This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
“And in death, the world does not change but stops existing” [NB, p. 73]. Consistent to Wittgenstein’s idea of the two limits of language, namely, Tautology and Contradiction, birth is not an event in life as much as death is not. Birth and death, the most successful and the most unsuccessful events of life, are the two limits of life and, thereby, not in life.
Cf. Wittgenstein (1953, Sect. 219): “All the steps are already taken means ‘I no longer have any choice’.”
These examples are in accordance with Searle’s characterization of the essential rules for “promise”, “thank” and “request” as illocutionary acts. See Searle (1969, Sects. 66–67)
Cf. Wittgenstein (1969, Sect. 148): “Why do I not satisfy myself that I have two feet when I want to get up from a chair? There is no why. I simply don’t. This is how I act.”
“That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of ‘object and designation’ the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant” (Wittgenstein 1953, Sect. 293).
For Wittgenstein (1953, Sect. 693), “Nothing is more wrong-headed than calling meaning a mental activity”.
In other words, “only of a living human being and what resembles (behaves like) a human being can one say: it has sensations, it sees, it is blind; is deaf; is conscious or unconscious” (Wittgenstein 1953, Sect. 281).
Cf. Wittgenstein (1921, 5.143). (Contradiction, one might say, vanishes outside all propositions: tautology vanishes inside them. Contradiction is the outer limit of propositions: tautology is the unsubstantial point at their center.)
An argument for antara bhasa is in Lenka (2000).
Pradhan (2001) does not accept the reality of such a metaphysical limit of the world.
Note books of 1916, Sect. 73
Note books of 1916, Sect. 73.
No doubt “developed” and “undeveloped” are our constructions. In reality, there are no such hierarchies. “Hierarchies are and must be independent of reality” (Wittgenstein 1921, 5.5561)
References
Lenka L (2000) The Cartesian privacy and antara bhasa. J Indian Counc Philos Res XVII:81–98
Nielsen K (2001) Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinians on religion. In: Arrington RL, Addis M (eds) Wittgenstein and philosophy of religion. Routledge, London, pp 137–166
Pradhan RC (2001) Recent developments in analytic philosophy. ICPR, New Delhi, pp 350–353
Searle JR (1969) Speech acts. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Wittgenstein L (1921) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by Pears DF, McGuinness BF. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London
Wittgenstein L (1953) Philosophical investigations, 3rd edn. Translated by Anscombe GEM. Basil Blackwell, Oxford (1976 reprint)
Wittgenstein L (1967) In: Anscombe GEM, VonWright GH (eds) Zettel. Translated by Anscombe GEM. Basil Blackwell, Oxford
Wittgenstein L (1969) In: Anscombe GEM, VonWright GH (eds) On certainty. Basil Blackwell, Oxford (1977 reprint)
Wittgenstein L (1978) In: VonWright GH, Rhees R, Anscombe GEM (eds) Remarks on the foundations of mathematics, 3rd edn. Translated by Anscombe GEM. Basil Blackwell, Oxford
Wittgenstein L (1980) Culture and value, edited by VonWright GH in collaboration with Nyman H. Translated by Winch P. Basil Blackwell, Oxford (amended 2nd edn)
Acknowledgements
I sincerely thank Prof. Chinmoy Goswami and Mike Cooley for their comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lenka, L. Private language: recognizing a useful nonsense. AI & Soc 21, 14–26 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-006-0040-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-006-0040-y