[C] [Wittrs] Re: Solipsism
- From: "SWM" <swmirsky@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 03:06:59 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "walto" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Cayuse" <z.z7@> wrote:
> >
> > The following article discusses solipsism from the perspective of a certain
> > interpretation of Wittgenstein (mainly the PI). That interpretation seems
> > to me to be at odds with Wittgenstein's use of the word 'solipsism' in his
> > Tractatus, and more consistent with the Problem of Other Minds than with
> > the problem of solipsism as Descartes described it. I'm left unsure about
> > my own interpretation of Wittgenstein on this, so I'd like to ask what
> > others think of the article's interpretation of Wittgenstein's view of
> > solipsism:
> >
> > http://www.iep.utm.edu/solipsis/
> >
>
> I think the author should have discussed Crispin Wright--especially his
> response to Putnam's argument that we couldn't be brains-in-vats. According
> to Wright (if I read him correctly--his writing is notoriously convoluted),
> the Witter and externalist arguments won't work against skeptical positions
> according to which I/we have become envatted (or otherwise deceived) only
> recently, rather than from birth. In any case, it's weird to write an
> encyclopedia article on the subject without discussing Wright, since he's
> been one of the main guys on that issue for a long time.
>
> W
Addressing the reference to the argument by Wright (cited by Walter), the
following text, taken from the article's end, suggests why there would be a
distinction between the cases (being envatted from birth vs. being envatted
recently). I have recast one key statement in caps for ease of identification:
"The cluster of arguments ? generally referred to as 'the private language
argument' . . . administers the coup de grâce to both Cartesian dualism and
solipsism. (I. § 202; 242-315). Language is an irreducibly public form of life
that is encountered in specifically social contexts. Each natural
language-system contains an indefinitely large number of 'language-games,'
governed by rules that, though conventional, are not arbitrary personal fiats.
The meaning of a word is its (publicly accessible) use in a language. To
question, argue, or doubt is to utilize language in a particular way. It is to
play a particular kind of public language-game. The proposition 'I am the only
mind that exists' makes sense only to the extent that it is expressed in a
public language, and the existence of such language itself implies the
existence of a social context. SUCH A CONTEXT EXISTS FOR THE HYPOTHETICAL LAST
SURVIVOR OF A NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST, BUT NOT FOR THE SOLIPSIST. . . . That
solipsistic thoughts are thinkable in the first instance implies the existence
of the public, shared, intersubjective world that they purport to call into
question."
In other words, since our concepts, including the idea of solipsism, are
grounded in language, and language has a public mode of operation, solipsism,
even if it were "true" in some sense could only be so in a sense that is beyond
any ability we have to differentiate what is or isn't true. Thus, in our own
context it can only be meaningless. The illusion of the vat is complete and all
pervasive, if from birth. But if it isn't, then it is because as, if the
illusion comes later, there would be other experiences to compare it with
including a residual language using capacity.
If envatting occurred in the context of a larger milieu of experiences (i.e.,
being placed in a vat after having formerly been outside the vat), then, like
the sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust, a claim of complete aloneness, of
being the sole thinking entity, etc., is both possible and sensible. But then
the aloneness so designated cannot be the same as a claim of solipsism which
expresses the idea that we can never be sure of any reality beyond our
immediate conscious selves. The experience of being alone in a world where
there is (or was) an alternative is not the same as a claim that we are always
and ultimately the one and only entity that exists (or that we can never be
sure that we aren't).
SWM
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