Scribbles after Wittgenstein

We must guard against the temptation to use nature to explain anything personal. An itch occurs and, naturally, I scratch it. Do I use the same number of fingers you would? Scratch lightly or vigorously? Do I curse the itch or enjoy it? Do I curse it while secretly or guiltily enjoying it? Do I worry this itch might indicate disease, become infected? Stoics don’t scratch itches; they ignore them. Might not itches be taken as omens of future events? Happy or unhappy ones? Do I rub some icon afterwards, say for good luck? Or rub alcohol on it out of medicinal prudence? (Aren’t these sometimes the same thing?) Might not scratching my own or someone else’s itch be a sort of proposal, part of sexual play? A mingling of atoms sheds no light on any of this.

True, when we manage to trace out the causes of itches, tickles, pains, thoughts, inner voices, dreams, intentions, beliefs, aversions and whatnot, these bits of humanity are explained. And even if such explanations as we currently possess are incomplete, they are at least leading, and often productive (of effective medicines or public policies for example, or of sensible strategies for avoiding injury). But that some natural cause has some natural effect, while potentially useful, is not particularly interesting to me as a student of history, a music listener, a movie goer, a dreamer, a person. I want to know what roles a certain experience plays in people’s lives, to what degree they can alter these roles, and whether or not they should in fact alter them.

What clown studies Newton to improve his juggling technique?

The point is not to denigrate the science of bodies, but to recall that the subjects of such study do not blush with embarrassed pleasure, or wonder whether to turn on the light to see if they’ve been bitten by an insect. While I suppose you to be physically constituted, I nonetheless acknowledge and recognize your humanity. Does the fact that I do both of these things in English, indeed sometimes with the same words, indicate the substantial simplicity of my world, or the complex and flexible character of the language I speak?

It will happen that a doctor treating an illness also treats the patient with respect. How is this possible? It is possible if the same word does different things in different circumstances. But our words imply a world, don't they? How can one world have different natures? Say rather: there are worlds. But only if you have to.