The Private Language Argument

Sounds plausible, right? A language for one. But according to the 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, this entire enterprise might be fundamentally impossible. This puzzle, known as the Private Language Argument, isn’t just a brain-teaser; it strikes at the heart of what language is and how meaning works.

What Makes a Language Truly “Private”?

First, let’s be clear about what Wittgenstein meant by a “private language”. He wasn’t talking about:

• A secret code or cypher. If you write your diary in a substitution cypher, it’s still just disguised English. Someone could, in principle, crack the code.
• A personal shorthand. If you use “Project X” to refer to a public plan, you’re just creating a nickname for something everyone can understand.
• A language with only one living speaker. Many languages are sadly on the brink of extinction, but they were once public and could theoretically be learned by an outsider.

A true private language, in the philosophical sense, is one that is in principle impossible for anyone else to understand. Its words refer to your immediate, private sensations—your pains, joys, tickles, and your unique “Zilch-gloom”. The very definitions of its words are tied to things only you can access: your own consciousness.

Wittgenstein and the Beetle in the Box

In his landmark book, Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein tackles this idea with a famous thought experiment. Imagine a community where everyone has a small box. Inside each box is something they call a “beetle”.

Here’s the catch: no one can ever look inside anyone else’s box. You can only see your own “beetle”.

So, when you talk about your “beetle”, what are you actually talking about? You have no way of knowing if what’s in your box is the same as what’s in your neighbor’s. For all you know, you have a ladybug, she has a dung beetle, and the person across the street has a scrap of wood—or nothing at all. Yet you all confidently use the word “beetle”.

Wittgenstein’s brilliant insight is that the object inside the box—the private sensation—becomes irrelevant to the meaning of the word. The word “beetle” gets its meaning from its public use, from the “language game” you all play. You talk about your beetles, compare notes on them (even though you can’t check), and use the word in sentences. The actual, private thing “drops out of consideration as irrelevant”.

The Trouble with Rules: How Do You Know You’re Right?

This is the core of the argument. For a word to have meaning, you must be able to use it consistently. And to use it consistently, you need to follow a rule. Let’s go back to your private diary and the word “Zilch-gloom”.

On Monday, you feel a sensation and name it “Zilch-gloom”. On Tuesday, you feel something similar and write “Zilch-gloom” again. But how do you know you’re using the word correctly? How do you know Tuesday’s sensation is the same as Monday’s?

You might say, “I’ll just remember what the first sensation felt like”. But how can you check if your memory is correct? The only thing you can consult is… another memory. As Wittgenstein put it, this is like “buying a second copy of the morning paper to assure yourself that what the first copy said was true”. There is no independent, external check.

In a public language, we have these checks everywhere. If I’m unsure whether a color is “chartreuse”, I can ask a friend, compare it to a paint swatch, or look it up online. The community, the physical world, and established conventions provide the objective criteria for correctness. A private language has none of this. There’s no distinction between thinking you’re following a rule and actually following it. And if you can’t be wrong, Wittgenstein argues, you can’t be right either. The concept of a “rule” dissolves.

Meaning Isn’t in Your Head; It’s in the World

The private language argument leads to a radical conclusion about meaning itself. The traditional view is that words are labels for ideas or objects in our minds. I have a mental image of a “dog”, and the word “dog” is the public label for that private mental image.

Wittgenstein flips this on its head. He argues for a model of meaning as use. The meaning of a word is not the private object it points to, but the role it plays in our shared life and activities. “An ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria”, he wrote.

Consider the word “pain”. We don’t learn its meaning by someone pointing to a private, unobservable feeling inside of us. We learn it through a public context. A child falls and scrapes their knee. They cry, they wince, they hold their leg. An adult says, “Oh, you’re in pain“, and comforts them. The word “pain” is woven into a whole set of public behaviors, situations, and responses. That shared context is what gives the word its meaning, not a mysterious inner sensation.

So, Are Our Feelings Not Real?

This is a common misunderstanding. The argument does not deny the existence of our rich inner lives. Of course you have private sensations! The argument is a linguistic one. It claims you cannot create a *language* whose terms are defined *solely* by reference to those private states, because language itself is an inherently public and social institution.

The private language argument reveals that language isn’t a tool for labeling a pre-existing private world. Instead, it’s a social tool that allows us to build a shared world together. It is through language that we learn to categorize, understand, and even experience our own sensations in a structured way. Our ability to speak is not a lonely monologue but a dynamic, communal dance—a game whose rules we all create, sustain, and enforce together.