Aystefbirth Biock To! !10 Notes for Lectures on "Private Experience" and "Sense Data" 201

aystefbirth biock to! !10 Notes for Lectures on "Private Experience" and "Sense Data" 201 not been systematically included. Editorial conjectures and expansions (occasionally nontrivial) of Wittgenstein's abbreviations are indicated by means ofsquare brackets. 2 DAVID G . STERN This is a revised and expanded version of material previously edited by Rush Rhees. The notes are undated, but Rhees thinks they were begun in late 1934 or early 1935 and finished in March 1936; von Wright's catalogue dates the f rst notebook to 1934-5 and the last to 1936 . They must have been prepared in connection with the lectures on the same topics that Wittgenstein gave during 1935-6 . Although he did not lec- ture from notes, "what he said was both a revision and discussion of what he had thought and written in preparing "' This edition consists ofa much fuller transcription of Wittgenstein's discussion of sense data and private language in the three manuscript notebooks that Rhees used (MSS 148, 149, and 151) . Rhees omitted nearly half of the source material, dropping sentences, paragraphs, and lengthy passages without any indication ofthe breaks. This not only left out much material that is interesting in its own right, it also made it impossible to follow Wittgenstein's train of thought. In an appendix at the end oj'this volume is a list of the new and substantially revised paragraphs in this edition. Like Rhees, I have left out two lengthy discussions of the philosophy of mathematics that are clearly separated from the rest ofthe text in the manuscripts ; the location ofthese passages is indicated by means offootnotes in the body ofthe text. Wittgenstein alternated between English and German when writing these notes. Translations of the German passages have been supplied in the main body ofthe text, with the German original in footnotes . Like Rhees, / have not indicated the places where Wittgenstein's spell- ing has been corrected, and I have inserted additional punctuation, es- pecially commas, question marks, and quotation marks, where they seemed to be needed, though I have not been quite as liberal as he was . While I have included Wittgenstein's alternate drafts ofa single passage when they seemed to be of interest, many purely stylistic variants have been omitted. Similarly, while deletions, marginalia, and diagrams in 2. The transcription and additional translations were originally produced in the text are referred to where they seem particularly relevant, they have 1984 from a microfilm of the Wittgenstein papers at the University of Cal- ;' The Philosophical Review, 1968, p . 272. ifornia, Berkeley, and revised in 1992, using the microfilm at the University I . Rhees's "Note on the Text of Iowa. I would like to thank Guenter Zoeller for checking my transcription Rhees's note contains further discussion of the source of these notes and the and translation of . the German text and Kathleen Schmidt for helping me context in which they were composed check the transcription against the microfilm. 200 Notes for Lectures on "Private Experience"and "Sense Data" 203 Notes for Lectures on We say 'making this gesture isn't all'. The first answer is : We are talking about the experience of making this gesture . Secondly: it is "Private Experience" and true that different experiences can be described by the same gesture ; but not in the sense that one is the pure one and the others con- "Sense Data" sist . What's it like to at one time notice /hear/ the particular timbre of a sound and at another time hear just the sound as such?2 The experience of fright appears (when we philosophize) to be an "I call this impression 'blue" .3 amorphous experience behind the experience of starting. How, then, can one describe the exact experience in 'Poets' etc .?4 All I want to say is that it is misleading to say that the word "fright" The philosophical problem is : "What is it that puzzles me about signifies something which goes along with the experience of express- /in/ this matter?" ing fright . To give names is to label things; but how does one label impres- sions? There is here again the queer case of a difference between what we say, when we actually try to see what happens, and what we say when The eye and the world .5 we think about it (giving over the reins to language) . The masculine a and the feminine a 6 The "far away" look, the dreamy voice, seem to be only means for Some things can be said about the /particular/ determinate experi- conveying the real inner feeling. ence and besides this there seems to be something, the most essential part of it, which cannot be described .7 "Therefore there must be something else" means nothing unless it expresses a resolution to use a certain mode of expression. We say here that a name is given to a particular impression . And this is strange and problematic. For it seems as though the impression were Suppose you tried to separate the feeling which music gives you something too ethereal to be named . (Marrying a woman's wealth.)s from hearing music. 2. Wie ist es, wenn man einmal die besondere Klangfarbe eines Tones merkt /hbrV and anderemal nur den Kiang als solchen? Say and mean "long, long ago-", "gang ist es her-" and now put 3 . „Ich nenne diesen Eindruck ,blau"' . instead of these words new ones with many more syllables and try if 4. Wie kann man denn die genaue Erfahrung in Poeta' etc . beschreiben? you can ]to] put the same meaning into the words . Put instead of the 5. Das Auge and die Welt. copula a very long word say "Kalamazoo" . 6. Das mannliche a and das weibliche a 7. Es IaOt sich Ober die besondere /bestimmte/ Erfahrung einiges sagen and Puella, Poeta I "'Masculine' and 'feminine' feeling" 'attached' to a aullerdem scheint es etwas, and zwar das Wesentlichste, zu geben, was sich nicht beschreiben IaBt. Aren't there two (or more) ways to any event I might describe? 8. Man sags hier, daB ein bestimmter Eindruck benannt wird . Und darin liegt etwas seltsames and problematisches . Deno es ist als ware der Eindruck 1 . These are the Latin words for "girl" (a feminine noun) and "poet" (a etwas zu atherisches um ihn zu benennen. (Den Reichtum einer Frau heira- masculine noun). ten). 202 204 Ludwig Wittgenstein Notes for Lectures on "Private Experience" and "Sense Data" 205 You say you have an intangible impression . I am not doubting what And can I give a name to my own taste experience without giving you say. But I question whether you have said anything by it . Le., what the taste a common name which is to be used in common language? was the point of uttering these words, in what game?9 -"I give my feeling a name, nobody else can know what the name means". 12761 It is as though, if /although/ you can't tell me exactly what happens inside you, you can nevertheless tell me something general A [slave] 10 has to remind me of something about it . By saying e .g. that you are having an impression which can't and isn't to know what he reminds me of. be further described. I note down a word in my diary which serves to bring back a taste." As it were : There is something further about it, only you can I say it; you can only make the general statement . "I use the name for the impression directly and not in such a way It is this idea /form of expression/ which plays hell with us . that anyone else can understand it ." "There is not only the gesture but a particular feeling which I can't Buying something from oneself. Going through the operations of describe": instead of that you might have said : "I am trying to point buying . out a feeling to you"-this would be a grammatical remark showing how my information is meant to be used . This is almost similar as My right hand selling to my left hand . though I said : "This I call 'A' and I am pointing out a colour to you and not a shape ." Feeling-(thought .) Transference . 12 How can one point to the colour and not to the shape? Or to the A good way of naming a colour would be to write its name in an ink feeling of toothache and not to the tooth, etc .? of the corresponding colour. 1 3 'I name the feeling'.-I don't quite know how you do this, what use What does one call "describing a feeling to someone"? you are making of the word /name/. "Never mind the shape, look at the colour!" "I'm giving the feeling which I have just /I'm having/ now a name ."- I don't quite know what you are doing. "Was there a feeling of pastness when you said you remem- One might say : "What is the use of bered . ?" talking of our feeling at all. Let 'I know of none'. us devise a language which really only says what can be understood" . Thus I am not to say "I have a feeling ofpastness": But . How does one point to a number, draw attention to a number, "This pain I call 'toothache' and I can never make him understand mean a number? what it means." How do I call a taste "lemon taste"? Is it by having that taste and 10. [Sklave] saying the words : "1 call this taste . "? 11 . The two and a half pages of sketchy diagrams and drawings that follow in the original have been omitted .

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