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On Wittgenstein and Solipsism Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, in Being in Being and Nothingness Nothingness,, that “…Kant and the majority of post-Kantians continue continue to affirm the existence existence of the Other. Other. But they can refer only only to common sense or to our deep-rooted tendencies to justify their affirmation.” 1 The empirical reputability of solipsism can make it as philosophical dead end. But Ludwig Wittgenstein Wittgenstein tired an intensive linguistic analysis on this problem of solipsism. When one accept or reject the idea of solipsism, they are committed to certain ontological stand points. What is solipsism? A solipsist solipsist is the one who in theory has dropped out of the world of other people and common things. If his theory is right, neither the objects of his immediate awareness nor he himself, the subject, can be located in that world or connected with anything located in it. He tries to compensate for any loss by claiming that he lives in a private world. His critics argue that he cannot detach his private world from the common world as if it had some independent basis of its own, and that he cannot conceal its deficiencies by modeling it on the common world. He replies that it is the common world that is, at least, precarious and speculative and, if he is right, does not exist.
The idea of Solipsm, reviewed by Wittgenstein in 3 levels: 2 1. Wittgenstein Wittgenstein takes over an idea of Russell's: the solipsist is setting a limit not only to his knowledge of truths but also to his acquaintance with objects, and so to his language. For the scope of his meaningful discourse is determined by the range of his acquaintance with objects on which it is founded. 2. Unlike Unlike Russell, Russell, he refuses to treat treat solipsism solipsism as a theory which which might be true, true, but which the evidence showed to be more likely to be false. It is, he thinks, a metaphysical theory, theory, an insight which could not really be expressed in factual language. 3. Throughout Throughout his his discussion, discussion, he is concerne concerned d with the effect effect of detaching detaching the the subject of awareness, rather than its objects, from the common world. Now I would like like to quote Wittgenstein Wittgenstein from his collected collected works. Now the man whom we call a solipsist and who says that that only his own experiences experiences are real, real, does not thereby thereby disagree with us about any practical question of fact, he does not say that we are simulating when we complain of pains, he pities pities us as much as as anyone else, and and at the same time he wishes wishes to restrict restrict the use of the the epithet “real” to what we should call his experiences; and perhaps he doesn’t want to call our experiences “experiences” at all. For he would say that it was inconceivable that experiences other than his own were real. 3 1 2 3
Sartre, Sartre, Jean-Paul Jean-Paul.. Being and Nothingnes Nothingness. s. New York, York, NY: NY: Washin Washington gton Square Square Press, Press, 1943. David David Pears Pears "The False False Prison Prison Volume olume One" Univer University sity of Oxford Oxford Wittgen Wittgenstein stein,, Ludwig. Ludwig. The Blue Blue and Brown Books. Books. 2nd ed. New York, NY: NY: Harper & Row, Row, 1960.
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To the solipsist, those who speak of their pains are not lying, and that all external means of verifying their pain (such as their behavior, or their neurological states) will appear to show its existence according to the previous statement by Wittgenstein. The solipsist and the Other which prevents the former from calling the latter’s experiences “real.” What is the cause of this linguistic dichotomy? How does one decide which experiences are “real,” and which are not, or rather, what are the criteria necessary for calling an experience “real”? Analysis of Solipsism: Arguably, from Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein got his interest in solipsism and in the ethical nature of the relation between the will and the world. Schopenhauer’s saying that “The world is my idea,” (from The World as Will and Idea ) is echoed in such remarks as “The world is my world” (from Tractatus 5.62). What Wittgenstein means here, where he also says that what the solipsist means is quite correct, but that it cannot be said, is obscure and controversial. Some have taken him to mean that solipsism is true but for some reason cannot be expressed.
H.O. Mounce, in his Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: An Introduction , says that this interpretation is surely wrong. Mounce’s view is that Wittgenstein holds solipsism itself to be a confusion, but one that sometimes arises when one tries to express the fact that “I have a point of view on the world which is without neighbours.” 4 Wittgenstein was not a solipsist but he remained interested in solipsism and related problems of skepticism throughout his life. The “real/unreal” distinction, the solipsist’s suggestion comes to using such a phrase as “there is a real toothache” instead of “Smith (the solipsist) has a toothache” …The solipsist who says “only I feel real pain”, only I really see (or hear) is not stating an opinion; and that’s why he is so sure of what he says. By formulating his sentence in this way (“there is a real toothache”, rather than “I have a toothache” ) the solipsist is then making a sort of depersonalized ontological assertion, about what it means for a toothache to exist. And it immediately becomes clear what Wittgenstein means when he says that the solipsist is “not stating an opinion.” The primary constituent of a real toothache is pain, and if no pain is felt by the solipsist when the Other complains of a toothache, then how can he say it is a real toothache? There is a clear phenomenal difference between feeling pain, and seeing an object in the visual field (the Other, in this case) displaying behaviors associated with that feeling – if both 4
H.O. Mounce Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: An Introduction (Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1981).
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experiences belong solely to the solipsist in question, then it is clear why he must label the Other’s “pain” as something else entirely. The problem of mind: There are problems for Wittgenstein with the Cartesian dualism of mind. If mind is a property of the individual there exist the problem of solipsism. If mind is not internal, but social, we think with language, which is a social product. Mere thought implicates the "external" world. Descarte's was to assume that there was a private mental space, beyond space and time (eg., culture, history, language). The mind is always already embedded in the "external" world. We think and act with language and values supplied by culture. We are born into a game with a pre-defined set of rules and moves. Think of a mind as a set of ideas, that is, a set of things that manifest pictures. That which these ideas most resemble are themselves. Thus, as per the picture theory, that which these ideas are most about are themselves. This is the sense in which the mind is its world. This is the sense of Wittgensteinís remark at 5.63 that I am my world. (The microcosm.) Picture theory to Solipsism: Our thoughts is a wholly mundane affair for Wittgenstein, intentional properties are not indicative. The bearers of intentional properties are chunks of reality, "facts", just like any other (2.141 The picture is a fact) . In the picture theory, truth is cashed out in pictorial terms. A picturing-fact(possible states of affairs) is true if and only if the possible state of affairs also happens to be actual. What a picturing-fact most represents is that with which it has the most properties in common. Thus, that which it is most accurately about is that with which it has the most properties in common. What a fact most represents is itself, what a fact has the most properties in common with is itself. Thus, that which it is most accurately about is itself. In being about itself, a fact cannot fail to be true of itself. Since the fact is actual, the possible state of affairs that it most resembles is an also actual state of affairs. It could only be false if the possible state of affairs it most represents was non-actual i.e., a nonexistent state of affairs. A fact about itself is necessarily true, it is a tautology. And a fact cannot go beyond itself. [2.173] A picture represents its subject from a position outside it. (Its standpoint is its representational form.) That is why a picture represents its subject correctly or incorrectly.
So the information coming form outside is not necessarily false. This is the the distinction Wittgenstein make about 'showing and saying'. In 5.62 he writes, my world 'shows' itself, not from outside. [4.1212] What can be shown cannot be said.
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In 5.64 Wittgenstein, connects the mind and deriving its identity with its world. And we must begin with realism, that is, we must begin by assuming the existence of the world. But that is not the all fact. As pictures, that which they most represent is themselves. That is, that which the totality of facts most represents is itself. But if a mind just is a collection of ideas, that is, a collection of facts exhibiting pictures, then construing the world, the totality of facts, as manifesting, is to construe it as a mind. Russell writes Wittgenstein's view in the introduction of Tractatus "What Solipsism intends is quite correct, but this cannot be said, it can only be shown" “What solipsism means is quite correct [i.e., that I am all that exists] ”. References From Tractatus: 1. (2.141) The picture is a fact 2. (2.173) A picture represents its subject from a position outside it. (Its standpoint is its representational form.) That is why a picture represents its subject correctly or incorrectly. 3. (5.6) The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. 4. (5.61) We cannot think what we cannot think; so what we cannot think we cannot say either.(Ogden/Ramsey English translation) 5 What we cannot think, that we cannot think: we cannot therefore say what we cannot think. 6(alternate translation by Pears/McGuinness) 5. (5.62 ) This remark provides a key to the question, to what extent solipsism is a truth. In fact what solipsism means, is quite correct, only it cannot be said, but it shows itself. That the world is my world, shows itself in the fact that the limits of the language (the language which only I understand) mean the limits of my world. (of that language which alone I understand) in the alternate translation 6. (5.621) The world and life are one. 7. (5.63) I am my world. (The microcosm.) 8. (5.634)Whatever we see could be other than it is. Whatever we can describe at all could also be otherwise. There is no a priori order of things. 9. (5.64)Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism shrinks to a point with out extension, and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it. 10.(5.641)Thus there really is a sense in which philosophy can talk about the self in a 5 6
Ogden/Ramsey English translation of Tractatus Pears/McGuinness English translation of Tractatus
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non-psychological way. What brings the self into philosophy is the fact that ‘the world is my world’. The philosophical self is not the human being, not the human body, or the human soul, with which psychology deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world—not a part of it. Here we can see the even the translators had taken a different standpoint in the idea of solipsism. I am not a German expert, so the original version is not possible for me to analyze. Answers to the possible questions 1. Is it the denial of the world? No, it is not the denial of the world. But it is the epistemological difficulty of me to be certain about the world. I see the world. And it is certain and predictable at certain extend. But that is not the guarantee of the existence of the world as I see. If I don't have a sense organ to experience the world, is the world the same? I don't think so. If I have a sense organ which others don't have, first the world I see is not the same, second I cannot communicate about the sense I have with others. Can one tell to a born blind what is color red?
2. Is it the denial of the other? No. It is the same like the world. I do see and interact with the other. But does it the convey all of the facts? Are all the humans beings perceive the thing same? There may be a difference. There is no proof. There is a difficulty in understanding the other. There is a difficulty in assuming every human is the same. 3. What is the use of this idea? If we don't see the truth as truth, there is a problem. There is a limitation for the human beings. They live in their own world. One had problem to communicate with the other. What one can communicate is through the common mind(the language). And that is all we can speak about. And that is philosophy. The rest is not speakable. 'One so seldom has the opportunity to meet fellow solipsists.' - David Deutsch, "Fabric of Reality" 7 “Perhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts that are expressed in it—or at least similar thoughts. ” - Wittgenstein in the preface of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 7
David Deutsch, "Fabric of Reality” 1997
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Bibliography 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus London,1922 Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. New York, NY: Washington Square Press, 1943. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. The Blue and Brown Books. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1960. David Pears "The False Prison Volume One" University of Oxford H.O. Mounce Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: An Introduction (Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1981).
