optimist

I am reading Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations" and am stopping periodically to try listing the points he is making. Here is what I have for the first 50 aphorisms. Any suggestions, corrections, attacks...?

1-50

- Augustine's (Commonsense) supposes that language simply attaches names to objects. This is the function of some of language, but not all of language or any particularly fundamental part of language.

- We have no way to evaluate the completeness of language. Was our language incomplete before the symbolism of chemistry?

- Suppose on a worksite a worker is trained to fetch a slab when their supervisor exclaims "Slab!" The word "Slab!" is considered to 'mean' (and be an abbreviation for) the full sentence, "bring me a slab." But we could just as simply consider "Bring me a slab" a lengthening of the sentence "Slab!" Truth being, neither 'means' the other. They both function the same on the worksite (in the workers "language-game") and so both mean to the worker that he should go being over a slab.

- The form of a sentence and the sentence's meaning are different. A statement can be in the form of a question and a question in the form of a statement, etc.

- A dog can be taught to fetch a ball on the command "ball!" Yet, we do not consider the dog to be using language. (Is Wittgenstein saying it is a mistake to not consider this language?)

- A foreigner might point to a pillow and say "upapal." You would have to ask yourself, "What is she pointing to? Is it the pillow or the shape of the pillow, or what?" But if you knew somehow that she was pointing to the color of the pillow, then that would make all the difference in the world. However, first you must have a concept of color. Same for numbers. You must have a place prepared for it before you can learn the number "4." Just as in chess you must learn the rules of chess, before you can properly understand the piece "king."

- 'Interpretation' consists in how someone will use the word; in what he points to, for example, when told: "Point to a circle". Nothing more. For neither the expression "to intend the definition in such-and-such a way" nor the expression "to interpret the definition in such-and-such a way" stands for a process which accompanies the giving and hearing of the definition.

- The use of a word might be to call up a mental image of an object, but it also might just be used to evoke laughter or command action and have nothing to do with mental images.

- You cannot say "hello" and mean goodbye. There is no meaning behind the use of the word, only the use. Words can only mean things in a community of users.

- Color-samples should be considered a part of language. Color-samples are analogous to how the second "the" is a sample in the statement, "pronounce the word 'the.'"

- When Mr. Wittgenstein dies the name "Wittgenstein" can lose its meaning. However it depends on the rules of the language-game, it might just change meaning. Like how the command "Slab!" might change from the action of fetching a slab to a shake of the head when no more slabs exist to be fetched. But we can imagine a language-game with names in which they are used only in the presence of the bearer. All names could be replaced with the pronoun "this" as in "bring this!" Imagine the work supervisor walking over and pointing to the pillar that he wanted taken over to the pile. We can hardly imagine this working if the pillar wasn't there.

- Aphorism 43: "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."

- There is no absolute "Simple" or "composite" parts, they are relative to the language-game. A chessboard could be counted as a composite of 64 colored squares, or as 32 black and 32 white squares, or as the simple "one chessboard." It does not matter which we say, so long as we avoid misunderstandings in any particular case. What counts as "parts" depends on the context.

_____________________________________

Anyone have a good explination of what Wittgenstein means by "language takes a holiday." I figured it was when you use a word out of context, like instead of asking what is the meaning of some specific event relative to some standard of apraisal, you ask what the meaning of existence is "absolutely." But now reading him it seems like he is talking about how you can use a word with no problem, but then when you reflect on the words meaning you cannot come up with it. When a familiar word becomes strange. I might go my whole life speaking about what time this or that happened, but then the word "time" becomes confused and strange when I try thinking about what I mean by it. Thoughts on what Wittgenstain meant?

Well I am only to aphorism 100 so far. (page 50)

Cheers,
Optimist

[ June 21, 2002: Message edited by: optimist ]</p>

snatchbalance

Optomist

Well, it's been a while since I've read, or even much thought about LW, but I think he meant something like:

At some point in a description one is forced to simply point. For example, try to describe the color green. Well, you can't. You must point at something green.

SB

copernicus

Wittgenstein's work kicked off an entirely new branch of linguistic philosophy--Ordinary Language Philosophy. Earlier, he had joined with Bertrand Russell in helping to start the Ideal Language Philosophy branch. So Wittgenstein was rejecting his earlier views in the Tractatus.

What is it all about? Wittgenstein does a lot with the analogy of language as a game. But he is really just pointing out the fact that you can't really explain the meaning of language without taking into account the context of the utterance and the speaker's intentions. Hence, Ordinary Language Philosophy led to Austin's seminal work on Speech Act theory and Grice's famous 4 maxims. There are rules governing language use, and this came as something of a shock to people who had viewed language as a kind of container of meaning. (I am referring to Ideal Language Philosophers, who sought to explore the logic of literal interpretations.)

All of British linguistic philosophy is an attempt to explain philosophical conundrums. Both branches--Ideal and Ordinary--viewed linguistic usage as the source of most, if not all, philosophical issues. Ideal Language Philosophers deplored the existence of ambiguity and vagueness in natural language, so they sought to replace ordinary language with unambiguous, precise logical notation. This would cause many philosophical conundrums to disappear, since the new formal language wouldn't allow one to state them. Ordinary language philosophers took a different route. They saw philosophical problems as caused by the philosopher's extraordinary use of ordinary language. Their approach sought to correct the philosopher's misuse and misunderstanding of the way language works.

I have really oversimplified things to try to put them into a better perspective for you. But Wittgenstein's work really did have an impressive impact, not just on philosophy, but on linguistics as well. Austin's Speech Acts helped linguists focus on the impact of speaker intentions ("illocutionary force") on the grammatical form of sentences. The AI specialist Roger Schank did a great deal with speaker intentions and assumptions to develop computer programs that could infer unspoken information conveyed by language.

The philosopher Grice took everything a step further--giving us the ability to discover tools to explain such subtle linguistic devices as sarcasm, irony, and wit. More recently, Grice has had an impact on the development of software "agents" in artificial intelligence--programs that communicate and negotiate over information.

So what did Wittgenstein buy us by treating language as a game? He helped us to understand the nonliteral dimension of language. He helped to free us of the idea that linguistic form encompasses all the meaning that language conveys. An old acquaintance of mine--Michael Reddy--once described this as the "conduit metaphor" of language. That is, language scholars viewed language as a kind of pipe connecting the speaker/hearer and meaning as the stuff that flowed through it. That was a powerful metaphor that did not allow philosophers and linguists to account for the full range of linguistic expression. You need to take into account that only a part of the intended meaning is captured in linguistic form. The rest of it involves strategies of language use--the context of the utterance and the background of knowledge and beliefs that are shared by the speaker and hearer.

The important thing about Wittgenstein is that he focused our attention on language use, not just the superfical form of language.

[ June 22, 2002: Message edited by: copernicus ]</p>

James Still

Yes, this is W.'s famous example of a primitive language-game, which consists only of four nouns, two reflexive pronouns, and the set of cardinal numbers. Yet, it is complete. And you are right I think to point out that this is a criticisim of reductionism. W. is here reacting against his earlier stance (in the Tractatus) where he felt that sentences could be reduced to their logical form. But that assumes that the meaning of an utterance is somehow contained within the utterance (or else how do you know to what essence you should reduce the sentence?)

The point of the whole discussion of the builder and his assistant is to describe how language is a learning process (or an activity) and not something learned by ostension. If the meaning of "one" were obvious, all that the builder would need to do is pick up a single block, say "one" aloud, and the meaning of the word "one" would be immediately obvious to the assistant. But it isn't. The builder might point to a block and say "one" and the assistant might think this is the ostensive definition of the object itself. After a while the assistant learns the relationship between the cardinal numbers and the objects and the names of the two objects. Think about how perplexing it is to learn the reflexive pronouns! What happens when you point to something and look at your cat or dog and say "see? get it" The cat looks at your extended finger and not at the object of your intention. Animals don't have language and can't play the language-game. But the assistant can learn that "this" and "there" are inexact places on the ground and that a sort of invisible line extends from the finger to the point on the ground. Thus, in PI 9 W. says that the "pointing occurs in the use of the words too and not merely in learning the use." The whole point of this passage is to get us to reject the idea that language is correspondence between nouns and objects. Language is much much more than the artificial restrictions philosophers (including notably the early Wittgenstein himself) had placed upon it. Language consists of facial expressions, gestures, winks, nods, body language, and all sorts of other things in addition to the carefully articulated spoken word.

Like in the example of the reflexive pronouns and how your dog will look at your finger and not at the object to which you are pointing, so too the dog does not understand the correspondence between "ball" and the round object you've just thrown. He learns, that is, he is trained to fetch the ball by watching your reaction and what you do. After trial and error he gets it right and you reward him with a biscuit to reinforce the desired behavior.

Yes, quite true. W.'s discussion on chess baffled me when I first read it. All he's saying here is that no matter how hard you stare at a chess piece, you will never learn how the piece is to operate in the game. The rule "move one square in any direction" is not contained within the piece itself. You must learn the rules for every piece in the game -- and once you do you realize they are glued together into a whole. And the game is complete. We don't say "shouldn't there be another piece in the game or more squares?" So too with words. No matter how hard we stare at the word "upapal" the meaning is not revealed to us. There is no correspondence between the word and its object just waiting for us to discover. We give the word meaning and then operate under the illusion that it corresponds (something magically on its own) to that object. Think of a stop sign: we stop our cars at it and for a moment think that the meaning is contained with the object itself. But it isn't. We had to learn what it meant. A word or a sign is like a chess piece. It stands proxy for other meanings and has rules within the language-game that governs how it is to be used.

Or is it that you can use the word "hello" to meaning something else but that your meaning will not be understood until it is placed in a context? And then someone will say, "how strange! why do you use a word of greeting in such a way?" They will finally understand (like the assistant and the builder) that you mean to say goodbye but they feel that nothing is gained by redefining the word in this way.

And when you understand what this means you will also understand why W. will say later that there can be no private language. If meaning is in the use of language, then there must be at least two or more people because meaning is shared.

This is W.'s attack against Decartes and the Cartesian duality of mind and body. Cartesians want to say that language is strictly a mental process. W. says that they are fooled by certain psychological verbs like "to know" or "to think" and thus ascribe some sort of immaterial substance or process to a normal naturalistic phenomenon. W. is a naturalist and wants to say that language (and life) are the result of our natural history. So he brings us back down to Earth. The primitive roots of our language (the prelinguistic grunts, screams, howls, and gestures of upright hominids) are like the center of a medieval city. Was the language of a Neanderthal incomplete? Hardly. It's just that as we found more uses for words and gave new words meaning, we added to our language in the same way that medieval cities added concentric rings and walls to the original core. Thus, language is evolution and not some sort of weird Cartesian immaterial substance injected into humans by God. (This is also a critique against metaphysical realism -- W. is a conceptualist.)