Let us then
discard the “always” in our expression.
Then I can still express my solipsism by saying,
“Only what
I see (or: see now)
is really seen”. And here I am tempted to
say: “Although by the word
“I” I don't mean
L.W., it
will do if the others understand “I” to mean
L.W. if just
now I am in fact L.W.”. I could also express my
claim by saying: “I am the vessel of
life”; but mark, it is essential that everyone to whom I
say this should be unable to understand me. It is
essential that the other should not be able to understand
“what
I really
mean”, though in
practice he might do what I wish by conceding to me an exceptional
position in his notation. But I wish it to be
logically impossible that he should understand me, that
is to say, it should be meaningless,
.109
not false, to say that he
understands me. Thus my expression is one of the many
which is used on various occasions by philosophers and supposed
to convey something to the person who says it, though essentially
incapable of conveying anything to anyone else. Now if
to convey a meaning means to be accompanied by or to produce
certain experiences, our expression may have all sorts of meanings,
and I can't say anything about them. But we
are, as a matter of fact, misled into thinking that our expression
has a meaning in the sense in which a non-metaphysical
expression has; for we wrongly compare our case with one in which
the other person can't understand what we
say because he lacks a certain information. (This
remark can only become clear if we understand the connection
between grammar and sense and nonsense.)