Wittgenstein on Private Language Sensation and Perception

Wittgenstein''s critique of private language in the Philosophical Investigations does not attempt to refute the possibility of a private sensation-language let alone in any one argument as has often been thought. Nor does it aim to establish that language is intrinsically social. Instead PI §§243–315 presents a series of arguments suggestions questions examples and thought-experiments whose purpose is to undermine the temptation to think of sensations and perceptual experiences as private objects occupying a private phenomenal space. These themes are clear developments of Wittgenstein''s earlier critique of sense-datum theories (1929–1936) and his insight that naming is more complex than he had assumed in the Tractatus.