Wittgenstein`s Philosophical Investigations
Wittgenstein`s Method
One of the difficulties in
reading Wittgenstein is that we are trained to ask for claims and argument for
the claims. When we do that, look
for that with respect to Wittgenstein, we find them and miss the point of what
Wittgenstein is doing. Some have pointed out that there are no arguments in
Wittgenstein. This statement seems so implausible to philosophers who have trained
themselves to analyze arguments that we then say, ``Well, there really are
arguments, and here they are.`` We can produce an argument out of text even
when there are implied assumptions and conclusions. There are in this sense
claims and arguments. But what those who say there are no claims or arguments
mean is not that we cannot find a claim or argument, but rather that
Wittgenstein is not putting forward claims in an attempt to answer
philosophical questions and puzzles. Rather, his work was aimed at showing why
the questions and puzzles of philosophy have endlessly continued without
satisfactory results. What is the difficulty with philosophy? It looks like
science in that it puts forward a question and then rigorously attempts to
produce a true claim in answer to the question. But none of the answers stand.
None are established as the answer that everyone in the community accepts. Why
is this? Kant offered an answer. We extend our claims past our empirical input.
Wittgenstein, like Kant, has wrestled with the question but with a different
outcome. We have forgotten, in philosophy, the ordinary uses of language. We
have snatched the words from where they make sense and have given them the
appearance of use without actual use in the surroundings of our own
philosophical problems (creating the problem as we go along).
ÐÐÐÐÐÐ
The Radical Nature of Wittgenstein`s Philosophy
Wittgenstein
conveys the sense that his work in philosophy is a radical departure from past
philosophy. Even the motto which attempts to mitigate this sense of radical
departure Ð ``It is in the nature of every advance that it appears much greater
than it actually is`` Ð conveys the sense of radical departure. Although his philosophical
investigations seem to destroy everything, it is really only destroying
``houses of cards`` (#118). The implication here is that prior philosophy has
created systems and theories, but his work, by contrast, tears them down and
they were after all only houses made of cards. St. Augustine is chosen as a
representative of a philosophical conception of meaning. He represents the
general philosophical conception of meaning that words have meanings and that
the philosopher`s job is to find them (#1). ``... philosophical problems arise
when language goes on holiday`` (#38). Is that all philosophical problems? One does not
know, but Wittgenstein does not seem to be worried about discussing the
exceptions to this generalization. The Philosophical Investigations is written as a dialogue. There are
voices that speak to each other. The dialogue form does not put forward claims.
There are no philosophical theses put forward and argued for. Wittgenstein is not a Platonist nor
empiricist, not a realist nor idealist, not a nominalist, has no theory of
determinism nor of free will, is not a dualist, nor monist nor behaviorist. So
what is he? He must be something, but what? There is a dialogue in which a growth in understanding takes
place. The understanding grows with respect to the nature and function of
language. One comes to see how philosophers have conceived meaning and how that
contrasts with the mere understanding of the nature and function of language.
This newÐfound understanding over against the old misunderstanding constitutes
the radical departure from the past. The dialogue form, then, also conveys this
sense of a radical departure from the past.
The
dialogue form says that philosophy is not finished. It does not arrive at
results. The point is not to arrive at a new conclusion. Rather, the activity
of philosophy is never complete. There will always be new ways into
philosophical problems. A word or
phrase catches our attention, and then we have the problem.
Wittgenstein`s
work was itself not finished. I do not mean that Part II was never worked into
Part I, which it was not. But he was continually adding to the Philosophical
Investigations and
rearranging sections. His Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology were continuing investigations into the
same problems that occupied him in the Philosophical Investigations.
What
strikes the reader, or certainly should strike the reader, is that this book
unlike other books gives a glimpse of a mind at work. It does not give one results to remember and carry with one.
It asks the reader to participate in a different kind of thinking along with
the writer. New habits of mind are to be formed rather than new conclusions to
be drawn.
ÐÐÐÐÐÐ
The
Philosophical Investigations
as a great book
The
Philosophical Investigations
now shows up as a great book in the St. Johns` curriculum. A great book is a
book that speaks to the human condition. It is also a book that one may read
and reread profitably. I just made that up.
How
is the Philosophical Investigations
a great book? Plato`s works
address what it means to be human; how is one to live a good life? Descartes` Meditations addresses how it is possible to be human
in a machine world. Hume`s books Ð Treatise and Inquires Ð address what human knowledge is and
what limits there are to human knowledge.
If Wittgenstein`s book takes on the issues of these books, then I
suppose it takes on the themes of these great books. It, the Philosophical
Investigations,
certainly bears rereading. It is written in a complex and fascinating manner.
So, then, it has the marks of a great book.
The
Tractatus explores
what can be said and then points to what cannot be said. The nature of the
proposition, the self, the apriori
in science, ethics, and God cannot be spoken; yet, the book addresses these
topics as the great questions of philosophy. What I am worrying about here is
that these topics do not really show up in the Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein does not address them even
as what can not be spoken of. Yet, this book conveys a sense that it is about
the great questions of philosophy.
The
Philosophical Investigations
recommends that we look to the languageÐgame in which a word is used in order
to remind ourselves of its meaning. There are guidelines for this throughout
the book. Sometimes Wittgenstein actually assembles a reminder for the reader;
e.g., ``know`` is connected to ``is able to.`` Now what I have in mind is this:
we do not speak ordinary talk in languageÐgames when we do philosophy. We use
words in philosophy; we speak of ``self,`` ``knowledge,`` ``God,`` and
``ethics,`` but not in the languageÐgames where these words make sense. The Philosophical Investigations is about the identification of the
nonÐsense. God and ethics may be spoken of in the communities which share the
common ground and common language required.
In
the Tractatus, the
essential form of language is the proposition. The book is composed of numbered
propositions. The book describes
how propositions mean. Wittgenstein thought that there was an essential form to
every proposition. The Philosophical Investigations gives up the quest for the essential
form of a proposition as a misguided search. He now understands why it is misguided. He kept track of his
failures and through them came to a new understanding of the workings of
language. The proposition is replaced in the Philosophical Investigations with the languageÐgame. The latter is a
covey of sentences and surroundings. The larger context, then, becomes the
significant unit of language. The form of the Philosophical Investigations reflects this new understanding. The
form now is that of numbered paragraphs which reflects the larger contexts.
Ordinary
language is the language to be examined to rediscover the meaning of words.
Philosophical uses of words are not uses. Philosophers have snatched words from
where they are used, where they do work, and snatched other bits and pieces
with them. The bits and pieces now provide enough for philosophical
indigestion. So Wittgenstein returns us to ordinary language to paragraphs,
whole discourses, languageÐgames.
Ethics
and religion have languageÐgames which go with them. That is, the words
``good,`` ``ought,`` ``God,`` ``sun,`` etc. are words which get used in a
variety of languageÐgames. They may be studied in those languageÐgames if one
wants to compare their actual use with that of the philosopher of ethics or the
philosopher of religion. What this now means is that the philosopher may have
something to say about ethics and theology. The silence of the Tractatus is not really being broken, because it
is not as if one is now able to produce the scientific propositions about God
that the Tractatus
prohibited. Those propositions are still not possible. But there are
recommendations and judgments that are made and taught in ethics. There are
communities of faith in which the words ``God`` and ``sin`` are used and
understood. The criterion for
sense in both cases is not limited to the capacity of the proposition to
picture a possible state of affairs. The criterion for sense is now found in
the languageÐgames in which these words have a home. The philosopher may
observe ``this is the way the word `God` or `good` is used ...`` or the word
``God`` or ``good`` is not used in this way É.
ÐÐÐÐÐÐ
Extended
Reflection: ``Ordinary Language
and Ordinary Language Philosophy
There is considerable confusion
surrounding the term ``ordinary language`` and the label ``ordinary language
philosophy.`` The confusion arises, I believe, because the expression
``ordinary language`` as Wittgenstein used it in the Philosophical
Investigations was not a
term at all, and, when treated as a term and used as a label, may well mislead
one to make a distinction which readily leads to confusions. In this note, I hope to show how that
happens and how to avoid the confusions.
While there may be more, I am concerned here with two particular
confusions. The first stems from
the fact that the language of the Philosophical Investigations and of the other later works is not what
one would call ``ordinary.`` This seems to create a self-referential paradox of
the recommendation that one ought to attend to ordinary language in doing
philosophy. The second confusion
has to do with the feeling that science has been and would be hindered by
adhering to ordinary language alone.
If this is true, ordinary language is to have one strike against it, and
a second strike comes by way of analogy to the first. If such language is a hindrance in scientific studies, then
it will be so in philosophical studies as well. I would like to take on these confusions one at a time.
Let me try to articulate, then, what I am
calling the ``first confusion`` as best I can. I have heard it put in different
ways, but I want to take on its strongest form. As any reader of Philosophical
Investigations, Zettel, The Blue Book,
or On Certainty
knows, these are difficult books. Their difficulty is not like the difficulty
of reading Hegel or Kant, but they are difficult nonetheless. The difficulty
lies in the fact that the books are about how philosophy works and about
language itself. There are many
examples of language used outside of philosophy in the Philosophical Investigations:
``Look what you`ve done! . . . You were
meant to add two: look how you began the series!``
``I am leaving the room because you tell
me to.``
``The cock calls the hens by crowing.``
These are easy enough to understand when
the context is provided. But there
is also the language of what we are inclined to say while doing philosophy:
``A proposition is a queer thing.``
``The essence is hidden from us.``
``A name signifies only what is an
element in reality. What cannot be
destroyed; what remains the same in all changes.``
And
there are grammatical remarks Ñ remarks about the ways in which our language
functions:
``Language is an instrument. Its concepts
are instruments.``
``To have an opinion is a state. A state of what ? Of the soul? Of the mind?
Well, of what does one say that it has an opinion?``
``Have we a clear picture of the
circumstances in which we should say of a pot that it talked?``
It is of the latter two sets of examples
that one would like to say, ``These are not ordinary uses of language.`` One would mean by this that the
butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker do not talk in this way and would
most likely be puzzled by some one who did. For the person on his way to the first confusion, it is not
that he is bothered by someone`s having written a book that a craftsman could
not understand. (As it usually turns
out, it is quite the opposite. For
it looks to him as if the craftsman`s language is being made the standard to
which philosophical language must be brought down.) Rather, he is bothered by the fact that Wittgenstein seems
continually to say that we are to return to our ordinary language to dissolve
philosophical problems, and yet he must use non-ordinary language in doing
this. It is not a simple matter of
the pot calling the kettle black; rather, it is as if the pot had said to
itself ``pots can`t talk.``
Butchers talk ordinary talk.
Philosophers talk un-ordinary talk. And now a philosopher comes along who says in his best
un-ordinary talk that philosophers cannot talk un-ordinary talk. Of course,
butchers do not understand all of this.
But who could? To those who
are acquainted with philosophers` talk, perhaps a more familiar way of putting
this objection is that Wittgenstein wants to put an end to metaphysical
propositions and then uses metaphysical propositions to do it. And that would be a piece of nonsense
if it were so.
I would like to attend now to what I
earlier identified as the source of this confusion; namely, that the expression
``ordinary language`` is being taken as a term when it was not intended to by
Wittgenstein. When thinking about
this point, it occurred to me to skim through the Philosophical
Investigations with
attention to the expression ``ordinary language.`` I was a little surprised that I could only find the
expression used four times in the entire book. In all four cases, the German expression is ``unserer
gewšhnlichen Sprache``:
``our customary language,`` ``our commonplace language,`` ``our habitat
language.`` In other sections, he uses the expressions ``everyday language,``
``actual language,`` ``our ordinary way of speaking,`` and a few other similar
ones. The rarity of the expression
changes nothing about the emphasis of the book, for in spite of the popularity
of the term ``ordinary language philosophy,`` everything still points in the
same direction. But the real
pointing word of the book and the one that could more justifiably be taken as a
term, is ``language-game.`` That
word, of course, occurs repeatedly throughout the book. It was coined for the particular
purpose of helping with the essential task of the book. Accordingly, if one must have a label,
a better one than ``ordinary language`` would have been ``language-game
philosophy.`` This would avoid
some of the confusion over who speaks ``ordinary language`` and indicate the
object of study more precisely.
The concept of a language-game is closely tied up with the expression
``ordinary language,`` but they are not equivalent. There are language-games imagined in which the language used
is not what we would ordinarily call ``ordinary,`` e.g., ``d-slab-there`` and
``Suppose I said `a b c d` and meant `the weather is fine.``` The butcher does not talk that
way. Yet both this invented
language and the butcher`s language occur in language-games. When this is seen, the confusion should
pass. One cannot object that
Wittgenstein uses ``language-game language`` in order to warn against
``non-language-game language.``
At this point, we come
across what I take to be basic to the confusion over ordinary language. The real distinction is between the way
philosophers have traditionally ignored their abuses of ordinary language in
doing philosophy and attending to actual uses of words in language-games. The confusion arises from failing to
see that distinction. The whole
book, especially #65 and #66, warns the reader against asking what is common to
the uses of language, Wittgenstein believes that philosophers have
traditionally looked at language in one particular way, namely, that all
language means by referring.
Philosophers, including himself in the Tractatus,
have thought of language as having a common essential element of a
referent running through all of its uses.
And though philosophers operate on this assumption, they are rarely
directly aware of it though always guided by it. It is this insight together with his method of language game
analysis which grows out of the insight that constitute showing it that
constitute Wittgenstein`s contribution to philosophy.
More specifically,
philosophers have assumed for purposes of philosophizing that words are
essentially names of things in the world.
When Socrates, for example, continually presses Meno for the essence of
virtue, he is attempting to sort through the language in order to find the real
thing hidden beneath the uses of the word ``virtue.`` ``Our philosophical investigations`` we want to say ``are
into the nature of reality.`` And
in this frame of mind we would
take it as a reproach to be told that we had generated a ``semantical
dispute`` and had not gotten to the thing itself. After all three of Meno`s accounts of what the Greek`s use
of ``virtue,`` Socrates finally feigns impatience and quips, ``You say this and
that about virtue, but what is it . . . ?`` (Meno
79e) I take Plato`s dialogue here
to be representative of the nature of philosophical investigations.
The distinction between
philosophical and ordinary uses of language is what it will take to finally
dissolve the confusion about whether Wittgenstein`s language is
self-referential. In taking that
up, however, I want to guard against another possible source of this confusion
that could grow out of the use of the word ``philosophy.``
The confusion, as I put it
in one form, was that Wittgenstein used philosophical language to deny
philosophical language. The distinction that Wittgenstein makes between the
philosophical and the non-philosophical uses of language is clear enough and
may clear up the confusion. But the word ``philosophy`` is used to refer to two
quite different activities throughout the Investigations, and unless someone is
clear on that, the confusion will reappear. In some places it is used to refer to the traditional
philosophical picture of language he attacks. For example, in #90 he points out
that St. Augustine calls to mind various statements (statements used in
language-games) about time and then adds parenthetically: These are, of course, not philosophical
statements about time, the past, the present, and the future. Here, ``philosophical`` refers to what
does not happen in language-games, i.e., it refers to traditional
philosophy. Compare that use with
the way he uses it in the following sections:
#124. Philosophy may in
no way interfere with the actual use of language it can in the end only
describe it.
#109. Philosophy is a battle against the
bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
#126. One might also give the name philosophy to what is possible
before all new discoveries and inventions.
The last sentence shows what is going on
with the word ``philosophy`` in the book.
Philosophy and the language of philosophy have been one thing in the
past, and now these Wittgenstein looks at philosophy as having a new task, and,
of course, as making use of grammatical remarks, i.e. language that would be
non-philosophical in the traditional sense. Nonetheless, these investigations and grammatical remarks
can also be called ``philosophy.``
These two uses of the word show both the nature of the break and the
continuity of Wittgenstein`s work with philosophical tradition.
The confusion that Wittgenstein has
involved himself in a self-referential paradox can now be dispelled. The real
distinction of the Philosophical Investigations is not one between ``ordinary
language`` and something else but between the traditional philosophical picture
of language and language-games or non-philosophical language. This distinction hinges on the fact
that we are to understand ``philosophical`` and ``non-philosophical`` as
referring to what one would find or not find in the works of Plato, Augustine,
Descartes, etc. So the idea that
Wittgenstein has used philosophical language to show that philosophical
language is unintelligible is an expression of the confusion over the word
``philosophical.`` The confusion
could be cleared up by replacing the first ``philosophical`` by ``grammatical
remarks`` or ``language-games`` or ``non-philosophical.`` It might then read
that Wittgenstein has used grammatical remarks to show that philosophical
language is unintelligible.
The other formulation of the confusion Ñ
that he used unordinary language to show that ordinary language alone is
unintelligible Ñ can be cleared in a similar manner. In this case, however, the best way would be to drop the
expression ``ordinary language`` and to look at the way in which Wittgenstein
presents his idea of a language-game and uses it against the traditional
philosophical picture of language.
In place of ``ordinary language`` and certainly more natural than
``language-game language,`` we might put the word ``intelligible.`` Wittgenstein attends to ``intelligible
language.`` He uses ``intelligible
language.`` His work is aimed
against ``unintelligible language.`` Replacing ``ordinary language`` with ``intelligible``
in the expression of the confusion, we get: Wittgenstein used intelligible language to show that
intelligible language alone is intelligible. Though an odd expression itself,
the confusion over whether Wittgenstein`s language is ordinary disappears.
With these distinctions made and
alternative concepts to ``ordinary language`` offered, it will be considerably
easier to remove the second confusion.
While this confusion does not purport to be as damaging as the first (it
does not suppose a contradiction where there was to be none), it is, I believe,
more widespread than the first.
Again, it involves a felt objection to what the term ``ordinary
language`` suggests. The objection
is felt because the idea of progress in science is held over against
philosophy. Philosophy should know
things, make discoveries, and make progress just as science does. Science
cannot be burdened with ordinary language. In the first place, it makes precise its technical terms,
uses them carefully, and they become, thereby, essential to what makes progress
possible. The development of these
terms reflects the progress. In
the second place, if scientists had attended to our ordinary language as a
guide for their studies, the scientists never would have discovered how things
really stand.
Both of these points about science and
ordinary language, although over simplified, are essentially correct. The second point contains a
circle. We would expect that our
ordinary language would reflect the presently accepted scientific view. Any change in the view science brings
might put things in such as way that would run counter to the ordinary
expressions. Consider explanations of Einstein`s theory of relativity. Ordinary expressions involving space
and time stand in the way of understanding the theory. While Einstein had to think about and
with the words ``space`` and ``time,`` his investigations were not
fundamentally grammatical but empirical.
He found new ways to use these words, ways both consistent with past
usages and ways conforming to surprising results of experiments measuring of
the speed of light. Had he
conducted a purely grammatical investigation in the uses of ``space`` and
``time,`` he would have been doing philosophy and not physics.
The point about the successful use of
technical language can be illustrated from the same example. The term ``curved space`` sounds like
nonsense. It certainly does not
fit with the ways in which the non-scientist would use the word ``space`` even
in our science fiction literature.
It is not ordinary language, even for the well-informed candlestick
maker. And, of course, if one supposed that ``ordinary language philosophy``
was the philosophy that recommended that physicists should stick to the
language of the ordinary person, then he would be right in objecting.
The confusion here collects around three nodes
as I see it. Two of the nodes have
to do with what would happen if the scientist relied upon ``ordinary
language.`` The first node is that
if he adheres to ordinary language as the guide for his studies, he is bound to
pictures that are commonly accepted, and no progress is made. The second is that it looks as if the
scientist`s language is being called nonsense because it is not ordinary. And the third is that if ordinary
language is ill-suited for science, it is ill-suited for philosophy as well. I believe that the confusions
surrounding each of these of these is removed by clearing the distinctions
blurred by philosopher`s use of ``ordinary language`` as a term. I treat the first and third together
for they turn out to be the reverse of each other.
In the first node, the argument that the
scientist would make no progress if he limited his investigations to ordinary
language is a sound one. Its
soundness rests on the tautology that if he so limited his investigations, he
would be conducting a grammatical inquiry and not an empirical inquiry. One could not produce science by
restricting himself to grammar in that way. Wittgenstein distinguishes grammatical remarks from
empirical remarks and makes it clear that his investigations are grammatical
(philosophical) and not scientific (scientific). Again, recall the passage: ``One might also give the name
`philosophy` to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.`` It reflects a dichotomy between science
and philosophy running through all of Wittgenstein`s works. He conceives the
two as completely different sorts of enterprises and does not recommend that
science abandon its inquiries.
Accordingly, what constitutes a proper investigation for philosophy Ñ
inquiries into language-games relevant to the words that interest us Ñ will not
be a proper investigation for science, which aims at making ``discoveries and
inventions.`` Even in philosophy where Wittgenstein assures us that ordinary
language may be a corrective to language philosophically abused, we are
nevertheless to pay attention to the surface analogies arising out of ordinary
language that may give rise to philosophical illusions.
What I have called the ``third node`` is
simply the reverse of the first, and it too is cleared with the same
treatment. It supposes that what
is ill-suited for science should be ill-suited for philosophy. If the investigations of these
respective activities are different in the ways pointed out, then the analogy
fails. However, the temptation to look
at science as the model for philosophizing is an old and powerful haunt. That temptation is deeply rooted and
will not be removed simply by clearing the term ``ordinary language.``
The confusion surrounding the second node
is cleared when one sees it over against the distinctions laid out in the first
part of this note. In particular,
one must come to understand that what Wittgenstein and ``ordinary language
philosophers`` are objecting to, is philosophical language taken outside of
natural language-games. They are
not objecting to the language of the scientist, which still has contexts
relevant to its new uses. The talk
of ``curved space,`` ``black holes,`` ``anti-matter,`` and countless words in
the technical vocabulary of the scientist are certainly out of the ordinary,
but they are used in and developed in language-games. Furthermore, the physicist can explain new usages and terms
to another by means of familiar pictures and words, and by the use of
experiments. So his language is
intelligible, or capable of being made so, to one who is willing to become a
physicist. ``Language-game
philosophy`` does not make objections to new uses and terms by scientists. In fact, it might do well to use this
practice of the scientist as a paradigm for how seemingly unintelligible
language is made intelligible.
PREFACE
The
thoughts are a scrapbook, an album. They do not flow from beginning to middle
to end. They are not organized as an ordinary book. They do not put forward a
thesis or philosophical position and then develop and defend it. So
Wittgenstein prepares his reader for something different. He is also, I
suppose, explaining why the book looks the way it does. He is examining issues
in photos from different angles and taking photos of apparently different
subjects that turn out to be related to each other.
Then
there is the expression ``in the darkness of this time.`` There are no windows
in this time. What a powerful image! A new dark age. What has brought it about?
I will propose that I know; it is science. However, science brings light.
Science explains what before was explained by religion. With science we see
through to the bottom of things, to the true explanations and first principles.
But what if science rested upon principles that enable one to build on them but
might have been different? What if
science did not understand itself in this regard and lived with the illusion
that it explained or could explain those first principles when in fact it could
not. What if science at its best could only describe certain aspects of the
natural world as they are and not explain them nor have anything at all to
offer about that which transcends or might transcend the natural world? What if
science had no truck with mystery when mystery was the only possible result of
human thought? Then the elevation of science to its present reign would make
this present age a dark age with every thing turned upside down. Those with
knowledge of science would be deemed wise and those with the appreciation for
mystery would be deemed foolish and backward relics of an age that should have
passed. The darkness of science,
too, may be grasped in its lack of appreciation for the needs of the human
spirit in its elevation of health as the ultimate good and death as the ultimate
evil, in the promise of ease and comfort, in its belief in endless progress
while ignoring the regressions associated with each new development and in the
mire of medical technology which prolongs the agony of death and confuses
humans in matters of conceiving and giving birth and nurture to children. Is
this enough darkness for one ink cartridge? Is this the darkness that
Wittgenstein had in mind? I am prepared to stand by my claim that it is.
``I should not
like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking.``
What
is Wittgenstein warning us of or announcing to us with this sentence? The Philosophical
Investigations is not an
ordinary book. This is something one might see immediately from a glance at the
pages. There are numbered sections.
A closer look also reveals some significant differences. There are
alternate voicesthat argue with each other. Often one voice will be in quotation marks. Understanding
what is being said or what Wittgenstein is doing may not necessarily be stated
either in the quotation or out.
The alternating voices are to be read as an exchange of reasons in which
understanding arises out of thinking the dialogue through for oneself. The
numbered sections and the dialogues written do not present a traditional
picture of philosophical writing in which theses are put forward and defended.
Rather, they pick up Wittgenstein`s themes in a manner consciously constructed
to reflect direct penetration, forcing the reader to think through these ideas
for oneself. Wittgenstein seems to continually understand that the reader will
not recognize that he, the reader, makes the presuppositions which he, the
reader, in fact does. So there is
an aspect of addressing an illusion in Wittgenstein`s writings. Wittgenstein
knows that the reader harbors certain deep illusions. It will do no good to directly say what they are and then
refute them. Wittgenstein knows from personal turmoil in rooting out these
confusion`s how deeply entwined they are in our philosophical thought. They
must be treated as deep confusion`s then if they are to be successfully
treated. So he gives us nothing directly. (Here he is like Kant, Nietzsche,
Pascal.) The preface, then, warns us of this approach. Do not expect straight-forward
arguments! The task will not be easy. The darkness of the age will work against
you. You probably won`t get it. These are Wittgenstein`s preparations for us.
We must be ready for something different.
SECTION #1
Why
does Wittgenstein begin the PI
with the quotation from St Augustine? He says somewhere that he did so because,
if as great a thinker as St. Augustine harbored this confusion, then calling
attention to it in his case will show that it is a mistake of genius and how
pervasive it is. St. Augustine represents philosophy. But I wonder if there is more to this. In going back to St. Augustine,
Wittgenstein is connecting to philosophy before the Modern Period Ð before the
period in which science and the scientific method began to serve as the model
for philosophy. In the Modern Period,
philosophy is inventing a science of the mind. The Moderns view knowledge as
science, which is produced by a mind.
Mind and the science it produces become the objects of study. The mind is made quasi-physical. It is
atomized. It is broken down into
mental units related to each other in causal relations. This concept of mind is
connected to the picture of language with which Wittgenstein is at war. Wittgenstein wants to remove this
confusion. He sees it, of course, in preÐmodern philosophers as well (Plato for
example), but he sees in the preÐmoderns a philosophy that is not under the
spell of modern science. Wittgenstein sees the mechanistic presuppositions of
the moderns as blinding and productive of a hubris that corrupted thought.
ÐÐÐÐÐÐ
The
St. Augustine quote can be understood as an answer to the question ``How does
one learn a language?`` That question calls or seems to call for a theory of
language acquisitions. It also calls for a semantic theory. How do we learn a language? This is the
expression of puzzlement. There are babies. They have no language. Then there are children who come to
speak a language. How is that possible? How do they do that? It occurred to me
in our discussion yesterday that it is important to see St. Augustine`s account
of how a child learns language as a theory which is meant to answer this
particular question: How does one learn a language?
The
question is troublesome. I mean the question asks for a unified account as if
there is one way or one basic way that a child learns language, and that one
way will be a function of the account of how words mean. The question ``What is
the meaning of a word?`` is tucked away inside the question ``How does one
learn a language?`` The question
``What is the meaning of a word?`` also has a presupposition tucked away inside
of it. That presupposition is that a word or words have a meaning, the meaning
is a something. The meaning of a
word is a something, and the account of the meaning of a word would be to show
the sort of something that the word named or signified. The picture here is that a word is a
sign for a thing and that we communicate with each other by means of these
signs when we hold a common understanding of the things signified by the words
we use. Philosophy then becomes the investigation into the nature of the
something that the words name. It should come as a surprise to one that
Wittgenstein regards all of this as confusion, the great confusion of
philosophy. His aim is to attack this confusion. St. Augustine is chosen as a
representative of the confusion. Wittgenstein regards his attack on the
confusion as an attack on his own ideas in his Tractatus LogicoÐPhilosophius, so one should not suppose that it was
only St. Augustine`s or his own views which he had in mind when launched this
attack.
The
question ``How does one learn a language?`` presupposes that there is a way in
which we learn a language then, and that way will be a function of a picture of
meaning. One may forget, in light of this question, that there are many
different aspects of language Ð different words, kinds of words, expressions,
etc. Ð which are learned and that they are learned in many different
circumstances. If this is right,
then notice that we have a question that calls for one explanation when there
are many different explanations to consider. No wonder the question produces
such puzzlement.
Let
us consider St. Augustine`s explanations. It is told from the point of view of
an infant at the table. Or is it?
The child hears the talk and sees the objects on the table. There are
gestures and actions in connection with eating dinner. There may be some pointing and saying a
name. There may be crying on the part of the child and pointing. Why does the
child cry? Is he frustrated
because he knows that he wants the meatloaf but does not know the word
``meatloaf?`` Is the child a
full-blown language speaker but without knowledge of this particular
language? How is pointing taught?
How does the child come to know the significance of pointing? We cannot point
to pointing. How do we know what
he is pointing to? Does he already know meatloaf, applesauce, and forks only
not yet their names? St.
Augustine, the child, seems to be an adult trapped inside a child`s body. He seems to know what he wants but
doesn`t know the words yet. The words he is trying to pick up in connection
with the objects on the table: the meatloaf, the fork, and the green beans. The
objects lack names and seem to him to be like people whose names he does not
yet know or cannot remember. What happens to the other words? Hope asked, ``What happens to `if,`
`and,` and `but?``` Chris pointed out that they are grasped in context that
language is not learned one object at a time nor one word at a time but in
larger quantities in context of other words. St. Augustine seems to think that
these other words will take care of themselves.
ÐÐÐÐÐÐ
Section
#1 of the Philosophical Investigations contains the germ ÐÐ the plan ÐÐ of the entire book. It presents
Wittgenstein`s idea, his breakthrough in philosophy. The section is remarkable
in its economy. It begins with the quotation from St. Augustine describing how
we learn language as children.
Then it states explicitly the picture of how words mean; words mean by
naming objects. Then he gives a case later to be called a ``languageÐgame``
which shows that St. Augustine`s picture of the meaning of a word is not
adequate and even confused. The meaning of a word is not in question in such
languageÐgames, only how the word is used is relevant for understanding.
Consider
Wittgenstein`s take on St. Augustine`s account first. At the table, the child
learns the meaning of nouns such as ``milk,`` ``bread,`` and ``potatoes``
first. Then he learns what the names of related activities refer to such as
pass, eat, and spill. The rest of
the words somehow take care of themselves. The great differences between words
are ignored. ``If,`` ``and,`` ``but,`` ``I,`` ``Me,`` ``in,`` ``over,``
``down,`` ``no,`` ``want,`` ``crying`` are all regarded as names. Everything is
flat. All words are names of
something. At first, one thinks of
the objects on the table. But then
one thinks of all the different sorts of things named in the above list as
objects, too: ``ifs`` and ``ands`` name logical relations; ``over`` and
``down`` name spatial relations; ``pass`` and ``eat`` name activities; ``want``
and ``hungry`` name psychological states.
It gets more complex than even this list shows. Notice how far along one
is in the activity of philosophy already.
Philosophy might be thought of taking inventory of the universe by means
of noticing the labels on the items in stock. There are potatoes, wants, bodily movements, spatial and
logical relationships. It`s a diverse place.
Now
consider Wittgenstein`s little languageÐgame at the grocery store which is
introduced out of nowhere with no explanation of why he is presenting it. A boy presents a list to a grownup who
without explanation knows what to do with it. He fills the order by opening a drawer with the label
``apple`` on it, following a color chart from the word ``red`` to a color
sample to apples of the same color as the sample and saying the names of the
cardinal numbers up to ``five`` as he takes out one red apple for each of the
five names of numbers from ``one`` through ``five.`` How does he know to take an apple for each number (i.e.
count)? How does he know how to
follow the color chart from the word to the color? How does he know to open the drawer labeled ``apples`` when
he sees the word on the boy`s list?
Well, he does. He has learned this somehow. ``Explanations must come to
an end somewhere.`` These questions might be summarized as follows: ``How does
he know how to use the words `five red apples?``` Wittgenstein believes it a
good enough answer and an instructive answer to say, ``Explanations come to an
end somewhere.`` That is, ``We have learned it somehow but don`t remember that
we have learned it.``
Section
#1 contains the confusion and the clarity, the path through the confusion at
once. Throughout this book, Wittgenstein explores the same theme dialectically.
He repeats it over and over again.
He comes at the same issues from many different angles. He explores
themes which at first seem to have no relation to the meaning of a word, and
then we find later that everything is tied together, e.g. simple entities of
the Tractatus,
private language, willing and believing and understanding. All of these
subjects are discussed in the Philosophical Investigations
as a part of his album on ``the meaning of the word.``
Wittgenstein
believes that this collection of exercises surrounding St. Augustine`s picture
that the meaning of a word is the thing named by the word and the corrective to
look at the use of the word is basic to philosophy. St. Augustine represents a
common misunderstanding of all previous philosophy, including Wittgenstein`s
own Tractatus.
Wittgenstein`s breakthrough on this common presupposition of philosophies
struck him as like a Copernican revolution. ``Now everything is seen in a new
way!``
ÐÐÐÐÐÐ
I
want to try to formulate something to express the core of Wittgenstein`s ideas.
Section #1 contains the germ for the Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein has come to see that the
picture that words mean by simplifying objects is a basic and undetected
presupposition of philosophical thinking. His task then is to expose this
illusion and to give us a clear picture of the workings of language by means of
which one might see through the illusion. ``Meaning is use`` is a kind of
formula for seeing through the illusion.
I
want to focus on the languageÐgame as the key idea in Wittgenstein. How does
the languageÐgame relate to the germ idea of the book laid out in section #1?
Wittgenstein takes it that philosophers have done their work in the light of
this illusion. They look for the object that is the meaning of the word. The
object may be a Platonic form or senseÐdatum. It may be a mental state or
something thought to be a mental state: an emotion, a will, a belief, etc. It
might be consciousness or a physical state. In any case, the result is an object that connects to the
word that names it. Now since this philosophical conception of meaning starts
with a word and ends with an object pointed to by the word, and since
Wittgenstein`s idea is that we have forgotten the use of the word when we have
done this, the corrective is to
examine the use of the word.
The philosopher comes to his investigation by a kind of forgetting. The
way out comes by way of a kind of recollecting. The philosophical use of the
word is a nonÐuse. The philosopher
sees the word and wonders what it means. It is almost as if it comes off the
page or out of the speaker`s mouth and leaves behind all of its surroundings.
Now out of its natural home, one draws a blank on what it could possibly mean.
We feel stumped or stunned as Meno feels when Socrates asked, ``What is
virtue?`` If we take virtue out of all contexts, if we are no longer thinking
of the virtue of a free man, a slave, a woman, a child, etc., but virtue in
general, then we feel this stunning effect. We have no idea what to say. Or perhaps we feel that we have
too much to say but cannot get it all out clearly and consistently. In any
case, we are stunned by the question ``What is virtue?`` which asks what the
essence or concept of virtue named by that word in all cases is.
Wittgenstein`s
directions now come to this: return the word to where it is used. It is used in different particular
settings. Examine it in those settings. See all of the setting, the other
words, the actions, the point of the conversations, etc. Those settings we may
think of as ``languageÐgames.`` Now you may see the actual use of the word. Now,
by comparison, you may see how the philosophical meaning that you had found is
not the meaning of the word. You
may see that the very idea of there being ``the meaning of the word`` is
confusion. The word in its languageÐgame setting is used, and we have learned
to use it, to do certain things with it, and this might have been different and
in fact is different in other languageÐgames. Returning to the language game
helps us to see the illusion that we had fallen into. This is Wittgenstein`s great idea. It is his method. He has
discovered a method and not a new theory to study the nature of the objects
named by words. Their nature is studied by means of studying their uses in
languageÐgames.
ÐÐÐÐÐÐ
``Every word signifies something.``
We could then go through a
sentence and show what it was that each word signifies. It would seem to be
easiest for the nouns. Not too hard yet for many adjectives. The verbs get
harder because something is in motion, and the motion seems to be what is signified.
Prepositions and adverbs are harder to explain, and the other parts of speech
produce conceptual headaches, while the articles ``the`` and ``a`` fall out of
the picture. We believe that we
must find something that a word signifies, in order for it to have meaning.
But what have we
done when we have indicated all the signifiers and things signified? In #8, Wittgenstein expands his
primitive language to ``dÐslabÐthere.`` What does ``d`` signify? ``Slab?``
``There?`` ``There`` seems harder
than others. Suppose we get past this difficulty. Do we understand the sentence
``dÐslabÐthere`` when we have identified what is signified by these words
correctly? No. The measure of understanding is the useful response of the
builderÐhelpÐ ``B`` bringing builder ``A`` four slabs to the place where ``A``
wants them. ``B`` must know how to count out four slabs (aÐd), know to bring
the slabs to ``A,`` and know how to read ``A`s`` intention by following his
finger to the place on the ground where ``A`` has pointed. Teaching beyond the
teaching of signification had to take place for this to happen. Even with the
simplest signifier ``slab,`` ``B`` had to learn to pick out slabs from blocks
and pillars and to bring the slab to ``A`` when he wanted it. Think then of the
more difficult cases of ``d`` and ``there.`` Think of signifying as involving
pointing and saying a word. Now consider that there is already taught in
connection with pointing and saying ``there.`` Can we point to the pointing as we learn the use of ``there?``
Well, in fact we don`t, but see how more is involved than the first pointing
and saying a name. How is counting taught? Perhaps one may learn the first 5 to 10 cardinal numbers by
pointing to pictures of dots or objects.
But counting is a process. It involves saying numbers in a certain
sequence. We learn what comes next through understanding the decimal system.
Counting out slabs as we bring them also involves knowing more than saying
numbers in sequence.
ÐÐÐÐÐÐ
The meaning of the word
``red` is not an image, nor a red patch on a chart. So one might look to the
use of the word ``red`` as its meaning in the following way: There are rules for the use of the word
and those rules are what stays the same in all cases. Just as one had thought
that the meaning of a word is a mental image, one might look to the rule as the
meaning. Whenever the word occurs the rule governs its use in the same way each
time.
``What
would it be like if this were not the case?`` one might reason. It would look
as if the word meant something different each time the word was used. This
would be something like Kripke`s imagined skepticism. Kripke`s imagined
skepticism is that a word might never mean the same thing twice. Kripke says
that W. has imagined the most radical skepticism with arguments that show the
public nature of language. In any case, the idea is that rules can be variously
interpreted and we need rules to interpret the rules. But this reading of
Wittgenstein involves the same confusion that the Augustinian picture of
language involves. Meaning, in this case, is the rule. The confusion involves
the idea that there is a thing called ``the meaning of a word.`` The meaning Ð is it a referent? Ð
in this case is the rule that tells how the word is used in all cases. The color chart bears the meaning. The
rule for counting to five is the meaning or becomes the meaning of the word
``five.`` Counting must happen in every case, just as in the Augustinian
picture, the set of five is the meaning of ``five`` and must accompany the word
in every case.