Scots Philosophical Association, University of St. Andrews, Oxford University Press The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-)

Scots Philosophical Association
University of St. Andrews
Dreaming, Calculating, Thinking: Wittgenstein and Anti-Realism about the Past

Author(s): William Child
Source: The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-), Vol. 57, No. 227 (Apr., 2007), pp. 252-272
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Scots Philosophical Association and
the University of St. Andrews
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4543227
Accessed: 27-03-2020 17:55 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
Scots Philosophical Association, University of St. Andrews, Oxford University Press

are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Philosophical
Quarterly (1950-)
This content downloaded from 31.10.159.115 on Fri, 27 Mar 2020 17:55:48 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
The Philosophical Quarter~y, Vol. 57, No. 227 April 2007
ISSN oo31-8o94 doi: Io.IIII/j.1467-9213.2oo7.483.x
DREAMING, CALCULATING, THINKING:

WITTGENSTEIN AND ANTI-REALISM ABOUT THE PAST
BY WILLIAM CHILD
For the anti-realist, the truth about a subject's past thoughts and attitudes is determined by wh
is subsequently disposed to judge about them. The argument for an anti-realist interpretat
Wittgenstein's view ofpast-tense statements seems plausible in three cases: dreams, calculating
head, and thinking. Wittgenstein is indeed an anti-realist about dreaming. His account of
ating in the head suggests anti-realism about the past, but turns out to be essentially realis
does not endorse general anti-realism about past thoughts; but his treatment does in some
involve elements of anti-realism, unacceptable in some instances but possibly correct in others.
We talk easily and unreflectively about remembering and forgetti

earlier thoughts, intentions, beliefs, and so on. We naturally understan
talk in a realist way: there is, we think, a fact of the matter about
thought or attitude independent of the subject's present belief that he
he remembers that thought or attitude when his current belief is deri
the right sort of way from the original attitude. But this talk of remem
might also be construed in an anti-realist way. On the anti-realist view
truth about a subject's past thoughts and attitudes is determined by wh
is subsequently disposed to judge about them. When he makes a ret
tive judgement about an earlier thought or belief, then provided t
judgement is sincere and attentive, and that he understands it, it co
true. In these circumstances, we say that he remembers what he thoug
believed. But for the anti-realist, this talk of remembering does no
that the subject is recalling facts about a realm of past thoughts and at
which are there to be remembered independently of his own retros
judgements. The notion of remembering in these cases, like the no
truth, must be understood in an anti-realist way.
Wittgenstein's later views are often taken to involve some such f
anti-realism.' But is this interpretation correct? And if it is, does h
1 See, e.g., CJ.G. Wright, 'Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy of Mind: Sensation,

and Intention', repr. in his Rails to Infinity: Essays on Themes from Wittgenstein's 'Philoso
vestigations' (Harvard UP, 2001), pp. 291-318, at pp. 314-15, and 'On Making Up On
Wittgenstein on Intention', repr. in Rails to Infinity, pp. 116-42, at pp. 140-2.
© 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford ox4 2DQ, UK, and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148,
WITTGENSTEIN AND ANTI-REALISM ABOUT THE PAST 253
good reasons for accepting what is, on the face of it, a highly paradoxical
view of our past mental lives? I focus here on three cases where at first sight
the argument for an anti-realist interpretation of Wittgenstein's treatment of
past-tense statements is most plausible: dreams, mental arithmetic and
thoughts. I argue that Wittgenstein does indeed adopt a form of anti-realism
about dreaming, but that this anti-realism flows not from any general
considerations about past mental phenomena but from features specific to
the case of dreams. His account of calculating in the head contains elements
that might suggest anti-realism, but the suggestion is misleading: his treat-
ment of past mental arithmetic is in essence realistic. In the case of reporting
one's past thoughts, the situation is more complex, partly because of the
range of different cases involved. Though Wittgenstein does not endorse
any general anti-realism about past thoughts, his treatment does involve
elements of anti-realism for certain cases - an anti-realism which is unac-
ceptable in some instances but which may be correct in others.2
I. DREAMING
Wittgenstein's view, stated at its crudest, is that what makes it tr

someone dreamt such and such is that when he wakes up, this is wh
inclined to report having dreamt.3
For example:
... one [cannot] ask 'How do I know that this is what I actually dreamt?' - It is there
in it because I say it is. Or better: because I am inclined to say ... (RPP I 363).
Assuming that dreams can yield important information about the dreamer, what
yielded the information would be truthful accounts of dreams. The question whether
the dreamer's memory deceives him when he reports the dream after waking cannot
arise, unless indeed we introduce a completely new criterion for the report's 'agreeing'
with the dream, a criterion which gives us a concept of 'truth' as distinct from
'truthfulness' here (PIII pp. 222-3).
Wittgenstein says that we have no concept of truth for a person's report of

what he dreamt 'as distinct from' our concept of the truthfulness, or sin-
cerity, of that report. But what explains the link between the truthfulness of
2 This paper is a companion to my 'Memory, Expression, and Past-Tense Self-Know-

ledge', forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. That paper considers self-
ascriptions of past beliefs and intentions, and argues that Wittgenstein's treatment of those
cases is entirely compatible with a realist view of past attitudes. The current discussion
considers cases where Wittgenstein's treatment seems least favourable to that kind of realism.
3 References to Wittgenstein's works in the text and notes below use the standard
abbreviations.
254 WILLIAM CHILD
a dream report and its truth? The st

comments is that what it is for such a r
truthful; this is why, he thinks, we
someone's report of what he dreamt mig
in hand with this anti-realist conception
an anti-realist conception of the past ten
ments about dreams, Wittgenstein says,
its use in reporting publicly observable p
Wittgenstein is not prescriptive: he t
concept 'what someone really dreamt'
between what someone is sincerely inclin
really dreamt. But, he insists, that woul
of dreaming, to 'introduce a complet
"agreeing" with the dream'. At the sam
ordinary concept of dreaming does in
really dreamt what he sincerely report
thinks, we are inclined to respond to the
or ill formed but by saying that we do n
sincere report is an accurate account of w
found a way of telling. This shows tha
contains a pressure towards a more realis
accept a realist conception of truth in th
comes forward. But, Wittgenstein think
conception of truth is already a realist o
So Wittgenstein offers a broadly anti-r
not an anti-realist about past mental s
ficant disanalogies between reporting on
one meant, believed, intended or wishe
a straightforwardly realist view: there
people meant or believed in the past, i
now make about their former attitude
virtue of the abilities and dispositions
someone the order 'Add 2'. In standard
gave the order, I meant the other person
makes it true is not that I am now inclin
ment that had I then been asked what
have said '1002'. It is, rather, the abilitie
But in Wittgenstein's view, things are d
4 For discussion of this point, and illustrative e

5 For this picture, see, for example, PI §§692-3.
© 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 The Editors of The Ph
there is nothing in the past to which a subject's retrospective reports of what

he dreamt could be answerable.
One obvious response would be that a dream report is answerable to the
contents of images or experiences that the subject enjoyed whilst asleep. But
Wittgenstein rejects that idea, on the ground that anything that goes on
during sleep will lack the connections to external circumstances, actions and
expression which are, in his view, essential to the identity of our ordinary
experiences. The ordinary concept of experience, he thinks, gives us no grip
on the idea of experiences which are enjoyed during sleep. As before, Witt-
genstein allows that we could give a sense to the question 'whether people
really have images while they sleep, or whether it merely seems so to them
on waking'. But, he thinks, that would be to change or extend the ordinary
concept of experience; as it stands, that concept cannot be applied without
further explanation to the case where a subject is asleep.6
A different proposal is that statements about a person's dreams are
answerable to what the subject would have reported had he been woken at
the time of the dream - this being taken as the time when the person
twitched in his sleep, for example, or when certain kinds of brain activation
occurred. As far as I know, Wittgenstein does not discuss this suggestion. But
we can predict his response. 'If we want to give a sense to the idea that the
report a subject makes on waking spontaneously is a correct or incorrect
account of what he really dreamt, this is certainly a possible sense we could
give it. But this way of distinguishing between truth and truthfulness in
subjects' reports of dreams is not built into the ordinary notion from the
outset.' And in any case, even if we accepted this proposal, we would still be
holding that the truth about a dream is determined by a sincere retro-
spective report which the subject is inclined to make; we would simply be
focusing on one retrospective report (the one he would make were he woken
at the putative time of the dream) rather than another (the one he would
make were he left to wake spontaneously). So even though this proposal
does make room for the possibility that the report a subject gives when he
wakes spontaneously may be truthful yet false, it remains a form of anti-
realism about past mental phenomena.
Wittgenstein's reasons for this anti-realism, though, are specific to the
case of dreaming. In the case of a subject's reports of what he meant,
believed or intended, there is a genuinely past basis to which the truth of his
retrospective reports is answerable, namely, the abilities and dispositions he
had at the time. There is no parallel to that in the case of dreams. That is
what drives Wittgenstein's anti-realism about dreams.
6 See PIII p. 184, and the earlier version of that comment at RPP I 369.
C 2007 The Author Journal compilation C 2007 The Editors of The Philosophical Quartery
256 WILLIAM CHILD
II. CALCULATING IN THE HEAD
How should we understand the claim 'I calculated 36 x 68 in my h

can distinguish a spectrum of cases. At one end, there is the everyda
which someone works out the answer to a multiplication problem
overt calculation. At the other, there is the case of a calculating prod
simply sees the problem and knows the answer straight off, without
for any consideration or calculation.7 Wittgenstein is interested in th
day case. The realist about past mental arithmetic thinks that if
having calculated 36 x 68 in my head, and my report is true, the
have been some calculation at the earlier time, a calculation wh
now truly reporting. The anti-realist, by contrast, thinks that a
required for the truth of the claim 'I calculated 36 x 68 in my head'
can now give an answer to the problem, that I can set out some
a calculation of this answer, and that I am inclined to make the retro
report 'I calculated the result'.
At first sight, a number of elements in Wittgenstein's treatment of
arithmetic suggest the same kind of anti-realism for this case as
in the case of dreaming. For example, he says that the use of t
tense in the report 'I calculated in my head' 'is a new use, like the use
past tense about dreams' (LPP p. 30). He suggests that when
remembering having calculated in my head, I 'must be meaning s
else by "remember"', not what we usually mean, since our usual c
memory do not apply (LPP p. 273). And he suggests that the re
calculated the result in my head' is simply 'a memory reaction' - som
that I am 'inclined to say' (LPP p. 31) when I get the answer to
plication problem without overt calculation. But if 'I calculated the re
my head' is merely something I am retrospectively inclined to say, t
to imply that there is nothing about how I was at the earlier time in
which it is true that I calculated the result in my head. This is certai
kind of point Wittgenstein makes in parallel passages elsewh
example, in the discussion in Philosophical Investigations of remember
past intentions:
7 In the case of a calculating prodigy the internal processing that allows him
calculation right is all subpersonal: the subject does not consciously work out t
There seem to be different ways in which this might be achieved. A calculating pro
memorize the results of hugely many multiplications, as children learn the mu
tables up to 12, and then simply be able to give the answers immediately, as other
for products of numbers up to 12. Alternatively, and more intriguingly, a prodigy
able to give instant answers to multiplication problems never previously encountere
O 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
(PI§653).8
Could I now say: 'I read off my having then meant to do such and such, as if from a
map, although there is no map'? But that means nothing but: I am now inclined to say
'I read the intention of acting thus in certain states of mind which I remember'
Inthiscase,theimplicationisclear:whenIrecal mypastintentions,Iamnot
realyreadingof thoseintentionsfromothersta esofmindwhichIremember.
Itistruethatwhenreflectingphilos phicalyonwhathap enswhenI
rememberanintention,Iamstronglyinclinedtosay'Ireadtheintentionof
actingthusincertainsta esofmindwhichIremember'.But his mer ly
somethingIaminclinedtosay:it snoguidetowhatisrealygoingon.
Howev r,thoughWit genstein'sdiscus ionofmental rithmeticdoes
containap ear ncesofanti-realismabout hepast, heap ear ncesare
superfical;histreatmentofthiscase,unlikehistreatmentofdreaming,is
es ntialyrealistc.
ThemainfocusofWit genstein'sdiscus ionistherelationbetwe n
cal ulatingoutloudoronpa er,ontheonehand,andcal ulatinginone's
head,ontheother.Andhisprincipaltargetistheideathatcal ulatingin
one'sheades ntialyinvolvesan'in erproces ',somethingconsciously
beforeone'smindfromwhichonereadsof thestepsinthecal ulation,and
whichplaysthesameroleinthiscaseasi playedinthecaseofovert
cal ulationbytheproces ofwritngdown umbersonpa er.Inrej cting
this dea,Wit gensteinisrej ctingonewayinwhichwemightberealist
aboutpastmental rithmetic:whatmakesit ruethatIcal ulatedtheresult
inmyhead,hethinks,isnot hepastpres nceofaninternal nalogueofan
overtcal ulationonpa er.Buthisrej ctionofthatformofrealismdoesnot
implythat her isnopastbasi at l forthetruthoftheclaim'Ical ulated
theresultinmyhead'.Onthecontra y,hethinksthatiftheretrospective
reportistrue,ther mustbesomethingabouthowIwas t hetimewhich
makes it true.
Wittgenstein's account of the past-tense case flows from his treatment of

the present-tense description. For it to be true that someone is now calcul-
ating in his head, Wittgenstein thinks, it must be true that he knows, at each
stage, where he has got to:
... he can say 'where he is'; on interruption he can quote a step and this can be
checked as paralleling another's external movement, or the movement of a metro-
nome, say (LPPp. 272).
Or again, that someone really is doing a calculation in his head 'can be

checked by fast question and answer. "What numeral is in your head
8 See also PI §386: 'I cannot accept his testimony, because it is not testimony. It only tells me
what he is inclined to say.' (This passage is repeated almost word for word at PI §594.)
258 WILLIAM CHILD
now?"' (LPP p. 29). And his answers must be sy

that he generally comes out with an answer wh
calculation he has got to. The answers must real
of the solution to the problem. This view of the p
the following form of realism about the past-tens
of realism Wittgenstein adopts for statements s
"1oo002" after "Iooo"'. What makes it true that
head is not my subsequent retrospective report th
really did go through the calculation at the tim
that I did go through the calculation at the time a
stage I knew what point I had got to, and that I co
had I been interrupted. (Part of the point of Witt
'inner process' model of mental arithmetic is that
one has got to in the calculation is basic: I do no
calculation from something else that is consciously
This is the basic form of Wittgenstein's fundamen
person past-tense calculation reports. With that
to the apparent evidence of anti-realism in Wittge
I mentioned at the start of this section. Can that e
in a manner that is consistent with the realist inter
I noted that Wittgenstein suggests that the repo
in my head' is merely something I am 'inclined to
his suggestion does not make an anti-realist point.
two elements in the retrospective report. There is
And there is the claim that I calculated in my head
at which the deflationary comment 'That's merely
primarily directed. The context in which Wittgens
discussion of introducing the concept of calcula
imagine people who have only the practice of c
loud. We then consider someone who first uses
my head':
Suppose now that there are a number of people: they all don't calculate on paper;
they answer questions like 'Where were you?' and say 'I calculated'. But some say 'I
calculated in my head'; some say 'I calculated somewhere or other'; some say
'I calculated in my mind'; some say 'I calculated and I didn't calculate'. There is no
question of 'reliability' here. One wants to say something like: one of them is inclined
to say 'in my head'; another likes 'in my mind', another is inclined to say 'calculated
and didn't calculate'; but I'll tell them what they ought to say (LPPp. 271).10
9 See, e.g., LPPpp. 29, 270; RPPI 657.

10 Cf. LPP p. 3o: "'I calculated - in my head" - "and didn't calculate", etc. That part isn't a
matter of reliability, it's just a matter of being inclined to say different things.'
Wittgenstein's idea is that at the stage at which the idea of calculating in the
head is being introduced, there is no question of one person's being right to
say that he calculated in his head, and another person's being wrong to say
that he calculated somewhere or other or calculated and did not calculate. Of
course, once we get beyond that stage, and it becomes an established
practice to describe a case in which one gets the answer without explicit cal-
culation as a case of calculating in one's head, then 'I calculated in my head'
is no longer merely something we are inclined to say; it is the correct way of
describing the phenomenon. But this does not mean that these cases involve
something's going on in one's head in any more substantial sense than that we
classify them as cases in which someone calculates 'in his head'; in parti-
cular, it does not mean that there is any deep similarity between these cases
and cases of something's literally going on in someone's head.1"
I said that the comment 'That's just what he is inclined to say' is directed
primarily at the second element of the report - the idea that I calculated in
my head. But Wittgenstein does apply it also to the first element - the idea
that I calculated. For, he thinks, at the point where the idea of calculating in
the head is introduced into a practice of calculating on paper or out loud,
we do not have to go along with the innovator in describing what he has
done as calculation:
He is inclined to say: I did the calculation.... If I describe the thing, must I say he cal-
culates it? (A) He can give the result and also can say where he is when interrupted.
So it looks as ifhe was doing a calculation somewhere.... (B) He said spontaneously that
he calculated. Do I now have to say he calculated, in view of (B)? In any case he is
using 'calculate' in a new way (LPP pp. 31-2; cf. pp. 272-3).
The application of the concept of calculation to the case of mental

arithmetic, Wittgenstein thinks, is a real extension or development of the
concept; and nothing in our grasp of the existing concept requires us to
extend or develop it in this way. But that does not affect the basic realism of
Wittgenstein's position. He is not saying that all there is in a case of cal-
culating in the head is the subject's subsequent inclination to make the
retrospective report. His point, rather, is that even given what was true of
the subject in the past - that is, his ability to get the right answer, and to say
where he had got to when interrupted - there is still a question, from the
perspective of the practice as it exists before we introduce the idea of
11 There is a direct parallel between Wittgenstein's accounts of extending the concept of

calculation to calculation in the head and of extending mathematical concepts. In each, the
extension begins with people finding it natural to use the old words in a particular way in
the new cases; at this stage the new uses are neither right nor wrong. At a later stage, what
people were inclined to say in the new cases becomes entrenched, and there is a new standard
of correctness. (For the mathematical case, see for example LFM 95.)
C 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
260 WILLIAM CHILD
calculating in the head, about whether

Wittgenstein's own view is that the p
head' is sufficiently analogous to calcula
overwhelmingly natural for us to cal
be 'extremely hard', he says, for us t
p. 275; cf. p. 33). Nevertheless, he ins
for us to have adopted a different form
'calculating' was reserved for calculati
now call 'calculating in the head' was de
Thus far, Wittgenstein's treatment o
with a sensible form of realism abou
about his assertion that the use of the p
is 'a new use, like the use of the past tense
that his treatment of dream reports
not follow that his treatment of calcula
realist too?
The quick reply to the objection is t
reports and calculation reports are al
concept of memory, in a way that is 'n
the basic cases. But, he thinks, the two c
ways which make for an account of
involve the anti-realism implicit in his t
To expand, Wittgenstein says that 'Wh
on how the memory is checked' (LPP p.
in connection with which the concep
introduced, is memory of publicly obse
attached to descriptions of past events;
For example, 'We learn "My aunt c
knowing that she did: that use of the p
came ...") is fastened to cases where sh
with events that have occurred' (LPP
ject's memory-based reports of past
independent check by the memories o
the past events he reports. In the ca
reports, however, no such check is p
checked for accuracy against an indep
someone's report of what he calculat
the same way as a report of a calculatio
report with independent observation
culation itself. So, given Wittgenstei
12 I have supplied the inverted commas round
© 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 The Editors of The
'memory', its meaning in both dream reports and calculation reports is

different from its meaning in reports of publicly observable events. And
similarly for the past tense. That explains why Wittgenstein classifies the use
of the past tense in calculation reports as 'a new use, like the use of the past
tense about dreams'.
But though Wittgenstein thinks calculation reports are similar to dream
reports in this respect, he does not think they are similar in every respect. In
the case of dreaming, Wittgenstein really does seem to hold that though we
naturally report our dreams in the past tense, and though we talk about re-
membering and forgetting what we dreamt, the content of our talk about
dreams is to be understood entirely in terms of its links to the experiences
and inclinations we have on waking up. This is a solidly anti-realist view.
But he takes a different view of calculation reports. In particular, as I have
stressed, he thinks the truth of the claim that someone calculated so and so
in his head is answerable to the abilities and dispositions he had at the time -
notably, the ability to say where he had got to in the calculation if he had
been interrupted. So there is a genuinely past basis for the truth of his retro-
spective calculation report: the report is not a mere expression of his
retrospective impression of having calculated the answer.13 That is why it
seems appropriate to classify Wittgenstein's treatment of past mental arith-
metic as fundamentally realist, despite his claim that the use of the past tense
in calculation reports is 'a new use'.
III. THINKING
What is the relation between one's thoughts and one's subsequent repo
those thoughts?
Let us assume there was a man who always guessed right what I was saying to
in my thoughts. (It does not matter how he manages it.) But what is the crit
his guessing right? Well, I am a truthful person and I confess that he has guess
- But might I not be mistaken, can my memory not deceive me? And migh
always do so when - without lying - I express what I have thought within my
But now it does appear that 'what went on within me' is not the point at al
am drawing a construction-line.)
The criteria for the truth of the confession that I thought such and such are
criteria for a true description of a process. And the importance of the true co
does not reside in its being a correct and certain report of a process. It reside
in the special consequences which can be drawn from a confession whose
guaranteed by the special criteria of truthfulness (PIII p. 222).
13 'The interruption-criteria', Wittgenstein says, 'give "he calculated" a bigger

p. 273), i.e., bigger than the anti-realist allows.
C 2007 The Author Journal compilation C 2007 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterty
262 WILLIAM CHILD
Wittgenstein says here that my trut

guaranteed to be true. Suppose he is rig
report is guaranteed to be true. Wh
hended judgements about my past thou
As before, there are realist and ant
question. Common sense makes the r
mental entities involved: a past thou
about the thought. The anti-realist deni
past thought and the retrospective j
independent mental entities; instead,
constituted by one's retrospective in
thought. There is then no room for the
for there is nothing for the past thoug
spectively judges it to have been. An ac
confessing thoughts in more or less the
case of reporting dreams.
The passage quoted above from Philo
immediately before the discussion of dr
realist view. And this suggestion is cont
We acknowledge a truthful person's stateme

as his statement about what he has dreamt.
Even if we frequently could guess someone's thoughts and were to say we know what
they are, then the criterion for that could only be that he himself confirmed our guess.
Unless we totally change the concept of thought (LW II 47).
So, at first sight, it looks as if Wittgenstein takes the same view of reports of
past thoughts as he takes of reports of dreams. But there are at least two
important ways in which he distances himself from any general anti-realism
about past thoughts.
In the first place, when Wittgenstein says that the truthfulness of a sub-
ject's report of a past thought guarantees its truth, he is not talking about
reports of past thoughts in general: he is concerned only with the particular
case of thoughts in the immediate past. This is fairly clear in the discussion
quoted above from PI II p. 222. And it is explicit in the passage just quoted
from LW II 47: 'We acknowledge a truthful person's statement about what he
has just thought' (my italics). So Wittgenstein is not denying the obvious truth
that I may be mistaken about what I was thinking at times beyond the im-
mediate past.
Secondly, even when restricted to the confession of one's immediate past
thoughts, it is implausible to suggest that our conception of truth for state-
ments about people's past thoughts simply identifies what one thought with
what one is inclined to report having thought. For we can make perfectly
good sense of cases where someone thought that p but is not in any serious
sense subsequently inclined to report having thought that p. Wittgenstein
draws attention to one kind of case. We can, he says, understand Lytton
Strachey's speculation about what Queen Victoria thought of as she lay
dying. But in this case, the thinker not only did not confess her thoughts; in
the circumstances, she could not possibly have done so.14 One way of dealing
with such cases might be to resort to counterfactuals about what Queen
Victoria would have said had she been able and willing to report her dying
thoughts. But this is unappealing: it seems evident that our understanding of
claims about someone's dying thoughts is not to be explained in terms of our
grasp of such counterfactuals. On the contrary, if we are prepared to assert
the counterfactual (or speculate about its truth), this is because we are
already prepared to assert (or speculate about the truth of) the relevant
proposition about what someone was thinking. In any case, Wittgenstein
himself does not take the counterfactual route for dealing with the Queen
Victoria case. His idea is to keep the basic thought that our concept of
thinking that p is anchored in cases where a person reports thinking that p -
cases in which there is no question of his lying or being mistaken, and where
the question of what he thought has some practical significance.15 With our
understanding secured in these basic cases, Wittgenstein thinks, we can go
on to understand the possibility of cases in which someone thinks that p,
but (as in the Queen Victoria case) either will not or cannot admit it. But
the intelligibility of these cases, he maintains, is parasitic on the whole
'language-game' of confessing and talking about thoughts; in particular, it is
parasitic on the existence of basic cases in which people do report their
thoughts: '"I know he thinks so and so though he does not admit it." There
must first be cases when people say what they think' (LPP p. 99).16
So Wittgenstein's suggestion that our conception of truth for the ascrip-
tion of a past thought must be understood in terms of the truthfulness of the
subject's retrospective report is not only restricted to immediate past thoughts;
it is also confined to what Wittgenstein regards as basic cases of confessing
one's immediate past thoughts. But even with these restrictions, is Witt-
genstein's account acceptable? The charge against it is that it remains
unacceptably anti-realistic about the past. For there is no good reason to
hold that the character of a thought is ever determined by a retrospective
14 For discussion of the Queen Victoria case, see e.g. RPP I 366, LPPpp. 32-3, 99, 274.
15 'At some time we learn the game of answering to: "What did you think?" I want you to
regard telling what you thought as a completely new game. You learned it in cases of practical
importance' (LPPp. 274).
16 See also, for example, LPP pp. 32-3 and 274 on the way in which the intelligibility of the
Queen Victoria case depends on the rest of the 'language-game'.
264 WILLIAM CHILD
judgement or report, rather than by something th

at the time of the thought. In the case of dreams, the
focus on a subject's retrospective judgement
dreamt; for there is no room for someone, while a
oraneous report of what he is currently dreaming.
are different: it is perfectly straightforward for
ment or give a report about what he is currently t
why not take the basic cases in connection wit
concept of truth for ascriptions of thought to be
says what he is currently thinking, rather than on
spectively what he has just thought?
It might be claimed that this criticism puts
passages where Wittgenstein describes the basic cas
when he talks of the language-game of 'telling wh
or 'answering to: "What did you think?"' (LPP p
passages where he uses present-tense formulations,
the basic cases as ones 'where people say what they
truth, it may be said, is that Wittgenstein is no
what someone thought is a matter of the truthful
inclined to give, and rejecting the view that wh
matter of his truthful contemporaneous report: Wit
for both past-tense and present-tense formulation
But even if Wittgenstein does not draw a signifi
the present-tense and past-tense formulations, the
I think, we should accept some version of the p
but reject the past-tense version. I can make ju
currently thinking - the judgements I express b
thinking that it's Thursday today' or 'I'm thinking
lavender'. And there are ways in which I can go
current reports. I may make a verbal slip and misr
not because I am wrong about what I am thinkin
the wrong word to express my thought, as wh
children by the name of another, without having
the second. Or again, suppose the existence of a
on the existence of the thing thought about; then
ating a butterfly, takes himself to be seeing one, a
that this butterfly is a Red Admiral', will be mista
a demonstrative thought about a particular butt
view) no such thought for him to think. But in th
sorts, I cannot be wrong about what I am currentl
report that I am currently thinking that p, then I
C 2007 The Author Journal compilation C 2007 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarte
be thinking that p. And if I seem to myself to be thinking that p, then I am

thinking that p; there is nothing for an occurrent conscious thought to be
other than what seems to me to be going through my mind. (This is an
important respect in which thoughts differ from beliefs, intentions, wishes,
and so on. The dispositional character of propositional attitudes makes
room for ways in which sincere self-ascriptions of attitudes may be mistaken:
I may, for example, have unconscious beliefs or I may be self-deceived. Such
phenomena have no parallel in the case of occurrent thoughts.)
The parallel view for the past-tense case would be that there is nothing
for an immediate past thought to be other than what now seems to me to
have passed through my mind a moment ago. And Wittgenstein sometimes
says exactly that. For example, in discussing the phenomenon of talking to
oneself in one's thoughts, he says: 'to seem to yourself to have said X is the
only meaning I can give to "I have said X"' (LPP p. 249).'7 But to claim that
the existence of an immediate past thought consists in nothing other than
my retrospective impression that I had that thought is to represent my mind
at the time of the thought as having been blank. This is implausible in itself.
Moreover, there is no coherent reason for holding such a view. If we allow
(as Wittgenstein does) that it may now seem to me that a moment ago I was
thinking that it is Thursday today, we have no reason to deny that I may
at the time have seemed to myself to be thinking 'It's Thursday today'. And
in that case there is, after all, something for a past thought to consist in other
than the retrospective impression of having had it, namely, my subjective
impression, at the past time, of having that very thought. Occurrent
thoughts are different from sensations in many ways. But they are like sensa-
tions in being conscious episodes. In the case of a sensation - a pain, for
example - we would not accept that the existence of an immediate past pain
consists in one's present impression of having just felt a pain; there is no
reason to accept the parallel claim for past thoughts.
I have been considering cases where a thought explicitly passes through
one's mind. In these cases, I have argued, it cannot plausibly be maintained
that there is nothing for a past thought to consist in other than the subject's
retrospective impression of having had it. But are there cases of other
kinds for which the claim is correct? Wittgenstein says that the concept of
thinking is 'widely ramified' (RPP II 218, 220). In particular, he thinks we
can apply the concept both in cases where someone explicitly entertains a
given thought and in cases where the thoughts we ascribe did not explicitly
go through the person's mind at the time:
17 Wittgenstein regards the topic of talking to oneself as 'a more specialized question
and apparently remote from "thinking"'. But, he says, 'it has connections with "What is
thinking?"' (LPPp. 249).
266 WILLIAM CHILD
One can say 'I thought ...' if one really did

these words are, as it were, a development f
... sometimes, when I say 'I thought ...' I c

myself out loud or silently; or that I used,
present ones reproduce the gist. This does sur
however, is the case in which my present exp
(RPP 1238).
He discusses at least two kinds of case of

The first kind of case is one in which
make sense of a subject's past behaviour
Let us imagine someone doing work that in

constructing an appliance out of various bit
now and then there is the problem 'Sho
another is tried. Bits are tentatively put to
that fits, etc., etc. I now imagine that thi
perhaps also produces sound-effects like '
tion, sudden finding, decision, satisfaction
single word....
If the worker can talk - would it be a falsification of what actually goes on if he were
to describe that precisely and were to say, e.g., 'Then I thought: no, that won't do, I
must try it another way' and so on - although he had neither spoken during the work
nor imagined those words?
I want to say: may he not later give his wordless thoughts in words? And in such a
fashion that we, who might see the work in progress, could accept this account? - And
all the more, if we had often watched the man working, not just once? (RPP II 183;
cf. 7ff.)
Cases of this sort are evidently different from those in which the thought the
subject self-ascribes is one that explicitly went through his mind at the past
time. But the thesis that past thoughts are retrospectively constituted by
subsequent self-ascriptions is no more plausible for this second sort of case
than it is for the first. The kind of ascription of thought involved in Wittgen-
stein's example is tied to the explanation of purposive behaviour. To be
plausible or acceptable, the subject's retrospective self-ascription of thoughts
which he did not explicitly entertain at the time must provide an intelligible
explanation of his behaviour:
'I thought: "this stick is too long, I must try another one".' While thinking that maybe
I said nothing at all to myself, maybe one or two words. And yet this report is not
untrue (or at any rate it may be true). We say, for example, 'Yes, I watched you and I
thought that you were thinking that' (RPP II 13).
But suppose someone's retrospective account of what he was thinking while
he was looking carefully at the stick was this: 'I thought: the next person to
walk on the moon will be Chinese'. That report could certainly be true if he
was consciously entertaining the thought at the time. But it is hard to see
how the report could be true, in the circumstances Wittgenstein describes, if
the subject was not consciously entertaining the thought. Wittgenstein's
examples show that the ascription of a thought to a subject can be true even
if the subject did not explicitly entertain any verbal or symbolic formulation
of that thought. But what makes the ascription true is not the subject's retro-
spective impression that he had that thought. The ascription is a way of
making sense of the subject's actions; it is answerable to his behaviour and
situation at the time. So cases of this sort do not support the thesis of retro-
spective constitution; nor does Wittgenstein take them to support it.
But there is a second kind of case, where Wittgenstein really does seem to
give a constitutive role to my retrospective impression of having had the
thought which I report, and where this claim does not seem to be absolutely
out of the question. This is the case where, as we say, a thought suddenly
struck me, or flashed through my mind, without being explicitly formulated.
For example, I may report that, while travelling to work, I was suddenly
struck by the thought that I had forgotten to lock the front door when I left
home; or that I suddenly thought of an objection which I could have made
at yesterday's seminar - an objection which might be quite complex and
take some time to explain; or that I suddenly saw how to finish the essay I
had been working on.18 In cases like these, no formulation of the thought
passed before my mind at the time; so what makes the retrospective report
true is not something that went through my mind at the time. Nor does the
thought figure in explaining a bit of intentional behaviour I performed at
the time; so (unlike the cases discussed in the previous paragraph) the truth
of the report is not anchored in my past purposive behaviour. Nor is the
ascription true in virtue of any general ability I had at the time; the case is
not like the one where my having meant someone to put '1oo2' after 'iooo'
is grounded in the mathematical abilities I had at the time. What, then, does
make it true that it was the thought that p, and not some other thought,
which struck me at that particular point in time? Simply, Wittgenstein
thinks, that this is the thought I am subsequently inclined to report or self-
ascribe. He acknowledges that we have a strong sense that there must be
more to it than that. We are inclined to think that there must have been a
'germ' before my mind, which already contained 'in miniature' (LPP 81) the
whole of the thought I subsequently report; correspondingly, we think that
the retrospective report simply articulates what was already present in the
18 It is phenomena like these that Wittgenstein has in mind when he talks of cases in which
the words 'I thought ...' 'are, as it were, a development from a germ of thought' (RPP II 232).
268 WILLIAM CHILD
germ. But this, Wittgenstein thinks,

forces itself upon us' (LW I 94), but it i
such thing as a 'germ' that already cont
In cases of this kind, I said, the past t
explicitly formulated at the time; nor d
behaviour. That may prompt the worry
no real justification for my use of the
I do indeed say that I was struck by the
not that I am now struck by the though
an objection I could have made, not that
But, it might be claimed, from the per
idea that I was struck by the thought a
really happens is just that I have the re
struck by a thought at the earlier time.
This worry is understandable. But i
realism in Wittgenstein's treatment of
think, there are two conditions to be sat
this kind is to be true. In the first plac
struck by the thought that p') must me
ness, etc. In the second place, there m
scious occurrence at the time to which
smile, a glance, an involuntary gestu
feeling of inspiration or satisfaction,
saying that it was as I crossed the roa
objection I go on to report is that this
stopped for a moment and smiled. Th
conscious occurrence - provides a bas
goes beyond a mere subjective impre
occurrence which serves to anchor the
to which I refer. This is what Wittgenst
'Why did you look at me at that word, w

reaction at a certain moment and it is ex
suddenly remembered ...'.
In saying this you refer to that moment i
difference whether you refer to this or to th
The kinds of reaction, facial expressi

genstein has in mind are not intenti
such phenomena, we are not assimilatin
19 For comments on the idea of a 'germinal

843, LPPp. 8i.
© 2007 The Author Journal compilation C 2007 The Editors of The P
ascriptions of thought considered above in connection with the quotation

from RPP II 183. But these phenomena are enough to supply an objective
basis for the subject's reference to the past. So Wittgenstein is not saying
that all there is to the truth of my report that I was suddenly struck at a given
time by the thought that p is the retrospective impression of having been
struck by that thought at that time: the retrospective impression is an
important part of the picture, but so is the occurrence of some conscious
episode at the time to which I refer.20
Wittgenstein's treatment of the cases I have been considering does suggest
a form of anti-realism about certain past thoughts: which thought suddenly
struck me, he thinks, is determined by what I am subsequently inclined to
report as having suddenly struck me. But the anti-realism is strictly limited.
In the first place, it is restricted to a particular range of cases, those where
there was no explicit formulation of the thought at the time, and where the
past thought is not invoked to explain a past action. In the second place, as I
have just said, Wittgenstein's treatment of such thoughts does not involve
the view that there is no genuine basis at all for our use of the past tense in
reporting them: the content of the thought I self-ascribe is determined by
the retrospective impression, but the temporal location is determined by a
past conscious occurrence. Thirdly, the basic anti-realist idea will be subject
to the kinds of restriction mentioned earlier: the account holds only for cases
in the immediate past; and on the back of the basic cases in which people
sincerely report the thoughts that suddenly struck them, we can make sense
of other cases where there is no possibility of any subsequent report. Never-
theless, Wittgenstein's account of this limited range of cases does contain a
significant element of anti-realism. And for this restricted class of cases, his
anti-realism is, at least, worthy of serious discussion.
To sum up, at the start of this section I quoted Wittgenstein's suggestion
that we have no conception of truth for the ascription of a past thought
other than in terms of the truthfulness of the subject's retrospective self-
ascription. Taken in isolation, this seemed to point to a general anti-realism
20 For related (and Wittgenstein-inspired) ideas, cf. the following passage from Anthony
Kenny's 'Intentionality: Aquinas and Wittgenstein', in his The Legacy of Wittgenstein (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1984), pp. 161-76, at pp. 171-2: 'it does seem to be true that there must be some
exercise of sense or imagination, some application to a sensory context, if we are to be able to
pin down someone's habitual knowledge or beliefs to an exercise on a particular occasion. He
need not recite to himself his belief in his imagination, or see its content in his mind's eye
perhaps; but at least something in his sensory experience or conscious behaviour must occur
for it to be possible to latch the thought on to a date and time.' I am not sure that Kenny's
description ('the exercise of habitual knowledge or beliefs on a particular occasion') exactly fits
the case where, for example, I am suddenly struck by an objection I could have made. But
what he says applies neatly to such cases too. (I am grateful to an anonymous referee for
alerting me to Kenny's discussion and for stressing the issue it addresses.)
270 WILLIAM CHILD
about past thoughts. In fact, I argued, W

to apply only to a limited range of cases
suggestion gives an unacceptably anti-
thought was consciously entertained.
someone at a particular moment with
however, Wittgenstein's anti-realism is n
is certainly room for a much fuller disc
able to conduct here: but at this stage
ment does seem a genuinely viable cand
IV. REMEMBERING THOUGHTS: A REALIST CODA
In the case of thoughts which were consciously entertained, t

plausibility in the anti-realist view that a person's past thought
stituted by his retrospective impressions of having had those
Nevertheless, being right about one's immediate past thoughts is cle
normal case; the truthfulness of a confession of what one was think
generally suffice for its truth. Having rejected the anti-realist expl
this fact, what other explanation can one offer? The realist ab
thoughts accepts the common sense assumptions that a past thou
thing, that the subject's retrospective judgement that he had that t
another thing, and that the first is not constituted by the second. A
(for the moment) that Wittgenstein is right that a subject's sincere
prehended judgement about what he thought is guaranteed to b
how might a realist explain that guarantee?
One proposal would be that correctness in one's judgements ab
past thoughts is a necessary condition for mastery of the concept o
On that view, a sincere comprehended judgement that I thought
guaranteed to be true because one only counts as possessing the
thought (and so one only counts as understanding one's judgeme
makes the judgement only in circumstances where one has in fa
thought that p; if I were inclined to judge 'I thought that p' in circ
where I had actually thought something else, that would show that
really understand what thinking was. An account of this gener
quite appealing in some cases. For example, my judgements about
something looks red to me seem to be infallible. And it is plausible
explains this infallibility is that infallibility about one's sensations o
necessary condition for possessing the concept looking red. If someo
'This looks red to me' in circumstances where the thing looks bl
we do not think that he has misidentified a sensation of blue as a sensation
C 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 The Editors of The Philosophical Quartersy
of red; we think he has not understood what 'looking red' means. Gareth
Evans proposes just such an account of the infallibility of these self-
ascriptions.21 And Christopher Peacocke offers a parallel explanation of our
knowledge of our current conscious beliefs.22 I shall not here discuss the
plausibility of Peacocke's account, or the prospects for extending it from self-
ascriptions of current beliefs to self-ascriptions of past thoughts.23 For now, I
simply note that this is one strategy which the realist could explore in trying
to explain the authority of a subject's judgements about his past thoughts.
A different realist strategy starts from the idea that it is not generally
sufficient for having a thought at a given time that one should seem to
oneself, at that time, to be having the thought; one must subsequently be able
to remember it. The reason is this. Part of what it is for something to be a
thought is that it plays a role in inference: to have thoughts, a creature must
be able to infer one thought from others and to explore the rational relations
between thoughts. But one cannot engage in inference without keeping
track of the immediate context of one's current thoughts. Suppose one for-
got one's 'thoughts' as soon as one had entertained them. So when one
progressed through a series of thoughts in a chain of inference, one would
not know, as one reached successive conclusions in the chain, from what
premises one had inferred them. In that case, one would not really be
engaging in inference at all. At best, one would be going through a series of
conscious states that flowed on causally from one another in a systematic
way. But these states would not, properly speaking, be thoughts.
If this is right, then the general ability to remember one's immediate
past thoughts is a constitutive condition for having thoughts: if a subject
has thoughts at all, his judgements about his immediate past thoughts must
by and large be correct. This is a plausible principle, which Wittgenstein
could surely endorse. And I have reached it by a line of thinking to which he
need have no objection. But this principle, though plausible, is much weaker
than Wittgenstein's claim that the truth of a confession of an immediate past
thought is guaranteed by its truthfulness. The most one can derive from the
current line of thought is that truthful confessions must by and large be true,
not that they are guaranteed to be. To get a guarantee of truth, one would
need the condition that nothing could count as a thought unless the subject's
truthful retrospective report of that very thought were correct. And this seems
too strong. One can certainly make sense of isolated cases in which a
21 See G. Evans, The Varieties of Reference (Oxford UP, 1982), p. 229: 'such infallibility as there
is arises because we regard it as a necessary condition for the subject to possess these simple
observational concepts that he be disposed to apply them when he has certain experiences'.
22 See C. Peacocke, A Study of Concepts (MIT Press, 1992), ch. 6.
23 For some sceptical comments about Peacocke's strategy, see Wright, 'The Problem of
Self-Knowledge (II)', in his Rails to Infinity, pp. 345-73, at pp. 356-8.
272 WILLIAM CHILD
thought occurs to me and is immedia

ways of jogging my memory, such as g
thought and trying to recreate it, are i
one cannot also make sense of ther
thought that p is followed almost imme
one has just had the thought that q. Suc
thought that p occurs to me and is imm
was thinking that q; your suggestion st
I am wrong. No doubt, if this sort of t
status as a thinker would be in doubt
that it can happen in isolated cases. If
the principle that the truthfulness of a
its truth from reflections on the gener
thinker, or for something to count as a
rejecting the realist strategy I have b
for giving up the idea that a subject's
thinking is ever absolutely guaranteed t
we are authoritative about our immed
the degree of that authority.24
University College, Oxford
24 Earlier versions of this material were pr

University of Oxford, at the Fifth European C
August 2005, and at a conference, 'Is There Any
Emilia in June 2oo6. I am very grateful to the
an anonymous referee, for many helpful comme
© 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 The Editors of The

Scots Philosophical Association, University of St. Andrews, Oxford University Press The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Scots Philosophical Association, University of St. Andrews, Oxford University Press The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Scots Philosophical Association

University of St. Andrews

Dreaming, Calculating, Thinking: Wittgenstein and Anti-Realism about the Past

Scots Philosophical Association, University of St. Andrews, Oxford University Press

DREAMING, CALCULATING, THINKING:

We talk easily and unreflectively about remembering and forgetti

1 See, e.g., CJ.G. Wright, 'Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy of Mind: Sensation,

Wittgenstein's view, stated at its crudest, is that what makes it tr

Wittgenstein says that we have no concept of truth for a person's report of

2 This paper is a companion to my 'Memory, Expression, and Past-Tense Self-Know-

a dream report and its truth? The st

4 For discussion of this point, and illustrative e

© 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 The Editors of The Ph

there is nothing in the past to which a subject's retrospective reports of what

II. CALCULATING IN THE HEAD

How should we understand the claim 'I calculated 36 x 68 in my h

Wittgenstein's account of the past-tense case flows from his treatment of

Or again, that someone really is doing a calculation in his head 'can be

now?"' (LPP p. 29). And his answers must be sy

9 See, e.g., LPPpp. 29, 270; RPPI 657.

The application of the concept of calculation to the case of mental

11 There is a direct parallel between Wittgenstein's accounts of extending the concept of

calculating in the head, about whether

© 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 The Editors of The

'memory', its meaning in both dream reports and calculation reports is

13 'The interruption-criteria', Wittgenstein says, 'give "he calculated" a bigger

Wittgenstein says here that my trut

We acknowledge a truthful person's stateme

judgement or report, rather than by something th

be thinking that p. And if I seem to myself to be thinking that p, then I am

One can say 'I thought ...' if one really did

... sometimes, when I say 'I thought ...' I c

He discusses at least two kinds of case of

Let us imagine someone doing work that in

But suppose someone's retrospective account of what he was thinking while

germ. But this, Wittgenstein thinks,

'Why did you look at me at that word, w

The kinds of reaction, facial expressi

19 For comments on the idea of a 'germinal

© 2007 The Author Journal compilation C 2007 The Editors of The P

ascriptions of thought considered above in connection with the quotation

about past thoughts. In fact, I argued, W

IV. REMEMBERING THOUGHTS: A REALIST CODA

In the case of thoughts which were consciously entertained, t

thought occurs to me and is immedia

University College, Oxford

24 Earlier versions of this material were pr

© 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 The Editors of The

You might also like