Private Language Deemed Absurd: Debate on Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein's private language argument in Philosophical Investigations is intimately linked to the rejection of an idea based on an ego without a criterion of identity. The basic question raised here is about the possibility of a person to speak a language which cannot be used for communicating with others. Wittgenstein considers such language to be private in the ordinary sense of the word because of its incapability of access for all, i.e. not shared by the public user of language. The situation emerges because of our failure to understand the composition of language which finally leads us to think about the possibility of a person using words to refer to his /her private thoughts and sensations so that only that person could understand what hel she is saying. On the contrary our expressions should certainly be looked at within the structure of a public language so that they are stated following certain linguistic rules. Therefore there must exist public criteria about the rules of language for resolving the problems "merged once these rules are being conformed. Wittgenstein in his entire philosophical thought shows his enduring hostility to the idea of an individuated, substantive self and thus his philosophical questions are related to questions concerning mind or self. This thesis is widely discussed and it is the later commentators, rather than him, who use the phrase 'private-language argument'. The aim 'of the essay is to map out the central views of Wittgenstein’s 'private language argument' and then raise the debate about it. the distinction between the physical and the mental belongs to different language games but their relation can be acknowledged by saying that sensations are private, but not in a sense in which their privacy is totally divorced from any possible public phenomenon. There is always the possibility of mistaking Wittgenstein for a behaviorist of which he himself was very much aware and tried to oppose this charge against him by declaring "Why should I deny that there is a mental process?" (PI 306) which suggests his view of setting us free from the idea of behaviorism. Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations attempts to generate a therapy against certain deeply embedded but mistaken conjectures to say that the very conception of private language is absurd. The most extensively discussed specific argument of Wittgenstein's from Philosophical Investigations (PI) is perhaps his rejection of the idea of a private language’. Wittgenstein strongly opposes the idea of private language which, in principle, is a language that can talk about one's own inner experiences only.