[lit-ideas] Re: The Order of Aurality
- From: Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2012 16:04:20 -0500
Donal wrote:
"Presumably W's point, insofar as it involves explaining why such a
creature cannot understand our language because it does not share our
"form of life", is not a point merely about imagining a creature
lacking cognitive capacities to grasp language. The point cannot
simply be that a creature without a capacity to understand language
would not understand our language, but that a creature with a capacity
to understand its language may not understand ours because its "form
of life" is so different to ours."
Wittgenstein makes quite a different point. For Wittgenstein, language
use requires a form of life, but this does not mean that only those
engaged in that form of life can understand that language. To make
this further claim, it would be necessary to also claim that,
alongside all the observable behaviors involved in that form of life,
there must be some mental activity that is hidden from outsiders,
thereby making the language itself hidden, or private. For example,
along with all the religious practices and habits involved in a
particular religion, followers of this religion would also possess
unique mental content that was necessarily inaccessible to
non-followers, thereby making this particular religious life, or form
of life, incomprehensible to non-followers.
However, Wittgenstein argues against this claim of the possibility of
a private language or experience, making two points. First, such a
form of life would be impossible to learn because there would be no
way of teaching what is private. Second, it isn't clear how an
individual engaged in this form of life could be certain that they
were getting it right, since there would be no way of fixing the
nature of 'getting it right'. That is, how can the nature of a private
experience be fixed as 'this' particular private experience without
reference to something that is not private?
For Wittgenstein, any language is, in principle, open to understanding
by any language user.
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
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