Wittgenstein AND/OR Family!
Everyone is more or less acquainted with Wittgenstein's concept of language games. There are a plethora of internet resources if you'd like to get a deeper understanding of the idea of language games.
This post will focus on the accompanying notion of family resemblance. The www will explain it better than I ever can.
Here's the deal:
Suppose there's a word, "oit". Then, according to Wittgenstein, the following will be true:
Definition of "oit"
1. Oit means having the properties A, B
2. Oit means having the properties B, C
3. Oit means having the properties A, C
As you can see, there is no essence that unifies every usage of "oit". Not A, not B, neither C nor any combination of A, B, and C is common to all the three ways "oit" is used. Wittgenstein referred to this phenomenon as family resemblance and this characteristic of word usage is, I suppose, a vital component of Wittgenstein's theory of languge games.
So far so good.
Now, anyone who's knows even just the basics of philosophy will agree to the following,
4. Oit = A AND B [from 1 above]
5. Oit = B AND C [from 2 above]
6. Oit = A AND C [from 3 above]
Basically a word's, here "oit", definition consists of all the properties together (hence AND) that are essential to it.
However, if we replace the AND with an OR, we get,
7. Oit = A OR B [from 1 above]
8. Oit = B OR C [from 2 above]
9. Oit = A OR C [from 3 above]
Put simply, I'm trying to explain why family resemblance is a feature of languages, words to be precise. People, for some reason, replace a very important logical operator AND in definitions with the other logical operator OR. For this reason, words as they're used tend to lack a unifying theme, i.e. an essence is missing!
Why do people do this (use OR instead of AND)?
My best guess is that people directly encounter properties instead of words and so, for example, when someone tells me that there's an object with four legs which people use to sit on, I can't from that information alone, tell whether the object is a chair OR a sofa. In other words, the sofa and chair are indistinguishable from this particular combination of properties (four legs + people sit on it). Basically, whenever I see a person sitting on something, I instinctively think of the word "chair" and if I'm an philosophically untrained layman, I will most likely label this something as a chair. This is why, in my humble opinion, family resemblance is a linguistic phenomenon and this is also why words seem to be devoid of essence.
What does this mean for Wittgenstein's much beloved theory of language games?
One and only one thing: Words are being (mis)used, their usage is in violation of the criteria of a good definition. This simply means, to my reckoning, that words definitely do possess an essence but due to the fact, as herein described, that they're being (mis)used with complete disregard of definitional criteria (OR instead of AND) it creates an illusion of an absence of essence which Wittgenstein falsely believes is real (Language games/family resemblance).
@Banno, mind if you take a look at this?
A penny for your thoughts.
This post will focus on the accompanying notion of family resemblance. The www will explain it better than I ever can.
Here's the deal:
Suppose there's a word, "oit". Then, according to Wittgenstein, the following will be true:
Definition of "oit"
1. Oit means having the properties A, B
2. Oit means having the properties B, C
3. Oit means having the properties A, C
As you can see, there is no essence that unifies every usage of "oit". Not A, not B, neither C nor any combination of A, B, and C is common to all the three ways "oit" is used. Wittgenstein referred to this phenomenon as family resemblance and this characteristic of word usage is, I suppose, a vital component of Wittgenstein's theory of languge games.
So far so good.
Now, anyone who's knows even just the basics of philosophy will agree to the following,
4. Oit = A AND B [from 1 above]
5. Oit = B AND C [from 2 above]
6. Oit = A AND C [from 3 above]
Basically a word's, here "oit", definition consists of all the properties together (hence AND) that are essential to it.
However, if we replace the AND with an OR, we get,
7. Oit = A OR B [from 1 above]
8. Oit = B OR C [from 2 above]
9. Oit = A OR C [from 3 above]
Put simply, I'm trying to explain why family resemblance is a feature of languages, words to be precise. People, for some reason, replace a very important logical operator AND in definitions with the other logical operator OR. For this reason, words as they're used tend to lack a unifying theme, i.e. an essence is missing!
Why do people do this (use OR instead of AND)?
My best guess is that people directly encounter properties instead of words and so, for example, when someone tells me that there's an object with four legs which people use to sit on, I can't from that information alone, tell whether the object is a chair OR a sofa. In other words, the sofa and chair are indistinguishable from this particular combination of properties (four legs + people sit on it). Basically, whenever I see a person sitting on something, I instinctively think of the word "chair" and if I'm an philosophically untrained layman, I will most likely label this something as a chair. This is why, in my humble opinion, family resemblance is a linguistic phenomenon and this is also why words seem to be devoid of essence.
What does this mean for Wittgenstein's much beloved theory of language games?
One and only one thing: Words are being (mis)used, their usage is in violation of the criteria of a good definition. This simply means, to my reckoning, that words definitely do possess an essence but due to the fact, as herein described, that they're being (mis)used with complete disregard of definitional criteria (OR instead of AND) it creates an illusion of an absence of essence which Wittgenstein falsely believes is real (Language games/family resemblance).
@Banno, mind if you take a look at this?
A penny for your thoughts.
Comments (67)
The reduction of 'family resemblance' down to a series of propositional clauses is so far away from what Witty had in mind the only thing to say about the OP is that, as with every thread you've made on Witty, you've simply made shit up and pretended like what you've said has anything at all to do with him.
The glaring error is in Mad thinking that - if I understand correctly - a family resemblance would be insufficient because it does not set out the essence; but of course rejecting the notion of an essence is exactly what the notion of family resemblance does.
We use words correctly despite, not because of, having at hand a suitable genus and differentia. Hence:Quoting TheMadFool
...Nuh.
So some credit is due, but Mad missed the most important bit.
:up: Great article! Well written!
So we've both hit upon the same idea (AND replaced by OR in definitions), I'm honored, but you remain unconvinced that this violation of definitional criteria is the real culprit that causes words to be used in such a fashion that no common thread (essence) is found to run through all the ways in a particular word is used.
I don't see why you object to my "explanation" for the linguistic phenomenon of family resemblance. If I say the oit (hypothetical word) is defined in terms of the properties A OR B then anytime I see either A OR B, I'll think oit. This is the only logical explanation for family resemblance, no?
Quoting Cheshire
While you're spot on regarding the importance of context to meaning (ambiguity of a word's meaning is resolved by looking at the context in which they appear), I don't think language game or family resemblance has anything to do with context
Wittgenstein is quite clear about where he stands on the notion of essence, an integral aspect of definitions outside his universe. He claims that words lack essence but for that to be true, the properties that are part of the definiens of a word must be taken together as a logical conjunction but family resemblance can only ever be if the logical conjunction is erroneously replaced with a logical disjunction.
You see the problem, right?
When Wittgenstein studies words for their essence, he uses the standard criteria of good definitions which requires the logical conjunction (AND) but when he develops the concept of family resemblance, he relies on the logical disjunction (OR). Double standards if there ever was one. Family resemblance is an actual linguistic feature only with logical disjunction (OR) but that breaks the standard meaning of definitions which employs logical conjunction (AND).
Quoting Banno
Can you have a look at my reply to Cheshire. Much obliged.
doesn't seem to be even on the same cricket pitch, let alone playing the same game.
Quoting 180 Proof
Cheers. I think it better than the present article; but it is original research, so not suitable to Wikipedia.
Why? Cheshire is saying exactly what you're saying - language games are real and so is family resemblance. However, as I explained, this isn't so. Family resemblance is an artifact of bad philosophy, the precise error being committed being loose terminology as becomes possible when logical elements of definitions are overlooked, glossed over. The logical boo-boo people make is substituing AND with OR. Once we understand as we have here that family resemblance is simply misuse of words, a cardinal sin in philosophy, we can rest easy. After all, in the simplest sense, why found a philosophy on a mistake?
Hi StreetlightX. Long time no see. You haven't changed a bit! :up:
No, he isn't. "Context"? FFS.
:ok: We can stop the discussion for now. I'll post if I can think of anything interesting. Merci beaucoup for your comments!
Have you understood that this is a misrepresentation of Wittgenstein?
Have you read https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/#LangGameFamiRese ?
Did you grasp it?
Here:
How does that square with your OP?
And what, @Cheshire, do you think it has to do with context?
Probably an accurate assessment. Under the impression the meaning of game was essentially a context. Is the irony of a discussion about language being least intuitively decipherable particular to my "rules" of information word sounds.
Nah. I kind of am. Like, in your article you ignore the non-Euclidian triangle with "straight lines", but we still know what a triangle on a ball looks like..
I didn't mention black cats in the article either. Should I do a re-write?
Or you could choose to present something relevant.
Nope. Might as well be a different language. I'll check tomorrow though.
As in, you're playing tennis with a cricket bat.
Neither have you. You still haven't read a word of Wittgenstein yet persist in posting threads about him.
Excuse the tone. I'm a bit pissed at the "Wittgenstein is wrong 'cause I haven't read him" posts.
Philosophy is difficult. If you are going to start a thread, do some work first.
Nor that thinking in terms of 'properties' is the exact thing that the PI was pitched against, no matter how much one rejigs one's concepts of "properties". The entire emphasis on action and 'doing' is missed. Which only someone who has not read a single word of the PI could possibly do.
That previous para is the approach that W is questioning. Suppose we cannot (and we often cannot) find the necessary and sufficient conditions. This is not because we are failing to think hard enough, but because those conditions simply do not exist. Well, they may exist. But we have no reason to assume that they must exist. It's about looking, not (merely) thinking.
Still, W may have been mistaken. I think the OP is raising that possibility (polemically). Was he mistaken? Perhaps we've given up too early on the Socratic method. Perhaps the 'family resemblance' imagery is intellectual laziness: a celebration of blurred vagueness where we should be insisting on sharp accuracy. I tend to think not.
Quoting Cuthbert
it interests me how many times Socrates reached a similar conclusion to Wittgenstein; that there was no suitable account of whatever was being analysed; aporia. It sometimes seems we took two millennia to find out why.
PI §87: "The signpost is in order a if, under normal circumstances, it fulfils its purpose"; §88. "If I tell someone “Stay roughly here” - may this explanation not work perfectly?"; §98: "On the one hand, it is clear that every sentence in our language ‘is in order as it is’. That is to say, we are not striving after an ideal, as if our ordinary vague sentences had not yet got a quite unexceptionable sense, and a perfect language still had to be constructed by us. - On the other hand, it seems clear that where there is sense, there must be perfect order. —– So there must be perfect order even in the vaguest sentence".
There's a mathematical analogy to be drawn here. The idea is that language does not function as a well-ordered set. Every use of language is a matter of partial ordering: §97: "We are under the illusion that what is peculiar, profound and essential to us in our investigation resides in its trying to grasp the incomparable essence of language. That is, the order existing between the concepts of proposition, word, inference, truth, experience, and so forth. This order is a super-order between - so to speak - super-concepts". But concepts and words are singular. they respond to, and arise from, particular lived situations. And words and meanings cannot be mapped onto some trans-historical order that could be clarified once and for all. In every case it must be asked: does that word fulfil its purpose? And if so, it's exact as it can be.
Context matters in re ambiguity i.e. a given word has more than one distinct meaning e.g. "beam" in the two different contexts, one structural engineering and the other sunlight, don't mean the same thing. Note here that word ambiguity doesn't imply the absence of an essence. There's an essence to a light beam and a wooden beam.
However, Wittgenstein's family resemblance is a different animal. It implies there's no essence to words. Context in this case refers to the form of life - the language game - a word participates in. So, for example, taking Wittgenstein's own example, the word "game" is not necessarily disambiguated when I use it for chess or solitaire. The word "game", Wittgenstein claims, has the same meaning and this underpins the idea of family resemblance - there's a, intriguingly, fragmented/partial essence.
As you can see, context is a notion that's integral to both ambiguity and family resemblance although they refer to different things. In ambiguity (puns?), a context disambiguates a word. In family resemblance this doesn't happen.
Where Cheshire and you concur and what I have an issue with is that both of you rely on the notion of context albeit not in the same sense. Needless to say Cheshire is referring to context as it applies to family resemblance as described above. About this, I've already made my thoughts as clear as I could in the preceding paragraphs.
You've reversed the causal relation TheMadFool, portraying effect as cause. In natural language use most words are used prior to receiving definitions, and people use words prior to learning definitions. So words develop meaning without being defined. Due to the differences in the ways that the same word is used, "the meaning" a word develops has differences within, similar to family resemblances.
Since words are used without definitional laws as to how they must be used, and prior to having their meanings defined, it is incorrect to say that "violation of definitional criteria is the real culprit that causes words to be used in such a fashion that...". In reality, words are simply used, and develop meaning from usage. And, since the particular situations in which they are used vary due to differences in circumstances, the meanings developed for the same word, will vary as well.
This is why we cannot assigned essentials to meaning in natural language use. The accidentals of the particular circumstances, within which the words are used, influence the meaning which the words develop, so that there is always accidentals inherent within the meaning.
My humble apologies. I know you're a Wittgenstein fanboy and it might please you to know this thread was written with you in mind. You, however, haven't critiqued my views as expressed herein to my satisfaction. That's unfortunate because I was hoping to be proven wrong since I'm sympathetic to Wittgenstein's idea that philosophy may be hostage to language i.e. some features of language may generate what Wittgenstein calls pseudo-problems - issues that seem to be philosophical but are in fact like the dents/small depressions around nail heads in wood, more about the tool, the hammer (here language) than about nails or wood (here philosophy). I suppose I got the analogy right but I'm still quite unsure what Wittgenstein really wants to say. Some help, anyone?
Quoting Cuthbert
Quoting Cuthbert
Quoting Cuthbert
As explained in the OP and subsequent comments, I want to understand why people use words (Wittgenstein) in ways that result in the linguistic phenomenon which Wittgenstein calls family resemblance. One reason, among probably many others, for this is if people misunderstand what meaning/definition is. They erroneously believe that definitions are disjunctions (OR) of essential properties of the class of objects being defined instead of their conjunctions (AND). How else could I refer to, say, a naval exercise in the Pacific ocean as a war "game" and also children's hide-and-seek as also a "game".
If what I say is true and it seems likely that it is, Wittgenstein's family resemblance is all said and done language misused i.e. to continue with the hammer-nail (see my reply to Banno) analogy, we have on our hands a bad carpenter (human error) and not a tool (language) issue. On this view, Wittgenstein's theory of langusge games, family resemblance and all, boils down to making a philosophy of bad philosophy. It's like laying the blame for a poorly constructed chair, clearly due to an untrained carpenter (nonphilosopher), on the tool (language). The bottom line is this - Wittgenstein has made a philosophy of linguistic and, some might even say, logical mistakes made by ordinary people. Isn't that like logician building a logical system based entirely on fallacies, formal and informal? :chin: Hmmmm.
Quoting StreetlightX
:joke:
I'll need some time to process what you said. Muchas gracias though!
You are accusing him of putting a foot on the scale of (not)essence by using an unrealistic standard for maintaining it and yet acknowledging a more open standard in a tangential matter? Words don't have an essence; they have community usage and agreed upon translations. As well as their particular appearance in a game. Which I maintain is a clumsy word for context until either clearly refuted or I begin to make sense of this black book I purchased in misplaced optimism that I understood the English language; many years ago.
Quoting TheMadFool
I'm thinking about the context of poetry which couldn't exist without the open ability to manipulate words meanings subject to the other words that are surrounding them. Limiting context to saw or saw is kind of misleading and kind of not. What if I saw the saw through the beam? What am I doing or seeing? Looking at a tool under a light or have I strapped a tool to a workable material and proceeded to cut both in half? If the speaker means the latter they will be poorly understood. Unless they are in a well lit room in the business of manufacturing saws and needed a process to stabilize the operation. We say it all the time that things must make sense. Things without sense fail to obtain as the most learned say more correctly to each other.
Quoting TheMadFool
They weren't; but they are now as a result of posing the question.
:chin: How so? My explanation is able to account, albeit only in a simple way, for the linguistic entity Wittgenstein calls family resemblance. In fact I feel more confident after discussing the matter with you and others that my explanation is the best one among others if such exist. The logical connective AND that links all the properties that go into essence-based definitions is being swapped with the logical connective OR by non-philosophers i.e. almost all people, statistically speaking. It's as simple as that. This, as you know, is bad philosophy. Ergo, my contention that Wittgenstein has converted bad philosophy into philosophy. Sacré blue!
That said, it would indeed be a grave error to ignore Wittgenstein's views on how language and philosophy affect each other. For instance, it would be the heights of stupidity to look for games' essence. We already know "none exist" but that comes with a caveat - this is a situation that occurs not because essence itself is meaningless but because people not exposed to the rigors of logic and definition use words with complete disregard for philosophical rules.
This problem has its roots in the beginnings of language. Back then no one had established criteria for real thinking, logic & philosophy were in their infancy and couldn't be brought to bear on the issue. Heck, just having words for water, food, danger, basic necessities to be precise was so empowering that very no/little attention was given to using words properly (focus on essence) in a philosophically acceptable manner.
This defect was exposed by none other than the father of Western philosophy, dear ol' but deceased Socrates - I have a feeling that his whole life was spent agonizing over the lack/absence of essences to words. Every conversation he had with randoms didn't end well at all. Nothing happened that could be described as a breakthrough, all Socrates discovered was words lacked an essence, no definition for ideas like virtue or justice satisfied all parties.
What does this mean?
Socrates anticipated Wittgenstein but the latter misconstrued word misuse (nonphilosophical) as implying that words were missing an essence. The former, on the other hand, realized correctly in my humble opinion that the first order of business for philosophers was/is/will be to, not look for essences, something Socrates himself was deeply concerned with, as none can be found. Au contraire, Socrates' mission, if we could refer to philosophizing as that, was to demand change - we are to employ the two greatest tools humans posses (logic & language) with utmost care and precision and all will be well.
My two cents worth!
Quoting TheMadFool
Quoting Cheshire
Ergo, the lack of essence allowed us the ability to assign words to things. Did we sit around guessing the animals name until we were presented with the essence sounding word for a goat? It isn't obvious if it is true. It is obvious if it is a goat; which is goatist falsification.
Quoting TheMadFool
If I ever say this; then I guarantee what ever follows will be wrong.
The reply has been set out before you, by @StreetlightX, by @Cuthbert and by myself. But you have not been able to see it.
Don't think, look.
This is how language works; without the need for explicit definitions.
I'll try and explain this again as I've gained some more insights into the issue (Wittgenstein's language game theory).
We must make a distinction between how language is (ordinary language) and how language should be (ideal language).
Wittgenstein's language game/family resemblance is a feature of ordinary language but were we to ask him about his views on an ideal language, I bet he would've said the family resemblance shouldn't figure in it i.e. it's preferrable that language isn't a game in which a given word's meaning alters with context (form of life).
In other words, Wittgenstein probably would've been happier but less famous if it were the case that words had/have an essence to them.
What does this mean?
Simply that ordinary language is imperfect/flawed and it needs a lot of work (to become an ideal language). A number of possibilities as to why family resemblance is an aspect of ordinary language:
1. There's something inherent in language that prevents attempts to give words an essence. Analyzing this is above my paygrade.
2. People are careless with language. As described in the OP, substituting AND with OR is an instance of this.
3. Limitations of the brain. If words had an essence, even the slightest of differences will necessitate a new word. For example if I'm very strict about what flying means, say I define it as flapping of two wings, a dragonfly (has four wings) would need another word to describe its locomotion and so would a plane/glider (not flapping its wings). You get the idea. This would be a huge burden on our memory - there would be just too many words to remember. Thus, we assign different meanings to the same word (pun/polysemy) and if there's some overlap in meaning i.e. there's a family resemblance, the word rises to prominence in Wittgenstein's theory of language games.
Perhaps the absence of an essence to words is due to one or more or all of the above posited reasons.
Another thing is a word's essence can be viewed in two distinct ways:
1. An essence within a language game: For example when I use the word "god" in a christian context, it has a specific meaning, i.e. it has an essence viz. an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good being. This kind of essence (to words) exists. So if I encounter beings X, Y, and Z (sancte trinitatis) and all of them are the christian god then I know all of them are all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good (essences of "god")
2. An essence between language games: The word "god" means different things if you consider all religions and beliefs. The deistic god is not the same as the pantheistic god which has very little in common with the christian god. This kind of essence (to words) doesn't exist.
He literally says that this is exactly what we shouldn't do. But sure, continue making shit up.
Let me stop you right there. I'm going to read the rest but this is a full stop in itself. Ideal qualifying language outside of a Russian lease agreement is frankly an upsetting term. Alright, I'll give the rest due diligence and respond tomorrow.
Tell me, what do yo think the tractatus was?
Small steps. At least read a tertiary text about him before you say anything else.
To put differently what has already been said by others: the part of Wittgenstein's philosophy that you're looking at is built on a rejection of the search for an ideal language, so what you're doing is arguing against his whole approach. In principle that's fine, of course, but it's good to be clear about it.
By the way, the idea of a "misuse" in his later work is to show, not that people need to work on improving language--which it seems to me is your own takeaway--but that philosophers have to pay attention to how language actually works.
You must understand what it must be like as a philosopher which Wittgenstein was to come to the realization, discover, that people have been misusing, some would even go so far as to say abusing, language in ways that makes philosophy hard and even sometimes impossible (no essence, no philosophy :grin: ).
Attempting a bit of psychology since it seems to be a hot topic on the forum lately, Wittgenstein was actually complaining about the misuse/abuse of language rather than anything fundamentally important about the connection between language and philosophy. He wasn't aware of it of course. A pity.
My interepretation of Wittgenstein is that yes, he was onto something - that 1. words lack an essence and 2.
many issues that philosophers are racking their brains over are pseudo-problems.
1 is undeniably true but not necessarily because something's wrong with either the tool (language) or with the material (philosophy). Our beloved Wittgenstein seems to have completely missed another likelier culprit, us, the end user of language (human error) - misuse/abuse of lingo/tongue/language.
2 is also true because language has been so poorly wielded that people have f**ked up and f**ked up bad.
So, ultimately, in the finaly analysis, Wittgenstein detected the problem (words seem to lack an essence) alright but he then goes on to claim that (some) philosophical problems aren't real which, to my reckoning, is a grave error because it presupposes people aren't misusing/abusing language which they are.
Think of it, every time Wittgenstein dismisses a philosophical problem as a pseudo-problem, we can respond by saying that people have used the relevant words in the wrong way and since Wittgenstein's entire theory of language games is predicated on that being false we have successfully demonstrated that there are real philosophical problems not pseudo-problems.
Quoting Cheshire
Read my reply to StreetlightX.
Quoting Banno
Wittgenstein himself didn't read any books I'm told. Also, please go through my reply to StreetlightX.
Quoting jamalrob
In my humble opinion, Wittgenstein's "meaning is use" doesn't quite do the job it was designed/formulated to do/for. He intends to deflect our attention from the usual way we understand meaning as essence.
I remember drawing an analogy between a book and a word. A book can be used to prop up a cellphone, a book can be used to hold paper down on a windy day, a book can be used to keep a cup of hot tea on, you get the idea. Thus the meaning of the book depends on how one uses it. Words too are like that, so Wittgenstein thinks - there's no essence to a book (word), what it is (what it means) is entirely a matter of how we use it.
So far so good.
However, if "meaning is use", there can be no such thing as misuse/abuse of language. In the book analogy above a book can be anything at all i.e. we can use it for anything and everything and no one would/could say I've misused/abused the book. In terms of words, I'm free to say the word "water" is, intriguingly, fire and that "god" means devil. You couldn't object to this because the notion of word misuse/abuse is N/A. This is taking Wittgenstein's theory taken to its logical conclusion, if you plant Wittgenstein in your garden and tend to it with care and love a particulalry exotic flower will bloom. What is this flower? Total chaos, utter confusion of course.
Retracing the evolution of the Wittgenstein flower of chaos and confusion back to its seed - language games/family resemblance - we can conclude with a certainty unbecoming of a philosopher that Wittgenstein's theory of language games and family resemblance boils down to, is ultimately about, chaos & confusion in language and by extension philosophy.
What is chaos and confusion in re language? Even a child knows that both happen in the absence of rules or if there are rules, not observing them (misuse)! This thread is about the latter - misuse of language!
Yes, I agree. I stated the criticism about vagueness but finished 'I tend to think not' as my post was long enough already. 'Vague' can be a pejorative term but it can also mean just 'adaptable to circumstances'. If we take the same time to walk round the block that is a different kind of 'same time' as the same time it takes two Olympians to run 100m.
Quoting StreetlightX
I think there are practical examples in medicine and law, for example. What is diabetes? Diagnostic criteria are very specific and a yes/no diagnosis is possible by following them. So the Socratic method works. But not quite. There are patients marginally outside the criteria who would benefit more from treatment than other who are marginally inside. So fix the criteria. But we know that this will never be perfect. So make the criteria somewhat adaptable, analogously to case law: you make 'anti-social behaviour' criminal and then decide on each case and by precedent. The 'purpose' of the concept 'diabetes' in this context is to get people to treatment who need it and not inflict invasive treatment on people who don't. Fixity and adaptability (which may be 'vagueness' with the pejorative tone taken out) are both needed.
He was an aeronautical engineer and his position was validated by Russell at least initially. If you want to keep running backwards in this corn field then by all means.
None of this has anything to do with your made up assertions about family resemblance or ideal languages.
Indeed, Wittgenstein was an aeronautical engineer. I completely forgot about his background in engineering and his relationship with Bertrand Russell. Thanks for refreshing my memory - I remember just skimming through the Wikipedia entries on him.
Coming to the point I was making, what are your thoughts about it?
If "meaning is use", the concept of misuse is N/A and anything goes but if anything goes, I could use the word "water" for fire and also for water itself. If that's the case water (water) is cold and water (fire) is not cold (hot). There's a great risk of confusion because a person who doesn't know that "water" = water = fire, the statements water is cold and water is not cold (hot) is what in logic is known as a contradiction.
It appears that there's a trade-off between memory and clarity in language. We can't have too many words because that would overburden our memory, thus we have polysemy/family resemblance but polysemy/family resemblance taken to the extreme causes confusion as demonstrated above and there would be a constant need to disambiguate words.
The memory aspect of language leads to Wittgenstein's meaning is use.
The clarity aspect of language leads to meaning as essence.
We need to strike a balance between the two.
Kindly read my post just above. Thanks.
Sure - it involves the same misreading you've been peddling everytime you talk about Wittgenstein, and every time someone corrects you, you ignore it and peddle it again. To wit:
Quoting TheMadFool
That 'anything goes' does not follow. The full expression of 'meaning is use' is 'meaning is use in a language-game'. "Misuse" is what follows when meaning is not used in a language-game. This is Wittgenstein 101.
I find this idea of ‘family resemblance’ to be similar to Darwin’s ‘population thinking’, as termed by Ernst Mayr. As a very brief summary: “any description of a species is at best a statistical summary that applies to no individual”.
Before I continued to wade through the thread or step into the argument - and given that I haven’t read Wittgenstein on this - am I even on the right track with this understanding?
You seem to have forgotten, an honest mistake, what language games are. They are, FYI, precisely what I refer to when I say anything goes.
Then you have no idea what you are talking about.
I believe ideas similar to this are what lead Plato to "the good", as the goal, the purpose, or "the end" in Aristotle's words, that for the sake of which. Likewise, in Wittgenstein's PI you'll find a reference to the requirement that a signpost (analogous with a word), serves the purpose. In this conceptualization an inability to serve the purpose might be called misuse. Chaos and confusion have been avoided because people are inclined toward the good. that is to say that they act with intention.
The issue of abuse is very complex and difficult, well represented by a common form of abuse in language use, commonly called deception. When reading Wittgenstein I suggest you be very wary of the many instances where he demonstrates the reality of deception. This is why there are many distinct interpretations of his work. If a man's goal with his use of words (signposts) is to deceive (mislead), then the possibility of a correct interpretation is negated.
Huh? If there were such a thing as misuse of language, the word "game" (Wittgenstein's favorite) couldn't be applies to chess, battle simulations (war games) and sports - there's nothing that unites these three thematically to permit the use of the same word for all. This is Wittgenstein's family resemblance and they're only possible if you violate the rules of good definitions i.e. if you use words inappropriately or, put simply, you misuse words. If, on the other hand, you're willing to ignore misuse of words (language is use), like we all do at some point, we're asking for trouble - confusion & chaos will ensue and ample evidence is available on this forum, some of that being my own.
Are they not the activities that people do for fun and leisure mostly (well some do for money - but the fun factor still there) using their mind and body? There are clearly something common resemblance in there. The good definition in the core don't have to be misused to use the word.
Misuse happens precisely when one treats the word 'game' as univocal across all these cases. 'Misuse' is what happens when you transplant words from one language-game into another without paying attention to the specificity of each. Use and misuse are comparative notions. Of course Wittgenstein did not speak of 'misuse', but simply, a lack of use tout court. The idling engine of language.
I don't believe words have essence. Words have meanings which are contingent, traditional and empirical, and people use them by the rules and learning the meanings. Is there any word which are a priori? Some say words like ma ma mom are, because without being taught, the new borns utter it. But it would be like saying dog barking is their a priori language, because all dogs bark without getting taught.
It seems there are two ways of looking at misuse of language:
1. In the context of a language game (Wittgenstein): So, a word X means different things in different forms of life or different language games (contexts). Misusing a word would occur when one is oblivious to this fact and we assume that X has the same meaning across all contexts (language games or forms of life). This is your position. Too, words don't have an essence.
2. Failure to meet definitional criteria (My position): A word X is being applied to entities A, B, and C but there's nothing in common to all A, B, and C that could justify such a practice. One explanation: The logical AND operator that appears in definitions is being swapped for the logical OR operator. Words have an essence.
Would you define a dog as a wolf OR tame or as a wolf AND tame? The answer to that question should give you an idea as to why words are being misused the way I described it (AND substituted by OR).
Wittgenstein's theory of language games makes sense only if 2 (above) doesn't count as misuse (of language) i.e. there's nothing amiss with applying the word X to A, B and C simultaneously. Were this not the case, the notion of family resemblance wouldn't make sense; after all, family resemblance relies completely on the logical error being committed (OR replaces AND).
:chin:
2 (above) is a mistake, a logical one pertaining to the nature of definitions. Ergo, Wittgenstein's theory of family resemblance and language games is entirely based on misuse of language, the upshot being if language isn't misused, there would be no family resemblance; if there are no family resemblances, there would be no language games; if there are no language games, there would be no Wittgenstein! :chin:
I'll say this though, children acquire language in ways that seem rather mysterious. The sound "ma" and "mama" seem to be hardwired into our brains. At other times, we need to teach children words. :chin:
You're so obsessed with this notion of 'misuse' that you completely overlook the fact of no use: language which has no language-game at all, or an employment of language which, although mistaken for a use, does not have one. Your convoluted rambling misses the mark.
No point discussing words that are no use, right? I don't get why you open up a new bottle of wine when you haven't finished the already open one, figuratively speaking.
Your thread is one such instance and apparently it's gone on for two pages, so you tell me. Figuratively speaking.
You remind me of this :point:
Not a bad trick sir/madam as the case may be, not a bad trick at all!
I was thinking about it, and I feel they communicate with what looks like emotional language. They definitely do communicate, but their language is not obvious, regular, versatile than humans. Even if a few uttered barks and meows or glares and wagging the tails - not sure if these can be classed as language as such. I think not. But still there seems some form of communication going on in the animals world.
Quoting TheMadFool
I think they pick up language as they grow up up to a certain level. But above that point, for writing skills, grammar and the foreign languages, they must learn and be taught.
But getting back to Wittgenstein, I feel that language cannot exist itself. It works together with the real world situations and the users psychology. I agree with Quine in that regard.
So those symbolic logic statements AND OR cannot represent much on the language of the real world. If you read Wittgenstein's language game and family resemblance, it is really a simple story. No need to bring in AND OR stuff to explain it.
The contents of this thread has little to do with Wittgenstein. It's wrong-headed. Mad has not tried to understand, but instead is content to make shite up to suit himself. Might be best to leave the topic rather than engage with this muddle.
There are folk who look at a Picaso and say "I could draw that".
Picaso painted like a Master while still a child, transcending that ability as he grew. Those who think his art childish have misunderstood.
Madfool has seen a Picaso and thinks he has the capacity to critique it, without doing the work of understanding the background and implications. What he is doing is not clever; it's naive. Foolish.
It's not the fact of his critique that is objectionable. It's his insistence that he has understood what he clearly has not, his unwillingness to understand his error.
He chooses not to learn.
Now all that is entirely up to him. But at the same time as he has actively sort my engagement, he has refused to pay attention to my replies.
Hence, there is nothing in this thread that might be of interest to me.
Thanks for bringing up the issue of animal language. Come to think of it, Wittgenstein is more than just relevant here, he's super-relevant ( :grin: ). Animal vocabulary is limited e.g. dogs can only growl, whimper, and howl. If they wish to communicate complex information, the same "word" (growl/whimper/howl) would have multiple meanings and disambiguation would be achieved contextually. This is more about polysemy than family resemblance but the two are close cousins, a kinship that might prove useful to the concept of language games. I'm not sure how exactly.
Quoting Corvus
Coming to children and language, I noticed from being around infants and toddlers that most of the words they know are based off of ostensive definitions e.g. my 3 year old nephew (S) can point to a toy car and say "car" but there's also abstract thinking involved because he points to all toy vehicles (cars, trucks, pickups, trailers) and identifies them as cars (intensional definition) which is correct usage of the word "car" in a certain sense.
What do I mean by "...in a certain sense"? Well, this: S is focusing on similarities rather than differences - that's why a toy car, a toy truck, a toy pickup, are all cars for fae. In other words, S is looking for patterns and differences mess up patterns, they break them as it were. Had my nephew S (fae's very cute :love: ) instead looked for differences, or is attuned to distinctions, fae wouldn't have used the word "car" for all 4-wheeled toys.
What does this have to do with Wittgenstein? Simply this: Our attention is asymmetrical vis-à-vis similarities/differences i.e. similarities matter more than differences because with the former, we have a pattern (4 wheels or thereabouts for S) and patterns, knowledge about them, are/is mighty useful I hear. Thus, once a word is defined, say "chair" (4 legs, back, seat) it provides the seed for a pattern. You see a sofa, it has a seat, you think chair. You see a spinny, it has a seat, you think chair. Basically, you're focusing on what's common (similarities) and ignoring the dissimilarities - we're looking for a pattern! There is a pattern and your mind latches onto it. Hey presto!, we have on our hands Wittgenstein's family resemblance.
That sucks! For me that is.
Anyhow, what about my explanation for the family resemblance phenomenon is "wrong-headed"? What's your take on it? Why do you think family resemblance exists?
Quoting Banno
Hey! I have feelings, you know!
By the way, please go through my reply to Corvus above!