WITTGENSTENIAN APPROACH ON MEANING

AND THE POSSIBILITY OF PRIVATE LANGUAGE

i
 WITTGENSTENIAN APPROACH ON MEANING
AND THE POSSIBILITY OF PRIVATE LANGUAGE

By
BRO. PAUL MATHEW

Under the Guidance of

DR. SHAJAN VALIAPARABIL OSB

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Philosophy.

St. Joseph‘s Institute of Philosophy

Makkiyad
January-2019

ii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

As I sincerely praise and thank the invisible and invincible Divine presence,
which guides my steps and molds my thoughts and who has very graciously helped me to
complete this paper, I place on record of my deep indebtedness to all those who have
helped me in one way or another in this endeavour. First and foremost I express my
profound gratitude to Rev.Dr. Shajan Valiaparambil OSB, the director of this dissertation
and the Dean of Studies for his guidance, encouragement, valuable suggestions and
support.

I am very much indebted to Rev. Fr. Anselm Pallithazhath OSB, the rector of St.
Joseph‘s Institute of Philosophy, Makkiyad, for his fatherly concern and support. I
sincerely express my heartfelt feelings of gratitude to Rev.Dr. Vincent Korandiarkunnel
OSB, the vice rector of seminarians and the master of junior monks, for his concern and
support in completing this research. Here I also would like to express my sincere thanks
to Rev.Fr.Joseph Orlando OSB as a librarian who generously provided all the possible
materials which were needed for my work.

It is my privilege to thank the Archbishop Mar.George Njaralakkatt and all the

authorities of the Syro-Malabar Archieparchy of Tellicherry and Rev. Dr. Sojan Karotte,
my rector and all the fathers and brothers of the my diocese for their support and concern
granted to me. I also take this opportunity to remember with gratitude all my professors,
the librarians, junior brothers and my companions especially Brothers Tojin Amal,
Yesudas CFIC for their technical assistance and support.

Finally I express my heartfelt thanks to my parents, brothers and sisters, friends

and well-wishers, who contributed a lot in different ways for the fruitful accomplishment
of this humble endeavour. Once again I convey my Sincere thanks to all.

Makkiyad Paul Mathew Mundackal

28 January 2018 St. Joseph‘s Institute of Philosophy

iii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................. iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................. iv
GENERAL INTRODUCTION .......................................................................1
CHAPTER ONE
SITUATING THE PHILOSOPHY OF LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 3
1.1 Life and Works ......................................................................................................... 3
1.1.1 Early Period ....................................................................................................... 3
1.1.2. Later Period ....................................................................................................... 6
1.2 Influences on Wittgenstein‘s Thought ...................................................................... 6
1.2.1 Bertrand Russell ................................................................................................. 7
1.2.3. Gottlob Frege .................................................................................................... 7
1.2.4 G E Moore.......................................................................................................... 8
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 8
CHAPTER TWO
FROM ESSENCE TO FAMILY RESEMBLANCE
Introduction ................................................................................................................... 10
2.1. Language- Games .................................................................................................. 10
2.1.1 Invented Language- Game ............................................................................... 11
2.1.2 Natural Language-Game .................................................................................. 12
2.2 Family Resemblance ............................................................................................... 12
2.3 Forms of Life .......................................................................................................... 13
Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 14

iv
 CHAPTER THREE
THE POSSIBILITY OF A PRIVATE LANGUAGE
Introduction ................................................................................................................... 16
3.1 Characteristics of a Private Language..................................................................... 16
3.1.1 Private Knowledge of Words ........................................................................... 16
3.1.2 Private Ownership of Words ............................................................................ 17
3.1.3 Incommunicability ........................................................................................... 17
3.2 Negation of Private Language ................................................................................ 18
3.2.1 Use of Names ................................................................................................... 18
3.2.2 Incapacity to Be a Language ............................................................................ 19
3.2.3 Complete Certainty .......................................................................................... 19
Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 19
GENERAL CONCLUSION ..........................................................................21
BIBLIOGRAPHY .........................................................................................22

v
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Language use is such an impressive and fascinating human capacity that human
beings are called homo loquens- speaking beings. Human languages are strikingly
powerful and complex and are studied extensively by linguistics, sociologists,
psychologists and philosophers. Philosophical interest in language, while ancient and
enduring has blossomed in the 20th century so much so that the 20th century philosophy is
characterized by a linguistic turn. The intense interest in and meticulous attention to
language and its use are the dominant features of their philosophical speculations.
According to them, philosophical, problems are problems which may be solved or
dissolved either by reforming language or by understanding more about the language we
presently use. Philosophy became predominantly a ―critique of language‖. This linguistic
turn initiated a new way of investigating philosophical problems.

Ludwig Wittgenstein is one of the important, influential and often – cited

philosophers of the 20th century, especially in the linguistic philosophical speculation
scenario many of his ideas are original in nature and ground breaking in philosophy –
certain concepts of Wittgenstein are very relevant in on the basis of religion, culture and
nationality

In this dissertation my aim is to illustrate some of the crucial Wittgenstein

concepts. In the first chapter we will have a brief understanding of the time of
Wittgenstein by analysis his biography. There we also will come across the important
influential figures that shaped the thoughts of Wittgenstein.

In the second chapter we will deal with the major contributions of Wittgenstein.
There we will have an understanding of the Language- game with its kinds. This will help
us move the next concept of family resemblance. Finally we will see that language is not
something abstract or formed by the world of ideas; but a form of life. This chapter will
show us how Wittgenstein makes a shift from the concept of essence to a naive idea of
family resemblances.

1
 The concepts that we deal in the second chapter may naturally lead us to a
possible doubt on the possibility of a private language. In the third chapter we will focus
on his issue. In this chapter we will see the essential features of a private language and
the reasons on which Wittgenstein negates the possibility to have a private language.
Most of the descriptions that I have taken for this Dissertation are from the book of
Wittgenstein, The philosophical investigations.

2
 CHAPTER ONE
SITUATING THE PHILOSOPHY OF LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

Introduction

Human person is a product of time. So, when we look for the dynamics that
produced the person and philosophy of Wittgenstein we need to consider the life
experiences he underwent, the prevailing spirit of the time, and the philosophical and
social milieu in which he lived. So, in the first chapter, after having sketched the person
of Wittgenstein, I proceed to analyze the philosophical background which influenced
Wittgenstein and his influence on 20th century philosophy.

1.1 Life and Works

In this section my aim is to present the important life events of Wittgenstein and
his important works. Generally his life is divided into two spheres on the basis of his
thoughts

1.1.1 Early Period

Ludwig Joseph Johann Wittgenstein was born on April 26, 1889 in Vienna,
Austria. He was the youngest of five brothers and three sisters. His father Karl
Wittgenstein was a self-made entrepreneur and one of the richest men in Austria of his
time.1 He was educated at home up to the age of fourteen, and then for three years at Linz
in Upper Austria. He was passionate in machinery and decided to study engineering at
the Jechnische Hochschule in Berlin-Charlotttenburg, where he remained there until
1908. His interest in mechanism and machinery is often comes in his writings as
analogies and examples.2 In the same year he was registered as a research student in the

1
Hans Sluga and David G Stern, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), 1-2.
2
George Pitcher, The Philosophy of Wittgenstein (New Delhi: Pretice-Hall of India Private Limited, 1972),
3-4.

3
engineering department at the University of Mandhester. During this period, his interests
gradually shifted to pure mathematics and then to the foundations of mathematics. This
was to be the gateway through which he entered philosophy. It is there in the Trinity
College he came across two important philosophers of the time, Bertrand Russelll and
G.E. Moore. He lived on a farm in Norway most of the time until the outbreak of war in
1914. When war broke out he served the army. But he was captured by the Italians in
November 1918, and spent about nine months a prisoner of war in a camp near Monte
Cassino in Southern Italy.3

Wittgenstein had been thinking about various fundamental logical notions since
1912. After the beginning of the war he became engrossed in problems connected with
the sense of propositions. These speculations received their final formulation in
Wittgenstein‘s first work, Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus.4

Composed in a dauntingly severe and compressed style, the book attempts to

show that traditional philosophy rests entirely on a misunderstanding of the logic of our
language. Following in Frege‘s and Russell‘s footsteps, Wittgenstein argued that every
meaningful sentence must have a precise logical structure. He argued further that every
atomic sentence is a logical picture of a possible state of affairs, which must, as a result,
have exactly the same formal structure as the atomic sentence that depicts it. It is known
as the ―picture theory of meaning‖

Every picture is at the same time a logical one. Logical pictures can depict the world.
A picture has logico-pictorial form in common with what it depicts. A picture
depicts reality by representing a possibility of existence and non-existence of states
of affairs. A picture represents a possible situation in logical space. A picture
contains the possibility of the situation that it represents. A picture agrees with
reality or fails to agree; it is correct or incorrect, true or false. What a picture
represents it represents independently of its truth or falsity, by means of its pictorial
form. What a picture represents is its sense. The agreement or disagreement of its
sense with reality constitutes its truth or falsity. In order to tell whether a picture is
true or false we must compare it with reality. 5

3
Pitcher, The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, 4-5.
4
Pitcher, The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, 5.
5
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractus- Logico Philosophicus. Trans. C K Ogden (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul Ltd,1922), 41-43.

4
 The text ends with a negative connotation that all sentences that are not atomic
pictures of concatenation of objects or truth-functional composites of such are strictly
speaking meaningless. As a result Wittgenstein concluded that anyone who understood
what the Tractatus was saying would finally discard its propositions as sentence.
Someone who reached such a state would have no more temptation to pronounce
philosophical propositions. She or he would see the world rightly and would then also
recognize that the only strictly meaningful propositions are those of natural science; but
those could never touch what was really important in human life, the mystical.6 For
―Where of one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.‖7 as the last proposition of the
Tractatus declared.

It was only natural that he should not embark on an academic career after he had
completed Tractatus.8 He believed that in the Tractatus the problem which had been
exercising him had been basically solved, once and for all. That is why he has written in
his preface to the work: ―I am, therefore, of the opinions that toe problems have in
essentials been finally solved. And of I am not mistaken in this, and then the value of this
work secondly consists in the fact that it shows how little has been cone when these
problems have been solved.‖9

During this period he trained to be a school teacher this experience helped him to
approach language not from a logical or mathematical perspective, but from an everyday
activity and primarily a medium of communication.10 The search for new philosophical
inspiration had led the members of Vienna Circle (Wiener Kresis)11, where the Logical

6
Hans Sluga, The Cambridge Companion to Philosophy. Ed. Robert Audi (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), 856-857.
7
Wittgenstein, Tractus- Logico Philosophicus, 189.
8
Sluga, The Cambridge Companion to Philosophy, 857.
9
Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 27-29.
10
Pitcher, The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, 7.
11
It is a group that was formed in Vienna, Germany. The circle emerged from discussions beginning in
1907 by Otto Neurath, Hans Hahn and Philip Frank. (James Bogan, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Ed. Ted Honderich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 899

5
Positivism12 has taken its shape, to the Tractatus and having discovered that its author
was actually living in Vienna, they sought to draw him into their deliberations.13 His
Tractatus was read aloud and studied line by line by Vienna Circle members.14

1.1.2. Later Period

Once Wittgenstein had begun to rethink certain elements of the Tractatus, he

found himself forced to dismantle more and more its philosophical assumptions. It
opened up the floodgates of new thoughts. During this period he was concerned himself
mainly with the actual working of ordinary language. In January 1929 he returned to
Cambridge to devote himself again to philosophy and began to give lectures.
Philosophical Investigation was published only after his death.15His last years he suffered
a lot from cancer. Knowing the death was imminent, he continued hard at work. The
philosophical thoughts that he wrote in his notebooks as this time are of highest quality.
His other important works are Philosophical Grammar, On Certainty, Culture and
Values, Philosophical Occasions, Philosophical Remarks, Prototratus, Remarks on
Colour, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Zettel, The Blue Book, and The
Brown Book.16On April 29, 1951 he died. His last words, before he lost consciousness,
were ―Tell them I have had wonderful life!‖17

1.2 Influences on Wittgenstein’s Thought

Though we call Wittgenstein an original philosopher, he made his wonderful

contribution to the analytic philosophy only in connection with the previous attempts.
Doubtless many philosophers unnamed by him can be shown to have given his ideas.
Others, to whom he does refer, provided him with material that he found interesting to

12
It is a twentieth century movement which is also known as logical or linguistic empiricism. The central
argument of this movement is the principle of verifiability or verification principle; the notion that
individual sentences gain their meaning by some specification of the actual steps we take for determining
their truths or falsity. (Fotion, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy,507.
13
Sluga, The Cambridge Companion to Philosophy, 857.
14
Bogan, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 899.
15
Sluga, The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, 3-4.
16
TN Findlay, Wittgenstein: A Critique (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), 43.
17
Sluga, The Cambridge Companion to Philosophy, 859.

6
reflect or comment on. Here my aim is to briefly explain the influence of three important
philosophers, Russell, Frege and Moore, on Wittgensteinians philosophy.

1.2.1 Bertrand Russell

Russell in an important figure in analytic philosophy. His classical work,

Principia Mathematica is an important work in logic. He introduced a solution for
Meinong18 problem. If the logical form of statement is commonly distorted in everyday
language, then there seem to be an urgent need to construct a language in which the
logical form is preserved. He did not think there was any need to construct a new
language because he held that there is only one language. From a logical point of view,
all languages are one language, one language with respect to the logical conditions they
must satisfy. And it was these conditions that were of interest to Wittgenstein.19

1.2.3. Gottlob Frege

Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) is a German logician, mathematician and philosopher.

He is considered as the founder of modern mathematical logic, and a major source of
twentieth- century analytic philosophy. Wittgenstein‘s admiration of Frege was immense
and has prompted on immense interest in Frege among analytic philosophers. The
thought of Frege revolves around a few very minute conceptual and symbolic issues,
which remained problematic despite all of his explanations: possibly his greatness
consists in having shown the utterly problematic character of the simplest forms of
meaningful discourse. Frege has given primacy to the articulated proposition to which,
thought is objective, Frege gives he name of a Gedankeoror thought. It is in the
propositional unity that all other entities of reason are a domain of articulated

18
The expression “the round square” is not subject at all, and there is no need to invoke, with Meinong, a
mystical entity. The statement ―the round square does not exist‖ has, in truth, no subject whatever.
Apparently one may think that ‗the round square‘ is the subject. But, only through philosophical analysis
we get the logical form of this statement. Thus according to Russell in order to get the correct logical form
of the statement one has to reformulate the sentence. So the logical form of the statement ―The round
square does not exist,‖ is ‗There is no entity which is both round and square.‘
19
Brian McGuines, Ed. Wittgenstein and his Times (Oxford: Bail Blackwell, 1982), 47-48.

7
 propositional unities, not of detached things of object. Wittgenstein‘s view in the
Tractatus that the world is everything that is the case, the totality of facts, not of things,
here had its inspiration.20

1.2.4 G E Moore

Mooore was the philosopher who more than any other influenced a whole
generation of Cambridge and other intellectuals by his work Principia Ethica.
Wittgenstein‘s view of the transcendental character of ethics and his refusal to connect
them with anything that merely in the case, probably had its roots in the Moorean
opinions, as had also his view that differences in philosophical opinion made no
difference toe one‘s principles of right conduct. Equally inspired by Moore was
Wittgenstein‘s general acceptance of the common-sense picture of the environing
world21, which we do not ordinarily call into question, and which is taken for granted in
this common-sense vies of the world, incorporated into ordinary speech, is thought
presupposed in the thought of Wittgenstein, and even more strongly in his later than his
earlier writings. One of his last published writings On Certainty is thoroughly Moorean in
its approaches.22

Conclusion

In order to understand a philosopher‘s thought pattern we have to have at least a

general idea about his time. That is what we were dealing with this chapter. Wittgenstein
is unique as a philosopher insofar as he was the creator of two completely different,
original, highly influential philosophies, where the second philosophy was the outcome
of the criticism directed by the author himself against his own earlier scheme of thought.
The changeover was not abrupt, but was mediated by various transitional phases. Despite
the major shifts that did occur, there were certain underlying elements of continuity that

20
McGuines, Wittgenstein and His Times, 78-80.
21
There is actually a vast body of shared convictions about 'the world', expressible in quite ordinary
propositions whose meanings are perfectly dear, and which are known for certain to be true—even by those
philosophers who appear to deny them. We know what a given proposition means, and we know it to be
true; so the question, 'Is it true?‘ is not possible. (Wrnock, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 585.)
22
McGuines, Wittgenstein and His Times, 85-87.

8
persisted to the end. And that continuity of thought can be traced in the writings of both
periods. Though we consider him as an original thinker, he was not a man of innate ideas.
He too was influenced by many. Among them Russell, Frege and Moore decorate a
special position. But, he was not a blind follower of anyone. That is why when Tractus
was finally finished, it was not understood at all by Frege and fundamentally
misunderstood by Russell. This preliminary notion-the life and influence will be an
investment when we proceed with the philosophy of Wittgenstein. The coming two
chapters we will exclusively deal with the main philosophical contribution of
Wittgenstein in his later period.

9
 CHAPTER TWO
FROM ESSENCE TO FAMILY RESEMBLANCE

Introduction

According to Wittgenstein one of the important features of human thinking-and

one that plays a big part in producing philosophical puzzlement-is our craving for unity.23
For instance let us consider the example of sentences. Though it is an impossible ideal to
find one function common to absolutely all sentences no matter what their grammatical
mood we have a tendency to assimilate something common to all sentences. Our passion
for unity is not, of course, confined to the field of language alone. We tend to assume that
there is something in common.24 One from of the craving for unity is a craving for
essences and it is so strong that we tend to assume that everything actually has an
essence.25 Wittgenstein sets out to show that the belief in essences, although widespread
and entirely natural, is mistaken. Whereas philosophers have traditionally looked for
essence or sameness, he looks for difference and multiplicity. Consequence he developed
the concepts of language-game, and family resemblance as opposed to the traditional
belief in essentialism. In this chapter we will see how Wittgenstein attacks essentialism
through his concept of language-game and how he deals with the apparent similarities
through his concept of family-resemblance.

2.1. Language- Games

A major analytical device to which Wittgenstein appeals in examining the

complex phenomena of language is that of a language-game.26 The notion of a language
is introduced in the Blue Book27, but only in the Brown Book that language-game method

23
Pitcher, The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, 215.
24
Pitcher, The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, 216.
25
Pitcher, The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, 217.
26
Milton K Munitz, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy ( New York: McMillian Publishing Co; Inc.,
1981), 283.
27
Baker, Wittgenstein: Meaning and Understanding, 47.

10
achieved maturity and perhaps is used to excess.28 Wittgenstein‘s own account of
language game in his book, ThePhilosophical Investigations is so lucid and pungent that I
cannot do better than simply quote it:

Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games". I mean board-games,
card games, ball-games, Olympic Games, and so on. What is common to them
all?—Don't say: "There must be something common, or they would not be called
'games' "—but look and see whether there is anything common to all.—For if you
look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities,
relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look!—
Look for example at board-games, with their multifarious relationships. Now pass
to card-games; here you find many correspondences with the first group, but many
common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to ballgames,
much that is common is retained, but much is lost.—Are they all 'amusing'?
Compare chess with noughts and crosses. Or is there always winning and losing, or
competition between players? Think of patience. In ball games there is winning and
losing; but when a child throws his ball at the wall and catches it again, this feature
has disappeared. Look at the parts played by skill and luck; and at the difference
between skill in chess and skill in tennis. Think now of games like ring-a-ring-a-
roses; here is the element of amusement, but how many other characteristic features
have disappeared! And we can go through the many, many other groups of games in
the same way; can see how similarities crop up and disappear. And the result of this
examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-
crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail. 29

2.1.1 Invented Language- Game

According to Wittgenstein an invented language game displays many features in

its operation. The first feature is, words, and sentences formed from them according to
combinatorial rules. It means the vocabulary is given and its use in speech acts also
specified.30 Second feature is ―instruments‖. It includes gestures, patterns and pictures.31
It extends the concepts of language and grammar to include elements hitherto regarded as
extraneous. Third feature is the context. Like any other game, a language-game is played
in a setting. So, it is important to know the context that is being used and the purpose for
which it is brought into view. Along with this element we have to consider the activity of

28
Baker, Wittgenstein: Meaning and Understanding, 53.
29
Ludwig, Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. Trans. GemAnscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1958), 31-32.
30
Baker, Wittgenstein: Meaning and Understanding, 54.
31
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 99.

11
the game, that which is a constitutive of a language game.32 In a language-game our focus
should be in the use, purpose, role and function of instruments, words and sentences
rather than form and structure of expression.33 Another important factor is that we have to
learn games. For that we need training. The last feature is completeness. Invented games
are not fragments, but a complete one.34

2.1.2 Natural Language-Game

Language-game is not only practicable in abstract level but also in our actual
linguistic practices.35 Wittgenstein emphasis this kind of language-game with the use of
words such as game.36 Pain37,world38, read39 etc. He describes also with the words shows
activities such as lying,40 telling,41 giving orders and obeying them42, telling a dream43,
etc. Many isolated elements in the imaginary games are also applicable to actual games.
But the element of completeness is an exception.44 We use this actual or natural game in
our daily activities but we are not aware of them. When artificial game deliberately
depends upon the texture, in natural game we automatically go in line with the texture.45

2.2 Family Resemblance

―You take the easy way out.‖46 With these words he introduces one of the most
discussed features of his later philosophy, the notion of family resemblance.47

32
Baker, Wittgenstein: Meaning and Understanding, 54.
33
Baker, Wittgenstein: Meaning and Understanding, 55.
34
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 80.
35
Baker, Wittgenstein: Meaning and Understanding, 55.
36
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 34.
37
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 101.
38
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 44.
39
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 61.
40
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 90.
41
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 114.
42
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 11.
43
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 74.
44
Baker, Wittgenstein: Meaning and Understanding, 56.
45
Baker, Wittgenstein: Meaning and Understanding, 56.
46
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 31.
47
Robert J Forgelin, Wittgenstein (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, 1972), 117.

12
 Instead of producing something common to all that we call language. I am saying that
these phenomena have no one thing in common which makes us use the same word for
all, but that they are related to one another in many different ways. And it is because of
this relationship, or these relationships, that we call them ‗language.‘48

He characterizes these similarities as family resemblance. 49 He says, ―I can think

of no better expression to characterize these similarities than family resemblance. 50 This
idea of family resemblance can be traced in his Philosophical Grammar also.51
Wittgenstein‘s argument for a family resemblance is a rejection of general explanations
and the philosopher‘s craving for generality. He argues that we need to look at the actual
variety of uses of these words.52

2.3 Forms of Life

Often we think that language is something unique, isolated and quite of its own.
Making use of language is not among the ordinary things we do like eating, drinking,
playing, walking etc. To think of language is to think of a form of life, so the
understanding of language must bring in something non- linguistic.53 One must take into
account as to what people are, they want, and do. For example, there is no such thing as
giving and obeying orders. The orders have to be abort something, they have meaning
within a social context and this is a form of life.54 A kind of agreement is part of what
makes a shared language possible. If people did constantly disagree about the correct use
of signs, then those signs would not be suitable vehicles for communication. This point
about communication is readily seen to be a consequence idea that following a rule is a
practice.55 It is not that meaning is something inherently independent of practices and yet
still agrees in their meaning. Agreement of meaning between people depends essentially

48
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 31.
49
Forgelin, Wittgenstein, 118.
50
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 32.
51
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Grammar, 113-114.
52
Dan Nesher, ―Wittgenstein on Language‖, International Philosophical Quarterly, 32.no.1 (March, 1992),
55.
53
Nandhikkara, ―Linguistic Turn and Philosophical Investigation‖, Journal of Dharma 34, no.2 (April-
June, 2009), 145.
54
Nandhikkara, Journal of Dharma, 146-147.
55
Colin, McGinn, Wittgenstein on Meaning: An Interpretation and Evaluation, vol.1, (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1989), 54

13
upon agreement of practice. Human being agrees in the language they use. That is not
agreement in opinions but in form of life.56

By a form of life he means that which forms part of our nature that which
determines how we spontaneously find ourselves reacting.57 It is not that mathematician
have all come to the same considered opinion about how signs are to be used, so that a
radically persuaded to change his ways. It is rather that the existence of a unreflective and
natural set of shared propensities to behave in certain ways.58 From this perspective a
common language is blind. It means our common language is not something for which
we could or need to provide a discursive justification: but, it rests upon the presumption
of a common nature. It does not follow a common set of reasons for going on in a
particular way. In short, there are five references59 to forms of life in the Philosophical
Investigations and these are interwoven with language. It is so because speaking language
is a part of a form of life.

Conclusion

Throughout the Philosophical Investigation, Wittgenstein returns, again and again

to the concept of language-games to make clear his lines of thought concerning language.
Primitive language-games are scrutinized for the insights the effort on this or that
characteristic of language.60 Regular language-games, such as the astonishing list
provided61 in Philosophical Investigation bring out the openness of our possibilities in
using language and in describing it. Language-games points at the rule governed
character of language. This does not entail strict and definite systems of rules for each
and every language-game, but refers to the conventional nature of this sort of human
activity. So, we cannot find what is common to all these activities and what makes them

56
McGinn, Wittgenstein on Meaning, 54-55.
57
Lars Haikola, Religion as Language-game: A Critical Study with Special Regard to DZ Phillips (Lund:
CWK Gleerup, 1977), 36.
58
McGinn, Wittgenstein on Meaning, 55.
59
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 67, 77, 108, 164, 179.
60
Harikola, Religion as Language-game, 29.
61
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 11.

14
into language.62 He points to family resemblance as the more suitable analogy for the
means of connecting particular uses of the same word. We have to travel with word‘s
uses through a complicated network of similarities overlapping and crises-
crossing.63Again he revolutionized the concept of language by saying speaking of
language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.64 Forma of life is changing and
contingent, dependent on culture, context, history etc. It is the system of reference by
means of which we interpret on unknown language.65 This might be seen as a
universalistic turn, recognizing that the use of language is made possible by the human
form of life.

62
Harikola, Religion as Language-game, 32.
63
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 31-32.
64
Harikola, Religion as Language-game, 37.
65
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 82.

15
 CHAPTER THREE
THE POSSIBILITY OF A PRIVATE LANGUAGE

Introduction

As noted in the previous chapter, an important aspect of Wittgenstein‘s

conception of language is that it is embedded in a form of life- a set of activities in which
the rules of a language-game serve as a basis for communication. Therefore language
exists in a linguistic community; that includes the use and application of grammatical
rules.66 In this chapter my aim is to illustrate the arguments of Wittgenstein on the
possibility of a private language. First we will deal with the necessary features of a
private language and then to Wittgenstein‘s logic on which he negates the possibility of a
private language.

3.1 Characteristics of a Private Language

The main characteristic of a private language are those that Wittgenstein states
concisely in the passage quoted from Philosophical Investigations. They are: (1) ―The
individual words of this language are to be referring to what can only be known to the
person speaking.‖ (2) ―The individual words of this language are to refer to his
immediate private sensation.‖ (3) ―Another person cannot understand the language.‖67
Now let us briefly explain these characteristics.

3.1.1 Private Knowledge of Words

The first item has to do with the matter of knowledge of that to which the words
in the private language refers. Only the person who is speaking knows what the object are
to which the words in the language refer. The language is private because the objects
referred to by the words in the language are known only to the speaker of the language.
To the sensations, known with certainty by the person who has them, names are assigned

66
G P Baker and PMS Hacker, Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1988),42-43.
67
Munitz, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, 310.

16
to refer to them as objects of private experience.68 For, the adherent of the concept of
private language, the knowledge a person has of his or her own mental experiences are
known directly, ―from the inside‖, whereas any attempt to know what goes on in the
mind of someone else can never achieved.69 I can only believe that someone else in pain,
but I know it if I am.70 Well; only I can know whether I am really in pain: another person
can only surmise it.71

3.1.2 Private Ownership of Words

The second characteristic of private language has to do with another sense of

privacy that of ownership. The words of the language are to refer to those mental
experiences by only one person-the speaker of the language. Or in other words it refers to
the immediate private sensations. These sensations had by the speaker cannot be had by
someone else; they cannot be shared by another person.72 Another person cannot have my
pains.73

3.1.3 Incommunicability

The third characteristic of private language is the natural outcome of those two
features; private knowledge and private ownership.74 Only the speaker has the knowledge
of the words. Only the speaker can have the ownership on the sensation that he had. So,
the language is private. It is private in the sense that it cannot be understood by anyone
but the speaker; it is incommunicable as a language.75

68
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 95.
69
Munitz, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, 310.
70
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 102.
71
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 89.
72
Munitz, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, 311.
73
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 91.
74
Munitz, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, 311.
75
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 89.

17
3.2 Negation of Private Language

He considered the possibility of a private language is not a genuine language at

all.76 His arguments show that the very notion of such a language is incoherence; it
cannot therefore have any possible existence. With these preliminaries in mind, let us
turn to an examination of Wittgenstein‘s strictures against the possibility of a private
language.

3.2.1 Use of Names

The first focuses on the impossibility of a private language is the supposed use of
names to refer to private sensation. Such names, it is assumed, may be assigned by a
process of private ostention. The speaker has a particular sensation, and to this sensation
he assigns by private ostention in his own vocabulary the name ‗s‘ He may, it is clamed,
by thought of as building up a table of such names by associating certain symbols with
certain sensory experiences. However, this putative process of assigning names to private
experiences by means of private ostensive definitions fails to make available a set of
usable names. One cannot justify using a name in new situations if it is, in principle,
impossible to recapture in any reliable way in situation of the original introduction of the
ostensive definitions. So, they could now only be appealed to in memory, and there is no
way of checking a present memory image against the original sensory experience that
provided the occasion for the introduction in the name in an ostensive definition.77
Therefore there is no reliable procedure for distinguishing correct from incorrect
application of a name in a private language.78 In what sense in having said the words ‗this
is red‘ before a guarantee that I now see the same color when I say again I see red? 79

76
Jose Nandhikkara, ―Language Philosophy of Western‖, A C P I Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol.2
(Bangalore: Asian Trading Cooperation, 2010),796.
77
Munitz, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, 311.
78
Munitz, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, 312.
79
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 99.

18
3.2.2 Incapacity to Be a Language

Another consideration that shows the incoherence of the notion of a private

language is its incapacity to serve as a language not only for the originator of the
language, but as a possible medium of communication for others. The rules of the private
language cannot be adopted and used by anyone else, since the ‗objects; are inaccessible
to anyone else. Such ‗rules‘ cannot be learned by anyone. And if there are a number of
such a private languages, none of these can serve as a basis for inter subjective
communication. There could be not linguistic community. 80 If I say of myself that it is
only from my own case that I know what the word ―pain‖ means must I not say the same
of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly? 81

3.2.3 Complete Certainty

Another criticism of the conception of a private language has to do with the claim
made that the speaker of such language is in a privileged position in having knowledge;
that is complete certainty, with respect to the existence and character of that speaker‘s
inner sensation. Wittgenstein rejects the thesis that only I can know my inner sensation
and others can only surmise or infer it. He considers it as either false of nonsense.82 He
says;

In what sense are my sensations Private? Well, only I can know whether I am really in
pain‘ another person can only surmise it- in on way this is false, and in another nonsense.
If we are using the word to know as it is normally used, then other people very often
know when I am in pain- yes, but, all the same not with the certainty with which I know
it myself! It cannot be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in
pain.83

Conclusion

Since words acquire meaning in the public actively of using them, language is
essentially a public activity. Wittgenstein thus opposes the idea of a private language. It is
because a private language has got three important characteristics; private knowledge of
80
Munitz, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, 312-313.
81
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 100.
82
Munitz, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, 313-314.
83
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 89.

19
words, private ownership of words and incommunicability of words. He strongly attacked
the idea of private language on the basis of his thesis that language is a public activity. He
attacks or negates the possibility of a private language from three perspectives; uses of
names, incapacity to be language and complete certainty.

20
 GENERAL CONCLUSION

Wittgenstein impact upon twentieth-century analytical philosophy is second to

none. Although he did not, nor indeed wish to, found a philosophical school of thinkers,
the evolution of philosophy this century would be as unintelligible without his work. The
major objective of this dissertation was to illustrate the ground breaking thoughts of
Wittgenstein in linguistic philosophy. Generally the whole philosophical speculations till
Wittgenstein was an attempt to synthesis the diversities to an essence. It is here in this
occasions he brought out the idea of language game against the craving of philosophers
for generality. According to him there is nothing common for a group of things; but only
similarities between the individual things. These similarities are known as family
resemblance in Wittgensteinian system. For him language and its rules are not something
that given from above, but it is formed out of life and the rules are formed out of actions.
So our language is a form of life. In this way Wittgenstein thoroughly attacks the
essentialism.

When we go deeply into the concept of language –game there is a question that
arises that is it possible to have a private language? Since the language evolves out of the
human activities, it has to be a public activity. If a private language stood by no one
except the user. But language is an outcome of our activities. If anyone could understand
so in Wittgensteinian understanding a private language is not possible.

The impact of this sort of ideas by Wittgenstein brought serious impacts on the
Western world of philosophy. His ideas gradually led to the negation of all metaphysical
concepts and to extreme subjectivity. On the other hand, his concept of language-game is
a very useful theory in a world there is a lot of conflicts on the basis of religious beliefs,
culture, ethnicity etc. The moment when we understand others religion, culture, ethnicity
from their own perspective it will be more meaningful. It helps us to see things from a
different angle.

21
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PRIMARY SOURCES
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ARTICLES
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23
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