
We can imagine things about it, use it as a target toward which to aim our
efforts at understanding, as a placeholder for what is unexplainable, as a
catalytic agent for achieving a sense of mystery (a very psychological
experience). But we cannot talk about it in any discursive way. It is outside
language. So why insist on substituting this idea for what I have explicitly
said I mean by "subjective experience"? And how can making this substitution
say anything about what I am talking about since I am clearly not talking about
IT?
SWM
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