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Synthese (2014) 191:557567
DOI 10.1007/s11229-013-0291-3
Received: 23 December 2012 / Accepted: 23 April 2013 / Published online: 4 May 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract This paper corrects a mistake in John McDowells inuential reading of Wittgensteins attack on the idea of private sensations. McDowell rightly identies a primary target of Wittgensteins attack to be the Myth of the Given. But he also suggests that Wittgenstein, in the ferocity of his battles with this myth, sometimes goes into overkill, which manifests itself in seemingly behavioristic denials about sensations. But this criticism of Wittgenstein is a mistake. The mistake is made over two important but notoriously difcult sections in the so-called Private Language Argument, namely 304 and 293 of the Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein, maximally charitably read, commits no overkill in these two sections. This correction strengthens McDowells overall reading, but it is only a rst step toward fully bringing out the deep but obscurely expressed insights in 304 and 293, the full treatment of which must await another occasion.
Keywords Wittgenstein McDowell Private Language Argument
Private sensation Myth of the Given
1 Introduction
The Private Language Argument in Wittgensteins Philosophical Investigations (PI) is a tough rope of many intertwining strands.1 One major strand in it has been brought
1 I shall use Anscombes translation of the PI, which I believe has not been generally superseded by the recent revised translation by Hacker and Schulte. Here and there I modify Anscombes translation, always with notice when the modication is signicant. I refer to individual paragraphs within numbered sections of the PI in the style of 304a. The label the Private Language Argument is in various ways misleading, but it is still serviceable if used with care.
H. Tang (B)
School of Philosophy, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China e-mail: [email protected]
It is not a something, but not a nothing either! McDowell on Wittgenstein
Hao Tang
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558 Synthese (2014) 191:557567
out, with great penetration and precision, by John McDowell in his One Strand in the Private Language Argument2 and made good use of in his own work, notably in his Mind and World. This strand, as McDowell characterizes it, is Wittgensteins attack on a dualism characteristic of modern philosophy, namely the conception of our consciousness as consisting...