§89
So (following from §88) to think that logical formulations might make language perfectly exact is peculiar. What goal do you have in mind? Our language as we use it may well be fit for purpose even if we can imagine someone not understanding us or a situation in which what we say is not sufficiently exact.
Wittgenstein here gives a quote from Augustine, "what, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled." Wittgenstein suggests that what one has to do if one is baffled in this way is to call it to mind. He suggests that the confusion here is conceptual - not empirical (it's a confusion about the use of the word 'time' or of temporal concepts more generally).
This 'philosophical' question about time can be answered by considering something that is in plain view (the correct use of the word 'time' and of related temporal concepts).
Is it worth thinking about this in relation to the earlier remark about knowing and saying (§78)? Being able to explain time is not like being able to say how high Mont Blanc is.
Is the problem thinking that 'time' refers to some object (or that it refers to a concatenation of objects upon analysis)? I assume that Wittgenstein thinks that 'what is time?' is an ill-formed question.
In what sense would the question 'what is time' be ill-formed? It seems perfectly grammatical, and 'time' is used as a noun in ordinary language. If someone asked me this I wouldn't correct them for bad English.
ReplyDeleteIs it that the question might mislead us by its analogy with questions like 'what is sodium' - to look for some kind of elusive substance? Is it that time is the kind of thing we're unconfused about when we're 'living through' it but which is hard to grasp when we make it an object of investigation?