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

I didn't know about his concept of W's "private
language". AFAIU, by "language" W. means "words", or
"vocabulary", but not grammar or syntax. I think
everyboy uses private words in his close family
circle, or words that can be understood only by 2
persons. For ex, Marcel Proust refers somewhere to the
expression "faire cattleya", meaning "to make love",
this expression being private to the both persons
implicated; it is motivated by an event in relation
with the cattleya flower. So what can be private to 2
persons can also be private to one, insofar one is
talking to oneself, aloud or mentally.

But in the example I gave, it is a synonymy: there
exists an usual expression meaning the same (maybe one
could give a definition of "faire cattleya" like: to
make love, referring to special persons X and Y, so it
would be a particularization). Perhaps W. means words,
or concepts, that have no equivalent in usual
language. In that case, it would be interesting to
analyze why they have no equivalent. Is it a
lexicalization for a periphrase ? Ot is it about
something that is really impossible to be shared by
other people ? Perhaps W. felt like he needed an
private extension of usual language, because his
thoughts were so high and so complex that usual
language was not able to express them. Here we really
would need some examples. And would it be possible
considering also a private grammar ?

After all, when you write a program, you more or less
define a private language: private words (variables,
constants etc) and private syntax (functions...)

About W., one could also ask: does the idea of
"private language" prove that usual language is
inadequate for W., or that W. is not competent in
handling usual language ? Why are some scientists and
philosophs able to make their ideas shareable by other
(normal) people, why others are not ?

--- "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."
>
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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*
>
>
> -- Mark
>

=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


		
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