Acta Iadertina, Vol. 20 No. 2, 2023.
Review article
https://doi.org/10.15291/ai.4390
Wittgenstein’s Arguments for the Impossibility of Epistemic Privacy
Mate PENAVA
; Department of Philosophy, University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia
Abstract
Descartes’ philosophy marks a large turning point when talking about
philosophical conceptions of the human mind. He points out that the
mind of each individual is accessible only to himself and nobody else.
This problem is often formulated like a question about existence about
other minds outside my own mind, whose existence we can’t acknowledge
with absolute certainty. A similar problem arises when we talk
about the language in which we express our sensations, so it is said
that, even though I can observe someone else’s pain, I can’t feel it, so
it is private, accessible only to the person having it. Wittgenstein’s argumentation
against any kind of privacy wil be exposed in the paper.
Or as Wittgenstein says it, even if there can be such a thing as a private
language, it can’t play any role in our language games, it can’t be
a part of our form of life. Wittgenstein’s arguments will be presented
from the perspective of some proponents of the traditional reading of
his thought, like Anthony Kenny, David Stern or Peter Hacker. Interpretations
put forth by authors like Fogelin, Kripke or Hintikka that
construe Wittgenstein’s philosophy in a non-classical manner will not
be considered.
Keywords
Witgenstein; private language; form of life; language game
Hrčak ID:
313996
URI
Publication date:
7.2.2024.
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