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We can never fully access another person’s perspective, but to what extent do our individual private experiences matter when it comes to language and shared understanding? According to the early 20th-century Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the answer is ‘not at all’. A distilled rendering of Wittgenstein’s so-called ‘private language argument’, Wittgenstein’s Beetle in the Box Analogy explains why he believed that the meaning behind language inevitably lay in our shared understanding, and not in our private minds, because we simply can’t access each other’s experiences or sensations.
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Film and visual culture
At the movies with Pauline Kael – in the arthouse cinema where she got her start
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History of ideas
Tantra is, and was, a subversive philosophy of feminine power
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Archaeology
Ancient Greek sculptures were colourful. Why does the white marble ideal persist?
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Thinkers and theories
Metaphysics and beyond – Martha Nussbaum on Aristotle’s indelible ideas
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Art
Dizzying discs and obscene wordplay – revisiting Marcel Duchamp’s 1926 film debut
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Politics and government
Is mass media still ‘manufacturing consent’ in the internet age?
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Metaphysics
Knowing if you’re awake seems simple. Why has it vexed philosophers for centuries?
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Stories and literature
Solaris and beyond – Stanisław Lem’s antidotes to the bores of American sci-fi
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Philosophy of language
For Ludwig Wittgenstein, language is a game, but not a frivolous one
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