§43
Wittgenstein presents us with his famous claim that, "the meaning of a word is its use in the language".
It's worth noting, I think, that Wittgenstein qualifies this by saying that this is true in a large class of cases but not all cases. - It is no objection to Wittgenstein to find cases where 'use' and 'meaning' do not overlap.
It seems to me that Wittgenstein is right here. If someone asked 'what does 'dog' mean?' it would be appropriate to respond by telling them how the term 'dog' is used. You could show them dogs and say 'the word 'dog' is used to refer to things like these, namely furry things that bark. Alternatively someone might ask how the expression 'dog' is used and you could respond, appropriately by saying that when we use the expression 'dog' we mean these things (pointing at dogs).
Wittgenstein had claimed in §40 that it was a mistake to conflate the meaning of a name with the bearer of the name. Nonetheless, he says that the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
Note: There is a good article on meaning and use here: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/58204/1/The_use_of_use_-_Daniel_Whiting.pdf
I wonder how far your argument (if someone asks what X means, it'd be right to tell them how X is used) can go. Aren't there a lot of cases where it'd be strange to say that meaning is use?
ReplyDeleteFor example - if someone asks what "gesundheit" means, would it be right to tell them that it's said after people sneeze? What if they said, "I know when you say it - I want to know what it MEANS!" Or any etymologically complex word: isn't there more to say about its meaning than about its use?
(Sorry if this is answered in the article, which I'm going to read now - if so, feel free to ignore.)