CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 385
PrivatePractice:PainasInnerExperience
In Wittgenstein's perspective, pain and suffering are special casesof
a larger cognitive problem, that of a "private language." The issue here
isnotthatofputtingpainintowordsbuttherelationshipofthesewords
to the language games of a given community, a relationship difficult to
determinebecause"[t]hewordsofthislanguagearetorefertowhatcan
be known only to the speaker; to his immediate, private, sensations. So
another cannot understand the language" (Philosophical Investigations
243).^82 The representations given to pain (and other emphatic bodily
sensations such as joy) are in this view occasions for a deep
epistemological skepticism concerning their referential content, i.e., the
actualinnerbodilyconditionofthepersongivingthatrepresentation.
Thus, a phrase such as "he is in pain," while grammatically correct
and semantically unambiguous, for Wittgenstein does not correspond to
what is going on inside that other person's body referenced or
"addressed in the statement" (Ph ilosophical Investigations 86). Instead
of having a somatic referent, it opens up a particular language game
within the commonly shared registers of linguistic representation—
"without getting into conflict with the way other people use this word"
(Ph ilosophical Investigations83). And even if that expression is
commonlytakentorefertotheinsideofanotherperson,therecanbeno
epistemologicalcertaintythatthisisindeedthecase:"thereissomething
Inner here which can be inferred only inconclusively from the Outer"
(Las tWritings§951a). Even if the other person exhibits clear forms of
pain-related behavior, such as crying, this is not enough evidence to
allay Wittgenstein's epistemological skepticism: "since it is the
expression of a perception, it can also be called the expression of
thought" (Ph ilosophical Investigations 168). In other words, when it
comes to pain, the semantic and the somatic are in Wittgenstein's
(^82) On this complex, even idiosyncratic, approach cf. the groundbreaking
monography by Kripke, Saul A.Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language.
London: Wiley and Sons, 1984. Print. My argument is indebted to Kripke's
findings.