A New Interpretation of the Private Language Argument

Abstract

At section 243 of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein raises the question of a private language whose individual words refer to the sensations of its speaker such that only the speaker can understand it. This question has generated varied concerns in the intellectual circles. So far, the responses to these concerns remain controversial probably because the nature of the language is still unclear. Thus, the question of a private language is three-fold: (1) What a supposed private language would be like; (2) how that understanding might throw light on its possibility or impossibility and; (3) how its possibility or impossibility could impact some other problems in philosophy. In light of these questions, I argue, respectively, that: (1) a private language is a language only its speaker can possibly know exists; (2) such a language is logically impossible; and lastly, (3), its impossibility shows that a certain version of physicalism is true.