Wittgenstein on Private Language, Sensation and Perception

Michael Hymers (Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia)

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English

Cambridge University Press
23 October 2025

Philosophy of language; Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology; Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge

Series: Elements in the Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein's critique of private language in the Philosophical Investigations does not attempt to refute the possibility of a private sensation-language, let alone in any one argument, as has often been thought. Nor does it aim to establish that language is intrinsically social. Instead, PI §§243–315 presents a series of arguments, suggestions, questions, examples and thought-experiments whose purpose is to undermine the temptation to think of sensations and perceptual experiences as private objects occupying a private phenomenal space. These themes are clear developments of Wittgenstein's earlier critique of sense-datum theories (1929–1936) and his insight that naming is more complex than he had assumed in the Tractatus.

By: Michael Hymers (Dalhousie University Nova Scotia)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Weight: 250g
ISBN: 9781108931175
ISBN 10: 1108931170
Series: Elements in the Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein
Pages: 86
Publication Date: 23 October 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

1. Introduction; 2. Methodological and exegetical commitments; 3. Privacy and the objectification of sensation and perception; 4. Private language; 5. Solitary speakers; 6. Ontological privacy, epistemic privacy and first-person authority; 7. Avowals; 8. The first wave: verification and memory; 9. The second wave: ostensive definition; 10. The third wave: rules; 11. The fourth wave: stage-setting; 12. The human manometer; 13. The beetle; 14. Epilogue; Abbreviations; References.