Update

To comment on my own previous post

1. Context vs Language game & Form of life.

A language game differs from context in the following sense:

Take the word "drug". In one language game, that of medicine, its meaning shifts from being beneficial (curative) to harmful (addictive) based on context. Vide infra.

The doctor prescribed John some drugs for his Delhi belly and he was soon well again.

The doctor told John to stop taking drugs as it was damaging his mind and body.

Feels a bit contrived but seems to make sense. Context can make a difference (change the meaning of words) within a particular language game. Is this a distinction without a difference?

2. Language as social (Private language)

Wittgenstein is saying something new only if the prevailing theory of language holds that each one of us has our own private version of the meaning of the words. When we converse, what such a theory would say is happening is best illustrated by an example: Suppose there's a word "W". I would have a private meaning A of that word and my interlocuter would have his own meaning B. Since meanings A and B are private (mutually inaccessible), it isn't necessary that A = B.

When the word "W" pops up in our conversation, I would think A and the person talking to me would think B. We would basically be talking past each other. The way out of this quandary would be, through discourse, to find common ground, home in on what either of us actually mean (Socratic dialectic).

However, as Wittgenstein states, A and B are private, they're part of a private language, and thus the Socratic dialectics leads us nowhere. The beetle-in-the-box! What I mean or what my interlocutor means with "W", Wittgenstein claims, "drops out of the conversation". We're left debating, discussing, just the word "W" (its referent no longer of any consequence).

No "private language" is implied by "incorrect use" (or misuse) of words failing to mean – make sense – in a language-game, only confusion, especially, for Witty et al, the kinds of confusions of which many "philosophical problems" consist. — 180 Proof

Missed this - look, within a language-game, yes, there can be something called 'misuse'. As in: "that's not how you move a rook". But Wittgenstein is largely totally uninterested in this. His menagerie of linguistic ills - language in idle, being mislead by grammar, being captured by a picture, and so on - all bear upon words employed without a language game; that is, without even a role like a rook that could, even in principle, be said to be 'wrong'. This distinction is what is novel and important in Witty. Everyone knows words can be used wrong. That's trivial and uninteresting. Witt is ultimately concerned about words which are, as it were, 'not even used' (to paraphrase the old 'not even wrong'). Employments of language which do nothing, which serve no purpose. It is one thing to move the rook qua rook in the 'wrong way'. It is quite another to throw the horse castle shaped piece across the room and call it chess. In the one the piece at least has a role. In the latter it does not (incidentally, the issue of "role" appears over and over and over again in the PI - and it is almost criminally under-remarked upon - unlike 'misuse' which, again, doesn't appear even once in the entire book). The 'philosophical problems' that Witty diagnoses belong entirely to the latter category.

Ah, Fool buddy, you've shot yourself in the dark again. :smirk: — 180 Proof

:lol: Trust me to do that!

There is no "Wittgensteinian problem of language-games" that I can see. Besides, "a scientific one" would just comprise another language-game. You either find Witty's semantics useful for clarifying our discursive (bad) habits or you do not. I very much do. — 180 Proof

What exactly is a language game? It can't be context because that was old news and people seem to regard Wittgenstein's theory of language as a novel idea.

The PI could have justifiably – more precisely – been titled "Philosophical Reminders". He isn't providing new knowledge, Fool; Witty is elucidating confused and inconsistent discursive practices – calling attention to how philosophers in particular myopicly misuse ordinary language to, what he thought, say what cannot be said rather than shutting up when and where silence articulates – shows – what words cannot. — 180 Proof

Methinks it's the other way round. Philosophers are the ones who maintain strict standards of word usage (definitionally accurate). Ordinary folk, on the other hand, seem to be misusing words left, right and center.

Your Post

As for silence in philosophy, I think it's a rather complex issue:

1. I don't know thus I can't speak (ignorance + silence).
2. I know but I can't speak (knowledge + silence)

From silence alone, we can't tell the difference between knowing and not knowing.

His menagerie of linguistic ills - language in idle, being mislead by grammar, being captured by a picture, and so on - all bear upon words employed without a language game; that is, without even a role like a rook that could, even in principle, be said to be 'wrong'. This distinction is what is novel and important in Witty. — StreetlightX

Okay. Now you've done it! I have to reread PI. Thanks. :brow:

Philosophers are the ones who maintain strict standards of word usage (definitionally accurate). — TheMadFool

Yeah, this is exactly what Witty objects to (e.g. essences).

What exactly is a language game?

A 2nd-order metaphor (i.e. technique of grammatical analysis).

Update

Beetle In The Box

There's the word "beetle".

I use it to refer to x in a box I have.

You use it to refer to y in your own box.

I can't look inside your box and neither can you look inside my box.

Ergo,

Not necessary that $x = y$

or

possible that $x \neq y$.

This is about a word, "beetle", that's got private meanings (x for me and y for you).

However, words are signs we use for referents, the actual thing that interests us. Words that we use to refer to private experiences (can't be shared with others) are like the word "beetle" e.g. the word "pain".

There is no way I could divine what the word "beetle" or "pain" means to you and vice versa.

We're only left, therefore, with the word "beetle" ("pain") and nothing else. You and I could very well be talking about entirely different things (referents). Thus, the conclusion that philosophies that depend on experiences that can't be made public, shared, are private would be pointless. It's like using a word without knowing what it means. I would get the grammar (syntax) right but any sentence I construct would be semantically dubious. Therefore, @180 Proof,

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Yeah, this is exactly what Witty objects to (e.g. essences). — 180 Proof

Why?

Read the Philosophical Investigations if you do not understand what has been written throughout this threat. By this point, Fool, you should have gotten the gist of what makes "essences" (i.e. definitions) problematic for Witty and therefore how my mention of "misuses ordinary language" follows. :yawn:

Employments of language which do nothing, which serve no purpose. It is one thing to move the rook qua rook in the 'wrong way'. It is quite another to throw the horse shaped piece across the room and call it chess. In the one the piece at least has a role. In the latter it does not (incidentally, the issue of "role" appears over and over and over again in the PI - and it is almost criminally under-remarked upon - unlike 'misuse' which, again, doesn't appear even once in the entire book). The 'philosophical problems' that Witty diagnoses belong entirely to the latter category. — StreetlightX

So, it's one thing to correct someone who moves the rook the wrong way on a chess board, but it's quite another thing to correct someone who throws the piece across the room. Which is to say, that the former has a mode of correction, the latter doesn't. In the latter example, there is no mode of correction because you've removed the piece from all context of correct and incorrect.

This makes sense in terms of how Moore uses the word know, in, for example, Proof of an External World. The word know serves no purpose, it has no role in Moore's context, which means that it's not functioning in a language-game, which by definition, means it has no function. It appears to have a function because we are fooled by the grammar. Wittgenstein is saying that what Moore is doing is not epistemology at all.

The problem, it seems to me, is that in the chess example, i.e., throwing a piece across the room, that doesn't even look like a move in chess. At least in language, it appears that you are doing something with the word, because of the grammar of language. Maybe the chess example should involve something not so radical, to bring it more in line with what's happening in language, but I'm not sure what that would be. Maybe something like, after you have learned the moves, you keep trying to move the rook diagonally, to fit some notion you have about rooks. I'm not sure.

Questions

1. How much of philosophy depends on the existence of private languages?

From the way philosophy is conducted, the first port of call being define your terms, it appears that what philosophers are most wary of are idiosyncratic (private) meanings of words and if an exchange/discourse, a productive one that is, is to take place we need to be clear on what the terms involved mean. Not that peculiar definitions are a problem as such but they need to be brought out into the open before we can have a conversation.

What if this can't be done as happens when the referent can't be shared/made public? Pure subjective experiences are exactly the kind that we can't show to other people - they're categorically private.

Even so, some words like "pain", referring to a purely subjective experience exist. Wittgenstein probably explains this in terms of visible/observable/shareable correlates like wincing, grimacing, tears, screams, etc. Is the correlation perfect? Does it matter? No and yes. It matters because these correlates function just like words and the beetle-in-the-box scenario rears its ugly head. Somehow reminds of theaters and thespians. A friend of mine, every now and then. for some reason, says "quick, act normal!"

2. Meaning as use.

Agreed, let's play along with Wittgenstein, and one, agree words are minus essences (family resemblance) but what exactly does "use" mean in meaning is use? A word is, all said and done, a symbol/sign - it stands for something, the referent. A word's use is predicated on that purpose/function. Take that away and how exactly am I supposed to use a word?

I'm exhausted. Will post as and when it seems right to do so. Until then adieu!

How much of philosophy depends on the existence of private languages? — TheMadFool

Nobody uses private, untranslatable languages. Witt wasn't attacking a thesis anybody anywhere has ever held.

He was just highlighting that language is a tool for communication between people who are immersed and embedded in a world.

He's like Heidegger.

What is specific about us is our ability to wield negation, and with it, the practice of symbolic, rather than indexical and iconic, uses of language. — StreetlightX

Negation is the way to certainty. In a world of possibilities, we cannot say what necessarily "is", though we can exclude what is impossible as "is not". This forms the process of elimination.

The problem, it seems to me, is that in the chess example, i.e., throwing a piece across the room, that doesn't even look like a move in chess. At least in language, it appears that you are doing something with the word, because of the grammar of language. Maybe the chess example should involve something not so radical, to bring it more in line with what's happening in language, but I'm not sure what that would be. Maybe something like, after you have learned the moves, you keep trying to move the rook diagonally, to fit some notion you have about rooks. — Sam26

Ha, that's fair. But yeah, you're totally right, the problem is 'non-moves taken for moves' - diagonal rooks, or, to be more precise: 'rooks' that move arbitrarily. Whose moves one cannot learn to 'go on' from, because not subject to the constraints of a purpose - a doing of things with words.

Okay. Now you've done it! I have to reread PI. Thanks. :brow: — 180 Proof

:cheer:

"Everyone knows words can be used wrong. That's trivial and uninteresting. Witt is ultimately concerned about words which are, as it were, 'not even used' (to paraphrase the old 'not even wrong'). Employments of language which do nothing, which serve no purpose."

Is there a common fumble, a contemporary example in mind that illustrates "words that are misused in contrast to words said that are not actually used" I don't really know what the difference is in practice.

Is there a common fumble, a contemporary example in mind that illustrates "words that are misused in contrast to words said that are not actually used" I don't really know what the difference is in practice. — Saphsin

Wittgenstein's go-to examples are often questions which aim to elicit instances of non-use (as answers). A nice illustrative one is §88: "If I tell someone “Stay roughly here” - may this explanation not work perfectly? And may not any other one fail too? “But still, isn’t it an inexact explanation?” - Yes, why shouldn’t one call it “inexact”? Only let’s understand what “inexact” means! For it does not mean “unusable”."

Notice that the standard for a 'useable' expression is simply: does this explanation work (to get one to 'stay roughly here', so that I can, say, find them again in a bit?) Yet, the person who does not understand 'use' asks the question: "does 'roughly' indicate some measure of inexactness"? But already this question abstracts from the purpose of the command. It is qua command - it's use as a command, for the purpose of speaker and receiver to find each other again - in which the word's meaning is to be found. The use is bound up in a complex of actions and goal-directedness. But as soon as you abstract from that, you can begin to ask questions which treat of the command something other: you begin to ask questions about 'exactness', about measurement, boundaries, and so on. If I had to name this distinction I would call it the difference between treating words intensively and extensively.

The PI is filled with these kinds of 'bad questions': what counts as a 'simple'? What is a game? What counts as the general form of a proposition?

“Water” does not have an essence but “H2O” does have an essence. Both are concepts and both can refer. And both could be used interchangeably in many context. So it is quite strange to say one has an essence and one does not.

“Things the words refer to” have essences. Not sure what this could mean. I point to an object and call it a “rock”. So the word I use does not have a essence but the rock I point to does. And what is that? The shape? The color? The chemical composition? I point to another object and call it a “rock” It looks similar to the first rock but does not have the same color, shape or chemical composition. Is there one essence both rocks share, and what is that?

Lastly, “H2O” has an essence. Let us first give it a little specificity. These symbols are used in chemistry as expression of atomic theory. This theory makes successful predictions of our macroscopic world. But like any scientific theory, it can be replace by a better theory, which may do away with the symbols of “H2O” And if this happens, what happens to “H2O”’s essence.

Sure, agreed.

Just pointing out that sticking to certain words like "justified true beliefs" can lead one to be captured by language. Which is true in many cases.

Agreed, let's play along with Wittgenstein, and one, agree words are minus essences (family resemblance) but what exactly does "use" mean in meaning is use? A word is, all said and done, a symbol/sign - it stands for something, the referent. A word's use is predicated on that purpose/function. Take that away and how exactly am I supposed to use a word? — TheMadFool

But if we had to name anything which is the life of the sign, we have to say that it is its use.
If the meaning of the sign (roughly, that which is of importance about the sign) is an image built up in our minds when we see or hear the sign, then first let us adopt the method we just described of replacing this mental image by some outward object seen, e.g. a painted or modelled image. Then why should the written sign plus this painted image be alive if the written sign alone was dead? -- In fact, as soon as you think of replacing the mental image by, say, a painted one, and as soon as the image thereby loses its occult character, it ceased to seem to impart any life to the sentence at all. (It was in fact just the occult character of the mental process which you needed for your purposes.)

Consider the vervet monkey:

Very short : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8ZG8Dpc8mM
Slightly longer, more serious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lsF83rHKFc

The use of various warning cries is to trigger the group to flee to a place of safety that depends on which predator is threatening. While one can speculate about what-it's-like-for-a-vervet-monkey-to-see-a-snake, all that matters is that a snake triggers a cry triggers a group flight to safely. The snake and the monkeys are in an environment together. The warning cries are calorie-efficient movements of the "networked" bodies/monkeys that allow them to coordinate their behavior so that they are more likely to thrive in the world.

Obviously our human world is staggeringly complex, but we too are primates trying to make it. Our mentalistic language is useful in ordinary life, but dragging it wholesale into serious philosophical discussion (treating it like an axiom) is comparable to assuming the world is flat as one sits down for some serious cartography. Sometimes the "obvious" stuff is completely wrong.

There is a natural way to read "language-games" as an enlarging of Frege's context principle, and along with that you might see "grammar" as enlarging the idea of logical form. Frege and Russell demonstrated that surface grammar is not a sure guide to the logical form of a statement, and it's the logical form that shows you the role of a word. You could see LW doing something similar.

But there's a problem with that reading: it has Wittgenstein offering an improved theory of language, when he seems to be adamant that he's not offering a theory. Something's wrong if you end up saying, the problem with philosophy is an incorrect theory of language, here's the correct one, problem solved.

There's reason to think Wittgenstein was already convinced, at the time of the Tractatus, that philosophy is largely a confusion brought on by misunderstanding language, and in this he is not alone. He thought then that the solution was logical analysis, a process that reveals the underlying logical form of our statements.

One way to read the Tractatus is as an explanation of why logical analysis works, or at least showing what the world must be like for logical analysis to work. When we come to the latter Wittgenstein, we see 'grammatical analysis', the exploration of utterances through imagining the language-game they might belong to, but it does seem like the Tractarian 'metaphysical' bit, if that's what it is, is missing, or at least elusive, so we're tempted to grab "forms of life" and stick it in there.

But if that's right, why doesn't Wittgenstein just say so? I mean, he kinda does, here and there, but why does he insist he's not offering a theory? Is he mistaken about that? Is he actually offering a theory about language? If he's mistaken about that, surely that's pretty interesting, and we should all be talking about why LW doesn't think his theory is a theory.

I don't have a simple answer here, but one thing worth considering is taking language-games (and grammar and forms of life, all that) not as a theory but as a philosophical technique. A language-game is at least a way to show the reader what Wittgenstein wants them to see. (Just as Frege invented the Begriffschrift as a way to show the difference between concept and object, not as a claim that this is the notation everything is *really* written in.)

Full disclosure: I'm not a fan of Wittgenstein. I interpret "meaning is use" as methodological, and metaphorical: meaning that a good way to understand the meaning of a word is to track its use(s) in multiple contexts. I hope this is correct, because if one interprets it literally, then we have a problem which is that people don't use the word "meaning" as they use the word "using".

if one interprets it literally, then we have a problem which is that people don't use the word "meaning" as they use the word "using". — Olivier5

Sure. If Wittgenstein wasn't trying to get people to think of meaning differently, why bother to write? Once the world was thought to be flat. Once philosophers thought they were scientists who studied an invisible realm of forms or meanings-as-immaterial-referents. Some still do, in both cases.

. If Wittgenstein wasn't trying to get people to think of meaning differently, why bother to write? — hanaH

But then, if meaning is indeed literally use, how come "meaning" is not being used as "use" in English? Isn't it self contradictory?

The methods used in the PI is more valuable than the theory expounded.

noted the place given to questions; Wittgenstein is in a dialogue with himself throughout the book, and in so doing he has his readers following and questioning as we proceed.

One of the core methodological approaches is the distinction between saying and showing. It's the same approach adopted in kicking away the ladder in the Tractatus - an area of continuity. Wittgenstein is showing us that meaning is use by having us work through a series of question.

If you read a page of the PI without having to stop and think, then you haven't been paying attention.

In working through the various elements of the PI, @TheMadFool is engaging with the text in an appropriate way. Eventually the pieces will fall in together. Or not.

But then, if meaning is indeed literally use, how come "meaning" is not being used as "use" in English? Isn't it self contradictory? — Olivier5

It's a metaphor, like "God is love." Mentalistic language is common and useful. The word "meaning" has earned its supper in ordinary life. But, as Saussure also noted, the nomenclature theory of meaning is basically pre-scientific.

That said, it's not prudent to read some aphorism as a mathematical theorem functioning as a condensed result. To me Wittgenstein is more of a destructive than constructive thinker. He sweeps out cobwebs, lets in light and air, shows us through many examples how superstitious we tend to be about our own communication.

Folk get stuck on §43: "...the meaning of a word is its use in the language", and understand Wittgenstein as equating meaning and use (@Olivier5). But as I noted above, the method() used throughout the text is part of what he is showing. PI is not so much an injunction to replace talk of meaning with talk of use, as a manual that shows how to drop talk of meaning from philosophical discussion, replacing it with talk of the use of our expressions. Throughout the book he looks at examples of language use, from learning new words to building with blocks to talk of pains and sensations to animal behaviour, and so on. And in each case he questions () what we might have previously taken for granted as the meaning, by looking at the use, and especially at non-canonical uses that undermine philosophical presumption.

One core method in the PI is not to look at language in terms of meaning, but to show how what we actually do with words does not fit with certain philosophical presumptions ( ).

It's a metaphor, — hanaH

Ok then.

as Saussure also noted, the nomenclature theory of meaning is basically pre-scientific. — hanaH

Yes.

. To me Wittgenstein is more of a destructive than constructive thinker — hanaH

I can agree with that. His virtue is in pointing out that certain issues are more complicated than they seem, or ambiguous.

I can agree with that. His virtue is in pointing out that certain issues are more complicated than they seem, or ambiguous. — Olivier5

:up:

Or pseudo-explanations.

In fact, as soon as you think of replacing the mental image by, say, a painted one, and as soon as the image thereby loses its occult character, it ceased to seem to impart any life to the sentence at all. (It was in fact just the occult character of the mental process which you needed for your purposes.)

It's such a simple rhetorical move, but it breaks a chain. Postulated images don't give life to the system. Why should they?

This distinction is what is novel and important in Witty. Everyone knows words can be used wrong. That's trivial and uninteresting. Witt is ultimately concerned about words which are, as it were, 'not even used' (to paraphrase the old 'not even wrong'). Employments of language which do nothing, which serve no purpose. — StreetlightX

This makes me wonder whether, on your interpretation, Wittgenstein would count religions or theologies as language games.

All this by way of agreeing with Davidson, that while it is tempting to think of language as dependent on agreed conventions of some sort, it isn't so. For any convention one might take up, there will be an ingenious or ignorant construct to undermine it.

And this is also what Pop, and others, who deem language no more than transmission and reception of signals, are doomed never to be able to account for. — Banno

:roll: I guess you are demonstrating Davidson's point here by misconstruing my understanding? I am an Enactivist

There is no way I could divine what the word "beetle" or "pain" means to you and vice versa.

We're only left, therefore, with the word "beetle" ("pain") and nothing else. You and I could very well be talking about entirely different things (referents). Thus, the conclusion that philosophies that depend on experiences that can't be made public, shared, are private would be pointless. It's like using a word without knowing what it means. — TheMadFool

Progress!

But we can synchronize our behavior with words (marks and noises that get categorized), which shows that the meaning of a word is not grounded or hidden in some private mental space which, as you describe above, would be no use. The life of signs is in the world. The "meaning" of a stop sign is out there in the way we treat it.

Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. --Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. --But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? --If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. --No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.

That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant.

One core method in the PI is not to look at language in terms of meaning, but to show how what we actually do with words does not fit with certain philosophical presumptions (↪hanaH ). — Banno

:up: