DESIRES

Abstract

This essay is an exercise into grammatical analysis (in Wittgenstein’s sense). I dig out some important links that hold between “desire” and other notions, as “lacking”, “being deprived of”, etc. (it’s absurd to say, e.g., that one desires what one already possesses). I also describe the applications of the verb ‘to desire’ in the first and the third persons, emphasizing the differences of use of what is one and the same concept. I show that one may desire something only within the framework set up by language, institutions and practices. I trace different important conceptual connections between “desire” and, for instance, “to have the intention of”, “to act”, and so on. Finally, I briefly examine the limits in the application of “desire” considering cases like those of impossible desires, unconscious desires, ilogical desires and so forth. I argue that we can sensibly ascribe desires first and mainly to human beings and that it makes no sense at all to ascribe them to computers, the brain or other kinds of entities.