Ethical foundations of the left

[Ken Hanly]

I am not sure I entirely understand Wittgenstein musings on "pain" but I
think that among other things he is rejecting a certain picture or model of
how we learn terms that "refer" to "inner sensations" such as pain. We can
be taught the meaning of "red" by being shown picture cards say of different
red shapes etc. And then a teacher can confirm a child's grasp of the term
by seeing if the child can pick out other red things. We may think that
something analagous can be done by an "inner pointing" to pain, the
difference being that only we can "access" the sensations that we name.
However, Wittgenstein in a series of dialogues with himself about the matter
tries to show that there would be no distinction between using the term
"pain" correctly and incorrectly on this model---among other things. Also,
if  you think of the meaning of "pain" as this inner sensation then this
could be anything or nothing--his beetle in the box example. I do not think
any of this is meant to deny the privacy of sensations if one means by that
statements such as the following are true: What he denies is a certain
philosophical picture of meaning and how we learn the meaning of "pain" that
arises from reflection on statements such as the following.:

    No one else can have my pain.

However the term "pain" is a term within a language spoken and written by
numerous people. To be meaningful within this language the internal state
must have external criteria associated with it. Hence "pain" is associated
with certain contexts such as a someone stubbing their toe, seeking comfort
when they have a toothache or stomach ache or whatever. This involves
certain types of behavior in response to certain stimuli. Wittgenstein gives
examples to try to show how these might be involved in a child learning
"pain" rather than attending to the inner sensation. Although we can perhaps
imagine a society with pain but no pain behavior how would one teach a child
the meaning of pain in such a society?

  My understanding of W. is that he holds that when we claim we have a pain,
we do not have criteria for saying it. We simply have the pain. While a
person could be pretending to have pain as in the cases Justin cites with
his daughter, if a person is not trying to deceive another then having the
pain and saying so is not corrigible as I understand W. but I may be wrong.m
Of course there could be borderline sensations not clearly pains.

    Some of what W. says seems to imply that we do not know that we are in
pain. HOwever, I think he is simply making the point that the person who has
the pain has no criteria for the assertsion that he or she has a pain. They
just have it and say it. He asks what it would mean to say that one knew
that was in pain other than that one had a pain. Other people can know that
you are in pain because they have criteria for assigning the term to you.
For example you stubbed your toe. You have a bad scrape on your
knee.etc.etc.
But u dont look at the scrape and say: Lo! I am in pain. However, "I know"
has a performative function, a fact W. seems to ignore.. It makes sense to
say "I know" I am in pain as a way of giving ones word that this is so, that
one is not fooling, I have it and am saying it. Of course one could still be
faking it.

    I find the statement that we have privileged access to our own
experiences goofy. It must have some philosophical sense that eludes me. The
statement is quite misleading. Privileged access would be the sort of access
that you might have to data banks, computers, clubs, etc.. First of all for
the metaphor to be at all exact  must mean that only you have such
privileged access since only you can have your pain etc. But the saying is
goofy in another way. Pains are not the sort of thing that you can access or
not. You either have them or you dont. There is no question when you are in
pain of somehow accessing the pain. This is not to deny that when first hurt
u may not feel any pain. I also have great difficulties with the term
experiences. I expect that there are lots of experiences that people do not
even remember. They repress them. Other people might have much better access
to these than you yourself. Lol. You dont remember getting drunk and
wrapping your bicycle around the tree after the Xmas party in 1990? How come
u should have privileged access to the memory of that experience. Don't you
remember how we kidded you about it for several years..

Cheers, Ken Hanly

----- Original Message -----
From: Kenneth MacKendrick <kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca>
To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2001 3:37 PM
Subject: Re: Ethical foundations of the left


> At 10:10 AM 7/27/01 -0700, you wrote:
>
>
> >I'm kinda surprised nobody's brought up Wittgenstein here.  His later
> >stuff is (for me) a slam-dunk refutation of ken's common-sense "I have
> >privileged access to my own experiences" spiel.
> >
> >Miles
>
> Dear god! Am I insane? What am I thinking right now? If you can't answer
> this question accurately then I'm right and all the nay-sayers are wrong.
> End of story.
>
> Bunch of Jungians I swear!
>
> collective, what?
> ken-doll
>
> PS. Wittgenstein is one of Habermas's biggest influences, he develops this
> framework out of Wittgenstein's thought (among others). See On the Logic
of
> the Social Sciences, 1970, trans. 1988.
>