The following is my attempt at a summarisation and reworking of the later Ludwig Wittgenstein's writings on use and meaning, from which I hope to use it as a base in posts to come. It does not cover everything, it does not even hold the true power of the Philosophical Investiagations; the investigation of many cases of use, not in generalisation and definitions. That cannot be summarised or contained here or anywhere except the book itself.
In
the language-game of this essay the meaning of the quote from
Wittgenstein's Philosophical
Investigations
(PI)
“For a large
class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word
‘meaning’ it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its
use in the language.”(PI,
I,
43) will be in its use
as the Wittgensteinian base from which I will try to define a use
theory of meaning, with the help of the PI.
To be clear, every mention of Wittgenstein hereafter is of the later
Wittgenstein. I
am not trying to interpret the PI
in a way Wittgenstein would approve of, nor am I attempting my own
'Kripkenstein', by all accounts both of these are far beyond the
scope of this essay. I am merely in need of a more generalised
concept in order to examine in more detail the common and seemingly
damning objection of novel sentences. Once so defined, we can then
“look and see”(PI,
I,
66)
but also think about responses for the Wittgensteinian-based use
theorist. Are there any routes of escape? What would 'biting the
bullet' entail? Does the objection leaves no viable way to keep the
theory?
The
use theory of meaning is an alternative to a group of theories about
meaning that could be roughly called realist. These theories attempt
to explain how words have meaning by saying they are given it
by something, be it description, reference, proposition...etc. One
could say (again, roughly) that they are attempting to connect
language with the world, and this relation is what gives meaning. It
is the posit of this relation that causes a lot of trouble, as well
as the more internal problems of individual realist theories. The use
theory was a breath of fresh, anti-realist air in the 20th
century. Anti-realist theories of meaning say this relation between
word and world doesn't account for meaning, and instead looks at how
language interacts with itself to explain it. “Language is
something people do”
(Lycan, p.78), and the ways in which people use language cannot be so
easily categorised and labelled into things like assertion, question
and command, as perhaps Frege thought (Stanford, Wittgenstein section
3.3).
'Language'
is best described in the use theory as linguistic expression, rather
than utterances, sentences, words...etc. 'Linguistic expression' hits
the right intuitive note about language as an activity, rather than
something abstract. The use theorist says the realist is confused in
trying to locate the meaning within a linguistic expression; it
doesn't exist in that sense. Meaning is auxiliary to the expression,
granted by people if
the expression is used correctly. 'Correct and incorrect' are not
being used in any sense that relates to truth and falsity, but merely
in the weaker sense that the community accepts or denies the
expression meaning.
This
explanation needs some clarification to be understood in the right
way. If we understand linguistic expression as a sort of social
behaviour, something people do,
it is obvious people do it in different ways, depending on how you
were taught. This does not mean some is right and some is wrong, but
that meaning is dependent on use in the right way in the right
circumstances. We will use the term 'community' to describe a group
that uses language in the same way. I realise this is vague, and will
be addressed shortly.
We
will use the term 'rule' to explain similarities in how language is
used within a
community. Wittgenstein refuses to define 'rule' in terms of its
nature, but its use is clear. When a linguistic expression follows a
rule, it is said to be used correctly, and therefore to have meaning.
Ever consistent, it seems always to be the use of things that
interest Wittgenstein, not the things themselves. Russell, Ayer, and
so on, including the author of the Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus looked into
the words for meaning, but a simple, elemental form could never
accommodate the variety and multitude of uses
of the word. His definitions are are thus intentionally vague, while
his repeated uses in the examples of the PI are enlightening and
clarifying upon investigation. It is this shift that makes the PI so
irreducible.
To learn what is expected from what is unexpected, given the circumstances is to learn the rule. One need not think of the rule in itself to know this. To clarify further, rules are not abstract things that give meaning. The community agrees (consciously or otherwise) on the rules.
To learn what is expected from what is unexpected, given the circumstances is to learn the rule. One need not think of the rule in itself to know this. To clarify further, rules are not abstract things that give meaning. The community agrees (consciously or otherwise) on the rules.
We
have thus far been using the terms 'linguistic expression',
'community', 'rules' without a clear idea of what counts and what
doesn't. The reason is because anti-realist theories of language have
to take language as
it is
and cannot posit things to sum up common elements. So to help grasp
the ideas, the analogy of 'language-games' is helpful.
A particular
community can be viewed as the players of a particular language-game.
Within the game the players use linguistic expressions as 'moves'
that are communally/publicly determined to be correct or incorrect
according to the 'rules'. This analogy is particularly powerful in
linking linguistic expression with non-linguistic context, such that
the former has no meaning outside of the latter. (Kenny,
Wittgenstein, p14)
Wittgenstein
refuses to define what doesn't count as a game or rule. He thinks to
do so would be to draw boundaries on the word which do not exist and
weren't needed until we drew them “of course we can draw a sharp
boundary if we wish, in the same way a pace can be standardised as
75cm.; but that does not mean the non-standardised concept is
unusable (PG 113 ; PI, I, 69)” ( Kenny, Wittgenstein,
p168). It is therefore a mistake to think of 'rules' and 'games' as
always like the example of chess. To compare language solely
to such a game would be something of a straw man. The classic example
he uses of a builders language-game is not meant to summarise the
essence of how we use language, but to be used as 'objects
of comparison to help us see similarities and
dissimilarities' (PI, I, 130).
The builders
language game has two players, the builder A, and the assistant B.
There are four words A can say: block, pillar, slab, beam. For each
word, their use in this game is for B to bring the builder the stone
A called out. In this game, it is clear what A means in calling out
“slab” is not the referent of 'slab', nor the definition. It is
also easy to see here how B can 'use' the call correctly or
incorrectly without actually having to linguistically express
anything. He can follow the rule to bring the builder a slab without
saying the word “slab” at all.
The question “what
is the time?” is simple, but “what is time?” is an incredibly
complicated philosophical problem. This is because we think of 'time'
as a name for a thing, and then set about analysing and considering
it, without realising our mistake. I can think of no better way to
put it than Wittgenstein does in the following:
“I want to restrict the term 'name' to what can occur in the combination 'X exists'. -Thus one cannot say 'red exists', because if there were no red it could not be spoken of at all. Better: If “X exists” is meant simply to say “X” has a meaning, -then it is not a proposition which treats of X, but a proposition about our use of language,that is, about the use of the word “X”.” (PI, I, 58)
“I want to restrict the term 'name' to what can occur in the combination 'X exists'. -Thus one cannot say 'red exists', because if there were no red it could not be spoken of at all. Better: If “X exists” is meant simply to say “X” has a meaning, -then it is not a proposition which treats of X, but a proposition about our use of language,that is, about the use of the word “X”.” (PI, I, 58)
We cannot see the whole world cleary because we cannot get outside the world to take a picture of it. likewise we cannot see clearly into language at the metaphysical relations behind our words. all we can see clearly of language is the way it works. This is the only study or philosophy of language there is, and in this realisation, the questions of relations to the world dissapear, and this itself is the answer. To realise that there is nothing hiding behind the words "this is a very pleasant pineapple", that the clear, external uses of the words is all there is to them, is to show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.
J
