Philosophical Investigations - Wittgenstein
1958
“Someone coming into a strange country will sometimes learn the language of the inhabitants from ostensive definitions that they give him; and he will often have to guess the meaning of these definitions; and will guess sometimes right, sometimes wrong.
And now, I think, we can say: Augustine describes the learning of human language as if the child came into a strange country and did not understand the language of the country; that is, as if it already had a language, only not this one. Or again: as if the child could already think only not yet speak. And ‘think’ would here mean something like ‘talk to itself’.” (Para.32)
"If a lion could talk, we could not understand him." (Para.225)
“The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person possesses his own exemplar, but that nobody knows whether other people also have this or something else. The assumption would thus be possible—though unverifiable—that one section of mankind had one sensation of red and another section another.” (Para.272)
Wittgenstein. Ludwig, 66, 109, 199, Page 225, Philosophical Investigation, 1953, Translated into English by G. E. M. Anscombe, Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1958.
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