In 1953 Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations was published posthumously. Few books in the 20th century had the revolutionary impact of this one. Though philosophers still debate the finer points of the book, it is clear that Wittgenstein had come to see philosophical problems, and many problems that arise in everyday life, as "symptoms" of a confused "picture of the essence of language."(Wittgenstein, PI: 1 ) It is important to stress that Wittgenstein is not simply targeting philosophy or philosophers here. The understanding or picture of language that Wittgenstein wants to displace is not to be thought of primarily as a "theory" (whether Platonic or Cartesian, etc.) but as a pre-philosophical conception which is deeply entrenched in the way most people (or at least Westerners) think whether or not they study philosophy. Philosophers have only complicated things by establishing theories of meaning and mind that are based on these preconceptions. Wittgenstein's goal in Philosophical Investigations (hereafter PI) is to lay bare the nature of the confusions he diagnoses, and then to enact what he calls "philosophical therapy" to help the befuddled reader to find her way out of the trap, much as one might "show the fly out of the fly-bottle," in W's famous phrase. So the last thing he wants is yet another theory of language. Rather, he compares himself to Freud in the sense that his aim is to liberate perplexed sufferers from a kind of conceptual illness, not to impose new doctrines on anybody (Monk: Penguin;1990). So, like Nietzsche and Heidegger before him, Wittgenstein prophesies the end of philosophy as we know it, and a new beginning. Unlike them, though, the new beginning for Wittgenstein leaves absolutely no role for future philosophers of any kind. The last job philosophy will ever have is to talk itself out of business!
What is this misleading picture of language that W thinks most of have internalized? He finds it operative in Augustine's recollection of learning how to speak in his Confessions, and calls it the "Augustinian" view of language-- but it could just as well be called Cartesian or Russellian-- or for that matter the received view of language generally. Firstly, there is the assumption that language is uniform, that all words and sentences have meaning in the same way. If we ask, "How do words come to have the meanings they do?" most people will think this is a reasonable question that a philosopher or linguist might try to answer. The typical answer to such a question is that words have meanings by virtue of standing for objects. So if I say, "There is a tree" then I a) have a picture or representation of a tree "in my mind" which b) refers to any number of actual trees in the external world. The essential feature of meaning, then, is that of names that correspond to things, or words that correspond to objects. Wittgenstein sums this view up thus,"In this picture of language we find the roots of the following idea: Every word has a meaning. The meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands." (Wittgenstein PI: 1) So the meaning of the word, "book" is simply any thing that is a book. The meaning of a ball is simply any member of the total set of balls that exist.
How do we learn these meanings according to the traditional view? Through ostensive reference i.e. the act of somebody pointing to objects (like books and balls) while uttering the word for that object (e.g. "book, book" or "ball, ball") This is what Augustine remembers his elders doing until he too knew the names of the objects. The adult points and gestures until the child comes to associate the words "books and balls" with their referents, which are the books and balls around the house etc. In this way the child gradually masters language and becomes a competent language user. This is still, more or less, the way many philosophers and linguists treat language. We learn how to master word-object relations largely through ostensive reference. But W's response is that pointing to and naming objects isn't how children learn to use words at all. Of course it is part of the process. Adults do point over and over to objects, but what linguists and philosophers tend to overlook is that when they point they are also engaging in activities which demonstrate how the objects can be used in various ways.. If all the adult (A) does is to point to a static ball on the floor and intones the syllable "ball" while the child (C) looks on passively then C will not learn how to use the word "ball" meaningfully. For all C knows the reference is not to the ball itself but to the color of the ball. If it's a tennis ball he may start using the word ball when he sees anything that is yellow. But if A starts to play a little game with C, perhaps rolling the ball to C and coaxing him to roll it back until there's a pattern back and forth, and if he says "ball" while rolling it, then C will eventually get the hang of it and say "ball" as he rolls it over to A. This kind of primitive activity in which words are first learned is called a"Language Game" (LG) by Wittgenstein (Witt. PI: 7)
Language Gamess are devices used by Wittgenstein to emphasize that we learn by doing things according to certain social conventions. Balls are for rolling, bouncing, catching, throwing, kicking, etc. Each of these might be part of a different language game. Over time, C will come to apply the word ball in all such instances provided he/she learns how to play such games as "kick the ball," "catch" and so on. A simple one to one correspondence between the general term ball and some object which is static could never reveal the meanings of all these diverse activities and types of balls. According to Wittgenstein's "theory of meaning as use" we learn language meanings by learning the various ways in which words can be used in social settings where others also use the words. Meanings are socially established, perpetuated and altered in practices (like the athletics examples) which arise in different cultures (or "forms of life" in W's idiom).
Words and sentences, then, do much more than describe the world by referring to objects. Some of the language games Wittgenstein lists include giving and obeying orders, speculating about events, making up stories, play-acting, singing, guessing at riddles, asking, thanking, cursing etc.(Witt. PI: 7) We invent games as well, or take existing ones and alter the rules.(PI: 83) There is inventiveness and flexibility involved in the negotiation of meanings in everyday life. It should be clear that you can't understand the language games listed above in terms of symbols that correspond to objects. But now Wittgenstein will widen his attack on conventional understandings by saying that we can't even define the words in a universal and general way. He claims that all, or most, meanings are fuzzy or vague as they must be if they are to be used in such a variety of social contexts (e.g. the symbol ball stands for tennis balls, golf balls and footballs, and there is no precise and fixed definition for all balls taken as a set; a new type of ball may be invented tomorrow morning). W demonstrates the point by attempting to define the word "game" which he is already using in more than one way. According to the received view of language, it should be possible to provide an"Essential Definition" of an abstract noun like "game." We would then be able to describe the "essence" or unifying core of all games by listing the necessary and sufficient conditions for using the word. How might that look?
What, asks W, are some properties shared by any and all games we might think of? Winning and losing? No. Playing catch or bouncing a ball against a wall doesn't include victory or defeat, but they are games. Teams? No, that leaves out solitaire and solo video games. Perhaps games can be defined essentially as activities that are governed by rules. Perhaps rules are a universal feature of games. This has been suggested, but Wittgenstein thinks not. He writes:
"We can easily imagine people amusing themselves in a field by playing with a ball so as to start various existing games, but playing many without finishing them and in between throwing the ball aimlessly into the air chasing each other with the ball, and bombarding one another for a joke, and so on...And is there not also the case where we play and make up the rules as we go along? We can also alter the rules as we play." (Witt. PI: 83)
The upshot is that there is no essence, no underlying unity to the word/concept "game" just as there is no essence in common to all language. Some games are governed by rules, others not. Some word use is rule-governed; some not. If I ask for a list of rules governing all instances of the word "chair," it will probably not include the rule "you may use the word chair to refer to an object you stand on while grabbing a book from a high shelf" nor will it include "a chair is an object used for breaking windows." But I would not be misusing the word if I said to a friend in my house, "I need to use that chair to grab the book up there" or if I mentioned having used a chair to break a window during a fire to get out of a burning house. The point is that there is no exhaustive and universal list of rules that get at the essence of objects, activities, or words. In German the word game also means play (spiel), and W is emphasizing the playful nature of concepts and words which often do not have fixed boundaries articulated as a set of rules, although some (e.g. chess) do have such finite rules. Games do not have essences but "criss-crossing similarities and differences" or "family resemblances." Some games resemble others because they involve cards, or balls, or they involve winning and losing, or they are played standing, sitting or running, etc. The "bewitchment of language" leads us to believe that the abstract noun "game" actually stands for some unitary phenomenon or concept. Instead its meaning is both vague (ranging from contact sports like football to solitaire with all kinds of gradations in the middle) and indeterminate (we can invent new games and they will be recognized by others as games because they resemble already existing games). Thus meanings are based not on unchanging concepts and/or rules, but ongoing practical social activity. Because of the examples of words we have followed Wittgenstein in using, it may seem that the implications of all this cannot be terribly important. To show why this has importance, lets examine a key philosophical category,"Good" and see how W's analysis might undermine much philosophy that has been done in Ethics.( We could do much the same with other intellectual terms used in philosophy and other disciplines, but for now one will do.)
What does it mean to label something as "good?" (We could also ask this about beauty, truth and other basic philosophical terms). It is usually assumed that there is some unitary essence, a general definition of the meaning of goodness that guides the use of the term in everyday life and in ethics. But what does a "good" cup of coffee have to do with a "good lover?" Or a "good" argument with a "good person?" A "good game of golf" seems to be, at best, only faintly related to a "perfectly good chair" which, in turn, has little in common with a "good choice" when ordering at the restaurant. What is the common meaning shared in the locutions, "so-and-so has good eyesight" and "so-and-so has a good soul?" None of these have identical meanings, none follow exact rules, but all are likely to reveal some similarities and differences (W's "family resemblance" view of meaning).
Plato assumed that "The Good" was a unitary essence, a universal "idea." Thus Socrates famously used a "craft-analogy" when discussing "The Good" quite frequently. He would say, "a good carpenter knows his craft and thus makes excellent tables and chairs; a good statesman must know his craft and know how to govern with excellence" as if there were a common essence of the good that makes carpentry and governing city-states importantly similar. This, says Wittgenstein, is the "bewitchment of language" -- the spell of words on the mind when we don't attend to their multiple meanings, uses, contexts and the associated activities which at best resemble one another to some degree and in some way. In this case , if W is right, the very idea of "Goodness" or "the Good" is displaced, leaving behind a world of multiple meanings in flux. (Some have compared this outcome with Derrida's deconstructionism, though I would be cautious about such a claim.) We will explore PI in further detail and discuss its legacy in philosophy in part 2.
References:
-The Duty of Genius; Ray Monk(Penguin 1990) --excellent biography of W
- Philosophical Investigations ; Ludwig Wittgenstein (Oxford; Blackwell 1953)
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-Do you find Wittgenstein's view of language to be convincing? Why? Why not?
-If Wittgenstein's analysis of language is correct what implications does it have for fields that depend on universal definitions (e.g. sciences and much of philosophy)?
-It is W's contention that philosophers have caused far more trouble and confusion than they have alleviated. What do you think?
Wittgenstein discusses his reasons for rejecting philosophy in his later career. He also provides a concise overview of some aspects of PI. Taken from Derek Jarman's film, "Wittgenstein" (worth seeing for those with an interest in W!) The questioner in this scene is supposed to be John Meynard Keynes.
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