7 Wittgenstein

1
7Wittgensteins Methodology, the Augustinian
Conception of Language, and Language qua
Institution
2

• People usually distinguish between two
  Wittgensteins
• the first (Tractatus Logioco Philosophicus) and
• the second (Philosophical Investigations)
• The Philosophical Investigations (PI) can be
  understood as a severe criticism of the
  Tractatus.
• Wittgenstein planned to publish them in a single
  volume.

3
Philosophy as a therapy

• Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment
  of our intelligence by means of language. (PI
  109)
• Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight
  against the fascination which forms of expression
  exert on us. (BB 27)

4

• Philosophical problems differ from empirical
  problems.
• Philosophical problems unlike empirical ones are
  solved by looking at the way language works.
• Philosophy is a conceptual analysis.

5

• So, philosophy of language is the fil rouge of
  philosophical analysis qua conceptual
  clarification.
• Hence, both Wittgensteins methodology
  (philosophy qua conceptual analysis) and his
  conception of philosophy differ from the
  methodology and conception endorsed by logical
  positivism, Quine, nowadays cognitive scientists,
  etc.

6

• Philosophers constantly see the method of
  science before their eyes, and are irresistibly
  tempted to ask and to answer questions in the way
  science does. This tendency is the real source of
  metaphysics and leads philosophers into complete
  darkness. (BB 18)

7

• Moral
• The scientific method (in particular the way of
  asking and answering questions in science) are
  misleading and inappropriate when applied to
  question like Whats meaning?, Whats
  thought?, and the like.
• The latter are typical philosophical
  (conceptual) questions which cannot be addressed
  and answered using empirical analysis.

8

• Philosophy is conceived as a therapy enabling us
  to get rid of the philosophical illness we
  inherited.
• Thus, philosophy qua conceptual analysis should
  allow us to reject some of the traditional
  (false) pictures, such as the Augustinian picture
  of language, Cartesian dualism, etc.

9

• Philosophical problems have (often) been induced
  by a misconception on the way language functions.
  
• As such Wittgensteins methodology doesnt aim
  to propose solutions to classical problems.
• It rather proposes a dissolution of the alleged
  problem.

10

• What is your way in philosophy? To shew the
  fly the way out of the fly-bottle. (PI 309)
• These are among the main reasons why the
  Philosophical Investigations do not present
  themselves as an ordinary book but, rather, as a
  collection of thoughts or aphorisms.

11

• Wittgensteins criticism of the Augustinian
  picture of language is a good example of his
  methodology and his view of philosophy qua
  therapy.

12
The Augustinian conception of language

• Why Augustine?
• To stress the universality and force of the
  traditional picture.

13

• The Augustinian picture endorses three main
  thesis
• 1. every word has a meaning
• 2. this meaning is something correlated with
  the word
• 3. the meaning is the object for which the word
  stands.

14

• So, ostensive definitions
• They are the fundamental form of explaining the
  meaning of a word, and, by the way, of learning a
  language.
• Basic picture
• Words are names and sentences are combinations
  of names (cf. Tractatus words name and sentences
  describe/picture, cf. Frege).

15

• Name/object relation
• If a words meaning is the object it stands for,
  then to assign the meaning to a word we ought to
  correlate this word with the object/referent it
  stands for.

16

• Explanation of meaning
• Either verbal or by ostensive definition.
• Since the former appeals to other expressions,
  the basic explanation ought to be given by
  ostensive definitions.
• For the latter furnish the relevant correlation
  between words and their referents and, as such,
  the foundation of language.

17

• Ostensive definitions
• In order to provide the foundation of language
  they ought to be complete and unambiguous.
• Since there are two kinds of necessary truths,
  analytic (truth by definition) and synthetic,
  ostensive definitions ought to provide the basis
  for synthetic necessary truth.
• E.g. nothing is red and blue all over.

18

• Understanding
• Within the Augustinian tradition
• (i) understanding consists in a mental
  association of a word with an object.
• This is a kind of mental pointing at an object.

19

• (ii) acquaintance with objects.
• if ostensive definitions are the foundation of
  language, then acquaintance is the foundation of
  understanding.
• (cf. Russells knowledge by acquaintance/
  knowledge by description distinction).

20

• The Philosophical Investigations can be
  understood as a criticism of the Augustinian
  picture.
• In criticising the Augustinian paradigm,
  Wittgenstein criticises most of the appealing
  theories of meaning Freges, Russells and the
  Tractatus.

21

• Such a criticism begins with a clear examination
  on the way ostensive definitions work.
• The general lesson of this examination will be
  that ostensive definitions are not, pace the
  Augustinian conception, the foundation of
  language.

22

• The use of examples
• Wittgensteins use of concrete examples (e.g.
  the building block language game, colour and
  number words, etc.) stresses the inadequacy of
  the Augustinian temptation to think of language
  in abstraction from its use.

23

• Examples suggest that we cannot look for the
  essence of meaning as something which can be
  detached from the way language is actually.
• See Wittgenstein's motto meaning is use.

24

• In the Tractatus Wittgenstein considers language
  as a calculus, or system of sentences.
• In the Investigations language is considered as
  essentially connected with the notion of
  application.
• Here the term language game is meant to
  bring into prominence the fact that speaking a
  language is part of an activity, or of a form of
  life. (PI 23)

25

• Learning a language does not consist to master a
  calculus.
• It means
• Becoming acculturated.

26

• Being acculturates amounts to being able to
  participate and interact in a variety of
  structured activities that essentially employ
  language.
• It means to be able to master different language
  games.

27

• The Augustinian conception pictures a child
  learning his mother tongue as a foreigner
  learning a foreign language.
• Like a person who already masters her own
  language and translates the new language into the
  former.

28

• If learning a language comes close to
  translation, the child can already think all she
  misses is how to label her mental concepts.
• This picture presupposes what it tries to
  explain. For it assumes that the child possesses
  a mastery of the techniques that provide the
  necessary background enabling the child to
  understand the language.

29
Language as an institution

• Natural languages are system of social
  conventions
• This conception is also defended by linguists
• Saussure, Sapir, Whorf, Bloomfield
• and by philosophers
• Wittgenstein, Dummett, Kripke.

30

• The view of language as a social institution
  contrasts with
• 1. The view of language as an ideal system
  (Frege, Montague, Church).
• 2. The view of language as innate, individual,
  internal (Pinker, Chomsky, Fodor).
• 3. The view of language as psychological
  (Grice, Shiffer, Searle).

31

• Main questions
• How does language qua institution can enter the
  physical world?
• How can natural language be perceived as a
  natural phenomenon?

32

• Can social conventions be explained in
  naturalistic terms?
• A naturalist approach to language tends to focus
  on the speakers psychology. This seems to
  contrast with the social conception of language.

33

• Language (vs. idiolect)
• A praxis governed by syntactic and semantic
  rules and pragmatic conventions. (cf. Saussures
  langue/parole distinction).
• But the syntactic/semantic rules need not be
  social they could be natural/psychological.
• Wittgenstein vs. Frege, first Wittgenstein, and
  Russell

34

• Ideal language conception
• Natural language is imperfect, improper (e.g.
  ambiguity, polysemy, etc.).
• Logic deals with an ideal language.
• Natural languages aspire to be ideal languages,
  but theyre a mere copy of the latter (cf.
  Freges comparison between natural language and
  ideography).

35

• Main features of an ideal language
• (i) context insensitive (no ambiguity, no
  indexicality)
• (ii) no polysemy (e.g. no terms such as value
  meaning either moral value, money value, )
• (iii) no vague predicates (e.g. rich, small,
  bald, )

36

• (iv) an ideal language expressions would have a
  fixed meaning (e.g. wouldnt change across time).
  Cf. eternal sentences
• (v) no empty terms, i.e. each expression has a
  meaning (thus no Robyn Hood).

37

• Fregean goal
• Sentences of natural language should be
  translated into an ideal language.

38

• To this view the second Wittgenstein opposes
  Conventionalism.
• Language as a chess game, governed by
  conventional rules. Whats the meaning of the
  horse, the tower, ?
• Can they have a meaning outside the game?