Ask yourself: How do we know where to point to when
we are asked to point to the painful spot? Can this
sort of pointing be compared with pointing to a black spot on a
sheet of paper when someone says: “point to the
black spot on this sheet.” Suppose someone
said “You point to this spot because you know before
you point that the pains are there”; ask yourself
“What does it mean to
know that the pains are
there?” The word “there”
refers to a locality; ‒ ‒ ‒ but in what space,
i.e., a “locality” in what
sense? Do we know the place of pain in
Euclidian space, so that when we know
where we have pains we know how far away from two of the walls of
this room, and from the floor? When I have pain in the
tip of my finger and touch my tooth with it, is my pain now both
a toothache and a pain in my finger? Certainly in one
sense the pain can be said to be located on the tooth.
Is the reason why in this case it is wrong to say I have
toothache, that in order to be in the tooth the pain should be one
sixteenth of an inch away from the tip of my finger?
Remember that the word “where” can refer to
localities in man
y different
83.
senses. (Many
different grammatical games, resembling each other
more
or
less, are played with this word. Think of
the different uses of the numeral
“1”.) I may know where a
thing is and then point to it by virtue of that knowledge.
The knowledge tells me where to point to. We here
conceived this knowledge as the condition for deliberately pointing
to the object. Thus one can say: “I
can point to the spot you mean because I see it”,
“I can direct you to the place because I know where
it is; first turning to the right,
etc..” Now one is inclined to
say “I must know where a thing is before I can point to
it”. Perhaps you will feel less happy about
saying: “I must know where a thing is before I
can look at it”. Sometimes of course it is
correct to say this. But we are tempted to think that
there is one particular psychical state or event, the knowledge of
the place, which must precede every deliberate act of pointing,
moving towards, etc.. Think of the
analogous case: “One can only obey an order
after having understood it”.