50th year since Ludwig Wittgenstein’s death
Perhaps a general discussion of his place in philosophy would be appropriate.
Here's a starter.
Wittgenstein’s Significance
Two key points, according to the article.
1. The rejection of the view of language as names and relations, in favour of language as use
2. The rejection of the private mind, hidden from public view.
A pertinent quote:
The majority of posts in this forum give ample examples.
Here's a starter.
Wittgenstein’s Significance
Two key points, according to the article.
1. The rejection of the view of language as names and relations, in favour of language as use
2. The rejection of the private mind, hidden from public view.
A pertinent quote:
Wittgenstein thought that human beings have an irresistible urge to philosophise but when we give in to this urge we often lose sight of the nature of familiar concepts and so fall into error and confusion.
The majority of posts in this forum give ample examples.
Comments (170)
Are Witgensteinian language games essentially about ambiguity? A language game x uses a word in one way but another language game y uses it differently. Since the use is different the meanings are different.
Perhaps my take on Wittgenstein is the children's version of an idea that was written for mature adults. Whatever the case I have the gnawing suspicion that ambiguity has a role in language games.
Rejection of private language. Not clear if he thought there was a mind.
No. There are only different uses.
I fear so, yes. Most of us are content--even glad--to remain in the fly-bottle.
One area of criticism is that there is a limit to language in terms of metaphysics. He still held onto this idea in his later philosophy. I think this is and was a mistake.
Please explain what you mean, thanks.
We can argue back and forth all day about whether or not he's correct in his view of traditional philosophy. But the proof, I think, is in the pudding. 69 years later and the philosophers continue to philosophize. If philosophy is an illness, it appears to be terminal, for all of Ludwig's well-intentioned mental oncology.
I don't read him like that. I never thought he was commanding people what they're allowed to do.
Certainly not commanding, but if he was able to do what he said he wanted to do, then you would no longer want to do philosophy after reading him.
I never got that from him. Care to explain?
Well, the cure is one that must be self-administered. Many are loathe to be cured. They're like anti-vaxxers in that respect.
The key idea in the later Wittgenstein is that our language is all right as it is; we do not need an ideal language. Careful attention to real world language will dissolve (not solve) philosophical problems; the fly will be out of the fly bottle and we will see the world rightly. PROBLEM: Deep controversy is already present in discourse before the philosopher arrives on the scene. Religion makes metaphysiical claims, and political discourse involves contested concepts, such as 'person' and 'marriage,'
Okay. Are you saying this is a problem for Wittgenstein? How?
Quite so. Wittgenstein is completely correct that there are no philosophical problems.
But if everybody is just gonna ignore him, then it doesn't help to say that. And in that respect, his therapeutic project has failed.
I really don't know why you keep saying that. Wittgenstein is not King of Philosophy.
So the shop keeper example from PI, the builder calling "slab", and so on. Nothing too formidible. The point was to draw attention to the way we use language as part of our every day activities.
The sheer joy of proving that I am the only observer in the world, for example. Or that everything had a beginign, or that it didn't. That you can't get something for nothing, or that you can. Or even that emotions are concepts.
Interesting. I see him as advocating silence on metaphysical issues, and as this as one of his views that did not change over the course of his life.
That's like saying medicine's therapeutic project failed because there are still sick people.
The problems are there before the philosopher arrives on the scene, sure. The role of philosophy is to sort through conceptual confusion in order to show how the problems arise; to show the fly the way out of the trap. So as a quick example, because we see causality every day, some say everything has a cause; and off they go looking for a first cause or an infinite regress. They take an every day use and misapply it.
So I disagree; every day language is not, for Wittgenstein, alright - that view would be better attributed to Austin.
My cynical side uses this to explain why he is not popular amongst professional philosophers. They do not wish to do themselves out of a comfortable career.
I think this is a tad uncharitable. Wittgenstein wants to cure a specific illness. The vaccination campaign against smallpox succeeded and there's no more smallpox.
Perhaps we could say that Wittgenstein's project is ongoing, in that it has to dissolve problems as they arise, and problems will always keep arising. But only a minority of professional philosophers are on board with this project, and it looks as if it will stay that way. I think you're right about the reason why.
I think that, assuming we agree on what Wittgenstein's therapeutic project is, it's helpful to ask what motivates it. Does it just see professional philosophy as a waste of time for a lot of really smart people? Is the point just to make the intelligentsia more productive? That seems wrong. It ought to be something more significant than that.
Didn't Wittgenstein himself remind us how little has been achieved when all the problems of philosophy have been (dis)solved?
I think he believed metaphysics was incoherent.
He's the most important philosopher of the 20th Century.
Most important? I don't know about that. One of them. 20th century had dozens of important philosophers. I think Werner Heisenberg was more important than Wittgenstein. But Wittgenstein was definitely the most important in the Anglo-American analytic tradition.
Heisenberg would not call himself a philosopher. Most know him as a physicist.
And? Science was a form of natural philosophy. Newton called himself a philosopher, so did Galileo. Words are arbitrary descriptions.
They call Wittgenstein a philosopher, but he essentially rejected all of the classical issues philosophy deals with.
No. Words don't become what you want them to. That is solipsism.
Actually, they do. Calling a word "word" as opposed to "logoi" or "kalam" or "mot" or "slova" is arbitrary. Totally and completely. God didn't make English. It's just a sociological reality.
We are using English. You did not invent that language.
Humans invented English. Based on nothing.
Wittgenstein never said language use was arbitrary. Words have meaning within any 'game.'
That's basically the same thing as being arbitrary. I can play a language game where a word means something you eat on a hot sunny day, or I can play a language game where that word means something obscene and vulgar. That basically is no different than arbitrary.
Absolutely not. Chess is a game. You cannot move the king like a queen. Not arbitrary.
Within the logic of that game, you cannot. But you can change the game's logic. The game's logic is arbitrary. There's no law of nature that says chess needs to be played in a specific way. It's arbitrary.
You can play a hack of Pokemon, or use cheat codes, play online, glitch it to hell and back. Arbitrary.
No, chess is universal and has the same rules. You can play fantasy chess but both players have to agree on the rules.
Chess is universal? lol Ok dude. Good luck convincing aliens that chess is universal. Forget aliens, how about other humans on remote islands?
you can cheat at chess, yes
What aliens?
Like, any of them. Because any possible alien will not play chess "universally" like we do. That's silly. There's no planet in the ether where some alien overlord castigates his subjects for moving the pieces from white boxes to black ones. It's preposterous.
Never heard about any aliens.
You're totally missing the point. You made a statement about chess' "universality" which is a metaphysical statement about how chess always is and always will be. I'm saying that you're really confusing or not understanding, what you're saying. Chess isn't "universally" played in any way. It's played in this way at the current time, as far as we know. It's not universal. And that makes it arbitrary, by definition. I don't understand how this is so hard to understand. But so far every point I've made goes over people's heads, so maybe it's my fault for wasting my time.
I do not think you understand what Wittgenstein meant by language game. If you think he meant they are arbitrary then you know nothing about Wittgenstein. I tried to be nice, but clearly you are ignorant.
Wittgenstein believed two different things at two different times. So, even he didn't understand anything about Wittgenstein. But that doesn't matter. I'm not debating how Wittgenstein understood anything. I'm pointing out how it actually is.
I know Wittgenstein believed that within the rules of the game, as long as you followed those rules, then things had meaning and truth. But I'm saying those rules are total nonsense. So I know what he said, I'm not saying what he said. I'm saying what I'm saying.
Okay? So if you're missing a King piece and you decide to use a pawn instead, it's not chess anymore? You're really arguing for a Platonic form of chess right now? You can't be serious.
Chess is not utter nonsense. I think you really don't know shit about Wittgenstein.
I mean, I read him. And I've made it pretty clear I don't agree with Wittgenstein. So I don't see why you keep saying I don't know anything about him. I'm not him, I'm not pretending to be him, I never claimed to be him.
Players agree on what the piece is--but only in friendly games. i don't believe you could do that in a tournament.
Don't agree with him on what? He never claimed a language game is arbitray.
Right. But what about a tournament held 4000 years in the future? Do you really think it would play out the same way it does today? Is online chess, still chess? There's no pieces involved. Just clicks on a screen. What about mental chess? Totally in the mind. This isn't objective. There's nothing objective behind this.
You're right. I DID. I keep saying that. Jacques Derrida makes the argument that all language is arbitrary. There are no words that self-define themselves. All words are defined by other words, defined by other words, defined by other words, defined by other words ad infinitum. Ergo, all words are arbitrary. There are no words that are self-defined. There is no outside text.
I do not think Derrida argued that language is arbitrary.
Then, maybe your problem is the word "arbitrary" and not actually the argument I'm making. Do you know what it means to be ad hoc? Or arbitrary? Do you know what that means?
7.8/10 philosophy stars, would recommend. Goes well with a pinch of salt to taper off the harder edges.
That's a bit to quick. He did think that there was not much of import that could be said about metaphysics, but he did think it of the utmost import. Hence, what could not be said must be show.
Juvenile. Learn some manners.
Just curious if you could name 15 more important philosophers than Wittgenstein in the 20th C.
Actually, in the P.I. he does say metaphysics is incoherent. you don't have to agree with him.
Oh please. I'm absolutely convinced you don't know what that word means, and you're just upset because I used the wrong word.
Literally what Derrida pointed out about language is basically the definition of arbitrariness. But, because you don't like the word arbitrary you're being picky.
Yes but my God imagine wasting that kind of time lol.
Yes, lol. Deep insight.
What are you actually saying? 15 philosophers that are more important? Or 15 more than Wittgenstein?
I can't do the former, because there aren't all that many. There are a few, but not 15. The latter, I could easily do because the 20th century was the most important century in the intellectual history as of yet.
Dude was pretty good. Coulda used a dose of metaphysics to make him better. Shame about the Tractatus. Terrible little pamphlet.
You are to be avoided, troll. Sad you do this on a philosophy website.
Not going to look it up, No offense.
But his point was that metaphysics tries to talk about the totality of reality. that is the problem
My professor in University, one of my favorite professors, was a Wittgensteinian. I definitely see merit to his view, but I prefer Plato, Kant and Rorty (three very different philosophers) to Wittgenstein. I tried to make it obvious that I did so, but it always came back to Wittgenstein.
Yes. That's how I view philosophy also. I am not tied to any particular view, as long as it makes sense logically.
I looked it up; took me two minutes.
There are two mentions of metaphysics in PI. §58, where metaphysical misuses of "red" are discussed; and §116, where he talks about philosophers bringing a word back from its metaphysical use to its everyday use.
So, where does that leave your pronouncement?
What I want know is what Wittgenstein meant by "meaning is use"? If we were to accept Wittgenstein's position, meaning of words would be of two kinds:
1. The traditional meaning of words as the objects to which words refers to
2. Wittgenensteinian meaning as determined by how words are used.
The way I see it, type 1 meaning is not wrong per se; after all it doesn't seem possible to doubt that words denote
Makes sense?! :chin: :confused:
It's easier to understand "meaning is use" by treating it as a philosophical method. When a question of meaning arrises, look at it instead as a question of use.
Yes, we do use words to talk about things. But not all words. The inclination to be avoided is to always look for what the word refers to... Wittgenstein teaches us to break this habit. The notion that "red" refers to something leads to a metaphysics of perceptions, tying one's thinking in knots of phenomenology. The notion that "idea", "concept' and "perception" refer to things leads to the search for what they refer to - and all sorts of odd reification.
So it's not "the meaning of the word is it's use"; it's "forget about meaning, and instead look at how the word is being used".
[quote=wikipedia] Wittgenstein also gives the example of "Water!", which can be used as an exclamation, an order, a request, or as an answer to a question. The meaning of the word depends on the language-game within which it is being used. Another way Wittgenstein puts the point is that the word "water" has no meaning apart from its use within a language-game.[/quote]
Wittgensteinian meaning is an act of referring no?
Sadly, they think that is a ridiculously narrow approach.
Quoting Sam26
I wish people would stop accepting this notion (usually justified with a nod towards PI) of "move along now, nothing to see". How to understand how words and pictures point at things (even pixels) might be the important question. The fact that using our pointing skills to answer it invariably results in pointing-havoc is an excuse to retreat and regroup, or even to give up in the medium term and ask different questions, but not to teach that the question is trivial or narrow.
Quoting Banno
Not if "something" means "one or more red things", no, it needn't.
Yes, my interpretation happens to be a subset of a much broader Wittgensteinian world.
If you mean you are more interested in reference than Wittgensteinians think is cool, then hooray.
Pretty much, no.
But that's not to say that some words do not refer...
Quoting bongo fury
Give us an example of a word being used without a referent?
Is this right? Not that there is no definition but despite that our ability to use words accurately enough :chin:
There are of course plenty of examples in most sentences. That doesn't mean reference isn't the main game.
:rofl: with the sole purpose of causing mental mayhem for people like me
I am correct. you are wrong. look, if you guys want personal attacks I can dish them out too. Okay, tough guy?
I would not read Wiki to learn about Wittgenstein.
Please cite the text of Wittgenstein where he says that. Thanks.
To be fair, "example", "word", "used" and "referent" also want scratching, here.
I take your point that examples abound.
I prefer Austin, myself. I think him easier to understand, possibly because he took the trouble to write what he thought, something the later Wittgenstein avoided, and so we have the work of his students/interpreters. But judging from the Tractatus, perhaps that was a good thing. All those proclamations relentlessly marching down the pages.
The Philosophical Investigations is his own text.
I think Heidegger wrote something about being able to encounter The Nothing only when suspended in red. Or was it something else?
Perhaps we must be suspended in something in order to encounter The Red.
Damnation. I must be thinking of The Blue and Brown Books, then.
Wittgenstein was attacking platonism. We have a red patch which is called "red." Problem solved.
Dude, asking for the source is not making a personal attack. You said Wittgenstein in the PI said metaphysics is incoherent. That's at odds with my reading of him, so I asked you to back up your claim. I pointed out that the only two references to metaphysics in the PI do not back up your claim.
Now I did say that you were unimpressive. That's an analysis, based on the facts, and for which you have just provided further evidence.
So far as I'm concerned your claim is wrong and that's an end to it until you provide some suport.
You won't be the first person to have misunderstood Wittgenstein.
PI. §58,
I guess it's clear enough, if one compares it to other Germanic philosophers.
But Austin - luscious writing. Full of Oxford pretence.
Early on, Wittgenstein encourages us not to think about, but to look at, how words are used. This is for me his main attack on the referential theory of meaning. We (philosophers, and the general populace also) are in the thrall of a theory of language that quickly dissipates as one looks at how folk actually do use words.
Take a couple of casual conversations you participate in today and note how little of it is about stating facts.
Yet for some reason philosophers take statements as the prime example of language.
I don't know what the definition of "shrub" is. If pushed I would say something like "small and tree-shaped". I don't need an exact definition in order to ask were they are located at the plant shop.
The definition of "red" has taken endless pages in forums such as this, with very limited agreement. But that does not stop us buying red shirts.
This change in perspective is one of the reasons philosophers have to be grateful to Wittgenstein.
Okay, dude.
No, I meant, make your argument about the specific text. Are you new to philosophy?
True, ordinary language embodies a lot of history, all of humanity's history actually. But if you link logic to language as Wittgenstein does, then this means that you can examine, by studying language, the logic that people used in various historical periods. Which would make linguists the authorities in logic, and in philosophy as well.
What should I read for Wittgenstein?
Philosophical Investigations. Also, a great reference for philosophy is the SEP, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/
https://thephilosophyforum.com/profile/discussions/341/sam26
Just want to run this by you...
To begin with, I concede to the claim that referential meaning forms only a [small] part of word usage. Take Wittgenstein's example "water": it could refer to, as we usually assume, H2O but, it could aslo be, among many things, a command to fetch water, an urgent warning that the water is laced with poison, an expression of fear of drowning, a question, and so on. A person's intent determines the meaning of a word in a given conversation and that intent is conveyed in the way the word is used - whispered "water" will have a different meaning from a screamed "water".
However, that words can carry different meanings depending on how we use it doesn't imply that referents don't exist, does it? For instance, continuing with Wittgenstein's water example, "water", first and foremost, refers to H2O. Any other use-based meaning is just added on to this meaning of water. Likewise, words used in philosophy too refer to something, that something is the main trunk [of the meaning tree] from which the various use-determined meanings branch out from.
Right. You give a good analysis. The problem I have is using H2O as a universal.
Is the lake and ocean both H2O? Not exactly. The ocean is salty and a lake is not. You can drink lake water but not ocean water.
To the second paragraph, interesting trunk analogue, but I don't buy it. The assumption that all words refer to something just doesn't hold up. But some words refer - or better, are used to refer.
Quoting TheMadFool
A non-chemist does not need to know the chemical composition of water in order to make use of the word. So for them, water does not refer to H?O. We all use the word perfectly well before we learn chemistry. And before the chemistry was developed, folk spoke of water. So it could not be true that the word "water" has it's meaning by referring to H?O...
A further counterpoint to the trunk-and-branch comes from the discussion of the word "game". Are you familiar with it? If so, here's a game for you: for every definition of "game" that someone offers, think of a new game that does not fit that definition.
The rope analogy from PI is perhaps closer; think of the meaning of a word like a rope. Each thread forms a part of the rope, but no thread runs through the whole thing. "H?O" is part of the meaning of water, but not the whole of it.
And then there are family resemblances. Each person shares some characteristics with others in their family, but no set of characteristics is common to them all. Yet they do form a unity.
But you seem to be getting the gist.
Logic is just grammar. Linguists describe grammar, they don't proscribe it.
Logicians proscribe.
Now here's an example of speakers - or in this case writer's - intent against meaning. My intent was to crystallise my thinking of Wittgenstein by helping write a coherent article, with a critical audience to comment - much as we have seen @Sam26 do here. Causing mental mayhem might well be a happy consequence, but it was not part of my intent...
Anyway, Sam should work on the Wiki articles.
And further, even if it were the main game we might well chose to make it not the main game...
EDIT: Although of course it exists as an encyclopedia of Witticisms and not Wittgensteinsms :(
To be even fairer, scratch "give", too. Admittedly, how (if) relation-words like verbs refer is where things get tricky, and potentially mixed up in how (if) sentences refer, or correspond or picture or what have you.
Tricky isn't always interesting or worthwhile, so,
Quoting Banno
Sure,
Quoting bongo fury
Btw, I can be (happily) "in thrall" to reference while at the same time not so obliged to sentences.
None of those words - the ones you pointed out - have referents either though.
Oh, ok.
I would like to thank the trio for their replies.
My use of H2O as the meaning of "water" was to convey the fact that "water" does have a referent that most, if not all, immediately pounce upon - let's call it the primary meaning. This primary meaning then serves as an anchor for all other Wittgensteinian use-based meanings in the sense that all uses of the word "water" must have something in common with the primary meaning. I vaguely recall the rope analogy that seems to contradict what I just said and so Iet's take a closer look at Wittgenstein's rope and family resemblance and use his example of the word "game".
Imagine for the moment that we're the people who invented the first game, let's call it x, and the first to define the word "game". We list the essential features of game x, in the process defining the word "game", as:
1. Two or more sides are required
2. It should be fun and exciting
Later on, a person notices that war has sides and so decides wars are games. A second person feels that biology is fun and exciting and infers therefrom that biology is a game.
As you can see, the family resemblance between us, who defined "game", and the first person is in characteristic 1 but not 2 and the family resemblance between us and the second person is in characteristic 2 and not 1. The rope analogy holds as there is no set of definitional characteristics that is common to all the usages of the word "game" above.
However, we, who defined the word "game", clearly had a referent in mind viz. the game x. The fact that, later on, some people (mis)used the word "game" only in a partial sense - focusing on some essential characteristics of (our) game and ignoring others - doesn't imply that the word "game" didn't have a referent. It clearly did for us, the inventors of the first game.
This state (apparently lacking a referent) of the word "game" then results from not some kind of defect in referential meaning but from a misuse or abuse of the word "game". It's the same story for all other words; after all each word was invented by someone who had a referent in mind when s/he invented the word. Over time, due to sloppy thinking, words have been misapplied (partial instead of full definitions being used) and this has resulted in what Wittgenstein called family resemblance.
The takeaway here is simple. That family resemblance exists in the word universe doesn't imply that words have no referents, that referential meaning is flawed and so forth. What it really does is reveal errors in word usage and the cumulative effect of such errors.
All that said, coming back to the notion of family resemblance and Wittgenstein's rope analogy, it seems logically possible that given a word w and it being applied to, say, 3 things 1, 2, and 3, 1 and 2 has a feature p in common, 2 and 3 has a feature q in common and 1 and 3 has a feature r in common. As is evident, none of the features p, q or r, is common to all 1, 2, and 3 which would mean w lacks a stable, clear-cut intension, and so can't have a referent.
However, I feel that Wittgentstein's word family resemblance doesn't occur all at once by which I mean, using the word w example from above, it isn't possible for all members of the family, 1, 2 and 3 in this case, to become true of the word w at the same time for that would imply p, q, r constitute the intension of the word w and this would imply a referent, even if only imaginary [an imaginary referent? Wittgenstein? :chin: ]. This is exactly what Wittgenstein claimed is not true. Yet, if that's the case then the family resemblance must've begun with a feature, say p (1 & 2) and then expanded on from there which loops back to what I said in the beginning- it boils down to word misuse, employing definitions partially one after another until we're left with a mish-mash of pseudo-referents that obscure the true referent of a word but in no way implies that referential meaning is flawed.
Please forgive my disorganized post; I was simply letting my thoughts flow uninterrupted.
Would like to hear your comments on this.
I am not talking about any proscriptions. Take for example the "infinitive".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitive
When did it appear, when did it fall out of favour, and why, etc? Does its use have anything to do with the logic of the world?
No, I am.
'cause that's what I would say.
I'm not deliberately trying to defend anything. Let's just say I'm investigating...
:ok:
I see that you then got (and seemed all too willing to get) sidetracked, into questions of definition, or fixity or primacy or essence.
Wittgenstein is here among us! In this forum and many other like this one, for sure but...not because meaning is use but because so many words are being misused.
I think Wittgenstein's argument is not that words have no referents but that our understanding is not a function of their references.
The problem is not that words are misused but that words don't have essential meanings..
Which is another way of saying meaning (of words) is not in reference but elsewhere and that elsewhere for Wittgenstein is use but, my suspicion is that words are being misused and since Wittgenstein's theory (of language games) is predicated on words being used well, it follows that his theory needs some adjustment to say the least.
If you say something and I understand it then you have used words properly.
We may (mis)understand.
Yes. But that is not a problem of language.
Cool! :cool: So what do you proscribe then?
But once you lay them down, you can describe. It's just that natural languages already have a layer that has been 'laid down' in a less conscious way, so the move to description is more obvious.
One thing I love about the fusion of ideal-language and ordinary-language philosophy surrounding Wittgenstein's time and others' is this realization that one can speak many languages, and that one can even make new languages to speak. It is very freeing.
The only bit I found difficult was:
Quoting Pussycat
My predilections and prejudices pull me overwhelmingly towards coherence as a foundation to language. So I bristle at anything that might even slightly undermine that. Even though Pussycat isn't suggesting the acceptability of incoherence, I'm proceeding with exuberant caution...
It's the last step, that a definition is extensible, that @TheMadFool was missing in his now-defunct thread. The same extensibility noted by @Snakes Alive.
Wittgenstein never openly came to terms with Gödel, let alone Turing. But there seems to me to be a thread here that is common, in the form of a preference for coherence even if that leads to incompleteness.
It's all too common for folk to over-state the case presented by Gödel, so I'll just note the curious parallel that family resemblance is incomplete in a way perhaps analogous to the incompleteness theorem.
All that to say, we can never present a final analysis of language.
Indeed. If I understand you correctly, language is a "alive" and in "motion", evolving over time and this clearly would have an impact on definitions - in your words, they (definitions) would be "extensible", incorporating new features, skipping over some old ones, and so on. The net effect would be that a single word would have multiple meanings that resemble each other but are not identical to each other - Wittgenstein's family resemblance. The evolution of language, specifically with respect to definitions as described above, probably comes about because ordinary people are more flexible when using words than philosophers and logicians - it's not at all surprising, therefore, that Wittgenstein's family resemblance is a phenomenon.
I mentioned earlier that ordinary people - a main source of philosophically relevant words (?) - tend to misuse words and hence family resemblance but it doesn't seem completely accurate to characterize it as such; after all different uses of a word in re language games evince some overlap in meaning. Perhaps the proper way to describe it is: ordinary people are more flexible in the way they engage language.
The annoying thing, without which no threat of paradox, and everything were merely (in the current idiom) "a spectrum", is that clear enough examples of non-game are plentiful enough. (Relative to a discourse or language game, as rightly noted by @StreetlightX.)
With clear enough counter-examples, we continually imply a line, however fuzzy, even though we should admit in those cases that we are some distance from it.
Trying to approach closer to it little by little is what creates the heap paradox. Trying to define it by a formula (apart from technical contexts) is what W rightly criticizes. But acknowledging it (implicitly, behaviourally) from a distance is, I would argue, an important aspect of any game of using "game " (or other noun or adjective): an aspect which, I dare to suggest that W would agree, "never troubled you before when you used the word"(ibid), but is characteristic of that trouble-free usage.
I don't understand what you mean by 'coherence' as that is applied to language. But anyway, what I am saying is this: it seems to me that Wittgenstein in the Tractatus is making the correlation between language and logic, as if they were interchangeable; the limits of logic are the limits of language, and vice-versa, or maybe language delimits logic, and vice-versa, they are one and the same, let's say they are different modes of something yet unnamed. And so, an analysis or critique of language is also an analysis and critique of logic, and the opposite. Furthermore,
Therefore if you want to discover what "logic people used in various historical periods", all you have to do is look at their language in that period, their world would have been limited by their employed language, mirrored by it. Which is why I said that linguists are in fact logicians, although I didn't have your average-linguist in mind when saying that, but an augmented one, the one that would trace every word, its meaning and use, back to its roots, and examine closely its evolution, why it meant what it meant then, and why did it change, under what circumstances and conditions. In all, a history of language is a history of logic.
It's a family affair. There's coherence within the family. God only knows what kind of glue coheres the family. It's definitely not anything logical. So I think you're looking in the wrong direction, thinking you can determine something logical by looking at a particular group of people's use of language.
Actually, I mean lack of contradiction.
Phhhht. A term invented by people who don't like being told about their prejudices.
The coherence is not logical?? What then? The relations between members of the family, are they internal or external?
According to Wittgenstein, "propositions show the logical form of reality", this is what I'm looking at here, whether it is so.
Regardless who or what they are, I just wanted to say that one way of imposing your worldview, would be via language, a most effective method, the reason for its effectiveness most likely being that language mirrors logic. This happens all the time in history, words are given new and different meaning, with the previous one completely shunned.
According to Wittgenstein in Philosophical investigations, a word has a family of meanings. Think of your family, the relations are external to any family member, but internal to the family as a whole. But what comprises the "whole" of your family? At some point, you need to apply some boundaries to produce that unit. But are these boundaries more than just arbitrary? The boundaries are applied for a particular purpose. When you apply the boundaries to create the unit, then the relations outside of this unit become external to that whole.
Quoting Pussycat
Propositions are only a very small part of language use. Most language use is not a matter of making propositions. That the limits of logic are the limits of language, and that logic shows the form of reality, is the mistake which Wittgenstein made in the Tractatus, which he tried to rectify in PI.
When a word is assigned a definition in a proposition, for the purpose of a logical procedure, that definition doesn't necessarily encompass the full extent of the normal usage of that word. Because of this, the thing referred to in the proposition, by that word, may not be the same as the thing referred to by that word in common usage. This could introduce mistake into the logical process. Therefore there is a mistake in the assumption that "propositions show the logical form of reality".
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Why did you translate "propositions show the logical form of reality" into "logic shows the form of reality", it's not the same. But anyway, I doubt that later Wittgenstein changed his views on what Logic is than the tractarian one.
It's not that he changed his views on what Logic is, it's that he changed his views on reality, recognizing that there is no such thing as the logical form of reality.
Perhaps, but it would be interesting to examine this, I think, by comparing the Tractatus to the PI on this particular issue. Regretfully, I don't have enough time at the moment for a proper discussion. Anyway, I find these excerpts from the PI pertinent:
I think that Wittgenstein was afraid that if what he calls "formal unity" of language had to be dismissed, in as "there is no general form of proposition", then this would imply some bad things happening to logic as well. Also, if there is no agreement in neither definitions nor judgments, as it so happens, then this would mean that logic would have to be abolished. But it seems to me that he solves this problem by insisting on his tractarian view on logic, that it is transcendental, nothing more but just supplying the conditions for anything to be said. From 242 above, if "measurement" is the result of saying or judging something, then the fact that there is a certain constancy in it, would owe this constancy to logic, irrespective of whether someone agrees to it or not. And so, everything that we say or judge shows this transcendental logic, or Logic - in order to discriminate it from its other variations, when playing a particular language game.
And if the points of view are very far apart, how will that be understood?
From a psychological perspective, the way that forms of life are presented is done with a kind of rigor that is rare. The frame is used more often than the reasoning that brought it into being.
There is no need to abolish logic, only the need to see that it is not perfect or ideal. Notice the analogy with measuring. So long as we get consistency in the results, it serves the purpose. So logic is nothing other than another way of using language, if it serves the purpose, we keep doing it in a similar way, and there is consistency in the results, just like measuring. But there is nothing to indicate the logic being used, (or the system for measuring), provides the perfect or ideal way of doing things.
Has anyone here been fortunate enough to read through this?
:brow:
Is it wrong for me to think that the term "meaning" better fits in the first? I do draw a distinction between language and meaning and I think Witt recognized this as well.
I mean, "language as use" seems to draw a false equivalence between the two, or at least suggests for one to view the former in light of the latter. Do not look for what a word means. Rather, look to how it's being used in all the common situations in which it is. Five red apples. It is in such a context that we can glean knowledge upon meaning. Also...
The tone and volume used by the speaker of a word will show us what it means. "Slab". "SLAB!". "Shut the door." "SHUT THE DOOR!"
So, I think it's safe to say that Witt knew that naming practices do not exhaust all of the ways we sensibly use language. Who ever thought or suggested that language could be properly understood solely in terms of 'names and relations'?
The private language 'argument' is convincing.
Unfortunately Witt also worked from the notion that all belief has propositional content. Hence, he struggled with all his concerted attempts to come to acceptable terms with "hinge propositions", because he was searching for rudimentary belief. He was looking to figure out how to go about determining the most basic of beliefs, the indubitable. He thought that such beliefs(hinge propositions) would somehow lie beyond the rightful applicable scope of justification. He's right about that, but it's only because that such beliefs do not have propositional content. Thus "hinge proposition" starts off on the wrong foot to begin with. As mentioned before, he followed convention on this matter, much to his own harm.
Flies in bottles is the most apt characterization that that guy penned. Shame he found himself in one with "hinge propositions".
If Logic is what makes languages and speech possible (transcendental), then speaking any language would show and reflect it (Logic). This is what I think he meant in the Tractatus by "propositions show the logical form of reality". Coming later to the realization that (most) propositions are form-less (there is no general propositional form) and/or that language does not consist solely in propositions, he saw this as a threat to Logic, that it undermines it somehow, what happens to Logic now, he wondered. For how can you get from something that has no form - propositions - to something that has (form) - Logic? The solution was to abandon "form" altogether: Logic is still being reflected in language, sometimes having form, while other times, huh, not so much; having or not having form has nothing to do with it. The requirement of form (form and content said the german idealists, form and content he repeats in the Tractatus) in Logic and language both, but also in everything else, comes from a very long and deep tradition, this tradition that exalts "ideals" and "perfection", which is a very natural and strong tendency in all of us: the ideal way to think, the ideal way to act, to talk, to write, to make science, to philosophize, to live, to cook, to have sex etc. It seems that young Wittgenstein was caught up, like a fly, in its net, being led to dogmatism, while later he disavowed any connexions to it, the PI was an attempt to shake it off, not an easy thing to do since after two millenia it has spread its roots deep to everything. But anyway, if we would have to restate the tractarian "propositions show the logical form of reality", we could say "language shows Logic".
Logic isn't what makes language possible for Wittgenstein. Perhaps he thought this when he first started to write the Tractatus, but I think he than came to recognize that logic follows from language use, as a particular type of usage. That's why he describes language in the quote you provided, as a family of structures, without formal unity. Logic is only one of the family members, one of the structures of language, there are others which we cannot call "logical".
Of course we can apply the Wittgensteinian principle I quoted above, and say that this is an unwarranted restriction of the definition of "logic", that my usage of "logic" here circumscribes a region which is not the completion of what logic really is, and claim that anything done for a reason is done logically. But then we might find "logic" within all the activities of all living things. This is the route that semiotics takes, following Peirce, and this tends to lead us into panpsychism.
So the question is how do we define "logic". If we allow that the term refers to reasoning which is other than formal logic, then we have to allow that all sorts of reasoning, thinking, and even other activities are "logical". Then we face the problem of invalid conclusions, and unreasonable thinking. Such thinking would still have to be "logical" under this extended definition, but in relation to formal logic the conclusions would be invalid, and illogical. This presents us with the appearance of a contradiction of illogical logic. But it isn't really a contradiction, because it only seems so, due to the two distinct uses of "logic", therefore that apparent contradiction is the result of equivocation. But I think it is clear from what Wittgenstein says In PI, how he defines "following a rule", that he wants to restrict "logic" to conventional forms, thereby denying such private logic (private rule following) as a form of logic.
Quoting Pussycat
Clearly this is not a solution. The fact is that there is such a thing as formal logic. So we cannot abandon "form" altogether, in our description of language, because formality clearly enters into language use and becomes a significant part of it. So we cannot just abandon "form", and pretend that it is not there, and this is not what Wittgenstein suggested. It's more like he suggested that we put "form" in its proper place, and do not attribute to it more than what is due. I would say that he suggested that form is emergent. What you call "a threat to logic" is just the recognition of the limitations of logic, the recognition that logic is not ideal; as an emergent thing, a product of evolution, logic is limited or restricted by something larger than it. This is not a threat to logic, it is just an apprehension and understanding of the reality of what formal logic actually is.
Quoting Pussycat
I think that this is inconsistent with PI. The family relations described cannot be said to be logical under Wittgenstein's terms. He describes a clear division between following a rule, which is the outward expression of behaving as one ought to behave, according to the rule, and the inward (family) relations of meaning which are the constituent features of language. We cannot say that these inner relations are logical because they are not rule-following relations according to Wittgenstein's terminology. Would you agree that "logic" in any sense requires some sort of rule-following?
This is where I do not agree with Wittgenstein. I think that rule-following, clearly must be brought into the internal relations, as is obvious form the observations of personal reflection. To follow a rule is to hold a principle within one's mind, which one adheres to, not to be capable of being judged as following a rule by external observation (as Wittgenstein's terminology). This is because we follow rules in thinking, whether these rules are private or not, and the private ones cannot be observed. So Wittgenstein is mistaken in his description of what it means to follow a rule, and his consequent restriction of "logic" to formal logic is also mistaken, based in this mistaken principle.
This allows for the truth of what you say, that some sort of "logic" (rule-following) is reflected in language in general, which is not necessarily formal. But this opens the can of worms, of where this rule-following activity is derived from. In saying that it underlies language, we disqualify emergence as the source of rule-following and now we are faced with the question of where does it come from. Wittgenstein has disavowed idealism by inserting a false representation of rule-following to support this disavowal. If we remove this false representation, to allow that some type of rule-following (logic) underlies all language use, as you suggest, we are thrust back toward idealism to support this underlying logic. Maintaining the disavowal leads us toward panpsychism.