Re: Wittgenstein & 'private language' (was: SemiOT: Revealing your conlanger status)

Hallo!

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 01:32:31 -0400,
Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote:

> This thread sounds very much like one of my questions on the several
> "Lunatic Surveys" I conducted over the years.  I'm glad this issue is coming
> up again.  Read on!  :)
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Leland" <Lelandconlang@...>
>
> > In a message dated 6/16/04 12:23:06 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> > joerg_rhiemeier@WEB.DE writes:
> >
> > << When I mentioned it in his presence, he said that
> >  what I am doing was meaningless because Wittgenstein said that
> >  "private languages are impossible".  I am not an expert on
> >  Wittgenstein's philosophy, but I think my brother has interpreted
> >  Wittgenstein's words wrongly.  What Wittgenstein meant was, I think,
> >  that a language can never be private in the sense that no-one else
> >  can learn it.  Conlangs thus *aren't* "private languages". >>
>
> Here's something I quoted from Wittgenstein:
>
> Could we also imagine a language in which a person could write down or give
> vocal expression to his inner experiences -- his feelings, moods, and the
> rest -- for his private use? Well, can't we do so in our ordinary
> language? -- But that is not what I mean. The individual words of this
> language are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to
> his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the
> language. -- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations par. 243
>
> Wittgenstein calls a "private language" that which has no circulation in the
> real world, or which cannot be used as a means of communication with another
> person, because it is made up of words that refer only to the speaker's
> PRIVATE and idiosyncratic experiences and sensations.
Which is not what our conlangs aim at.  A typical conlang has words
referring to concepts of either the real world or an imagined one;
but even a language like Ebisedian, which is intended to exist in
a universe very unlike our own, is not a "private language" in
Wittgenstein's sense, because people can learn to use the words
of it according to its rules, once they are introduced to the
unfamiliar concepts of the Ferochromon universe.

>        Since language is a
> public consensus, using words that are agreed upon publically to express
> even private feeling,
And a conlang is not really different from a natlang in this regard,
even though the words and rules of the language were set by a single
individual (or a small group of individuals in case of a collaborative
conlang): other people can take over these rules by learning the
language, and then the conlang becomes a matter of public consensus
among those who use it.  The fact that several IALs (and even a few
artlangs) have been successfully put to actual use is testimony
of this.

>        then a private language is an impossibility.  The way
> we relate to each other, the way we know red is called "red" or nausea is
> called "nausea" is through a common use of language which is an imprecise,
> BECAUSE public, symbology of our inner feelings.  Wittgenstein, I believe,
> is trying to argue against solipsism, the belief that the self is the only
> thing that has reality.  He's popular, because so much contemporary
> metaphysics and philosophy of language (Nietzsche, Judith Butler) argue the
> opposite, that self is created BY language.  Or that self doesn't exist or
> can't be gauged.  A thorny issue.
>
> But we've all had the experience, I'm sure, of having a wonderful dream that
> when we tell it to a spouse or a friend suddenly seems banal, indescribable,
> because so much of the dream is soaked up in very personal, subjective
> feelings and memories that give it a significance, an emotional flavor that
> evades words.  If we had an invented word for any of those individual dream
> sensations, THAT would constitute a "private language," in the
> Wittgensteinian sense, because it would be impossible to transmit them to
> another soul.  For instance, I could call the dream streets--excerpted from
> my childhood and changed around--that I see again and again in my dreams
> "Desveldoriod," and have them have significance for ME.  But not in exactly
> the same way for YOU.
>
> Very few conlangs are "private languages" in Wittgenstein's sense of the
> term.  The way you put it, that it can be taught to someone else, is
> excellent; it means that it can have a public life, that its words can relay
> other public uses of ideas.  That doesn't mean that a conlang becomes a
> private language in W's sense if it has neologisms, and original concultural
> ideas.  If it can be generally taught to and understood by another person,
> it is not "private" in that sense.  So, yes, your brother is wrong.
Exactly.

> John Leland wrote:
> > One of my professional colleagues (without citing W.) made the same
> objection
> > to
> > conlanging in an informal lunchtime discussion, and my response was the
> same--
> > Rihana-ye is not a private language in the sense that no-one else *could*
> > understand it--it is simply a language no one else has yet chosen to
> learn, but
> > which in principle
> > anyone could learn.
>
> How funny!  Years ago, one of my professional colleagues, yes citing W.,
> made the same objection to me over lunch.  I think I had used the phrase
> "private language" and he corrected me.  I meant it to mean "unknown
> language," in the sense that Hildegard used it.  One that was unknown to the
> rest of the world.
There surely are languages that are only known to their creators,
in fact, most conlangs are only fragmentarily (if at all) known
to people other than the one who made them up.  But all these conlangs
*can* be learned by someone else.  And a language (natlang, conlang
or whatever) doesn't become a "private language" in Wittgenstein's
sense when its community of speakers is reduced to one.  This has
happened many time (actually, each time a language died out:
one of its speakers must have been the last one), and yet linguists
succeed in acquiring knowledge in such languages if they have left
written records.

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 14:37:01 -0500,
"Mark P. Line" <mark@...> wrote:

> John Leland said:
> > In a message dated 6/16/04 12:23:06 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> > joerg_rhiemeier@WEB.DE writes:
> >
> > << When I mentioned it in his presence, he said that
> >  what I am doing was meaningless because Wittgenstein said that
> >  "private languages are impossible".  I am not an expert on
> >  Wittgenstein's philosophy, but I think my brother has interpreted
> >  Wittgenstein's words wrongly.  What Wittgenstein meant was, I think,
> >  that a language can never be private in the sense that no-one else
> >  can learn it.  Conlangs thus *aren't* "private languages". >>
> >
> > One of my professional colleagues (without citing W.) made the same
> > objection  to conlanging in an informal lunchtime discussion, and my
> > response was the same-- Rihana-ye is not a private language in the sense
> > that no-one else *could* understand it--it is simply a language no one
> > else has yet chosen to learn, but which in principle anyone could
> > learn.
>
> Yep.
>
> Wittgenstein's "private language" argument was not really about
> conlanging. What he said (in _Philosophical Investigations_ (_PI_),
> paragraph 243) about a hypothetical private language was:
>
> "The individual words of this language are to refer to what can only be
> known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations. So
> another person cannot understand the language."
And that is something very different from just about any conlang
I have seen so far.  As I said above, conlangs have words for concepts
that exist either in the real world or a fictional one; but even in
the latter case, these concepts are in principle public rather than
private.

> His argument, as I remember understanding it (and I haven't gone back to
> study it -- I just extracted the relevant quote above and nothing more
> today), was focussed on the question of whether or not "private
> sensations" can be captured in words, period. If they can't even be
> captured in the words of a *private* language with which the person is
> free to make up words any way she wants -- then surely we shouldn't
> believe that any *public* language (such as a natlang) captures them.
Yes.

> Although I follow the thinking of the later Wittgenstein pretty closely in
> my own, I don't think I ever made up my mind about this particular
> argument. The problem, I think, was epistemological: how do I know that
> I've captured a certain "private sensation" with a certain word, without
> the intersubjective semantic control that I have when using a _public_
> language (natural or constructed)? I see his point, but I also think that
> a word I invent can capture exactly what I say it captures. If I feel
> confident that I can introspect and identify a class of "private
> sensations" reliably enough to attach a name to it, then I'm happy to do
> so -- and it doesn't matter to me (in the first instance) that nobody else
> has access to the particular sensations that this name refers to. Of
> course, I'm probably not thinking of "private sensations" in exactly the
> same way that Wittgenstein was........
>
> That said, I reckon I *can* say that I don't think Wittgenstein's "private
> language" argument has any bearing at all on the feasibility of conlanging
> as we understand it.
This is also what I think.  My brother got it wrong.

> Esperanto is reported to have (presumably bilingual) native speakers, and
> Klingon will eventually have them if it doesn't already. We all know that
> a conlang doesn't need native speakers to exist, but surely this fact
> would suffice to convince even the most recalcitrant sticks-in-the-mud.
>
> Whatever conlangs are, they're not impossible. *shrug*
Certainly not!

Greetings,

Jörg.