Example [“I have a peculiar feeling of pastness in my wrist.”] 19.
6) “We shall never know whether he meant this or
that”.
C died after the training in that room.
We say: “Perhaps he would have
reacted like B when taken into the
daylight.”
But we shall never know.
α) We should say this question was decided if he arose from his grave & we then made the experiment with him. Or his ghost appeared to us in a spiritualist séance & told us that he has a certain experience. β) We don't accept any evidence. But what if we didn't accept the evidence in 5) either & said (something like) “We can't be sure that he is the identical man who was trained in the room”, or: “he is the identical man but we can't know whether he would have behaved like this in the past time when he was trained”. 7) We introduce a new notation for the expression “If P happens then always (as a rule) Q happens. P didn't happen this time & Q didn't happen.” We say instead: “If P had happened Q would have happened”. E.g. “If the gunpowder is dry under these circumstances a spark of this strength explodes it. It wouldn't dry this time & under the same circumstances didn't explode.” We say instead “If the gunpowder had been dry this time it would have exploded”. The point of this notation is that it nears the form of this preposition very much to the form: “The gunpowder 20. was dry this time so it
exploded”.
I mean the new form doesn't stress the fact that
it did not explode but, we might say, paints a vivid picture of it exploding
this time.
We could imagine two forms of expression in a
picture language corresponding to the two kinds of
notations in the word language.
The second notation will be particularly appropriate
e.g. if we wish to give a person a shock by
making him vividly imagine what || that which
would have happened, stressing only slightly that it
hasn't
happened || didn't happen.
8) Someone might say to us: “But are you sure that the second sentence means just what the first one means & not just something similar or that & something else as well? (Moore) I should say: I'm talking of the case where it means just this, & this seems to me an important case (which you caused by saying what you have said). But of course I don't say that it isn't used in other ways as well & then we'll have to talk about these other cases separately. 9) Someone says –“lowering one's voice some 21
) We || It must be clear that our examples are not preparations to the analysis of the actual meaning of the expression so & so (Nicod) but giving them effects that “analysis”. 11) Have we now shown that to say in 5 “We can't know whether he would have behaved … ” makes no sense? We should say the sentence || to say this sentence under these circumstances has lost its || the point which it would have had under other circumstances but this doesn't mean that we can't give it another point. 10) We say “We don't || can't know whether this spark would have been sufficient to ignite that mixture; because we can't reproduce the exact mixture not having the exact ingredients or not having a balance to weigh them etc. etc.” But suppose we could reproduce all the circumstances & someone said “we can't know whether it would have exploded” as we can't know whether || & being asked why he said because under these circumstances it would have exploded then.” This answer would set our head whirling. We should feel he wasn't playing the same game with that expression as we do. We should be 22.
inclined to say “This makes no sense!”
And this means that we are at a loss not knowing what reasoning, what
actions go with this expression.
Moreover we believe that he made up a sentence analogous to sentences used
in certain language games not
noticing that he took the point away.
In which case do we say that a sentence has a point? That comes to asking in which case do we call something a language game. I can only answer. Look at the family of language games & that will show you whatever can be shown about the matter. |