Witti-Buch2 2001.qxd - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

Private Language: A Voiced Secret
Violent or not, acknowledging always entails an action by the self. In case it is
violent, it would be a self that looks for acknowledgement at any cost, therefore
mistreating the otherness of the other. In a way we are treating the others a mere
objects, and consequently they would have lost their subjectivity. Having reached this
point, we could say that the notion of acknowledgment does not leap far enough from
the image of the egocentric conception it was supposed to amend. We now would like
to explore a different "pattern of intersubjective recognition" (Honneth, 1992, chapter 5),
one that asks us to listen to the others instead of acknowledging them.
Having a language means that we are able to listen. The public character of our
language does not eliminate the inner, but instead provides it with a voice of its own that
has something to say, because its meanings come from what we share with the others.
Language and forms of life are the source of the inner. It is not then the problem of the
others, but the others, that also have voices, are the solution in themselves.
Furthermore, there is no difference between listening to the others and listening to
myself. Both the others and my inner states express themselves as voice.
When we listen we are necessarily open to what the other has to say. Listening to
the other then implies a sort of epistemological generosity, the other expresses her own
self: by listening to her we acknowledge her otherness as such. This image of the
listening we are considering supposes a disposition to listening to the other, from what
follows an ethical proposal: we should help to keep the voices alive.
In conclusion, once we have accepted what we take to be the true meaning of the
wittgensteinian neglect of the private language, we perceive an ethical aspect as well:
mastering a language is equivalent to be exposed before the others, it is both
acknowledging and listening. Furthermore, listening both to the external world and to
myself is the very same listening, in the sense that both are possibilited by the
publicness of our language. Nonetheless, we fail to face this fact because the myth of
the private language still fascinates us.
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