Tillich and Wittgenstein on Private Experience

“You surely know what ‘It is 5 o’clock here” means; so you also know what ‘It’s 5 o’clock on the sun’ means… It means simply that it is just the same there as it is here when it is 5 o’clock.”—The explanation by means of identity does not work here…(PI §350).” –Wittgenstein

“…the whole system of reason finally leads to some point at which reason does not deny itself, does not abdicate, but transcends itself within itself. “  —Tillich, “Philosophical Background of my Theology (1960)” in “Paul Tillich: Philosophical Writings, Vol. 1,” ed. Gunther Wenz, 1989, pdf., p. 414.

At the risk of sounding annoyingly repetitious, I just want to note that the ancient Greek word for “a knowing and knowledge” is γνῶσις (gnosis) derived from γιγνώσκω (gignosko) that means, “to learn to know, to perceive, mark, and learn.” However, Tillich explains that later in Greek history gnosis took on the meaning of a total person centered participatory knowledge, or cognitive commitment. In the New Testament gnosis took on three meanings: mystical union, sexual intercourse, and a kind of knowledge that is not ἐπιστήμη (episteme as in “epistemology”) meaning “scientific knowledge.” Later in the Greek period, gnosis was united with epistemological analysis (Ibid., p. 388, referred to “PW” here on).

I believe Dr. Verveake’s lecture Ep. 30 - Awakening from the Meaning Crisis - Relevance Realization Meets Dynamical Systems Theory is a profound postmark so far where he concluded, “There can not be a scientific theory of relevance because how science works.” What else cannot be theorized by science? Tillich is focusing on this same problem of philosophy by making this distinction between Gnostic and Epistemic knowledge. Amazingly, Tillich’s epistemology, metaphysics, politics, and ethics are derived from his non-theistic theology:

“Only if, through a kind of methodological imperialism, we make controlling knowledge the pattern of all knowledge, do existential knowledge and cognitive commitment become meaningless concepts. But it is not only in religion that one had to resist such imperialism” (PW, p. 201).

In lecture Ep. 31 Embodied-Embedded RR as Dynamical-Developmental GI Dr. Vervaeke proposes a “plausibly argument to integrate cognitive science and human spirituality to address the meaning crisis” (56 minutes). In Ep. 32 -RR in the Brain, Insight, and Consciousness the concepts of Caring and Heidegger’s participatory knowledge (51 min.). And Ep. 33 -The Spirituality of RR: Wonder/Awe/Mystery/Sacredness deals directly with religion, or “Religio.” Just these four lectures cover an encyclopedic amount of philosophical literature much like Hegel’s method of researching a concept through the entire history of Western philosophy. I must say these lectures on spirituality, cognitive science, and philosophy has greatly enhanced my understanding and appreciation for religion in general and Christian theology in particular.

Wittgenstein on Gnosis/Episteme in the “Beetle Box”

Wittgenstein is known for his famous quote at the end of his treatise on language, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,(1921), “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.” This statement is Wittgenstein’s entire summary of Kantian Transcendental Idealism. This is not a nihilistic statement that denies the existence and meaning of anything that is not an object of positivistic science, but rather an observation about the limits of language that is constructed for and functions in a world composed of objects whether they are empirical objects or logical objects. The Hindu Advaita Vedantins (Advaita literally means “not-two”) understood this limitation of language:

”Human language has its source in phenomenal experience; hence, it is limited in its application to states of being that are beyond that experience; logic is grounded in the mind as it relations to the phenomenal order; hence, it is unable to affirm, without at the same time denying, what extends beyond that order, “All determination is negation,” to apply a predicate to something is to impose a limitation upon it; for, logically, something is being excluded from the subject…The Real is thus unthinkable: thought can be brought to it only through negations of what is thinkable”(Advaita Vedanta, Eliot Deutsch,1969, p.11).

However, this object-based language also has difficulty communicating experience in the sensible world. Wittgenstein believed the problem is the use of language that fundamentally misunderstands the phenomena that it attempts to explain, or to convey the meaning of some experiences. Later in life he understood philosophy as solely an attempt to clear up the misunderstandings that improper language use creates. Many thinkers disagree that the only role of philosophy is to correct the misuse of language, or that all philosophical problems are only the result of using unclear language. Be that as it may, Wittgenstein was able to go a long way in resolving many philosophical puzzles and identifying hidden mistakes in the use of language. In his later philosophical work, Philosophical Investigations, (referred to hereafter as PI) published posthumously in 1953, he wrote:

“We feel as if we had to penetrate phenomena: our investigation, however, is directed not towards phenomena, but, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena. We remind ourselves, that is to say, of the kind of statement that we make about phenomena…Our investigation is a grammatical one. Such an investigation sheds light on our problem by clearing misunderstandings away. Misunderstandings concerning the use of words, caused, among other things, by certain analogies between the forms of expression in different regions of language” (Philosophical Investigations, published 1953, paragraph §90).

Our topics of spirituality, and mystic experience are exactly the kind of problems Wittgenstein had in mind. He does not discuss mysticism directly in the Philosophical Investigations, as he did in the earlier work, Tractatus; however, he does discuss philosophical problems that have the same problem of language as mysticism—that is subjective phenomena that only the person experiencing it could know, like the sensation of pain for example. Fortunately, there is one particular quote in the PI that summarizes his view and exposes the misunderstanding that language creates when applied to our subjective inner private worlds:

“If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word “pain” means—must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize that one case so irresponsibly?

Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case! –Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a “beetle”. No one can look into anyone else’s box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. —Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. —But suppose the word “beetle” had a use in these people’s language? —If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing is the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. —No, one can ‘divide through’ by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is. That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of ‘object and designation’ the object drop out of the consideration as irrelevant” (Philosophical Investigations §293).

In this quote Wittgenstein is using the phenomenon of pain sensation as an example of a private object, but later he also uses color-impressions, feelings of fear, or headaches as other examples of sensations in a world of private objects. He attempts to examine how language is used in describing this private inner world, “Now, what about the language which describes my inner experiences and which only I myself can understand?” (PI §256).

One problem is we are each trapped in our own world of inner experiences and we really cannot know the objects in the private world of others—that is, we cannot look into the other persons box, or inner world of private objects. Color-sensations are another case of not being able to know if the next person is experiencing the same color sensation, as you might be experiencing, “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” (PI §272).

Our ordinary language ignores this problem of private inner experience because it really cannot deal with it as a functioning language: there cannot be a private language so we simply out of habit assume that the color-sensation I experience is the same color-sensation that others experience, “Look at the blue of the sky and say to yourself “How blue the sky is!”—When you do it spontaneously—without philosophical intentions—the idea never crosses your mind that this impression of colour belongs to you. And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else” (PI §275).

This is where language use creates a misunderstanding. We cannot assume that the “beetle” in my container is the same as the other person’s yet our ordinary language is built on that assumption, “I can only believe that someone else is in pain, but I know it if I am” (PI §303).

We apply the concept of identity to our inner experiences and then generalize that sensation to other persons when we speak of it, or even deny it as an experience. The identity language rule cannot be assumed to work in the world of private objects: “But if I suppose that someone has a pain, then I am simply supposing that he has just the same as I have of often had.” –That get us no further. It is as if I were to say; “You surely know what ‘It is 5 o’clock here” means; so you also know what ‘It’s 5 o’clock on the sun’ means. It means simply that it is just the same there as it is here when it is 5 o’clock.”—The explanation by means of identity does not work here…(PI §350).

Wittgenstein formulated the theory of language-games. The word “game” means rule based linguistic activity--not game meant as in the cynical sophistic use of language as some try to interpret it--which misses the point. Naming objects--where a child is taught to match a word with an object--is a language game in this sense. Wittgenstein defined language-games as the following: “…And the processes of naming the stones and of repeating words after someone might also be called language-games. Think of much of the use of words in games like ring-a-ring-a-roses. I shall also call the whole, consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven, a “language-game”” (PI  §7).

When Wittgenstein wrote, “The thing is the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty,” he is pointing out that the language-game being used in his beetle example is based on a language of material objects that creates misunderstanding when used to described private objects such as pain, color-sensation, or feelings in our inner private world. These sensations are not objects. When we tried to create a new language not based on the material-object language game to speak of our inner subjective world, we would be creating an impossible language—a private language. He does not mean that a coded language cannot be created, since the code is based on some shared language game. Wittgenstein defined a private language as the following: “But could we also imagine a language in which a person could write down or give vocal expression to his inner experiences—his feelings, moods, and the rest—for his private use?—Well, can’t we do so in our ordinary language?—But that is not what I mean. The individual words in this language are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking, to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language” (PI  §243). Such a private language based on only what the originator could experience would in principle be unintelligible to others and even to the originator themselves. How would the originator know if they misused a word? Language, for Wittgenstein, is a public tool designed to interpret the private life with this inherent fault for objectification and reductionism.

Wittgenstein is not denying that we experience pain, or see colors, or have inner experiences. He is pointing out the inadequacy of ordinary language built on the model of ‘object and designation’ to describe the subjective world of experience:

“…It is not a something, but not a nothing either! The conclusion was only that a nothing would serve just a well as something about which nothing could be said. We have only rejected the grammar which tries to force itself on us here.The paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose: to convey thoughts—which may be about houses, pains, good and evil, or anything else you please” (PI §304).

...to continue with “Tillich on Chronos and Kairos Time Experience.”