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Could the beetle in the box not play any role in our…?Or will the similar neurological constituents and the same physical input provide some supports to the "pain",in a (Kantian) way that each person has her own sense perception but is similar to each other,or at least has the same scheme?

AnduinWilde
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    See the [Private Language Argument](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/private-language/#OveWitArgInt) – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Jan 21 '20 at 14:37
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    Phenomenologists (and continental philosophers of language more broadly) often defend some form of private language, see e.g. [Solomon, Husserl's Private Language](https://www.jstor.org/stable/43155004). Azzouni finds a certain "loophole" in the private language argument in [The Rule-Following Paradox and the Impossibility of Private Rule-Following](https://newprairiepress.org/biyclc/vol5/iss1/1/). – Conifold Jan 21 '20 at 20:47
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    The underlying problem you should consider here is "what is language?". If it is communication with symbols about the world, it needs at least two individuals which agree on proper symbol use by definition. The SEP article does a decent job at identifying the main lines of thought culminating in the rejection of the idea of a private language. – Philip Klöcking Jan 21 '20 at 22:15
  • Yeah.actually I've read some of it. But as one may see,person sometimes speak with herself(As platitude"man is complex"),and it may be not principally public? – AnduinWilde Jan 22 '20 at 05:11
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    Well, of course there is such a thing as thought and inner speech. But as Sellars argued later as well: The *language* that is used here did and indeed **has to** develop in social context with practical reference to the world. If we are sufficiently adept as a language user, we might become able to develop derivative uses and construct "our own" way to understand and describe things, but arguably, Wittgenstein would say that all the derivative uses of language are what creates nonsense and philosophical "problems" in the first place. – Philip Klöcking Jan 22 '20 at 10:12
  • En. If the "private language" means "Not to be learned by others in principle " and the "language" means "public communicable".It sufficiently leads to that "there's no private language",but I'm confused why Wittgenstein could not speak in a direct way? – AnduinWilde Jan 23 '20 at 14:52
  • How could I convince you if I had a private language? The problem is that the use of PL is internal to the experience of your own mind: not everyone need have a notion of _internal_ communication. – christo183 Jan 24 '20 at 08:20
  • Isn't Chomsky's idea of an innate proto-language, an example? – CriglCragl Mar 27 '21 at 19:08
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    See Jerry Fodor's [LOTH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_thought_hypothesis): *Some philosophers reject the LOTH, arguing that our public language is our mental language—a person who speaks English thinks in English. But others contend that complex thought is present even in those who do not possess a public language (e.g. babies, aphasics, and even higher-order primates), and therefore some form of mentalese must be innate.* – Double Knot Dec 21 '21 at 23:11
  • @Conifold I find the private language argument useful and also phenomenology useful as well. If indeed there is a conflict between the two and not both can be correct, who wins? Or maybe there is no conflict..? – Nikos M. Dec 17 '22 at 10:29
  • @DoubleKnot if some mental language is innate, why this means that it is private instead of simply being a shared feature among humans? – Nikos M. Dec 18 '22 at 05:14
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    What is it that's *impossible* for a *private language user*? An obvious answer is oft mentioned - *cross-checking* to confirm/disconfirm the *meaning of a word* with the help of *other people*! The only person I can then turn to to carry out this essential linguistic activity is *me, myself* but the problem is I'm doing it because I don't know - how can I know what I don't know? A *private language* is a linguistic dead-end! – Agent Smith Dec 18 '22 at 16:46
  • @NikosM. perhaps this feature is too hard and secretive to measure and share, much harder and complicated than one’s blood type… – Double Knot Dec 19 '22 at 16:33

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I think the obvious answer is no. But one could perhaps stretch the definition of language a bit and think of interesting workarounds.

We know that writing is a system of conventions that makes material "imprints" of spoken languages. Written language will "die" once it loses any remaining link to spoken languages and the "breath of life." It can never again be translated or understood unless some Rosetta Stone is discovered to administer an "artificial resuscitation" via a known spoken language. Of course, one would not call this a "private" language but a "dead" language.

But now let's imagine the famous operator inside Searle's Chinese Room. In this case a written language is in effect "imprinted" upon her living behavior. She caries out the operations of Chinese communications without understanding it at all. (And let's assume that her original instructions are in a recently extinct language or simply long since memorized.)Does her behavior then constitute a gestural interpretation of Chinese that might itself be called a language? One that follows linguistic operations "inside" a public language and conveys an understanding or "how-to", but is not comprehensible to anyone else and is hence "private."

An even simpler case would be the last speaker of an extinct language, not at all a fantastical scenario. For an interval, at least, it is still operating though only in a single mind. One might call this its withdrawal into privacy. In other words, there may be grey areas "before and after" the emergence of a language into its living social matrix. I am not at all convinced by my own arguments here, but I'll go ahead and post while I think about it.

Nelson Alexander
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Are there some kinds of arguments in defense of Private Language?

Well consider the case of a space where all speech acts are public.

Q. How then can one carry out a private conversation?

Because its due to conversations being private that one can plan to ones advantage, and to the disadvantage of others (and in this case, mostly to others; in the sense, the others are more numerous).

Well, in such a public space, one invents a private language. That looks like the public language, but is so coded that one knows what is being said. If you have some physics knowledge, think of a communication signal being overlayed on a carrier wave.

Note however, the advantage is accrued wholly to the private group, who are in charge of the private language. Thus, if you are publicly minded, you might think this is no advantage at all; and in fact, a disadvantage.

So I came to praise private language, and in fact, it seems I have buried it...!

Mozibur Ullah
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    For the Private Language Argument, private means accessible only to the individual, like the beetle-in-a-box. It is about challenging the basis of 'a priori', direct private knowing & conceptualising, rather than just using code for public words already developed by a community and the conceptualisations from interactions in modes of life. As I understand it. Which would make your post entirely on the wrong track. – CriglCragl Mar 27 '21 at 19:03
  • @CriglCragl: Well, the question doesn't make much sense. For example he refers to "pain" without saying why brings that in. And he refers to Kant without also saying why this is relevant. Thus I chose to interpret the question as I saw fit. – Mozibur Ullah Apr 24 '22 at 03:54
  • Wittgenstein goes into some depth about pain, as a it is key to how he establishes what we now call the Private Language Argument. For Kant, I would assume the Categorical Imperative, that universalises individual experiences - it is his most famous idea (although I guess could relate to transcendental idealist perspective I guess, that would be a typical meaning given to 'Kantian') – CriglCragl Apr 24 '22 at 12:09
  • @CriglCragl: The point I'm making is that the question, as it stamds, is incoherent. This is something that you implicitly acknowledge because you "assume" his reference to Kant is to his categorical imperative. We shouldn't need to assume what an OP is asking about wjen the question is clear. It is not. Descartes already had demonstrated that we cannot deny mental experiences. So what W had said abput pain was already said by D. Ah, actually, that was Al-Ghazali. – Mozibur Ullah Apr 25 '22 at 13:48
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Wittgenstein's "beetle in a box" argument is easily seen to be incorrect, simply by our successful operation of internal dialog and reasoning processes, and that we succeed with both even as prelingual toddlers. His presumption that we would no longer be able to reason or think to ourselves, if the rest of humanity died out and we could no longer confirm word meanings with an external community, is implausible in the extreme.

Dcleve
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  • Of course there is still the language even if there's only one person left.But if there is only one man embryologically,it seems no language can be developed in. One can talk with herself,but if the thought is expressed by words,it's not "Not to be learned by others in principle" in some's opinion,hence it's not a kind of private language(if the private language means that). – AnduinWilde Jan 23 '20 at 15:02
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    @AnduinWilde I believe that Wittgenstein's argument holds that there can be NO private language without external definitional reference checks, hence one person cannot have language, as language cannot be private. This is what I cited evidence to refute -- as we operate with private "mentalism" starting from before we are lingual, and throughout life. And even the formal language we use internally is not checked against external definitions, as full syntax and definitions and assumption sharing CANNOT be done, because our external throughput is grossly less than our internal throughput. – Dcleve Jan 23 '20 at 18:33
  • Note most of the replies to your question include this claim -- asserting that language requires external communicability. My test cases refute these claims about language. – Dcleve Jan 23 '20 at 18:35
  • That is definitely not what Wittgenstein asserts in Investigations. – ChristopherE Jan 25 '20 at 23:34
  • @ChristopherE Philosophers appear to be radically in disagreement with each other about what Wittgenstein said or meant. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/private-language/#OveWitArgInt I have refuted one interpretation of W, which seems to be the one which most posters here consider to be the "beetle in a box" argument. – Dcleve Jan 25 '20 at 23:40
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    @Dcleve: You seem to be asserting that pre-lingual toddlers would spontaneously develop language even if deprived of all human contact, which flies in the face of language deprivation case studies, which show that children with restricted human contact often find it impossible to develop proper language mastery later. Think about Helen Keller, who lived an effectively animalistic existence until someone went out of their way to create a linguistic bridge. She did not have a 'private language' which she used prior to learning to communicate with another. – Ted Wrigley Feb 21 '20 at 21:41
  • @TedWrigley -- pre-lingual toddlers are able to reason, as are aphasic patients. This is a "mentalese", which is different in character from linguistic thought. That language learning basically requires hearing language is not surprising. But that one can think in that language after we learn it -- no we don't need the rest of us to be around to do that. W is wrong, we do have a beetle in each of our own private boxes. – Dcleve Feb 22 '20 at 02:06
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    @Dcleve: cats and dogs and birds can reason as well: does this imply they have private language? I don't believe that Wittgenstein suggested we couldn't *think* without language — in fact, language game #2 involves two people trying to complete a cooperative task and developing language as a result, which implies that task-solving precedes language — merely that language itself had no sense or meaning outside of cooperative, communal activity. – Ted Wrigley Feb 22 '20 at 02:17
  • @TedWrigley To do our own mentalese, we have symbol structure, and an operant system. Aphasiac patients who recover describe the way they thought while aphasiac as reasoning, and images, and kind of concepts. I think one should assume animals would be very similar. Is this kind of mentalese a language? It would be under W's simple point/name description of language. And it requires remembering what a symbol or an operant means oneself without outside referent, which is what he claimed was impossible for a private language. Other more sophisticated language theorists would probably say no – Dcleve Feb 22 '20 at 14:14
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    @Dcleve: Aphasiacs are a problematic case, since they (assumedly) have a multitude of elements of their previous linguistic ability to draw on. The mere fact that they recovered and speak again (without a laborious, years-long effort to relearn speech from the ground up) implies that. And your assumption that 'pointing' implies 'naming' (and thus symbolic representation) is unfounded. You should read GH Mead's social psychology. – Ted Wrigley Feb 22 '20 at 14:55
  • @TedWrigley -- W used a "point and name" approach to language in his argument against private language. I have cited multiple evidences that use that approach and refute his reasoning and claim. Your reply appears to reject the trustworthiness of any evidence, and reject W's own language concept. Your dismissal of relevant evidence just looks like rationalizing, all evidence is always suspect, that is empiricism. And if GH Mead has a better argument against private language than W did, I consider that a different question than the one I am addressing, which is the falsity of W's argument. – Dcleve Feb 22 '20 at 16:40
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/104788/discussion-between-ted-wrigley-and-dcleve). – Ted Wrigley Feb 22 '20 at 18:23
  • What about children raised by wolves, who if they don't learn language by age 11 or so never can. – CriglCragl Mar 27 '21 at 19:04
  • @CriglCragl -- I am using the term language as W used it -- children raised by wolves are able to identify individuals, and respond to them consistently. Per his definition, that is language usage (point/name -- recall name/concept later for valid logic operation). These children, who while not being able to learn a spoken external language, but can performing the internal operations that satisfy the functions that W defines language as -- is if anything more evidence that we do have beetles in our boxes. – Dcleve Mar 28 '21 at 14:54