The phrase “only I really
see” is closely connected with the idea expressed in the
assertion “we never know what the other man really sees
when he looks at a thing” or this, “we can never
know whether he calls the same thing ‘blue’ which
we call ‘blue’”. In fact we
might argue: “I can never know what he sees or
that he sees at all, for all I have is signs of various sorts which
he gives me; therefore it is an unnecessary hypothesis
altogether that he sees; what seeing is I only know from seeing
myself; I have only learnt the word to mean what
I
do”. Of course that is just not true, for I
have definitely learned a different and much more complicated use
of the word “to see” than I here have
professed. Let us make clear the tendency which guided
me when I did so, by an example from a slightly different
sphere: Consider this argument:
“How can we wish that this paper were red if it
isn't red? Doesn't this mean that
I wish that which doesn't exist at all?
Therefore my wish can only contain something
similar
to the paper's being red. Oughtn't we
therefore to use a different word instead of
‘red’ when we talk of wishing that something were
red? The imagery of the wish surely shows us something
less definite, something hazier, than the reality
101.
of the paper being
red.