The Community View

Canfield, John V.

doi:10.2307/2998422

Cited by 47 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…Though he interprets Wittgenstein as making both of these arguments, Fogelin argues that the agreement argument fails. For more on this issue, see Canfield (1996) and Law (2004). 16 An agreement among different language users is one form of independent check; and an independent check is one way to avoid circularity.…”

Section: The Purpose Of Pla and The Strength Of Its Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological investigations: the private language argument and inferences in contemporary cognitive science

Meyers

Waller

2008

Synthese

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Some of the methods for data collection in experimental psychology, as well as many of the inferences from observed behavior or image scanning, are based on the implicit premise that language use can be linked, via the meaning of words, to specific subjective states. Wittgenstein's well known private language argument (PLA), however, calls into question the legitimacy of such inferences. According to a strong interpretation of PLA, all of the elements of a language must be publicly available. Thus the meaning of words is not fixed by reference to our private experiences, and so data from subjective state claims indicates nothing about our subjective experiences. Application of PLA to psychological studies based on descriptions of the experience of orgasm offers support for the strong version of the conclusion of PLA. We show that PLA has deep implications for data collection methods and inferences in experimental psychology. In particular we critique two contemporary research projects in neuroscience: one studying the ability to remember emotionally loaded words and the other studying experience of attraction. Both of these projects attempt to link subjective experiences and thought processes to particular observable brain states. The research methods appeal to (implicit) inferences from linguistic usage to subjective states. Application of PLA will show that such inferences cannot be made because the meaning of a word is not determined by any subjective state of the speaker.Keywords Private language argument · Wittgenstein · Cognitive science · Subjective states · Privacy · Philosophy of language Some of the methods for data collection in experimental psychology, as well as many of the inferences from observed behavior or image scanning, are based on the implicit

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Section: The Purpose Of Pla and The Strength Of Its Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological investigations: the private language argument and inferences in contemporary cognitive science

Meyers

Waller

2008

Synthese

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“…88e–95e; the point has received considerable discussion as the Private Language Argument: Smerud, 1970; Jones, 1971; Kenny, 1971, ch. 10; Cornfield, 1996) and thereby embed it in the normative space of giving and asking for reasons. Communication of concepts is a matter of pragmatic force.…”

Section: Concepts and Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Sankey's Personal Understanding

Mackenzie

2011

Educational Philosophy and Theory

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This paper takes issue with Derek Sankey's: 'Minds, Brains, and Differences in Personal Understanding', Educational Philosophy and Theory, 39 (2007), pp. 543-558 on the questions of the post-pedagogical classroom and the forms of knowledge. I then try to show that a theory of meaning framed in terms of normative pragmatics is better able than the brain science Sankey relies on to account for the concept of a person or self; the central educational concept of personal understanding; the relation between being a person and membership of the species Homo sapiens; the role of mental images in meaningfulness; the functioning of figurative language; and the Gadamerian notion of understanding as constitutive of the self. It is necessary on the way to answer Sankey's criticisms of correctness, a concept on which any normative theory must rely.

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“…The Sophisticated Crusoe "masters" both one-person and some two-person language-games. Canfield (1996), 480. It's not clear, however, that these characters line up with the Crusoe and life-long Crusoe we met earlier.…”

Section: Vitamin Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The debate Canfield sees, then, is very di erent from the debate in which other commentators are engaged. 341 Canfield (1996), 478, 480-481, 484, 485. 342 Canfield (1996 concept to apply.…”

Section: Vitamin Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fated to Pretend?: Culture Crisis and the Fate of the Individual

Ok¹

2000

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The question of this thesis is whether the individual can resolve the problem of culture crisis in her own case. Culture crisis is a historical moment in which our culture leads us to expect a world drastically di erent from the one in which we find ourselves. This thesis will focus on the experience of Generation Y in the fall-out of the 2008 Recession. It will be argued that we need a Wittgensteinian view of language in order to account for the phenomenon of culture crisis. It will be suggested that our individual has to be a Nietzschean individual in order to resolve the problem of culture crisis in her own case. Potential incompatibilities between a Wittgensteinian view of language and the Nietzschean individual will be considered and rejected. It will be concluded that in order to resolve the problem of culture crisis in her own case the individual must change the way she lives.ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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The Community View

Cited by 47 publications

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Psychological investigations: the private language argument and inferences in contemporary cognitive science

Psychological investigations: the private language argument and inferences in contemporary cognitive science

Sankey's Personal Understanding

Fated to Pretend?: Culture Crisis and the Fate of the Individual

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