Editing Philosophical Investigations (section)

=== Wittgenstein's beetle ===
Another point that Wittgenstein makes against the possibility of a private language involves the beetle-in-a-box thought experiment.<ref name="§&nbsp;293">§&nbsp;293</ref> He asks the reader to imagine that each person has a box, inside which is something that everyone intends to refer to with the word ''beetle''. Further, suppose that no one can look inside another's box, and each claims to know what a "beetle" is only by examining their own box. Wittgenstein suggests that, in such a situation, the word ''beetle'' could not be the name of a thing, because supposing that each person has something completely different in their boxes (or nothing at all) does not change the meaning of the word; the beetle as a private object "drops out of consideration as irrelevant".<ref name="§&nbsp;293" /> Thus, Wittgenstein argues, if we can talk about something, then it is not "private" in the sense considered. And, contrapositively, if we consider something to be indeed private, it follows that we "cannot talk about it".