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Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy

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Wittgenstein and criteria

Elizabeth H. Wolgast
Published online: 29 Aug 2008.

To cite this article: Elizabeth H. Wolgast (1964) Wittgenstein and criteria, Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy,
7:1-4, 348-366, DOI: 10.1080/00201746408601406

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 WITTGENSTEIN AND CRITERIA

by
Elizabeth H. Wolgast
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An essay to develop some of Wittgenstein's remarks about the notion of 'criteria'

and to give the concept clarity even at the expense of some features Wittgenstein
claimed for it. This effort was made because of the important role 'criteria' plays in
Wittgenstein's discussions of feelings and mental states, and it is hoped that a defense
of 'criteria' will make those discussions more coherent. An attempt is made to
relate this notion of 'criteria' to the definition and expression of mental states,
following some of Wittgenstein's suggestions, and to rebut skepticism about other
minds.

How does the philosophical problem about mental processes

and states and about behaviourism arise? — The first step is
the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of processes and
states and leave their nature undecided. Sometime perhaps we
shall know more about them — we think. But that is just what
commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter. For we
have a definite concept of what it means to learn to know a pro-
cess better... And now the analogy which was to make us under-
stand our thoughts falls to pieces. So we have to deny the yet
uncomprehended process in the yet unexplored medium. And
now it looks as if we had denied mental processes. (308)*

Wittgenstein believes that we commonly assume that psychological

and mental concepts refer to processes which are internal. We model
them on processes in the physical world, only leave their exact charac-
ter unspecified. Once we have done this we are faced with the conse-
quence that, being inner, they are also inaccessible. And finally we
are brought to wonder what they can be.
Wittgenstein would have us go back to where we made this wrong
turning:

* Paragraph numbers refer to numbered paragraphs of Philosophical Investigations,

trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, Blackwell, Oxford 1953.

348
 'What happens when a man suddenly understands ?' — The
question is badly framed. If it is a question about the meaning
of the expression 'sudden understanding', the answer is not
to point to a process we give this name to. The question might
mean: what are the tokens of sudden understanding; what
are its characteristic psychical accompaniments? (321)
The question what the expression means is not answered by
such a description; and this misleads us into concluding that
understanding is a specific indefinable experience. But we forget
that what should interest us is the question: how do we compare
these experiences; what criterion of identity do we fix for their
occurrence ? (322)
What does it mean to 'suddenly understand' ? Not anything we can
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point to or look at closer. But then how do we study it ? Wittgenstein

seems to be saying: 'Sudden understanding' has a use — that is
what you want to look at. Look for what there is in a situation which
leads us to say that someone 'suddenly understands' and you will
see what kind of meaning it has. Those things in a situation which
lead us to use the expression are the criteria we set for its meaning.
As Wittgenstein introduces 'criterion' here, the concept serves to
restrain us from the conclusion that, since mental phenomena cannot
be pointed to, they may not be anything at all. He says in various
ways that we must put aside the picture of physical processes which
we can point to and describe and look for the criteria of mental pro-
cesses instead. Altogether this suggests that criteria are peculiarly
important to the concepts of mental phenomena.

Criteria and Mental Concepts

Wittgenstein brings our attention to 'criteria' when he wants us to
think that psychological concepts have a different kind of use and
meaning than physical concepts have. That we cannot point to psycho-
logical processes does not prove they are nothing; it proves that they
are not like physical ones. Wittgenstein would have our thinking
about the functions of language to be more flexible and imaginative;
he would have us look at how specific concepts function before we
describe how they must be. Let us study some of the examples he
suggests.
He tells us:
One ought to ask, not what images are or what happens when
one imagines anything, but how the word 'imagination' is used.
But that does not mean that I want to talk only about words.
349
 For the question as to the nature of the imagination is as much
about the word 'imagination' as my question is. And I am only
saying that this question is not to be decided — neither for the
person who does the imagining, nor for anyone else — by
pointing; nor yet by the description of any process. (370)

Let us think how we might teach someone the meaning of 'imagines';

and following one suggestion of Wittgenstein's, let us try to 'play-act'
a definition.1 For example: I close my eyes, lean my head back and
say, 'I am imagining that I am in Venice on a canal. It is evening.
How beautiful the city looks in the dusk! How delightful the music I
can hear from across the water!' After a bit I open my eyes and sit
up and sigh that it's too bad I'm not in Venice.
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What sort of explanation have I given? I connected certain things

with a fictitious narration and the use of 'I imagine...'; taking a
particular posture; shutting my eyes while I told what I imagined;
opening my eyes when the narration was finished; sitting up then and
looking around me. I think Wittgenstein would say that these things
— the posture, the closed eyes, the narration, the resumption of my
former position at the end — are all 'criteria' or part of 'the crite-
rion' for imagining.
It is impressive how much such play-acting conveys. I may not have
been imagining I was in Venice; but the picture is clear and in a
sense complete. One does not need to lean back and close one's eyes in
order to imagine, of course. But these are natural things to do when
one imagines; therefore they tell something about the concept.
There are other uses of 'imagines' and one would not learn them all
from this example. But it would be a beginning, and perhaps as clear
as any explanation of this sort.
Next let us follow Wittgenstein's suggestion that we should consider
how we 'compare' images. Take this example: I sit here (in Zurich)
and say to you, 'I can just see the San Francisco Bay bridge and how
it looks from the east'. You say: 'Yes, I can too; it is very striking at
night.' I say: 'Oh, you are thinking of it at night! Yes, it is pretty
then, especially from a distance; I can see how it looks from the top
of the Berkeley Hills.' You reply, 'Ah, yes — a wonderful sight!'
Are we comparing images ? Why not say this ? And how did we com-
pare them ? We talked about how the bridge looks, really looks, from
different places and at different times. Suppose you had said: 'I've
never seen the bridge from that view'; then our images must at that
point be different. But what do 'same' and 'different' mean here?

350
 Not what they would mean if we were sorting postcards with different
views of the bay bridge and you said, 'Look, I have one which was
taken from the hills', and I said, 'Yes, I have one of those too'. What
'comparing' means is just what the example says: we are talking
about the same object, giving descriptions, joining our feelings.
That is all. What is the criterion for saying we are comparing images?
That we talk together about the bridge and how we imagine it. What
is the criterion for saying our images are 'alike' ? That we agree as we
describe the bridge; that is all.
Now consider a third kind of example: How we might teach some-
one to use the expression 'talk to oneself. First he must know what
'talking' is. Then we describe this imaginary situation to him: Some-
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one has been frightfully rude to him and he would like to speak out
and protest. However if he should do this the consequences would be
enormous. Therefore he does not say the thing which he would say
otherwise, which he is ready to say. He says it only 'to himself.
What can possibly serve as criteria here? There is apparently
nothing — no expression of one's anger or desire to speak. What there
is is a situation in which anger would be natural, even inevitable, and
a protest is clearly appropriate. That one does not speak may be a
criterion here for one's speaking to oneself.
A similar case can be described this way: Imagine someone who
goes about his work making faint mumbling noises. His voice seems
to rise and fall but one cannot understand what he says. We say:
He's talking to himself; and the criterion which leads us to say this
is that we cannot understand him — that he is not talking to us.
But this is a strange way for a criterion to work. What does it mean
to say this criterion is 'present' or 'absent' in a given case? In the
first example what we have is a situation on which a normal human
response is involved. Is the whole situation a criterion? That cannot be.
But the 'normal human response' is one. We can say: 'How furious
that makes one!' 'How embarrassing that is!' meaning anyone with
normal sensibilities would respond this way. That one does not express
certain feelings under certain circumstances can be a criterion of a
psychological phenomenon. (This should not seem strange; we are
after all concerned with human thoughts, feelings, etc. and not with
physical things.)
But one may protest: Someone can use the expression 'I said to
myself...' when there are no special reasons to prevent his saying
that thing aloud. Or he can say something to himself which has no

351
 appropriateness to the situation he is in. Perhaps his reasons are
subjective, even neurotic; still he has them. Or: Perhaps the relation
between what he is saying and the situation is subjective. But one can
also say: Perhaps his use of the expression 'I was saying to myself...'
is evidence that he is not normal. The schema is not so soft that this
hypothesis does not make sense.
One wants to say: It's all very well to supply the change in posture
and the closed eyes to 'get across' what imagining is; but these are
not necessary to imagining. In the case of explaining 'talking to oneself
you supply conditions, but you must admit they are not necessary,
any one of them, to someone's talking to himself.
Take my example of 'imagining'. Suppose the person I am trying
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to teach this concept to can now respond to my request: 'Imagine

what it is like at your home at dinner time' by closing his eyes and
then telling me various things about dinner time at his home. Isn't
he imagining? What if he isn't really? That is, what if his home is
altogether different than he describes ? Or what about the person who
is comparing images of the bay bridge with me — what if he is just
describing the bridge and not his image of it? This doesn't make sense.
You cannot think of his saying: I was only fooling you — I wasn't
really imagining the bay bridge at all! You can imagine him saying:
I was only fooling you — I have never seen the bay bridge or a picture
of it. But now he has denied one of the things he implied before;
. one condition for our comparing images here is gone — i.e. that he
had seen and can remember the bay bridge.
The circumstances in which we describe images (or say things to
ourselves) give the phenomenon that sense — make it fall under that
concept it falls under — instead of just some general concept of
'experience' or 'possibly-no-experience-at-alP. What is difficult is
to see how the circumstances and the criteria work.

Symptoms and Criteria

Wittgenstein is concerned to distinguish between criteria and what
he calls 'symptoms'. Both are marks of phenomena, marks we observe
and from which we conclude that something or other does exist. He
writes:

The fluctuation in grammar between criteria and symptoms

makes it look as if there were nothing at all but symptoms. We
say, for example: Experience teaches that there is rain when the
352
 barometer falls, but it also teaches that there is rain when we
have certain sensations of wet and cold, or such-and-such
visual impressions. (354)

The criteria of rain accompany rain just as the barometer's falling

accompanies it. But we do not learn the meaning of 'rain' by being
shown how a barometer behaves. The 'fluctuation' between criteria
and symptoms is a fluctuation in our practice of teaching someone what
a word means. Wittgenstein implies, I think, that we could have used
barometers to teach others what 'rain' means — they could be criteria
— and may one day be such. In the Blue Book notes Wittgenstein has
something very like this to say:
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To the question, 'How do you know that so-and-so is the

case?' we sometimes answer by giving 'criteria' and sometimes
by giving 'symptoms'. If medical science calls angina an inflam-
mation caused by a particular bacillus, and we ask in a particular
case 'why do you say this man has angina ?' then the answer 'I
have found the bacillus so-and-so in his blood' gives us the crite-
rion, or what we call the defining criterion of angina. If on the
other hand the answer was 'His throat was inflamed', this might
give us a symptom of angina. I call 'symptom' a phenomenon
of which experience has taught us that it coincided, in some way
or another, with the phenomenon which is our defining criterion.
Then to say 'A man has angina if this bacillus is found in him'
is a tautology or it is a loose way of stating the definition of 'angina'.2

Symptoms and criteria are both signs by which we discover or

know that something is the case. In the case of criteria, however, it
may follow from the presence of these marks that what the criteria
serve exists. To say that one has found symptoms of that thing or
phenomenon never has this necessary consequence.
I want to suggest that Wittgenstein's use of 'criteria' in these two
passages is quite different from what, in his discussions of 'inner
states', he seems generally to mean by it. I want to suggest that here
he falls victim to physical analogies — that what is true for rain or
disease cannot serve as a model for psychological states.
What Wittgenstein has in mind here is a simple correlation between
marks, and in particular between marks which are not 'defining'
and a single mark which is defining. Now this works perfectly well
for the example of angina (that is, supposing there is a bacillus and
it is a defining criterion), but it cannot be made so clear for any case
where there are a number of criteria, and this is generally true of

353
 psychological concepts. For there the criteria are not necessary condi-
tions, at least no one of them is, and in this sense they cannot be 'de-
finitive'; nor can they be strictly 'correlated' with anything recog-
nizable as a 'symptom'. There is a second objection too in the simple
picture Wittgenstein gives us here of criteria as marks; we cannot
make it fit the criterion, which we found in the case of 'talking to
oneself, that one does not say something aloud. Wherever there is a
negative condition like this one (and they are very common for mental
concepts) there is no sense to 'correlating' a symptom with it. Nor
is it easy to think of there being 'fluctuations' in the definitions of
mental phenomena.
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Finally I want to suggest that the functions which 'criteria' serve in

the arguments already considered are remarkably lacking in the case
of the definition of 'rain'; and the concept of 'criteria' begins to lose
its shape and its usefulness when it is made so flexible.
We found Wittgenstein asking us to look at the criteria for mental
processes and states so that we should not, in asking too much of their
similarity to physical ones, deny their existence altogether. To look for
criteria is to look at the use of a concept whose role in our language is
complicated — difficult to describe or picture; that criteria exists
shows us that the use can be described and that the concept is not
occult. The way to a description, that is, is through a desription of
how the criteria function.
Now in the case of 'rain' criteria can hardly play a similar role.
Does talking about 'criteria of rain' help us to describe the use of that
concept ? Hardly. Indeed it would be difficult to see what the criteria
could be here if Wittgenstein did not tell us they were certain sensa-
tions of wetness and certain visual impressions. They do not have an im-
portant function here because they don't help to solve any mystery. I am
inclined to say that talking of 'criteria' here creates a mystery instead.
Finally I want to suggest that 'certain sensations of wet and cold'
and 'such-and-such visual impressions' are not what we learn about
when we learn to use the word 'rain'. For the way to say what sensa-
ons and what visual impressions is to say: Sensations of rain falling
tj
nd the way rain looks. When we learn to use the concept 'rain' we
a
earn how it looks and feels; I don't see how criteria enter here at all.

Criteria as Defining
Both symptoms and criteria provide answers to the question, 'How
d o you know such-and-such ?' But the answers are of different kinds.

354
 Answers which contain reference to a criterion where that criterion
is the only one possible logically imply that what the criterion serves
exists. There is no room for further questions or doubts; they would
show indeed that someone did not understand what kind of answer
he had been given. Answers which contain reference to symptoms
do not logically imply this; presumably there is room for doubt, for
further answers. But what about those cases where there are several
criteria and where none is a necessary condition? These include the
psychological states which are, after all, the main concern of Wittgen-
stein's Investigations. It seems incredible that he should say so much
about the definition of concepts but almost nothing about the defini-
tion of these concepts!
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It seems to me very likely that Wittgenstein was in fact looking for

analogies between physical and mental phenomena and that he was
misled in doing this. I propose that one can give a sense in which
criteria 'define' mental states and that it fits much that Wittgenstein
says about mental states and their criteria. However it does not easily
adapt itself to concepts of physical things and processes. It requires a
'different picture'.
Consider this passage from the Blue Book:

When we learnt the use of the phrase 'so-and-so has tooth-

ache' we were pointed out certain kinds of behaviour of those
who were said to have toothache. As an instance of these kinds
of behaviour let us take holding your cheek. Suppose that by
observation I found that in certain cases whenever these first
criteria told me a certain person had toothache, a red patch
appeared on the person's cheek. Supposing I now said to some-
one, 'I see A has toothache, he's got a red patch on his cheek'.
He may ask me 'How do you know A has toothache when you
see a red patch ?' I should then point out that certain phenomena
had always coincided with the appearance of the red patch. 3

Wittgenstein says that when we learned to use the phrase 'so-and-so

has toothache' we were shown certain kinds of behavior of those who
were said to have a toothache. But look a little more closely at how we
do really learn to say of another person that he has a toothache?
Imagine, as children, we overhear one adult say to another: 'Poor
George — he has a terrible toothache!' We ask: 'What is a toothache?'
We are told: 'It's a pain in your tooth — or rather you feel it in
your gums and jaw too sometimes. George's tooth hurts so much
he is going around like this — [we are shown how he paces the

355
 floor, holds his jaw, moans, grimaces and winces occasionally].'
We now have a picture of what George is like with his toothache, or
at least this toothache. The next time we hear someone say, 'I have
a toothache' we may respond, 'It can't be too bad — you don't act
very much like someone with a toothache'. And this could be exactly
right. The question is: How did what we learned about George show
us how to use the criteria ?
We were shown how someone acts with a 'bad toothache'. We
will know that picture again if we see it — we will know what it
signifies if someone acts that way in a play, we will know to expect
someone who acts like this to want a dentist, we might even know of
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someone who acts this way, and then stops, and then resumes, etc.
that his toothache comes and goes, etc. You could say, indeed, that
we might get the entire concept from this one case. We even know
that if the behavior is modified in certain ways it is not such a bad
toothache. There is a great deal of sense in the remark that this one
case — this set of criteria — defined the word 'toothache'. The
question is: How did it do that?
Wittgenstein takes 'as an instance' of the kind of behavior which
goes with a bad toothache 'holding one's cheek'. He wants to discuss
just one criterion as if it were definitive. But this is just the distortion
which is crucial when we are concerned with definitions; if we must
simplify this way we will not get the question straight.
Wittgenstein would like us to be able to say that, where the criteria
or 'defining criteria' are present, something follows about the state
or process which we have before us. Now it is possible for someone to
act as if he were in pain, and indeed this is what happened when we
were shown what a toothache is. How did we get the concept from
someone's pretending? Because, one must suppose, pretending doesn't
affect the definitive character of what we were shown. The concept
was expressed in the pretense.
I have an interpretation in mind of the 'definite' role of criteria, and
it serves also to clarify the distinction between criteria and symptoms.
It is this: In the case of a defining criterion, or defining criteria, it
will follow from the fact that these are present that either the phe-
nomenon for which they are criteria exists, or else there is the illusion,
the feigning or pretense of that thing. And the distinction between
symptoms and criteria could then be made like this: From the fact
that the symptoms of some thing are present it will notfollow that either
the phenomenon for which they are symptoms or the appearance or
356
 feigning of it exist. Criteria are not now to be confused with necessary
conditions, since on my interpretation nothing follows from the fact
that some or other criterion is not present.
On this interpretation of criteria as definitive, it seems that the
definition of 'toothache' and the definition of 'feigning a toothache'
are the same. And this seems paradoxical. We do tell them apart and if
we do, it must be by some means. Mustn't there be a criterion which
distinguishes the 'real' from the 'false appearance'?
Imagine that someone was moaning, holding his jaw, pacing, and
saying, 'Oh, it hurts! Oh, my tooth!' Then at one point he stops
suddenly, having seen something curious in the paper; he reads it,
then turns away and begins moaning and pacing again. We think,
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'He's probably feigning'. Why? The pattern was all there — all the
criteria — and they had persisted for some time before and were
resumed after only a short lapse. How can we conclude from that
short time that the whole performance was one of feigning ? Why don't
we say: His toothache stopped for that little while; then it began again.
Imagine this: A man holds his cheek and groans and flinches and
then, suddenly, laughs and chides us for acting sympathetic and the
toothache behavior ceases. We could say: It's an unusual toothache;
or: It seemed to be a toothache but now we can see it isn't. But we don't
say these things; we say he was feigning. And in both these cases we
say what the person was feigning. It is not just that he didn't have a
toothache; it is that he showed all the signs of having a toothache and
therefore tried to deceive us.
Feigning and pretending take their meaning from the same set of
criteria that define the thing which is being feigned or pretended.
But something happens to make us speak of feigning instead of the
real thing — the pattern is interrupted, or some element is introduced
which is 'wrong'. And this is very curious: How can something
'conflict' with a pattern of events unless it contradicts something?
And there is no contradiction in the description of someone feigning
an emotion or attitude. An inconsistency then ? How can we demand
a certain pattern of behavior from someone who is in pain? As if we
demanded that there must be a rainbow after rain; otherwise it will
only have been an appearance of rain.
Norman Malcolm, in his review of the Investigations, made a curious
remark about the criteria for pain: 'That the natural pain-behavior
and the utterance "It hurts" are each incorrigible is what makes it
possible for each of them to be a criterion of pain.' 4 I do not know

357
 anywhere that Wittgenstein says this. Furthermore I do not know what
sense there would be to saying that some behavior was incorrigible,
unless it meant that that behavior was compulsive or habitual. But
there is something which Malcolm may have had in mind which
comes close to this; the pain behavior we count as criteria is what
is natural and spontaneous and unconsidered. If someone always,
when in pain, goes out and drives around in his car he is still not
expressing pain by this in the way he would be if he winced. Or cried
out. Or said, 'It hurts!' Many of these criteria are involuntary.
This can also be true of 'It hurts!' and for this reason 'It hurts!'
can be considered as very similar to other criteria.
What holds a certain pattern of behavior together? That it is natural
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and even perhaps involuntary for people in a certain state. What

makes other features suggest feigning or pretending? That they are ex-
tremely unnatural for a person in that state.
Is this a vicious circle? Having defined a state by means of the
criteria for it, do we now say what is a criterion by referring to what
is 'natural' to that state?
Consider: How do we know of some activity, e.g. telling jokes, that
it is an unnatural feature of a case of 'someone in severe pain'?
Suppose we say: It must be a hard thing to do. Yet nothing in the
case shows that there is effort involved in the joke-telling. Then it is
unnatural to say that this is a clear case of 'someone in severe pain'.
We know it takes effort to tell jokes if one is in pain; we know it from
our experience. Then do we know what 'pain' means from our own
experience ? Not the concept. That we learn through the criteria for
it. But what is natural or unnatural in pain-behavior we can judge
from our experience once the concept is clear to us. That is, we can
judge what jars or disturbs the pattern of pain-behavior and gives
one reason to doubt whether the pain is real or feigned.

Criteria and the Needfor Criteria

Two questions which arise obviously from Wittgenstein's remarks
about 'criteria' have been dealt with in two discussions of the In-
vestigations. I want to discuss them here partly in the hope of making
my own account clearer, partly to defend Wittgenstein against mis-
interpretations.
The first problem is: Whether criteria, being definitive, are 'the
same thing' as what they serve as criteria of? Rogers Albritton infers
from several of Wittgenstein's remarks about criteria —

358
 These various ways of speaking about criteria imply that to be
a criterion of X is just to be (what is called) X, in case there
is only one criterion of X . . . 6

And then he objects —

But can what a man does or says be called his having a
toothache, or referred to or described as that, or even referred
to or described by saying that he has a toothache, under any
circumstances, in a proper and literal sense of the words said ?6

And then:
If it is an empty idea that what we call 'expecting' is a
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queer incorporeal something hidden away in that remarkable

medium, the mind, what do we call 'expecting'?7

Let me trace the kind of reasoning that leads to this point. Wittgen-
stein says memorably: 'An 'inner process' stands in need of outward
criteria.' (580) And what gives rise to this problem about criteria is
precisely what gives rise to the neediov criteria: Pain is one thing, and
it is hidden; criteria of pain are another thing and they must be
perceivable. The two things cannot be identified or one could not in
the first instance speak of criteria ofpain, criteria/or someone's having
dreamed, criteria/or saying someone reads to himself. There is a gap,
then, between what we observe and can point to and what we assert.
If we say, 'Criteria for saying someone is in pain are one thing; the
pain is another' what distinction are we making? Part of what we
mean must be that our criteria are one thing, his pain is another. And
this is like: 'A pain which he might have is necessarily different from
a pain I might have.' And then what does this mean?
Consider this: The criteria for saying that someone is in pain are
sometimes his expressions of pain. Now the expressions of pain must be
distinct from the pain; otherwise they would not be expressions of it.
Where does this distinction lead?
Suppose we said: The characteristic marks of a dog are one thing;
being a dog is another. If this were not so the marks would not be
marks of a dog. We would say: Yes, a dog is a creature with four legs
and fur, which makes a barking noise, can be trained and domesticated.
But being a dog isn't just having all these characteristics. For you
can imagine a dog which was losing its hair, which had lost one leg,
which didn't make a barking sound, which was wild and unresponsive.
Yet it could be a dog all the same.

359
 And similarly with 'having a pain' — Why can't we imagine that
someone should be in pain but not show any of the characteristic
behavior? But what does this mean? Well imagine that he suppresses
every sign of pain. This must take a great effort. He clenches his fists,
whistles through his teeth, shows a fixed expression, etc. We can
imagine this too.
It seems that we might have some way of knowing if an animal is a
dog apart from its having any set of characteristics, and of someone
that he was in pain apart from any behavior of his. Or at least we can
imagine that he is in pain.
But notice we are using the criteria (or characteristics) of dogs when
we say this creature would be shaggy if he were cared for, that he did
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have four legs, etc.; and we are using the criteria of pain when we say
that this person is (or may be) suppressing the signs of his distress.
Wittgenstein says of 'expecting':
I want to say: 'If someone could see the mental process of
expectation, he would necessarily be seeing what was being
expected.' — But that is the case: if you see the expression of
an expectation, you see what is being expected. And in what
other way, in what other sense would it be possible to see it ? (452)

But Albritton is saying that it is impossible to see someone's expectation

and that is why it ought to be viewed as 'a queer incorporeal something'.
Is it, in Albritton's words, 'two different things' for an animal to
have a shaggy coat, four legs and other doggish characteristics, and
its being a dog? Is it 'two different things' for someone to show ex-
pressions of pain and be in pain ? Of course it is. But what can be done
with the distinction? It does not imply that criteria do not define
'pain', nor that criteria are separable from our use of 'pain' in even
the queerest cases. If 'expecting' is, as Albritton says, a 'queer in-
corporeal something, hidden away in that remarkable medium, the
mind', I do not see why 'being a dog' isn't also a queer incorporeal
something hidden away, although where it can be hidden I can't
imagine.

Criteria and Certainty

In his discussion of the Investigations, Norman Malcolm raises this
question:
Do the propositions that describe the criterion of [someone's]
being in pain logically imply the proposition 'He is in pain?'
360
 Wittgenstein's answer is clearly in the negative. Pain-behavior
is a criterion of pain only in certain circumstances. If we come
upon a man exhibiting violent pain behavior, couldn't some-
thing show that he is not in pain ? Of course. For example, he is
rehearsing for a play; or he has been hypnotized and told, 'You
will act as if you are in pain, although you won't be in p a i n . . . '
The expressions of pain are a criterion of pain in certain 'sur-
roundings', not in others.8

And this gives rise to the question: Which are the circumstances in
which pain-behavior is a criterion of pain? Malcolm says:

Now one would like to think that one can still formulate a
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logical implication by taking a description of his pain-behavior

and conjoining it with the negation of every proposition de-
scribing one of those circumstances that would count against
saying he is in pain. Surely the conjunction will logically imply
'He is in pain'. 9

But, Malcolm says, there is no such 'totality' of circumstances. The

list of them is not infinite, he says, but indefinite; and therefore entail-
ment conditions cannot be formulated; 'there are none'.
The central issue is:

If it does not follow from his behavior and circumstances

that he is in pain, then how can it ever be certain that he is in
pain? 10

Wittgenstein says some rather puzzling things about 'circumstan-

ces', and it is sometimes hard to get the sense of his use of that word.
He says:
If there has to be anything 'behind the utterance of the
formula' it is particular circumstances which justify me in saying I
can go on — when the formula occurs to me. (154)

But I think here he is saying a justification cannot be subjective;

and when he says:
An expectation is imbedded in a situation, from which it
arises. The expectation of an explosion may, for example,
arise from a situation in which an explosion is to be expected. (581)

Wittgenstein is telling us that there are criteria for what someone

expects — and these criteria are in the physical circumstances a person

361
 stands in. To speak of an expectation as something which is evidenced
only in the mind is therefore a mistake.
I would think that Wittgenstein did not mean to qualify the role of
criteria by referring to circumstances, but to underline that criteria
are sometimes to be found in the circumstances surrounding an indi-
vidual. This was what we found when we considered the concept 'talking
to oneself; the criteria, or some of them, are not evidenced in any
behavior of the subject but rather in what is going on around him to-
gether with his not responding in a certain way. To refer to 'circum-
stances' giving rise to an expectation is preferable to speaking of
'criteria' in such a case, for here criteria would be hard to describe,
unlike the bits of behavior we describe as 'pain-behavior', and put
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together or take apart as we please.

As I understand Wittgenstein, then, he does not mean to suggest
that a criterion is only a criterion if the circumstances are right.
Let me give an example of something which, I think, is always a
criterion though there is a range over which it extends, and its meaning
is in that sense variable.
Imagine this case: A man paces the floor and groans; his face is
contorted; he winces occasionally. Is he in pain? We don't know from
this much description. Perhaps he's a writer (painfully) rewriting a
manuscript. Perhaps he's reliving some very painful experience. Per-
haps he's imagining an unhappy event in the future. Perhaps he's
an actor rehearsing a part which calls for the expression of any of the
above feelings. What is remarkable is that his behavior is, in all these
possibilities, related to pain or discomfort or unpleasant experiences
of some kind. Groaning and wincing mean pain; what kind may be
left undetermined. But you cannot imagine circumstances in which
groaning, for example, had no relation whatever to what might in some
sense — even 'metaphorical' — be called painful.
Groaning is always a criterion for saying that a person — the one
groaning — is in some state or other. What state we may not be able
to tell from the groaning alone; but we know it will be something
related to pain. This is so even though the man be feigning pain, or an
actor pretending to be in pain, or an actor playing a part in which
he is supposed to pretend pain, etc. To discover which of these is the
case we would need to know a great deal more about the circumstances;
you may say the circumstances will supply the criteria we need to
interpret the groaning precisely. But they will not turn it into a cri-
terion; it is always one.

362
 But must we always consider groaning a criterion of someone's
state? Can't we begin by considering it simply as a noise? (Indeed,
Wittgenstein suggests this, when he talks about symptoms coinciding
with other phenomena 'which are our defining criteria'.)
A groan is not simply a noise. It is made by someone, or by an animal
perhaps. But why not consider it as an event, something that happens
perhaps simultaneously with breaking an arm? Then we could say
of it: It might be a criterion or it might not; the choice is up to us. This
will not do. To say something is a 'groan' is already to say that it
is not simply a noise (e.g. something which might come from a
mechanical thing) but a certain expression of a person. And it always
makes sense to ask 'why'? or 'from what cause?' The answers to
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this are never answers about muscles contracting or nerves; they are
answers concerning the whole person (or beast) who made the sound
— who groaned.
A groan cr a grimace cannot be dissociated from the feelings of the
person groaning or grimacing. We do not put them into relation with
inner states by fixing them as criteria; they cannot be anything else.
Wittgenstein says:
'But doesn't what you say come to this: that there is no pain,
for example, without pain-behaviour?' — It comes to this: only
of a living human being and what resembles (behaves like) a
living human being can one say: it has sensations; it sees; is
blind; hears; is deaf; is conscious or unconscious. (281)

And I think this is right. The notions of sensations and feelings and
their expression are bound up with other natural behavior of human
beings. A groan always 'means' something concerning the state of
the person groaning, just as much as crying always means something
concerning the person crying, and laughing, and singing and so on.
Wittgenstein asks:
What gives us so much as the idea that living beings, things,
can feel? (283)

Their behavior and our sensibilities. What more profound answer

could there be?

Inner States and Skepticism

One can still imagine this objection: But it is not inconceivable
in any case that a man who shows ever so many signs of pain might

363
 still not be in pain. It is possible that he wants to deceive us and makes
it really impossible for us to know that he is. As Malcolm points out,
there cannot be certainty unless there are necessary and sufficient
conditions of some kind; and as you point out there are not such.
Consider this example. Imagine you stop one afternoon to visit a
friend. As you sit and talk with him you see him suddenly clutch his
stomach and utter a brief groan; he closes his eyes; his face is contorted
in a grimace of pain. He sits rigid for a moment, his breathing shallow.
He does not respond to you nor to the ringing telephone. After a few
minutes he appears to relax and begins to breathe normally again
and then he tells you that he had a very severe pain.
Does anything follow from this description? Certainly no one can
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doubt that it is a description of a man in pain. No one in those circum-

stances would have a doubt — 'Was he really in pain?'
One has to construct a sense for the question. One has to add
circumstances which give the example a different coloring. 'Perhaps
he is an actor and was playing a scene for you.' In the middle of a
conversation which interested us both? 'Perhaps he wanted to get
your reaction spontaneously?' And he ignored the telephone ringing?
'Possibly — as part of the deception.' Oh you mean now that he
seriously wanted to deceive me about his pain. Then he must have had
some very strong reason for doing it. And I would need to know there
was such a reason if I were to believe he did this.
Here the skeptical dialogue stops. The possibilities have ceased to
be general; one's suppositions must become individual to be con-
vincing. 'Perhaps he is an actor' can be answered by: He isn't.
But 'Perhaps he has an extremely important motive for deceiving you'
cannot be anwered unless the motive becomes specific. It doesn't
yet create a doubt because it doesn't suggest yet why the man might
want to deceive me. I might want to say that, since this person is
my friend, no one else could make me doubt that he was in pain in this
situation. To do that one would have to speak closely about this man's
character, his possible motives, in a way that requires intimate knowl-
edge. And so I can say: 'Nothing you can say would create the possi-
bility that he is not in pain!'
The skeptical questions which arise about criteria do not generally
take into account the fact that pain-behavior is always a criterion of
something concerning the person who shows it. And so the response: 'Maybe
he isn't in pain after all' cannot suggest just that he isn't in pain, but
must imply that he is trying, for some reason however whimsical, to
364
 make us think he is. The doubt, 'Maybe he isn't in pain' cannot have a
general ground and similarly it cannot have a general answer. In the case
of some people we say, 'It's possible; he's a very fine actor and loves
to play practical jokes'. In another case we say, 'Impossible!' We
cannot, that is, ignore pain-behavior by doubting it — simply sub-
tracting it from the situation; we must account for it in some way,
and this means to explain it in terms of someone's feelings, motives,
or other 'inner' matters.
That pain-behavior is incontrovertible proof that the person showing it
is in pain depends upon our knowledge of that person. Wittgenstein
says:
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There is in general complete agreement in the judgments of

colours made by those who have been diagnosed normal. This
characterizes the concept of a judgment of colour.
There is in general no such agreement over the question
whether an expression of feeling is genuine or not.11

Why? Because our sensibilities differ more than our vision? But also
because our relations to a given person are different. With regard to
the sincerity of someone I know well, this remark of Wittgenstein's
seems precisely right:
'But, if you are certain, isn't it that you are shutting your eyes
in face of doubt?' — They are shut.12

Sometimes disagreement about what someone's behavior means

cannot be settled by any method. This would be true perhaps if two
observers disagreed radically about the character of the person
involved. However, the doubt that we can ever really know is facetious,
depending on a 'possibility' that every description is inadequate.
And this I have tried to show is neither a real possibility nor an
academic one.

NOTES
1
See op. cit., Part II, p. 188.
2
The Blue and Brown Books, Blackwell, Oxford 1958, p. 25.
3
op. cit., p. 24.
4
Norman Malcolm, 'Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations,' Philosophical
Review, LXIII, No. 4 (October 1954), p. 543.

365
 5
Rogers Albritton, 'On Wittgenstein's Use of the Term "Criterion"', Journal
of Philosophy, LVI, No. 22 (October 22, 1959), p. 853.
6
Ibid.
8
Malcolm, op. cit., p. 545.
9
Ibid.
10
op. cit., p. 546.
11
Investigations, Pt. II, p. 227.
12
Ibid, p. 224.
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