Excerpts from Philosophical Investigations
7. We can also think of the whole process of using words as one of those games by means of which children learn their native language. I will call these games "language-games" and will sometimes speak of a primitive language as a language-game
And the processes of naming and of repeating words after someone might also be called language-games. Think of much of the use of words in games like ring-a-ring-a-roses.
I shall also call the whole, consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven, the "language-game".
11. Think of the tools in a tool-box; there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screw-driver, a rule, a glue-pot, glue, nails, and screws. The function of words, are as diverse as the functions of these objects. (And in both cases there are similarities.)
Of course, what confuses us is the uniform appearance of words when we hear them spoken or meet them in script and print. For their application is not presented to us so clearly. Especially when we are doing philosophy!
14. Imagine someone's saying: "All tools serve to modify something. Thus the hammer modifies the position of the nail, the saw the shape of the board, and so on. And what is modified by the rule, the glue-pot, the nails? "Our knowledge of a thing's length, the temperature of the glue, and the solidity of the box." Would anything be gained by this assimilation of expressions?
23. But how many kinds of sentence are there? Say assertion, question, and command? There are countless kinds: countless different kinds of use of what we call "symbols", "words", "sentences". And this multiplicity is not something fixed, given once for all; but new types of language, new language-games, as we may say, come into existence, and others become obsolete and get forgotten. (We can get a rough picture of this from the changes in mathematics.)
Here the term "language-game" is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.
Review the multiplicity of language-games in the following examples, and in others:
giving orders, and obeying them
describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements
constructing an object from a description (a drawing)
reporting an event
speculating about an event
forming and testing a hypothesis
presenting the results of an experiment in tables and diagrams
making up a story; and reading it
play-acting
singing catches
guessing riddles
making a joke; telling it
solving a problem in practical mathematics
translating from one language into another
asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying.
27. "We name things and then we can talk about them: can refer to them in talk." As if what we did next were given with the mere act of naming. As if there were only one thing called "talking about a thing". Whereas in fact we do the most various things with our sentences. Think of exclamations alone, with their completely different functions.
Water!
Away!
Ow!
Help!
Fine!
No!
116. When philosophers use a word-"knowledge", "being", "object", "I", "proposition", "name"-and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language-game which is its original home?
What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.
119. The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or another piece of plain nonsense and of bumps that the understanding has got by running its head up against the limits of language. These bumps make us see the value of the discovery.
123. A philosophical problem has the form: "I don't know my way about".
124. Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.
For it cannot give it any foundation either.
It leaves everything as it is.
It also leaves mathematics as it is, and no mathematical discovery can advance it. A "leading problem of mathematical logic" is for us a problem of mathematics like any other.
150. The grammar of the word "knows" is evidently closely related to that of "can", "is able to". But also closely related to that of "understands". ('Mastery' of a technique.)
201. This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule. The answer was: if everything can be made out to accord with the rule, then it can also be made out to conflict with it. And so there would be neither accord nor conflict here.
It can be seen that there is a misunderstanding here from the mere fact that in the course of our argument we give one interpretation after another; as if each one contented us at least for a moment, until we thought of yet another standing behind it. What this shews is that there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is exhibited in what we call "obeying the rule" and "going against it" in actual cases.
Hence there is an inclination to say: every action according to the rule is an interpretation. But we ought to restrict the term "interpretation" to the substitution of one expression of the rule for another.
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.
203. Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and know your way about; you approach the same place from another side and no longer know your way about.
204. As things are I can, for example, invent a game that is never played by anyone. But would the following be possible too; mankind has never played any games; once, however, someone invented a game- which no one ever played?
217. "How am I able to obey a rule?" if this is not a question about causes, then it is about the justification for my following the rule in the way I do.
If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."
224. The word "agreement" and the word "rule" are related to one another, they are cousins. If I teach anyone the use of the one word, he learns the use of the other with it.
225. The use of the word "rule" and the use of the word "same" are interwoven. (As are the use of "proposition" and the use of "true".)
234. Would it not be possible for us, however, to calculate as we actually do (all agreeing, and so on), and still at every step to have a feeling of being guided by the rules as by a spell, feeling astonishment at the fact that we agreed? (We might give thanks to the Deity for our agreement.)
235. This merely shews what goes to make up what we call "obeying a rule" in everyday life.
241. "So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?" It is what human beings say that is true and false; and they agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in opinions but in form of life.
243. A human being can encourage himself, give himself orders, obey, blame and punish himself; he can ask himself a question and answer it. We could even imagine human beings who spoke only in monologue; who accompanied their activities by talking to themselves. An explorer who watched them and listened to their talk might succeed in translating their language into ours. (This would enable him to predict these people's actions correctly, for he also hears them making resolutions and decisions.)
But could we imagine a language in which a person could write down or give vocal expression to his inner experiences- his feelings, moods, and the rest- for his private use?- Well, can't we do so in our ordinary language? But that is not what I mean. The individual words of this language are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language.
246. In what sense are my sensations private? Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it. In one way this is wrong, and in another nonsense. If we are using the word "to know" as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know when I am in pain. Yes, but all the same not with the certainty with which I know it myself! It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean- except perhaps that I am in pain?
Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behavior- for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them. The truth is: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it of myself.
248. The proposition "Sensations are private" is comparable to: "One plays patience by oneself."
249. Are we perhaps over-hasty in our assumption that the smile of an unweaned infant is not a pretence? And on what experience is our assumption based?
(Lying is a language-game that needs to be learned like any other one.)
250. Why can't a dog simulate pain? Is he too honest? Could one teach a dog to simulate pain? Perhaps it is possible to teach him to howl on particular occasions as if he were in pain, even when he is not. But the surroundings which are necessary for this behavior to be real simulation are missing.
255. The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness.
258. 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 formualted. 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 connection 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'.
259. Are the rules of the private language impressions of rules? The balance on which impressions are weighed is not the impression of a balance.
260. "Well, I believe that this is the sensation S again." Perhaps you believe that you believe it!
Then did the man who made the entry in the calendar make a note of nothing whatsoever? Don't consider it a matter of course that a person is making a note of something when he makes a mark- say in a calendar. For a note has a function, and this "S" so far has none. (One can talk to oneself. If a person speaks when no one else is present, does that mean he is speaking to himself?)
264. "Once you know what the word stands for, you understand it, you know its whole use."
265. Let us imagine a table (something like a dictionary) that exists only in our imagination. A dictionary can be used to justify the translation of a word X by a word Y. But are we also to call it a justification if such a table is to be looked up only in the imagination? "Well, yes; then it is a subjective justification." But justification consists in appealing to something independent. "But surely I can appeal from one memory to another. For example, I don't know if I have remembered the time of departure of a train right and to check it I call to mind how a page of the time-table looked. Isn't it the same here?" No; for this process has got to produce a memory which isactually correct. If the mental image of the time-table could not itself be tested for correctness, how could it confirm the correctness of the first memory? (As if someone were to buy several copies of the morning paper to assure himself that what it said was true.)
Looking up a table in the imagination is no more looking up a table than the image of the result in an imagined experiment is the result of an experiment.
268. Why can't my right hand give my left hand money? My right hand can put it into my left hand. My right hand can write a deed of gift and my left hand a receipt. But the further practical consequences would not be those of a gift. When the left hand has taken the money from the right, etc., we shall ask: "Well, and what of it?" And the same could be asked if a person had given himself a private definition of a word; I mean, if he has said the word to himself and at the same time has directed his attention to a sensation.
272. The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person posseses his own exemplar, but that nobody knows whether other people also have this or something else. The assumption would thus be possible- though unverifiable- that one section of mankind had one sensation of red and another section another.
279. Imagine someone saying: "But I know how tall I am!" and laying his hand on top of his head to prove it.
281. "But doesn't what you say come to this: that there is no pain, for example, without pain-behavior?" It comes to this: only of a living human being and what resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say: it has sensations; it sees; hears; is deaf; is conscious or unconscious.
283. What gives us so much as the idea that living beings, things, can feel?
Is it that my education has led me to it by drawing attention to feelings in myself, and now I transfer the idea to objects outside myself? That I recognize that there is something there (in me) which I can call "pain" without getting into conflict with the way other people use this word? I do not transfer my idea to stones, plants, etc.
Couldn't I imagine having frightful pains and turning to stone while they lasted? Well, how do I know, if I shut my eyes, whether I have not turned into a stone? And if that has happened, in what sense will the stone have the pains? In what sense will they be ascribed to the stone? And why need the pain have a bearer at all here?!
And can one say of the stone that it has a soul and that is what has the pain? What has a soul, or pain, to do with a stone?
Only of what behaves like a human being can one say that it has pains.
For one has to say it of a body, or, if you like of a soul which some body has. And how can a body have a soul?
293. If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word "pain" means- must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly?
Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case! Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.
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.
295. "I know... only from my own case"- what kind of proposition is this meant to be at all? An experiential one? No. A grammatical one?
Suppose everyone does say about himself that he knows what pain is only from his own pain. Not that people really say that, or are even prepared to say it. But if everybody said it- it might be a kind of exclamation. And even if it gives no information, still it is a picture, and why should we not want to call up such a picture? Imagine an allegorical painting take the place of those words.
When we look into ourselves as we do philosophy, we often get to see just such a picture. A full-blown pictorial representation of our grammar. Not facts; but as it were illustrated turns of speech.
297. Of course if water boils in a pot, steam comes out of the pot and also pictured steam comes out of the pictured pot. But what if one insisted on saying that there must also be something boiling in the picture of the pot?
304. "But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behavior accompanied by pain and pain-behavior without any pain?" Admit it? What greater difference could there be? "And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a nothing." Not at all. It is not a something, but not a nothing either! The conclusion was only that a nothing would serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said. We have only rejected the grammar which tried to force itself on us here.
The paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose; to convey thoughts- which may be about houses, pains, good and evil, or anything else you please.
305. "But you surely cannot deny that, for example, in remembering, an inner process takes place." What gives the impression that we want to deny anything? When one says "Still, an inner process does take place here" one wants to go on: "After all, you see it." And it is this inner process that one means by the word remembering". The impression that we wanted to deny something arises from our setting our faces against the picture of the 'inner process'. What we deny is that the picture of the inner process gives us the correct idea of the use of the word "to remember". We say that this picture with its ramifications stands in the way of our seeing the use of the word as it is.
306. Why should I deny that there is a mental process? But "There has just taken place in me the mental process of remembering..." means nothing more than: "I have just remembered...". To deny the mental process would mean to deny the remembering; to deny that anyone ever remembers anything.
307. "Are you not really a behaviorist in disguise? Aren't you at bottom really saying that everything except human behavior is a fiction?" If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction.
309. What is your aim in philosophy?- To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.
And the processes of naming and of repeating words after someone might also be called language-games. Think of much of the use of words in games like ring-a-ring-a-roses.
I shall also call the whole, consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven, the "language-game".
11. Think of the tools in a tool-box; there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screw-driver, a rule, a glue-pot, glue, nails, and screws. The function of words, are as diverse as the functions of these objects. (And in both cases there are similarities.)
Of course, what confuses us is the uniform appearance of words when we hear them spoken or meet them in script and print. For their application is not presented to us so clearly. Especially when we are doing philosophy!
14. Imagine someone's saying: "All tools serve to modify something. Thus the hammer modifies the position of the nail, the saw the shape of the board, and so on. And what is modified by the rule, the glue-pot, the nails? "Our knowledge of a thing's length, the temperature of the glue, and the solidity of the box." Would anything be gained by this assimilation of expressions?
23. But how many kinds of sentence are there? Say assertion, question, and command? There are countless kinds: countless different kinds of use of what we call "symbols", "words", "sentences". And this multiplicity is not something fixed, given once for all; but new types of language, new language-games, as we may say, come into existence, and others become obsolete and get forgotten. (We can get a rough picture of this from the changes in mathematics.)
Here the term "language-game" is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.
Review the multiplicity of language-games in the following examples, and in others:
giving orders, and obeying them
describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements
constructing an object from a description (a drawing)
reporting an event
speculating about an event
forming and testing a hypothesis
presenting the results of an experiment in tables and diagrams
making up a story; and reading it
play-acting
singing catches
guessing riddles
making a joke; telling it
solving a problem in practical mathematics
translating from one language into another
asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying.
27. "We name things and then we can talk about them: can refer to them in talk." As if what we did next were given with the mere act of naming. As if there were only one thing called "talking about a thing". Whereas in fact we do the most various things with our sentences. Think of exclamations alone, with their completely different functions.
Water!
Away!
Ow!
Help!
Fine!
No!
116. When philosophers use a word-"knowledge", "being", "object", "I", "proposition", "name"-and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language-game which is its original home?
What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.
119. The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or another piece of plain nonsense and of bumps that the understanding has got by running its head up against the limits of language. These bumps make us see the value of the discovery.
123. A philosophical problem has the form: "I don't know my way about".
124. Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.
For it cannot give it any foundation either.
It leaves everything as it is.
It also leaves mathematics as it is, and no mathematical discovery can advance it. A "leading problem of mathematical logic" is for us a problem of mathematics like any other.
150. The grammar of the word "knows" is evidently closely related to that of "can", "is able to". But also closely related to that of "understands". ('Mastery' of a technique.)
201. This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule. The answer was: if everything can be made out to accord with the rule, then it can also be made out to conflict with it. And so there would be neither accord nor conflict here.
It can be seen that there is a misunderstanding here from the mere fact that in the course of our argument we give one interpretation after another; as if each one contented us at least for a moment, until we thought of yet another standing behind it. What this shews is that there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is exhibited in what we call "obeying the rule" and "going against it" in actual cases.
Hence there is an inclination to say: every action according to the rule is an interpretation. But we ought to restrict the term "interpretation" to the substitution of one expression of the rule for another.
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.
203. Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and know your way about; you approach the same place from another side and no longer know your way about.
204. As things are I can, for example, invent a game that is never played by anyone. But would the following be possible too; mankind has never played any games; once, however, someone invented a game- which no one ever played?
217. "How am I able to obey a rule?" if this is not a question about causes, then it is about the justification for my following the rule in the way I do.
If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."
224. The word "agreement" and the word "rule" are related to one another, they are cousins. If I teach anyone the use of the one word, he learns the use of the other with it.
225. The use of the word "rule" and the use of the word "same" are interwoven. (As are the use of "proposition" and the use of "true".)
234. Would it not be possible for us, however, to calculate as we actually do (all agreeing, and so on), and still at every step to have a feeling of being guided by the rules as by a spell, feeling astonishment at the fact that we agreed? (We might give thanks to the Deity for our agreement.)
235. This merely shews what goes to make up what we call "obeying a rule" in everyday life.
241. "So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?" It is what human beings say that is true and false; and they agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in opinions but in form of life.
243. A human being can encourage himself, give himself orders, obey, blame and punish himself; he can ask himself a question and answer it. We could even imagine human beings who spoke only in monologue; who accompanied their activities by talking to themselves. An explorer who watched them and listened to their talk might succeed in translating their language into ours. (This would enable him to predict these people's actions correctly, for he also hears them making resolutions and decisions.)
But could we imagine a language in which a person could write down or give vocal expression to his inner experiences- his feelings, moods, and the rest- for his private use?- Well, can't we do so in our ordinary language? But that is not what I mean. The individual words of this language are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language.
246. In what sense are my sensations private? Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it. In one way this is wrong, and in another nonsense. If we are using the word "to know" as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know when I am in pain. Yes, but all the same not with the certainty with which I know it myself! It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean- except perhaps that I am in pain?
Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behavior- for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them. The truth is: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it of myself.
248. The proposition "Sensations are private" is comparable to: "One plays patience by oneself."
249. Are we perhaps over-hasty in our assumption that the smile of an unweaned infant is not a pretence? And on what experience is our assumption based?
(Lying is a language-game that needs to be learned like any other one.)
250. Why can't a dog simulate pain? Is he too honest? Could one teach a dog to simulate pain? Perhaps it is possible to teach him to howl on particular occasions as if he were in pain, even when he is not. But the surroundings which are necessary for this behavior to be real simulation are missing.
255. The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness.
258. 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 formualted. 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 connection 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'.
259. Are the rules of the private language impressions of rules? The balance on which impressions are weighed is not the impression of a balance.
260. "Well, I believe that this is the sensation S again." Perhaps you believe that you believe it!
Then did the man who made the entry in the calendar make a note of nothing whatsoever? Don't consider it a matter of course that a person is making a note of something when he makes a mark- say in a calendar. For a note has a function, and this "S" so far has none. (One can talk to oneself. If a person speaks when no one else is present, does that mean he is speaking to himself?)
264. "Once you know what the word stands for, you understand it, you know its whole use."
265. Let us imagine a table (something like a dictionary) that exists only in our imagination. A dictionary can be used to justify the translation of a word X by a word Y. But are we also to call it a justification if such a table is to be looked up only in the imagination? "Well, yes; then it is a subjective justification." But justification consists in appealing to something independent. "But surely I can appeal from one memory to another. For example, I don't know if I have remembered the time of departure of a train right and to check it I call to mind how a page of the time-table looked. Isn't it the same here?" No; for this process has got to produce a memory which isactually correct. If the mental image of the time-table could not itself be tested for correctness, how could it confirm the correctness of the first memory? (As if someone were to buy several copies of the morning paper to assure himself that what it said was true.)
Looking up a table in the imagination is no more looking up a table than the image of the result in an imagined experiment is the result of an experiment.
268. Why can't my right hand give my left hand money? My right hand can put it into my left hand. My right hand can write a deed of gift and my left hand a receipt. But the further practical consequences would not be those of a gift. When the left hand has taken the money from the right, etc., we shall ask: "Well, and what of it?" And the same could be asked if a person had given himself a private definition of a word; I mean, if he has said the word to himself and at the same time has directed his attention to a sensation.
272. The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person posseses his own exemplar, but that nobody knows whether other people also have this or something else. The assumption would thus be possible- though unverifiable- that one section of mankind had one sensation of red and another section another.
279. Imagine someone saying: "But I know how tall I am!" and laying his hand on top of his head to prove it.
281. "But doesn't what you say come to this: that there is no pain, for example, without pain-behavior?" It comes to this: only of a living human being and what resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say: it has sensations; it sees; hears; is deaf; is conscious or unconscious.
283. What gives us so much as the idea that living beings, things, can feel?
Is it that my education has led me to it by drawing attention to feelings in myself, and now I transfer the idea to objects outside myself? That I recognize that there is something there (in me) which I can call "pain" without getting into conflict with the way other people use this word? I do not transfer my idea to stones, plants, etc.
Couldn't I imagine having frightful pains and turning to stone while they lasted? Well, how do I know, if I shut my eyes, whether I have not turned into a stone? And if that has happened, in what sense will the stone have the pains? In what sense will they be ascribed to the stone? And why need the pain have a bearer at all here?!
And can one say of the stone that it has a soul and that is what has the pain? What has a soul, or pain, to do with a stone?
Only of what behaves like a human being can one say that it has pains.
For one has to say it of a body, or, if you like of a soul which some body has. And how can a body have a soul?
293. If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word "pain" means- must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly?
Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case! Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.
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.
295. "I know... only from my own case"- what kind of proposition is this meant to be at all? An experiential one? No. A grammatical one?
Suppose everyone does say about himself that he knows what pain is only from his own pain. Not that people really say that, or are even prepared to say it. But if everybody said it- it might be a kind of exclamation. And even if it gives no information, still it is a picture, and why should we not want to call up such a picture? Imagine an allegorical painting take the place of those words.
When we look into ourselves as we do philosophy, we often get to see just such a picture. A full-blown pictorial representation of our grammar. Not facts; but as it were illustrated turns of speech.
297. Of course if water boils in a pot, steam comes out of the pot and also pictured steam comes out of the pictured pot. But what if one insisted on saying that there must also be something boiling in the picture of the pot?
304. "But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behavior accompanied by pain and pain-behavior without any pain?" Admit it? What greater difference could there be? "And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a nothing." Not at all. It is not a something, but not a nothing either! The conclusion was only that a nothing would serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said. We have only rejected the grammar which tried to force itself on us here.
The paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose; to convey thoughts- which may be about houses, pains, good and evil, or anything else you please.
305. "But you surely cannot deny that, for example, in remembering, an inner process takes place." What gives the impression that we want to deny anything? When one says "Still, an inner process does take place here" one wants to go on: "After all, you see it." And it is this inner process that one means by the word remembering". The impression that we wanted to deny something arises from our setting our faces against the picture of the 'inner process'. What we deny is that the picture of the inner process gives us the correct idea of the use of the word "to remember". We say that this picture with its ramifications stands in the way of our seeing the use of the word as it is.
306. Why should I deny that there is a mental process? But "There has just taken place in me the mental process of remembering..." means nothing more than: "I have just remembered...". To deny the mental process would mean to deny the remembering; to deny that anyone ever remembers anything.
307. "Are you not really a behaviorist in disguise? Aren't you at bottom really saying that everything except human behavior is a fiction?" If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction.
309. What is your aim in philosophy?- To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.