Which choice best states the main idea of the text? | Verbal SAT Question

In his Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein introduced the “private language argument,” challenging the Cartesian assumption that language gains its meaning from internal, subjective mental sensations. Wittgenstein posited that for an individual to follow a rule regarding the naming of a private sensation, there must be a criterion for distinguishing between actually following the rule and merely believing one is following it. Because a solitary speaker isolated from a community of language users possesses no independent standard of correctness, the notion of a purely private language is inherently self-undermining; meaning is fundamentally grounded in communal customs and public social practice (“forms of life”).

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

Language can communicate private subjective experiences only if an individual constructs a systematic internal dictionary.

Linguistic meaning cannot exist in isolation because the validation of rule-following requires public, communal practices.

Cartesian epistemology provides the most logically robust framework for explaining linguistic acquisition in early childhood.

Mental sensations are too ephemeral and subjective to be categorized by conventional vocabulary.