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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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Stories and literature
What makes John Keats’s ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ so enduringly powerful?
10 minutes
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Philosophy of mind
Do we have good reasons to believe in beliefs? A radical philosophy of mind says no
5 minutes
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Philosophy of religion
How a devout Catholic philosopher approaches the problem of evil
8 minutes
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Love and friendship
When drawing your muse hundreds of times becomes an exercise in love
7 minutes
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Thinkers and theories
Is simulation theory a way to shirk responsibility for the world we’ve created?
13 minutes
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Philosophy of mind
We may never settle the ‘free will’ debate, but tapping into it is still worthwhile
32 minutes
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Philosophy of mind
An enigmatic ‘story of consciousness’ told through 19th-century engravings
7 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
Why Aristotle believed that philosophy was humanity’s highest purpose
9 minutes
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Art
Tracing Goya’s ‘dark’ journey from Spanish court painter to macabre visionary
51 minutes