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7/23/2019 C.B. Daly - New Light on Wittgenstein2
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II
New
Li8ht
o
Witt8enstein
P RT Two
5. The Philosophical Investigations
IN the first part
of
this
article 221
three sections have already been
devoted to the Investigations: 1, Mr. Gellner: or the Wittgenstein
that Never Was ; 2
The
Critique of the Tractatus ;
3 The
Disorders
of
Philosophy'.
5 4 The Critique of Psychologism
A favourite area for critical exploration by Wittgenstein was the
area of our concepts about mental acts and states. He constantly
criticised the idea that there are hidden and elusive, interior mental
states, discernible only by the subject by dint of intensive intro
spection. In this domain, his target was always G.
E.
Moore.
Moore had written in
1903
(and the method remained a character
istic
with
him):
When we refer to introspection and try to discover what the sensation
of blue is, it is very easy to suppose that we have before us only a
single term. The term '
blue
is easy enough to distinguish, but the
other element which I have called ' consciousness' is extremely
difficult to
fix. .
Though philosophers have recognised that
something distinct is meant by consciousness, they have never yet
had a clear conception of what that something is. They have
not
been able to hold
it
and blue before their minds and to compare
them in the same way in which they can compare
blue
and
green .
[Because] . . . the moment we try to fix
our
attention upon
consciousness and to see what, distinctly it is, it seems to vanish
[It
is] as if it were diaphanous. Yet it can be distinguished if we
look attentively enough. . . . My main object in this paragraph
has been to try to make the reader see it; but I fear I shall have
succeeded very ll
222
I t is to this that Wittgenstein is alluding when he writes:
Here it
is
easy to get into that dead-end in philosophy, where one
believes that the difficulty
of
the task consists in our having to
describe phenomena that are hard to get hold of, the present
experience that slips quickly by, or something of the kind. Where
we find ordinary language too crude, and it looks as if we were
having to do, not with the phenomena of everyday, but with ones that
1
See Philosophical Studies, X, 1960, pp. 5-49
The Refutation of Idealism', in Philosophical Studies. Kegan Paul. London.
1922, pp. 20, 25.
28
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NEW LIGHT ON WITTGENSTEIN-II
29
easily elude us and, in their coming to
be
and passing away,
produce those others as an average effect .
223
This idea
of
philosophy as mind-gazing is anathema to
Wittgenstein. t is the pursuit
of
a mirage. Always, on the point
of being got into focus, the mental state vanishes.
I t is
as if one
had altered the adjustment
of
a microscope . Instead of
the
inner
experience
of
intending, which one is trying to recall, something
else comes into
view
224
Always, we are finding
ourselves
as if
we
had to repair a torn spider s web with
our
fingers
.225
This
type
of
philosophy illustrates perfectly for Wittgenstein the complex
of errors which for him characterise classical philosophy.
I t
involves
the mistake of supposing that there is one single valid analysis of a
mental-process proposition, one single definition
of
each mental
concept; and that, when the definition has been found,
we
shall
have exact and final understanding
of
the
hidden
essence
of
thinking , knowing , willing
and the rest.
226
t is
not necessary to attempt to follow Wittgenstein s discussions
in any detail here. A rapid survey will show how his own new
way of philosophising emerges by reaction against the old. There
is
a long critique
of
the concept
of
a private language in which
a person might be supposed to write down or give vocal expression
to his inner experiences-his feelings, moods and the rest-for his
private use .
227 In
the course
of
these investigations, Wittgenstein
is able
to
kill several birds at once: the grammatical-logical
223
436 (the concluding quotation is from St. Augustine). Moore s two hands
argument, and his assertion of the evident truth of the statement, The Earth has
existed in the last five minutes (from A Defence
of
Common Sense .), are criticised
in II, xi (p. 221); the former, on the ground that if I don t believe in my hands I
needn t believe in my eyes either (which seems very common-sense ); the latter,
on the ground
that nobody
in a common-sense mood would ever say such a thing.
On
the personal relations, and philosophical disagreement between Moore and.
Wittgenstein, see Malcolm, Memoir, pp.
33-4,66-7,73,79-80,87-92;
and von Wright,
ibid.,
p. 15.
224
645.
225 106.
226 See 91-2: I t may come to look as if there were something like a final analysis
of
our forms
of
language, and so a single completely resolved
form of
every expression.
That is, as if our usual forms
of
expression were essentially unanalysed; as if there
were something hidden
in
them that had to be
brought
to light. When this is done,
the expression
is
completely clarified and our problem solved. t can also be put
like this:
we
eliminate misunderstandings by making our expressions more exact;
but now it may look as if we were moving towards a particular state, a state
of
complete exactness; and as if this were the real goal of our investigation . . .
This finds expression in questions as
to
the essence
of
language,
of
propositions,
of
thought. They see in the essence something that lies beneath the surface.
Something
that
lies within, which we see when we look into the thing, and which an
analysis digs out . . . . And the answer to these questions is to be given once for
all; and independently
of
any future experience Cfr. II, xi (p. 225).
I t
will be
noted
that the Moorean concept
of
analysis, criticised here, has affinity with the
Russell
and Tractatus
type of analysis which
we
have seen Wittgenstein also rejecting.
G. A.
Paul
says: Wittgenstein criticises the notion
of
analysis in a way that has
quite changed philosophy
The Revolution
n
Philosophy,
p. 88).
22,
243-323; also 380; 398 If
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PHILOSOPHICAL
STUDIES
confusion whereby 'expressing a judgment' is assimilated to
'expressing a thought' and this to 'expressing a pain 228 the
Moorean idea
of
a secret inner thing in my mind which only I
can see; the Russellian idea
of
the logically propel' name, or the
private ostensive definition. Against Moore's notion, he argues
that a thing in a sealed mind-box, which nobody could ever
see
or know except he who has the box, could not even be seen or
known by the latter; because to recognise and identify it, he needs
words, and words are public:
'
sensation is a
wOld
of our
common language, not
of
one intelligible to
me
alone'.
229
Against
both Moore and Russell (and incidentally against any implicit
solipsism) he makes the important point that mental-process words,
being part of language, which is necessarily public, are situated
from the beginning in an inter-personal and public world.
230
All
this section
is
an excellent example of Wittgenstein's technique of
appealing to common-sense against 'philosophy'.
A related and continuously reiterated theme is that knowing,
sensing, speaking, intending, etc., are not
tw
distinguishable things
(as Moore's introspectionist technique suggested), namely a public
and a private thing, a
coarse
physical and a hidden mental
thing.
23oa
Since
we
can know only what
we
can identify by criteria,
describe and name, and since criteria, descriptions and names are
public, then, so far from its being true that ' private' mental states
alone are infallibly known, the truth
is
that ' private' mental states,
in the sense intended, are unknowable. To determine what knowing
is we must therefore look at the multitude
of
accomplishments
which we call knowing, the manifold circumstances in which we
say , I know', Now I know how to
go on
etc.
231
The same
is
true
of
thinking:
it
is ' not an incorporeal process which lends life
and sense to speaking and which
it
would be possible to detach
from speaking, rather as the Devil took the shadow of Schlemiehl
from the ground'.
232
'Understanding' too is quite distorted
if
we make
it
an esoteric, private, unsayable mystery. Understanding
means being able to say something, to do something, being able
, to
go
on
;
and we cannot get a right view
of
it until we survey
the situations in which
we
use this sort
of
language.
233
Reading
is not an overt performance shadowed by some interior monitoring
228
304-5, 308, 317, 501.
2 293;
261; cfr. 258.
230 258 insists that I cannot identify my own sensation without criteria, communi
cable to and accessible to others. Compare 343, 246, 260-3, 286, 290-1, 322. On
the impossibility of a private ostensive definition see 380, 398.
230
a
In the Brown Book, he
had
spoken of the curious superstition', the kind
of general disease
of
thinking which always looks for (and finds) what would
be
called a mental state from which
all our
acts spring as from a reservoir . See p. 143.
231
152-4, 179-182, 527-9. Compare Malcolm,
Memoir
pp. 87 tr.
232
339; cfr. 327-341. Compare the
Blue Book
pp. 37-65.
233
152_5
514, 520, 527-533; 536-9; cfr. the Brown Book po. 113-4.
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activity.234
Negation
is
not a ' mental activity' and is not always
the same activity.235 There is no single occult essence of 'meaning';
we mean many things by meaning and they are all embodied things.
Occult processes, supposed to be known only to
me,
cannot be
known even to me and cannot have meaning even for me. Nothing
has meaning except what I can say, and words are not intimate
but inter-personal. Wittgenstein concludes Part I by the sharp
saying: N o ~ h i n g is more wrong-headed than calling meaning a
mental activity. Unless, that is, one is setting out to produce
confusion
.236
The same applies to the language of willing. Willing is not an
inner experience separable from its
object
'. Willing is doing
something (even if it
is
only
trying ')
willingly.237
To put 'willing'
in the mind and 'doing' in the world
is
to make willing inefficacious,
the will irresponsible and the world 'independent of my will'.
Wittgenstein had reason to know: he had done chis himself in the
Tractatus
and thus excluded the possibility
of
ethical propositions.
38
We must not sublime' willing or ethics, any more than logic;
that
is
to say, we must not separate them from experience.
The same is true of ' believing',
hoping ,
'expecting', 'wishing',
intending .239 t is true
of
every piece
of
mental language
where
we
are tempted to postulate an inward process
or
picture
or a ' mental image shadowing the act referred to. Such inward
pictures' cannot be described (for
if
they can, they are not
inward
in the sense intended); therefore they cannot be meaningful or
relevant or real. Furthermore, in a wider sense of ' mental image ,
where it means imagery accompanying meaning or language, this
varies from person to person, and in the same person, has no
permanent or intrinsic connection with the same word; therefore
it cannot be what we mean.240
Part
II
is mainly taken up with investigations of this sort.
Recourse to inner processes' or inner feelings' to explain
cognitive processes is repeatedly pronounced irrelevant and mistaken.
Doubt, supposition, are not feelings ( if-feelings Of other). I
can doubt or suppose without having these feelings. I can have
the feelings without doubting
or
supposing. Even if someone had
234
156-165, 167-8; efr. the Brown Book pp. 120-1.
235
547-557.
236
693; efr. 322, 358, 543-4, 558-561, 666
if.
Compare the
Brown Book pp.
78-9, 172-3; and Malcolm, Memoir pp. 87-8.
237
611-630.
Compare the Brown Book
pp. 100-4, 110-116, 150-2.
238
6.373, 6.42. Wittgenstein is formally rejecting this view in 620. Compare 337.
239
437_441, 574-592.
240
449 if. 518-520, 598; err. 213, 305-8, 314-6.
Compare the Blue Book
pp.
48 if. 78-9; the Brown Book pp. 167 fT In part, at least, of his critique of
psychologism, Wittgenstein had as precursor Bradley. See R. A. Wollheim's, F.
H. Bradley , in The Revolution in Philosophy pp. 12-25; and the same author s
F H. Bradley Penguin Books, 1959, pp. 17-43.
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PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
a particular capacity only when, and only
as
long
as
he had a
particular feeling, the feeling would
not
be the capacity
.241
Similarly mental images that accompany meaning are not meaning.
4
, Being certain
is
not a certain feeling .
43
A hesitant assertion
is not an assertion of my state
of
hesitancy.244
There
is
an important section devoted to Moore s paradox
about I believe
that
x is y . This proposition was a fatal
stumbling-block
to
Russell s truth-functional theory of propositions;
because the truth of x is y , is irrelevant to the truth of I believe
that x is y
:
it can be true that I believe, but what I believe may
be false. Russell had two ways of escape; either to make
, believing , as a mental fact, a peculiar and subsistent logical
species (and thus Platonic gbosts return);
or
to explain believing
behaviouristically.245 The latter is, in effect, what Ryle does with
belief. Wittgenstein rejects both expedients (and by anticipation
rejects Ryle s dispositional behaviourism). He does not solve
the ploblem; but he makes it impossible to maintain either that
I
believe that
. .
. is a statement about me; or that when I say
, I believe that
. .
. , I am declaring my disposition to behave in
certain ways246; or making sets of testable hypothetical and semi
hypothetical propositions
.247
The section
is
a good example
of
Wittgenstein s dictum:
Say what you choose, so long as it does
not
prevent you from
seeing the facts. (And when you see them, there is a good deal
that you will
not say.)248
Soi-disant Wittgensteinians had some pretext from the language
of Wittgenstein when they poured scorn on ghostly mind-stories,
inner-world myths , mystery-mongering , etc., and opted for a
tough, one-world-and-no-nonsense behaviourism or quasi
behaviourism.
49
There are many passages in which Wittgenstein
seems to pour equal scorn on all spirit- or soul-
or
mind-language.
He speaks derisively
of the
conception
of
thought as a gaseous
medium .250 He speaks scornfully of a hocus-pocus which can
be performed only by the soul .251 He seems to suggest that all
talk about spirit is due to failure to find the right
bodily
language,
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or
failure to understand the bodily language we do use.
252
Talk
about' mind' or spirit' seems for him to be typical philosophical
illusion, such as arises when language goes on holiday . This
is
what happens when the philosopher tries to practice psychologist s
introspection and when, in order to discover what
'self '
means
'he
says the word
self
to himself and tries to analyse its
meaning
.253
t is in a similar' free-floating state, when I try to be conscious
of consciousness without being conscious of anything else, that I
get the ' feeling of an unbridgeable gulf between consciousness and
brain process , a feeling of a difference in kind accompanied
by a slight giddiness .
254
t is then that I get the sense
of
the
queerness
of
thought.
255
t
is then that I have the emotion
of
awe
and mystery-at something
deep, hidden,
a sense lying far in the
background .256 But, Wittgenstein proclaims, this
is
illusion. Let
us put our words back into gear, back into use; let us, we may
say,
put our
minds back to their work of being conscious
of things,
and then the illusion and the giddiness vanish. There is nothing
'queet '
or
'deep' or
'hidden
.257
Everything lies open to
view .258
If
we try to lay bare the essence
of
thought by stripping
off the
'coverings' of actual thinking, then we simply find that
thought itself has disappeared.
' In
order to find the real artichoke,
we divested it
of
its leaves .258
a
We should be
talking'
about the
spatial and temporal phenomena of language, not about some non
spatial, non-temporal phantasm ' .259 Our proper concern is not
with curiosities, but with the' natural history
of
human beings' ;26
for mental-words' are as much part of our natural history as
252 36: 'Because we
cannot
specify nyone bodily action . . . we say that a
spiritual
[mental, intellectual] activity corresponds
to
these words. Where our
language suggests a body and there is none: there, we should like to say is a spirit.
Compare
196, 363; the
Blue Book,
p. 47:
'When
we perceive that a substantive
is not used as what we should call the name of an object we can't help saying
to
ourselves that it is the name
of an
aethereal object. A clearing-up
of
the grammar
will dissolve the problem, in the language of the Blue Book (which does not recur
in this form in the Investigations):
'This
is a hint as to how the problem
of
the
two materials,
mind and matter,
is going to dissolve.
2.3413 (referring to William James). Wittgenstein read James a good deal and
seems to take him as typical
of
psychology. See 342, 610, xi. These references
are
usually critical;
but
he admired James as a philosopher; see J.
A.
Passmore,
A Hundred Years of Philosophy,
428; Dr. Drury in
The Listener,
28th January,
1960. See also 404-412.
25