Tradition is not something a man can learn; not a thread he can pick up when he feels like it; any more than a man can choose his own ancestors. Someone lacking a tradition who would like to have one is like a man unhappily in love. (Wittgenstein 1980, p. 76)
Introduction
What could be the most unsuccessful thing of life, if not the end of life, i.e. death? But it may be underlined that “Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death” (Wittgenstein 1921, 6.4311).Footnote 1 The end of life is not in life. We find this truth about life in every aspect of life as much as in life itself. For example, the end of social life is not an event in social life; the end of religious life is not an event in religious life; the end of scientific life is not an event in scientific life, and so on. Accordingly, the end of private life is not an event in private life, nor the end of public life is an event in public life. On the other hand, the end of private life is an event in public life and the end of public life is an event in private life, if private life and public life are mutually exclusive and that “private life” and “public life” are two contradictory terms. In public life, what we can see or show of private life is nothing but the end of private life, not the private life. Hence, no wonder we cannot establish the reality of private life in public life.
Language is not there without a life, and we may extend the above-said relation between private life and public life to language, that is, to the relation between private language and public language. We cannot establish the reality of private language in public language. In public language, even if we intend to demonstrate a private language, the most we can actually succeed in demonstrating is the end (death) of private language. One may interpret Wittgenstein’s refutation of the possibility of private language as a demonstration of this kind. In other words, it is an actual demonstration of the end of private language but intended to demonstrate private language—drawing a boundary from within, as it were.
Wittgenstein refutes the possibility of private language. However, he does not keep his anti-private language thesis so central to his philosophy that nothing hinting at privacy is acceptable for him. It seems spirituality can be defended on the ground of privacy but Wittgenstein would not outrightly reject spirituality. If we look into his philosophy of religion, ethics and aesthetics, we may give a second thought to his arguments against privacy. In other words, if Wittgenstein’s arguments against privacy are projected in the light of his arguments for the viability of religion, ethics and aesthetics, we may conclude that he intended to demonstrate private language through public language and, thereby, could actually demonstrate the end of private language. Of course, what Wittgenstein did really aim at or kept in his mind is not the question I would really like to entertain. The question that concerns me is how can we accept a private language in the face of Wittgenstein’s arguments against the possibility of private language? In order to answer it, I do not argue against Wittgenstein’s refutation of private language; on the other hand, I intend to explain that one can consistently hold private language and yet uphold Wittgenstein’s arguments against private language as much as one may be a religious man and yet an atheist.
How is private language nonsense?
Private language is a language private to a subject in the sense that nothing meant through it by the subject has the chance of being understood by any one other than the subject. As the subject can understand many languages other than his private language, what is important about a private language is not that the subject himself can understand the language, but that others cannot understand. An utterance that no one can ever understand, notwithstanding that the subject does or does not understand, is normally termed as “Nonsense”. I take private language for nonsense only in this sense. Wittgenstein does count private language nonsense but out of his account, a case for the no use of private language is quite prevalent among his followers. Of course, for him, not only can others not understand my private language, but also it makes no sense to say that anybody can ever have such a language. However, from Nonsense—that it makes no sense to have such a language and that the language itself is nonsense—it does not follow that it is Useless. I try to explain that private language is useful although it is Nonsense; it is a Useful Nonsense.
A code language invented by one for one’s own use is not a private language insofar as it can be translated to a public language. Nor is dreaming a private language since others can understand when the subject reports what (s)he dreamt of. We may characterize a private language in terms of “use”, the key concept of later Wittgensteinian theory of meaning. It is a language that none other than the subject himself/herself can use. For meaning is in “use”, private meaning is in private “use”; if one can establish the possibility of private “use”, hence, of private meaning, one can establish the possibility of private language even in a Wittgensteinian framework. In his refutation of private language, Wittgenstein claims that private “use” is a futile exercise. This is explicit in his analogy of the Private Diary User in Wittgenstein (1953, Sect. 258). The private diary user is supposed to have an extraordinary code language on his sensation, S, that cannot be translated to a public language. The user of such a language has nothing to ensure that (s)he uses her/his code correctly except that (s)he is just under an impression that (s)he is rightly using the code.
We can formulate an argument for how Wittgenstein establishes that private language is nonsense? For him, meaning is in “use”. No sentence means anything by itself, only when a human being uses the sentence, (s)he means something through the sentence. Secondly, “use” of language is rule-governed, not arbitrary. That is why we cannot use a language unless we have learnt the rules governing the use of language, that is, unless we undergo a sort of training for rule following. Third, this phenomenon of rule following makes no sense unless there is a criterion to distinguish right rule following from wrong rule following. Finally, the said criterion has no sense of becoming private. For, employing the analogy of the Private Diary User, we know that a private criterion would completely defeat the distinction between right and wrong; it would defeat the purpose of its employment. Whatever would seem to the subject correct would become correct, if we accept the intelligibility of a private criterion. Thus, insofar as private criterion makes no sense, we cannot make sense of a private language.
For Wittgenstein, private knowledge of one’s own pain is nonsense too. This private pain is like an unintelligible report of a dream. It is supposed to be experienced and reported by a subject through a sentence like “I am in pain” but the utterance is unintelligible to others in the sense that what exactly the subject knows or understands in experiencing that pain is not at all understood by others. Wittgenstein (1953, Sect. 246) argues that an assertion like “I know that I am in pain” is both wrong and nonsense. It is wrong because others do often understand when I am in pain. It is nonsense because its negation, namely “I do not know that I am in pain” makes no sense.
One may argue that if there is a private entity—soul, mind, spirit or self—a language that talks about private entities cannot be public. In other words, if my act of referring to an entity that no one else can refer to is accomplished through a language, then the language is private, not public. Without introducing private entities, one may argue for private language in terms of private rules: that a language governed by private rules is certainly a private language and that one may invent one’s private rules. Corresponding to these two arguments, we can find two prominent themes core to Wittgenstein’s rejection of private language: one, no entity is relevant for meaning, if at all there is any that a private language talks about; two, as a rule-governed activity, no language can sensibly be called a private language. With respect to the former, we have two sections: Sect. 4 to show how mind as a private entity is irrelevant for meaning and Sect. 5 to explain that mind is nonsense but useful. With respect to the theme from the rule-governed aspect of language, we have already shown, in this section, how Wittgenstein considers private language nonsense on the ground that private rule following is ultimately nonsense. Now, in the next section on the autonomy of a game, we would find how we could interpret the same nonsense based on private rules as a useful nonsense.
The autonomy of a game
In cricket, a batsman and the team earn four runs if the ball after hitting his bat crosses the boundary. In chess, the bishop moves diagonally. In arithmetic, it is 2+2=4. Neither it requires nor do we demand any justification for why that is a four, why the bishop moves diagonally, why 2 plus 2 is 4. If the rule of addition is followed, then it is 2+2=4; if 2+2≠4 then the rule of addition has not been followed. If the rule of chess has been followed, the bishop is moved diagonally; if it is not moved diagonally, the rule of chess has not been followed. If the rule of cricket has been followed, that ball crossing the boundary is a four; if that is not a four then the rule of cricket has not been followed. Even if God plays chess in accordance to the rules of chess, He has to move the bishop diagonally. If He follows the rule of addition, He has to answer 4 to what is 2+2? He has no other choice.Footnote 2 In other words, “even God can determine something mathematical only by mathematics” (Wittgenstein 1978, VII-41), can play chess or cricket only in accordance to the rules of chess or cricket. The autonomy of a game beats God! In a sense, no game is under the control of God!! He has no option but to play a game in accordance with the rules of the game, if at all He is playing the game.
We may extend the above understanding of game to illocutionary acts qua language-games and say that if God promises to do A, God undertakes an obligation to do A. In making a promise, I undertake an obligation; there is no question of why I undertake an obligation in making a promise. A promise counts as an undertaking of an obligation. In thanking you, I am expressing my gratitude or appreciation; in requesting you to do A, I am attempting to get you to do A. It makes no sense to ask why I express my gratitude or appreciation in thanking, why I attempt to get you do A in requesting you to do A.Footnote 3
Why is a game autonomous, be it chess, cricket, arithmetic or illocutionary act? It is because the constitutive rules of a game are unquestionable and change of constitutive rules alters a game. Distinguished from the regulative rules, the constitutive rules constitute the game. A particular game ceases to be that particular game, if the constitutive rules are not adhered to. It is no more chess if the bishop moves along the axis, if it is not a checkmate when no possible legitimate move is left to defend against an attack on the opponent’s King. Suppose, in a society, people play chess only in the night. This playing of chess in the night only is a regulative rule; violation of this rule does not amount to playing a game different from chess. “Left should be kept”, for example, is a regulative rule of walking on the road. We do walk on the road even if we walk on the right hand side of the road.
Why do we not play a game without its constitutive rules? The simple answer is that the play of a game without constitutive rules does not start at all. In other words, every play of a game has its beginning and, prior to the beginning, certain rules of the game are implicitly or explicitly accepted without question. Of course we do observe that rules of every game more or less change. But, as long as the game is not changed to some other game, we can find the constitutive rules. If all the constitutive rules of cricket are changed—e.g. instead of bowling throwing is allowed; instead of running between the wickets, running around the field is demanded; instead of batting, kicking is demanded—it is no more cricket but some other game. Nevertheless, it is a game, though not cricket, if it is played in accordance with the set of changed constitutive rules. Whatsoever name you give to that game, the game presupposes that a set of unquestionable rules constitutes the game and, in order to start the game, we do accept those rules without questioning their validity. Agreeing to play a game is to agree to abide by the constitutive rules of the game.
No rule of a game changes in the middle of a play of the game, though rules of a game do change in course of time. Prior to every actual play of a game, the rules are, in principle, fixed. On the other hand, in principle, no rule of a game is immune to revision. For example, in 2004, it is not a game of ODI cricket if “substitution” is allowed; whereas, today, it is not a game of ODI cricket if “substitution” is not allowed. In other words, today’s violation of a constitutive rule could be yesterday’s acceptance. This is possible because yesterday’s actual play of the game is different from today’s actual play of the game, and prior to the actual play of the game under the same name, the rules are already fixed. When one set of fixed rules prevents “substitution” the other allows it in cricket. What is significant in such alterations in the constitutive rules of a particular game is the social agreement.
No game starts without an unquestionable acceptance of a set of rules and that very set of rules does constitute the game. This idea is significant in two ways. One, it explains why we count the change of a constitutive rule as a change of the game to another game, in the face of the fact that in the course of time, some rules of a game do undergo changes and yet the game bears the same name. Such changes in the constitutive rules are brought about through a social agreement with respect to that particular game. For example, after the bodyline series, fielding more than two fielders on the leg side was forbidden. Second, it brings the “game” closer to the “form of life”.
To make out the closeness between “game” and “form of life”, consider our everyday form of life a game. In our everyday form of life, we do not doubt or verify whether we have two feet before we get up from a chair. This is how we get up from a chair, without verifying whether we have two feet.Footnote 4 Insofar as the truth of such beliefs like you have two feet, two hands, and that the earth, trees, animals, books, tables and so on exist are not questioned in our everyday life, statements corresponding to such beliefs act like the constitutive rules of our “form of life”—a game that we play. We may call it the “Everyday Game”. If we propose that the belief at the “bed rock” of a form of life are the constitutive rules of a corresponding game we play, what facilitates this proposal is the blind acceptance of the bed rock sentences and that of the constitutive rules.
The autonomy of a game suggests that one game’s autonomy does not curtail another game’s autonomy. On the contrary, every game has its autonomy insofar as every game consists of its constitutive rules. Hence, if public language is a game with its own autonomy, private language is also a game with equal autonomy of its own. If the constitutive rules of a private language are private by nature, we cannot ask why such rules are private. If a language user cannot demonstrate that (s)he is rightly following a rule, we cannot ask why (s)he is following a rule if it cannot be demonstrated that (s)he is following it rightly or wrongly. We cannot ask why the rule following is called a rule following even if a right rule following cannot be publicly distinguished from a wrong rule following. To ask these questions is to interfere into the autonomy of a private language. This does not mean that we are having a good grasp of private language; nor is it an attempt to negate the nonsense character of a private language. The point is even if we do make no sense of private language, this is not a sufficient ground to reject the autonomy of that language.
A contradiction makes no sense but if we are playing a game of contradictions, say, the game of noting down as many contradictory statements as we can within 10 min, we do not ask why we do write so many nonsensical statements? In constructing a proof by employing the method of Reductio Ad Absurdum, we do mention an explicit contradiction as to follow if the conclusion is false. We cannot ask why we do mention a nonsense qua contradiction. If you are seriously playing a game of collecting impressions on Mr. so and so, and ask me my impression on the conduct of Mr. so and so, whatever I actually state as to be my impression is my impression. Why cannot it be otherwise? This question does not arise. For, if this question is valid, then you are not actually playing the game of collecting impressions. It is true that the Private Diary User’s own impression that (s)he is rightly identifying the peculiar sensation (s)he experiences every time is her/his last resort. To ask why we accept an impression as to be determining that (s)he is actually right in identifying the sensation is to question the autonomy of the game of private determination of private sensations.
If private language has its own autonomy, one may engage oneself in using that language, even if from a public language point of view the private language is nonsense. It is not difficult to imagine a private language that we may use without making it an ordinary public language of everyday life. In religious language, we do use ordinary terms like “know” (e.g. God knows everything); “good” (e.g. God is good); “death” (e.g. There is life after death) and so on but without making the statements ordinary, those are religious statements rather than some ordinary statements about the facts of this world. Similarly, if we accept some private entities in our private language as much as we accept some religious entities in religious language, we can use some ordinary terms of public language about facts but without making the language public. As the meaning of “good”, “know” and “death” changes from what it means in statements of facts to what it means in statements about religious entities, so also any expression’s meaning in the context of privacy would be different from its meaning in the context of factual statements.
Mind is irrelevant for meaning
Wittgenstein’s analogy of the Beetle-Box (see Wittgenstein 1953, Sect. 293) is meant to explain how any object alleged to be there corresponding to an expression of sensation is irrelevant.Footnote 5 Imagine that each one of us owns a box that none other than the owner of the box can look into. Let there be a beetle in each one’s box and that we use the expression “beetle” in our language. Then, even if there would not have been a beetle in every one’s box we could have used the expression “beetle”. The beetle in my box is irrelevant for my use of the expression “beetle”, hence, for the meaning of “beetle”, even if none but I have the chance of knowing what exactly is there inside my box. By the help of this analogy, one may argue that Mind as an entity is irrelevant for the meaning of “Mind”, hence, for the meaning of any expression designating mental acts like believing, knowing, understanding, interpreting and meaning. However, this is not sufficient for the claim that there exists no mind, nor is it sufficient for that the mental acts are possible without an entity called Mind.
Neither can I mean something to a table nor can the table understand me. Not only can it not understand, it cannot think, believe, assert, know, refute, obey, promise, imagine, argue, prove, infer; nor can it be pleased or displeased, happy or unhappy, comfortable or uncomfortable, anxious or non-anxious, feeling easy or uneasy and so on. In short, the table is devoid of everything we call “mental activity”. Why? The correct answer is not that the table does not have a mindFootnote 6; the correct answer is that the table does not have a human form of life.Footnote 7 We cannot claim that the table does not have a mind because, insofar as mind has no extension, we cannot perceive mind’s existence in any place, hence, not in the table, even if it exists in the table (cf. Wittgenstein 1967, Sects. 129, 130).
Of course, a thing may exist even if we do not perceive it. But if perception is not the basis, on what basis we know that no mind exists in a table. In what way exactly we know mind’s non-existence inside the table. It is exactly the way we know that we have minds. For any object, the way we detect its existence is the way we detect its non-existence. For example, if a tiger’s existence can be certified on the basis of visual perception, its non-existence too can be found through visual perception. Similarly, if the existence of a five-headed man can be thought of or imagined, its non-existence too can be thought of or imagined. What is the method of finding the existence of minds in us as human beings? It is a method of observation. We observe that we can think, assert, believe, argue, imagine and so on; and all these are possible on our part because we participate in a human form of life. None of these mental activities can be attributed to a being bereft of a human form of life, even if every man has a mind.
The significance of “human form of life” in making sense of mental activities may be made out from the difference between a table and a cartoon table. From a cartoon of a crying table, we can understand that the table is crying, but we can never make sense of the crying of an actual table. If we find a cartoon table crying, we find it having a facial expression resembling that of a crying man; it has a sad face with tears rolling down from eyes, an appropriate background, say, a huge load of books on its back and so on. For sure, a picture cannot cry. We can have a picture of a crying object as much as we can imagine a crying dog, a crying table, a crying tree. It is important to note that the picture of a crying object must resemble, in an important way, a picture of a crying man and, we know, the picture of a crying man resembles a crying man. None, animate or inanimate, in reality or in picture, can be understood to be crying if it does not have features resembling that of a crying man. The reason is simple. If “crying” with human pain makes sense only if it is attributed to a human being, any being, living or non-living, can sensibly cry only if the being manages to display some activities that a human being does in crying. The table does not display but the cartoon table does. In displaying those activities, one displays a particular aspect of human form of life. No mental activity can be attributed to a being without a human form of life. If, somehow, a man does not share a human form of life, then to imagine that he is crying means nothing but to imagine that he shares a human form of life though, in actuality, he does not. The same holds good for a tree, a table, a cartoon table and a dog.
The human form of life, not any entity called Mind, is credited with meaning, understanding, thinking, believing, willing, intending, desiring, imagining and so on. Then, why do we think, even if we are mistaken in thinking so, that Mind plays a crucial role in each of these mental activities? Wittgenstein’s reply is that we are trapped by the misleading idea that language, spoken or written, has two parts—the organic part and the inorganic part. Thinking, interpreting, meaning, understanding, etc. are the mental acts; only if such mental acts are somehow there with the dead signs then the dead signs get their life. The organic parts give life to the dead inorganic parts. Since none of these activities are extended, they must be carried through a queer medium, Mind, a non-material medium. Mechanical processes or any process subject to mechanical laws cannot bring about the effects of mental acts. Everything extended is subject to mechanical laws. Hence, mental processes must be due to something non-material, i.e. Mind. Such processes are unique or peculiar. We can think of what is there, we can also think of what is not there. One can wish something that will never happen in this world. That is why Mind seems to be something queer. We can avoid such an understanding of our language as having dead inorganic signs that get life after being connected with some organic parts like interpreting, thinking, meaning or understanding. Replace every mental act by looking at some concrete objects like drawing, painting, models etc. If whatever work those processes can furnish the concrete objects can furnish too, then there is no need of putting forth those processes. For example, a concrete patch of red colour can replace a mental image of a patch of red colour in order to obey the order “bring me a red flower from the garden”. The subject who goes with a mental image of a patch of red colour and finds a flower that matches that image in colour can do the same without having that mental image but a concrete patch of red colour painted on a piece of paper. Such a replacement does not become irrelevant on the ground of practical convenience. Although people do not take a piece of paper in their pockets to recognize a colour, in certain cases, mental images practically become irrelevant. For example, mental image is of no help when we are asked to find the Prussian Blue.
Perhaps, the occult nature of mental processes attracts us to accept them as giving life to the dead signs. Let X1 and X2 be, respectively, the mental image and concrete image of X, and X3 is the sign for X. In our use of X3 to mean something, whatever X1 can furnish, X2 can also furnish. Then, if X2 cannot give life to X3 why should we think that X1 can give life to X3? The only reason we can see is that X1 is occult, X2 is not occult. If somehow we can take X2 for an occult something, we may perhaps say that X2 gives life to X3 and, again, if somehow we can take X1 for not an occult something, but concrete something, then we may say that X1 does not give life to X3.
Mind is absolutely empty but not useless
Nonsense need not be useless. “Nonsense” is a characterization of unintelligible ideas whereas “useless” is that of ideas or objects of no help, in actual situations of life. A physicist’s useful theories, for example, may be unintelligible to me. My computer, for example, is useful to me; the way its hardware works is useful to me but makes no sense to me. The way food gives us energy is useful, though the mechanism of food–energy conversion may not make any sense. As not every intelligible idea (e.g. the idea of a centaur) need be useful to us, so also not every unintelligible idea (e.g. the idea of God) need be useless to us. Even if we subscribe the idea that contradiction makes no sense, contradiction is useful as one of the limits of language, tautology being the other limit.Footnote 8
If “absolutely empty” refers to an emptiness which is neither an actual emptiness nor a possible emptiness, then it refers to an inconceivable emptiness, hence, makes no sense. For example, consider an empty box. We can find an actual emptiness inside as well as outside the box, also the possible emptiness of the space occupied by the limiting box—the box limits the empty space inside and outside the box—by conceiving the absence of the limiting box. It makes no sense to say that the box is absolutely empty besides being empty in the above three ways—actually empty inside, actually empty outside and possibly empty of being not there at all. With respect to any actual or imaginary object in space, we cannot sensibly claim that an object is/is not “absolute empty”. With this sense of “absolute emptiness”, it makes no sense to say that my mind is not absolutely empty, nor does it make sense to say that my mind is inside or identified with absolute emptiness. If my mind is identified with “an object with absolute emptiness”, then it makes no sense to say that I say/sing/write/like/love/wish/will/pray/hate/respect something/somebody from my soul qua an absolute empty mind. Consequently, if private meaning is a sort of meaning akin to what I mean from my soul (an entity in absolute emptiness or identified with absolute emptiness), then private meaning makes no sense. Private language too does not make sense if this language expresses private meanings. In this sense, antara bhasa (the language of the soul) is nonsense.Footnote 9
If I have a soul and I am no more without the soul, it can neither be actually absent nor be possibly absent. Its actual absence means that I am not there. Its possible absence means that something else can replace it or it can be taken away from me as my kidney can be, but nothing can replace it nor can it be taken away from me as long as I am alive. Hence, if I am there, I must be one having a soul. The same may go with “I have a mind”. No argument is made here but the assertion that I am no more without my soul and, with respect to mind, that I am no more without my mind. In accordance with these two assertions, soul and mind are in absolute emptiness. As they cannot be replaced by anything, their absence does not create any possible emptiness, and they do not create any actual emptiness since we find no actual emptiness inside or outside them. Thus, even if they are imaginary entities, their existence makes no sense. We cannot imagine an entity which creates neither an actual emptiness nor a possible emptiness. If they are not imagined to be entities in space, then they cannot be entities in individuals in space. The difficulty of my mind and soul is that both are in me but, at the same time, being absolutely empty, they are not in me. Consequently, as descriptions, “I am no more without my soul” and “I am no more without my mind” make no sense. Any description referring to such an inconceivable soul or mind is meaningless. On the other hand, not only that nothing short of the above two assertions as true can ever enable us to make the soul and mind private entities, but also that the assertions we make using “mind” and “soul” cannot convey the meaning if the two assertions are false. For example, what “I love you from my soul” means with a presupposition that one can live without one’s soul is different from what it means with the presupposition that one cannot live so. In saying “I love you from my soul”, one attempts to convey the latter meaning rather than the former.
Immortality of “I” qua the self may be made out in terms of the above-said “absolute emptiness”. Any entity identified with absolute emptiness is neither actually absent nor possibly absent. If “I” qua the self is either such an entity or an entity invariably associated with such an entity, then the self is never absent; it is immortal. Of course, like the absolute emptiness, such a self can be treated as nonsense. Insofar as metaphysics is concerned, such a self does make sense. It makes no sense in physics; “it is characteristic of physics not to use the[se] words” like “I” (Wittgenstein 1953, Sect. 410). The self, mind, soul or anything of the sort identified with “absolute emptiness” may well be considered as a “metaphysical subject, the limit of the world—not a part of it” (Wittgenstein 1921, 5.641). If you do not accept any world that lacks the approval of physics, you do not accept the reality of such limits, for a limit of that world is not a part of that world.Footnote 10
It all depends on how far one’s world of reality extends to. If it does not go beyond what physics approves of, then soul, mind or self makes no sense. If religion, love, social life do make sense to you as being real, much of the nonsense, including soul, mind and self, becomes quite meaningful and real. Consequently, the language of soul or mind can make sense too. A public language does not approve of the reality of private language, nor does it approve of a religious, aesthetic or ethical language. This is so, and has to be so, insofar as public language cannot meaningfully refer to anything with absolute values whereas private language, religious language, ethical language and aesthetic language are fundamentally meant to refer some value or other in its absolute sense.
That we cannot sensibly talk about something does not mean that we do not or should not talk about that thing. Many a times we talk nonsense, if “mind” and “soul” really do not make any sense, for example, “as a human being, one is nothing without a mind”; “one is no better than a stone if one lacks a mind”; “you are close to my soul” and so on. Even we talk nonsense in religion if “God” does not make any sense. If one is faithful to Wittgenstein, (s)he does not dislike nonsense; one ought to be honest enough to talk nonsense. However, in talking nonsense, we should acknowledge that we are not scientific in the ordinary sense of “scientific”. The so-called unscientific, and thereby the nonsense, is not irrational since “rationality” is not identified with mere “science”.
It should be clear to us that “nonsense” is framework specific. One may consider the example, 8−10=−2, not 10−2=8, makes no sense to an ordinary kid at KG level. The psychological framework developed in the course of his training in arithmetic accepts the reality (though an abstract reality) of +ve integers, not that of −ve integers. In relation to his psychological framework, −2, not 2, is nonsense. Similarly, in relation to the conceptual framework of physical sciences, not in relation to religious frameworks, “God” is nonsense. In the framework of love, not in science, “you are close to my heart” makes sense. In a framework of fiction, not in science, “The man with one thousand hands visited Delhi” makes sense. However, as any nonsense in relation to one framework may make sense in relation to another, we should decide on the acceptability of frameworks so that we can make certain uses of the so-called nonsensical concepts. For example, if “to believe in God means to see that life has meaning”,Footnote 11. “to pray is to think about the meaning of life”,Footnote 12 then practical wisdom demands a decision in favour of the acceptance of religious framework. Insofar as it is our decision that matters and not any objective justification to hold or accept a framework, we can hold a framework desirable to us if its corresponding form of life is so desirable. Of course, some frameworks (e.g. religious framework) are metaphysical schemes and metaphysical schemes may be argued to be incoherent, but the corresponding form of life cannot be argued to be incoherent. As Nielsen (2001, Sect. 148) puts it, “Religions are metaphysical schemes and metaphysical schemes are incoherent, but religions are forms of life and it makes no sense to say of a form of life that it is incoherent”.
We can have a sportive attitude towards life. To accomplish such an attitude, it is important to give our attention to different dimensions of life. If we accept that man’s life is multidimensional, and by caring for more than one dimension we prevent ourselves from surrendering life for just one particular dimension, success and failure in any dimension do not make a man dead. One’s involvement in different dimensions persuades one to take every dimension for a game to play; it tends us to lead a sportive life.
A sportive life does not make the private life public nor does it make public life private, for the two dimensions, public and private, have their respective importance in life as much as both religious life and scientific life. As a religious man, I never give up my faith in God though I have never seen/exhibited God. As a scientific man, I do not worship God to change my two legs into two wheels of a motorbike; I do not give up the belief that the external world exists even if I cannot provide a justification for the existence of the external world. Similarly, belonging to a tradition which, for ethical, religious or whatever reason, gives importance to soul (ātman), conscience (viveka), spirit (ātmā), I cannot undermine the importance of these objects, even if I cannot see/show them. To undermine their importance for the sake of becoming more scientific is as much reproachable as that of practicing animal sacrifices in order to be more religious. It pricks but, to be honest, we are in pursuit of money and power that a scientific, not religious, approach ensures in a world dominated by science, not conscience. Of course, by playing patience with cards, we cannot win the prize money of a football match, but patience should not be devalued as a game for the sake of football; they are two different games.
Conclusion
To put it in a social perspective, if there are different societies as different games, no society is better than the other in as much as no game is better than the other. Further, if “developed society” is identified with “better society”, then there is no developed or undeveloped society. By dropping the standard of measurement, we do not drop a society; no society ceases to exist if we do not work out an account of its development.Footnote 13. This does not mean we are advocating for an indifference or antagonism towards developments in a society. Rather, we indicate the autonomy of a society on par with the autonomy of a game. The autonomy of a society is not in conflict with its development but, in the name of development, we should not try to bring about the extinction of any society as much as, in the name of autonomy, we should not hinder its development. Strictly speaking, development makes sense only in terms of “internal” development, that is, in terms of the satisfaction of rules and conditions internal to the society. Any characterization of a society in terms of good/bad, developed/undeveloped is like turning a blind eye towards the world of facts. It is like playing cricket with a football and golf-stick.
The absurdity of forcing an individual to play a game we like to play goes unnoticed, for our madness for the game we are preoccupied with misleads us to undermine all other games. In failing to notice the insignificance of where we are, we fail to find the significance of wherein others are. Knowledge of one’s own point of view (framework) ensures the knowledge of certain possible points of view (frameworks) that could be equally there to be adopted by others. How can I count my preferred game to be the best possible game in this world? Only if I am unaware of the possibility of different games and their autonomy, I count my preferred game the best possible game.
To conclude, I should say, I am “like a man unhappily in love” if I throw “private language” into dustbin but belong to a tradition in which some of its core ideas are correlated to “private language”. To pick up the private language from the trash I need to recognize its usefulness even if I may have sound reasons to consider it nonsense. Keeping this in mind, I have attempted to show that private language is a useful nonsense. Interpreting private language as a language identified with or belonging to “absolute emptiness” which, in turn, is nonsense and then finding the usefulness of entities identified with absolute emptiness, one can find private language as a useful nonsense.
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)
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Acknowledgements
I sincerely thank Prof. Chinmoy Goswami and Mike Cooley for their comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper.
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Lenka, L. Private language: recognizing a useful nonsense. AI & Soc 21, 14–26 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-006-0040-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-006-0040-y