§132
The point of these language games and of other cases of 'assembling reminders' is to resolve/dissolve particular philosophical confusions. In constructing them we are not beginning the construction of a single, ideal language.
The confusions arise when language is idling - What is meant by this?
Wittgenstein previously compared words to levers/handles (§12). The surface similarity between words might deceive. Words have different uses - just as handles do. Problems arise in a locomotive if a handle is not hooked up to the mechanism it is supposed to be hooked up to (if it cannot be used in the way it is supposed to be used). Similarly, philosophical problems (confusions) arise when words are not used as they are supposed to be used (when language is idling) - or, perhaps more accurately, when they are not used at all (because what is said is nonsensical).
I don't think your last sentence is quite right. The meaning of a word consists in its use, so we can't say that a word is not being used, because it's nonsensical. (This would open up room for people to argue that words like 'belief', 'chair', 'knowledge' are nonsensical in normal speech despite having a use.) Rather, a word is nonsensical because it's not really being used.
ReplyDeleteThen we need to say why 'philosophical conversation' is not a use. I don't really have a good answer to this - what do you think? It can't be that the only real uses of language are 'practical' ones like building bridges or buying bread. But phrases like 'idling', 'doing work', 'being used in practice' seem to rely on some distinction between real uses and philosophical 'uses' of language. Or maybe I have gone wrong here?
I think the problem is more often misuse rather than 'non-use'. Someone who is looking for the brain state that is pain or who claims that no knowledge is possible because everything can be doubted has used the concepts 'pain', 'knowledge' and 'doubt' but has not used them legitimately. Could you perhaps say that a misuse is no use at all?
ReplyDelete