‘Pain’, Grammar, and Physicalism

Abstract

Wittgenstein’s discussion of pain and ‘pain’ usually focused on the view that pain is the private state of a private object — pain — which object is reported or described in utterances which express propositions which can only be known by the speaker. His discussions aim at reminding us that ‘pain’ is not used as the targeted view would have it. It is not a private name; it is not the name of a necessarily private object or state. These discussions also aim at showing that the targeted view is mistaken or confused in some fundamental way, e. g., that the meaning of ‘pain’ is learned by private ostension, that ‘pain’ has grammatical features wholly comparable to other, descriptive terms, and that pain states are private states of Cartesian selves, wholly independent of embodied persons in relevant social and cultural settings. There are numerous interpretations of both Wittgenstein’s view and his arguments on these matters. I do not propose to present an interpretation of his attack on Cartesianism and Behaviourism here. (While it is not completely clear that René Descartes was a proponent of Cartesianism, I’ll not discuss this issue either). If we agree with the commonly held view that Wittgenstein’s attack is against dualism — that in his account of the grammar of ‘pain’ he rejects Cartesianism — then it becomes natural to ask which, if any, of the alternatives to Cartesianism his view matches or to ask whether his view is consistent with some plausible form of Physicalism.