How Words Mean Kinds of Sensations
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10693001 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Carl Ginet (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1968 |
| Volume | 77 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 3 |
| Publication date | 1968-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Philosophical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2183180 |
| OpenAlex | W2312793687 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
IT sometimes seems to me that what makes one of my * sensations of the kind it is is something that only who have the sensation can know. Then it seems conceivable that, no matter what evidence might think have to the contrary, the kind of sensation that mean by, for example, the term itch is not in the least like the kind that other people mean by that term. Then it seems impossible to find out for certain, really to know, whether or not and other people do mean anything like the same kind of sensation by that, or any, sensation term. cannot show another person what it is about my sensation that mean by calling it itch and he cannot show me what he means by calling one of his sensations itch. Of necessity, we can at best induce each other's meaning from similarity of concomitant external facts: behavior and circumstance. We cannot share the direct, certain path to grasping the kind each of us means by the term: that is necessarily solitary and private. Yet at the same time as feel drawn to these conclusions cannot rid myself of a sense that they are radically wrong. The hypothesis that what another person represents himself as feeling when he rubs his nose vigorously and says I can't seem to get rid of this blasted itch! is not at all like what feel that inclines me to do the same sort of thing (but is, say, just like what call in myself a stomach-ache) is, cannot help thinking, a hypothesis that cannot be seriously entertained, even as highly improbable. The way out of this familiar philosophical distress (if there is any way out) is, believe, to see more clearly what it is that enables a piece of language (a single word or a longer phrase) to mean (or specify) a kind of sensation. It is thereby that we may
Analytic philosophy · Art · Contemporary philosophy · Epistemology · General interest · Linguistics · Cognitive Science and Education Research · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,06 |
| Citation span | 1975 - 2004 (30) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |