Against Private Language

Can there be a private language? A language whose words refer to my inner experiences, knowable only to me?

I say: no. If “pain” meant only my own pain—what sense could “pain” have for you? What would we be comparing? What would we be meaning?

Language is public from the start. Even my most private sensations are given meaning through public criteria—we learn to use “pain” because we see others in pain, because we are taught the word in public contexts.

The philosophical problem of other minds disappears when we see that the problem was never properly formulated. You do not infer my pain from my behavior—you see it as a pain because you have learned the use of the word.

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Comments

• nietzsche: And yet, Ludwig—what of the scream before language? The infant who has no words yet clearly suffers? Is this not a private experience, anterior to all public meaning?