Ok.

It's associated most closely to Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. It's kosher.

We work together to build the use of a word. — Banno

Yep. That still presupposes the word, and, implies experience.
———-

implying that all our words are subjectively invented.
— Banno

Originally, they were. All of them. No words in Nature.
— Mww

SO... your claim is that originally there were words used only by one person... a private language? — Banno

Could be, if the inventor of the word was the only user of it, in an organized, structured composition. Turns out, that’s not the case, as the historical record verifies, but that is beside the point.

Plus....here we go again with the goalposts; I never said words used by only one person. I said words subjectively invented, which implies one person, but does not imply use, that being merely a possible consequent. While it may not make sense to invent a word then not use it, that doesn’t mean the use is necessary because of invention. The use is necessary for something else, which, again, presupposes the invention.
————-

What do you think they did with these words? — Banno

They created that organized, structured composition I just mentioned.

What function could they have had — Banno

Like I said a couple days ago: represent subjective activities.

the individual grunted in a particular way each time they saw a particularly delicious fruit? — Banno

Sure, why not. A grunt for pleasure, a grunt for danger, a grunt for the fun of grunting. All representing subjective activities, subsequently communicated. You did say individual, after all.

they grunted, and others understood this as indicative of ripe fruit. — Banno

BINGO!!!! One grunts, the others respond according to what they understand the grunt to mean. Now we gots ourselves the basics of grunt-language, and it isn’t private. All started by a lonely grunt over lovely fruit, which was. Hmmmm.....image a pair of these hairy dudes, eating the fruit of the one bush. Would they emit the exact same grunt?

A grunt ain’t nothing but a word that don’t need no spellin’.

Anyway....enough of this. I’m right in what I’m saying, you’re right in what you’re saying. It’s just that mine comes before yours. If you’d just grant the chronology, it’d be a done deal.

It’s just that mine comes before yours. If you’d just grant the chronology, it’d be a done deal. — Mww

But think about someone who's locked-in (they're conscious, but can't signal out in any way).

The language of their thoughts isn't native to them originally. They learned it through interaction.

Because that makes no sense

It's kosher. — Olivier5

Don't tell Heidegger.

... and there's the expected ad hoc hypothesis.

Ok, that renders your view irrefutable; you've just defined pain as a private sensation.

The twist is, you cannot therefore use the privacy of pain as evidence for subjectivism - at least, not without a vicious circularity. — Banno

Where did I define pain as a private sensation? All I've said is that we each have our own. Even if I were to define pain as a private sensation, how is that irrefutable? If that's irrefutable, then so is the opposing proposition.

I've acknowledged that you and I can both mean the same thing by "pain" and that it can refer to the same qualitative feeling (and/or physical expression) for each of us. I don't believe that subjectivity necessarily entails or equates to privacy, whereas you treat the two as synonymous.

I agree with you that our language and the meanings of our words including "pain" are necessarily public. On the other hand, our existence as individuals with individual experiences, pains, perceptions and viewpoints is also evident. Moreover, our existence as individuals does not obviously depend on the existence of our public language; quite the opposite, in fact, since our public language obviously depends on our existence as individuals (who share the language). "In the beginning was the deed."

Your view strikes me as this: subjectivity is necessarily private, but language is necessarily public, therefore subjectivity is impossible. But how does a public language preclude the existence of a private subjectivity?

I cannot experience anybody else's pain and nobody else can experience my pain.
— Luke

The expression “I feel your pain” can only be figurative. In empathy one can only feel one’s own pain, even if it is expressed or felt for others.
— Luke

Imagine we agree about this. You me and Banno. How is that not intersubjective? — unenlightened

If we agree that we cannot experience each other's pain, then it is our agreement about the proposition which is intersubjective, not our experiences of pain which are intersubjective. Otherwise, we would not be in agreement.

Imagine I don't think I have my own pain, and Banno thinks he has your pain. Are these our private subjectivities, about which no disagreement is possible? — unenlightened

I'd imagine that a mental health professional might disagree with you both. As to "private subjectivities", your thoughts would be subjective insofar as they occur individually to you and to Banno. I suppose they would remain private to each of you until or unless they were expressed in some way (not necessarily linguistically).

Don't tell Heidegger. — Banno

I haven't talked to him since he missed my son's bar mitzvah.

On the other hand, our existence as individuals with individual experiences, pains, perceptions and viewpoints is also evident. — Luke

I don't understand how this becomes a difference of type (objective/subjective).

If I have a pain and you have a pain, they're unlikely to be the same whole experience, granted. So 'pain', the experience, is a family resemblance term, or, like Wittgenstein's Moses, one which is constituted of 'props'.

But those props are themselves only components publicly shared. My pain might be sharp and intermittent, yours might be dull and sickening. But 'sharp', 'intermittent', 'dull' and 'sickening' are shared terms, not private ones.

You might say that your 'dull' is different to my 'dull'. Yes, probably. But again the props which make up your 'dull' are still shared, I still know what you mean by each one.

No matter how we break up these multi-propped terms, we end up only with individual props which are themseves shared. I don't see where you end with with subjective meanings.

The language of their thoughts isn't native to them originally. They learned it through interaction. — frank

No one’s is; everyone does. Perhaps what is native in thought, is images.

But think about someone who's locked-in (they're conscious, but can't signal out in any way). — frank

Locked-in. Like....deaf-mute? Incapacitated somehow? Dunno. If he can’t get a signal out, he isn’t going to communicate anything, which makes words and language irrelevant anyway, as far as he’s concerned.

There’s always exceptions to the rule.

If I have a pain and you have a pain, they're unlikely to be the same whole experience, granted. — Isaac

I'm not talking about differences between your pain and my pain as though I were disputing the meaning of the word "pain". I'm pointing out what I take to be self-evident: that you can only have your pains and I can only have mine because we are two different people. This, for lack of a better term, ontological truth that we are each individual people is independent of the meaning of the word "pain".

I don't see where you end with with subjective meanings. — Isaac

I'm not suggesting "subjective meanings" or any private language.

that you can only have your pains and I can only have mine because we are two different people. — Luke

OK. Then I'm missing how this relates to subjectivity. I can only have my phone and you can only have your phone. That's there in the definition of 'my' and 'yours'. But we don't say phones are subjective. So what are we saying that's different about pain?

I can only have my phone and you can only have your phone. That's there in the definition of 'my' and 'yours'. But we don't say phones are subjective. — Isaac

We don't say that I can only have my phone and you can only have yours, either.

We don't say that I can only have my phone and you can only have yours, either. — Luke

Yeah, bad example, too easily confused with property talk. Noses would be better. You can only have your nose, even if we swapped with some horrific plastic surgery, what was mine would become yours. But noses are not subjective, right?

Edit - What I'm saying is that you seem to be arguing that pain is subjective not because it's unique (I might well have an experience with coincidentally exactly the same components as yours), not because it's private (the terms we'd use, if broken down would forever be public meanings), but rather simply because it takes place, is embodied, in you not me. But that's the same with noses.

I consider subjectivity to be somewhat synonymous with personhood and its traits, such as conscious awareness, rational thought, sensory perception, and the ability to feel pain. This is how our being two different people/persons relates to subjectivity.

I consider subjectivity to be somewhat synonymous with personhood and its traits, such as conscious awareness, rational thought, sensory perception, and the ability to feel pain. This is how our being two different people/persons relates to subjectivity. — Luke

I see. Doesn't that open you up a little to @Banno's complaints that

you cannot therefore use the privacy of pain as evidence for subjectivism - at least, not without a vicious circularity. — Banno

You've defined 'subjectivity' in terms that assume the existence of subjective properties (conscious awareness, rational thought, sensory perception, and the ability to feel pain), so we can't then prove something like pain is subjective. It's just in the list there, the list of things you associate with subjectivity. It would be tantamount to saying "pain is subjective because it's in the list of things which are subjective".

What I suppose I'm asking for is an account of some the factors that unite the things in that list and set them collectively apart from things like noses, outside that list.

Plus....here we go again with the goalposts; I never said words used by only one person. I said words subjectively invented, which implies one person, but does not imply use, that being merely a possible consequent. While it may not make sense to invent a word then not use it, that doesn’t mean the use is necessary because of invention. The use is necessary for something else, which, again, presupposes the invention. — Mww

This relates directly to the faulty dichotomy which people like Banno seek to create. That dichotomy stipulates that either a language must be public (comprehensible to all), or private (comprehensible to only one person. The dichotomy is faulty because those who employ it do not distinguish between what is potentially comprehensible to others, and what is actually comprehensible to others.

So the invented, private language, which is not actually comprehensible to others, but potentially comprehensible to others, requiring an act of teaching, or some other form of learning, is excluded as not truly private, because it is potentially comprehensible. Then the role of the private language within the overall public language is dismissed because the notion of "private language" is rejected as unreal by that premise that it is potentially comprehensible. However, since the invented, private language, is actually incomprehensible to all others, prior to being learned by others, and it is a true language employed by the individual, the rejection of private language is unjustified.

Locked-in. Like....deaf-mute? Incapacitated somehow? Dunno. If he can’t get a signal out, he isn’t going to communicate anything, which makes words and language irrelevant anyway, as far as he’s concerned. — Mww

Locked in.

Your speech production center is separate from your sound interpretation area. You can talk to yourself.

Pretty much as I see it, yep. Although I think Banno will reject the claim he creates false dichotomies, in that he is on the record as categorically rejecting half of it, that is, private language. I bet he says refusing to grant the validity of a true dichotomy is hardly the same as creating a false one.

It is easily neglected that private language is not self-contradictory; one can readily structure a publicly incomprehensible composition of invented words, however impractical it may be. I gave two examples, and I’d be surprised if there weren’t others.

distinguish between what is potentially comprehensible to others, and what is actually comprehensible to others. — Metaphysician Undercover

Which brings up the notion of intentionality, re: Brentano, 1874. The measure by which the potential transfers to the actual. We usually do wish to be understood when we communicate, which is determined primarily by how much we care about the composition of our expressions.

Oh. Ok. I forgot about that. Exceptions to the rule?

Sure we talk to ourselves, but can we without a language given from experience? Or, as you say, interaction? I don’t see why not. If I’m totally locked-in, say from birth, it wouldn’t be possible to relate my internal speech a posteriori anyway, so the chances of confusing myself are exactly zero. But it’s impossible to conceive these conditions anyway, so......

But it’s impossible to conceive these conditions anyway, so...... — Mww

True. What's the PLA's take-away? It's not actually an argument. It's just a handfull of reckons.

It suggests that linguistic structure is reinforced by use in situ. That's only astounding if you were thinking of words as labels for platonic forms. Who does that?

It certainly doesn't preclude language use that simply isn't shared with others. Neither does it suggest that locked-in people are only conscious when someone is asking them to blink. That's just retarded (or at least completely unargued for.)

What's the PLA's take-away? It's not actually an argument. — frank

Funny, though, the academic/peer-reviewed argument is that the PLA is nothing but argument, because there are no principles on which it could be grounded as a legitimate dialectical thesis, as had always been the wont of pure philosophy. I mean....from Locke to Fodor it’s been said that words are nothing but a map of subjective representation to meaning, and language merely stands for the possibility of a common map, all with no discourse on method.

Personally, I don’t see why there couldn’t be a comprehensible private language, contra Wittgenstein. Because it’s private, it must have been built by me, so it would only have to be comprehensible to me. And if it is absolutely impossible for me to misunderstand myself, and none of the ingredients of a possible private language contradict any of the others, it must be possible.....

It certainly doesn't preclude language use that simply isn't shared with others. — frank

.....just like that.

Funny, though, the academic/peer-reviewed argument is that the PLA is nothing but argument, because there are no principles on which it could be grounded as a legitimate dialectical thesis — Mww

Could you help me understand this? Isn't it drawing on common sense?

Personally, I don’t see why there couldn’t be a comprehensible private language, contra Wittgenstein. Because it’s private, it must have been built by me, so it would only have to be comprehensible to me — Mww

Does "private" mean untranslatable even in principle?

..just like that. — Mww

That's a thumbs up, right?

Could you help me understand this? Isn't it drawing on common sense? — frank

I’m not a fan of analytic philosophy in general, and language philosophy in particular, so I’m not going to give an unbiased critique. See Antony Nickels; he knows this stuff inside out, but that doesn’t guarantee another’s understanding of it.

Does "private" mean untranslatable even in principle? — frank

It does to Wittgenstein. To me, private merely indicates contained in and used by the subject which thinks it. Post-moderns shy away form “subjective”, so they invoke “private” to substitute for it. Nevertheless, why would a private language need to be translatable? Why call it private if it’s not intended to represent a single mind, or consciousness, or user.

Yep. Thumbs up. Still just my opinion though.

To me, private merely indicates contained in and used by the subject which thinks — Mww

Maybe no one in this thread is actually talking about the PLA. We're just talking about subjectivity.

Nevertheless, why would a private language need to be translatable? — Mww

If I tried to make a personal language (so we dispense with Witt altogether), I think I would end up mimicking English and Spanish.

I don't know how to make an untranslatable language. My guess is that any language I make up would relate to things that are innate in humans, like the concepts of light/dark, soft/coarse, easy/hard, sun, moon, hurt, yummy, etc. So it would be translatable.

I don't know how to make an untranslatable language. — frank

Yeah, but.....translatable by who? I don’t need my private language translated, and for somebody else to translate means it isn’t private.

I think I could make an untranslatable language if I had my current consciousness unloaded. But for that, I’d have to be 100% feral, meaning, from birth. But if I was 100% feral I wouldn’t survive long enough to load that version of my consciousness with conceptions words represent, which makes language creation moot. If I was in a vegetative state I might have an unloaded consciousness, or at least a useless one, but what use does a vegetable have for language.

Bottom line is....we’re human so anything we do must be something a human can do. If we’re going to have a language we have to develop one the way humans do. It would, as you say, have to relate to things innate to humans. Trying to figure out a non-human way, post hoc, is doomed to failure from sheer inconceivability.

Thanks. Yes, that's the point.

Noses are a neat example.

That dichotomy stipulates that either a language must be public (comprehensible to all), or private (comprehensible to only one person. — Metaphysician Undercover

Pretty much as I see it, yep. — Mww

You sure you want to throw in your lot with a bloke with an eccentric notion of equality, Mww?

Making up stories about what I've claimed is not very fair. Language cannot be private. In that I'm in agreement with Wittgenstein and quite a few others. Meta's argument would be that talk of unicorns must be misguided because it creates the false dichotomy of unicorns and non-unicorns.

Is my argument so strong that the only way to counter it is to make up another argument and pretend it is mine?

Yeah, but.....translatable by who? I don’t need my private language translated, and for somebody else to translate means it isn’t private. — Mww

Point is, your private language would be built off work done by others, so it wouldn't really be your own personal thing.

If you were feral, I don't think your natural capacity to speak would be activated. It would remain latent.