From the WAB archives: A selection from the Bergen Wittgenstein archives' Working Papers and audio-visual materials

I Why is Philosophical Investigations difficult?

No one could deny that Philosophical Investigations (hereafter "PI") is the monumental work by the later Wittgenstein. As its preface admits, it is the precipitate of philosophical investigations which have occupied him from 1929. No doubt Wittgenstein made many efforts for a planned book. For confirmation, you need only compare PI with other materials of his. The remarks in PI are the results of several revisions. They are not at all tentative. You can confirm this also if you consider how much more information is included in the same amount of pages in PI than in many other materials. Moreover, the topics which the book covers are extensive: "the concepts of meaning, of understanding, of a proposition, of logic, the foundations of mathematics, states of consciousness, and other things." (PI preface) Therefore, if you want to survey the later Wittgenstein's thinking, without doubt, you should consider PI, first of all.

On the other hand, in spite of several revisions the final version was not completed in his lifetime. Therefore, this book has a quite different character from the type of treatise written in a short time on a single subject. It is nothing but an "album" of remarks.

The difficulty in comprehending PI is quite unique. This difficulty is not of the kind one feels in reading Heidegger or Adorno. Wittgenstein wrote in a plain prose, each passage quite understandable, up to a point: namely, if one asks the gist of a sequence of passages or of the whole book (PI), then the problem becomes grave. According to one scholar³, "there are as many private versions of Wittgenstein as there are readers and researchers."

In my opinion, this is the result of Wittgenstein's style of writing and thinking with the following effects: firstly, as mentioned above, even the first part of PI is the multi-layered result of his investigations over 16 years; secondly, his writing is in the form of memoranda to himself rather than an explanation for others, he had no intention to "spare other people the trouble of thinking"; thirdly, he wished to collect every valuable remark into a single book. As a result of these three points, (a) when several remarks from older material are inserted and used as a comment for a new assertion, the necessary qualification or correction due to the gradual shift of thinking is rather neglected, (b) in the transition from an earlier version to a later, considerable cutting, pasting and alteration is done, but generally not enough care was taken, and (c) attractive catch phrases for himself and others were placed alone, out of context. These are some of the main reasons for the difficulty of PI.

Let me take some passages as illustrations: the following are summaries of famous assertions on "inner process," "criterion," "sensation":

• ─ An inner process stands in need of criteria.⁴
• ─ In the event, there are differences between criteria and symptoms. For example, the fall of a barometer is a symptom of rain, but certain sensations of wet and cold, or such-and-such visual impressions are criteria of rain.⁵
• ─ Concerning the criterion of the redness of an image: if it belongs to someone else, the criterion is what he says and does; if to myself, nothing.⁶
• ─ I do not identify my sensation by criteria, I just repeat the same expression.⁷

In my opinion, one could not read through these passages without feeling some confusion or inconsistency. If every assertion is accepted "literally" or "in toto," then many incompatible lines of thought are easily derivable.

II Earlier methods of interpretation and the one presently suggested

Interpreters of Wittgenstein have hitherto faced this predicament of confusion and inconsistency. By reading many published and unpublished works again and again, students can become accustomed to Wittgenstein's style of thinking and writing, i.e., acquire the skill of reading between the lines. Naturally, it takes many years to become expert, and moreover, this skill is not open to everyone. Therefore, Wittgenstein expertise has the character of excellent craftsmanship.⁸

I believe that the above-mentioned predicament can be considerably eased with the aid of the present Wittgenstein text criticism. Firstly, I would like to describe its objective progress.

One can read Wittgenstein's unpublished materials in the Cornell Copy, but this is not recommendable to all students. The Bergen Project to make a database has not been finished yet. On the other hand, some researchers have made use of the Cornell Copy and published their results in the form of bulky books, which one can use as source books instead of the Cornell Copy: namely, Hallett's⁹, Baker and Hacker's¹⁰, Hacker's¹¹, Hilmy's¹², etc. From the quotations in these books, one can reconstruct, to some extent, Wittgenstein's unpublished Nachlass. Secondly, Baker/Hacker's books include correlation tables which show the "roots" of remarks in PI. In addition, Maury's lists are also published.¹³ Both are very useful in spite of minor lacunae and misprints. Thirdly, a database of published works by Wittgenstein is now available in the Past Masters series which can be processed very quickly. By making use of this, one can eliminate the inevitable oversights and even make cross references to unpublished materials.

III A concrete proposal

My proposal here is: if we find difficulties in remarks in the PI, let us try to go back to their earlier versions. This strategy will bring about the following results: (a) to eliminate possible misunderstandings by reading alternative remarks, (b) to think afresh by changing the order and context of remarks, and (c) to judge the importance of the remark at issue.

For this work, one should have as minimum knowledge an understanding of Wittgenstein's revisions of the texts up to the last typewritten version of PI. The most important article in this field is the classic by G.H. von Wright, "The Origin and Composition of the Philosophical Investigations"¹⁴, but, in my present paper I shall skip the introduction and discussion of this article and proceed with my discussion of its presuppositions.

Now, I would like to take a few concrete problems as examples, and discuss how effective my proposal is. The concrete examples are §§ 354, 258, 580, and 201.

IV Example 1. The distinction between criteria and symptoms. Did Wittgenstein maintain the principle of verification in his later stage?

So far, many discussions have focused on PI § 354. It runs as follows:

The fluctuation in grammar between criteria and symptoms makes it look as if there were nothing at all but symptoms. We say, for example: "Experience teaches that there is rain when the barometer falls, but it also teaches that there is rain when we have certain sensations of wet and cold, or such-and-such visual impressions." In defence of this one says that these sense-impressions can deceive us. But here one fails to reflect that the fact that the false appearance is precisely one of rain is founded on a definition.

This implies that the distinction between criteria and symptoms remains firm, and that definitions demarcate criteria from symptoms. Moreover, § 353, the preceding section, runs as follows:

Asking whether and how a proposition can be verified is only a particular way of asking "How d'you mean?" The answer is a contribution to the grammar of the proposition.

and gives the impression that the verification principle of his middle stage is kept still in his later stage of PI.

In fact, §§ 353-356 are older remarks whose roots lie in MS 115, pp. 72-74. Especially, § 353 which has a further origin in MS 112, p. 99. In my opinion, these old remarks should be footnotes or marginal notes to the standard remarks, but they are inserted between §§ 352 and 357 with the appearance of equally ranked sections.¹⁵ This can be easily confirmed with Hacker's commentary.

The correlations of MS 115 are as follows:

These remarks lie between the assertion in 71 (5) to the effect that the question "What is a chair?" and the question "What does a chair look like?" are not two independent questions, and another remark in p. 75 (1). To translate the latter:

"The chair exists independently of whether it is perceived." Is this an empirical proposition or a disguised confirmation of grammar?

By the way, MS 115 p. 72 (2) provides a supplementary reading for PI § 354, perhaps eliminating some possible misunderstandings. To translate:

How does one know when it rains? We look and feel rain. The meaning of the word "rain" is explained to us by these experiences. I say, they are "criteria" for that it rains. "What is rain?" and "What does rain look like?" are logically similar questions. Now experience has taught us that the sudden fall of a barometer and a shower always coincide; then I will take such falls of the barometer as a symptom of the falling of a shower. Experience teaches whether a phenomenon is a symptom of rain; what is valid as a criterion of rain is our decision/convention/definition.¹⁶

From these two paragraphs, p. 71 (5) and p. 72 (2), one can summarize Wittgenstein's assertion in § 354 as the following six points:

(1) The question "What is a chair (rain)?" and the question "What does a chair (rain) look like?" are not logically independent. More generally, one cannot assert innocently that a fact is a fact irrespective of our ability to recognize it. (2) The fact a proposition refers to should be somehow accessible. (3) Concerning the proposition "It is raining outside.", there are two possibilities. (a) We see rain fall and feel raindrops. (b) We surmise the rainfall from the falling of the barometer. (4) The status of (a) and (b) is not the same. In the sense that we can use the barometer as an auxiliary tool for the judgement of rainfall as far as the falling of the barometer and the rainfall coincide empirically, (b) is in the category of symptom. On the other hand, case (a) admits to no further appeal and this itself gives it meaning. In this sense, (a) is (identification-)criterion. (5) In the course of time, symptoms and criteria of facts are interchangeable. (6) But this is not the argument for that there is nothing at all but symptoms. The criteria of "rainfall" seem stable without drastic change of human sensations and of human sciences. To take recourse here to possible hallucination is unnecessary.

Now, one more preceding section, § 352, treats the argument that the question whether the group "7777" occurs in the decimal expansion of π or not is irrespective of our method of confirmation, and a similar argument that the truth or falsehood of someone's having pain is irrespective of our ability to recognize it. And in §§ 357-359, such problems are discussed as whether a dog talks to itself and whether a machine could think or be in pain. In a nutshell, what Wittgenstein criticizes here in PI is a type of realism that "the fact is a fact regardless of our ability to recognize it" as in MS 115. In this context, he makes use of his older remarks.

But does this imply that the remarks which Wittgenstein used as notes (§§ 353-356) remain valid as they stand? I do not believe so. Firstly, the word "Verifikation" (in German original, the noun form) appears only once throughout PI. Moreover, "symptom" appears also only once in PI.¹⁷ Therefore, we can hardly assert that the relation between criteria and symptoms is discussed here as a topic, as many scholars seem to think. To repeat, we should judge that older remarks appear somehow as useful notes here.

V Example 2. How should the "sensation diary" (§ 258) be read?

I suggest another tip in order to overcome unmanageable sequences of remarks in PI: try to skip skippable remarks. For example, imagine reconstructing earlier versions of PI, and skipping remarks which are not included there. This method is valid for the case of the sensation diary which is one of the central topics in Wittgenstein's private language argument.

In PI, the "sensation diary" is introduced in § 258. I quote the English translation:

Let us imagine the following case. I want to keep a diary about the recurrence of a certain sensation. To this end I associate it with the sign "S" and write this sign in a calendar for every day on which I have the sensation. -- I will remark first of all that a definition of the sign cannot be formulated. -- But still I can give myself a kind of ostensive definition. -- How? Can I point to the sensation? Not in the ordinary sense. But I speak, or write the sign down, and at the same time I concentrate my attention on the sensation -- and so, as it were, point to it inwardly. -- But what is this ceremony for? for that is all it seems to be! A definition surely serves to establish the meaning of a sign. -- Well, that is done precisely by the concentration of my attention; for in this way I impress on myself the connexion between the sign and the sensation. -- But "I impress it on myself" can only mean: this process brings it about that I remember the connexion right in the future. But in the present case I have no criterion of correctness. One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we can't talk about ’right.’

This section has mainly received two incompatible interpretations. According to one type, Wittgenstein is maintaining here the impossibility of a sensation diary, and therefore the impossibility of private language completely. According to another, this argument of the impossibility of the sensation diary is not at all conclusive, therefore, pace Wittgenstein, the private language is not completely impossible.

In my interpretation, both interpretations have missed the point. In § 258, Wittgenstein maintains neither the impossibility of a sensation diary nor the (partial) possibility of a private language.

First of all, from my experience, keeping a "sensation diary" is plausible enough. The following is the report of my own (Masahiro's) experience.

Sometimes a zigzag appears in my visual field. Even if I shut one eye, the shape does not disappear. Therefore, I guess there is a problem somewhere in my optic nerve. The shape begins to swing and grow. I feel uneasy, and cannot stand up. I cannot gaze at anything as the swaying shape blocks it. I turn my eyes about my feet, and am just sitting, not gazing at anything. Namely, "ich sehe vor mich hin." In 15 minutes, the wave shape has reduced its size and moves to the right top and at last, disappears. Ten minutes later, I resume my routine and find no problem. In the first fit, I confess, I was shocked. Thereafter, not so much. Of course, this is not pleasant at all! When I wrote the Japanese version, I did not know of which disease this is a symptom, and nor how an eye doctor would diagnose it. I have not told this to a doctor, mainly because this is troublesome, moreover, because I would not worry my family. (When I told this to my wife, she was surprised.) On the other hand, if I would have recorded the "fits," surely I could. From now on, following the doctor's instruction, I can record fits "such-and-such day of such-and-such month S." And glancing my record, the doctor may tell me, "Fits occur more frequently."

As far as my report is accepted as comprehensible¹⁸, a sensation diary is possible and has a role in language-games. Remarkably, in the sense that my description is comprehensible to the audience, and that the doctor can make use of it, my sensation diary is NOT private in the sense of the private language argument. Therefore, the above two arguments have missed the point.

Then, what is the point of § 258? In my interpretation, this is nothing but a counter-argument against the assertion of the possibility of private (in the sense of undetectable to others) definition, identification, and establishment of criteria. § 258 proceeds in the style of a debate between Wittgenstein and an imaginary opponent. Their arguments may be summarized as follows:

Points of the opponent: (a) One can keep a sensation diary. This is done by the association of sign and sensation. (b) One can give to oneself an ostensive definition of this sign. (c) This definition is given by the inward and concentrated attention while one is writing or speaking the sign. (d) This concentration of one's attention impresses on one's mind the connexion between the sign and the sensation.

Wittgenstein's counter argument: (e) One cannot describe the definition of the sign. (f) One cannot point to the sensation. (g) This "inner concentration" is a ceremony. It does not define the meaning of the sign. (h) The type of the explanation "to impress on one's mind" is at most causal. Moreover, in the present case the criterion of correctness is not given.

The opponent starts with the plausible presupposition that keeping a sensation diary is possible, then asserts that the meaning of (at least some of) the signs in the diary is given by the inward ostensive definition to oneself, and that the inward concentration causes the association in the mind which guarantees the further correct uses of the sign. Thus, he supports the possibility of private language in the sense that "one can oneself understand it and anyone else cannot." Against this, Wittgenstein argues that this type of giving ostensive definition by means of inward, concentrated attention is in fact a ceremony due to philosophical obsession, and that, as a result, there is no guarantee of the correct use.

In his refutation, we should note, Wittgenstein criticizes only the argument that "the ostensive definition of the sign ’S’ by means of private, inward, concentrated attention" gives the criterion of further use. He does not assert that the use of the sign "S" is incorrect because of the lack of definition, nor that a sensation diary is nothing but an illusion or ceremony. Here Wittgenstein does not deny the possibility of a sensation diary, nor assert that definitions should be given to all the signs.

Then, one may have the impression that, if my interpretation is right, the argument of Wittgenstein in § 258 sounds very aggressive. This is the right impression. As a matter of fact, in the intermediate version of PI, § 258 of PI is not a single section, but with § 256 of PI, it forms § 218. In § 256 of PI, Wittgenstein asserts that sensations are not private as far as they are tied to their natural expressions. Then, the opponent suggests the possibility of having only sensations without their natural expressions and the possibility of associating names with sensations. As a concrete example, the case of a sensation diary is proposed in § 258. The party choosing a trench battle is the opponent, the defender of private language.

Therefore, Wittgenstein would say rather defiantly; "You yourself have cut all the connections. Now you repeat ’S.’ What does it mean at all, the repeat, the use of the same sign?" In the published version, this context is not so clear, due to the insertion of § 257.

Then, how would Wittgenstein think of the repeat of the same "S"? Firstly, the idea "correct re-cognition of sensation" is dubious.

Secondly, sensations have organic connections with other matters. § 270 confirms this point:

Let us now imagine a use for the entry of the sign "S" in my diary. I discover that whenever I have a particular sensation a manometer shews that my blood-pressure rises. So I shall be able to say that my blood-pressure is rising without using any apparatus. This is a useful result. And now it seems quite indifferent whether I have recognized the sensation right or not. Let us suppose I regularly identify it wrong, it does not matter in the least. And that alone shews that the hypothesis that I make a mistake is mere show. (We as it were turned a knob which looked as if it could be used to turn on some part of the machine; but it was a mere ornament, not connected with the mechanism at all.)
    And what is our reason for calling "S" the name of a sensation here? Perhaps the kind of way this sign is employed in this language-game. -- And why a "particular sensation," that is, the same one every time? Well, aren't we supposing that we write "S" every time?

Incidentally, in MS 129, p. 47 the same passage appears, but the last sentence reads: "The only reason is that I use the same sign every time." Moreover, MS 124, pp. 282(3)-283(1) gives an earlier alternative to § 270 in PI.¹⁹ To translate:

When you feel pain and infer from this high blood-pressure, you would not like to say that you have inferred your high blood-pressure from nothing.
     And how is the experiment to be described?: you observe your blood-pressure, and look at how the pressure depends on your state of pain. You do not bring about pains with external means, but only compare their (natural) course with the course of blood-pressure. Imagine, instead of making an entry of the sign in the diary when one has pain, one is doing such an experiment. Is this not an experiment? Does it become an experiment only if he has an expression of pain? Can he even predict the change of blood-pressure rightly, clear to everyone?
     And here again, the right re-cognition of his inner sensation does not fill any role. For it is enough that he believes to recognize, as our interest lies in the right prediction of blood-pressure. -- And therefore, it must be wrong also, if I say, "He believes to recognize the sensation again."

Now, if I keep a non-private sensation diary for my own use, I repeat the same sign "E." How is this to be understood? If one chooses to understand that "sensations are inner processes, therefore for these, only behaviouristic definition is possible" with a clue of § 580 ("An ’inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria."), then this is a typical misinterpretation. As is well known, this interpretation collides squarely with the following two sections:

"When I say ’I am in pain’ I am at any rate justified before myself." --What does that mean? Does it mean: "If someone else could know what I am calling ’pain,’ he would admit that I am using the word correctly"?
    To use a word without a justification does not mean to use it without right.²⁰

What I do is not, of course, to identify my sensation by criteria: but to repeat an expression. But this is not the end of the language-game: it is the beginning.²¹

Now to discuss § 580.

VI Example 3. What is the paradigm of "inner process" (§ 580)?

A single concise section, § 580:

An ’inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria.

has been much used to interpret Wittgenstein as a behaviourist. However, we should think over what he meant here by the expression "innerer Vorgang" or, more generally, how idiosyncratic his usage of this phrase is.

There are many things to say concerning the metaphorical use of "inner" to the mental. But, for the moment, I shall skip over the discussion of the dubious expression "inner process."

It seems, examples of "inner process" of the type of § 580, are believing, remembering, etc. On the other hand, typical types of "qualia" recently discussed in the philosophy of mind, such as pains, the sight of the blue sky, the hearing of a bombardment, are not suitable candidates at all.

At first, the phrase "inner process" appears only twice in PI Part I. The other passage is § 305, which derives from MS 116, p. 252, presumably written in 1937-38. As far as I judge from published materials, this is the earliest entry. All the other passages including this phrase belong to Wittgenstein's last stage, after the PI Part I. I ask readers to check this point.²²

Another, more indirect tactic is to investigate what subjects Wittgenstein was absorbed in while he was writing the passage, § 580, and, as the result of the investigation, to surmise the range of "inner process." According to Maury, § 580 derives from MS 130, p. 18. From his list we can formulate the following correlations of PI Part I with MS 130.

The following topics are discussed there: stick to an earlier decision, believe, expression with meaning, certainty, reliance, understanding, mean=meinen, think, image=Vorstellung etc.

VII Example 4. What is the so-called Wittgenstein's paradox? Is Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein right?

As is well known, the so-called Wittgenstein's paradox is a "christening" or discovery by Kripke. Namely, it derives from § 201 which begins with the sentence "This was our paradox...". But what is the anaphora of this expression?

Kripke has devised an ingenious model of "plus and quus" from a curious reaction of a pupil to the instruction "+2" described in § 185f. Moreover, from the identity of the style of the two sections, § 202:

And hence also ’obeying a rule’ is a practice. And to think one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule. Hence it is not possible to obey a rule ’privately’: otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be the same thing as obeying it.

and § 258:

One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we can't talk about ’right’.

and from the fact that § 202 precedes § 258, Kripke draws his bold interpretation: Remarks in §§ 243-315, generally called Wittgenstein's private language argument, are not an independent investigation, but rather are a corollary of his general investigation on language and rule following. But Baker and Hacker and others have already indicated that this interpretation is philologically unsustainable.

Above all, we should heed the fact that remarks of §§ 201-203 are entered rather later. To my knowledge, they are not found in MS 124. Although they appear in MS 129, they are not adopted in the intermediate version. By way of TS 228, they are included in the final version of PI. The list of correlations is as follows:

Namely, the remarks of §§ 201-203 in PI follow remarks of §§ 377-380 in PI in their earlier versions. According to Baker and Hacker, the anaphora of "our paradox" is § 198 in PI. Surely, we can read PI smoothly according to this suggestion. On the other hand, considering the fact that § 198 in PI is the first section after several sections of the excerpts of TS 221, namely, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Part I, I would like to consider its origin in some more detail.²³ For my part, I would like to consider the possibility of reading § 201 with § 380.

In any case, it has already become clear that Kripke's interpretation is unsustainable if we trace §§ 201-203 to earlier versions.

VIII To what extent is Philosophical Investigations a patchwork?

I do not have any definite answer to this grave question now. I believe that I should consider particular remarks minutely prior to large questions such as the unifying viewpoint of PI, or "the" problem treated in PI. Even if it becomes apparent that PI is nothing but a huge patchwork, that is all right. This essay has tried to propose a reading of PI, and to raise the question of an interpretation of the PI as a whole.²⁴