Wittgenstein and the impossibility of a private language

Abstract

The paper offers an expositive synthesis of Wittgenstein’s private language arguments in Philosophical Investigations, as they stand in the present philosophical debate. After defining such a language and identifying its constitute elements, I proceed to show that Wittgenstein’s argumentative strategies (if we assign any consistency to them) do not rest on verificationist or skeptical premises, and that the kind of demonstration offered is considerably unlike the traditional exegetical expectations. Alternatively, I present some recent interpretations that lead the arguments towards the semantic factualism debate.