On the existence of external objects
Wittgenstein #14
In Oliver Sacks' book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, there is a chapter devoted to Dr. Sacks' work with Virginia, a patient who suffered from a rare disease that caused her to experience a gradual loss of sense-perception, beginning with the legs and, over a period of time, extending to the whole body. As the disease progressed over the next few months, Virginia was in such a state that Dr. Sacks could show Virginia her own hand and she would be unable to make the connection that it belonged to her. Would either Moore or Wittgenstein use this case of the 'disembodied woman' in support of their view of Moore's proof of an external world?
As I read G.E. Moore's essay, I see a break with the Kantian theory of knowledge: according to Moore, Kant's notion of the empirically external is identical with the phrase "to be met with in space". However, Moore states that in making the proposition 'there are external objects', it does not follow that there are things to be met with in space, for these are two different conceptions. Here Moore is attempting to refute Kant in a 'common-sensical' way. In place of this notion, Moore states that we are entitled to the claim that there exist at least two objects outside us. Both Moore and Kant agree that there can be only one proof for this claim, a proof which Moore claims he can produce in any given number of situations. To prove his claim, Moore simply holds up his hands, indicating the one and then the other, fully confident that "it is impossible to give a more rigorous proof of anything whatever."
However, in his work On Certainty, Wittgenstein pokes fun at this method of proving the existence of external objects. W sees Moore as a confused muddle; he does not believe Moore's proof of external objects is something he is entitled to so easily. The reason why W is skeptical of Moore's claim to have proved the existence of external objects is evident when W states: a) "It is so" cannot be inferred from the utterance of another, yet it is true that b) one can infer "It is so" from one's own statement. When Moore shows his hands, saying, "Here are two hands", what are we to infer from this display? Of course, we can say that he knows those are his hands. What we cannot do, however, is to say that someone knows with absolute certainty, simply on the basis of their saying that they know. But what is the source of Moore's confusion? In my opinion, the reason for this confusion is that Moore is caught between two philosophical language-games: that is, the language game in which he is a subject, receiving sense-date in his internal world, and the language-game in which his hands are an object of the external world. When I read On Certainty, it seems to me that W wants to show how the language-game Moore is working in is insufficient to offer the proofs he is trying to make.
In Wittgenstein's view, for a proposition to be an 'empirical' proposition, it must be the case that its contrary is also a sensible statement. That is, it is necessary that this proposition can be regarded as either true or false. However, there are occasions when the contrary of a proposition, rather than being false, is unintelligible. Thus, W calls Moore's statement that "there are my two hands" a logically invalid assertion because, in order to refute Moore's curious propositions one would be forced to make statements of an unintelligible nature. Here we can see clearly what W means when he says that if we were to encounter a person who took a position opposing Moore's proof, saying "These are not my two own hands", we ought to regard this person as demented.
But why "demented" ? What do we mean when we say that a mental disturbance has manifested itself in one's thinking? Put simply, a mental disturbance in our thinking occurs when we believe a proposition which runs counter to 'all that we hold to be true'. For this kind of disturbance to be utterable, it must be the case that the person to whom the message is addressed must also possess a similarly 'mentally-disturbed' thinking-structure as the utterer.
Now to return to our first example: if, after being shown her own hand, Virginia responds to the doctor, "That is not my hand", what, then, would Moore/Wittgenstein say? Certainly, this would be an example of the contrary position of Moore's proof of an external world. Is this, then, an unintelligible statement simple because it opposes Moore's self-evident proof? If it is, should we then consider this woman to be suffering from dementia? I imagine that both W and Moore would say that, in this case, because of the nature of the disease, they do not intend their propositions to hold. Probably, they would dismiss this case as an anomaly. While our hero, Wittgenstein, proved to be faulty in this situation, we can forgive him for this, as he was unfamiliar with the type of nerve degeneration which caused Virginia to become so dissociated from her own body that she was unable to recognize her own hands held before her face.
12.04.1994
In Oliver Sacks' book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, there is a chapter devoted to Dr. Sacks' work with Virginia, a patient who suffered from a rare disease that caused her to experience a gradual loss of sense-perception, beginning with the legs and, over a period of time, extending to the whole body. As the disease progressed over the next few months, Virginia was in such a state that Dr. Sacks could show Virginia her own hand and she would be unable to make the connection that it belonged to her. Would either Moore or Wittgenstein use this case of the 'disembodied woman' in support of their view of Moore's proof of an external world?
As I read G.E. Moore's essay, I see a break with the Kantian theory of knowledge: according to Moore, Kant's notion of the empirically external is identical with the phrase "to be met with in space". However, Moore states that in making the proposition 'there are external objects', it does not follow that there are things to be met with in space, for these are two different conceptions. Here Moore is attempting to refute Kant in a 'common-sensical' way. In place of this notion, Moore states that we are entitled to the claim that there exist at least two objects outside us. Both Moore and Kant agree that there can be only one proof for this claim, a proof which Moore claims he can produce in any given number of situations. To prove his claim, Moore simply holds up his hands, indicating the one and then the other, fully confident that "it is impossible to give a more rigorous proof of anything whatever."
However, in his work On Certainty, Wittgenstein pokes fun at this method of proving the existence of external objects. W sees Moore as a confused muddle; he does not believe Moore's proof of external objects is something he is entitled to so easily. The reason why W is skeptical of Moore's claim to have proved the existence of external objects is evident when W states: a) "It is so" cannot be inferred from the utterance of another, yet it is true that b) one can infer "It is so" from one's own statement. When Moore shows his hands, saying, "Here are two hands", what are we to infer from this display? Of course, we can say that he knows those are his hands. What we cannot do, however, is to say that someone knows with absolute certainty, simply on the basis of their saying that they know. But what is the source of Moore's confusion? In my opinion, the reason for this confusion is that Moore is caught between two philosophical language-games: that is, the language game in which he is a subject, receiving sense-date in his internal world, and the language-game in which his hands are an object of the external world. When I read On Certainty, it seems to me that W wants to show how the language-game Moore is working in is insufficient to offer the proofs he is trying to make.
In Wittgenstein's view, for a proposition to be an 'empirical' proposition, it must be the case that its contrary is also a sensible statement. That is, it is necessary that this proposition can be regarded as either true or false. However, there are occasions when the contrary of a proposition, rather than being false, is unintelligible. Thus, W calls Moore's statement that "there are my two hands" a logically invalid assertion because, in order to refute Moore's curious propositions one would be forced to make statements of an unintelligible nature. Here we can see clearly what W means when he says that if we were to encounter a person who took a position opposing Moore's proof, saying "These are not my two own hands", we ought to regard this person as demented.
But why "demented" ? What do we mean when we say that a mental disturbance has manifested itself in one's thinking? Put simply, a mental disturbance in our thinking occurs when we believe a proposition which runs counter to 'all that we hold to be true'. For this kind of disturbance to be utterable, it must be the case that the person to whom the message is addressed must also possess a similarly 'mentally-disturbed' thinking-structure as the utterer.
Now to return to our first example: if, after being shown her own hand, Virginia responds to the doctor, "That is not my hand", what, then, would Moore/Wittgenstein say? Certainly, this would be an example of the contrary position of Moore's proof of an external world. Is this, then, an unintelligible statement simple because it opposes Moore's self-evident proof? If it is, should we then consider this woman to be suffering from dementia? I imagine that both W and Moore would say that, in this case, because of the nature of the disease, they do not intend their propositions to hold. Probably, they would dismiss this case as an anomaly. While our hero, Wittgenstein, proved to be faulty in this situation, we can forgive him for this, as he was unfamiliar with the type of nerve degeneration which caused Virginia to become so dissociated from her own body that she was unable to recognize her own hands held before her face.
12.04.1994
posted by Andrew B. Noselli at 7:47 AM
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