Language games
"Language game" signifies that speech or writing has meaning in the context of human interaction. So we need not expect words and phrases to have unambiguous references.
But what about philosophical speech and writing? Is "language game" also a pawn? How does that work?
But what about philosophical speech and writing? Is "language game" also a pawn? How does that work?
Comments (154)
I guess it's a little weird and meta from some angles. But I don't see any real problems from this angle. I think Wittgenstein has other problems, though.
So do we have that transcendence or not?
I think that this tendency also lies at the root of the tendency of certain philosophers to espouse elaborate metaphysical theses and then say, "Oh, what, I'm just using common sense!!" Ugh.
Quoting Mongrel
Strictly speaking, it doesn't have to be "transcendent." I don't have to "transcend" something to talk about it. If I give you the etymology of the word, "etymology," that doesn't mean I have to "transcend" etymology.
But didn't Witt mean to narrow his analysis to natural language?
I've never separated from myself, but I'm talking about myself in this sentence. And you're talking about language in this post, but I don't see anything separate or transcendent about it.
It could be that I just don't understand what's actually implied by "language game." How would you describe it?
Metaphilosophy is distinct from philosophy, though. Isn't it?
I am yet to see any argument or explanation that convinces me that so-called meta-philosophy is truly distinct from philosophy.'Metaphilosophy' is merely a term signifying the act of philosophy considering its own practices. That act is one of its own practices, and is already implicit in the notion of the examined life, since philosophy, whether implicitly or explicitly, is part of any human life.
Is it irrelevant to the OP, though? Does the very notion of 'philosophy as language game' not at least smack of a purported standing outside of philosophy?
It's whether we should consider philosophical talk to be distinct from natural language (in its own philosophy room as Chalmers put it).
Doesn't that kind of strict philosophical use (somewhat ironically) occur when, as Wittgenstein puts it, language goes on holiday? He says that the genesis of philosophical problems is to be found in such use. To look at it the other way around; what if philosophical problems are already there (in the sense of being independent of language) but cannot be adequately formulated in terms of common usage?
2+2=4
we can generalise this to
a+a=2a
Does algebra transcend arithmetic?
Or is it just about arithmetic?
When one plays chess, one undertakes to abide by certain rules. So moving the bishop along a diagonal is OK, but moving it along a row is not. If your opponent did so, you would accuses them of nit understanding how to play chess.
Language games are reasonably discreet, making it easier to set out the rules. Of course the rules may be implicit, in which case it might be interesting or useful to make them explicit - think of the rules involved in making a promise.
The rules may even change; as in Chess960. Knowing when and that the rules have changes is important.
It is a bit harder with formal languages, because inconsistencies develop very quickly. The usual practice has been to set up another language that contains the entirety of the formal language one wants to talk about - this new language being the meta-language.
So the question of meta-philosophy might be seen as asking if philosophy can talk about itself in its own terms, like a natural language, or if we need a special new language to avoid inconsistency.
But that in itself is deciding between one language game and another - do we allow philosophers to talk about philosophy in philosophical terms, or do we need meta-philosophers with a whole new language?
It seems to me that treated in this way, the notion of meta-philosophy can be seen as a lost cause.
So in what light should we see Wittgenstein?
1. Creator of a language game that includes "language game."
2. Performing in a family of language games called philosophy.
3. Neither, because Witty was analyzing natural language. The language that sets out that analysis doesn't need to conform to the analysis.
Possibly. I see now that I shouldn't have responded to Luke's comment because it only served to divert from my question. Lesson learned.
Do you mean he was looking to rule out contextless meaning?
Sorry.. not quite following you. What strict philosophical use?
Not sure. You think algebra reduces to statements about arithmetic?
Perhaps as presenting a neat simplification we can use to understand how language works?
So at least it's interesting to ponder what sort of action and interaction one might find in the vicinity of a theory of meaning.
I've got my speculations..
I apologise if I have contributed to any derailing, but I must say that it's unclear to me exactly what question you are asking, or what your enquiry is, in this discussion.
Quoting Mongrel
One of the main aims of Wittgenstein's later philosophy (or philosophical therapy) is to "bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use." (116) Language games are one of the devices that Wittgenstein uses to restore some perspective and ground language as an activity rather than as some idealised abstraction: the received view of many philosophers. As Wittgenstein puts it:
(7) [my emphasis]
(23)
I think that your view of having "a transcendent viewpoint on language" is the kind of metaphysics that Wittgenstein is trying to dispel with his introduction of language games. But please clarify if this does not address your enquiry about language games.
This is true. What I failed to understand is that "language games" is not a theory of meaning. It's a lead up to a rejection of any such theory.
Kind of like how the sun rises and sets in ordinary language, but astronomy would talk about the rotation of the Earth?
The point being that ordinary language can be misleading at times, and it can contain assumptions that are wrong. People did use to think the Earth was stationary, and the sun and moon revolved around it.
One could perhaps say that W. believed it meaningless to discuss meaningfulness. But W. later did accept the existence of intent, and therefore causality based on intent. Austin did some very interesting work to extend W.'s model to explain utterances such as imperatives, which are beyond the conventional scope of formal logic.
Other theorists have denied the existence of intent, believing that there is in fact a correlation between material objects, states, and events and the words of language, but that it exists in a purely mechanical way. They hold ideas of conscious intent and free will are themselves confusions, and that is the reductionist method which has resulted in popular deflationary theories.
It is definitely true these are a form of logical positivism, but as it does not accept W.'s later thoughts on intent, such deflationary theories are really reductionist versions of Wittgenstein's early theory, which have gained popularity as the tremendous advances in scientific knowledge have so impressed modern thinkers that they believe strong materialism is the only reality. Therefore they wrongly consider themselves realists rather than linguists. Obviously that is wrong, as the basis of their argument denies our ability to know what reality actually is, beyond the language we use to accomplish goals.
This is correct. He became deflationary about meaning theories. One may occasionally learn a definition ostensively, but there's so much language one would already have to understand to learn that way (foreshadowing Chomsky), that the point doesn't generalize. Likewise there may be cases of rule following, but people frequently speak without thinking at all (in line with what csalisbury said earlier), he actually finally ditches language games as well as a theory of meaning. He concluded that there's nothing to theorize about.
Not sure why he didn't go the route Chomsky did.. he was close to it.
If you take language away from the metaphysician, how is the metaphysician going to do metaphysics? I assume by the claim that this is "therapy", that metaphysics is apprehended as a form of illness. Does anyone really believe that forcing the sick person to shut up is an acceptable form of therapy?
So W demonstrates that a more sophisticated theory is not necessary. However that does not imply that more sophisticated ideas of meaning do not exist. It's only so much as to say that more sophisticated theories are not necessary. Calling that 'deflationary' and saying that metaphysics does not exist is far beyond postivism's objective.
With Witty we don't have to worry over that. He offers no theory of meaning. If you have a favored theory of meaning, that's fine. There's nothing blocking you.
And I only got 5 hours sleep. So if you'll excuse me, that took several hours to write to Marchesk, so if you have a problem with it being baloney, please comment on that there.
The original shared secret theory is called Diffie and Helman 'key exchange," described here. One doesn't easily find more abstract explanations on the web due to security concerns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffie%E2%80%93Hellman_key_exchange
There you will see this basic diagram showing how shared secrets work. A and B (Alice and Bob) can communicate with each other successfully after encrypting their communications with a private color, but neither party knows what the other's private color is.
Alice has private color code 100
Bob has private color code 200
Alice says 17 modulo 10 base 2, that is 1
Bob says 33 modulo 10 base 2, that is 1
Alice hears 1 base 2 modulo 100, that is 1
Bob hears 1 base 2 modulo 200, that is 1
Now Alice and Bob have a shared secret 1. Neither of them know the private color code of the other. That's the basis of the theory, but picking shared color code that works for all numbers is not quite as simple as that (they both have to be primes and the modulo has to be in the base range), but it gives the idea.
Alice [secret] is hungry ->
Alice says 'Bob please bring in groceries from car.'
Bob hears 'Alice wants me to get dressed to outside.'
Bob says 'It is raining'
Alice hears 'Bob is not hungry.'
Alice says 'it is not raining.'
Bob hears 'Alice insists I get dressed to go outside.'
Bob says 'if you think it's not raining, you bring in the groceries, and I'll cook dinner.'
Wittgenstein's point is, it is totally irrelevant to the conclusion whether the proposition 'it is raining' is true or not, Bob doesn't know Alice is hungry, and Alice doesn't know Bob doesn't want to get dressed, and yet even so, the conclusion is logically coherent, and there has been effective communication.
For example, the exclusively philosophical use of the term 'substance'. Or Heidegger's use of 'dasein'. You must be aware that philosophers have developed their own lexicons, that are not entirely unrelated to, although obviously different from, "ordinary" usage? Isn't this what Wittgenstein means by language going on holiday? I mentioned "irony" here because philosophical usages of terms are usually "strict" or restricted. Aristotle means something quite different, in some ways but not in others,by 'substance' than Spinoza does, for example; and they both mean something different than ordinary usage of the term does.
So, if W means to say that the philosophical usage of the term 'substance' creates the philosophical problem of substance, I am wondering whether, instead, the various (but related both to each other and ordinary usage) philosophical definitions of 'substance' evolve out of the need to find ways to formulate and imagine clearly already (perhaps not so clearly) imagined philosophical problems.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1349/wittgensteins-mysticism-or-not-#Item_1
It's not quite the standard view, but as I am describing the mysticism part I felt I could take a little license on it. Thanks for the conversation.
But it's not a fair criticism, because every field of specialty will adopt terms that have a specific meaning in the field. The reason philosophers do it is because ordinary language has enough confusions and ambiguity. So if we're debating free will, it's very helpful to know if someone is arguing from a libertarian position rather than a compatibilist, for example. That helps clarify (somewhat) the issue. "Free will" itself is way too broad, full of ambiguity and unspoken assumptions. To even approach the problem, you need to figure out what being free and having a will might possibly mean, and why people care about it.
One of the obvious and interesting characteristics of language is that from a limited vocabulary an unlimited number of sentence may be constructed. This is possible because words are used for similar purposes in different sentences.
So yes, causality is attached to speech acts, but also there are patterns or rules for the use of words.
What you say is entirely in accordance with what I was getting at, though; which is that philosophers formulate new definitions and qualifications of terms in order to clarify problems that, in a sense, already exist (in the sense of being implicit).
What about Derrida's "differance"?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1349/wittgensteins-mysticism-or-not-
Thank you for the compliment.
I might reference your item elsewhere.
edit: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/68402
Right, I don't see it as an abuse of language that creates philosophical problems that otherwise wouldn't exist, although that could be the case in some instances. Rather, philosophers are trying to make explicit the philosophical problems already implicit.
Per Soames, W was saying that philosophy in general is a waste of time because he assumed that any philosophical truth must be analytic, apriori, and necessary. The world doesn't need philosophers to establish anything. Linguistic competency is an instinctive application of words amidst social conditioning. There's no valid questioning to be done. Philosophers should shut up and get a real job.
Soames, unlike W, is very rigorous. When he reveals the holes and inconsistencies in W's outlook, it's one careful step at a time... which is cool.
I was just recently thinking about jargon, though. I got interested in the history of Scientology, whose members are jargonites. Jargon sets one off from the crowd, so it serves to reinforce a sort of inbred community. It creates unity, possibly drawing people to bypass thought. 'We don't care if you think about what you're saying.. just say the special words in the right order...'
"Will driving passengers please go to their vehicles."
Any philosopher can tell you that a passenger is not a driver, and folks who have left their vehicle are neither. But after a moment's *huh?*, I intuited the context in which it is a perfectly ordinarily meaningful sentence.
Are they all on a bigger thing, like a boat or something?
Not everything is like that though. A baby monitor works, because regardless of context, "I'm being harmed or terrified" noises are the same regardless of the surrounding context.
Since racial slurs are fine in the right context, and with the right intent, they ought to be fine to say, and one shouldn't feel anything at all about saying them with abandon in the right contexts. This of course isn't true, it would always feel inappropriate to say.
You could say that we're all just deluded, and emotionally invested in somethings, so that we read more into them than what's given, or that the meaning of things bleed out beyond their contexts.
I should get around to reading Soames: his two volumes are already on my shelves. :)
Hmmm...Scientology...jargon....no actual thought...I would say...yep!
What keeps the engine running smoothly is faith, work, relaxation, and love. Believe that you're already the standard by which "smoothly" is to be judged. Work with the precision of Odin, relax like everything is perfect and beautiful in the world, and love at least one thing more than yourself.
It's interesting you raise the point in parallel, I had just answered this in a comment currently at the end of https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1349/wittgensteins-mysticism-or-not-/p1 here, in response to the example in the post at the beginning of the thread.
This is not a good example of noise without context, because you have already stipulated the context as a baby monitor. Remove that context and who knows what the noises are. I heard a cat in a field, at night, making noises and it sounded just like a distressed baby. It took me some time to convince myself that it could not be a baby out there. A few days later my neighbour told me he had heard that noise, thinking the same thing, and he had come very close to going out into the field to find the baby.
So there is an issue here of convincing oneself that the noises ( words or utterances included) cannot mean what they appear to mean, because the context is wrong. And I cannot think of any noises which could be exempt from this problem. Interpretation is always dependent on context, that's just the way that the mind works, through associations.
I think that that's like suggesting that water isn't always wet, because mirages aren't wet. Misidentifying something doesn't make it necessarily related to that thing, just because you thought it was.
That's the point though, nothing can be said to be related to anything else, except through how we identify them. So if I think that one thing is related to another, then it is related, by virtue of that very thought which relates them. Even if it is a case of "misidentifying", there is necessarily a relationship, because that act of misidentifying creates that relationship. To justify the claim that this is "misidentifying" rather than identifying, requires a demonstration that this relationship is incorrect. We do this by turning to other relationships (context). Vise versa, to justify an identification as correct rather than a misidentification, requires reference to other relationships (context). So context is a necessary part of identification because it distinguishes identification from misidentification.
In what context does a cat in the woods become a baby? You first say that things can't be said without words, and then say that for this reason, words constitute the empirical relationships between things...
These jumping off points begin in midair.
Eh?
That's an extreme form of nominalism where humans create similarity among particulars in a totally ad-hoc fashion.
But that's not how it works. We perceive similarity among particulars, and our language reflects those relationships. It's not arbitrary that cats have some things in common with other cats that dogs don't have, and that's why we group living things into categories. We don't create those similarities. They are already there. We just decide how to make sense of it.
Relationships and similarities are not at all the same. Meaning is built on associations, relationships, not similarities. To say that similarity is what is important here is a mistake.
But when I apply that gleaned meaning to "language games" I find that it's probably fruitless for me to try to uncover a particular meaning.
Agree?
If you are saying that there is no context for the concept of language games, then I disagree. As Pneumenon said earlier, the context is philosophical discussion.
If you are saying something else, then please elaborate.
Looking at it propositionally, we would read W's writings, maybe talk amongst ourselves, and then agree on a set of propositions that we believe W was expressing in his writing. You'd be able to tell that we're thinking propositionally because we would say: "Witt said that..." And then we'd paraphrase.
We would definitely, beyond any shadow of a doubt, assert that we considered context when we derived those propositions. That's how propositions work. You must consider context of utterance to know what proposition is being expressed.
However, when applying the concept of language games to "language games," one of the first things we're going to do is deny that "language games" expresses any concept. I don't think it would really be appropriate to try to discover some proposition that's being expressed. Rather, "language game" should be thought of as sort of pawn in social interaction. And that pawn is the exact words written and how those words were presented. And then how that pawn functioned in terms of actions.
It becomes a little dubious to even discover meaning in W's writings because I'm not in a social relationship with him. ?
It seems that you are tying yourself in knots trying to find contradictions in Wittgenstein's work.
Firstly, I am confused by your use of the term "propositional". It was the early Wittgenstein who limited all of language only to propositions (i.e. assertions about the natural world), while he was working more within the philosophical tradition. The later Wittgenstein took a more relaxed view and allowed more than propositions into language. The later Wittgenstein also placed more emphasis on the context of utterance and considered meaning as use. The early Wittgenstein, in his attempt to locate the most general form of a proposition, had no regard for any context. The later Wittgenstein's focus on context, and introduction of terms of art such as 'language game', were a reaction to the philosophical tradition that had gone before him. This tradition is the context for Wittgenstein's use of the phrase 'language game'.
Ironically, the point on which you attempt to criticise Wittgenstein, is the same point on which Wittgenstein criticises much of philosophy and the reason for his invention of the concept of language games: traditional philosophy often speaks of language outside of any context. Wittgenstein sees this as language going on holiday, which he considers to be the cause of philosophical problems.
Quoting Mongrel
You're implying that this conclusion can never be reached without being self-undermining? That's an air-tight way of fending off any criticism of the subject, I suppose.
Yes. I know. You're confused by my usage because you don't know what a proposition is.
What do you mean by it, then?
When using meta-linguistic terminology i think it is more often that not the case that all the philosopher intends to communicate is an open-sentence containing one or more of these terms as free-variables, and is begging the listener to supply a relevant substitution, whether it be a named instance of the listeners acquaintance (e.g. "language game" -> "chess") or a perceptuo-motor action on behalf of the listener (e.g. "being" -> physically look around).
Perhaps it would be helpful if philosophers adopted a notation to explicitly tag speech-acts whenever there is a potential misunderstanding that a substantive proposition is implied when it is not, for example replacing "being" with
I don't see why we're going to do that. I believe I understand 'language games' as a concept, and I understand it so partly because of other remarks by Wittgenstein about how some concepts can't be defined precisely, but are understood because their uses - the exemplary case is 'game' - have family resemblances.
But Witt's 'Philosophical Investigations' is also indeed a pawn, or possibly a knight or bishop, in the language game of philosophy. There's a certain social and intellectual milieu where such games are mostly played.
In passing, it's interesting that your imagined example is of written language, whereas the Witt notion applies to all forms of language-exchange, and is rooted in talk about 'utterances'.
Quoting sime
Here, though, there are only words, ordinary words in ordinary language, even to explain to use how we ought to use meta-language. I don't see how that can mitigate any difficulties. I think philosophers on the whole do indeed try to explain the formal meaning they intend their terms to have, but there is a neo-Derrida in my head sometimes who can always find a connotation lurking in the most precise of definitions. Squiggles of various kinds do often clarify: for instance, I'm reading David Wiggins at the moment and his ideas about 'sameness and substance' are greatly clarified by a recourse to formal symbolism. There remains a difficulty in then relating such a formal symbolic language back to the world of ordinary language and human interaction. As soon as one paraphrases, or refers to a slab of ordinary language by some letter or other symbol as if it were a mathematical variable, something is lost of the original, lost in translation.
Cool. So you see language itself as a means of communicating ideas?
Quoting mcdoodle
I respect that this perspective is meaningful to you, but it just isn't particularly to me.
I do believe language is sometimes rule-based and game-like, but I just don't see that becoming a general rule.
Quoting mcdoodle
That's because no one in my spoken language community ever uses "language game." I'm only familiar with it from seeing it written.
We want truth to show up here somewhere, right?
Truth is one of the rules of some of the games. It's the main rule of "Confession", and an important rule of "Philosophy", "History", and even "Biography". It's not a rule of "Story-telling" or "Poetry". Thus one does not ask if the ring of power was really destroyed in Mt Doom, or in what way my love is like a red red rose.
My understanding is that to talk of different language games is simply to say that we do different things with words, and the rules vary according to what we are doing.
Is not metaphorical truth another rule?
This is why I appreciate sime's take: philosophy is one area of life in which the flexibility of language can become a pain in the ass. So as to avoid a constant "No, that's not what I meant.." an attempt might be made to nail down certain words to certain meanings.
Another area is technical writing where ambiguity could get someone killed. In these cases, there is nothing game-like about language use. I don't advise in a manual that the power switch be left off and then work through some drama with the reader where the reader comes to understand through social conditioning what I mean. That's ridiculous. When I say "power switch" I mean power switch. There is no inscrutability of reference here. See what I mean?
One might say, "there is nothing game-like about Russian roulette, someone could get killed," but that would be to misunderstand how the term 'game' is being used. Dicing with death is still dicing, and dice is a game. So technical writing is a particular language game where the rule is that everything must be nailed down, and inscrutability is forbidden.
Quoting jkop
Sure it is. But what is metaphorical truth? Since we are playing philosophy, one needs a little clarity here and I think a more clear way of expressing the rule I think you are referring to is that metaphors must be 'apt'. rather than 'true'. Language is a bit like a deck of cards, lots of different games with different rules but using the same deck, from fortune telling, to building structures, from magic tricks, to poker, and so on.
If language games means that language is not a tool for communicating ideas, then it's wrong. If it simply means that there are a variety of social settings where language is used and each of these settings has distinct rules.. yes, of course. That's pretty obvious.
If at some point I failed to point out that I was expressing my limited understanding.. sorry. I've seen you on multiple occasions, specifically in regard to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, talk out of your butt. I assume you were doing the same thing... working through the concepts without having understood the text (if you did read it).
This thread is on a little nothing website in the middle of Nowhere, Internet. If it ain't impressive, I'm not concerned. I may have learned something about how people take Wittgenstein through this thread, though.
Can't say I learned a damn thing from you, though. :P If you'd like to change that.. tell me if you think "language game" should be considered a pawn in a language game.
Quoting Mongrel
One simplistic approach is to take the concept of language-games as the natural successor to Frege's context principle. If that sounds like the sort of thing that would interest you, then you should read the Investigations someday when you've got the time.
I don't think it should be quite this easy. Your second paragraph is obviously true, but I don't think it buys us what you say in the first paragraph. Easy to imagine a rule that says you must "tell the truth," but can there even be a rule that what you say must be true? I think you still need an account of truth, or an argument for why you don't need one, and I don't think the bare concept of "language-games" gets you there without more work.
The reason I asked why you thought I should read it is that I thought you were saying it's REALLY worth the read. It appears you're just saying I should try harder to look smart.
Fuck that.
I do think the Investigations is worth a read. If you're finding 'language games' not that distinct from 'propositional meaning' then something is getting lost. At one point Witt wanted the P I and the Tractatus published together so the relationship between the two would be plainer. I think part of that is that 'The world is everything that is the case' leads to what he saw as the farthest reaches of propositional meaning, and that two to three decades later 'language games', 'form of life' and the looser ideas he later had were understandings that the exchange of propositional meanings is just one 'form of life', appropriate to those doing the exchange in their mutual ambit.
The approach you're taking is one many analytics have held on to, but I confess I find it difficult to understand why they do after Wittgenstein. It seems to say that a certain sort of talk, what Robert Brandom calls (at great length and density) the giving and receiving of reasons, is what all talk is about. It's not how they talk on my local bus, for instance. A philosophy of language has to cope with the talk on my local bus if I'm going to ride with it, as it were.
The stuff Streetlight is mentioning revolves around para 241:
[quote=Witt, P I"]"So you are saying that human agreement decides what is false and what is true?" -- It is what human beings say that is false and true; and they agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in opinions but in form of life.[/quote]
I don't know of any analytic philosophers who would claim that all language is propositional. When I think of things analytical types might be holding to, it's Quine and behaviorism (which excludes any consideration of propositions). Propositions are making a come-back lately. It's definitely not some bulwark of analytical philosophy. The come-back is based on recognizing what we give up when we deny propositional meaning... essentially agreement.
My thoughts about language games were based just purely on the passages of Witt that I have read. It sounded a lot like behaviorism. I realize now I was wrong about that.
Anyways... I appreciate the discussion. :)
I think you're going to have to come up with something a little more creative to do with your bishop to win this game. Everybody on this thread disagrees with you. (Except me.. I have no clue.)
Better:"Language game" shows that speech or writing has meaning in the context of human interaction.
Better still:"Language game" has meaning in the context of human interaction.
Even better:Language games are human interactions.
Removing the notion of reference dissipates the question in the OP.
Quoting Mongrel
Reference is not important; or better, all there is to reference is the use of a word or phrase in a speech act.
The question in the OP assumes a referential theory of meaning that the Investigations rejected before language games were intorduced.
Witt discarded ostensive definition as a thorough-going explanation for anything because he recognized (in line with what Chomsky would eventually say) that there's just way too much language that a person would already have to understand in order to learn anything ostensively.
If you disagree with Witt and Chomsky on this, could you say how you would address their grievances?
How does truth fit into this? Are there no longer sentences with truth values that depend on states of affairs?
If I state, "The Milky Way Galaxy has exactly 12,532 stars.", is that sentence not true or false depending on how many stars there are in our galaxy?
(The actual number being in the hundred billions)
I think it's true that "language game" as used by W signifies that language has meaning in the context of human interaction. Your upgrades to my sentence changed its meaning. You changed it into an assertion of your version of Witt's thesis. And yet doing that does not at all "dissipate" my question.
Quoting Banno
There are situations where reference is not important. Few humans who have ever lived would say that reference always is unimportant. All there is to reference is the use of a word?
cabunctious
Nope.
[quote=Banno]The question in the OP assumes a referential theory of meaning that the Investigations rejected before language games were intorduced.[/quote]
I think I can say that's a bald assertion since I wrote the OP. It's simply asking if "language game" should be thought of as a pawn in a language game.
At least they ought to be apt, but some metaphors are less apt than others. I think they can be metaphorically false even.
For example, a rose is thorny, beautiful and fragile, and so is love; hence a rose seems apt as a metaphor for love, or at least a certain kind of love. But other kinds of love are neither thorny nor fragile, but smooth, big, strong, or burning, in which case solid rocks, burning flames, or fire might be more apt as metaphors.
This reassignment of words relative to what the metaphor refers to is, I think, ultimately set by the features of the kind of love that one refers to. In this way the reassignment of words can be more or less apt, or metaphorically false. For example, it might be metaphorically false, or at least misleading, to use a thorny, fragile, old-fashioned rose as the means to refer to a burning modern love.
Then it falls to you to show what the more is, beyond mere use.
So the interaction is what makes statements about slabs, apples and stars true?
Is there a step missing in that?
Certainly the first part seems sensible, but the second part doesn't follow from the first if human understanding of the Ostension Game is innate, rather than learned. Did Witt argue that it was not innate?
BTW, I agree that not all words refer. IMHO some do and some don't. I don't think either of the words in Charlie Brown's 'Good Grief' refers.
Unless not all words have meaning...
Which way would you go?
When I'm reading something about ancient Sumeria, I lean toward meaning holism. Political stuff..I think postmodern. When I say "Don't touch the tail pipe", it seems to me that "tail pipe" has a very distinct reference. Why shouldn't I?
You should; that would be using words well.
Indeed, the right answer. Now, notice that this is different to saying that words refer?
Consider, if you like, what the word "peter" refers to.
Quoting Mongrel
Depends on the use. Peter and I had a quiet chat about the other Peter.
I came across an interpretation of Witt that says language games are instrumental in creating the structures that allow innate linguistic ability to manifest as speech and writing.
It would surprise me if we did not mostly agree.
We get the opposite here & there-- there's the bit about how philosophers take words out of the language-game where they have their usual home, I think there's one about an engine spinning without being connected to anything, the bit about language on holiday. When he talks of philosophy and language-games in the same breath it's usually to suggest philosophers have been breaking the rules.
People do somehow come away with the impression that he says all language use is part of some language-game, but does he?
Early to late, there's that concern with being misled by the surface forms of language, and thus philosophers (who else?) can end up doing something we might as well call "misusing" language. It seems like a whole different deal from language-games. Almost a perversion of the idea of a language-game.
(I'll say this too: I think at some point he stopped being puzzled by how language works--of course it works!--and saw the real puzzle as how it could possibly go wrong. I'm not sure he really figures that out...I could be way off though.)
I'm probably forgetting something--maybe someone else can chime in.
So perhaps that's the problem with trying to make language games into a theory of meaning. It only addresses the active language user. Sometimes we're passive... doing nothing except being.
I don't think Witt was trying to make it into a full blown theory though. Do you?
To clarify: I think the answer to your original question is actually "no": LW's talk of language-games is not part of a language-game. In fact, I don't think he attached any particular importance to the really general remarks people try to cobble into a theory (language-games, forms of life, etc.). Those are just hints, analogies, pictures, all obiter dicta. The important bit -- to him -- is showing case-by-case what philosophers have ignored, overlooked, misused, perverted, misunderstood about the words they use.
There's a recent-ish paper by PMS Hacker in which he argues that the language-game approach is anthropology, ethnology - it's trying to understand what on earth we're doing in following rules of some kind or other to communicate in some kind of way.
(He argues that any approach based on truth conditions is dead and should be put to sleep, he calls it the 'calculus' approach)
You mentioned Chomsky earlier but surely Chomsky still believes there is, as it were, a Book Of Rules written into us. Witt is much more agnostic than that, in the ways Srap describes.
Don't really know what Witt thought. Soames says he may have been thinking of instinctive ability or potential manifest by social conditioning... something like that.
Presumably because when we play games or talk about games we aren't attempting to build an ideal epistemological foundation. Which suggests to me that "language games" shouldn't be confusing as a vague term for anthropological activity within ordinary language philosophy. Rather, it is a tool too blunt for a different job one had in mind.
Quoting Banno
I received many hellos from my co-workers when arriving at work this morning. "Hello" refers to something here. It refers to the act of greeting. So, "Hello" is also a noun that refers to itself - the act of greeting someone.
Would you consider, "Hello" informative? Are you informed of something when someone says, "Hello"? If you are, then what is it that you are informed of? What does it refer to?
When saying, "Hello" to someone, the listener understands your intent to greet, so "Hello" refers to your intent as it caused you to say "Hello". Meaning is related to causation.
It is a fact is that we can misinterpret the meaning of words when spoken or written by someone. This is because we are misinterpreting their intent, not some context the words are spoken or written in. After all, the speaker can get the context wrong too, or may not be a native English speaker. It is what they mean, or intend, that matters. Some are simply better at communicating their intent than others.
A reference to an act of greeting has an entirely different structure. Something like: "Paul greeted Harry on his way into work this morning." "Hello" does not refer to a greeting, it is a greeting.
Nor will intent do; referring to an intent would be: "Paul intended to greet Harry on his way into work this morning." But that is not what "hello" does.