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The Southern Journal of Philosophy (1995) Vol.

XXXIII

The Soulless Tribe


William H . Brenner
Old Dominion University

Speculation. A tribe t h a t we have brought into subjection, which


we want to make into a slave race.... The government and the sci-
entists give it out t h a t t h e people of this tribe have no souls; so
they can be used without scruple for any purpose whatever.

When the slaves say something happens in them, ... does this con-
firm that they have souls? ... If they say now “something happens
in my head-my soul-” t h a t only shows t h a t they use a certain
picture.’

My title derives from these a n d other remarks i n which


Wittgenstein develops the fiction of “a soulless tribe.” What is
i t s significance? Is i t being held up to u s a s a mirror?
Wittgenstein, in notes for a 1936 lecture, says t h a t when a
man moans with pain, “there is nothing behind the moaning.”2
Was he putting us on a level with his “soulless tribe”? Is there
truth in the common impression t h a t Wittgenstein denied the
inner life?3
This paper is an effort to clarify the soulless tribe passages
and, a t the same time, to challenge the common impression
t h a t Wittgenstein “left something out” in his philosophy of
psychology. I have drawn on material dating from 1935 to
1951 and tried to knit i t into a smooth, perspicuous whole. As
it seems to me, the resulting paper is more “the completion of
a Gestalt” than the exposition of a doctrine.
I
To speak of pain a s “behind t h e pain behavior,” o r of
thought as “in the soul,” is not t o say something false. But it

William H . Brenner studied at the College of S t . Thomas and the


University of Virginia and now teaches philosophy at Old Dominion Uni-
versity, Norfolk, Virginia. His publications include Elements of Modern
Philosophy (Prentice Hall, 1989), a translation (with John Holley) of
Joachim Schulte’s Wittgenstein (SUNI: 1992), Logic and Philosophy: An
Integrated Introduction (University of Notre Dame Press, 19931, and a
number of papers on Wittgenstein.

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William H. Brenner

does slur over categorical differences, differences revealed only


by close attention t o actual word use. Projecting everything
into “the inner” evades the difficulty of describing the field of
our language. S o we end up with “explanations” t h a t get u s
n0whe1-e.~
For instance: there are people in pain, and people behaving
as though they are in pain when they are not. One cannot ex-
plain the difference by saying t h a t in the case of the person
really in pain there is “a certain something” present behind
his behavior. For if instead of saying “a certain something” one
is bold enough to say p a i n , then the statement’s tautologous
character is m a n i f e ~ tAnd
. ~ to say “my feelings are inaccessible
t o him because they take place within my consciousness” is
tautologous a s well. For saying “they a r e in my conscious-
ness?’ is here j u s t another way of saying “they a r e inacces-
sible.”6
I can confess that I was simulating pain-confess a n inten-
tion to deceive others about how I feel. But since this possibil-
ity of confession is what “in my consciousness” consists in
here, one does not explain “in my consciousness” in terms of it.
And although someone who has been keeping his feelings to
himself may later reveal his inmost heart to us by a confes-
sion, this fact provides no “proof of the existence of the inner”:
for anyone who needed such a proof would have to dismiss the
“confession” on the grounds that it too is something outer.7
What makes me certain t h a t so-and-so’s confession is sin-
cere, or that his pain is real, may not make you certain.* The
existence of such stubborn disagreements between people is
not explained by saying that their “inner worlds” are closed t o
each other. Rather, we describe it by using that picture. (Not:
objective certainty is lacking because we do not see into their
souls. But: we do not see into their souls = objective certainty
is 1acking.Y
Lying implies a n intention to deceive. And intention, we
say, is something inner. But how do we know this? I t would be
circular to answer, “We verify it introspectively.” That inten-
tions, pains, etc. are inner is not a verifiable description-not
a proposition that may or may not be supported by evidence; it
is a grammatical remark-an effort to bring out something
about the use of “intention,” “pain,” etc.1°

I1
“Pain is to moaning what the contents of a box are t o its
outward appearance.?’This comparison is not empirical in the
way t h a t (for instance) “Gills a r e t o fish what lungs a r e t o
dogs” is empirical. This does not make it arbitrary, however, in
the sense of pointless. For comparing pain, intention, etc. t o
items in a sealed box can vividly express significant points of

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grammar: the points that our language game contains “logical


space” for doubting another’s avowals of pain, intention, etc.,
and that it does not contain criteria sufficient t o resolve every
disagreement about another’s avowal of pain, etc.”
Can someone under anesthesia experience pain? We some-
times acknowledge groaning (or something else) as a criterion
for answering this question, sometimes not. But the language
game without a criterion presupposes the language game with
a criterion. (Lytton Strachey tells us that he tried to imagine
Queen Victoria’s last thoughts as she lay dying. You may say
that he was guessing her thoughts; but it is a different use of
“guess.” I t presupposes the language game in which there is a
criterion for “guessing right” as opposed to “guessing
wrong.”)12
Phenomena of experience are phenomena of life; concepts of
experience have their meaning in the stream of life.13 Pain, for
example, is a phenomenon i n the lives of creatures who ex-
press pain and who (more or less confidently) recognize its ex-
pression in others. Therefore, elucidating the concept of pain
requires recalling t h e role i n our lives of the expression of
pain. (Consider the following series:

(a) One person has toothache for one minute but doesn’t
show it.
(b) Two people have toothache for two minutes but don’t
show it.
(c) N people have toothache for n minutes but don’t show it.
(d) Everybody has toothache all the time but doesn’t show
it.14

That we do not see “d” as a continuation of the series shows


that expression belongs to the concept of pain. The importance
of the concept in our lives is shown by the fact that we neither
have a use for ”d” nor want t o give it one.)

I11
If we see someone writhing in pain with evident cause, we
react to her suffering, we do something. We do not think: “Her
feelings are hidden from us.”15 So disagreements in judgment
about the feelings of others have their limits.16
“But how can we be certain t h a t the ‘sufferer’ is not dis-
sembling in even the ‘most evident’ cases?” We do not look to a
knowledge of human nature for an answer to this question. We
have, indeed, no clear idea of what i t (the question) is sup-
posed to mean, for we have no clear idea of what we would
count as an answer to it.17 It is, therefore, the “question” that
appears to need grounding, more than the “certainty” it chal-
lenges.

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William H. Brenner

The question is perhaps reflective of-and s o i n a sense


“grounded on”-an elementary point of grammar, namely that
there is room for dissembling in our language game. Thus:
“YOUmay lose at this game” may say no more than that in this
situation, in contrast to when we are “just playing around,”
there is such a thing as losing and winning. Similarly: “A per-
son may always be lying” may say no more than that there is
such a thing a s lying and truthfulness in the language game
between us, in contrast t o very primitive forms of the game.
As children, we learn the use of “So-and-so thought such-
and-such” from “So-and-so admits (or asserts) such-and-such,”
not vice versa. There are, admittedly, some people who seldom
confess their innermost thoughts, seldom admit what they are
really thinking. We can call this thinking-yet-not-admitting a n
exception concept. And if someone did not understand “think-
ing but not admitting,” we would have to explain it t o her in
terms of “thinking and admitting.”’*
Can we not a t least imagine a different, more direct, expla-
nation? Suppose we say that in “He thinks it but does not ad-
m i t it,” t h e i n n e r thought does not correspond t o ( i s not
accompanied by) its outward expression, while in “She thinks
i t a n d admits it” the inner thought does so correspond ( i s so
accompanied). But this “explanation” is no more t h a n a re-
description based on a secondary, extended use of words.
The psychological use of “accompanied by” is a secondary
use. For we would never begin a list of accompaniments with
“talking + thinking”; we would begin i t with something like:
“singing + playing the piano.” When we say “Her singing was
accompanied by the piano,” we are (truly or falsely) predicat-
ing something of a subject. When we say of intelligent behav-
ior that it is “accompanied by thought,” we are not predicating
something of a subject; we are using the phrase in a second-
ary, figurative sense. We are employing a picture.
“What happens when someone has a toothache?’’ A philoso-
pher might answer: “Something is going on in his tooth and,
accompanying t h a t , something in his consciousness-some-
thing dreadful.” But this answer-this “philosophical analy-
sis,” as we might call it-gets u s no further than the shorter
and patently tautological answer: “He’s having a toothache!”
The pain-with-accompanying-behavior picture creates no
problems in everyday life. I t creates problems for us as phi-
losophers, however, when we stand back and reflect on it. For
then a case like “fever accompanying a n infection” comes to
mind and we try to make it our paradigm of accompaniment.
The grammar of t h a t case is the grammar of correlating dis-
tinct domains.lg We end up misconstruing the grammar of ex-
pressing pain by forcing i t into t h a t mold. For although one
can say: “I have a fever; infection and fever normally go to-

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gether; so probably I have an infection,” one cannot say: “I am


exhibiting pain behavior; pain behavior and pain normally go
together; so probably I am in pain.”
Of course, one may equate “feigning pain” with “pain be-
havior not accompanied by an inner experience.” Although i t
explains nothing, this equation does give u s a picture-one
we can use or not use. Thus, although we a r e inclined to
think of malingering as pain-behavior minus something-
pain, we could think of it as pain behavior plus something-a
dishonest purpose.20
C. D. Broad is reported to have said of a man complaining
of toothache: “Perhaps nothing happens in his mind when he
says he has it; but certainly when I sympathize with him, I
believe t h a t something does.”21The only thing wrong with
this is t h a t it makes the belief sound entirely separate and
distinct from the sympathy. Whereas i n fact sympathy is a
form of the belief that someone else is in pain.22
Zettel, sec. 225: “‘We see emotion.’-As opposed t o what?-
We do not see facial contortions and make inferences from
them (like a doctor framing a diagnosis) to joy, grief, boredom.
We describe a face immediately as sad, radiant, bored, even
when we are unable to give any other description of the fea-
tures.” Noel Fleming has glossed t h a t oft-quoted passage a s
follows:

To see the joy in someone’s face is not to interpret some outward


signs by accepting a n hypothesis about his inner life .... What it
is to do, much more, is to react to him in a certain way ....23

This is all right as long as the “reaction” is understood as cog-


nitiue-a form of conviction that someone feels joy. Rejoicing,
pity, sympathy, and so forth, make my attitude towards him
“an attitude towards a ~ 0 ~ 1So . ”there
~ ~ must be something
wrong with Fleming’s idea that the soul, for Wittgenstein, is
no more t h a n “ t h e body itself making faces a n d moving
around” (Fleming 1978,43). For when we (for example) pity
someone we a r e not pitying his body ( P I , sec. 286). And to
characterize someone as “a body making faces and moving
around” would suggest an attitude far removed from “an atti-
tude towards a soul.”
The language game i n which we formulate beliefs and
doubts about the suffering of others is founded on spontane-
ous reactions:

... it is a primitive reaction to tend, to treat, the part that hurts


when someone else is in pain; and not merely when oneself is-
and so to pay attention to other people’s pain-behavior, as one
does not pay attention to one’s own pain behavior.

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But what is the word “primitive”meant to say here? Presumably


that this sort of behavior is pre-linguistic: that a language game is
based on it, that it is the prototype of a way of thinking and not the
result of

“Certain kinds of pre-linguistic behavior are foundational”: in


child psychology this sentence would function a s a n empirical
hypothesis; in this philosophical context it is meant t o bring
out a conceptual point. Compare PI, sec. 244:

How do words refer to sensations? ... Here is one possibility: words


are connected with the primitive, the natural, expressions of the
sensation and used in their place.. ..

That this is a possibility tells us something about the kind o f


word “pain” (for example) is. I t tells u s t h a t if that’s how i t
might have been learned, then it’s certainly not (for example) a
number, color, or thing word.

N
Psychological words are united by a certain asymmetry be-
tween first-person a n d third-person uses. This property is
brought to light through the question “How do I know ?”
For example, we find t h a t asking oneself L L H do ~I know
~ x
believe(s) ----” makes sense when x = “he,” “she,” “they,” o r
“you”-but t h a t i t makes no sense ( o r not the same kind of
sense) when x = “I.”A comparable asymmetry will not, however,
be found in a question such as “HOWdo I know x has (have)
tooth decay?”
This asymmetry makes i t look a s if “believe” means one
thing in its first-person use and something else in its third-per-
son use. What makes us use these words in such a way? If we
recollect the role of belief in our lives, we see that the grammar
of the first-person expression of belief mirrors a fact that is co-
lossally important for us, namely that we do not normally infer
our own beliefs from our own behavior. Thus, for anyone t o say
“I must believe t h a t somebody’s at the door, judging from the
way I’m moving toward it” would normally strike us as ludicrous.26
Our children learn t o use the word “pain” of other people on
the basis of observing them, and the same word of themselves
without observing anybody. Suppose we found a language in
which one word was used for the first person and a different
for the third: this fact would be of no special interest to us once
we learned the translation. The causes and consequences of
pain, alleviation of pain and compassion for the sufferer: these
are always of special interest to us.27
Just as “I have a toothache” can stand in for a moan of corn-
plaint, though it does not mean “I moan,” s o too “He h a s a

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The Soulless Tribe

toothache” can stand in for a moan of compassion, though i t


does not mean “I feel sorry for him.”28This is the sort of every-
day fact t h a t helps elucidate how the first- and third-person
uses go together. One might add that the first- and the third-
person utterances refer to the same object: the first from a
privileged “inner” vantage point; the third from a n indirect,
“external” vantage point. Presented as a n explanation or
analysis, this addition would j u s t obfuscate matters. But i t
does need t o be presented-as a picture; and then we will have
to investigate the picture’s service, the kind of role i t has in
our lives.
“I can take another man’s word for his beliefs but cannot
take m y word for my own beliefs.” Isn’t t h a t j u s t arbitrary?
No. Certain facts about psychological phenomena correspond
to or account for the asymmetry that runs through the psycho-
logical words; therefore, it is not arbitrary.29These facts, how-
ever, seem more trivial or humdrum, less metaphysical or
scientific than we might expect. For example:

It does not happen often that I guess your thoughts. (It could have
been t h a t everybody always m u r m u r s a n d t h a t many have a
knack for reading murmurs.)30

It has not come to pass t h a t whenever a man “adds i n his head”


we can observe his larynx and reliably predict t h e sum he will
come out with. If it did, the idea of a n inner calculation would lose
its point.31

I cannot observe myself as I do someone else.32

I do not bother about my own groaning, a s I often do about an-


other person’s.33

Pain, thought, and other elementary psychological concepts are


closely interwoven with these and other “facts of living”-so
closely that no legislator could abolish

V
We now return to the fiction with which we began.
To say of a people that they have no souls might be part of
an effort to enslave them and use them for any arbitrary pur-
pose. These “soulless ones” might even prove useful as experi-
mental subjects i n psychological laboratories since t h e i r
reactions, including their linguistic reactions, are quite those
of their “soul-endowed” masters.35
Suppose that we are these masters, and that we have much
the same use for the sentence ”I believe he has a toothache”
when talking of our slaves as we do when speaking of our-

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William H. Brenner

selves. This sameness of use is reflected in the fact t h a t our


criteria for applying t h e sentence a r e quite t h e same. Al-
though we react differently (have been trained to react differ-
ently) when applying the sentence to a “soulless one” t h a n
when applying it t o one of our own, w h a t w e go by in applying
i t is quite the same. We react t o our slaves a s if they were
automata rather than living human beings. If one screams
a n d writhes, we regard him a s we would a machine t h a t
needs to be fixed or replaced. The more mechanical a slave
appears t o us, t h e easier we find i t to regard him i n t h i s
way.36
Suppose we happen to notice in one of our slaves an (as i t
were) “suffering expression” o r (alternatively) a “cunning, de-
ceitful look”: now we feel that he has become “transparent t o
us,” that we are “looking into him.” This might make us stop
regarding him as soulless. If so, what would this change in us
amount to? I t would not be a matter of hypothesizing an “in-
ner cause” and believing that it explains the complicated play
of expressions, etc. that we observed in him:

Feigning and its opposite exist only when there is a complicated


play of expresions. (Just as false or correct moves exist only in a
game.)And if the play of expression develops, then indeed I can
say that a soul, something inner, is developing. But now the in-
ner is no longer the cause /the prime mover/ of t h e expression.
(No more than mathematical thinking produces calculations, or is
the impetus behind them ... ).37

Should we change our habitual attitude towards a slave


from one of cold calculation to one of sympathetic concern, we
would also change our way of representing him to ourselves.
We would then find i t natural t o speak of “what he h a s i n
mind” and of his “mental arithmetic,” for example. Perhaps
we will picture his d e a t h as a ghost leaving a recumbent
body, a s perhaps now we picture the death of our own. This
will express a radical change of attitude. Our attitude to-
wards him will now be “an attitude towards a soul,”-an “at-
titude towards a human.”38
I am not of the opinion that someone is not an automaton.
But what is the difference between a n attitude and a n opin-
ion? I might be of t h e opinion t h a t human beings a r e a u -
tomata (having heard i t in a physiology class) without i t s
influencing my attitude toward all human beings. (I might
even come t o believe that I, too, am a machine, without its af-
fecting my attitude toward myself.)

I would like to say: the attitude comes before the opinion.


(Isn’t belief in God a n attitude?) ...

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The Soulless Tribe

How would this be: only one who can utter it as information be-
lieves it?
And opinion can be wrong. But what would an error look like
here?39

In circumstances in which they would say of one of their


own t h a t she is calculating in her head (for example), t h e
slave owners would not say the same of a slave. When a visit-
ing foreigner exclaims that something must be going on in her,
something inner, he is ridiculed as sentimental, superstitious,
and stupid. To the objection t h a t surely the slaves’ notorious
malingering proves they have some sort of inner life, the reply
is that this “malingering” is not a conscious effort to deceive,
but merely their sometimes giving pain signals without the
appropriate antecedents and consequents. But suppose they
spontaneously come out with things like “something happens
in us when ....” To the question whether this new behavior is
evidence that perhaps something is happening in them, we re-
ply with a parallel but obviously nonsensical question such as:
“Would the fact that our children begin spontaneously to call
low notes ‘dark’ be evidence t h a t perhaps low notes are
dark?”lo
Why do we have t h e concepts we do? Compare “We have
the concept ‘dark note’ because there are such notes” with “We
have the concept ‘irrational number’ because there are such
numbers.” These answers are of course unhelpful; in this they
are alike. They differ in t h a t the second is about a somewhat
weightier concept than the first. The concept of a n irrational
number is connected with our interests and activities; our in-
terests and activities are connected with particular facts of ev-
eryday living.41We have to pay attention to such interests,
activities, and facts if we are to respond helpfully to the initial
question; for i t is by attending to them that we are reminded
of the point of our concepts, i.e., of the kind of role they have
in our lives.
The masters see to it t h a t t h e children of t h e slaves are
trained in the use of the same concepts as are their own chil-
dren. Yet they habitually regard their slaves as automata, and
train their children t o do likewise. Is there some fact of the
matter that they are overlooking? No. They can see as well as
anyone else that the slaves are men, women, and children who
look, act, and live much like themselves. It is j u s t t h a t they
make a practice of not acknowledging their humanity. This
practice shows us something about them. What it shows is not
factual or linguistic error, but (as we might put i t ) a certain
constriction of soul. (But isn’t this soul talk misleading?

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William H. Brenner

So little misleading, that it is quite intelligible if I say “My soul is


tired, not just my mind.” But don’t you at least say t h a t every-
thing that can be expressed by means of the word “soul” can also
be expressed somehow by means of words for the corporeal? I do
not say that. But if it were so-what would it amount to? For the
words, and also what we point to in explaining them, are nothing
but instruments, and everything depends on their use.42

Compare “slave owners who insist that their slaves are re-
ally automata” with “window manufacturers who insist t h a t
German-made windows are really without true cross-pieces.”
These manufacturers always see the cross-pieces in German
windows as swastikas, and train their workers always to refer
to them as such.

But can’t I imagine that the people around me are automata, lack
consciousness, even though they behave i n t h e s a m e way as
usual? - ... But just try to keep hold of this idea in the midst of
your ordinary intercourse with others, in the street, say! ...

Seeing a living human being as a n automaton is analogous to see-


ing one figure as a limiting case o r variant of another; the cross
pieces of a window as a swastika, for example.43

Contrary t o Noel Fleming and other critics, Wittgenstein is


not reducing “having a soul” t o “being seen as having a soul.”
When Wittgenstein talks about seeing human beings as a u -
tomata (and therefore soulless), he is talking about a second-
a r y use of the word. I n i t s p r i m a r y use, “automata” h a s no
application to human beings. If, then, someone calls a human
being “an automaton,” and this is not just a verbal slip or a
“parroting of what the teacher said,” then he is using t h a t
combination of words to express something-a reaction or a n
attitude. Similarly, if someone calls a sound bright or dark,
that may reveal a weak grasp of English, or a misunderstand-
ing, or i t may express a certain (more or less personal) reac-
tion t o the sound.
“Pain” is ascribed primarily t o human beings and other liv-
ing creatures, secondarily to dolls and other inanimate things;
secondary pain ascriptions are not correct or mistaken, as are
t h e primary pain ascription^.^^ A slave master who insists
t h a t his slaves are really automata is no more guilty of stu-
pidity and mistake t h a n is a child who ascribes pain to her
dolls and pities them; it is just that his behavior is expressive
of a sinister and far less innocent soul.
In its ”ideal” form, the slave owner’s attitude toward his
slaves is radically and relentlessly different from his attitude
toward himself and “his kind.” I t is an attitude rooted not in
an opinion but a form o f life.

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The Soulless Tribe

VII
Compare the uses of “thinking,” “believing,” “sensing,” and
“feeling” with their associated picture. While t h e uses a r e
many and complex, the picture is of something unitary and
simple in which invisible activities are taking place. The story
of the soulless tribe is meant to show that this picture is like a
pair of glasses on our nose-something we can “take off.”
While it is neither possible nor desirable to do without “the
picture of the inner” and “the idea of the soul” in our language
a n d our lives, i t i s possible a n d desirable t o abstract from
them when we need to analyze our psychological concepts. In
t h a t context of conceptual analysis, the story of the “soulless
tribe” functions not in a description of a hateful ideology but
as a n “auxiliary c o n s t r ~ c t i o n ”in~ ~
a process of clarifying the
use of psychological predicates in our lives. I t helps us repre-
sent the variety and complexity of that use.
“Soulless tribesmen” a r e taught something like a signal
game with psychological terms such a s “I am in pain” and “I
am depressed.” In the case of pain, they are trained t o substi-
tute a language gesture for the primitive gesture of “pointing
to where i t hurts.” There is, however, nothing comparable to
this in the case of depression.
“I am in pain” is attached to certain local reactions, such as
nursing an injured knee; there is nothing like this in “I am de-
pressed.” And, though both expressions are important to us re-
garding future behavior, they are not important in the same
way. If, in the end, we are persuaded to speak of the tribesmen
as experiencing both pain and depression “within themselves,”
then the expressions of pain and depression begin look alike.
“The picture of the inner” puts a face of unity over an underly-
ing diversity.46
When we move back from our close look at the underlying
diversity, the “face of unity” re-emerges. “[Wle can’t get away
from forming the picture of a mental Why? “Not be-
cause we are acquainted with it in our own case!” Why then?

We combine diverse elements into a “Gestalt” (pattern), for ex-


ample, into one of deceit.

The picture of the inner completes the Gestalt.48

Professor Cora Diamond makes the clarifying suggestion


that “the diverse elements being combined into the pattern of
deceit might be behavior, utterances, a certain intelligence, a
look in someone’s eyes.” They are combined, she adds,

... by the fact that I can see the diverse things as together forming
a pattern, the pattern of deceit. I think of the pattern as com-

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William H. Brenner

pleted by a n inner intention, the intention to deceive: the comple-


tion of the pattern in this way helps me to construe the other dis-
parate items as belonging to a pattern.49

Yesterday I was told t h a t N was smiling and cheerful, today


that he is still cheerful but no longer smiling. I combine these
and other diverse facts and impressions into the Gestalt of de-
ceit. To complete the Gestalt, I picture a n inwardly-smiling N
wearing a mask of depression o r of pain-so t h a t less will be
demanded of him today.

VIII
Think back to the firsthhird-person asymmetry. Diverse
psychological phenomena are united by this one property. But
does each psychological predicate have two meanings: one in
its first, another in its third-person use? No. What I identify on
the basis of another’s cries and moans is the very same state
he simply expresses in those cries and moans. But what is this
thing t h a t I identify and he expresses? Not something “over-
against-us” that either one of us can point at. “Something in-
ner.” So the picture of the inner again unifies a diversity.
“But does it really? I say you’re in pain because I hear you
say ‘Ouch’; you do not say you’re i n pain because you h e a r
yourself say ‘Ouch.’ Do we really mean t h e same by ‘pain’?”
What kind of question is that?

The question can be raised: Is a state that I recognize on the basis


of someone’s utterances really the same as the state he does not
recognize this way? And the answer is a de~ision.~’

Suppose I am a slave owner who h a s finally come to see t h e


humanity in a slave. Perhaps I see him injured and react with
a sympathetic “I know how i t must feel!” (I might have hard-
ened my heart.) I have thereby identified “what I recognize on
the basis of observing his injury and hearing his cries” with
“what he h a s b u t does not recognize i n t h a t way.” I have
thereby placed what I recognize in him i n the same box with
what I have when I am injured-the box marked “psychologi-
cal-inner-reality.” I now not only use the same word, “pain,” of
his state and mine when we are injured and crying out, I also
apply the same picture t o them: “states of mind,” “passions of
the soul.” In extending application of the picture in this way I
express my acknowledgment of his humanity. (“And the answer
is a decision.” Yes, I made a decision-to do something, to ap-
ply the picture of the soul to the man. I didn’t: “decide that he
has a soul.” That means nothing.51)
“It does seem as though what I recognize and he expresses
is the same.” But this is a picture, not something that seems to

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The Soulless Tribe

be What we do with this picture is to express a certain at-


titude and t o pass i t along to our children: “an attitude to a
soul.” I t is so important to pass along this “Einstellung zur
Seele” to our children because it is the foundation of their
“moralische Einbildung.” This service to moral education is
part of what gives “the picture of the inner” its meaning.53
“The pain I recognize and he expresses is the same; the
pain I express and he recognizes is the same”: one learns the
picture of the inner in the course of learning the asymmetries
of psychological grammar. And i t seems t o me obvious t h a t
t h i s learning provides soil on which t h e seeds of morality
might sprout and grow-“seeds” such a s the Golden Rule and
“Let us be human.”54

M
Inner a n d outer facts do not s t a n d t o each other a s do
plants of different species.55For, while ways of distinguishing
plant species are justified through observable similarities and
dissimilarities among plants, ways of distinguishing facts are
not justified through observable similarities and dissimilari-
ties among facts.
We say that pain is a sensation, but we cannot justify this
by reference t o a noticeable similarity between pains and
other things we call “sensations”-itches, smells, sounds, color
impressions, etc. The similarity must be in the concept; so i t
must be grammar, not experience, that tells us what kind of
object pain is.
Kinds of numbers have formal properties5‘jin common but
differ in their application. Similarly: although nothing could
be more unlike than meters and minutes, they share a formal
property-they are both measures.57
Although the terms “believes,” “intends,” “in pain,” etc., dif-
fer enormously in their application, they (and the other psy-
chological predicates) have in common t h a t , in t h e i r
first-person, present-tense use, doubt and the possibility of
mistake are ruled out. We may call the indubitability and in-
corrigibility involved here a property (or conjunction of proper-
ties) so long as we realize that in doing so we are making not
a material but a formal point. For we are not here predicating
something of something else-any more than we were when
we said t h a t 2 a n d 4 a r e numbers, or when we said t h a t
meters a n d minutes a r e measures. To “predicate a formal
property” is to make a grammatical remark. It is t o character-
ize a language game rather than to make a moue in it.
Whatever characterizes a language game belongs to gram-
mar. But grammar, as it is of interest t o philosophy, must not
be equated with rules (criteria, techniques) for the employ-
ment of words. We can see t h i s with t h e help of our story

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William H. Brenner

about the slave masters in relation to their slaves: although


they did not alter its rules, their language game with the psy-
chological words had a different sense for them when they ex-
tended it from themselves t o their slaves. So bringing out the
sense of a language game is not the same as tabulating i t s
We also, in the present case, need to imagine how “the
picture of the inner” might have been used a n d misused by
those who taught us the language game with the psychologi-
cal words.
I imagine this: that I was taught to say “He is in pain” as
well a s “I am in pain”; also t h a t pain is pain, whether i t is
mine or his. I was taught that, although pain is something we
both feel, it is not like the kitten we can both feel together: it
is subjective or inner, not over-against-us or outer; i t is pri-
vate not public-nobody can know my pains unless I show
them. I was taught that pain, although subjective, is nonethe-
less real; and although private, i t can-in its own way-be
shown.
I imagine also that had I been born into the slave-holding
community, I would have been trained, at a certain point, to
say that people can only really show signs of their sensations,
and trained t o ridicule the idea t h a t people can ever show
their sensation^.^^ I would then have been informed of what
“the wisest scientists and philosophers” have concluded about
our slaves: t h a t their cries and groans a r e not, as with us,
ever signs of an inner, psychological reality; that, with them,
cries and groans are no more than signals of an external, me-
chanical malfunction.

X
The picture of the inner belongs t o “the mythology stored
in our language.”60Is i t a n ornament-like a king’s paper
crown in the Blue Book chess game?61It is too firmly rooted in
us and in the facts of our life t o be called that. Is i t a super-
stition? I t is a picture a t the root of our thinking and is t o be
respected as such and not treated as a superstition.62Is it be-
yond criticism? If, a s in the education of the slave masters’
children, i t is used so as to drive a wedge between pain and
its expression, then it is misused. And this, of course, is sub-
ject t o criticism.

POSTSCRIPT
I talked about Wittgenstein’s story of the slaves with Pro-
fessor J o s e Benardete in a Syracuse cafe one afternoon in the
summer of 1982. He found it troubling, as I recall, even sinis-
ter-an example of a kind of thinking t h a t threatens t o un-
dermine enlightenment a n d ethics. At t h e time, I did not

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The Soulless Tribe

understand what Wittgenstein was doing, but felt sure i t was


not t h a t . I t was only after many years t h a t I clarified my
thoughts enough t o get them down on paper. Then I remem-
bered our conversation and sent him an earlier version of this
paper. He replied with a paper of his own that contains this
reference to Wittgenstein’s story:

... In cases where it was obvious to us that the slaves were under-
going the keenest pain as when they “screamed in agony,” the mas-
ters would pay no heed. “Here, then,” writes [Norman] Malcolm,
reporting Wittgenstein’s position, “is a difference in ‘attitude’ that
is not a matter of believing ... different facts.” So is it not a fact
that sometimes you and I suffer pain ...?

Although the suggestion [the last sentence] cannot possibly be rec-


onciled with PI, sec. 246 (“other people very often know when I am
in pain”), it indicates to what lengths Wittgenstein was prepared to
go in order to distance himself from behaviorism.. .. [He] ... appears
to be pretty much stuck with this dichotomy: behaviorism or non-
~ognitivism.~~

In the margin, by the last sentence, Jose penciled: “Can you re-
fute this, Bill?” I will try.
Behaviorists would on principle deny that pain is something
inner; Wittgenstein would not. His argument is against inter-
preting “the interiority of pain” to mean “I can’t really show my
pain.”64And he suggests that misinterpretation arises from try-
ing to force “showing one’s pain” into t h e model of (for ex-
ample) “showing one’s beetle.” (Compare with t h e way
Augustine tried t o understand “measuring a length of time” on
the model of “measuring a length of ribbon.”65)
Non-cognitivism is more confusing. “IS i t not a fact,” you
ask, “that sometimes you and I suffer pain?” Of course. And (as
I understand the story) i t would also be a fact that the slaves
sometimes suffer pain, t h a t the masters know this, and t h a t
the masters make a practice of always referring t o the suffer-
ing of slaves in (as it were) sneer quotes. Is i t non-cognitivism
to say that their practice expresses an immoral attitude rather
than a mistaken belief?
Vivisectionists in the 17th-century rationalized their prac-
tices by appeal to Cartesian philosophy. Perhaps the slave mas-
t e r s of W’s fiction rationalize t h e i r practice by appeal t o
propaganda “given out by the government and the scientists.”
Converting them would be less like making them believe differ-
e n t things, more like making them do different things. We
want them to picture the subjugated people differently, and to
free them. For this we need not so much to instruct as to exhort.
“Then is Wittgenstein a prescriptivist, and so a kind of non-
cognitivist about ethics?” Let me conclude with two quotations,

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William H. Brenner

the first from a notebook of Wittgenstein, t h e second from an


old book review b y John Wisdom:

.. . the utterance of a command, such as “Don’t be resentful,” may


be like the affirmation of a truth.66

“Ethical statements aren’t statements but commands, exhorta-


tions, exclamations” is false but profound and, till recently, novel
... “Ethical statements a r e statements, statements of fact” is of
course true. They are statements of fact about what is good and
right, i.e., about ethical fact. And mathematical statements a r e
statements about mathematical fact. And both sorts of fact can be
discovered. But to say this is platitudinous and useless except in
opposition, i.e., as corrective to falsehoods such as, “They are ex-
clamations.’’ For, as always i n metaphysics, t h e difficulty lies
within the expressions “statement,” “fact,” “false,” “discover.” It is
not for nothing t h a t we use the same words in ethical and aes-
thetic and mathematical procedure a s in scientific procedure. But
“Ethical statements a r e statements” is a platitude and reveals
nothing, for i t reminds us only of a likeness our notion already
emphasizes. It can be useful only in opposition to a paradox.. ..67

NOTES
’ The first quotation is from Wittgenstein’s Remarks on the Philoso-
phy of Psychology, Vol. I (RPP-I), secs. 93 and 96; cf. Zettel (21, sec. 528.
The second quotation is from P. T. Geach, ed., Wittgenstein’s Lectures on
the Philosophy of Psychology, 1946-47 (LPP), 42-43.
From “Notes for Lectures on ‘Private Experience’ a n d ‘Sense
Data’,” reprinted in J a m e s Klagge a n d Alfred Nordmann, eds.,
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Occasions (PO). The full and cryptic passage
reads as follows: “‘But aren’t you saying, t h a t all t h a t happens is the
moaning, and that there is nothing behind it?’-I a m saying that there
is nothing behind the moaning” (PO, 262).
Iris Murdoch still shares this impression, to judge from her chap-
ter on Wittgenstein in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1993). She
speaks in one place of a n “unbearable narrowness in his use of the im-
age of outer criteria” (275); in another place, of “his wish to keep the in-
dividual and value out of the picture” (278).
Cf. Noel Fleming’s suggestion that Wittgenstein was a “grammatical
epiphenomenalist” for whom t h e soul is n o more t h a n “the body itself
making faces” (Philosophy 53 [1978]: 43, 461, and Jose Benardete’s talk
of “the widespread impression that at the heart of the Philosophical In-
vestigations lies a profound darkness.” Citing sections 246 and 304,
Benardete traces this “darkness” to a n unresolved tension between
wanting and not wanting to allow factual reference to “pain.” (Philo-
sophical Studies 72 [1993]: 279-280).
Based on Last Writings, Vol. I1 (LW-111, 82 ff.
Based on “Notes for the ‘Philosophical Lecture’,” in PO, 449.
‘ Cf. Last Writings, Vol. I (LW-I), sec. 975.
Based on RPP-11, sec. 703. Cf. PI, 223.

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The Soulless Tribe

* LW-11, 21: ”‘I am certain that he is in pain.” ... [Wlhat makes us


certain? Not a proof. That is, what makes me certain does not make
someone else certain.” See also RPP-I, sec. 137: “ ... In certain cases I
am in some uncertainty whether someone else is in pain or not, I am
not secure in my sympathy with him-and no expression on his part can
remove this uncertainty. ... A particular drug might put him into a state
in which he ‘acts like a n automaton,’ is not pretending, but feels noth-
ing, though he expresses feelings.”
Based on LW-11, 25.
lo Cf. RPP-I1 secs. 643-644.
l1 Margaret Macdonald’s “Wittgenstein on ‘Personal Experience”’
contains these interesting remarks on criteria for dreams: “Memory is
one of the many criteria that something has happened. There are also
other means of checking this. But in the case of remembering a dream it
is quite different. We could check this in some cases, e.g., if he talked in
his sleep, but you need not take any such thing a s the criterion. We
know how to use an expression in the circumstances in which we are ac-
customed to use it-those, e.g., in which we have learned it-but in
other cases we are not so sure how to use it. How could a man dream
something before he was born? You can think of some circumstances,
however, in which t h a t expression might have a fairly clear use. It
might be used in connection with some investigation into the brain of
the embryo.” (With thanks to Cora Diamond for supplying her unpub-
lished edition of M. M.’s notes on Wittgenstein’s 1935-36 lectures.)
See LPP, 274 (Jackson), especially:
You read: “The Queen may have thought ... “ You think Yes, I under-
stand: that means, perhaps, “the words have other uses” (Cf. “I came
to a booking office”: this presupposes the whole railway system: i t
gets its place and use from that.)
Cf. LLP, 32 (Geach version). On “under anaesthesia,” see RPP-11, sec.
645.
l3 See 2,sec. 173 and secs. 531-534.

l4 From the Margaret Macdonald notes.


See PI, sec. 420. Compare RPP-11, sec. 558.
l6 See LW-11, 15 b. Compare RPP-11, secs. 605-609 and LW-11, 87 e.
Cf. Bactatus 6.5.
l8 LPP, 329 (A. C . Jackson notes). Compare “calculating in the head.”
A secondary use of ”calculating,” this must be explained in terms of “cal-
culating on paper“ or the like.
l9 With thanks to Peter Hacker’s Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind,
244.
2o Cf. Rush Rhees’ notes on Wittgenstein’s 1936 lectures, Philosophi-
cal Investigations 7 (1984), 10.
21 LPP, 284 (Jackson’s notes); cf. 165 (K. J . Shah’s notes) and 41
(Geach’s).
22 Cf. PI, sec. 287.
23 “Seeing the Soul,” Philosophy 53 (1978): 37.
24 This phrase is introduced in PI, 178. PI, sec. 287 makes the point
that “pity is”-not a feeling or sensation, like pain-but “a form of con-
viction that someone else is in pain.”
2,secs. 540-541.
26 Based on LPP, 67,95 (Geach). Cf. 154 (Shah).

295
William H. Brenner

27 Based on LPP, 280 (Jackson).


** Based on PO, 261 (“Notes for Lectures”).
29 Compare: “I can show you reddish blue, but not reddish green.”
Isn’t that a bit of arbitrary grammar? Couldn’t someone be trained to
call olive “reddish green,” and doesn’t t h a t show that “It’s only how we
look at it”? No. Certain facts account for the grammar-facts of a kind
different from what we are inclined to expect. (See LPP, 258.) /If we
construe the sentence “These people are acquainted with reddish green”
on the model of a sentence like “These people are acquainted with moa
birds” (as we are inclined to), then we will want to challenge it by say-
ing “But no such thing exists!”-which will provoke the rejoinder How
do you know? But i n the case of “reddish green” (in contrast to “moa
birds”), we have no clearn idea of what a non-question begging answer
to the question would look like. An illuminating, non-circular response
to the question of why neither olive nor any other color is called “red-
dish green” would proceed by reminding us of certain everyday facts. We
would be reminded, for example, that one is not able to immediately rec-
ognize olive as a color producible by mixing red and green-as one is
able immediately to recognize orange as a color producible by mixing
red and yellow. (See RPP-11, secs. 421-434.) /Language games do have
foundations-only not of a kind one would expect.
30 Based on LPP, 154. Cf. LPP, 275 ff: “In some way we can point to
differences in the phenomena which ‘correspond to the concepts’. But the
facts are quite different from what you’d expect .... [Tlhere is something
‘private’: we don’t often guess Smith’s thoughts. Suppose a tribe which
always murmured and read each other’s murmurs .... ”
3 1 Based on LLP, 275-276.
32 Cf. LW-11, 10: “I can not observe myself as I do someone else, can-
not ask myself “What is this person likely to do now?” etc.1 Therefore
the verb ‘He believes,’ ‘I believed’ can not have the kind of continuation
in the first person as the verb ‘to eat.’/ ... ‘But what would the continua-
tion be that I was expecting?!’ I can see none.” But cf. LW-11, 36 d and
40 h.
33 Based on 2, sec. 538. Cf. 2, sec. 539: “I infer that he needs to go to
the doctor from observation of his behavior; but I do not make this infer-
ence in my own case from observation of my behavior. Or rather: I do
this too sometimes, but not in parallel cases.”
34 See LW-11, 43-44.
35 See 2, sec. 528 and RPP-I, sec. 96.
36 “ ._.the opposite of being full of soul is being mechanical” (RPP-I,
sec. 3241.
37 LW-I, secs. 946-947. (“The strokes [“/ ... /”I enclose a n alternate
phrasing in the text.) On “transparent to us,” see LW-11, 67.
38 See LW-11, 38.
39 LW-11, 38. Cf. On Certainty, where it is suggested that propositions
such as “I a m a human being” and “The e a r t h has existed for a very
long time” show us the hardest layers of the “river bed” of our thought
and action. If the certainty of “I have two hands” is not as “hard,” that
is because we do know what a n error would look like there. (See OC,
sec. 23, and passim.)
40 Based on LPP, 285.

“ Cf. LW-11, 46-47.


42 RPP-I, sec. 586. Cf. RPP-11, sec. 690, and Joachim Schulte, Experi-
ence and Expression, 160 f.

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The Soulless Tribe

PI, sec 420.


“Here one might speak of a ‘primary’ and a ‘secondary’ sense of a
word. It is only if the word has the primary sense for you that you use it
in the secondary one” (PI, 216;cf. see. 282).
45 See 2,sec. 528 (“Eine Hilfskonstruktion. Ein Stamm, den wir

versklaven wollen.. .. ”1.


46 Cf. LPP, 164 (Shah notes): “The picture [of a soul with something

happening in it] has an equalizing influence. (Difficult).”


47 This and the following quoted sentence are from RPP-11, sec. 668.
48 RPP-11, sec. 651.
49 From a letter to me dated November 30, 1994.

50 LW-11, 8-9. (Also in LW-I, sec. 428.)


51 On “means nothing,” see PI, secs. 499-500.

52 Compare PI, 184 d.


53 SeePI, 178.
64 Culture and Value, 30 (“Lass uns menschlich sein.-”).
55 Based on LW-11, 61-64.
56 What “formal property” is in the Tractatus, “place or station in
grammar” is in the Investigations.
57 Based on LPP, 65 (Geach). Cf. 84:“One cannot distinguish psycho-
logical phenomena qualitatively like kinds of apples or pears. The differ-
ence is like that between railway companyltrainlofficial.”
58 Compare PI, sec. 282:“(When children play at trains their game is
connected with their knowledge of trains. It would nevertheless be pos-
sible for the children of a tribe unacquainted with trains to learn this
game from others, and to play it without knowing that it was copied
from anything. One might say that the game did not make the same
sense to them a s to US.)” Cf. Zettel, sec. 144 and the sections of PI on
“point (Witz).”
59 Cf. PO, 447 (in “Notes for the ‘Philosophical Lecture”’), where
Wittgenstein distinguishes the everyday concept of privacy from the
metaphysical pseudo-concept “super-privacy.”The slave masters are not
mentioned in these notes. The idea that they might rationalize their
practice in terms of this metaphysical concept is my own.
6o “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough,” PO, 133. Just prior to the
quoted phrase Wittgenstein remarks that “much too little is made of the
fact that we count the words ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ a s part of our educated
vocabulary.”And on the following pages we find: “I could imagine that I
had the choice of picking a creature of the earth as the dwelling place
for my soul ... ” (135)and “ ...the feeling which we have for our lives is
comparable to that of such a being who could choose for himself his
viewpoint in the world ... [this feeling] underlies, I believe, the myth-or
the belief-that we had chosen our bodies before birth” (137).
61 Blue and Brown Books, 65: “-1 want to play chess, and a man
gives the white king a paper crown, leaving the use of the piece unal-
tered ... ”
62 Based on Culture and Value, 83.

63 Pages 279-280, op. cit. in note # 3. Benardete is quoting from


Malcolm’s review of PI in Philosophical Review 63 (1954).
The Cartesiaflprivate linguist” will want to qualify “I can’t show
my pain” with “except to myself.” To this, Wittgenstein’s reply would be:
“I give myself a n exhibition of something only in the same way as I give
one to other people” (RPP-11, sec. 595 and 2,sec. 665).
65 See Blue Book, 26. I discuss this and related examples of

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William H. Brenner

“procrustean” thinking in my Logic and Philosophy: An Integrated Zntro-


duction, Chapters VII-VIII.
66 Culture and Value, 61.
67 Review of C. H. Waddington’s Science and Ethics in volume 52 of
Mind (1943),277. Cora Diamond gave me the Wisdom reference-along
with eight pages of invaluable comments on an earlier version of this
paper. Mary and Emily Brenner provided patient support and useful
suggestions throughout this paper’s long period of gestation. My thanks
to them, and to the several colleagues and students who also took a n in-
terest in T h e Soulless Tribe.’’

298

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