Week 2 summary

Week 2 summary (§§34-104)

In these sections Wittgenstein continues with his criticisms of the Augustinian picture. He makes comments on meaning, language, words, propositions, and rules and develops his account of language-games. He also has some things to say about the nature of philosophy. He criticises Tractarian metaphysics and replaces it with grammatical investigation.

Meaning:
- In §34 Wittgenstein comes to the conclusion that "...neither the expression 'to mean the explanation in such-and-such a way' nor the expression 'to interpret the expression in such-and-such a way' signifies a process which accompanies the giving and hearing of an explanation."
- Wittgenstein develops his account of the meanings of words, the things referred to, and the use of samples. He has already challenged the 'Augustinian' claim that the meaning of a word is the object for which it stands. - It is a mistake to conflate the bearer of a name with the meaning of a name. In these passages he challenges the metaphysics tied up with the Augustinian account he had presented in the Tractatus. He thinks that he had, in the Tractatus, mistakenly projected aspects of language onto reality.
- In §43 Wittgenstein presents his famous claim that, "the meaning of a word is its use in the language"  (this is true in a large class of cases but not all cases).

Language:
Wittgenstein imagines that the defender of a referential/Augustinian theory might suggest that he has failed to come up with a positive account of his own of the essence of language. Wittgenstein does present some kind of a positive picture here - although it isn't theoretical and it isn't an account of the essence of language. Wittgenstein claims that there is no essential feature of language. This might seem confusing because given that there is one word ('language') that is used to refer to all of the various linguistic activities/kinds of expression it seems there must be something common to these in virtue of which they count as language. However, Wittgenstein points out that not all concepts work in this way - it isn't the case that all concepts stand for an item or set of items that have some particular thing in common. The concept 'game' is used in relation to board games, card games, field games, games played alone, games played in teams etc. etc. - and games do not have some single feature in common in virtue of which they are all games. Similarly language is made up of language games that resemble each other in various ways. - Language is a family resemblance concept (as is 'number', 'proposition').

Rules
Wittgenstein's famous example - the standard metre in Paris - appears in §50. The standard metre in Paris is neither one metre long nor not one metre long. That which measures is not at the same time the thing measured. - The standard metre plays a particular role in the language game - it is used as a standard by which tools of measurement are calibrated. Wittgenstein mentions this in the course of making an objection to the Tractarian view - that names stand for objects which are their meanings. The standard metre in playing its role as the standard metre is part of the mode of representation - not a thing represented. 'The standard metre is one metre long' cannot be a (true or false) description of the standard metre - it functions as a rule/standard.

Rules, Games and Meaning
(i) rules can be misinterpreted (ii) we can introduce new rules/new explanations to 'reinforce' the existing rules but these, in turn, can be misinterpreted (iii) however, what can be misinterpreted can also be interpreted correctly (iv) - so there need be no infinite regress of rules to achieve perfect clarity (v) we introduce rules/explanations as we need them/to suit our purposes - if they have served their purpose then there need not be 'back-up' (vi) language does not need to be everywhere bounded by rules (vii) we need not follow definite rules in every utterance that we make (viii) it is possible that what we say might be vague (and not analysable then into a disjunction of elements with determinate meaning. Games do not need to be bounded everywhere by rules - e.g. there need not be a rule concerning how high you can throw a tennis ball when serving. Language use is comparable to a group of people going out and starting a game according to definite rules and then messing around with a ball and then starting a new game.

Philosophy
Wittgenstein suggests that philosophical problems e.g. Augustine's query - 'what is time?' - are grammatical problems. We can clear away dissolve problems by exposing misleading analogies or by substituting one form of expression for another. Wittgenstein has also suggested in earlier passages that we should just look and see how a term is used ordinarily and correctly to get clear about its meaning (rather than constructing a theory based on questionable presuppositions). In §80 Wittgenstein suggests that certain 'thought experiments' in which we search for the boundaries of a concept should not be taken to show that a concept has such-and-such boundaries or that it is nonsensical/unusable (he uses the example of the 'chair' coming in and out of existence - in that case we do not have a rule which determines what we should say - whether we should call such a thing a chair).

Epistemology
It need not be that we are in doubt because we could imagine a doubt.