God, lions, and Englishwomen

In Understanding and Comprehension. De Gruyter. pp. 171-184 (2018)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Wittgenstein shows that understanding is a capacity, and cannot be accounted for by mental representations of what is understood. But if a person’s understanding or thinking cannot be accounted for by occurrences of mental representations, then understanding that person cannot be a matter of knowing what is going on inside him or her: what representations he or she has in his or her mind. That, I argue, is the point of Wittgenstein’s famous and frequently misunderstood saying, “If a lion could talk we wouldn’t be able to understand it.” Our inability to understand a strange creature would not be overcome if that creature could speak and lay open to us on the mental operations inside its mind. Finally, I explain in what way understanding other people is not an entirely intellectual affair, but also has moral and aesthetic dimensions.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 93,891

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Misprinted Representations in Stoicism.Christian Pineda - 2023 - Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science 56 (2):325-351.
The Role of Externalism in Understanding Intentionality.Rupert Andrew John Summerton - 1996 - Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley
Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, and Ethics.A. Phillips Griffiths - 1973 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures 7:96-116.
Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, and Ethics.A. Phillips Griffiths - 1973 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 7:96-116.
Speaking Lions.Jay F. Rosenberg - 1977 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7 (1):155 - 160.
Empathy and morality in behaviour readers.Susana Monsó - 2015 - Biology and Philosophy 30 (5):671-690.
I am NN”: A Reconstruction of Anscombe's “The First Person.Adrian Haddock - 2019 - European Journal of Philosophy 27 (4):957-970.

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-02-25

Downloads
51 (#303,970)

6 months
5 (#837,449)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Severin Schroeder
University of Reading

Citations of this work

Rationality, Reasons, Rules.Brad Hooker - 2022 - In Christoph C. Pfisterer, Nicole Rathgeb & Eva Schmidt (eds.), Wittgenstein and Beyond: Essays in Honour of Hans-Johann Glock. New York: Routledge. pp. 275-290.
Compréhension d’autrui, savoir-faire conceptuel et monde social.Rémi Clot-Goudard - 2023 - Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 119 (3):335-352.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references