If there’s no foundational criteria, public cases cannot truly be “corrected” either. — schopenhauer1

Critiquing Wittgenstein's Investigations:

The public language is founded on private languages

From the position of Nominalism, if all the individuals within a community disappeared, no community would remain. With the disappearance of the community, language, thought, meaning and rules would also disappear.

From the position of Platonic Realism, if all the individuals within a community disappeared, there would still be a community, and there would still be language, thought, meaning and rules. Personally I find the idea of Platonic Realism incomprehensible, unless someone can justify it as a possibility.

As a Nominalist, language, thought, meaning and rules are not external to the individuals who make up the community, but are internal to the individuals who make up the community.

Therefore language within a community can only exist within the individuals who make up the community.

Therefore any public language must have been created by the individuals who make up the community.

But for an individual to be able to take part in creating a public language, they must first have the ability to be able to manipulate language within themselves.

The ability of an individual to be able to manipulate language within themselves independently of a community can be called a private language.

IE, without a private language a public language would not exist

Therefore any public language within a community must have been founded on the private languages of the individuals within the community.

An individual may be corrected by a public language, but recognising that such a public language has previously been collectively corrected by the individuals who make up the community.

Yes, without the foundation of private languages, a public language cannot be corrected.

Writing "S" in one's diary when experiencing the sensation of S

PI 258 is not how one names personal sensations. If I want to name my toothache, I don't point at my inner sensation of a toothache and write "T" in my diary. I point at my outward pain behaviour, such as wincing, rubbing my face with my hand, refusing to drink anything cold, putting a hot water bottle on the affected part, etc, all behaviours distinct to having a toothache.

This outward pain behaviour is visible to not only me but others, and can be given the name "toothache".

Note that the name "toothache" doesn't directly refer to the inner sensation, but to the outward visible behaviour. As humans naturally assume that an effect must have had a cause, they naturally assume that a particular visible behaviour has had a particular cause, which is unknown in this case. As humans also conflate the name of the cause with the name of the effect, and although the toothache pain behaviour has been named "toothache", this also becomes the name for the unknown cause. IE the word "toothache" refers to not only the visible toothache pain behaviour but also the unknown cause.

It is a public language that has the memory of the connection between toothache pain behaviour and the name "toothache", both things that physically exist in the world.

A child can then learn the word "toothache" by being pointed at the connection between toothache pain behaviour and the name "toothache"

Note that the child cannot learn such a connection from a single example, but only from many examples, where every example is different but all share a family resemblance.

The public language is founded on private languages — RussellA

How can you call what is happening privately “language” ? Your assurance that you are using it the same way as the language you learned in the public realm? If you agree to this characterization, I would say you face a similar problems as describe in this scenario:

Imagine I produce a bunch of what appears to you as random symbols. And I proceed to tell you that this is a language. If you ask, “how do you use these symbols”, and I reply, “I cannot tell you how to use them, but rest assure I know how to use them in similar ways as how you use your language, and thus it is a language.” I believe you can rightfully say that I have no idea what I am trying to say or express. This also goes for these claims of judging private activities within the mind.

Therefore any public language within a community must have been founded on the private languages of the individuals within the community.

An individual may be corrected by a public language, but recognising that such a public language has previously been collectively corrected by the individuals who make up the community.

Yes, without the foundation of private languages, a public language cannot be corrected. — RussellA

So just a few things here:

1) I am not representing my own view of language. This is purely a hypothetical view designed to show that Witt's idea of use can be critiqued for not having some sort of foundation to the language.

Rather, if one purport's that the measure is "use", by "what" basis can use able to be founded?

2) If you purport that it's founded on "community" (Form of Life), this is what has to be adequatly accounted for other than "don't you see!" and then scoff at any further explanation. No, demonstration won't just do here. Rather, you need to account for "what" this is, otherwise, it can be critiqued as an assertion.

Here's a real basic analogy. If we had no inclination for theorizing, we might say that common sense says "the sun revolves around the earth". But wait, a man named Aristarchus came up with a heliocentric theory based on less obvious things like the position of the constellations. The common man says, "What! It's "common sense" that the sun revolves around the earth. Don't you see!"

Well, Witt here might be like that common man. Because he is against theorizing about certainty (of things like language), he resorts to a kind of "common sense". Now, he may be right in his idea, but since he is committed to a sort of theory-skepticism, he cannot just resort to an idea (but not a theory!) and then claim that it is just kind of "common sense" or "what else can it be?". That would then have to be explained.

Thus community must have a basis outside of each individual's version of it, otherwise he is back to solipsism. How can he purport that community is anything more (in HIS philosophy) than a "useful fiction"? He can't. Another philosopher might start with the idea of "information" as "real", or justify how it is that social facts are real. But then, isn't this getting into epistemology and metaphysics proper- something he is adamantly opposing?


In summary, what I'm trying to convey is a hypothetical perspective that questions Wittgenstein's notion of language use. I'm not putting forth my own belief about language; rather, I'm presenting this hypothetical scenario to critique Wittgenstein's idea that language use is sufficient as a foundation. The main point is to stress the necessity of a robust foundation for language, especially if we claim it's rooted in community or "Form of Life." Drawing on an analogy involving Aristarchus's heliocentric theory, I aim to highlight the importance of substantiating claims beyond what might seem like "common sense." The argument underscores the need for a clear explanation and justification of the basis for community in language. Simply accepting it as a given or "common sense" doesn't provide this basis, but is just "what else can it be?" or "don't you see??", which rejects elaborate theorizing and absolute certainty. Wittgenstein's critique undermines his basis for a positive claim. He would need a deeper exploration of the philosophical basis of social facts and language to avoid falling into solipsism and to truly understand the essence of communal language use.

This outward pain behaviour is visible to not only me but others, and can be given the name "toothache". — RussellA

So far all of this is trivially true..

A child can then learn the word "toothache" by being pointed at the connection between toothache pain behaviour and the name "toothache"

Note that the child cannot learn such a connection from a single example, but only from many examples, where every example is different but all share a family resemblance. — RussellA

Yes trivially true, yes. In this case, I don't need a philosopher to point this out, but I guess if Augustine and others had bad theories, he is pointing this out for those confused individuals.

Imagine I produce a bunch of what appears to you as random symbols. And I proceed to tell you that this is a language. If you ask, “how do you use these symbols”, and I reply, “I cannot tell you how to use them, but rest assure I know how to use them in similar ways as how you use your language, and thus it is a language.” I believe you can rightfully say that I have no idea what I am trying to say or express. This also goes for these claims of judging private activities within the mind. — Richard B

I don't think this gets past this critique:

Just using Wittgenstein against himself perhaps, what if every person in the community had an idea wrong such that every correction was actually never correct. How would you know any differently than the private sensation case? Diving in further in skepticism, how do you know that every supposedly public correction is not distorted by one’s own view? At some point you can keep drilling downward and you start getting to Decartes Demon again. Using public or practice or community as a way out doesn’t suffice. — schopenhauer1

In the Tractatus the proposition is a picture of a state of affairs, not something between a state of affairs and the proposition. — Fooloso4

Hmm. That does not count against the point, so far as I see.

2.1 We picture facts to ourselves. 
2.11 A picture presents a situation in logical space, the existence and non-existence of states of affairs. 
2.12 A picture is a model of reality.
2.13 In a picture objects have the elements of the picture corresponding to them. 
2.131 In a picture the elements of the picture are the representatives of objects. 
2.14 What constitutes a picture is that its elements are related to one another in a determinate way. 
2.141 A picture is a fact.

and

4.06 A proposition can be true or false only in virtue of being a picture of reality.

Here he is taking on a representational theory of meaning - the picture theory.The Indian mathematician shows that a picture can be seen - used - in different ways.

‘I read somewhere that Indian mathematicians are (sometimes) content to use a geometrical figure accompanied by the words “Look at this!” as a proof of a theorem. This looking too effects an altera- tion in one’s way of seeing

The picture can be seen in different ways, and so does not, as it where, give the meaning of what is pictured. That is found in what is done with the picture.

But perhaps saying the picture theory is being rejected is too strong. He is still making use of pictures, and it seems to me that hereabouts he is attempting to see how his previous representational approach fits in with meaning as use.

Certainly not all propositions are pictures, but at the least, propositions of the form aRb (4.012).

4.462 Tautologies and contradictions are not pictures of reality. They do not represent any possible situations. For the former admit all possible situations, and latter none . In a tautology the conditions of agreement with the world—the representational relations—cancel one another, so that it does not stand in any representational relation to reality.

Reiterating, Tracatatus Wittgenstein had presented a theory of meaning as referential, using the picture theory of meaning. In the latter PI he is hinting that the way a picture is to be understood is in terms of what one does with it, rather than what it represents.

The alternative seems to be that he still harbours a referential picture theory, somehow sitting under his theory of meaning as use.

Russell, I like the way you return and attempt to summarise your thinking.

Therefore language within a community can only exist within the individuals who make up the community. — RussellA

Look at this with care. I do not see how it follows from your argument. Why must language exist within the individuals - why not between them? Then, if they disappear, so does language.

Consider an electric current as an analogy. It only exists between the atoms of a wire, not within them. Remove all the atoms and the current stops. But there can be no current if there is only one atom. The current does not exist within one individual.

As fos "S", consider

214. (The temptation to say “I see it like this”, pointing to the same thing for “it” and “this”.) Always get rid of the idea of the private object in this way: assume that it constantly changes, but that you don’t notice the change because your memory constantly deceives you.

One can play chess by oneself, but the game is set up to be played communally.

Is this the position of Antirealism? — RussellA

Depends on your flavour of antirealism. But the label is not important, so much as the content.

(3) the world is such that we can treat part of it as a slab, allowing us to talk about them and move them around.

We don't "create" the slab – that's the idealist error. Nor are there no slabs until we start to talk about them – the nominalist error.

Searle might say that this sort of thing counts as a slab; that sort of thing counts as a block. The assistant gets to recognise the difference not by any internal, private process, but by getting a clip around the ear when they bring the wrong one. Of course, that does not mean that there are no internal processes. Just that "slab" is public.

The alternative seems to be that he still harbours a referential picture theory, somehow sitting under his theory of meaning as use. — Banno

I don't believe it would be a picture theory per se, since now "we may not advance any kind of theory. There must not be anything hypothetical in our considerations. All explanation must disappear, and description alone must take its place." (PI 109)

However, I think the question is whether or not Wittgenstein considered pictures as having different applications in the Tractatus, or whether he viewed them as having only a single application. Without having given it much investigation, I would assume it was the latter.

In the Tractatus, we picture facts to ourselves (2.1) and a picture is a model of reality (2.12) [and a model of reality as we imagine it (4.01)]. Also, the metaphysical subject or philosophical self is considered to be "the limit of the world - not a part of it." (5.641) Since a picture is a model of reality and since the metaphysical subject is not part of reality, then the metaphysical subject is not something that is pictured (in the Tractatus). It is interesting to question whether Wittgenstein also carries this view over to the PI.

At PI 300, he appears to indicate that our pictures of pain are not limited to pain-behaviour:

300. It is, one would like to say, not merely the picture of the behaviour that belongs to the language-game with the words “he is in pain”, but also the picture of the pain. Or, not merely the paradigm of the behaviour, but also that of the pain. — It is a misunderstanding to say “The picture of pain enters into the language-game with the word ‘pain’ ”. Pain in the imagination is not a picture, and it is not replaceable in the language-game by anything that we’d call a picture. — Imagined pain certainly enters into the language-game in a sense; only not as a picture. — PI 300

In his exegesis of PI 300, Peter Hacker offers the following clarifying remarks:

The point upon which W. focuses here is a confusion concerning the relationship between the concept of a mental image and that of a picture. Clearly, pictures are objects of comparison, and, equally clearly, mental images can correspond to pictures. So we are inclined to think that mental images are likewise objects of comparison. Indeed, we are prone to conceive of mental images as pictures. They seem to be just like pictures, save for being mental! This is multiply confused. Imagined pain (Die Vorstellung des Schmerzes) is not a picture of pain (ist kein Bild). One can imagine a toothache or remember a headache, but this does not furnish one with a picture; there is nothing here employable as a picture or a paradigm, not even as a picture which only oneself (as it happens) can see. The description of the imagined is not a description of an inner picture, but a description of what one imagines (e.g. the face that launched a thousand ships (cf. PI §367)). Similarly, the description of the recollected is a description of what I remember, perhaps only hazily, not a description of a hazy picture. There is no such thing as using a Vorstellung of pain (as one can use a picture of something) as a sample or paradigm. Even in those cases where one can intelligibly talk of (vivid) images (Vorstellungsbilder), one’s mental image is not a sample or paradigm, for there is no such thing as a method of projection for a mental image. One cannot lay a mental image alongside reality for comparison. But it is important that if, e.g. I imagine a shade of red (and perhaps have a vivid image of it), I can paint what I imagine, and that can be used as a paradigm. ‘That is how I imagined the backcloth to be’, I might say to the scene‐painter, while pointing at a patch of paint. Here the image of red is replaceable by a paradigm (picture) of red. But nothing corresponds to imagined pain (die Vorstellung des Schmerzes) as a red sample corresponds to imagining, having an image of, red. Hence the ‘image’ or ‘representation’ (Vorstellung) of pain is not replaceable by anything that can function as an object of comparison. — P.M.S. Hacker, An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, Vol. 3, Part 2: Exegesis 243-427

Therefore, at least on Hacker's view, a picture is an object of comparison which must be capable of a method of projection or which can be "laid alongside reality" for comparison (by anyone).

The moral here could be that a picture is in the mind but cannot be of the mind, as there is no possibility of comparison.

W follows this with PI 301:

301. What is in the imagination is not a picture, but a picture can correspond to it. — PI 301

In his exegesis of 301, Hacker states:

An image, which one may have when one imagines or remembers something, is not an ‘inner picture’. But a picture may correspond to such an image, for one can often paint a picture of what one imagines and say ‘This is how I imagined it’ (cf. §280). Is this always possible, i.e. does it always make sense? No; for it is clear from §300 that though I can imagine a severe toothache, no picture corresponds here as a picture of someone clutching his swollen jaw corresponds to imagining someone with a bad toothache. — Hacker, ibid

However, confusingly, at PPF 10 (Part II), W states:

What is the content of the experience of imagining? The answer is a picture, or a description. — PPF 10 (Part II)

On the face of it, this appears to contradict PI 301. Perhaps W's comment at 301 is limited only to the context of pain, or perhaps this comment includes imagining everything but pain.

Wittgenstein also distinguishes a mental image from a picture at 389:

389. “A mental image must be more like its object than any picture. For however similar I make the picture to what it is supposed to represent, it may still be the picture of something else. But it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else.” That is how one might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness. — PI 389

I also found an interesting overview of W's mention of "picture" throughout his works here.

I don't believe it would be a picture theory per se... — Luke

In the PI? I think that's right. It's delicate. Consider:

And it is this inner process that one means by the word “remembering”. The impression that we wanted to deny something arises from our setting our face against the picture of an ‘inner process’. What we deny is that the picture of an inner process gives us the correct idea of the use of the word “remember”. Indeed, we’re saying that this picture, with its ramifications, stands in the way of our seeing the use of the word as it is. — 305

This has ramifications for your discussion with @schopenhauer1, who is seems is in the thrall of a certain picture.

So "picture" is being used diversely. Yes, Hacker's comparison of the use of red and pain – that we can have no paradigm of pain– is enlightening.

Nice.

Imagine I produce a bunch of what appears to you as random symbols. And I proceed to tell you that this is a language. If you ask, “how do you use these symbols”, and I reply, “I cannot tell you how to use them, but rest assure I know how to use them in similar ways as how you use your language, and thus it is a language. — Richard B

The fact that I have my own language does not mean that I can of necessity understand another's language. For example, Egyptian scripts couldn't be translated until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone.

The Rosetta Stone was written in 196 BC in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic, Ancient Egyptian Demotic Script and Ancient Greek It was found in Egypt in 1799 by a French Officer during the Napoleonic campaign, and taken to London in 1801. The Greek text was translated in 1803, enabling a translation of the Egyptian scripts in 1822.

So far all of this is trivially true. — schopenhauer1

Yes, the philosophy of the common man, which was, it seems to me, Wittgenstein's goal in the Investigations.

I'm not putting forth my own belief about language; rather, I'm presenting this hypothetical scenario to critique Wittgenstein's idea that language use is sufficient as a foundation. The main point is to stress the necessity of a robust foundation for language, especially if we claim it's rooted in community or "Form of Life." — schopenhauer1

Wittgenstein writes that the meaning of a word is its use in language:
PI 43 the meaning of a word is its use in the language.

Language has a use in the world:
PI 1 Now think of the following use of language: I send someone shopping. I give him a slip marked "five red apples". He takes the slip to the shopkeeper, who opens the drawer marked "apples"

But Wittgenstein in the Investigations doesn't say where this world exists, in the world of Realism outside language or in the world of Anti realism inside language.

As @Banno wrote: Wittgenstein to a large extent set up the discussion of realism/anti realism in the nineties and noughties.

As the IEP article on Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) wrote: Both Realism and Anti-Realism, though, are theories, or schools of theories, and Wittgenstein explicitly rejects the advocacy of theories in philosophy.

Therefore, if you want a theory explaining the true foundation to language, the Investigations is not the place to look.

That does not count against the point, so far as I see. — Banno

You quote PI 424, but that is not about a theory of pictures. Making mental pictures is something we do.

Here he is taking on a representational theory of meaning - the picture theory. — Banno

Right, as I said:

What the later Wittgenstein rejects is the logical connection between the picture and reality, not that we form pictures of how things are. — Fooloso4

The Indian mathematician shows that a picture can be seen - used - in different ways. — Banno

It is not that the picture can be seen in different ways, but that what is pictured can be seen in different ways. That is, we can form different pictures, and thus see something in different ways. Looking at the theorem in this way, the proof becomes evident. That is, it can be seen that the theorem is true.

But perhaps saying the picture theory is being rejected is too strong. He is still making use of pictures, and it seems to me that hereabouts he is attempting to see how his previous representational approach fits in with meaning as use. — Banno

This is far too narrow a picture. There is in the PI a greater focus on ways of seeing - seeing aspects, seeing as. And this leads to what Wittgenstein says about the imagination:

254. The concept of an aspect is related to the concept of imagination. In other words, the concept ‘Now I see it as . . .’ is related to ‘Now I am imagining that’.

The imagination is not to be taken as an excursion away from reality, but the way in which we begin to see things in new ways.

What a Copernicus or a Darwin really achieved was not the discovery of a new true theory but a fertile point of view.

(CV 18)

Sow a seed in my soil and it will grow differently than it would in any other soil.

(CV42)

126. The name “philosophy” might also be given to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.

There is a connection here with 90:

… our investigation is directed not towards phenomena, but rather, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena.

I don't believe it would be a picture theory per se...
— Luke

In the PI? I think that's right. — Banno

To clarify, you think it's right that it's not a picture theory in the PI?

It's delicate. Consider:

And it is this inner process that one means by the word “remembering”. The impression that we wanted to deny something arises from our setting our face against the picture of an ‘inner process’. What we deny is that the picture of an inner process gives us the correct idea of the use of the word “remember”. Indeed, we’re saying that this picture, with its ramifications, stands in the way of our seeing the use of the word as it is. — 305

This has ramifications for your discussion with schopenhauer1, who is seems is in the thrall of a certain picture. — Banno

I think I understand Hacker's exegesis now as simply saying that we should not confuse mental images with pictures; that a mental image can be pictured but is not itself a picture. I think I got myself confused earlier into thinking he was saying that a mental image could not be pictured.

So "picture" is being used diversely. — Banno

It seemed to me he had used "picture" in a singular way in both the Tractatus and PI. What are the different uses of "picture" you find in PI?

It is not that the picture can be seen in different ways, but that what is pictured can be seen in different ways. — Fooloso4

I think that both a picture and what is pictured can be seen in different ways. Consider the duck-rabbit, for example.

Why must language exist within the individuals - why not between them? — Banno

Consider the sentence "bring me a slab". Where does it exist?

If there were no individuals, then it couldn't exist. We know it could exist if there were only two individuals.

The question is, if there are only two individuals, where does the sentence "bring me a slab" exist ?

It cannot exist in the space between the two individuals as some kind of Platonic entity independently of either individual, but can only exist in the minds of the two individuals.

I assume that we don't believe in telepathy, such that each mind exists independently of the other.

Therefore:
1) We know that the sentence exists in the mind of the first individual and it exists in the mind of the second individual
2) These two minds are independent of each other
3) Therefore a sentence can exist in one mind independently of any other mind
4) If a sentence can exist within the mind of an individual, then also can a language, as a sentence is a very short language.

IE, a language must be able to exist within the mind of an individual in order for a community of individuals be able to share this language.

Depends on your flavour of antirealism. But the label is not important, so much as the content....the world is such that we can treat part of it as a slab, allowing us to talk about them and move them around.................We don't "create" the slab – that's the idealist error. Nor are there no slabs until we start to talk about them – the nominalist error. — Banno

From Tarski and Davidson "the snow is white" is true IFF the snow is white. Using the inverted commas in a similar way, "there is a slab in the world" and there is a slab in the world.

I am curious as to your take as regards Anti realism. If "the slab" is considered as a concept that exists in the mind, does the slab exist as a particular, existing "in itself", or as a universal, existing "in" something else? (Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy)

Searle might say that this sort of thing counts as a slab; that sort of thing counts as a block. The assistant gets to recognise the difference not by any internal, private process, but by getting a clip around the ear when they bring the wrong one. Of course, that does not mean that there are no internal processes. Just that "slab" is public. — Banno

On a building site are millions of objects, such as workbenches, trucks, chairs, sandwiches, mugs of tea, slabs blocks, cranes, doors, windows, etc. The Foreman says to the assistant "bring me a slab".

If the assistant can only learn what a slab is by taking random things to the Foreman in order to see the Foreman's reaction, then learning what a slab is will take an inordinate amount of time. Presumably, once the assistant has learnt what a slab is, the next time the Foreman says "bring me a slab", the assistant will be able to take a slab to the foreman the first time asked.

I prefer the pointing method, where the foreman points out several examples of slabs to the assistant until the assistant has learnt the concept of "slab". Then as soon as the foremen says "bring me a slab", the assistant is able to take a slab to the foreman the first time.

In neither case, the clip over the ear method or pointing method, does the assistant learn the meaning of "slab" by using the slab. In the first method, the assistant doesn't know they are taking a slab to the Foreman. In the second method, the assistant learns the meaning of slab before using it.

I think that both a picture and what is pictured can be seen in different ways. Consider the duck-rabbit, for example. — Luke

When the picture itself is an object I agree, but not all pictures are objects.

When Wittgenstein says at PI 1:

These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language.

he is talking about a mental image, not an object. Another example:

“This is called a ‘leaf’ ”, I get an idea of the shape of a leaf, a picture of it in my mind.

(73)

When he says:

115. A picture held us captive. And we couldn’t get outside it, for it lay in our language, and language seemed only to repeat it to us inexorably.

he is talking about a mental image, a way in which something is conceived to be.

However, confusingly, at PPF 10 (Part II), W states:

What is the content of the experience of imagining? The answer is a picture, or a description.
— PPF 10 (Part II)

On the face of it, this appears to contradict PI 301. — Luke

The confusion evaporates when one considers that the term 'picture' is used in different ways.

When he says at 301:

What is in the imagination is not a picture, but a picture can correspond to it.

This should not be thought of as a general statement about pictures, as something that holds true for all pictures. He is talking specifically about how pain is imagined. Pain in the imagination is about what pain feels like, not about how we might picture it. See 302:

If one has to imagine someone else’s pain on the model of one’s own, this is none too easy a thing to do: for I have to imagine pain which I don’t feel on the model of pain which I do feel.

The question is, if there are only two individuals, where does the sentence "bring me a slab" exist ?

It cannot exist in the space between the two individuals as some kind of Platonic entity independently of either individual, but can only exist in the minds of the two individuals. — RussellA

For example, Egyptian scripts couldn't be translated until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. — RussellA

I'd suggest that language can exist in different physical forms with no need to appeal to Platonic entities.

It can exist in the way a proposition is represented in your brain, as variations in air pressure that the assistant recognizes as "Slab!", as a pattern of ink on paper, as the absence of stone resulting from carving in the case of the Rosetta stone...

I'd suggest that language can exist in different physical forms with no need to appeal to Platonic entities. — wonderer1

If everyone who had used the language disappeared from existence, and all that was left were patterns of ink on paper, would these patterns of ink on paper still be a language if there was no one who knew what these patterns of ink on paper meant?

If everyone who had used the language disappeared from existence, and all that was left were patterns of ink on paper, would these patterns of ink on paper still be a language if there was no one who knew what these patterns of ink on paper meant? — RussellA

Were the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone still a physical instantiation of a language before the Rosetta stone was found and used to learn to interpret hieroglyphics?

Or suppose humanity has gone extinct and extraterrestrials come to Earth and examine the physical artifacts left behind. Should we suppose that the ETs could not possibly learn to understand human languages on the basis of such artifacts alone?

I think the history of events surrounding the Rosetta Stone shows hieroglyphics to have been language even when no one in the world understood the interpretation of the language.

I think that both a picture and what is pictured can be seen in different ways. Consider the duck-rabbit, for example.
— Luke

When the picture itself is an object I agree, but not all pictures are objects.

When Wittgenstein says at PI 1:

These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language.

he is talking about a mental image, not an object. — Fooloso4

On your reading, a picture can be synonymous with a mental image. Your reading therefore seems inconsistent with Hacker's reading (who warns against conceiving of mental images as pictures) and with PI 389, which states: "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else." I think we both agree that a picture (such as the duck-rabbit) can be seen in more than one way. However, I don't believe Wittgenstein would agree that a mental image "picture" can be seen in more than one way.

My mental image may be at one time of a duck and at another time of a rabbit, but when my mental image is of a duck I cannot see it in any way other than as a duck (i.e. how I see it at the time), and the same for when my mental image is of a rabbit.

When he says:

115. A picture held us captive. And we couldn’t get outside it, for it lay in our language, and language seemed only to repeat it to us inexorably.

he is talking about a mental image, a way in which something is conceived to be. — Fooloso4

It is worth noting that your example at PI 1 is "a particular picture" (my emphasis), and it is presumably also a particular picture at PI 115 that held us captive. We might infer, then, that a particular picture, or a particular way of seeing a picture, may be synonymous with a mental image (which can only be seen in one way), whereas a picture more generally speaking can be seen in more than one way.

When he says at 301:

What is in the imagination is not a picture, but a picture can correspond to it.

This should not be thought of as a general statement about pictures, as something that holds true for all pictures. He is talking specifically about how pain is imagined. Pain in the imagination is about what pain feels like, not about how we might picture it. See 302: — Fooloso4

Perhaps what is in the imagination is not a picture because what is in the imagination (a mental image) can only be seen in one way, unlike a picture which can be seen in more than one way.

In case my reading is correct such that pictures and mental images differ in the number of ways they can be seen, then maybe PI 301 should be viewed as a general statement about pictures. The fact it was given its own number lends credence to it being a more general statement not necessarily related to PI 300.

I think the history of events surrounding the Rosetta Stone shows hieroglyphics to have been language even when no one in the world understood the interpretation of the language. — wonderer1

As you point out, the common factor is a mind.

The patterns of ink on paper in the form - b r i n g m e t h e s l a b - can exist independently of any individual, and could still exist even after every individual had disappeared from existence.

However, language requires a mind, whereby a particular pattern, such as - s l a b - represents something else, such as a large, thick, flat piece of stone or concrete, typically square or rectangular in shape.

For example, I could see a stick on the ground, but we wouldn't say that this was a language. However, if I thought of the stick as representing the straightness of the path that I should be taking, then in becoming a symbol it becomes part of language.

I don't think that a pattern in itself can be a language. Only when a mind turns the patterns into representations of something else can the patterns become part of a language.

As you point out, the common factor is a mind. — RussellA

You get so close, then jump sideways to the wrong conclusion.

The "common factor" is what is done with the utterance.

And that is public, open for us to see.

The builder could call "Slab" all day, while nothing changes, the assistant moving slabs and blocks haphazardly. Meaning enters were the two act together. it's in moving slabs to the right place, not in the content of their heads.

2) These two minds are independent of each other — RussellA

Obviously not.

On your reading, a picture can be synonymous with a mental image. Your reading therefore seems inconsistent with Hacker's reading — Luke

I'm okay with that.

PI 389, which states: "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else." — Luke

It is Wittgenstein's imagined interlocutor who makes this claim in the quotations. W.'s response is:

That is how one might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness.

One might regard a mental image in this way but a mental image is not a superlikeness. One's mental image can be quite unreliable.

My mental image may be at one time of a duck and at another time of a rabbit, but when my mental image is of a duck I cannot see it in any way other than as a duck (i.e. how I see it at the time), and the same for when my mental image is of a rabbit. — Luke

I agree that we cannot at the same time see it as both a duck and as a rabbit. But Wittgenstein was quite taken by the fact that it can flip from one to other. He discusses this in the Tractatus as well, with regard to a picture of a cube.

Perhaps what is in the imagination is not a picture because what is in the imagination (a mental image) can only be seen in one way, unlike a picture which can be seen in more than one way. — Luke

I can form different mental images of the same thing even though I cannot hold different mental images of the same thing at the same time. An image may change over time based on new experiences or the unreliability of memory.

, , here's a neat synopsis of the Tractatus, focused on the picture theory. Pictures and Nonsense

In this article I am going to describe Wittgenstein’s famous picture theory of language. The aim of this theory is to set out an account of what sentences mean and just as importantly, to give us a way of distinguishing sense from nonsense. The theory is found in Wittgenstein’s first book, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which ranks as one of the hardest-to-read of all the great works of philosophy. It is an unusual book, written whilst Wittgenstein was serving in the Austrian army during the First World War and finished whilst he was a prisoner of war in Italy. It is remarkably short for a great work of philosophy; this is in part due to Wittgenstein's condensed writing style, which has put off many readers and confused a good number of philosophers. But Wittgenstein’s aim was not to confuse his readers: he simply wanted to express himself as precisely and as logically as possible.

So the picture theory of language is an attempt to discover the essence of language. In its simplest form, the theory says the function of language is to allow us to picture things.

In itself, this doesn’t tell us all that much. Pictures can have many purposes – just think of the differences between hieroglyphics and modern artworks. Therefore it is helpful to consider a very basic type of picture, such as a diagram I might draw to show a friend the way to my house. I do not have to sketch every detail of the route my friend should take, such as what the view will look like along the way. Rather, I need to show my friend where to turn, and perhaps mark some prominent landmarks along the route.

Suppose that my diagram indicates that my friend should take the second right after the lights. Of course, the situation that the diagram presents to my friend need not be true to the facts; my diagram might be part of a practical joke on her, in which I send her to someone else’s house. In constructing a picture such as this, I am not constrained by the actual facts. Although my house is on the second road on the right, I am perfectly able to draw a diagram in which the house is pictured on the second road on the left.

Wittgenstein is keen to emphasize that what a picture means is independent of whether it is a truthful representation or not. But if a diagram can be misleading or downright false, so that it does not picture the facts, what does it picture? Wittgenstein says that what a diagram or picture represents exists in logical space. One way to understand this is to see that the way the world has turned out is not the only way that it could have turned out. Had things turned out differently, my house could have been on the second left, even though it is actually on the second right. So a picture represents something that is the case, or alternatively, could have been the case had the world turned out differently.

What is it that makes the arrangement of lines on my diagram a picture, whereas a scribble produced at random (say, by a crab crawling around in the sand) is not counted as a picture? According to Wittgenstein, it is that the lines in the diagram are related together in a way that mimics the way the things they correspond to are related. For example my diagram has symbols for roads and houses, which if true, are arranged in a way which mimics their arrangement in reality.

Our diagram is a good example of what Wittgenstein had in mind when talking about pictures, for its usefulness relies on the way in which the parts of the picture are arranged, rather than relying on it being a lifelike artistic depiction of the facts. The important point is that the structure of the picture mirrors (represents) the structure of a possible situation. The possible situation is what the picture means. This is why we can know what a picture means without knowing whether it is true or false. The picture is true when the situation it pictures is the actual situation. To find out if it is, we have to look and see how the world actually is.

Wittgenstein’s theory of language holds that sentences work like pictures: their purpose is also to picture possible situations. It must be pointed out that Wittgenstein is not concerned with mental pictures, ie the images we conjure up in our minds. The thesis is not that the meaning of a sentence is what we picture in our minds when we hear or think the sentence. That was the theory of language advocated by John Locke, the 17th century empiricist philosopher. Rather, Wittgenstein is concerned with a more abstract notion of a picture, as something that either agrees or disagrees with any way the world might have been, and which says, this is the way things actually are.

Logical Analysis

The next element of Wittgenstein’s first theory of language concerns how sentences are built up from simpler sentences (or propositions, as Wittgenstein calls them, meaning a sentence that’s unambiguously either true or false). His idea is that whenever a sentence contains one of the logical connectives ‘not’, ‘and’, ‘or’, or ‘if … then’, we can work out the truth-value of that proposition (ie whether it’s true or false) if we know the truth-values of the sentences that make it up. This is seen most easily by giving an example. Suppose I say, “If it isn’t raining, then we will go to the park and have a picnic.” This sentence is made up from the following simpler sentences:

1. It is raining

2. We will go to the park

3. We will have a picnic

We build our complex sentence in three stages. First, we negate sentence 1 by adding ‘not’ to it; then we join sentences 2 and 3 with ‘and’; finally, we join these two new sentences using ‘If … then’. Wittgenstein gives us a method of determining the truth-value of our complex sentence in terms of the truth or falsity of sentences 1 to 3. Negated sentences ‘not …’ are true when the sentence that occupies the ‘…’ place is false. Sentences built by joining two sentences with ‘and’ are true when each of the original sentences are individually true. Finally, conditional ‘if … then’ sentences are false when the first sentencein the complex sentence is true but the second is false, and true otherwise. These conditions correspond to the truth tables any philosophy student learns in their first logic classes. Combine these rules together and you discover the truth conditions for the compound sentence.

Having given this analysis of complex sentences in terms of simpler ones, Wittgenstein then says that there must be sentences that are completely free of logical complexity. He calls these elementary propositions. These are not simply sentences in which ‘not’, ‘and’, ‘or’ or ‘if … then’ do not appear, for Wittgenstein holds that sentences can contain hidden logical complexity which does not show up in everyday English. An example of this is given by definite descriptions such as “the present King of France is bald.” According to Wittgenstein’s teacher Bertrand Russell, this actually means “there exists exactly one person who is both the present King of France and bald.” According to Russell, the existential ‘there exists’ is hidden in everyday English use, but can be brought out through logical analysis. — Mark Jago

I hope we agree on at least the description in the first two sections. In the Tractatus, the meaning of a sentence is what it pictures. In the investigations, the meaning of a sentence is it's use.

The question in hand here is, what happens with the picture theory as Wittgenstein moves on to the Investigations?

Who can give a simple, direct answer to that?

If "the slab" is considered as a concept that exists in the mind... — RussellA

The slab does not exist only in the mind, nor only in the world. You seem stuck on this false dichotomy.

PI 389, which states: "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else."
— Luke

It is Wittgenstein's imagined interlocutor who makes this claim in the quotations. W.'s response is:

That is how one might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness.

One might regard a mental image in this way but a mental image is not a superlikeness. One's mental image can be quite unreliable. — Fooloso4

Wittgenstein defines a mental image at 367:

367. A mental image is the image which is described when someone describes what he imagines. — PI 367

This indicates that a mental image is what one imagines at a particular time, and the description will describe what one imagines at the time.

One might regard a mental image in this way but a mental image is not a superlikeness. One's mental image can be quite unreliable. — Fooloso4

What Wittgenstein criticises is that the interlocutor "might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness" with an object. However, this need not imply that Wittgenstein rejects the interlocutor's statement that "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else". What I see W as rejecting here is the supposed superlikeness of the mental image with its object, not the fact that a picture may still be of something else, or that a mental image may not.

For what it's worth, Hacker tells us that a mental image is "not a likeness [to its object] at all" since its being a mental image of X "is not determined by its likeness to X". He says that "...it neither looks like nor fails to look like its object. It is not a picture at all. How does one know that one’s image is of X and not Y (which looks like X)? One does not know, nor can one be mistaken. One says so, without grounds, as one says what one means or what one thinks."

An image may change over time based on new experiences or the unreliability of memory. — Fooloso4

How would you know that it changes? In other words, why think of it as a single (or as the same) image that undergoes change instead of as different images?

The question in hand here is, what happens with the picture theory as Wittgenstein moves on to the Investigations?

Who can give a simple, direct answer to that? — Banno

I don't know what you are looking for. The picture theory is abandoned. Wittgenstein had come to reject the idea that there is a logical structure that underlies both the world and its representation

T 218 What any picture, of whatever form, must have in common with reality, in order to be
able to depict it—correctly or incorrectly—in any way at all, is logical form, i.e. the form of
reality.