[Wittrs] Re: Conditions of Assertability: First-Person Self-Reference
- From: "Cayuse" <z.z7@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:00:55 -0000
Joseph Polanik wrote:
Cayuse wrote:
Joseph Polanik wrote:
you've admitted that 'I am in pain' is a legitimate statement;
What was my exact comment and on what date did I make it?
[10/29/2009 09:04 AM]:
[Joe]: what about the example Wittgenstein uses, 'I am in pain'? is
that use valid or invalid?
[Cayuse]: The use of this expression is clear enough (there is pain in
the data of experience), but the form of the expression is misleading
(there is an "I" that is separate and distinct from this pain and that
somehow "experiences" this pain).
My comment was *not* that "I am in pain" but that "there is pain in
the data of experience". My comment does not employ the word "I".
PI 404: [...] What does it mean to know who is in pain? It means, for
example, to know which man in this room is in pain [...]. What am I
getting at? At the fact that there is a great variety of criteria for
personal 'identity'. Now which of them determines my saying that 'I'
am in pain? None.
and; therefore ... what?
And therefore the "experiencer" of this pain is an
application-free metaphysical postulate.
how does this passage help you prove that there can be the experience
of pain in the complete absence of anything that experiences pain?
There is pain in the data of experience, but there is no experiencer
in the data of experience. This is an empirical fact, like "I hear
a dog barking" -- if I were to assert that "I hear a dog barking"
would you ask for proof that I hear a dog barking?
what are the conditions of assertability for accurately stating 'I
am in pain'?
There are no conditions of assertability for accurately stating
"I am in pain".
There is no such thing as the subject that "notices" the experience
of pain or "owns" the stream of experiences. (Paraphrasing TLP 5.631)
"The subject does not belong to the world: rather, it is a limit of
the world." (TLP 5.632)
"Where /in/ the world is the metaphysical subject to be found?" (TLP
5.633)
it seems that you've overlooked TLP 5.641: "What brings the self into
philosophy is the fact that 'the world is my world'".
Given his comment in 5.63 that "I am my world", it is clear that
LW regards the data of experience and the experiencer as the same
-- there is no distinct experiencer, regardless of the expressions of
common speech that mislead us into believing that there is.
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