Wittgenstein’s “Inner and Outer”: Overcoming Epistemic Asymmetry

Abstract

In this article, I identify three ways in which Wittgenstein opposed an idea of epistemic asymmetry between the first person and the secondor- third person. Examining the questions of 1) absence of doubt about my own experience and uncertainty about the experiences of others, 2) ineffability of subjective experience and 3) immediacy of my knowledge of my own experience contrasted with my merely inferential knowledge about the experiences of others, I see Wittgenstein’s remarks about “inner and outer” as a many-faceted denial of the claim that people’s minds are in some deep way unknowable to others. These considerations also serve to clarify Wittgenstein’s relation to behaviorism.