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Single Idea 5817
[filed under theme 19. Language / F. Communication / 4. Private Language
]
Full Idea
There are tools like a hammer used by one person, and there are tools like a steamship which require cooperative activity; words have been thought of too much on the model of the first sort of tool.
Gist of Idea
Language is more like a cooperative steamship than an individual hammer
Source
Hilary Putnam (Meaning and Reference [1973], p.156)
Book Ref
'Meaning and Reference', ed/tr. Moore,A.W. [OUP 1993], p.156
A Reaction
This clear thought strikes me as the most fruitful and sensible consequence of Wittgenstein's later ideas (as opposed to the relativistic 'language game' ideas). I am unconvinced that a private language is logically impossible, but it would be feeble.
The
21 ideas
with the same theme
[possibility of a solitary person having language]:
15991
|
Since words are just conventional, we can represent our own ideas with any words we please
[Locke]
|
19585
|
Every person has his own language
[Novalis]
|
8478
|
Dewey argued long before Wittgenstein that there could not seriously be a private language
[Dewey, by Orenstein]
|
6093
|
The names in a logically perfect language would be private, and could not be shared
[Russell]
|
4136
|
To imagine a language means to imagine a form of life
[Wittgenstein]
|
6166
|
Was Wittgenstein's problem between individual and community, or between occasions for an individual?
[Rowlands on Wittgenstein]
|
7875
|
If a brilliant child invented a name for a private sensation, it couldn't communicate it
[Wittgenstein]
|
4146
|
We cannot doublecheck mental images for correctness (or confirm news with many copies of the paper)
[Wittgenstein]
|
4147
|
If we only named pain by our own case, it would be like naming beetles by looking in a private box
[Wittgenstein]
|
5659
|
If the reference is private, that is incompatible with the sense being public
[Wittgenstein, by Scruton]
|
4152
|
Getting from perceptions to words cannot be a private matter; the rules need an institution of use
[Wittgenstein]
|
23497
|
Solipsism is correct, but can only be shown, not said, by the limits of my personal language
[Wittgenstein]
|
5817
|
Language is more like a cooperative steamship than an individual hammer
[Putnam]
|
6279
|
A private language could work with reference and beliefs, and wouldn't need meaning
[Putnam]
|
3970
|
Thought is only fully developed if we communicate with others
[Davidson]
|
8870
|
Content of thought is established through communication, so knowledge needs other minds
[Davidson]
|
11075
|
The sceptical rule-following paradox is the basis of the private language argument
[Kripke, by Hanna]
|
8254
|
Forming concepts by abstraction from the Given is private definition, which the Private Lang. Arg. attacks
[McDowell]
|
2484
|
The theory of the content of thought as 'Mentalese' explains why the Private Language Argument doesn't work
[Fodor]
|
3516
|
The Private Language argument only means people may misjudge their experiences
[Papineau]
|
3882
|
Wittgenstein makes it impossible to build foundations from something that is totally private
[Scruton]
|