送交者: apate 于 2005-1-15, 21:38:15:
回答: 日常语言所指的世界就是外在世界， 经验自身是不可描述的 由 鲁晨光 于 2005-1-14, 15:37:47:
1. there you go again, insisting on what you call "the indescribility/unknowability of experience and sensation."
2. that language is not private is not something new at all. Wittgenstein clearly says that when one gives a name to the sensation like pain, one often forgets that a lot of stage-setting is presupposed, i.e., the existence of the grammar of that name (PI, §257). take your example, for example. how do you *know* the abnormal kid X have B and A (instead of A and B) as names to the two colors? you are contradicting yourself by insisting on the one hand that the other's experience is not knowable and on the other hand proposing to *know* the other (the kid X) has B and A as names for the two colors - which strictly speaking has two parts: first, you know X has experience with the two colors, and second he has B and A as two names for the colors - but in the first case, as i already said, you are contradicting yourself, and in the second case, please see the fourth paragraph below.
3. the more appropriate way of re-stating your argument "X has experience with the colors is, following Wittgenstein (PI, §303), "I *believe* that X has experience with the colors." but how can you believe this to be the case *without -following your hypothesis - knowing it is the case? you may answer that it is a thought experiment (a la Einstein). but even this is so, you are imposing your own language (A and B and its whole associated grammar) on the poor kid X. why? see my argument below.
4. to avoid uncessarily confusion, lets otherwise follow Mr. Tao to imagine say that X has M and N (instead of B and A) as names for the two colors, vis-a-vis Mr. Tao's A and B as names. how do you *know* M and N are names that X uses for the two colors - if you don't know X's language game associated with them? remember, you have already exluded the possibility that X can *describe* his or her experience with the color for you to *know* X's experiences and here you mistakenly equate "to describe" with "to know" (more on this below). an alternative justification of your case, of course, is its imaginative nature. this is similar to what W has said about the experience of pain: "If one has to imagine someone else's pain on the model of one's own, this is none too easy a thing to do; for I have to imagine pain which I *do not feel* on the model of the pain which I *do feel*" (PI, §302). the basis of your reasoning is perfectly as W has said - if we replace "pain" with "color". although imagination like that is hard thing to do - and if it is doable and if it is defined as part of knowing, then your "unknowability" is once again refuted, W does remain that it can be done. so far so good. but what's your model of imagining the colors? you may say your A/B language and X's is the M/N language; furthermore, you have assumed that X's language is all the same with you except the names M and N. this presupposition is highly prolematic. because if you grant it it follows that you have to acknowledge that you *can know* X's experience with the colors by following the rules of the language games. this again contradicts yourself and moreover brings about another typical W-ian issue which is about rule-following (more on this if you would like to hear).
5. part of your problem is to equate *to know* with *to describe*. first, it seems that what you have in mind about knowing is only propositional. W actually offers a few starting points to altenratives. the first is what he calls "exhibiting" of verbal expressions which in turn may be related to the primitive, the natural, expressions [like groaning in pain] of the sensation and [these verval expressions are] used in their [primitive expressions] place" (PI, §244). elsewhere, W also says that word-pictures can "correspond" to mental images (§301). this alternative explanaiton about knowing is hardly resolved up to this point, but it may point to the possibility that phenomana and sensations are indeed describeable. second, W also suggests what others (e.g., David Bloor) would call tacit knowledge.
6. so, what's really the deal here? the deal is here that of stupidity and i use the word in a serious way instead of accusative. long time ago, Aristotle has recommend to "save the appereances" (cf. M. Nussbaum). part of Aristotle's view, then, is that the one who does make good sense of the speech community's language needs to be spanked and kicked out. the poor X kid is probably such a person. but, once again, you even don't know if such a person exists or not. so you can never kick out or spank someone who is really nothing at all. only in imagination, but if imagination is only possible using your own language and projecting your own image, then you are just spanking and kicking yourself. but such spanking and kicking causes no physical pain if it is just imagination and a language game, or, if it does cause, we - following oyur own logic - will never describe nor know it - thus we don't care.
7. finally, this piece is also just some fun with language games. the thing that binds me and my audience together, in the last analysis, is nothing but trust and trust is indeed part of what glues the social fabric.