"If a lion could talk, we could not understand him." Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations pg 223 (3rd Ed., 1968) “PI”

Attempting to show Wittgenstein ("Witt") is making an ethical argument (through unearthing the desires of positivism) in the Philosophical Investigations, I will argue that it is essential to put the above sentence in the textual context in which it was written to see its USE here--the sense ("Grammatically") in which it is said (“meaning” not existing independently, beforehand, immediately, certainly, etc.)--in its sense as an uncontested FACT (not to be refuted or interpreted, nor an open question, nor a thesis, etc.). This is a close reading and, with hope, a demonstration of Ordinary Language Philosophy (people may call this "Philosophy of Language", but that term is misleading as it takes a position on morals/ethics, epistemology, logic, science, the mind, metaphysics, etc.)

Note: The page (223) of the PI is transcribed at the end of this post, and I encourage you to read it thoroughly before reflexively posting an opinion on just this one sentence as if it were an solitary tclaim of Witt's which is open to question. So, you may have another interest in this sentence--and in philosophy--(which is fine), but, if you take the trouble to respond, I ask please that you here indulge me and start by trying to see the angle to the text which I am proposing; otherwise, I welcome any additional thoughts on the rest of the text as well. (Also, all phrases below in “quotes” are from page 223 unless otherwise noted; all emphasis in italics are in the original work; all my emphasis on terms is done in ‘ single-quotes ’ or all CAPS.)

Another reader offered this:

“My guess is that what is meant here is that we have no basis for understanding because our context of 'understanding' is so radically different than that of a different species.”

Setting aside for now (see *** below) the imagining of the difference in the internal (external) world of a lion (I’m going to jump around in the text a bit), the comment assumes there is a “context of understanding” which is the "basis" of " ‘understanding’ ". But what is Witt actually getting at? If we are to begin with “contexts of 'understanding' ”, it sounds very similar to the people with “strange traditions” mentioned at the top of the page.

We also say of some people that they are transparent to us. It is, however, important as regards this observation that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. We learn this when we come into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more, even given a mastery of the country's language. We do not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We cannot find our feet with them. — Witt, PI p. 223

Here, in this situation, we can communicate. But we do not understand the 'people', say, as our people; we do not understand their judgments, criteria, manners, expectations, consequences, etc. They are an "enigma" to us; not so much hidden, as a mystery. We “cannot find our feet” with them; we would have to learn their judgments, criteria, manners, expectations, consequences, and align/differentiate the differences from ours.

Now a lot of people stop with Wittgenstein at this point, and take him as just having the opinion that his term 'Forms of Life' (these traditions) gives meaning to words allowing for communication and thus knowledge of traditions are all we need for understanding--they (similar reactions, communal agreement, etc.) are the "basis".

The motivation for this misappropriation is much the same for what Witt addresses next: which is when people think internal ideas or other thought processes ('meanings') are connected to the world/words, which allows for (are the "basis" for") communication. This is the misconception Witt starts with at the top of the page, which begins:

'What is internal is hidden from us'. — Witt, PI p. 223

[ read this as if it were stated TO Witt (not by him) by someone else, commonly referred to as, the “Interlocutor” ]

If I see someone is writhing in pain with evident cause, I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me. — Witt, PI p. 223

[ Here, this is Witt’s voice ]

If their feelings are apparent ("evident"), “I do not think: [that they] are hidden”. This begs the question then, what do I think? Is this then a person whom we would say is “transparent to us”? When we know their Forms of Life, is everyone? Maybe this isn't just a philosophical disagreement about whether "meaning" is internal or external. Then, why do we desire to put up a barrier to the ("hidden") other?

This is where I think it is very important—essential—to see that the lion-quote puts a perspective on the quote just above it, which is:

'I cannot know what is going on in him' is above all a picture. It is the convincing expression of a conviction. It does not give the reasons for the conviction. They are not readily accessible.

If a lion could talk, we could not understand him. — Witt, PI p. 223

I strongly impress upon you to find a way to see that the "cannot" in the first sentence, is in contrast to the "could not" in the lion sentence.

As in (placing the phrasing in parallel structure): 'Now HERE [with the lion] we COULD NOT understand him'--as in, it is impossible, a fact (said as uncontested--see ** below)--but, with the person saying they 'CANNOT know' another person, it is a conviction--a decision or firm belief. [The ’quotes’ are only a re-phrasing of Witt.]

This use of the lion-quote is comparison; not as a hypothesis, not an opinion or belief, not to be considered, but as an uncontested fact**--'grammatically' as one, Witt would say, and also: Look at the use!! (#66) This use is not to inspire debate (even though it could--that is one of its possibilities; but not here, in this context). Wittgenstein is not making a 'claim' to “very general facts of nature (Such facts as mostly do not strike us because of their generality)” p. 56, #143. The use of these facts is as contrast “to explain the significance, I mean the importance, of a concept,” (ibid.) like, here, with 'understanding' (see also the dog, p. 229, or the parrot, #346).

Clarification: Witt's focus on "use" has been a stumbling block in the responses, so I wanted to point out that it is not the idea that use (some internal force/decision) determines or is the basis for "meaning". There are multiple versions ("senses") of a concept; one determines the use from the context (afterwards). "Every word has a different character in a different context." PI, p. 181. Not to say a we do not sometimes chose what we say, but senses exist outside and prior to us; the same confusion is that every word/action is 'intended'. The idea of a sentence or a word in isolation is only a thing in some philosophy--stemming from the desire to tether it to something determinate, certain, universal. Nietzsche also is taken to be claiming statements about society--say, in Human, All to Human’s chapter “Man in Society” rather than just using them as examples/contrasts to shed light on our moral process.

And so (as opposed to with the lion) we CAN know what is “going on in him” (though see *** below), and saying we cannot is a conviction, a belief (in this example, in a particular theoretical framework/"picture"; roughly, that meaning is tied to an idea). Apart from just the conviction in the picture though, Witt is making a point that we are responsible in how we treat the other. It is an ethical argument, not (merely) an epistemological one. The conviction is a person's choice not to ACCEPT what is going on with/in the other, as opposed to how it would be with the lion, where we simply CANNOT understand there (again, look at it as a fact--in its fact-ness--compared to the choice we are making with the other).

The example is similar to the student in #144; "I wanted to put that picture before him, and his 'acceptance' of the picture consists in his now being inclined to regard a given case differently"--we are in a position to reject or accept. This is a decision, a choice. With the person in pain we are in a position (“being inclined” #144) to regard (accept) something as such; "My attitude towards [them] is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the 'opinion' that [they have] a soul." p. 178. We don't have knowledge that they have a soul, we treat them as if they do.

If I see someone is writhing in pain with evident cause, I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me. — Witt, PI p. 223

We do not “think” in this sense, because our understanding of the other is not a matter of knowledge. If someone is expressing pain, you acknowledge (react to) the person or you deny them (from Cavell). It is not our intellect that is limited--that we lack some knowledge (of a form of life) or access (to the other's private thoughts). Replying to the sceptic that says, "I cannot know what is going on in [them]", that they are mistaken—you CAN know!—is simply to miss the point.

If someone is writhing in pain, we do not think: 'the picture is wrong' (does not reflect reality) or that 'sensations ARE evident' (just, to science). The (positivist) picture is an expression of a conviction to ignore the moral claim the other's pain makes on me—their humanity—to disavow our responsibility for the other, the meaningfulness of their expressions (to look past the other for something certain, infallible). If I am convinced (by positivism's picture, or by a choice about the other), in this sense I "am certain" and "[my eyes] are shut” [to their pain] (just after on p. 224). We have stopped being understanding. There is nothing else to SEE (no form of life to learn or share), no knowledge to gain that will necessarily change my conviction about/relationship to, the other.

The reasons for the conviction (to deny the other) are "not readily accessible", because it is not the picture that gives them (not science nor positivism nor behavioralism); it is the person (justifying, apologizing, standing on principal, or without reason, etc.). The reasons for refusing to see the other's pain are accessible, but we must ASK the person rather than just have knowledge of their Form of Life, or the contents of their brain. To mean (or not) what you say and do is not a thing, it is a position (Witt calls it an attitude); reason is not an ability--people have reasons (or don’t) for speaking or acting. What they meant (their rationale) does not (usually) come up unless someone asks (‘Why did you… ?’ ). Their reasons are not private nor public so much as personal, say, a secret (Cavell, again). This creates the possibility of a lie, and the fear of it; and this doubt is the desire to “guess thoughts”. Witt isn’t stating facts or arguing theories about lions or our brains or our lives; he is investigating (not solving) that fear.

***Now to get back to the lion (and its insides) that everyone is dying to conjecture and hypothesize about; some will balk at limiting it to a logically-contrasted fact, or maybe even more at Witt's point: that neither science, nor its philosophically-clothed cousins--positivism, emotivism, behavioralism, etc.--are able to access or address the basis of understanding (with A.I., our individual internal experience, ‘qualia’, Forms of Life, agreement, etc.). Science can describe forms of life, explain pain, but a conceptual investigation (the criteria for the Grammar (workings) of pain, knowledge, etc.) tells us about our convictions (“Concepts lead us to make investigations; are the expression of our interest, and direct our interest.” #570). How the concept of pain works (our judgments surrounding it, the consequences from it, the structure of our relationship to it, etc.) is the expression of our interest in pain--why we care about it, how it matters to us; e.g., how we are defined by our reaction to it. Those mixing science and philosophy read the lion-quote (and philosophy generally) to use for their interests; unrelated, motivated by a particular outcome, etc.


QUOTED FROM: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations uninterrupted excerpt from p. 223 (3rd Ed., '68)

* * *
There is a game of 'guessing thoughts'. A variant of it would be this: I tell A something in a language that B does not understand. B is supposed to guess the meaning of what I say.-Another variant: I write down a sentence which the other person cannot see. He has to guess the words or their sense.--Yet another: I am putting a jig-saw puzzle together; the other person cannot see me but from time to time guesses my thoughts and utters them. He says, for instance, "Now where is this bit?"--"Now I know how it fits 1"--"I have no idea what goes in here,"--"The sky is always the hardest part" and so on--but I need not be talking to myself either out loud or silently at the time.

All this would be guessing at thoughts; and the fact that it does not actually happen does not make thought any more hidden than the unperceived physical proceedings.

"What is internal is hidden from us."--The future is hidden from us. But does the astronomer think like this when he calculates an eclipse of the sun?

If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me.

We also say of some people that they are transparent to us. It is, however, important as regards this observation that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. We learn this when we come into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more, even given a mastery of the country's language. We do not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We cannot find our feet with them.

"I cannot know what is going on in him" is above all a picture. It is the convincing expression of a conviction. It does not give the reasons for the conviction. They are not readily accessible.

If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.

It is possible to imagine a guessing of intentions like the guessing of thoughts, but also a guessing of what someone is actually going to do.

To say "He alone can know what he intends" is nonsense: to say "He alone can know what he will do", wrong. * * *


[Antony Nickles: and to provide the full quote from p. 56 (right after #143): "What we have to mention in order to explain the significance, I mean the importance, of a concept, are often extremely general facts of nature: as are hardly ever mentioned because of their great generality."]