Consider now the following example, which is of great help in all these
considerations: In order to see what happens when one
understands a word, we play this game: You have a list of
words, partly these words are words of my native language, partly
words of foreign languages more or less familiar to me, partly
words
of languages entirely unknown to me, (or, which comes to the same,
nonsensical words invented for the occasion.)
Some of the words of my native tongue, again, are words of ordinary,
everyday usage; and some of these, like “house”,
“table”, “man”, are what we might
call primitive words, being among the first words a child learns, and
some of these again, words of baby
talk like
“Mamma”, “Papa”.
Again there are more or less common technical terms such as
“carburetor”, “dynamo”,
“fuse”; etc. etc.
All these words are read out to me, and after each one I have to say
“Yes” or “No” according to
whether I understand the word or
123.
not.
I then try to remember what happened in my mind when I understood
the words I did understand, and when I didn't understand
the others.
And here again it will be useful to consider the
particular tone of voice and facial expression with which
I say “Yes” and “No”,
alongside of the so-called mental events. ‒ ‒
Now it may surprise us to find that although this experiment will shew
us a multitude of different characteristic experiences, it will not
shew us any one experience which we should be inclined to call the
experience of understanding.
There will be such experiences as these: I hear the word
“tree” and say “Yes” with the
tone of voice and sensation of “Of
course”.
Or I hear “corroboration” – – I say to
myself, “Let me see”, vaguely remember a case of
helping, and say “Yes”.
I hear “gadget”, I imagine the man who always
used this word, and say “Yes”.
I hear “Mamma”, this strikes me as funny and
childish, – – “Yes”.
A foreign word I shall very often translate in my mind into English
before answering.
I hear “spinthariscope”,
and say to myself, “Must be some sort of scientific
instrument”, perhaps try to think up its meaning from its
derivation and fail, and say “No”.
In another case I might say to myself, “Sounds like
Chinese” – – “No”.
Etc.
There will on the other hand be a large class of cases in which I am
not aware of anything happening except hearing the word and saying
the answer.
And there will also be cases in which I remember experiences
(sensations, thoughts), which, as I should say, had nothing to do
with the word at all.
Thus amongst the experiences which I can describe there will be a class
which I might call typical experiences of understanding and some
typical experiences of
124.
not understanding.
But opposed to these there will be a large class of cases in which I
should have to say, “I know of no particular experience at all,
I just said ‘Yes’, or
‘No’.” |
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