Commentary on Wittgenstein'sPhilosophical Investigations by Lois Shawver

http://www.postmoderntherapy.com/Wittgenstein/

Wittgenstein's book is written in numbered aphorisms. The following links will take you to
each set of aphorisms.

Shawver Commentary:
This commentary in the pages of this website is not meant to replace your reading of
Wittgenstein in the original. For that, of course, you will need to acquire the book.

This commentary is meant to give you a taste of Wittgentein, or, if you are really ready, to
help you get started. The problem is that while Wittgenstein's writing style is quite beautiful,
almost poetic, it is so unusual, that all of us, it seems, need a little help in the beginning. It is
my hope that after you read this commentary, however, that his meanings will appear
transparent to you when you hold your copy of this wonderful book in your hands.

One of the most difficult or misleading aspects of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
is the way in which he uses multiple voices to converse with himself. To have a sense of
understanding Wittgenstein, you need to be able to hear these different voices.

The Philosophical Investigations is written in aphorisms, short numbered passages that are
loosely tied together in terms of theme. He often begins an aphorism with a quoted passage.
For example, he begins the first aphorism with a quotation from Augustine. Most quoted
passages are not actual quotes, however, but rather Wittgenstein's construction of a kind of
interlocutor. This interlocutor might be thought of in terms of Augustine, Plato, characters in
Plato, Bertrand Russell or even early Wittgenstein, or perhaps just a vague composite of these
various figures. At any rate, this voice (and it is not always in quotes) represents the problem
that Wittgenstein tries to think through. I will call this the voice of tradition and symbolize it
at times as "T".

It is useful to think of there being two additional voices. One is the voice that discovers
perplexities or aporia. This voice is often, but not always, introduced with a dash and it
often, but again not always, begins with the word "But". I will call this the voice of aporia
and symbolize it at times as "A".

Then, there is a third voice in which Wittgenstein makes an incisive point in the face of the
tradition and aporia. Wittgenstein wanted this voice to be completely clear. I will symbolize
it at times as "C".

Of course, these examples greatly simplify the content of all Wittgenstein will say, and, not
every passage has quite this form. But if you look for these different voices, it should assist
you making sense of what you find in these pages.

I suggest that you never presume that these voices are all there in any given passage. He
sometimes introduces, for example, a thought experiment that he calls "language games", and
in those cases it does not make much sense to speak of these three voices. But, you might
examine a passage to see if thinking of it in these terms helps that passage make sense to you.
If it does, then you're probably right in presuming that the passage in question adopts this
standard format.

When I see this format being used, I will often call your attention to it, referring to it at times
as "LW's standard format."


Aphorism 1-10 from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
with commentary on the right by Lois Shawver

Wittgenstein:
(Emphasis in bold is inserted by Shawver to
enhance commentary.)
Shawver commentary:
1. "When they (my elders) named some
object, and accordingly moved towards
something, I saw this and I grasped that that
the thing was called by the sound they uttered
when they meant to point it out. Their
intention was shown by their bodily
movements, as it were the natural language of
all peoples; the expression of the face, the
play of the eyes, the movement of other parts
of the body, and the tone of the voice which
expresses our state of mind in seeking,
having, rejecting, or avoiding something.
Thus, as I heard words repeatedly used in
their proper places in various sentences, I
gradually learnt to understand what objects
they signified; and after I had trained my
mouth to form these signs, I used them to
express my own desires."
This is a quotation that Wittgensteinn has
taken from Augustine (Confessions, I.8.).
Visualize Augustine's picture of how
language is learned and notice how natural
and complete it sounds as a total explanation
for how language is learned.

These words, it seems to me, give us a
particular picture of the essence of human
language. It is this: the individual words in
language name objects--sentences are
combinations of such names.--In this
picture of language we find the roots of the
following idea: Every word has a meaning.
The meaning is correlated with the word.
It is the object for which the word stands.
Now, Wittgenstein is beginning his
commentary. The emphasis is mine. It is the
deconstruction of Augustine's picture of
language that is the focus of this entire book.
(Although, I should say, that many others
beside Augustine have shared this picture of
language. As we will see, it is a cultural
illusion) Once deconstucted, new and
strikingly different ideas about language
begin to emerge.
Augustine does not speak of there being any
difference between kinds of word. If you
describe the learning of language in this way
you are, I believe, thinking primarily of
nouns like 'table', 'chair', 'bread', and of
people's names, and only secondarily of the
names of certain actions and properties; and
of the remaining kinds of word as something
that will take care of itself.
Here the deconstruction begins. Looking at
the Augustinian picture of language we see
that Augustine has explained only one type of
word.

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', then he looks up the word
'red' in a table and finds a colour sample
opposite it; then he says the series of cardinal
numbers--I assume that he knows them by
heart--up to the word 'five' and for each
number he takes an apple of the same colour
as the sample out of the drawer.--It is in this
and simlar ways that one operates with
words--"But how does he know where and
how he is to look up the word 'red' and what
he is to do with the word 'five'?" ---Well, I
assume that he 'acts' as I have described.
Explanations come to an end somewhere.--
But what is the meaning of the word 'five'? --
No such thing was in question here, only how
the word 'five' is used.
This scenario is a thought experiment. To
what extent do you think the language in this
scenario is explained by Augustine's picture
of language? Think of the shopkeeper
counting out the apples, one through five.
Did he learn to do this by someone pointing
to five apples? Hardly. The teaching of
language by pointing cannot explain learning
to count. What about using written languge
to communicate what is wanted? Someone
had to teach him how to read before he could
make sense of the note and translate it into a
order. And to follow the order, he had to
know much more than was specifically
contained in the note - which just said 'five
red apples.' The shopkeeper had to be able to
find the apples, even to know to look for
them, and also to know to put them in a sack
and accept money in exchange for them. He
had to be able to recognize various coins our
bills and add them together. It would be hard
to explain all of this within the Augustinian
picture of language.


2. That philosophical concept of meaning
has its place in a primitive idea of the way
language functions. But one can also say that
it is the idea of a language more primitive
than ours.





By "that philosophical concept of meaning"
Wittgenstein means the Augustinian picture
that he gave us above. Look at Augustine's
picture again:

The individual words in language
name objects--sentences are
combinations of such names. Every
word has a meaning. The meaning is
correlated with the word. It is the
object for which the word stands.
This concept of meaning, Wittgensein says,
has its place in helping us understand
primitive language, language more primitive
than English, German, French, etc. It is also
the case, Wittgenstein explains, that there are
regions of our developed language in which
language works just as Augustine portrays it
Let us imagine a language ...The language is
meant to serve for communication between a
builder A and an assistant B. A is building
with building-stones; there are blocks, pillars,
This is an important thought experiment.
Although he does not call it a language-game
in this passage, it will become clear shortly
that this passage describes the prototypic
slabs and beams. B has to pass the stones,
and that in the order in which A needs them.
For this purpose they use a language
consisting of the words 'block', 'pillar', 'slab',
'beam'. A calls them out; --B brings the stone
which he has learnt to bring at such-and-such
a call. -- Conceive this as a complete
primitive language.





primitive language-game. He will refer to it
often, sometimes in its present form, or in
one of a multitude of variations he will give
us shortly.
We will often refer to this as language
game (2), using the number of the aphorism
to index the number of the language game.
I picture a work supervisor at the front of a
site with a worker responding to the
supervisor's commands. There are piles of
pillars, slabs, blocks and beams. The
supervisor calls out "Slab!" and the worker
brings a slab and sets it at the supervisor's
feet. Pretty simple.
Wittgnstein puts forth language-game (2) in
order to try to envision a language in which
Augustine's picture of language works.
Does Augustine's picture of language work
here? How did the worker learn this
language by teachers pointing and naming the
slabs and beams as Augustine suggested? An
exercise like Augustine suggests might
explain how the worker knew which object to
fetch, but how did the worker learn to fetch?
As opposed, say, to taking objects behind the
fence? Crushing them? Or tapping them with
a stone?


3. Augustine, we might say, does describe a
system of communication; only not
everything that we call language is this
system. And one has to say this in many
cases where the question arises 'Is this an
appropriate description or not?' The answer
is: 'Yes, it is appropriate, but only for this
narrowly circumscribed region, not for the
whole of what you were claiming to
describe."
It is as if someone were to say: "A game
consists in moving objects about on a surface
according to certain rules..." --and we replied:
You seem to be thinking of board games, but
there are others. You can make your
Somehow Augustine's picture of language,
although appropriate for a subsection of
langauge, is not as all inclusive an
explanation of language as we are, at first
glance, inclined to believe.
As Wittgenstein says in (1), we tend to sweep
under the rug all the uses of language that do
not fit the Augustinian picture that seems to
capture our imagination.
Although language-game (2) restricts the
vocabulary to words that seem to refer to
objects, the Augustinian picture cannot
explain everything that happens.
definition correct by expressly restricting it to
those games.


4. Imagine a script in which the letters were
used to stand for sounds, and also as signs of
emphasis and punctuation. (A script can be
conceived as a language for describing
sound-patterns.) Now imagine someone
interpreting that script as if there were simple
a correspondence of letters to sounds and as
if the letters had not also completely different
functions. Augustine' conception of language
is like such an over-simple conception of the
script.




How might this be? Suppose we taught a
parrot to say "Polly wants a cracker," and
whenever it says it, we gave the parrot a
cracker. On the surface this looks like
language. The parrot is asking for and
receiving a cracker. However, on closer
examination it is not. We could have taught
the parrot to say "Get lost!" and give it a
cracker each time it does. Then, it would not
have looked as though the parrot were
speaking English.
To think that simply saying the words "Polly
wants a cracker" constitutes "language" is to
have this sort of over-simple conception of
the language. Something profound is missing
from this conception although it is not yet
clear exactly what this is. Still, it is a
beginning to say that when the parrot says,
"Polly wants an cracker" he doesn't quite
know what this sentence means in English. It
amuses us because, nevertheless, it seems as
though he does.
The same would be true if we taught a two
year old to answer the question "What is 450
divided by 366?" by saying "One point two
three." It would be a correct answer in
English but the child would not know what
she was saying because she would not know
how to count, know wha this number means,
or know what division means. There is more
to language than stringing together correct
words.
5. If we look at the example in (1), we may
perhaps get an inkling how much this general
notion of the meaning of a word surrounds
the working of language with a haze which
makes clear vision impossible. It disperses
the fog to study the phenomena of language
in primitive kinds of application in which one
can command a clear view of the aim and
functioning of the words.
But although the parroted sentences are not
language in the richest sense of the term, they
help us to understand how language begins,
the roots of language.



A child uses such primitive forms of
language when it learns to talk. Here the
teaching of language is not explanation, but
training.


6. We could imagine that the language
of (2) was the whole language of A and B;
even the whole language of a tribe. The
children are brought up to perform these
actions, to use these words as they do so, and
to react in this way to the words of others.
An important part of the training will consist
in the teacher's pointing to the objects,
directing the child's attention to them, and at
the same time uttering a word; for instance,
the word "slab" as he points to that shape.


Although the word "slab!" is not tied to any
particular activity in English, in the language
we are imagining in (2) it is always a
command to fetch a slab. What tends to
confuse us is that we can imagine something
like this taking place in English. It is just that
the word "slab!" would not be confined to
only this use.
However, in the community we are
imagining, this is the only use for the term
"slab!" And how might children be taught
the use of the term? We can well imagine
that the Augustinian picture of language
training might be involved. The child's
attention will be directed to the different
shapes and the child will learn to expect each
shape to be associated with a particular
sound.

( I do not want to call this "ostensive
definition", because the child cannot as yet
ask what the name is. I will call it "ostensive
teaching of words".-----I say that it will form
an important part of the training, because it is
so with human beings; not because it could
not be imagine otherwise.)




What is the difference between ostensive
teaching of words and ostensive definitions?
In ostensive definitions someone points and
gives a name of something and this serves to
make clear how the term is to be used. When
someone points to a cracker and says
"cracker" those who know what a cracker is
(but not the name for it) can receive this as an
ostensive definition. But if a child has not
yet learned language, it is like the parrot. It
does not know what is being pointed to on
what the word cracker means. (Maybe the
word "cracker" means "square" or "salty". Or
maybe it means "food".) However the child
understands the term, the child can be taught
to say it, in assocition with the object. As
Augustine imagined things in (1) . As
Augustine imagined things the child without
any language was able to "grasp"
This ostensive teaching of words can be said
to establish an association between the word
and the thing. But what does this mean?
Well, it can mean various things: but one
very likely thinks first of all that a picture
of the object comes before the child's mind
when it hears the word. But now, if this
does happen---is it the purpose of the
word?
The emphasis here is mine. I want to show
what I will call Wittgenstein's aporetic voice.
He is reminding us of the cultural ways we
think so tht he can deconstruct them. Here
Wittgenstein is talking about the cultural
illusion that is related to Augustine's picture
of language and what we are likely to say that
supports this illusion.
---Yes, it can be the purpose.---I can imagine
such a use of words (of series of sounds).
(Uttering a word is like striking a note on the
keyboard of the imagination.) But in the
language of (2) it is not the purpose of the
words to evoke images. (It may, of course, be
discovered that that helps to attain the actual
purpose.)
But although language may create images for
us, remember, the language in (2) was not
required to create images for the workers.
The worker in (2)would understand what was
being said to him if he simply fetched what
was called for, whether or not he had images
of what called for when it was called, or not.
But if the ostensive teaching has this
effect, ---am I to say that it effects an
understanding of the word? Don't you
understand the call "Slab!" if you act upon it
in such-and-such a way? -- Doubtless the
ostensive teaching helped to bring this about;
but only together with a particular training.
With different training the same ostensive
teaching of these words would have effected
a quite different understanding.
In (2) one understands the call "Slab!" if one
brings it when it is called. Pointing to
slablike objects and saying "slab" might have
faciliated this teaching but one could also
imagine learning to take the slab behind the
fence when it is called. A different training
would have resulted in the worker doing
different things with the slab, hitting it,
hiding it, burying it, and so forth.
"I set the brake up by connecting up rod
and lever."---Yes, given the whole of the rest
of the mechanism. Only in conjunction with
that is it a brake-lever, and separated from its
support it is not even a lever; it may be
anything, or nothing.
Unless one knows how to weave the word
into some form of human activity, the saying
of the word is not yet language. It is like a
break that is not yet connected with the entire
mechanism. The parts seem to be there, but
it does not yet have the connections to
function as it should.


7. In the practice of the use of
language (2) one party calls out the words,
the other acts on them. In instruction in the
language the following process will occur:
the learner names the objects; that is, he
utters the word when the teacher points to the
stone.---And there will be this still simpler
exercise: the pupil repeats the words after the
teacher-----both of these being processes
resembling language.
All of this sounds like Augustine's picture of
learning language.


We can also think of the whole process of
using words in (2) as one of those games by
means of which children learn their native
language. I will call these games "language-
games" and will sometimes speak of a
primitive language as a language-game.

Here Wittgensein introduces the concept of
a language game, but he will amplify this
concept later so that it does not merely apply
to language learning exercises. To anticipate
this amplification of the meaning of this term,
we might sometimes distinguish this meaning
of the term by calling these language games
"primitive language games."
And the processes of naming the stones
and of repeating words after someone might
also be called language-games. Think of
much of the use words in games like ring-a-
ring-a-roses.
In ring-a-ring-a-roses, the child learns the
phrases without knowing what they mean, as
a parrot might learn to say "Polly wants a
cracker."
I shall also call the whole, consisting of
language and the actions into which it is
woven, the "language-game".
So, "the language game" is not merely
speech. In (2), he whole activity of fetching
the objects was part of the "language game"
of (2).
8. Let us now look at an expansion of
language (2). Besides the four words "block",
"pillar", etc., let it contain a series of words
used as the shopkeeper in (1) used the
numerals (it can be the series of letters of the
alphabet); further, let there be two words,
which may as well be "there" and "this"
(because this roughly indicates their
purpose),that are used in connexion with a
pointing gesture; and finally a number of
colour samples. A gives an order like: "d---
slab---there". At the same time he shews the
assistant a colour sample, and when he says
"there" he points to a place on the building
site. From the stock of slabs B takes one for
each letter of the alphabet up to "d", of the
same colour as the sample, and brings them
to the place indicated by A.---On other
occasions A gives the order "this---there". At
"this" he points to a building stone. And so
on.
In (8) LW creates a new language game that
is a variation of (2). Now we will be able to
speak of bringing X number of slabs and we
will be abe to indicate where we want the
slab to be put. We understand these concepts
LW explains because they exist in English.
Notice, however, that LW does not say that
the slabs will be counted with numbers, but
with the letters of the alphabet. This helps us
get into the feel of what it would be like if we
had a more primitive system of counting, one
in which there was no arithemetic
possisilibities, for example.


9. When a child learns this language, it has
to learn the series of 'numerals' a, b, c, ... by
heart. And it has to learn their use.---Will this
training include ostensive teaching of the
words?---Well, people will, for example,
point to slabs and count: "a, b, c slabs".---
Something more like the ostensive teaching
of the words "block", "pillar", etc. would be
How can we imagine the people of (8)
learning language? Can they learn it
ostensively as Augustine imagined? Take the
learning of numbers. We could imagine them
learning to distinguish numbers ostensively
as we might learn to distinguish two from
three by distinguishing these configurations
of two and three:
the ostensive teaching of numerals that serve
not to count but to refer to groups of objects
that can be taken in at a glance. Children do
learn the use of the first or six cardinal
numerals in this way.

o
o o o o
But this would be of limited use. We cannot
learn to distinguish, apparently much larger
numbers in this fashion. Thus we count.
Are "there" and "this also taught
ostensively?---Imagine how one might
perhaps teach their use. One will point to
places and things---but in this case the
pointing occurs in the use of the words too
and not merely in learning the use.---
How will "there" and "this" be taught? This
is tricky, and LW does not answer the
question for us. Do you point to "this" and
say "this"? Does that clarify the use of the
word "this"? Hardly.
10. Now what do the words of this language
signify?---What is supposed to shew what
they signify, if not the kind of use they
have? And we have already described that. So
we are asking for the expression "This word
signifies this" to be made a part of the
description. In other words the description
ought to take the form: "The word . . .
.signifies . . . ."

.
What does "two signify"? Does it signify any
two objects? Say, two blocks? Well, we
know what the word "block signifies." It
signifies each of the two blocks. Does "two"
signifiy something other than what "block
signifies"? There are conceptual puzzles
here.
And what does "this" signify. It signifies
what I point to. But that can be anything.
How can a child learn to associate the naming
of anything by one term?
But, do we need to say what these words
"signify"? Isn't everything clear already?
Since we know their use? Why would we
require that all words "signify"?
Of course, one can reduce the description of
the use of the word "slab" to the statement that
this word signifies this object. This will be
done when, for example, it is merely a matter
of removing the mistaken idea that the word
"slab" refers to the shape of building-stone
that we in fact call a "block"---but the kind of
'refering' this is, that is to say the use of these
words for the rest, is already known.
In language-game (2) pointing and saying
"slab" may be helpful to show which slab is to
be fetched, but pointing and naming would
not show that the slab is to be fetched.



Equally one can say that the signs "a", "b",
etc. signify numbers; when for example this
removes the mistaken idea that "a", "b", "c",
play the part actually played in language by
"block", "slab", "pillar". And one can also say
that "c" means this number and not that one;
when for example this serves to explain that
the letters are to be used in the order a, b, c, d,
etc. and not in the order a, b, d, c.
In other words, we might want to explain that
"c" is not just another object like "slab" or
"block" and so we might need explain "a",
"b", and "c" signify numbers. But where does
this leave us? Does it teach the child in (8) to
learn to use numbers (by counting things) and
until the child learns to count does the child
really know what "numbers" means?
But assimilating the descriptions of the uses
of the words in this way cannot make the
uses themselves any more like one another.
For, as we see, they are absolutely unlike.

So, although we can find a way to say that
"a," "b," "c," signify something, assimilating
these different kinds of words to the same
expression (they are instances if "signifying"
hides the enormity of the difference and
creates a over simplified picture language and
how language is learned.

Aphorism 11-20 from
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
with commentary on the right by
Lois Shawver

Wittgenstein:
(Emphasis in bold is inserted by Shawver to
enhance commentary.)

Shawver commentary:
11. Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a
hammer, pliers, a saw, a screw-driver, a ruler,
a glue-pot, glue, nails and screw.---The
functions of words are as diverse as the
functions of these objects. (And in both cases
there are similarities.)
Augustine was struck by the similarities of
different words and failed to note their
differences. Such an understanding would be
as superficial as learning that all the objects
in the toolbox were "tools" but not knowing
any of their different functions.
Of course, what confuses us is the uniform
appearance of words when we hear them
spoken or meet them in script and print. For
their application is not presented to us so
clearly. Especially when we are doing
philosophy!
Look at the words on this page. Don't they
look alike? They look so much more like
each other than they look like your keyboard
or your hand. This is what confuses us.




12. It is like looking into the cabin of a
locomotive. We see handles all looking more
or less alike. (Naturally, since they are all
supposed to be handled.) But one is the
handle of a crank which can be moved
continuously (it regulates the opening of a
valve); another is the handle of a switch,
which has only a brake-lever, the harder one
pulls on it, the harder it brakes; a fourth, the
handle of a pump: it has an effect only so
long as it is moved to and fro.
We are mesmerized by the similarity in the
appearance of words. This keeps us from
noticing the vast differences in their uses.









13. When we say: "Every word in language
signifies something" we have so far said
nothing whatever; unless we have explained
exactly what distinction we wish to make. (It
might be, of course, that we wanted to
distinguish the words of language (8) from
words 'without meaning' such as occur in
Lewis Carroll's poems, or words like
"Lilliburlero" in songs.)



14. Imagine someone's saying: "All tools
serve to modify something. Thus the hammer
modifies the position of the nail, the saw the
shape of the board, and so on."---And what is
modified by the rule, the glue-pot, the nails?-
--"Our knowledge of thing's length, the
temperature of the glue, and the solidity of
the box."-----Would anything be gained by
this assimilation of expressions?---
It seems we look for ways to disguise the
differences in different kinds of terms. We
try to assimilate them all to a particular way
of describing them. But the fact that we can
find an expression that treats them all the
same (e.g., all words are made of characters)
does not mean that they are as similar as we
think. We fail to notice their differences, and
this undermines our philosophy about
language.


15. The word "to signify" is perhaps used in
the most straight-forward way when the
objects signified is marked with the sign.
Suppose that the tools A uses in building bear
certain marks. When A shews his assistant
such a mark, he brings the tool that has that
mark on it.
It is in this and more or less similar ways
that a name means and is given to a thing.---It
will often prove useful in philosophy to say
to ourselves: naming something is like
attaching a label to a thing.
Well, does the word "signify" mean anything
at all? There is a exemplary case of our using
this term. It is used best when we mark
objects with a sign. Sometimes it is useful to
use such a model in understanding
language.









16. What about the colour samples that A
shews to B: are they part of language? Well,
it is as you please. They do not belong among
the words; yet when I say to someone:
"Pronounce the word 'the' ", you will count
the second "the" as part of the language-
game (8); that is, it is a sample of what the
other is meant to say.
It is most natural, and causes least
confusion, to reckon the samples among the
instruments of the language.
((Remark on the reflexive pronoun "this
sentence". - (502)))
There is a certain analogy between saying
"This is the color pillar I want you to bring,"
and "This is the way I want you to pronounce
the word 'the.'" We sometimes give samples
of how to say things, or what to call things,
with words, and sometimes we use
supplementary techniques, such as color
samples. Wittgenstein is urging us to count
all of these techniques, regardless of whether
they consist of words, "language."







17. It will be possible to say: In
language (8) we have different kinds of word.
For the functions of the word "slab" and the
word "block" are more alike than those of
"slab" and "d". But how we group words into
kinds will depend on the aim of the
classification,---and on our own inclination.
Think of the different points of view from
which one can classify tools or chess-men.
Treat this as an exercise. What kind of words
are there in (8). The way to classify words in
8 will vary, but one way that suggests itself is
we can count some words as names, some as
numbers, and some as pronouns. But
couldn't we also classify these words
according to whether they are one syllable or
two? Aren't there other ways to classify
them?




18. Do not be troubled by the fact that
languages (2) and (8) consist only of orders.
If you want to say that this shews them to be
incomplete, ask yourself whether our
language is complete;---whether it was so
before the symbolism of chemistry and the
notation of the infinitesimal calculus were
incorporated in it; for these are, so to speak,
suburbs of our language. (And how many
houses or streets does it take before a town
begins to be a town?) Our language can be
seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets
and squares, of old and new houses, and of
At what point does a language become
complete? Was our language complete
before we introduced the specialized
language of psychoanalysis? Before we
introduced the zero into our counting
system? And, for that matter, is our language
complete now?
We have no way to evaluate the
completeness of language. Each language is
more or less rich but the ways that it is rich
are different from that in other languages.

houses with additions from various periods;
and this surrounded by a multitude of new
boroughs with straight regular streets and
uniform houses.






19. It is easy to imagine a language
consisting only of orders and reports in
battle.---Or a language consisting only of
questions and expressions for answering yes
and no. And innumerable others.-----And to
imagine a language means to imagine a
form of life.
Wittgenstein has already told us that
language games are not not just to be "words"
and our ways of responding with words. The
language game in (2)for example was woven
into a culture that fetched slabs and blocks.
Their words were woven into their activity,
their forms of life.
But what about this: is the call "Slab!" in
example (2) a sentence or a word?--- If a
word, surely it has not the same meaning as
the like-sounding word of our ordinary
language, for in (2) it is a call. But if a
sentence, it is surely not the elliptical
sentence: "Slab!" of our language.
How can it be an elliptical sentence? There
are no words possible in language-game (2)
except "slab" "block" "pillar" and "beam."




-----As far as the first question goes you can
call "Slab!" a word and also a sentence;
perhaps it could be appropriately called a
'degenerate sentence' (as one speaks of a
degenerate hyperbola); in fact it is our
'elliptical'
sentence.---But that is surely only a shortened
form of sentence "Bring me a slab", and there
is no such sentence in example (2).---But
why should I not on contrary have called
the sentence "Bring me a slab" a
lengthening of the sentence "Slab!"?---
Even in English it is biased to say that
"Slab!" is an elliptical form of "Bring me a
slab." If we began by learning the command
"slab!" (and maybe we did), then wouldn't
"Bring be slab!" be a lengthened form of
"Slab!"?






Because if you shout "Slab!" you really
mean: "Bring me a slab".---
Here is LW's aporetic (or Augustinian
voice). Let's unpack what we mean by
"really mean."
But how do you do this: how do you mean
that while you say "Slab!"? Do you say the
unshortened sentence to yourself? And why
should I translate the call "Slab!" into a
different expression in order to say what
someone means by it? And if they mean the
same thing---why should I not say: "When he
says 'Slab!'"? Again, if you can mean "Bring
And here are some observations that are
meant to shed clarifying light:
How do you have this other meaning "Bring
me a slab!" going on? In what way is this
what we really mean? We don't say "Bring
me a slab!" to ourselves while we say
"Slab!" Why not say that "Bring me a slab!"
me the slab", why should you not be able to
mean "Slab!"? -----But when I call "Slab!",
then what I want is that he should bring me a
slab!----- Certainly, but does 'wanting this'
consist in thinking in some from or other a
different sentence from the one you utter?---
really means "Slab!"
This notion "really mean" is confusing here.
We do not "really mean" a particular sentence
in this case. Or, we might just as well say
that we really mean "slab!" as to say that we
really mean "Bring me a slab!"


20. But now it looks as if when someone
says "Bring me a slab" he could mean this
expression as one long word corresponding to
the single word "Slab!" ----Then can one
mean it sometimes as one word and
sometimes as four? And can one mean it
sometimes as one word and sometimes as
four? And how does one usually mean it?----
-
And, when a person says "Bring me a slab!"
it is not the same as if a peson said "bring-
me-a-slab!" as if it were just one word. What
is wrong with our analysis here?
When is "Bring me a slab!" four words and
when is it one?
I think we shall be inclined to say: we mean
the sentence as four words when we use it in
contrast with other sentences such as "Hand
me a slab", "Bring him a slab". "Bring two
slabs", etc.; that is, in contrast with sentences
containing the separate words of our
command in other combinations.-----
When we have a variety of sentences that use
most of the same words but are variations on
a theme, then we will say that the sentence
has four words.



But what does using one sentence in contrast
with others consist in? Do the others,
perhaps, hover before one's mind? All of
them? And while one is saying the one
sentence, or before, or afterwards?---

No. Even if such an explanation rather tempts
us, we need only think for a moment of what
actually happens in order to see that we are
going astray here. We say that we use the
command in contrast with other sentences
because our language contains the
possibility of those other sentences.
Someone who did not understand our
language, a foreigner, who had fairly often
heard someone giving the order: "Bring me a
slab!", might believe that this whole series of
sounds was one word corresponding perhaps
to the word for "building-stone" in his
language. If he himself had then given this
The clarifying voice:
Our temptation to use an explanation that
requires us to think of the other sentences
"hovering" is instructive. It teaches us to
stop and look and not base our conclusions
on "what must be." When we stop to look,
we see that the other sentences are no in
anyway hovering in our minds. What make
one way of saying "Bring me a slab!" a
sentence and the other way, "Bring-me-a-
slab!" a word has something more to do with
the fact that we can make sentences that are
variations on the theme "Bring me a slab!"

order perhaps he would have pronounced it
differently, and we should say: he
pronounces it so oddly because he takes it for
a single word.-----



But then, is there not also something different
going on in him when he pronounces it,---
something corresponding to the fact that he
conceives the sentence as a single word?-----
But what is going on with him? Must he be
picturing the "slab" when he hears it? Or
must he say this sentence to himself "Bring
me a slab!"
Either the same thing may go on in him, or
something different. For what goes on in you
when you give such an order? Are you
conscious of its consisting of four words
while you are uttering it? Of course you have
a mastery of this language---which contains
those other sentences as well---but is this
having a mastery something that happens
while you are uttering the sentence?---And I
have admitted that the foreigner will probably
pronounce a sentence differently if he
conceives it differently; but what we call his
wrong conception need not lie in anything
that accompanies the utterance of the
command.
We we issue a command "slab!" what goes
on in us? Introspectively, need there be
anything private? There might be something
present when we utter the command, but
there need not be.









The sentence is 'elliptical', not because it
leaves out something that we think when we
utter it, but because it is shortened---
in comparison with a particular paradigm
of our grammar.---
In our culture we create the paradigm of the
full sentence as the "real." Therefore we say
"Slab!" is a shortened form and not "Bring
me a slab!" is a lengthend form. But this
paradigm that calls the longer form the real
form is arbitrary.
Of course one might object here: "You grant
that the shortened and the unshortened
sentence have the same sense.---What is this
sense, then? Isn't there a verbal expression
for this sense?"-----
And if they have the same sense, then isn't
one form of the sentence the "right" or "real"
form?
But doesn't the fact that sentences have the
same sense consist in their having the same
use?---(In Russian one says "stone red"
instead of " the stone is red"; do they feel the
copula to be missing in the sense, or attach it
in thought?)
Maybe not. Maybe we say that the sentences
have the same "sense" only because they
have the same use in the language-game.
They cause one person to fetch the object,
and both the same regardless of which form
we use.

Aphorism 21-30 from
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
with commentary on the right by
Lois Shawver

Wittgenstein:
(Emphasis in bold in Wittgenstein's text has
been inserted by Shawver to enhance
commentary.)
Shawver commentary:
21. Imagine a language-game in which A
asks and B reports the number of slabs or
blocks in a pile, or the colours and shapes of
the building-stones that are stacked in such-
and-such a place.--- Such a report might run:
"Five slabs". Now what is the difference
between the report or statement "Five slabs"
and the order "Five slabs!"?---
That is, what is the difference between "Five
slabs" (in language-game 21) and ("Five
slabs!" in language game 8? )

Well, it is the part which uttering these
words plays in the language-game.
Emphasis mine. But isn't the important thing
that "Five slabs!" in (8) causes the worker to
bring 5 slabs? While "five slabs" in (21) only
causes the supervisor to have information?
No doubt the tone of voice and the look with
which they are uttered, and much else
besides, will also be different. But we could
also imagine the tone's being the same---for
an order and a report can be spoken in a
variety of tones of voice and with various
expressions of face---the difference being
only in the application. (Of course, we might
use the words "statement" and "command" to
stand for grammatical forms of sentence and
intonations; we do in fact call "Isn't the
weather glorious to-day?" a question,
although it is used as a statement.) We
could imagine a language in which all
statements had the form and tone of
rhetorical questions; or every command the
form of the question "Would you like to. .
.?". Perhaps it will then be said: "What he
says has the form of a question but is really a
command",---that is, has the function of a
command in the technique of using the
language. (Similarly one says "You will do
this" not as a prophecy but as a command.
What makes it the one or the other?)
On the surface the difference might be a
matter of how it is voiced. But we could
imagine them being voiced with the same
intonation. The intonation is, after all, only a
clue as to what the differences are, not the
difference itself.
Besides, we could imagine a language in
which everything stated or commanded was
put in the form of a question.



22. Frege's idea that every assertion contains
an assumption, which is the thing that is
Still, there is the dream (such as Frege had)
of including some sort of notation in the body
asserted, really rests on the possibility found
in our language of writing every statement in
the form: "It is assert that such-and-such is
the case."--- But "that such-and-such is the
case" is not a sentence in our language---so
far it is not a move in the language-game.
And if I write, not "It is asserted that . . . .",
but "It is asserted: such-and-such is the case",
the words "It is asserted" simply become
superfluous.
of the sentence saying how it was used. For
example, one might include a statement such
as "It is asserted that" and complete the
sentence any such way. Or, alternatively, one
might do the same thing by saying "It is
asserted:" and complete the sentence any
way.
But isn't it clear, at least in the last case, that
the notation "It is asserted:" is superfluous?
We might very well also write every
statement in the form of a question followed
by a "Yes"; for instance: "Is it raining? Yes!"
Would this shew that every statement
contained a question?

Besides, there is nothing to guarantee that a
notation "It is asserted:" will in fact be
attached to an assertion. After all, don't we
use questioning grammatical forms to make
statements? Don't we say "It is a wonderful
day, isn't it?" Even when we use formulations
that seem to tell us how a sentence is being
used, they need not accurately do so.
Of course we have the right to use an
assertion sign in contrast with a question-
mark, for example, or if we want to
distinguish an assertion from a fiction or a
supposition. It is only a mistake if one thinks
that the assertion consists of two actions,
entertaining and asserting (assigning the
truth-value, or something of the kind), and
that in performing these actions we follow
the prepositional sign roughly as we sing
from the musical score. Reading the written
sentence loud or soft is indeed comparable
with singing from a musical score, but
'meaning' (thinking) the sentence that is read
is not.
Frege's assertion sign marks the beginning of
the sentence. Thus its function is like that of
full-stop. It distinguishes the whole period
from a clause within the period. If I hear
someone say "it's raining" but do not know
whether I have heard the beginning and the
end of the period, so far this sentence does
not serve to tell me anything.
But we can try to construct language so carry
such a notation accurately. The mistake is in
thinking that it is the notation that makes it
so. What is in question is whether the
sentence is a question, and the notation does
not make it so. The notation is only a label
and a label can be correct or misleading.
This means, when we determine that a
statement is an assertion or a question, it is
not enough to look to see what the notation
(or punctuation) tells us. This information is
not contained in the words, but in the way
these words are being used in the language-
game.
Frege's notation that a sentence is an
asssertion is like the full stop of a period at
the end of string of words. Just as a period
does not assure you that the sentence
functions as a statement, however, so Frege's
notation does guarantee that the sentence
functions as the notation says.
See inserted comment of LW's.


23. But how many kinds of sentence are The rules of language games are not
there? Say assertion, question, and
command?--- There are countless kinds:
countless different kinds of use of what we
call "symbols", "words", "sentences". And
this multiplicity is not something fixed,
given once for all; but new types of
language, new language-
games, as we may say, come into existence,
and others become obsolete and get
forgotten. (We can get a rough picture of this
from the changes in mathematics.)
unchangeable laws. There is a continuous
evolution not only in how many language
games there are, but evolution, too, as to the
kind of language games thee are.
Here the term "language-game" is meant to
bring into prominence the fact that the
speaking of language is part of an activity, or
of a form of life.

We have seen this concept of langauge being
woven in a form of life before. In (19), he
said that to "imagine a language meant to
imagine a form of life." And in (2) he
pointed out that the slab language of that
language-game involved not only words but
activities, specifically, the activity of fetching
objects on command.
Review the multiplicity of language-game in
the following examples, and in others:

Now that LW has taught us something about
"language-games" he is going to give us
samples to count. This serves as a kind of
ostensive definition of language games,
although, note, these examples differ from
the primitive language games he talked about
in 7 (which was illustrated by the slab
language of 2
* Giving orders, and obeying them--- *
Describing the appearance of an object, or
giving its measurements--- * Constructing an
object from a description (a drawing)--- *
Reporting an event--- * Speculating about an
event--- * Forming and testing a hypothesis--
- * Presenting the results of an experiment in
tables and diagrams--- * Making up a story;
and reading it--- * Play-acting--- * Singing
catches--- * Guessing riddles--- * Making a
joke; telling it--- * Solving a problem in
practical arithmetic--- * Translating from one
language into another--- * Asking, thanking,
cursing, greeting, praying.
---It is interesting to compare the
multiplicity of the tools in language and of
the ways they are used, the multiplicity of
kinds of word and sentence, with what
logicians have said about the structure of
It is a useful exercise to imagine a sentence
of any sort functioning in several of the
different language games. When it does this,
it takes on a different meaning. For example,
"There was a storm today." Imagine how a
sentence like this might function in
"reporting an event" "speculating about an
event" "presenting results from an
experiment" "play acting" "singing catches"
and so forth. Some sentences, of course, do
not make sense in all language games, but
whenever they do, they mean something
different in different language games.
Of course, Wittgenstein is himself the author
of the Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus. And,
in that book, as well as in works by other
authors of that era (e.g., Russell) language
was seen as much more stable and finite.
language.( Including the author of the
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.)



24. If you do not keep the multiplicity of
language-games in view you will perhaps be
inclined to ask questions like: "What is a
question?"---Is it the statement that I do not
know such-and-such, or the statement that I
wish the other person would tell me. . . .? Or
is it the description of my mental state of
uncertainty?---And is the cry "Help!" such a
description?

Questions such as these, LW tells us, come
about from the Augustinian (Platonic and
confused) understanding of language that is
our heritage. Why is this confused?
In my reading LW, it is because a "question"
is just a grammatical form. It does not get at
the activity of "asking". We can ask with
cries such as
Oh, I wish I had someone to go to
the movies with! (wink).
And a sentence in the form of of a question
might not be an asking.
Would you mind going to get me a
slab?
We want to get beneath such grammatical
form (which LW calls "surface grammar")
and move down to the depth, that is
something more important than language
than the form we use to express it. Asking
"What is a question?" betrays a concern with
the way things look on the page, or sound in
the voic, and not a concern with the deep
structure, that is, the way the language is
working and having an impact on what is
happening.
Think how many different kinds of thing are
called "description": description of a body's
position by means of its co-ordinates;
description of a facial expression; description
of a sensation of touch; of a mood.
If asking what a question is reveals a hidden
confusion, what about asking what a
description is?
Of course it is possible to substitute the form
of statement or description for the usual form
of question: " I want to know whether . . . ."
or "I am in doubt whether . . . ."---but this
does not bring the different language-games
any closer together.
Here, too, with descriptions, we find there is
a surface form that does not tell us much
about how the sentence is being used. Just as
practically anything can be put in a
questioning formt, so practically anything can
be put in a descriptive format.
The significance of such possibilities of
transformation, for example of turning all
statements into sentences beginning "I think"
LW gives an account of pain language later
that I think this refers to, but it is too early to
get into this now. The important thing now
or "I believe" (and thus, as it were, into
descriptions of my inner life) will become
clearer in another place. ( Solipsism.)
to feel at home in his distinction between the
surface of language (such as "What is a
question") and the questions about the depth
of language (how is the sentence functioning
in the language game?)


25. It is sometimes said that animals do not
talk because they lack the mental capacity.
And this means: "they do not think, and that
is why they do not talk." But---they simply
do not talk. Or to put it better: they do not use
language---if we except the most primitive
forms of language.--- Commanding,
questioning, recounting, chatting, are as
much a part of our natural history as walking,
eating, drinking, playing.

Here, LW is looking back at this cultural
imagery that he has been deconstructing.
According to this imagery, to be able to
"talk" one must be able to think -- because
"talking" is the expression of our internal
ideas.
Don't try to deconstruct this imagery at this
moment. Just notice that it is a natural thing
to think here. Dogs do not talk, because they
do not think internal thoughts.
But note the parenthetical that I have
emphasized. A dog can be taught to fetch on
command, just as the worker in (2) could
fetch slabs on command. Why are we
leaving this kind of language outside the
scope of "language"? Because this is an
aporetic voice, the voice of the fly-bottle.
Still, we are indlined to say that "dogs do not
talk" and by this we mean that they also "do
not think."


26. One thinks that learning language
consists in giving names to objects. Viz, to
human beings, to shapes, to colours. to pains.
to moods, to numbers, etc. To repeat-naming
is something like attaching a label to a thing.
One can say that this is preparatory to the
use of a word. But what is it a preparation
for?
What is naming a preparation for? Imagine a
culture that could only name. It had no other
use for language. People simply sat around
and named things, or else they did things
without language. All that this culture would
lack in its language is what naming is a
preparation for.


27. "We name things and then we can talk
about them: can refer to them in talk." 'As if
what we did next were given with the mere
act of naming. As if there were only one
Isn't this exactly what the Augtinian picture
of language in (2) implies? We name things
and then we can talk about them. It is as
though this is all that is required.
thing called "talking about a thing". Whereas
in fact we do the most various things with our
sentences.

But naming things, we have come to see,
does not show us what to do with them. The
workers might be able to name the beams,
pillars, blocks and "slabs" and still not know
to fetch them. Language is not just the
uttering of words. It is the use of words in
the activity of language.
Also, the illusion that all we need to do to be
able to talk is name things neglects how few
of the words we use are actually names.
Think of exclamations alone, with their
completely different functions.
* Water! * Away! *
Ow! * Help! * Fine!
* No!
Are you inclined still to call these words
"names of objects"?
In languages (2) and (8) there was no such
thing as asking something's name. This,
with its
correlate, ostensive definition, is, we might
say, a language-game on its own. That is
really to say: we are brought up, trained, to
ask: "What is that called?"-upon which the
name is given. And there is also a language-
game of inventing a name for something, and
hence of saying, "This is ...." and then using
the new name. (Thus, for example, children
give names to their dolls and then talk about
them and to them. Think in this connexion
how singular is the use of a person's name to
call him!)
Look at exclamations. Are these just names
of objects? Do you want to say that there is
something internal that these words name?
Of course, someone uttering an exclamation
like this might have a image, but are they
required?
In (2) and (8) the worker simply brought the
objects required. There was no language for
asking what something was called. Pointing
and naming is a language game of its own.
One must learn how to do this.
And, in addition to learning to give the
existing name of an object, one can learn how
to invent names.

28. Now one can ostensively define a proper
name, the name of a colour, the name of a
material, a numeral, the name of a point of
the compass and so on. The definition of the
number two, "That is called 'two' "--pointing
to two nuts-is perfectly exact. --But how can
two be defined like that? The person one
gives the definition to doesn't know what one
wants to call "two"; he will suppose that
"two" is the name given to this group of nuts!
He may suppose this; but perhaps he does
not. He might make the opposite mistake;
Where, for example, is this hand pointing? Is
it pointing to both of the diamonds? Or one?
Or is it pointing to the color red? Or is it
pointing to the side of one of the diamonds?


Wittgenstein says that in every case the
object being pointed to is ambiguous. Can
you think of an exception? If not, does this
not undermine Augustine's picture of how we
when I want to assign a name to this group of
nuts, he might understand it as a numeral.
And he might equally well take the name of a
person, of which I give an ostensive
definition, as that of a colour, of a race, or
even of a point of the compass. That is to say:
an ostensive definition can be variously
interpreted in every case.
learn language?


29. Perhaps you say: two can only be
ostensively defined in this way:
"This number is called 'two' ". For the word
"number" here shews what place in language,
in grammar, we assign to the word. But this
means that the word "number" must be
explained before the ostensive definition can
be understood.

1 2 3 4 5

This number is called "two".
Does that solve the problem of how we might
ostensively define 2? There are several
problems with it. First the child must learn
what "number" means in order to understand
what is being pointed to.
--The word "number" in the definition does
indeed shew this place; does shew the post at
which we station the word. And we can
prevent misunderstandings by saying: "This
colour is called so-and-so", "This length is
called so-and-so", and so on. That is to say:
misunderstandings are sometimes averted in
this way. But is there only one way of taking
the word "colour" or "length"?-Well, they
just need defining.-Defining, then, by means
of other words! And what about the last
definition in this chain? (Do not say: "There
isn't a 'last' definition". That is just as if you
chose to say: "There isn't a last house in this
road; one can always build an additional
one''.)

Still, you might say, the 2 is in the right
place. One can see where 2 sits in the series
of numbers. And misunderstandings can
sometimes be averted by pointing like this.
But how can we define number?
Can we do it by example? Should we use a
figure like this:



This number is called "two". Or will the
student be confused by this ambiguity, too?
And if we tried to get around this problem of
ambiguity by defining the words, how shall
we define them without their being
ambiguous, too?
Whether the word "number" is necessary
in the ostensive definition depends on
whether without it the other person takes the
definition otherwise than I wish. And that
will depend on the circumstances under
But perhaps someone learns what two means
in a particular context, even without a
completely adequate explanation for all
contexts. I ask for a ball and the child learns
to fetch a ball:
which it is given, and on the person I give it
to.


Then I ask for two balls and the child learns
to fetch two balls. This always pleases me.


And how he 'takes' the definition is seen in
the use that he makes of the word defined.
But, if he "takes" it in the right way it will
become a powerful and reinforcing tool.
30. So one might say: the ostensive
definition explains the use--the meaning--of
the word when the overall role of the word in
language is clear. Thus if I know that
someone means to explain a colour-word to
me the ostensive definition "That is called
'sepia' " will help me to understand the word.
In 30, Wittgenstein continues to investigate
the Augustinian model and its problems as
the total explanation for our developing
language. This model, you'll recall, is based
on the picture of words being defined
ostensively, that is by naming and pointing.
--And you can say this, so long as you do not
forget that all sorts of problems attach to the
words "to know" or "to be clear".

Someone from another country wants to
teach you a word in her native language. She
points to a pillow and make a strange sound
"upapal" and your question is, "What is she
pointing to? Is it the pillow or the shape of
the pillow, or what?" But if you knew
somehow that she was pointing to the color
of the pillow, then that would make all the
difference in the world. But that is because
you know what "color" means. Imagine,
then, how difficult it must be to learn a color
word from an ostensive definition if you don't
even have a concept of color. And, of course,
all of us were in that place initially. isn't it
remarkable that we learned anything at all
from the experience?
One has already to know (or be able to do)
something in order to be capable of asking a
thing's name. But what does one have to
know?

If I already am quite clear about what a color
word is, then I can begin to ask what the
color of something is. If I know the term for
color and my teacher knows the term for
"color", too, then I am indeed a smart
student. Just pointing and saying "that is the
color sepia" should surely do it. But without
those tools, things are going to be a lot
tricker.


footnote: Could one define the word "red" by pointing to something that was not red? That
would be as if one were supposed to explain the word "modest" to someone whose English
was weak, and one pointed to an arrogant man and said "That man is not modest". That it is

ambiguous is no argument against such a method of definition. Any definition can be
misunderstood.
But it might well be asked: are we still to call this "definition"?-- For, of course, even if it
has the same practical consequences, the same effect on the learner, it plays a different part
in the calculus from what we ordinarily call "ostensive definition" of the word "red".

Aphorism 31-38 from
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
with commentary on the right by
Lois Shawver

Wittgenstein:
(Emphasis is bold is inserted by Shawver to
enhance commentary.)
Shawver commentary:
31. When one shews someone the king in
chess and says: "This is the king", this does
not tell him the use of this piece-unless he
already knows the rules of the game up to
this last point: the shape of the king. You
could imagine his having learnt the rules of
the game without ever having been strewn an
actual piece. The shape of the chessman
corresponds here to the sound or shape of a
word.
Suppose someone showed you an Xray and
said to you, "see that tumor?" It might be
evident to all who have learned to read
Xrays, but just pointing to it is not enough to
enable this kind of seeing. So it is with
handing a child a chess piece and saying
"This is a king." The background for making
sense of this pointing and naming has not be
laid down.
One can also imagine someone's having
learnt the game without ever learning or
formulating rules. He might have learnt quite
simple board-games first, by watching, and
have progressed to more and more
complicated ones. He too might be given the
explanation "This is the king",-- if, for
instance, he were being strewn chessmen of a
shape he was not used to. This explanation
again only tells him the use of the piece
because, as we might say, the place for it
was already prepared. Or even: we shall
only say that it tells him the use, if the place
is already prepared. And in this case it is so,
not because the person to whom we give the
explanation already knows rules, but because
in another sense he is already master of a
game.
The emphasis in this passage is mine. It
represents a key concept, the concept of an
ostensive definition being made possible by
the place for the definition being prepared.
But the primary point, I believe, is that if we
knew the rules of the chess game, knew that
losing your king meant that you lost the
game, for example, or how the king can move
within the rules of the game, then having
someone say, "This is the king in a chess set"
would mean a lot more, would clarify more,
than if you had never heard of chess or board
games. Sometimes, one does not know
enough about a subject to even ask useful
questions.
Consider this further case: I am explaining
chess to someone; and I begin by pointing to
a chessman and saying: "This is the king; it
There are a family of ways one might go
about preparing a person to understand "This
is a king" when showing them a chess piece.
can move like this, .... and so on." -- In this
case we shall say: the words "This is the
king" (or "This is called the 'king' ") are a
definition only if the learner already 'knows
what a piece in a game is'. That is, if he has
already played other games, or has watched
other people praying 'and understood'-and
similar things. Further, only under these
conditions will he be able to ask relevantly in
the course of learning the game: "What do
you call this?"--that is, this piece in a game.
We may say: only someone who already
knows how to do something with it can
significantly ask a name.
It would help, perhaps, if a person knew how
to play checkers and knew, in addition, that
in chess, losing the king meant losing the
game. Still, this would not prepare the
listener to understand his statement as much
as if he learned to play chess with pieces that
had a different kind of king.

And we can imagine the person who is asked
replying: "Settle the name yourself"-and now
the one who asked would have to manage
everything for himself.

If you did not have the concept of what is
being named, that is, if the place for this
name is not prepared, then perhaps it would
be as well for you to name it for yourself.
Learning the "name" of something (instead of
naming it) is important precisely in those
cases that learning the name will connect
with what we already know and allow us to
learn what we are seeing more completely.
Say you go to the doctor with a skin rash and
ask, "What is this called?" And suppose the
doctor gives you an unintelligible technical
name. Not helpful. But suppose the doctor
says, "This is a measles rash." Then, because
you have an idea as to what measles is, you
have learned quite a bit. But if you didn't
have the concept of measles, things would be
different. You could call it whatever you
wanted. It would be just as meaningful to
you. However, it might prepare you less well
for talking with others.


32. Someone coming into a strange country
will sometimes learn the language of the
inhabitants from ostensive definitions that
they give him; and he will often have to
'guess' the meaning of these definitions; and
will guess sometimes right, sometimes
wrong.
I remember Harry describing learning a
foreign language like this. He was in a
foreign country and people would teach him
the names of things by pointing and naming.
This seems like a very easy way to learn the
names of things in a foreign tongue.
And now, I think, we can Isn't it so? Augustine describe this kind of
say: Augustine describes the learning of
human language as if the child came into a
strange country and did not understand the
language of the country; that is, as if it
already had a language, only not this one. Or
again: as if the child could already think, only
not yet speak. And "think" would here mean
something like "talk to itself".

pointing and naming as the way that the child
learns language? But we have been working
on why this explains so little in the learning
of language, and noticing the limits to this
kind of learning, for example, that pointing
and naming "blue" doesn't mean that the
hearer recognizes what we are naming --
even if the hearer then can point at the blue
object and say "blue."
Also, such an ostensive definition can hardly
expain how we learn the word "the" or "for"
or, in fact, most words. Look back at this
paragraph and see how many words could be
taught to the child by ostensive definition.
The problem is that the young child, in the
beginning (picture baby Augustine), does not
have a place prepared for learning by
pointing.
What kind of background is necessary to
prepare such a place? How would you train a
child so that it understood that you are
naming a chess piece, for example? Or the
color "blue"?


33. Suppose, however, someone were to
object: "It is not true that you must already be
master of a language in order to understand
an ostensive definition: all you need --of
course!-- is to know or guess what the person
giving the explanation is pointing to. That is,
whether for example to the shape of the
object, or to its colour, or to its number, and
so on." -- And what does 'pointing to the
shape', 'pointing to the colour' consist in?
Point to a piece of paper. --And now point to
its shape -- now to its colour -- now to its
number (that sounds queer). --How did you
do it? --You will say that you 'meant' a
different thing each time you pointed. And if
I ask how that is done, you will say you
concentrated your attention on the colour, the
shape, etc. But I ask again: how is that done?
Here LW is luring us back into the muddle
and it is good to let ourselves go there for a
moment, knowing it is a muddle but letting
ourselves feel the pull. In this muddle he
continues to ask, how can an ostensive
definition teach the meaning of a term? How
does the student know what we are pointing
to. There is ambiguity in the pointing in
every case we can imagine.
Suppose someone points to a vase and says
"Look at that marvellous blue-the shape isn't
What we do when we "attend to the color' of
something seems, when you think about it,
the point." --Or: "Look at the marvellous
shape-the colour doesn't matter." Without
doubt you will do something different when
you act upon these two invitations. But do
you always do the same thing when you
direct your attention to the colour? Imagine
various different cases. To indicate a few:
rather nebulous.

* "Is this blue the same as the blue over
there? Do you see any difference?" * You
are mixing paint and you say "It's hard to
get the blue of this sky." * "It's turning fine,
you can already see blue sky again." *
"Look what different effects these two blues
have." * "Do you see the blue book over
there? Bring it here. " * "This blue signal-
light means ...." * "What's this blue called.'-
Is it 'indigo'?"
Consider all these contexts in which you
"attend to the color" of blue. Isn't there
something different about each?


You sometimes attend to the colour by
putting your hand up to keep the outline from
view; or by not looking at the outline of the
thing; sometimes by staring at the object and
trying to remember where you saw that
colour before.
You attend to the shape, sometimes by
tracing it, sometimes by screwing up your
eyes so as not to see the colour clearly, and in
many other ways. I want to say: This is the
sort of thing that happens while one 'directs
one's attention to this or that'. But it isn't
these things by themselves that make us say
someone is attending to the shape, the colour,
and so on. Just as a move in chess doesn't
consist simply in moving a piece in such-and-
such a way on the board-nor yet in one's
thoughts and feelings as one makes the move:
but in the circumstances that we call "playing
a game of chess", "solving a chess problem",
and so on.
Although there are surely typical things you
actually do when you attend to the color, it is
not the things you actually do that are in fact
what we mean by the "attending to the
color." There are a variety of things people
might actually do in the process of "attending
to the color."


34. But suppose someone said: "I always do
the same thing when I attend to the shape: my
eye follows the outline and I feel....". And
suppose this person [were] to give someone
else the ostensive definition "That is called a
'circle' ", pointing to a circular object and
In 34, the question is: "How does the student
know what the teacher is pointing to? What
if the teacher points to the shape and says,
'This is the shape?' How will we know that
the teacher is not pointing to the color?
Would it help to notice that the teacher makes
having all these experiences[,[ cannot his
hearer still interpret the definition differently,
even though he sees the other's eyes
following the outline, and even though-he
feels what the other feels?
some moves of her hand to suggest she is
pointing to the shape?

That is to say: this 'interpretation' may also
consist in how he now makes use of the
word; in what he points to, for example,
when told: "Point to a circle".-

Even when you point at the blue circular
image to me and say, "circle" very carefully,
and follow the edge of the circle with your
eyes, maybe even run your finger around the
edge of the circle, and even when you are
possessed of a 'circle-feeling', I can still
misinterpret what you are pointing to. Is that
not true?
For neither the expression "to intend the
definition in such-and-such a way" nor the
expression "to interpret the definition in
such-and-such a way" stands for a process
which accompanies the giving and hearing of
the definition.

If you intend your pointing to the shape to be
a definition of the circle, that is all well and
good, but there is no mental accompaniment
of this act that we call "intention" that is
required for it to be an ostensive definition.
Ostensive definition is just the pointing and
naming of something. It is pointing to the
blue circle and saying "circle", regardless of
inner intention. (Think of someone who does
this so routinely that it can be done 'without
thinking about it' in the moment.) And the
same is true for the student's interpretation of
the ostensive definition. Imagine the student
paying meager attention to the teacher and,
neverthless, picking up on the definition
correctly, or, as another example,
incorrectly. If the student failed to
understand correctly, would that make the
definition any less of a definition?


35. There are, of course, what can be called
"characteristic experiences" of pointing to
(e.g.) the shape. For example, following the
outline with one's finger or with one's eyes as
one points. --But this does not happen in all
cases in which I 'mean the shape', and no
more does any other one characteristic
process occur in all these cases. --Besides,
even if something of the sort did recur in all
cases, it would still depend on the
circumstances --that is, on what happened
before and after the pointing --whether we
should say "He pointed to the shape and not

to the colour".
For the words "to point to the shape", "to
mean the shape", and so on, are not used in
the same way as these: "to point to this book
(not to that one), "to point to the chair, not to
the table", and so on. --Only think how
differently we learn the use of the words "to
point to this thing", "to point to that thing",
and on the other hand "to point to the colour,
not the shape", "to mean the colour", and so
on.
Wittgenstein is distinguishing two related
language-games of pointing. One in which
you point to the thing and give its name,
and another related one in which you point
to the shape or the color and give its
name. Both cases require only that you point
in the same physical way. There may be
differences in the way people point in these
two language games, but these differences
only help us distinguish between them.
These different ways of pointing are not
inevitable and they are not required.
To repeat: in certain cases, especially when
one points 'to the shape' or 'to the number'
there are characteristic experiences and ways
of pointing-'characteristic' because they recur
often (not always) when shape or number are
'meant'. But do you also know of an
experience characteristic of pointing to a
piece in a game as a piece in a game?
association
All the same one can say: "I mean that this
piece is called the 'king', not this particular bit
of wood I am pointing to". (Recognizing,
wishing, remembering, etc. )

Here LW is saying that the sentence ": "I
mean that this piece is called the 'king', not
this particular bit of wood I am pointing to" is
itself ambiguous. "Mean" can mean
"reccognizing, wishing, remembering, etc."
For example, the above sentence might be
paraphrased, "I recognize that this piece is
called the 'king'..." or "I wish this piece were
called the 'king'..., and so forth. All these
different paraphrases have different
meanings.
Thus, this concept of introspective pointing
to the shape or color to teach shape and color
remains a puzzle.


36. And we do here what we do in a host of
similar cases: because we cannot specify
any one bodily action which we call pointing
to the shape (as opposed, for example, to the
colour), we say that a spiritual (mental,
intellectual) activity corresponds to these
words.
36. When we point to the ball there is a
physical object we are pointing to. When we
point to the color, what we are pointing to is
much more nebulous. In these cases, LW
says, we tend to do something quite peculiar.
We imagine that there must be something
that we are pointing to, even though it is hard
to see or even imagine, and this "something"
Where our language suggests a body and
there is none: there, we should like to say, is
a spirit.
we imagine ourselves pointing to is "spirit."
I don't think this concept of "spirit"
necessarily implies anything religious,
although it sometimes might. What he means
by "spirit" is more subtle and available only
by introspection. One points to the blue
circle and mean "blue". How does one do
this. LW is saying that it feels like we are
doing it "spiritually". Remember, LW
is not saying that we are doing it spiritually.
He is saying that we all have a tendency to
think of it this way. It is as though there is
something "spiritual" involved in forming a
"meaning" in our minds and that this
"meaning" that we form in our spirit
somehow corresponds to the words that we
are thinking.
When do we do this? He says we tend to do
it when our language says there is a body we
should be referring to, and where, in fact,
there is none. The language suggests that
"blue" is a body, but, in fact it is not, so it
seems we are pointing spiritually.
Let's imagine another example. I say
"It is raining."
Our language suggests there should be a body
to correspond with the 'it' in this sentence.
Notice, however, that it is hard to find a
body although our language suggests that
there is one. Here is a case, then, that we
might be tempted to say that the "it" that is
raining is spirit.
Here are some more examples:
* I have a hard time keeping all these
numbers in my mind." * What about the
word "numbers"? * It's time to go.
Is there a body to correspond to these nouns?
What about the word "mind"? Is there a
body to correspond with that? What about
"numbers"? Or the word "It's"? Do you want
to say that "it" is "time" in this sentence?
Then ask yourself what you oint to when you
point to time.
In cases like this, LW is saying, we are
inclined to think that what is being referenced
is spirit, or something spiritual or mental.


. In #36 Wittgenstein noted that we cannot
identify a distinctive action that we call
pointing to the shape (or pointing to the
color) and because of that we tend to see this
kind of pointing as "spiritual."
37. What is the relation between name and
thing named? Well, what is it? Look at
language-game (2) or at another one: there
you can see the sort of thing this relation
consists in. This relation may also consist,
among many other things, in the fact that
hearing the name calls before our mind the
picture of what is named; and it also consists,
among other things, in the name's being
written on the thing named or being
pronounced when that thing is pointed at.
`When we consider the matter more
imaginatively, as Augustine did in #1 when
he imagined that he had been taught language
by being taught to name things, we might
well think of the name bringing up a mental
image of that originary lesson. Supposedly,
according to this imaginative picture, we
know what the other person is talking about
(e.g., a slab) because, having learned the
name of slab ostensively, we now have
mental images of a "slab" every time we hear
the word. This is particularly compelling
because we have all experienced mental
images when things are named. Still, a little
introspection shows that we do not have a
mental image for every word we hear.
Alternative to the theory of mental images
assisting understanding we sometimes
imagine objects having labels attached. Still,
we do not often write the word "chair"on our
chairs. So, in the end, these two theories of
language do not work very well when we
think about them.
But, that does not mean we give them up.
What we do, sometimes, is imagine that the
images (or the labels) are there but in a fuzzy
and spiritual way. In this fuzzy and spiritual
way we point to things and name things in
our mind.
But then LW asks us to look at #2. You
remember in #2 , we had the simple game of
the worker and his supervisor. The
supervisor called out "beam!" and the worker
brought it. What is the relationship between
the name and the thing in that particular
instance? It simply causes the worker to
fetch what the supervisor wants. Need there
be mental images here? Remember our
talking about the way I might teach a gorilla
to hand me a banana when I said "banana"?
And that this would be a kind of trick. It
wouldn't need to be the case that the gorilla
actually understood what the banana was
apart from this particular context of handing
one to me. Here, we might say, that the
'name' of the object does not function merely
as a name. It functions more as a command,
although the word we think of as a name has
a role in making the command clearer.
So, can you see that in spite of our models of
language (pointing spiritually, or attaching a
label spiritually) these models do nt seem
entirely satisfactory. Aside from the
problematic metaphysics of a spiritual
pointing and naming, we have the fact that in
the language game the term "slab" is not just
a name of an object. It is a command to fetch
a slab. That activity around which the word
gets pronounced is not accounted for by
naming and pointing.
Are the mental images required for this
activity of fetching? No. Not logically. The
worker is just trained to do something at the
sound of the name. The supervisor does not
require him to create a mental image of the
object first. Of course he might do so
anyway, but this is not required.
This shows how problematic our notion of
naming is, and how much we try to patch it
up with notions of fuzzy spirits doing the
work.


37. We have been talking about the
relationship between a name and the thing
named and we have studied two cultural
models. In one, the name is metaphorically
"attached" to the thing (like a label might be
inscribed on the thing it names) and in the
other model the word we use "points"
spiritually to the thing it names. These are
the vague models we use for how words
"attach" to things. But Wittgenstein is
leading us through a critical reflection on
these models because these models lead us to
think we have the problem solved when in
fact they are in many ways unsatisfactory
models that lead us astray.
Wittgenstein continues to deconstruct these
old models of language. Here in 38, he is
going to remind us, again, that the models are
only satisfactory when we think of certain
kinds of words. Then, he points to terms for
which it is hard to use one of the two models
above.
38. But what, for example, is the word "this"
the name of in language-game (8) or the word
"that" in the ostensive definition "that is
called ...."?

"This" and "that" are very difficult words to
understand if we stay within the models
above., of teaching something by attaching
labels or pointing. How could you attach the
word "this" to everything you call "this"?
And if you point spiritually to a particular
"this" with your hidden soul, then what on
earth does this "pointing" have to do with the
word "this" in a more general sense. One
might illustrate an apple or a dog by pointing
to one, but can one illustrate a "this" just by
pointing?
--If you do not want to produce confusion
you will do best not to call these words
names at all.-- Yet, strange to say, the word
"this" has been called the only genuine name;
so that anything else we call a name was one
only in an inexact, approximate way.
This queer conception springs from a
tendency to sublime the logic of our
language-as one might put it.
If we call "this" a name, then it is a name that
can be applied everywhere. It offers no
specificity at all. Yet, at a certain point in
doing philosophy it seems like the only
legitimate name. To call something a "chair"
classifies it with other often dissimilar
objects. But what can be purer than just
calling it a "this."
This is a way of trying to make our logic
more lofty, our statements more pure. And
when we do this, it leads to queer
conceptions.
The proper answer to it is: we call very
different things "names"; the word "name" is
used to characterize many different kinds of
use of a word, related to one another in many
different ways;-but the kind of use that "this"
has is not among them.

Here LW is introducing us to an important
puzzle that he will clarify later. He wants us
to notice that diverse kinds of things are
called "names' and that we have no golden
thread to tie them all into a neat conceptual
bundle.
And, at the same time, he is showing that it
will be problematic for us if we try to include
"this" and "that" within this diverse bundle of
words that we call names.
It is quite true that, in giving an ostensive
definition for instance, we often point to the
object named and say the name. And
similarly, in giving an ostensive definition for
instance, we say the word "this" while
pointing to a thing. And also the word "this"
and a name often occupy the same position
in a sentence. But it is precisely characteristic
of a name that it is defined by means of the
demonstrative expression "That is N" (or
"That is called 'N' "). But do we also give the
definitions: "That is called 'this' ", or "This is
called 'this'"?
This seems to devastate the notion that you
can ostensively define "this" and "that". How
can one point to anyplace and say "that" is
"that". Or, if one does, how does this explain
to the hearer what "that is."

This is connected with the conception of
naming as, so to speak, an occult process.

When LW talks of the notion of naming as a
kind of occult process he is criticizing the
picture of naming that he feels our culture
teaches us. It is the picture of naming being a
kind of spiritual pointing.
Naming appears as a queer connexion of a
word with an object. --And you really get
such a queer connexion when the philosopher
tries to bring out the relation between name
and thing by staring at an object in front of
him and repeating a name or even the word
"this" innumerable times. For philosophical
problems arise when language goes on
holiday. And here we may indeed fancy
naming to be some remarkable act of mind,
as it were a baptism of an object. And we can
also say the word "this" to the object, as it
were address the object as "this"-a queer use
of this word, which doubtless only occurs in
doing philosophy.
This sentence "For philosophical problems
arise when language 'goes on holiday'," is a
famous sentence in Wittgenstein. It means
that language is taken out of context and
philosophized about it becomes "confusing".
It reminds me of a time when I was a child
that I said "butterfly" over and over. Isn't it
strange, I thought, that we say "Butter-fly" as
though butter were to fly away, or "but -er -
fly" and by the time that I had said this 15
times or so, the word no longer seemed to
mean "butterfly" in the simple way it had.
Often when one philosophizes about a
concept the concept has "gone on holiday".
We have lost our grounding in concrete
examples. We know very well how to use
the word "virtue" in a sentence, for example,
but when we scratch our heads and wonder
what "virtue" really means, then the word
"virtue" is on holiday. We are just thinking
about the word, not using it in the natural
way that our language allows us to use it.
Do you have any experience with language
going on holiday? Ever said a word a few
times, a familiar word, and then sort of lose
the meaning of it as you reflect on what this
word means?
And what do you think about "that" and
"this"? Do they seem like names to you?


footnote
What is it to mean the words "That is blue" at
one time as a statement about the object one
is pointing to --at another as an explanation
of the word "blue"? Well, in the second case
one really means "That is called 'blue' ". --
Then can one at one time mean the word "is"
as "is called" and the word "blue" as " 'blue'
", and another time mean "is" really as "is"?
Paraphrase like this can help us be clearer
about what language game is being played.
It is also possible for someone to get an
explanation of the words out of what was
intended as a piece of information. [Marginal
note: Here lurks a crucial superstition.]
Of course. I might say, "How do you like my
new sepia couch." This might give you an
unintended explanation of the word 'sepia."
Can I say "bububu" and mean "If it
doesn't rain I shall go for a walk"? --It is
only in a language that I can mean
something by something. This shews
clearly that the grammar of "to mean" is
not like that of the expression "to
imagine" and the like.
This is a critical point that should be puzzled
about at this moment rather than clarified.
Can one say "hello" to mean goodbye?
Without somehow creating a special code for
others to interpret? Or does the meaning that
we spin with our words have to cooperate,
somehow, with their more standard cultural
use?

Aphorism 39-50 from
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
with commentary on the right by
Lois Shawver



Wittgenstein:
(Emphasis is bold is inserted by Shawver to
enhance commentary.)

Shawver commentary:
39. But why does it occur to one to want to
make precisely this word into a name, when
it evidently is not a name?-That is just the
reason. For one is tempted to make an
objection against what is ordinarily called a
name. It can be put like this: a name ought
really to signify a simple. And for this one
might perhaps give the following reasons:
The word "Excalibur", say, is a proper name
in the ordinary sense. The sword Excalibur
consists of parts combined in a particular
way. If they are combined differently
Excalibur does not exist. But it is clear that
the sentence "Excalibur has a sharp blade"
makes sense whether Excalibur is still whole
or is broken up. But if "Excalibur" is the
name of an object, this object no longer exists
when Excalibur is broken in pieces; and as no
object would then correspond to the name it
would have no meaning. But then the
sentence "Excalibur has a sharp blade" would
contain a word that had no meaning, and
hence the sentence would be nonsense. But it
does make sense; so there must always be
something corresponding to the words of
which it consists. So the word "Excalibur"
must disappear when the sense is analysed
and its place be taken by words which name
simples. It will be reasonable to call these
words the real names.

In (39), LW introduces the question of
whether complex objects have simple
components. We discuss whether Excalibur
(the sword of King Arthur) disappeared when
it is broken into a blade and a handle. And, if
it does, then how can we speak of Excalibur
having a sharp blade? If the blade is required
to be attached to the handle in order for
Excalibur to exist, then the blade is part of
Excalibur and that means, that Excalibur is
the handle+blade combination so to say that
Excalibur has a sharp blade is to say that this
handle+blade combination has a sharp blade -
- which makes no sense. (Hence our
aporia.)


40. Let us first discuss this point of the
argument: that a word has no meaning if
nothing corresponds to it.-It is important to
note that the word "meaning" is being used
illicitly if it is used to signify the thing that
'corresponds' to the word. That is to confound
the meaning of a name with the bearer of the
name. When Mr. N. N. dies one says that the
bearer of the name dies, not that the meaning
dies. And it would be nonsensical to say that,
for if the name ceased to have meaning it
would make no sense to say "Mr. N. N. is
dead."
Here is a digression as to whether a word has
a meaning if nothing corresponds to it.


41. In #15 we introduced proper names into
language (8). Now suppose that the tool with
the name "N" is broken. Not knowing this, A
gives B the sign "N". Has this sign meaning
now or
not.?-What is B to do when he is given it?-
We have not settled anything about this. One
might ask: what mill he do? Well, perhaps he
will stand there at a loss, or shew A the
pieces. Here one might say: "N" has become
meaningless; and this expression would mean
that the sign "N" no longer had a use in our
language-game (unless we gave it a new
one). "N" might also become meaningless
because, for whatever reason, the tool was
given another name and the sign "N" no
longer used in the language-game. -- But we
could also imagine a convention whereby B
has to shake his head in reply if A gives him
the sign belonging to a tool that is broken.-In
this way the command "N" might be said to
be given a place in the language-game even
when the tool no longer exists, and the sign
"N" to have meaning even when its bearer
ceases to exist.

This continues with the digression of whether
names make sense once the objects
disappear. In 15 we are talking about one of
the building site language games. The
worker is fetching pillars and blocks. If the
pillars and blocks have proper names does it
make sense to refer to them if they have no
object to reference?

42. But has for instance a name which has
never been used for a tool also got a meaning
in that game? Let us assume that "X" is such
a sign and that A gives this sign to B -- well,
even such signs could be given a place in the
language-game, and B might have, say, to
answer them too with a shake of the head.
(One could imagine this as a sort of joke
between them.)

Say that the X is "tree". The supervisor asks
the worker to bring a Block1, Pillar3, and
then "tree" and all the workers laugh. Or,
instead of "tree" the supervisor might say
"angel" and this, too, might provoke a laugh
even though no angel corresponded to it. Or,
the work supervisor might say "pillar 6" even
though both supervisor and worker know that
"pillar 6" was crushed recently and so cannot
be brought because it "no longer exists."
43. For a large class of cases-though not for
all-in which we employ the word "meaning"
it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word
is its use in the language.
And the meaning of a name is sometimes
explained by pointing to its bearer.
The examples in #42 that I gave illustrate
ways in which words can have a use in the
language-game even when they do not have a
referent that we can point to and name. This
settles the question introduced in 39. Yes, a
word can have a meaning even if it does not
have a "bearer" (something to point to). Its
meaning is explained by its use in the
language-game.
(Click here for an explanded commentary on
this aphorism.)
44. We said that the sentence "Excalibur has
a sharp blade" made sense even when
Excalibur was broken in pieces. Now this is
so because in this language-game a name is
also used in the absence of its bearer. But we
can imagine a language-game with names
(that is, with signs which we should certainly
include among names) in which they are used
only in the presence of the bearer; and so
could always be replaced by a demonstrative
pronoun and the gesture of pointing.
In 44, LW uses the point established in #43
that a name can make sense even in the
absence of its bearer. But now he wants to
reflect on the possibility of having a language
in which words only made sense when they
have a bearer, that is, when the names could
be replaced with the pronoun "this" as in
"bring this!" (Imagine the work supervisor
walking over and pointing to the pillar that he
wanted taken over to the pile. We can hardly
imagine this working if the pillar wasn't
there)
45. The demonstrative "this" can never be
without a bearer. It might be said: "so long as
there is a this, the word 'this' has a meaning
too, whether this is simple or complex." But
that does not make the word into a name. On
the contrary: for a name is not used with, but
only explained by means of, the gesture of
pointing.
Imagine someone pointing to person and
saying, "This is Joseph." The "This" is not a
name. It is a way of explaining who Joseph
is.



46. What lies behind the idea that names
really signify simples? --Socrates says in the
Theaetetus: "If I make no mistake, I have
heard some people say this: there is no
definition of the primary elements -- so to
speak -- out of which we and everything else
are composed; for everything that exists in its
own right can only be named, no other
determination is possible, neither that it is nor
that it is not..... But what exists in its own
right has to be ....... named without any other
determination. In consequence it is
impossible to give an account of any primary
element; for it, nothing is possible but the
bare name; its name is all it has. But just as
what consists of these primary elements is
itself complex, so the names of the elements
become descriptive language by being
compounded together. For the essence of
speech is the composition of names."
Both Russell's 'individuals' and my 'objects'
(Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus) were such
primary elements.
Here LW shows us how deep the roots of the
ideas of simples is. The idea is that
everything is either a simple thing or a
complex thing where a complex thing is a
composite of simples things.



47. But what are the simple constituent parts (The emphasis is mine.) When he says it
of which reality is composed? -- What are
the simple constituent parts of a chair? --
The bits of wood of which it is made? Or the
molecules, or the atoms? -- "Simple" means:
not composite. And here the point is: in
what sense 'composite'? It makes no sense
at all to speak absolutely of the 'simple
parts of a chair'.
makes no sense to speak "absolutely" of the
simple parts of something he means that it
makes no sense to speak of "parts" without
some kind of context that defines what a
"part" is.



Again: Does my visual image of this tree,
of this chair, consist of parts? And what are
its simple component parts? Multi-
colouredness is one kind of complexity;
another is, for example, that of a broken
outline composed of straight bits. And a
curve can be said to be composed of an
ascending and a descending segment.


This is the gestalt notion that the perception
consists of more than the sum of its parts. If
you look at a particular person you do not see
just a collection of parts. And if you look at a
curved line
~
you do not just see the elements of that
curve. You see it as a whole.
If I tell someone without any further
explanation: "What I see before me now is
composite," he will have the right to ask:
"What do you mean by 'composite'? For
there are all sorts of things that that can
mean! --

The question requires a context. Otherwise,
we don't know what to count as "parts."
The question "Is what you see composite?"
makes good sense if it is already established
what kind of complexity -- that is, which
particular use of the word -- is in question. If
it had been laid down that the visual image of
a tree was to be called "composite" if one
saw not just a single trunk, but also branches,
then the question "Is the visual image of this
tree simple or composite?" and the question
"What are its simple component parts?",
would have a clear sense-a clear use. And of
course the answer to the second question is
not "The branches" (that would be an answer
to the grammatical question: "What are here
called 'simple component parts'?") but rather
a description of the individual branches.
That is, we can create a language game in
which we count "branches" as parts and say
that a tree is a composite (imagine a sketched
tree) if it has branches. But without such a
context, the question "Is this tree composite?"
doesn't make much sense. If there is no such
context, then the answer to the question
"What are its parts" is an answer as to what to
count as parts in this context, not an answer
about what the parts are aside from the
context. In other words, to say that "the
branches" are the parts is an answer to the
grammatical question as to what to count as
parts not an answer about the component
parts in this tree aside from context. If we
wanted to talk about this particular tree (and
not just negotiate what are to count as parts)
we will want to do something closer to
describing what we see as its parts (which is
arbitrary outside of a negotiated language
game).
But isn't a chessboard, for instance,
obviously, and absolutely, composite?
Notice the word "absolutely" here. It has the
special meaning of "absolutely and
irrespective of context."
-- You are probably thinking of the
composition out of thirty-two white and
thirty-two black squares. But could we not
also say, for instance, that it was composed of
the colours black and white and the schema
of squares? And if there are quite different
ways of looking at it, do you still want to say
that the chessboard is absolutely 'composite'?
--

This is the question, again, as to whether
there are ever absolute parts of anything. The
chessboard is the example he chooses that
seems most compelling. Doesn't it seem, in
some natural sense, that there are absolute
parts of a chessboard? And these parts are
the squares on the chessboard? What context
could change the answer to that?
Asking "Is this object composite?" outside a
particular language-game is like what a boy
once did, who had to say whether the verbs in
certain sentences were in the active or
passive voice, and who racked his brains over
the question whether the verb "to sleep"
meant something active or passive.
This is Wittgenstein's emerging philosophy.
It says that everything we say makes sense
only within a language-game that establishes
the rules and sets the meaning of the terms.
The distinction between "active" and
"passive" is different when we think of
sleeping than when we think of grammar. In
grammar, if that's our language game at the
moment, the passive voice has nothing to do
with being sleepy, or passive in that sense of
the term.
And, Wittgenstein is suggesting, it is the
same with "parts." What counts as "parts"
depends on the context.
We use the word "composite" (and
therefore the word "simple") in an enormous
number of different and differently related
ways. (Is the colour of a square on a
chessboard simple, or does it consist of pure
white and pure yellow? And is white simple,
or does it consist of the colours of the
rainbow? -- Is this length of 2 cm. simple, or
does it consist of two parts, each ~ cm. long?
But why not of one bit 3 cm long, and one bit
I cm. long measured in the opposite
direction?)

To show that things do not have "absolute"
parts, but only parts relative to the language
game we are playing, he is now showing us
some of the different ways we define the
parts in different language games.
I consider the last example, the one of
lengths, most compelling. What are the parts
of a length that is two inches? Are there two
parts, each one inch long? Wouldn't this be
different if we measured the object in
centimeters?
To the philosophical question: "Is the
visual image of this tree composite, and what
are its component parts?" the correct answer
is: "That depends on what you understand by
Again, this is not Wittgenstein's aporetic
voice, but his clarifying voice. This is his
own philosophy which says that we can only
answer the question "What are its parts?"
'composite'." (And that is of course not an
answer but a rejection of the question.)
once we have negotiated the meaning of
"part" in a particular language game.
48. Let us apply the method of (2) to the
account in the Theaetetus. Let us consider a
language-game for which this account is
really valid. The language serves to describe
combinations of coloured squares on a
surface. The squares form a complex like a
chessboard. There are red, green, white and
black squares. The words of the language are
(correspondingly) "R", "G", "W", "B", and a
sentence is a series of these words. They
describe an arrangement of squares in the
order:

Notice the statement, "Let us consider a
language-game for which this account is
really valid." This is most explicit. This is
what he is trying to do, trying to find an
illustration in which the theory is really
valid. What theory is that? The theory of
simples, the theory that Wittgenstein had in
the Tractatus and is also Russell.




1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9


And so for instance the sentence
"RRBGGGRWW" describes an arrangement
of this sort:








Here the sentence is a complex of names,
to which corresponds a complex of elements.
The primary elements are the coloured
squares. "But are these simple?"-I do not
know what else you would have me call "the
simples", what would be more natural in this
language-game. But under
The sentence is "RRBGGGRWW." It
describes the way in which the squares are
colored. Doesn't it seem natural to call these
different squares the parts? This is LW's
aporetic voice taking us back into the fly-
bottle.
other circumstances I should call a
monochrome square "composite", consisting
perhaps of two rectangles, or of the elements
colour and shape. But the concept of
complexity might also be so extended that a
smaller area was said to be 'composed' of a
greater area and another one subtracted from
it. Compare the 'composition of forces', the
'division' of a line by a point outside it;
And here he takes us back out of the fly
bottle. He is pointing to a way to see the
components of the above figure differently.
We may see 9 if we insist that each part is a
square, but we could see the continugous
colors as constituting a part.






So, there would be two red parts as the
following figure helps to illustrate:





these expressions shew that we are
sometimes even inclined to conceive the
smaller as the result of a composition of
greater parts, and the greater as the result of a
division of the smaller.

When I read this I see a mistake that I
overlooked before. The smaller is a division
of the greater (the smaller square is half of
the larger square) and the larger is a
composite of two small squares. This is what
I take him to mean. In other words, we
sometimes divide up a part to make smaller
parts, or combine parts to make larger parts.
But I do not know whether to say that the
figure described by our sentence consists of
four or of nine elements! Well, does the
sentence consist of four letters or of nine?
And which are its elements, the types of
letter, or the letters? Does it matter which we
say, so long as we avoid misunderstandings
in any particular case?
If the parts are determined by the colors, then
there are 4 parts. But if the parts are
determined by the shape (square), then there
are 9. Which way you count them depends
on how you define "part." And the same
thing is true for the sentence:
RRBGGGRWW
You will say there are 9 words if you count
each appearance of a character as "a word."
But if you count the second appearance of
each character merely a copy of the same
word, then you will count a different number
of words.
49. But what does it mean to say that we
cannot define (that is, describe) these
elements, but only name them? This might
mean, for instance, that when in a limiting
case a complex consists of only one square,
its description is simply the name of the
coloured square.
Here he takes us back to 46. (Use your
ordinary way of returning from a link to get
back to this comment after you click on the
above 46 to peak at 46.) The point is, that if
we are thinking of the squares as the "parts",
then when we look at a single square we can
no longer name the parts. We can only
describe the square. Isn't this the dilemma
that Plato was noticing in the Theaetetus?
Here we might say -- though this easily
leads to all kinds of philosophical
superstition -- that a sign "R" or "B", etc.
may be sometimes a word and sometimes a
I have emphasized the parenthetical "though
this easily leads to all kinds of philosophical
superstition" because I want to show you how
LW shows us which voice he is using, the
proposition. But whether it 'is a word or a
proposition' depends on the situation in
which it is uttered or written. For instance, if
A has to describe complexes of coloured
squares to B and he uses the word "R" alone,
we shall be able to say that the word is a
description -- a proposition. But if he is
memorizing the words and their meanings, or
if he is teaching someone else the use of the
words and uttering them in the course of
ostensive teaching, we shall not say that they
are propositions. In this situation the word
"R", for instance, is not a description; it
names an element but it would be queer to
make that a reason for saying that an element
can only be named! For naming and
describing do not stand on the same level:
naming is a preparation for description.
Naming is so far not a move in the language-
game -- any more than putting a piece in its
place on the board is a move in chess. We
may say: nothing has so far been done, when
a thing has been named. It has not even got a
name except in the language-game. This was
what Frege meant too, when he said that a
word had meaning only as part of a sentence.
voice that leads us into aporia or out of it. He
does not really expand on this aporia but you
can note it. The question is when is
something a sentence or a word? We know,
but it is hard to say. We could say that it is a
sentence when it makes complete sense, but a
sentence does not always make complete
sense and a word sometimes does. Doesn't
it?



Wittgenstein steps out of this aporia by
saying that naming and describing do not
stand on the same level, that naming is
preparation for describing, it is not a move in
the langauge game. It is like setting up the
pieces in a game of chess.
Still, this is confusing because we don't know
how to tell, at times, what constitutes the
langauge game. It is easier when we think of
chess.
50. What does it mean to say that we can
attribute neither being nor non-being to
elements? --One might say: if everything
that we call "being" and "non-being" consists
in the existence and non-existence of
connexions between elements, it makes no
sense to speak of an element's being (non-
being); just as when everything that we call
"destruction" lies in the separation of
elements, it makes no sense to speak of the
destruction of an element.
This fuzzy word "being" is really necessary
here. It is the concept that we are reaching
for when we are in an Augustinian frame of
mind and trying to make sense of things. The
idea is that if you destroy something by
breaking it into its parts then the existence of
that thing is destroyed because its existence
consisted in the relationship between its
parts. For Excalibur to be Excalibur, the
blade of the sword has to have a certain
relationship to the handle. But what about
the little piece of the handle 4 cm above the
blade, does it have to have a relationship to
the rest of the handle? There is a way in
which we cannot speak of the destruction of
the handle.
One would, however, like to say: existence
cannot be attributed to an element, for if it
did not exist, one could not even name it and
so one could say nothing at all of it.
But if the handle has to be in a relationship to
the blade in order for Excalibur to exist, then
Excalibur is a handle+blade in a certain
relationship. And what sense would that
make? When the blade broke off we would
have to say that the handle+blade (that is
Excalibur) no longer has a blade.
--But let us consider an analogous case.
There is one thing of which one can say
neither that it is one metre long, nor that it is
not one metre long, and that is the standard
metre in Paris.-But this is, of course, not to
ascribe any extraordinary property to it, but
only to mark its peculiar role in the language-
game of measuring with a metre-rule.-Let us
imagine samples of colour being preserved in
Paris like the standard metre. We define:
"sepia" means the colour of the standard
sepia which is there kept hermetically sealed.
Then it will make no sense to say of this
sample either that it is of this colour or that it
is not.

Here he gives of two examples of an object
becoming the paradigm we use to make
judgments. If we say that the standard meter
in Paris is one meter long it isn't the same
sense of "one meter" as when we say this
cloth is "one meter long." The standard
meter sets the standard. What would it mean
to say that it is inaccurately measured? It is
what sets the standard of perfection. On the
other hand, we can say that the cloth was
inaccurately measured.
And the same is true when we define "sepia"
by giving a sample that we will keep as being
"sepia."
We can put it like this: This sample is an
instrument of the language used in
ascriptions of colour. In this language-game
it is not something that is represented, but is a
means of representation.-- And just this goes
for an element in language-game (48) when
we name it by uttering the word "R": this
gives this object a role in our language-game;
it is now a means of representation. And to
say "If it did not exist, it could have no
name" is to say as much and as little as: if
this thing did not exist, we could not use it in
our language-game.--
Here he is talking about the way in which we
negotiate the meaning of the terms of our
language game. One way we do it is by
using an example to define the meaning of
the term. When we utter the word "R"
in (48) this is actually a way of negotiating
the meaning of the term. We are giving the
object a name and a role in our language
game. It is as though someone were to place
a stick in Paris and say, "This is a meter" or
"this is a length we shall call 'finger'." It sets
up a meaning for this term.
What looks as if it had to exist, is part of
the language. It is a paradigm in our
language-game; something with which
comparison is made. And this may be an
important observation; but it is none the less
an observation concerning our language-
game-our method of representation.



It had looked as though we could not break
the object up into smaller components. But
on reflection it is just that we had not named
the fragments of the compents. If the square
was the basic unit and we could not think of
something smaller being an element, it is
because we had not learned to think of a
fragment of the square as a component.
For example, take this square as a component
that could be multiplied (with different
colors) to make up a complex composite:

.
But imagine that we learned to see the only
columns as objects so that we saw three
objects when we saw the above square - as
we might today if they were different colors

. . .
Perhaps we would do this if we were used to
building fences of some sort so that we
interpreted all graphic squares:

.
in terms of fence slats. At a glance, even if
there were no separating lines, we might see
it as 3 fence slats, or three components to a
composite fence.
For, example, in terms of slats, can't you
imagine seeing that, wheresas the above
square was composed of 3 slats, the one
below has 6?

.







Aphorism 51-59 from
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
with commentary on the right by
Lois Shawver

Wittgenstein:
(Emphasis in bold is inserted by Shawver to
enhance commentary.)

Shawver commentary:
51-1 In describing language-game (48) I said
that the words "R", "B", etc. corresponded to
the colours of the squares. But what does this
correspondence consist in; in what sense can
one say that certain colours of squares
correspond to these signs? For the account
What is the account in 48? It is where LW
says:

The squares form a complex like a
chessboard. There are red, green,
white and black squares. The words
in (48) merely set up (sic) a connexion
between those signs and certain words of our
language (the names of colours).
of the language are
(correspondingly) "R", "G", "W",
"B", and a sentence is a series of
these words. They describe an
arrangement of squares in the
order: [see (48)]
Can you see how this sets up what we are
going to call the components of the
chessboard? We are told, specifically, that
"there are red, green... squares." So we have
been told what we are to consider the parts of
the chessboard.

-- Well, it was
presupposed that the use of the signs in the
language-game would be taught in a different
way, in particular by pointing to paradigms.
Our Augustinian mythology about language
says that we are taught how to use words
(signs) by pointing and naming and here we
are being "taught" contextually without our
noticing.
Very well; but what does it mean to say that
in the technique of using the language certain
elements correspond to the signs? --Is it that
the person who is describing the complexes
of coloured squares always says "R" where
there is a red square; "B" when there is a
black one, and so on?
Notice this phrase "certain elements
correspond to the signs." It's a common way
of putting things but what does it mean? Is
there a universal meaning to this phrase?
But what if he goes wrong in the
description and mistakenly says "R" where he
sees a black square --what is the criterion by
which this is a mistake? --Or does "R"s
standing for a red square consist in this, that
when the people whose language it is use the
sign "R" a red square always comes before
their minds?
If someone mistakenly calls a black square
"R" in what sense is this a mistake? If you
have been drawn into the language game of
48 by the account and you recognize that
someone is mistaken in calling a black square
"R," how do you know this? Is it the case
that a red square comes before your mind?
In order to see more clearly, here as in
countless similar cases, we must focus on the
details of what goes on; must look at them
from close to.
Here LW is teaching us not to accept the
answer above without examining what
happens in these situations.


52. If I am inclined to suppose that a mouse
has come into being by spontaneous
generation out of grey rags and dust, I shall
do well to examine those rags very closely to
see how a mouse may have hidden in them,
how it may have got there and so on. But if I
Here LW is continuing with his last comment
from 50. Even if we see that we have bought
into a certain cultural mythology that distorts
our vision, this does not mean that we can
find our way out of it. How do we do it? if
we think that mice spontaneously generate in
am convinced that a mouse cannot come into
being from these things, then this
investigation will perhaps be superfluous.
gray rags, and we're convinced of this, it
might be superfluous to examine the rags
But first we must learn to understand what it
is that opposes such an examination of details
in
philosophy.

The first thing we have to do is understand
what gets in our way seeing what is
happening.


53. Our language-game (48) has various
possibilities; there is a variety of cases in
which we should say that a sign in the game
was the name of a square of such-and-such a
colour. We should say so if, for instance, we
knew that the people who used the language
were taught the use of the signs in such-and-
such a way. Or if it were set down in writing,
say in the form of a table, that this element
corresponded to this sign, and if the table
were used in teaching the language and were
appealed to in certain disputed cases.


How do we know that "R" means that a
particular square should be colored "red"?
We can imagine it coming about that "we
know this" in a variety of ways (other than
the insidious account we have discovered
above). We might say this on the basis of
certain Augustinian language practices that
we had observed in the tribe. That is, we
might have noticed that the tribe points and
names squares "R" until the children learn to
do this. Or if it were set down in writing that
red squares should be called "R." Then this is
how we would know that this is what they
should be called (imagine a dictionary).
We can also imagine such a table's being a
tool in the use of the language. Describing a
complex is then done like this: the person
who describes the complex has a table with
him and looks up each element of the
complex in it and passes from this to the sign
(and the one who is given the description
may also use a table to translate it into a
picture of coloured squares).
The complex is like the grid we say in 48, it
is a cluster of elements arranged in a
predefined way. How will one describe the
complex to another who must arrange, say, a
copy? One might look at the complex and
then look up each element in a table.
This table might be said to take over here the
role of memory and association in other
cases. (We do not usually carry out the order
"Bring me a red flower" by looking up the
colour red in a table of colours and then
bringing a flower of the colour that we find in
the table; but when it is a question of
choosing or mixing a particular shade of red,
we do sometimes make use of a sample or
table.)

Whereas ordinarily we rely on our memories
to recognize simple colors like "red," we do
sometimes use a tool such as this when we
are trying to get the exact shade.

If we call such a table the expression of a rule Wittgenstein is setting up this table as a
of the language-game, it can be said that what
we call a rule of a language-game may have
very different roles in the game.
model of rule in a language-game and he will
use this model in subsequent text.


54. Let us recall the kinds of case where we
say that a game is played according to a
definite rule.
A definite rule is one that is set out explicitly
that everyone agrees on.
The rule may be an aid in teaching the game.
The learner is told it and given practice in
applying it.







Say I explain before we begin that the rule is
that when you type your comments you
should enclose them in brackets with your
initials. The rule is an aid I devise in
assisting our study, but it is not a part of the
language-game, in the sense that we could
easily devise other devices that would work
just as well. It would not change the playing
of the language game in any important way if
we used a color code to keep track of who
wrote which comment.
--Or it is an instrument of the game itself.



But an rule that is an instrument of the game
itself cannot be changed without changing the
game. If the rule is that we can ask each
other questions and get answers then it would
change our language game if we changed the
rule.
--Or a rule is employed neither in the
teaching nor in the game itself; nor is it set
down in a list of rules. One learns the game
by watching how others play. But we say that
it is played according to such-and-such rules
because an observer can read these rules off
from the practice of the game-like a natural
law governing the play. --But how does the
observer distinguish in this case between
players' mistakes and correct play? --There
are characteristic signs of it in the players'
behaviour. Think of the behaviour
characteristic of correcting a slip of the
tongue. It would be possible to recognize that
someone was doing so even without knowing
his language.
Imagine a new reader noticing that everyone
encloses their comments within brackets that
contain their initials and conforming to this
implicit rule. In that case, too, can we not,
say that this is "playing according to the
rules"?
But in this case how do we know when
people are playing correctly according to the
rules? Perhaps by the way people correct
themselves or other such recognizeable signs
that people show they feel they have violated
the rules, even the implicit rules (apologies?)


55. "What the names in language signify
must be indestructible; for it must be possible
55. Here LW is speaking again with his
aporetic voice, from within the fly bottle.
to describe the state of affairs in which
everything destructible is destroyed. And this
description will contain words; and what
corresponds to these cannot then be
destroyed, for otherwise/the words would
have no meaning." I must not saw off the
branch on which I am sitting.

But there is, you can see (can you not?) a
certain distance from this aporia. He is
listening to what he is inclined to say here.
He is inclined to say that there must be
objects in the world that are simple and
indestructible (which are either true or false).
Even if I destroy Excalibur it must be the
case that I at least have something left that I
can say is destroyed, fragments, smoke,
something.
If we do not have these simple indestructible
truths that we can point to and name, then
how can we continue? Our entire logic
depends on this. Or so it seems from within
the fly bottle.
One might, of course, object at once that this
description would have to except itself from
the destruction.

That is, if we destroyed everything and then
described the destruction, we could not
destroy the description itself.

--But what corresponds to the separate words
of the description and so cannot be destroyed
if it is true, is what gives the words their
meaning --- is that without which they would
have no meaning. In a sense, however, this
man is surely what corresponds to his name.
But he is destructible, and his name does not
lose its meaning when the bearer is destroyed
LW is still within his aporetic voice,
expressing wonder at these paradoxes he is
entertaining. In this frame of mind it seems
that what corresponds to the separate words
cannot be destroyed if the words are
true. "The Chair is in the corner." If the
words are true, then the chair cannot have
been crushed until it is no longer a chair.
Still, and here's the perplexity, a name still
has meaning once the object is destroyed.
How can this be?
--An example of something corresponding to
the name, and without which it would have
no meaning, is a paradigm that is used in
connexion with the name in the language-
game.



The standard meter in Paris gives us an
example of this paradigm. Or a sample of
"sepia" that serves to define our naming of
colors. Samples like this can give meaning to
a word. Ask yourself: How long as a griset?
If we had a sample in Paris that told us, that
word would have meaning.

56. But what if no such sample is part of
the language, and we bear in mind the colour
(for instance) that a word stands for? --"And
if we bear it in mind then it comes before our
mind's eye when we utter the word. (sic) So,
This is LW's aporetic voice. Notice that he
often puts his aporetic voice in quotes, but he
is inconsistent. I put a (sic) after the "word"
because I believe it should have a question
mark there. This is the cultural reasoning
if it is always supposed to be possible for us
to remember it, it must be in itself
indestructible."

that puts the indestructible simple in the
mind. It is what gives Plato his essences or
eternal ideas.
--But what do we regard as the criterion for
remembering it right?
Here, LW is questioning his own aporetic
voice. This is a significant question and he
will make much of it in other contexts. If we
have a sample of "red" say in our minds, and
no external sample, how do we know that we
have remembered the right color? The color
that "red" is? Can you see that this would be
problematic? You can hold the red sample
up to the apple and see that the apple is the
same color, but that works because the red
sample you are using is dependable. What if
you have gotten confused and the red sample
in your mind is now distorted, you are
thinking of it as "rust." How would you
know?
--When we work with a sample instead of our
memory there are circumstances in which we
say that the sample has changed colour and
we judge of this by memory. But can we not
sometimes speak of a darkening (for
example) of our memory-image? Aren't we
as much at the mercy of memory as of a
sample? (For someone might feel like saying:
"If we had no memory we should be at the
mercy of a sample".) --Or perhaps of some
chemical reaction. Imagine that you were
supposed to paint a particular colour "C",
which was the colour that appeared when the
chemical substances X and Y combined.-
Suppose that the colour struck you as brighter
on one day than on another; would you not
sometimes say: "I must be wrong, the colour
is certainly the same as yesterday"? This
shews that we do not always resort to what
memory tells us as the verdict of the highest
court of appeal.

Here he is further exploring the question of
whether we can rely on memory as if it were
a sample. We do sometimes notices that
colors have changed, he tells us, but we do
not entirely trust our observations. So, if we
rely on memory as a sample, we often do not
feel very secure about it.


57. "Something red can be destroyed, but
red cannot be destroyed, and that is why the
meaning of the word 'red' is independent of
the existence of a red thing."
The aporetic voice. Again, the emphasis is
mine. This is a paradigm (sample) case of
the Platonic-Augustinian muddle. What is it
that cannot be destroyed? The color? What
color? In what way does the color exist apart
from things that are so colored?
-Certainly it makes no sense to say that the
colour red is torn up or pounded to bits. But
don't we say "The red is vanishing"? And
don't clutch at the idea of our always being
able to bring red before our mind's eye even
when there is nothing red any more. That is
just as if you chose to say that there would
still always be a chemical reaction producing
a red flame.-For suppose you cannot
remember the colour any more.;-When we
forget which colour this is the name of, it
loses its meaning for us; that is, we are no
longer able to play a particular language-
game with it. And the situation then is
comparable with that in which we have lost a
paradigm which was an instrument of our
language.
Here's LW's clarifying voice. He is not really
giving us an answer here to the above
question, but he is directing our attention. If
we are inclined to say (confusedly) that the
red would exist because it would still exist in
our minds (because we could imagine a red
square still) then this neglects the fact that we
sometimes cannot recall the color. Suppose
you suffered brain damage and it did not
destroy your color vision but you could no
longer remember which color was which.
Would red then still exist?



58. "I want to restrict the term 'name' to what
cannot occur in the combination 'X exists'. --
Thus one cannot say 'Red exists', because if
there were no red it could not be spoken of at
all."
Again, LW is using the quotes to indicate his
aporetic voice. This is the aporetic voice
trying to patch things up so that they work as
our cultural picture says that they should.
According to this patch up job, we are going
to say that the word "red" will lose its
meaning when there are no red objects. Will
this work?
--Better: If "X exists" is meant simply to say:
"X" has a meaning,
In other words, if the statement "Red exists"
is true then this means that "Red" has a
meaning.
-then it is not a proposition which treats of X,
but a proposition about our use of language,
that is, about the use of the word "X".


But notice, this proposition does not talk
about the existence of "red". It is a move in
setting up the language game. It has nothing
to do with the existence of red apart from this
new language game.
It looks to us as if we were saying
something about the nature of red in
saying that the words "Red exists" do not
yield a sense. Namely that red does exist 'in
its own right'.

Important passage. In 122 LW notices that
our grammar is lacking in a certain kind of
perspecuity that would enable us to more
easily see what is going on. Here it is. The
phrase "Red exists" can be either a
negotiation of the meaning of the term "Red
exists" or it can be a statement about the
world -- but if it's a statement about the world
it has to be within a particular language
game.
We get confused, however, when we see that
the statement "Red exists" makes a kind of
sense to it. The sense it seems to make when
we conflate the two possible uses of this
phrase is that "Red" exists apart from any
object that is red. Still, this seems perplexing
to us. It is hard to imagine how red exists.
This is our aporia here.
The same idea --that this is a metaphysical
statement about red --finds expression again
when we say such a thing as that red is
timeless, and perhaps still more strongly in
the word "indestructible".

That is, there are many ways to express this
metaphysical thought that "red exists"
beyond red objects and particular language
games. Sometimes we say that it is
"timeless" or "indestructible."
But what we really want is simply to take
"Red exists" as the statement: the word "red"
has a meaning. Or perhaps better: "Red does
not exist" as " 'Red' has no meaning".

In other words, if we are tempted to say "red
exists" then we are pointing out that the word
red has a meaning. Or if we say that "grue"
does not exist," this is a way of saying that
the word "grue" has no meaning.

Only we do not want to say that that
expression says this, but that this is what it
would have to be saying if it meant anything.
But that it contradicts itself in the attempt to
say it --just because red exists 'in its own
right'. Whereas the only contradiction lies in
something like this: the proposition looks as
if it were about the colour, while it is
supposed to be saying something about the
use of the word "red".
But it seems as though the statement "Red
exists" is asserting a truth about red, not just
giving us the rules of the language (that the
word 'red' has meaning. The formulation
fools us because it is so similar to the
formulation we would use if we were talking
about a thing and not about meaning, as if I
would say, "The document you have been
looking for, I have found out that it exists," it
would be clear that I am not talking about
word definitions but about the document
existing. Still, the formulations seem so
similar.
--In reality, however, we quite readily say
that a particular colour exists; and that is as
much as to say that something exists that has
that colour. And the first expression is no less
accurate than the second; particularly where
'what has the colour' is not a physical object.
But our language does not make a distinction
between these ways of using the phrase "red
exists." Within the rules of our language,
both uses are equally correct.

59. "A name signifies only what is an
element of reality. What cannot be destroyed;
what remains the same in all changes."
The Augustine's voice again. This voice tells
us: If "red exists" it signifies something that
cannot be destroyed.
-- But what is that? --Why, it swam before
our minds as we said the sentence! This was
the very expression of a quite particular
image: of a particular picture which we want
to use. For certainly experience does not
shew us these elements. We see component
parts of something composite (of a chair, for
instance). We say that the back is part of the
chair, but is in turn itself composed of several
bits of wood; while a leg is a simple
component part. We also see a whole which
changes (is destroyed) while its component
parts remain unchanged. These are the
materials from which we construct that
picture of reality.

Still the apoetic voice speaking. And isn't
there a way in which this seems compelling?
From within the fly bottle? Doesn't it
sometimes happen that when you say "chair"
you see something like a chair flash before
your mind's eye? Well, then, maybe we
should say that this ghostly image is what the
word 'chair' refers to. It is the idea, perhaps,
that Plato had in mind when he constructed
his theory of ideas.


Aphorism 60-64 from
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
with commentary on the right by
Lois Shawver

Wittgenstein:
(Emphasis in bold is inserted by Shawver to
enhance commentary.)

Shawver commentary:
60. When I say: "My broom is in the
corner",-is this really a statement about the
broomstick and the brush?
What else could a statement like this be?
Remember that in 51 LW introduced the
notion that we can introduce the account into
the remarks so that this account defines the
terms to be used, sets up the language game
rules.
Well, it could at any rate be replaced by a
statement giving the position of the stick and
the position of the brush. And this statement
is surely a further analysed form of the first
one.

This is the voice of tradition noticing that the
word "broom" could be replaced with
something like "brush plus stick"? This
phrase "brush plus stick," it says, is an
analyzed form of "broom."
-But why do I call it "further analysed"? The voice of aporia asks why this is so.
--Well, if the broom is there, that surely
means that the stick and brush must be there,
and in a particular relation to one another;
and this was as it were hidden in the sense of
the first sentence, and is expressed in the
analysed sentence.
The voice of tradition answers and gives its
reasons. This T voice says in effect,
"Broom" and "brush plus stick" are the same
thing except "brush plus stick" gives a more
detailed listing of what we actually have.
Then does someone who says that the broom
is in the corner really mean: the broomstick is
there, and so is the brush, and the broomstick
is fixed in the brush?
Perhaps this will remind you of an earlier
discussion of whether "Slab!" in languge
game 2 really means "Bring me the slab!"
(cf 19) It is in ways like this that
Wittgenstein teaches us, going over these
points in one context and then in another,
using a different versions of a basic model to
familarize us with the problem in a variety of
cases.
-If we were to ask anyone if he meant this he
would probably say that he had not thought
specially of the broomstick or specially of the
brush at all. And that would be the right
answer, for he meant to speak neither of the
stick nor of the brush in particular. Suppose
that, instead of saying "Bring me the broom",
you said "Bring me the broomstick and the
brush which is fitted on to it."!-Isn't the
answer: "Do you want the broom? Why do
you put it so oddly?" Is he going to
understand the further analysed sentence
better?
The point is that the speaker who had asked
for the broom was asking for the gestalt
whole, not the parts even if they were
attached to each other. You don't see a
person's face by noticing the constellation of
features. The whole is more than the sum of
its individual parts.
Is he going to understand the further
analysed sentence better?-This sentence, one
might say, achieves the same as the ordinary
one, but in a more roundabout way.
Actually, it might be harder to understand.
Imagine it: "Would you had me the brush
attached to the broomstick?"
-Imagine a language-game in which someone
is ordered to bring certain objects which are
composed of several parts, to move them
about, or something else of the kind. And two
ways of playing it: in one (a) the composite
objects (brooms, chairs, tables, etc.) have
names, as in (15); in the other (b) only the
parts are given names and the wholes are
described by means of them.-In what sense is
an order in the second game an analysed form
of an order in the first? Does the former lie
concealed in the latter, and is it now brought
out by analysis.'-
True, the broom is taken to pieces when
one separates broomstick and brush; but does
it follow that the order to bring the broom
also consists of corresponding parts?

Poof! There goes our great distinction
between names and descriptions. If we call
the object a broom, then it is a description to
say it is a brush with a broomstick attached
because the composite object has a name
(i.e., "broom"). But if only the parts have
names then the whole must be described by
the means of the parts and each of the parts
become names.
So, what looked like a comment about the
unanalyzability of the broom (or the brush) is
really a comment about whether I can further
analyze the language. If invent ways to name
more infintesimal aspects of the object, then
the object can be analyzed further. The
squares can be divided into triangles and then
each square is a composite of triangles.
61. "But all the same you will not deny that The Augustinian voice again. Can you see
a particular order in (a) means the same as
one in (b); and what would you call the
second one, if not an analysed form of the
first?"
where he's coming from? Practically
speaking it seems that asking for the 'brush'
and the 'broomstick' means the same thing as
asking for the broom. If the instructions were
followed in each case, the same object would
be fetched.
-Certainly I too should say that an order
in (a) had the same meaning as one in (b); or,
as I expressed it earlier: they achieve the
same. And this means that if I were shewn an
order in (a) and asked: "Which order
in (b) means the same as this?" or again
"Which order in (b) does this contradict?" I
should give such-and-such an answer. But
that is not to say that we have come to a
general agreement about the use of the
expression "to have the same meaning" or "to
achieve the same". For it can be asked in
what cases we say: "These are merely two
forms of the same game."
I have corrected the electronic version of
our text which has the word "strewn" when
it should have had "shewn," when in
American is "shown."
But the question is, just because they have
the same practical effect of resulting in the
broom being fetched doesn't mean that they
are the same game. I can get you to turn
around by saying "turn around" perhaps, but I
can likely achieve the same effect by saying
your name.
62. Suppose for instance that the person
who is given the orders in (a) and (b) has to
look up a table co-ordinating names and
pictures before bringing what is required.
Let this remind you of the table discussion
for the color of the grid in 53-56.
Does he do the same when he carries out an
order in (a) and the corresponding one
in (b)?-Yes and no. You may say: "The point
of the two orders is the same". I should say so
too.-But it is not everywhere clear what
should be called the 'point' of an order.
(Similarly one may say of certain objects that
they have this or that purpose. The essential
thing is that this is a lamp, that it serves to
give light;-that it is an ornament to the room,
fills an empty space, etc., is not essential. But
there is not always a sharp distinction
between essential and inessential.)
Why are we tempted to say, however, that the
point of a lamp is that it gives light? Don't
you think we are? Yet in a given case, in a
particular situation, the point may be entirely
different. We are inclined to think of a
paradigm case (as if the situation has been set
up for us) and ignore alternative possibilities.
We recognize that they are there, but we let
them slip under the rug to keep things simple
(or for some reason).
Why do we do this?
63. To say, however, that a sentence
in (b) is an 'analysed' form of one
in (a) readily seduces us into thinking that the
former is the more fundamental form; that it
alone shews what is meant by the other, and
so on.
Ah, here it is again. The account in the
language set us up. It is the same point he
made in 51
For example, we think: If you have only the
unanalysed form you miss the analysis; but if
you know the analysed form that gives you
The Augustinian voice says that the more
minute the analysis the more accurate things
are.
everything.
-But can I not say that an aspect of the matter
is lost on you in the latter case as well as the
former?
But, the level of description is just different.
Something may be gained, but something is
also lost. We lose the forest for the trees.
63. To say, however, that a sentence
in (b) is an 'analysed' form of one
in (a) readily seduces us into thinking that the
former is the more fundamental form; that it
alone shews what is meant by the other, and
so on. For example, we think: If you have
only the unanalysed form you miss the
analysis; but if you know the analysed form
that gives you everything.
This relates to the point in 19 in which we
compared the language game that said that
in (2) "Slab!" was not an abbreviated form of
"Bring me a slab!" anymore that "Bring me a
slab!" was a lengthened form of "slab!"
Nevertheless we are somehow seduced into
thinking that "Slab!" is abbreviated.
-But can I not say that an aspect of the matter
is lost on you in the latter case as well as the
former?
But in each case we have a different language
game, a different "form of life."
64. Let us imagine language
game (48) altered so that names signify not
monochrome squares but rectangles each
consisting of two such squares. Let such a
rectangle, which is half red half green, be
called "U"; a half green half white one, "V";
and so on. Could we not imagine people who
had names for such combinations of colour,
but not for the individual colours? Think of
the cases where we say: "This arrangement of
colours (say the French tricolor) has a quite
special character."
1
2
3
4

Imagine it. a sentence like U, V, V, U would
result in the grid being colored in thusly:

.
.
. .
.

Couldn't we imagine a culture having such
names? Think of the French flag, or any flag
and imagine these rectangles looking like
flags, one flag on top of another.

In what sense do the symbols of this
language-game stand in need of analysis?
How far is it even possible to replace this
language-game by (48)?-It is just another
language-game; even though it is related
to (48).

Ah, but you say it would be so inconvenient!
yes, in English it would be. But what if
nothing really mattered but the flags.
Women wore green/white (or U flags) and
men wore green/red, or some other division
between classes of people were designated
like this. Aside from these flags, there was
no concern with color.
Yes, it would be a different form of life, and
the person who thought that were translatable
would be missing the forest for the trees.

Aphorism 65-69 from
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
with commentary on the right by
Lois Shawver



Wittgenstein:
(Emphasis in bold is inserted by Shawver to
enhance commentary.)
Shawver commentary:
65. Here we come up against the great
question that lies behind all these
considerations.-For someone might object
against me: "You take the easy way out! You
talk about all sorts of language-games, but
have nowhere said what the essence of a
language-game, and hence of language, is:
what is common to all these activities, and
what makes them into language or parts of
language. So you let yourself off the very
part of the investigation that once gave you
yourself most
headache, the part about the general form of
propositions and of language."

We have now shifted to a new topic that he
announces straightforwardly. The topic is
presented in the form of an Augustinian voce,
or a "somone." This someone wants
Wittgenstein to defie the essence of the
concept of a language game. Notice, within
the Augustinian frame, the 'essence" is equal
to "what is common to all these activities."
This idea goes back to Plato who talks of the
essence of various things or the
transcendental idea behind their various
sensual manifestations.
So, the question is: What is the essence of a
language game? and hence to all of
language? What is the essence of language?
Also, notice that in the last part of this
passage, the Voice reminds LW that this
search for the essence was once something
that he tried very hard to do, and it gave him
considerable trouble.
And this is true.-Instead of producing
something common to all that we call
language, I am saying that these phenomena
have no one thing in common which makes
us use the same word for all,-but that they are
related to one another in many different
ways. And it is because of this relationship,
or these relationships, that we call them all
"language". I will try to explain this.
It is true, LW is saying, that he hasn't yet
presented this essence that is common to all
language (or all language games). His
answer here in this passage is very famous,
and it is a powerful move in developing the
Wittgensteinian framework. Before this
move, it seems imperative that we define the
essence of what we are talking about. Now,
LW is going to show us another way to see
things.
66. Consider for example the proceedings
that we call "games". I mean board-games,
card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and
so on. What is common to them all? -- Don't
say: "There must be something common, or
they would not be called 'games' "-but look
and see whether there is anything common to
all. -- For if you look at them you will not see
something that is common to all, but
similarities, relationships, and a whole series
of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but
look! --

This aphorism has a little different structure
than some of the others that we are reading.
Here LW is explicitly guiding our reading
and he does such a good job of it, I am not
going to offer much commentary.
But a few notes: Now, notice your
inclination to say certain things has become
the Wittgensteinian voice. Now, we can
begin to listen to this voice within ourselves.
The voice speaks within us when we want to
say "there must be something common
among "games." There must be an essence if
we have a concept.
LW says, in a manner of speaking, "don't say
to yourself that this must be the case and
then give yourself a headache trying to see
what is not there. Let's look at specific kind
of cases and ask if the essence is there in
those cases.
Look through these aphorisms while putting
the point that he is making out of mind.
Don't think so much, or ponder what you're
looking for, just look at your memories and
understanding of games and detail what you
observe.
Look for example at board-games, with their
multifarious relationships.
Board games, what are some? Consider
chess, of course, but think also of monopoly.
Now pass to card-games; here you find many
correspondences with the first group, but
many common features drop out, and others
appear.



Card games. What about poker? And what
about Old Maid. Remember that children's
card game? How are these card games alike
and different from each other? And how do
they compare with board games? What about
the element of strategy? Or how many
players can play and whether or not there is a
single winner or, as in Monopoly (I believe)
there are different degrees of winning.
When we pass next to ball-games, much that
is common is retained, but much is lost.-- Are
they all 'amusing'? Compare chess with
noughts and crosses. Or is there always
winning and losing, or competition between
players? Think of patience. In ball games
there is winning and losing; but when a child
throws his ball at the wall and catches it
Think of the way one wins or loses in tennis.
Winning is hierarchical. One can win a
point, but lose the game. One can win the
game, but lose the set. And one can win the
set, but lose the match. One can win the
match but lose the tournament. Compare this
with baseball (also hierarchical) or with
checkers. And howabout board games that
again, this feature has disappeared. Look at
the parts played by skill and luck; and at the
difference between skill in chess and skill in
tennis.
revolve around a throw of the dice?
Think now of games like ring-a-ring-a-roses;
here is the element of amusement, but how
many other characteristic features have
disappeared! sometimes similarities of
detail.

Then we have children's ritual games. Do
they have a winner? What about drop the
hankerchief? Or London Bridge is falling
down? How about "spin the bottle."? Are
you winning or losing if the bottle stops
pointing to you?
What about jacks? Jacks is a girls' game that
was popular when I was a child and I was
into the game. You have 10 little objects
called "jacks" that you toss onto the ground
as the other girls sit in a circle. Then each
girl has a turn. She starts with a ball in her
preferred hand and she tosses the ball up and
lets it bounce and before it bounced again,
she picks up one jack and then catches the
ball before it bounces again. She does that
with each jack. Then she does "twosees"
which means she picks up two jacks in one
sweep. She continues that until she has done
all ten jacks. Then, if she completes that
round without difficulty, she starts again with
a more difficult rule. Perhaps she doesn't let
the ball bounce at all, or she not only picks
up the jacks but she puts them in a particular
place before she catches the ball. There are a
few of these rounds that are already invented,
but it is common for the winning player to
invent the next game.
How does "jacks" compare with chess? Or
with ring-a-ring-o-roses? How are they
different? How does it compare with tennis?
Or American football?
And we can go through the many, many other
groups of games in the same way; can see
how similarities crop up and disappear.


Don't children invent games on the spot? See
who can spit the furtherest? Or see who can
solve a particular puzzle first? Or who can
follow a rule the best (think of Simon Says).
And the result of this examination is: we see
a complicated network of similarities
overlapping and cries-crossing: sometimes
And what you'll find, I think, if you go
through a careful study of these various types
of games, is that there are similarities and
overall similarities.




differences. Poker is like chess in certain
ways. They both have clear rules and the
winner is likely to have practice and skill.
But they are different in some ways, too, and
if you look at how they are different, you'll
find other games that are not different in
these ways, but different in other ways.
67. I can think of no better expression to
characterize these similarities than "family
resemblances"; for the various resemblances
between members of a family: build, features,
colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc.
overlap and cris-cross in the same way.-And I
shall say: 'games' form a family.

















Here is the key move, and the new metaphor
that LW extends to replace the old Platonic
metaphor of essence. The concept is one of
"family resemblance."



Notice Al
and Jack
have the
same
eyebrows,
while Elmer
and Bob
have the
same ears
and Al and
Bob have the
same smile.
There is no
common
feature
among them
yet they all
resemble
each other.
Wittgenstein Family
Resemblance


And for instance the kinds of number form a
family in the same way. Why do we call
something a "number"? Well, perhaps
because it has a-direct-relationship with
several things that have hitherto been called
number; and this can be said to give it an
indirect relationship to other things we call
the same name. And we extend our concept
of number as in spinning a thread we twist
fibre on fibre. And the strength of the thread
does not reside in the fact that some on e
fibre runs through its whole length, but in the
I suppose what LW means here is that we call
positive numbers, negative numbers, real
numbers, or a sequence of characters
(a,b,c...z) numbers (see 8). How are these
"numbers" like and unlike a series of
characters that we would not consider
numbers?
Also, consider phone numbers, and the
numbers on football jerseys, social security
numbers, numbers that are ranks, verus
overlapping of many fibres.


numbers that can be added and subtracted.
Or, let's take an example that requires less
mathematical sophistication. Take the word
"food." Imagine a plate of food composed of
only vegetables, or a food concoction made
of cheese and tomato sauce, or food for the
dogs, or for the goldfish. Also, imagine
spoiled food, or raw food, or petrified food.
Is there some single feature in these foods
that runs through all of them? Think of
artificial food (like wax apples) and playfood
(for children's tea). And don't say that the
single feature is that they are all related to
eating because that is a way we frame "wax
food" and "play food" but it is not a
characteristic of this "food."
And, what a closer examination shows is that
even if there isn't a single thread that runs
through everything (and there may be in
some cases, of course), there is a family
resemblance between these different items.
Some are edible. Some are animal flesh.
Some are vegetable. But there need not be a
single aspect that is common to all the
varieties.
Can you think of another example that can be
analyzed in this way? Take the concept of
"thought." Do all the different acceptable
uses of this term have a common feature? Or
take the concept of "nothing." Is the meaning
of "nothing" the same in these two sentences:
1. There is nothing in the box.
2. There is nothing for me to do.

But if someone wished to say: "There is
something common to all these
constructions-namely the disjunction of all
their common properties" --I should reply:
Now you are only playing with words. One
might as well say: "Something runs through
the whole thread- namely the continuous
overlapping of those fibres".
This is an important passage, too. It points to
the tricks we play to keep ourselves in
the fly-bottle.
68. "All right: the concept of number is
defined for you as the logical sum of these
Here's the Augustinian voice, again. It
always seems to have a comback. To return
individual interrelated concepts: cardinal
numbers, rational numbers, real numbers,
etc.; and in the same way
the concept of a game as the logical sum of a
corresponding set of sub-concepts."
to the concept of "number," remember LW
had said that there need not be a single
common feature in all "number" systems.
--It need not be so. For I can give the
concept 'number' rigid limits in this way,
that is, use the word "number" for a
rigidly limited concept, but I can also use it
so that the extension of the concept is not
closed by a frontier. And this is how we do
use the word "game". For how is the concept
of a game bounded?

Here is another important passage.
Wittgenstein is pointing to the way in which
we can locally and provisionally define a
concept. How do we do this? In numerous
ways. Sometimes we set things up
explicitly. We say, "I am using the word
number here to mean 'rational number.'" And
sometimes this slips in without our
awareness. We studied this even in
What still counts as a game and what no
longer does?
I think we can count this as the Augustinian
voice.
Can you give the boundary? No. It is very hard to delineate what the
boundaries of a game are, to define it so that
it includes both tic-tac-toe and Rugby.
You can draw one; for none has so far been
drawn.
But in a local and provisional context you
might say, "By game I mean something in
which one keeps score and there is a definite
winner."
(But that never troubled you before when you
used the word "game".)
But ordinarily you use the word "game"
without trying explicitly to define it locally
and provisionally. You just say, "Is this
some kind of a game?" and you take it that
people will understand you.
"But then the use of the word is unregulated,
the 'game' we play with it is unregulated."
Now, the Augustinian feels uncomfortable
with where we're going. It seems we need to
keep things more tied down than this.
It is not everywhere circumscribed by rules;
but no more are there any rules for how high
one throws the ball in tennis, or how hard; yet
tennis is a game for all that and has rules too.
The rules of the game can't control every last
detail of the action. There is always a
considerable amount action that is beyond the
rules of the game.
69. How should we explain to someone
what a game is?
If we don't have a common thread running
through everything we call a "game" it seems
very chaotic! How on earth do we teach
people to use this term "game"?
I imagine that we should describe games to
him, and we might add: "This and similar
things are called 'games' ". And do we know
Still, don't we teach this term "games" to
children? And don't they learn it? Can it
really be as diffficult as all that if we manage
any more
about it ourselves? Is it only other people
whom we cannot tell exactly what a game is?
to teach it so easily?
-But this is not ignorance. We do not know
the boundaries because none have been
drawn. To repeat, we can draw a boundary-
for a special purpose. Does it take that to
make the concept usable? Not at all! (Except
for that special purpose.) No more than it
took the definition: 1 pace = 75 cm. to make
the measure of length 'one pace' usable. And
if you want to say "But still, before that it
wasn't an exact measure", then I reply: very
well, it was an inexact one.-Though you still
owe me a definition of exactness.
The term "game" is not a difficult term for a
child to learn and the fact that it seems that it
should be is a flag for this being a confusion
left over from our Augustinian muddle.
The situation is that we imagine that we have
one term here and the different senses are just
variations on a common theme, but in
practice we take these vague concepts that
are loosely defined and we tie them down to
more particular definitions. It just takes a
moment to do this, and the practice is all
around us. It is just that we fail to notice that
we do this. We have a theory of terms
having essential meanings (based on
transcendental essences) and this belief in the
theory of language is so strong we simply
overlook the way in which we negotiate the
language that we use, when other people do
it, and when we do it ourselves.
#[Someone says to me: "Shew the children a
game." I teach them gaming with dice, and
the other says "I didn't mean that sort of
game." Must the exclusion of the game with
dice have come before his mind when he
gave me the order?]
This is a footnote in which LW reminds us
how we teach this ostensibly difficult concept
of "game." Notice how we have practices of
continuously clarifying our local and
provisional meanings.

Aphorism 70-75 from
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
with commentary on the right by
Lois Shawver

Wittgenstein:
(Emphasis in bold is inserted by Shawver to
enhance commentary.)
Shawver commentary:
Now, we will dip into the reason that our
local negotiation of language games (the
setting up of the accounts in (51) through
(69), do not always work and why we have
disagreements and confusions. What is it
about langauge that makes it difficult for us
to accept any definition of things at all?
70. "But if the concept 'game' is
uncircumscribed like that, you don't really
know what you mean by a 'game'."

Here is the Augustinian (actually, his
positivist descendant) speaking. The point is
simple. You need to define terms to be able
to use them. But Wittgenstein isn't defining
"language game" in any clear way, recall, that
captures the essence of language games.
Language games form a family resemblance.
There is no essence to tie them together.
-- When I give the description: "The ground
was quite covered with plants" --do you want
to say I don't know what I am talking about
until I can give a definition of a plant?
But, notice, mostly we don't have ready
definitions for terms. Even when we set up
the language game by giving accounts, we
don't typically know that we are doing it. We
all learned to talk quite a bit before we were
even able to generate definitions for the terms
we used.
My meaning would be explained by, say, a
drawing and the words "The ground looked
roughly like this". Perhaps I even say "it
looked exactly like this."-Then were just this
grass and these leaves there, arranged just
like this? No, that is not what it means. And I
should not accept any picture as exact in this
sense.
Imagine it. I say, "The ground looked
roughly like this" as I point to a front yard of
someone's. But what does "this" mean.
Recall our problem in defining "this" before.
Or pointing to anything.in an effort to define
it. What am I pointing to here? This is the
whole problem with teaching ostensive
definitions that we faced in 1-10, and that
Wittgenstein elucidated in his
remarks 28 and 29.. Just as it is hard to tell if
I am pointing to the circle or the color of the
circle, so it is hard to tell what I am pointing
to here. And, I said that the similarity
beteween this front yard and the one one I am
describing is rough, but rough in what way?
Can I be exact in how it is rough? Without
making this "rough" explanation an exact
one?
71. One might say that the concept 'game' is
a concept with blurred edges.-
Here, LW breaks his usual form and he
begins this aphorism in his own voice. He is
suggesting a way to think about things that
will be challenged in the next passage.
"But is a blurred concept a concept at all?"- There's the challenge:: The imaginary
interlocutor says in effect, "Don't I have to
pin my meaning down in order to be
precise?"
Is an indistinct photograph a picture of a The question is whether you want to call an
person at all? Is it even always an advantage
to replace an indistinct picture by a sharp
one? Isn't the indistinct one often exactly
what we need?
indistinct picture a "picture." Generally I
think we do, unless it is more than just a little
indistinct. But with concepts, don't we often
operate with "indistinct meanings" of terms?
And in the case of "language game" isn't that
what we need?
Frege compares a concept to an area and says
that an area with vague boundaries cannot be
called an area at all. This presumably means
that we cannot do anything with it.
Well, here's a real case of the positivist
descedent who makes the complaint that
forms the problem for this aphorism to
handle.
-But is it senseless to say: "Stand roughly
there"?
Suppose that I were standing with someone
in a city square and said that. As I say it I do
not draw any kind of boundary, but perhaps
point with my hand-as if I were indicating a
particular spot.

Clearly we do this all the time. "I'll be
finished about noon," I might tell someone.
Can I call you after that? "Well", that person
says, "I have to leave somewhere around one
o'clock. I'm not sure exactly, but something
around one. So, try to call before then."
The communication seems sensible and
useful in a context like that.
And this is just how one might explain to
someone what a game is. One gives
examples and intends them to be taken in a
particular way.
Isn't this how we explain things often
enough? There are provisional explanations
that prepare a place and then more a more
sophisticated understandings. Imagine trying
to explain "chess" to a child. You say, "It's
the game that you have seen Daddy play with
Uncle Paul. You know, the one with those
funny figures that ove around a board that
looks like the floor in our kitchen?" Oh, the
child says, "the one that has soldiers?" "Yes,
kind of." And that's the first explanation.
Obviously the child does not yet have a very
solid understanding of chess, but this initial
rough explanation lays a groundwork,
prepares a place.
(31)
--I do not, however, mean by this that he is
supposed to see in those examples that
common thing which I --for some reason--
was unable to express; but that he is now to
employ those examples in a particular way.
Here giving examples is not an indirect
means of explaining -- in default of a better.

This is what he does not mean: He does not
mean that somehow this explanation of chess
to the child will give the child the essence of
chess or that I even knew the essence of
chess at the time but simply could not think
of it. My explanation to the child was not
merely a faulty explanation, either. The child
could not have understood a fuller one.
Giving him the explanation that I did will
however prepare a place for a fuller
explanation. Over the next year or so,
imagine him watching his dad and Uncle
Paul playing chess and learning a little at a
time until, gradually, he has working
definition but still does not know quite what a
check-mate means, and after that, he has a
working definition, but does not know what a
Queen's Gambit is, and so forth. --
Wittgenstein is showing us how we can
understand language being learned in terms
other than the unambiguous pointing and
naming that Augustine imagined in (1)
For any general definition can be
misunderstood too.
No matter how I point at the blue circle and
say "blue" you might misunderstand me (cf.
28). And no sentences, either, are so accurate
and so apt as to prevent all
misunderstandings.
The point is that this is how we play the
game. (I mean the language-game with the
word "game".)
What language game? The language game of
showing others what we mean. We introduce
the concept by preparing the place. Listeners
cannot understand our language until a place
is prepared for it..
72. Seeing what is common. Suppose I
shew someone various multi-coloured
pictures, and say: "The colour you see in all
these is called 'yellow ochre' ".-This is a
definition, and the other will get
to understand it by looking for and seeing
what is common to the pictures. Then he can
look at, can point to, the common thing.
This voice is persistent, isn't it? The voice
that says we learn by seeing what is
common. Well, we sometimes seem to learn
by seeing what is common. The problem is
that we give this way of learning language
altogether too much credit. There are other
ways of learning language and LW is
showing us a few.

Compare with this a case in which I shew
him figures of different shapes all painted the
same colour, and say: "What these have in
common is called 'yellow ochre' ".

This is the kind of example the Augustinian
in this passage was pondering. You can
imagine it. There are various shapes and they
are all the same color. Even if the person
wasn't quite sure about the concept of 'color'
(say didn't know the difference between the
concept of 'color' and the concept of 'shade')
surely she would understand if she could see
the different shapes here, and be told, "What
these have in common is called 'yellow
ochre'". Isn't this how we learn to know
colors? by seeing what is common?
And compare this case: I shew him samples
of different shades of blue and say: "The
colour that is common to all these is what I
But here, things are a bit different. Different
shades of blue might not all be seen as
"blue," especially if one didn't know that
call 'blue' ".

ordinarily we treat different levels of
saturation as the "same color" even though
they are different "shades."
In other words, some situations of
explanation are easier to grasp perhaps than
others. If we imagine the case of different
objects having the same color as being useful
to teach people the concept of 'yellow ochre'
are we imagining that these different objects
have precisely the same shade of 'yellow
ochre'? But don't we use the word in a
rougher kind of way to individate a variety of
shades? Take the color blue and notice the
vast difference between midnight blue, ice
blue, robin's egg blue, babyblue, and so forth.
In other words, we can convince ourselves
that we detect the essence of the concept by
seeing examples only by thinking of extreme
cases in which the ambiguity of what we are
pointing to is minimized. It is hard to
imagine what that extreme case would be in
the case of "games."
73. When someone defines the names of
colours for me by pointing to samples and
saying "This colour is called 'blue', this
'green' ..... " this case can be compared in
many respects to putting a table in my hands,
with the words written under the colour-
samples.-Though this comparison may
mislead in many ways.-
Well, this is a familiar example. Think of all
of our talk of the table or the file cabinet in
the mind. Yet, it is true that we do teach
these words in situations that amount to
attaching labels to things, it is just that we
have seen that this example, as seductive as it
seems to be, is misleading if it leads us to
think that such a table must be present in the
mind.(cf 54-58)
One is now inclined to extend the
comparison: to have understood the
definition means to have in one's mind an
idea of the thing defined, and that is a sample
or picture. So if I am shewn various different
leaves and told "This is called a 'leaf' ", I get
an idea of the shape of a leaf, a picture of it in
my mind.-But what does the picture of a leaf
look like when it does not shew us any
particular shape, but 'what is common to all
shapes of leaf'? Which shade is the 'sample in
my mind' of the colour green-the sample of
what is common to all shades of green?

He continues to show us the problem with the
idea that we deduce the essence of the
concept from examples in which the one
thing held constant is the essential feature of
the concept (as in differently shaped objects
all having the color "yellow ochre" in
common.
He is countering this Augustinian
presumption by referring to some earlier
discussions. In 38, for example he talked
about our tendency to solve the puzzle of
how we do things by presuming we do things
half-unconsciously (or even unconsciously)
in the mind that correspond to what we might
do physically. If we can look up a table to
see what a color is, we imagine doing this in
the mind, unconsciously.
"But might there not be such 'general'
samples? Say a schematic leaf, or a sample of
pure green?"


This is the next move after the Augustinian
voice realizes that we do teach general
concepts that include considerable variation
(and families of variation) under their rubric.
"Maybe," the Auegustinian says, we have a
kind of schematic leaf in the mind, roughly
drawn. Would that work?" That is kind of
like a table in the mind, (cf. lwref pictures
before the mind.)
-Certainly there might. But for such a schema
to be understood as a schema, and not as the
shape of a particular leaf, and for a slip of
pure green to be understood as a sample of
all that is greenish and not as a sample of
pure green-this in turn resides in the way the
samples are used.
"Yes," LW is saying, there could be such a
schema, but how would we know that it was
such a schema and not the shape of a
particular leaf?" And, I might add, how
would we know how diverse a group of
things this schema would apply to?
Ask yourself: what shape must the sample of
the colour green be? Should it be
rectangular? Or would it then be the sample
of a green rectangle?-So should it be
'irregular' in shape? And what is to prevent us
then from regarding it-that is, from using it-
only as a sample of irregularity of shape?
Or, let's reverse the example here to the
earlier one: What color would the schematic
leaf be? And how would we know that the
term did not apply to the color of the leaf?
74. Here also belongs the idea that if you see
this leaf as a sample of 'leaf shape in general'
you see it differently from someone who
regards it as, say, a sample of this particular
shape. Now this might well be so -- though it
is not so -- for it would only be to say that, as
a matter of experience, if you see the leaf in a
particular way, you use it in such-and-such a
way or according to such-and-such rules.
Here I think LW confuses things a bit. He is
using the phrase "see the thing in a particular
way" in one of its possible senses. I see him
as saying you don't "see things differently"
unless it is something like a gestalt picture of
the duck-rabbit where it appears like a duck
sometimes and like a rabbit at others. I think
we have a related langauge game in which we
say that we "see things differently" without
this meaning that we actually experience the
visual image differently. Be that as it may,
Wittgenstein is, I believe, talking about
"seeing things differently" as seeing a
different aspect as in the case of the duck-
rabbit. At least, to me, this is the
interpretation that makes the most sense.

Of course, there is such a thing as seeing in
this way or that; and there are also cases
where whoever sees a sample like this will in
And an important point. The world around
us has many aspects and some of those
aspects may be noticeable if we see the world
in a certain way, and not if we don't. Both
general use it in this way, and whoever sees it
otherwise in another way. For example, if
you see the schematic drawing of a cube as a
plane figure consisting of a square and two
rhombi you will, perhaps, carry out the order
"Bring me something like this" differently
from someone who sees the picture three-
dimensionally.
ways may be equally correct (as in the case
of the duck-rabbit). But how we see the
world will have an impact on what we do,
and on our form of life.
75. What does it mean to know what a game
is? What does it mean, to know it and not be
able to say it? Is this knowledge somehow
equivalent to an unformulated definition? So
that if it were
formulated I should be able to recognize it as
the expression of my knowledge? Isn't my
knowledge, my concept of a game,
completely expressed in the explanations that
I could give? That is, in my describing
examples of various kinds of game; shewing
how all sorts of other games can be
constructed on the analogy of these; saying
that I should scarcely include this or this
among games; and so on.
I understand this on the model of people
learning to make judgments without knowing
the criteria they use to make those judgments
and, even, without there being formulateable
criteria. I learn to drive steer a car, turning
the steering wheel a little this way or that in
response to how the car moves, and I learn to
ride a horse by doing something similar, even
balance on my feet as I'm standing still by
doing little corrections, but this doesn't mean
that I would recognize the rule, or even that
the rule could be stated in a single formula,
no matter how complex. This is especially
clear to me if the judgment is obviously
complex like whether my boss is in a good
mood, good enough to ask for a raise.

Aphorism 76-80 from
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
with commentary on the right by
Lois Shawver

Wittgenstein:
(Emphasis in bold is inserted by Shawver to
enhance commentary.)
Shawver commentary:
76. If someone were to draw a sharp
boundary I could not acknowledge it as the
one that I too always wanted to draw, or had
drawn in my mind. For I did not want to draw
one at all. His concept can then be said to be
not the same as mine, but akin to it. The
kinship is that of two pictures, one of which
consists of colour patches with vague
contours, and the other of patches similarly
shaped and distributed, but with clear
contours. The kinship is just as undeniable as
the difference.
Consider again the concept of a schematic
leaf
In sketching such a schema, one creates
something that was not initially there. I do
not picture such a schematic leaf in my mind
each time identify a leaf, and if I were to do
so, the one that I pictured might not be
exactly like yours. Still, if we were each to
create such a schematic leaf, representing all
leaves, our creativity would be constrained
by our similar understanding of what counted
as a leaf.
77. And if we carry this comparison still
further it is clear that the degree to which the
sharp picture ran resemble the blurred one
depends on the latter's degree of vagueness.
For imagine
having to sketch a sharply defined picture
'corresponding' to a blurred one.
Here is a schematic leaf. Is
that the one you would have
drawn? How similar to a real
leaf must this leaf be in order
to be a schematic leaf? Will
the point on the right side be
enough to make it serve for a
maple leaf? Or should it be more pointed?
And if it were more pointed, would it it also
work for a smooth-sided leaf ?
How would you sketch a sharply defined
picture corresponding to this blurred one?
In the latter there is a blurred red rectangle:
for it you put down a sharply defined one. Of
course-several such sharply defined
rectangles can be drawn to correspond to the
indefinite one.-But if the colours in the
original merge without a hint of any outline
won't it become a hopeless task to draw a
sharp picture corresponding to the blurred
one? Won't you then have to say: "Here I
might just as well draw a circle or heart as a
rectangle, for all the colours merge.
Anything-and nothing-is right." And this is
the position you are in if you look for
definitions corresponding to our concepts in
aesthetics or ethics.
And here is a blurred
rectangle. suppose your
task is to draw a definite
one that corresponds with
this indefinite one. And,
if you imagined it even
more blurred? At some
point wouldn't the task become hopeless?
In such a difficulty always ask yourself:
How did we learn the meaning of this word
("good" for instance)? From what sort of
examples? in what language-games? Then it
will be easier for you to see that the word
must have a family of meanings.
The situation is similar when we try to
envision the essential features of a game, or
of any other concept. To think in terms of
essences, we must visualize a blurred
concept, and yet, when we try to apply such a
concept to a case before us, we will have the
same kind of difficulties we have with the
schematic leaf or rectangle.
78. Compare knowing and saying:
how many feet high Mont Blanc is-
how the word "game" is used-
how a clarinet sounds.
If you are surprised that one can know
something and not be able to say it, you are
perhaps thinking of a case like the first.
Certainly not of one like the third.
Can one know something without knowing
how to say what one knows? Surely, if one
knows how high a mountain is, then one
would surely know how to say it. But isn't it
possible to know how a clarinet sounds, or
how coffee smells, without being able to say
what one knows? And, isn't the case of
knowing what a game is rather like the case
of knowing how a clarinet sounds? It is easy
to know such things without knowing how to
say what one knows.
79. Consider this example. If one says
"Moses did not exist", this may mean various
things. It may mean: the Israelites did not
have a single leader when they withdrew
from Egypt or: their leader was not called
Moses or, there cannot have been anyone
who accomplished all that the Bible relates of
Moses -- or: etc. etc.--
The sentence "Moses did not exist" has
blurred boundaries much like the blurred
boundaries of a schematic leaf or a blurred
rectangle. Just as a number of different leaf
shapes could have been taken from the
blurred schema, so a number of different
meanings might be drafted onto the statement
"Moses did not exist."
We may say, following Russell: the name
"Moses" can be defined by means of various
descriptions. For example, as "the man who
led the Israelites through the wilderness",
"the man who lived at that time and place and
was then called 'Moses' ", "the man who as a
child was taken out of the Nile by Pharaoh's
daughter" and so on. And according as we
assume one definition or another the
proposition "Moses did not exist" acquires a
different sense, and so does every other
proposition about Moses.-And if we are told
"N did not exist", we do ask:
"What do you mean? Do you want to say ......
or ...... etc.?"
Even the name "Moses" is not as clearly
defined as we are apt to presume. What if
someone not named Moses was still a person
who had done all that Moses is repored to
have done. Would that be the same as
Moses? Or what if he had done some of the
things, but not all? How much different from
the story of Moses could the historical man
have been in order to justify the statement
"Moses did not exist?"


But when I make a statement about Moses,--
am I always ready to substitute some one of
these descriptions for "Moses"? I shall
perhaps say -- By "Moses" I understand the
man who did what the
Bible relates of Moses, or at any rate a good
deal of it. But how much? Have I decided
how much must be proved false for me to
give up my proposition as false? Has the
name "Moses" got a fixed
and unequivocal use for me in all possible
cases? --
But if I were to make a statement about
Moses, all of these considerations are not in
my mind. I haven't decided beforehand
which features of the story of Moses are
essential in order for us to say that Moses
lived. But, perhaps you want to say that most
of it must be true in order to say that Moses
existed. But how much?
Is it not the case that I have, so to speak, a
whole series of props in readiness, and am
ready to lean on one if another should be
taken from under me
and vice versa?
Suppose there were 40 stories of Moses. If
stories 4 through 32 were false, would this be
different than if stories 1-28 were false? Are
there any essential stories? Or can I fall back
on any?
Consider another case. When I say "N is
dead", then something like the following may
hold for the meaning of the name "N": I
believe that a human being has lived, whom I
(1) have seen in such-and-such places, who
(2) looked like this (pictures), (3) has done
Although it may seem to us when we speak
that our language is unambiguous, even the
phrases that at first seem without ambiguiuty
are, on reflection, very equivocal, that is,
subject to interpretation -- much like the
blurred leaf that was to serve as a schematic
such-and-such things, and (4) bore the name
"N" in social life. --Asked what I understand
by "N", I should enumerate all or some of
these points, and different ones on different
occasions. So my definition of "N" would
perhaps be "the man of whom all this is
true".-But if some point now proves false? --
Shall I be prepared to declare the proposition
"N is dead" false-even if it is only something
which strikes me as incidental that has
turned out false? But where are the bounds of
the incidental?-- If I had given a definition of
the name in such a case, I should now be
ready to alter it.
leaf. Is "N" dead? For "N" to be dead, "N"
must have lived, but how will we decide that
the person I am referring to is a specific
person? If someone lived who had some of
the features I imagined for "N" but not all,
was that "N?"


And this can be expressed like this: I use the
name "N" without a fixed meaning. (But that
detracts as little from its usefulness, as it
detracts from that of a table that it stands on
four legs instead of three and so sometimes
wobbles.)
So, we are driven to notice that words do not
have fixed meanings. At first glance you
may think this would reduce their usefulness
to us. But it is not so.
Should it be said that I am using a word
whose meaning I don't know, and so am
talking nonsense? - -Say what you choose, so
long as it does not prevent you from seeing
the facts. (And when you see them there is a
good deal that you will not say.)


When we notice that language is never
unambiguous, that it is much like the blurred
leaf, we might ask "can I use a word
[correctly] whose meaning I do not know?"
There is a sense in which our understanding
of the term is limited. Shall we count this as
a case of not-knowing?
The problem is that we can see what is
known and what is not-known. Our
confusion comes not from not-knowing what
the facts are, but rather from the fact that the
rule that would determine how we should
speak is not definitive enough to tell us how
to answer.
It is the same as if I were to ask: "Is it cold
outside?" (if you were standing outdoors
looking at a thermometr, you might know the
temperature and yet not know whether to
count the weather as "cold" because the word
"cold" does not have highly defined
boundaries.
Still, your understanding of the temperature
would limit how you answered the question
(truthfully).
(The fluctuation of scientific definitions:
what to-day counts as a observed
concomitant of a phenomenon will to-
morrow be used to define it.)


Scientific definitions reduce this ambiguity
somewhat. What counts as water in the
vernacular is different from what counts as
H20. In he creation of the concept of H20
there has been the systemtic exclusion of
seawater, or dishwater, from the concept.
Still, if there are a few molecules that are not
"H20" shall we still consider the vial to
contain H20? Even here, there is ambiguity
that tends to escape us.
80. I say "There is a chair". What if I go up
to it, meaning to fetch it, and it suddenly
disappears from sight.? --"So it wasn't a
chair, but some kind of illusion". --But in a
few moments we see it
again and are able to touch it and so on. --"So
the chair was there after all and its
disappearance was some kind of illusion". --
But suppose that after a time it disappears
again-or seems to disappear. What are we to
say now? Have you rules ready for such
cases ---rules saying whether one may use
the word "chair" to include this kind of thing?
But do we miss them when we use the word
"chair"; and are we to say that we do not
really attach any meaning to this word,
because we are not equipped with rules for
every possible application of it?
The rules that determine the right way to use
language in any given language game are
never defined with absolute precision. We all
comfortably call the objects we sit on chairs,
but we have no rules to label them if they
stop behaving as chairs. Language is simply
not that precise. There are blurred
boundaries that we fail to see and yet that
often does not bother us.



Aphorism 81-86 from
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
with commentary on the right by
Lois Shawver

Wittgenstein:
(Emphasis in bold is inserted by Shawver to
enhance commentary.)
Shawver commentary:
81. F. P. Ramsey once emphasized in
conversation with me that logic was a
'normative science'. I do not know exactly
what he had in mind, but it was doubtless
closely related to what only dawned on me
later: namely, that in philosophy we often
compare the use of words with games and
calculi which have fixed rules, but cannot say
that someone who is using language must be
81. This is an important aphorism. Early
Wittgenstein, the Wittgenstein of the
Tractatus, thought of language as something
like a calculus. The idea was that if you
knew the rules of language, you could apply
the calculus to understand it.
For example, suppose you had the following
playing such a game. --But if you say that
our languages only approximate to such
calculi you are standing on the very brink
of a misunderstanding. For then it may
look as if what we were talking about were
an ideal language. As if our logic were, so to
speak, a logic for a vacuum. --Whereas logic
does not treat of language -- or of thought --
in the sense in which a natural science treats
of a natural phenomenon, and the most that
can be said is that we construct ideal
languages. But here the word "ideal" is liable
to mislead, for it sounds as if these languages
were better, more perfect, than our everyday
language; and as if it took the logician to
shew people at last what a proper sentence
looked like.


four sentences:
A. Mary went to the store
B Jack went to the barber.
C Mary is tired
D Jack earns lots of money
And suppose you also had four ways of
connecting those sentences:
v - meaning either or both
* - meaning "and"
> - meaning if -then
# - meaning if and only if
And suppose you could also modify any
sentence by negating it and symbolizing that
negation with a tilde like this:
~
And let's enrich this calculus. You can also
use parentheses. Using the character names
above to name the four sentences, couldn't
you figure out the following statement like
one would figure out a calculus?
(A*B) * ~A
It would mean

While it is true that
"Mary went to the store
and Jack went to the
Barber" is a true
statement it is not true
that Mary went to the
store.
And, as you can see, this would not be
possible because it is not true for Mary to
have both gone to the store and not to have
gone to the store. So, we can see that the
symbolic phrase
(A*B) * ~A
is nonsense. because to be true it would
requires A to be both true and false.
Now, consider the following:
[~(A*B) v (B>C)] v (D#B)
Could this statement be true?
You could figure this out using the same
process that we used above and it would feel
very much like performing a kind of
mathematical calculus.
This was the sort of vision of language that
inspired early Wittgenstein (and the logical
positivists), but now he is saying that it will
not work.
One might want to say that if it were a
misunderstanding that language worked as a
calculus, then it was because language is
defective in some way. But Wittgensein is
telling us that the failure of langauge to
conform to a calculus does not imply that it is
defective.

All this, however, can only appear in the right
light when one has attained greater clarity
about the concepts of understanding,
meaning, and thinking. For it will then also
become clear what can lead us (and did lead
me) to think that if anyone utters a sentence
and means or understands it he is operating a
calculus according to definite rules.
And these concepts of understanding,
meaning and thinking are concepts
Wittgenstein will explicate.


82. What do I call 'the rule by which he
proceeds'? --The hypothesis that
satisfactorily describes his use of words,
which we observe; or the rule which he looks
up when he uses signs; or the one which he
gives us in reply if we ask him what his rule
is? --But what if observation does not enable
us to see any clear rule, and the question
brings none to light? --For he did indeed give
me a definition when I asked him what he
understood by "N", but he was prepared to
withdraw and alter it.-So how am I to
determine the rule according to which he is
playing? He does not know it himself. --Or,
82. Suppose you are playing chess and you
move your knight. A child who does know
how to play chess asks you how you were
able to move the piece in such an odd way. If
you know chess, the rule is probably clear in
your mind and you can state it
unambiguously. You can say what the rule is
that guides and constrains the movement of
the bishop, compared to the movement of the
knight. There is no ambiguity here.
But if you were asked the rule you used to
decide if a sentence were a well formed
sentence, or grammatically flawed, you might
to ask a better question: What meaning is the
expression "the rule by which he proceeds"
supposed to have left to it here?


find that you do not know the answer
immediately. You feel you have to think
about it a bit. It may be that you can choose
which sentence has a flaw, but not know
immediately what the rule that this correct
useage obeys.
Similarly, you might know how to use a word
in a sentence, and use it regularly and
meaningfully, yet still not be know its useage
well enough to give a definition
spontaneously and easily.
So, ask yourself, are you following a rule in
the cases in which you cannot easily and
spontaneously state the rule? In what sense
are you following one? Are you
subsequently just trying to discover a stated
rule that wold capture the behavior you are
engaging in without any sense of trying to
conform to a defined rule?
83. Doesn't the analogy between language
and games throw light here? We can easily
imagine people amusing themselves in a field
by playing with a ball so as to start various
existing games, but playing many without
finishing them and in between throwing the
ball aimlessly into the air, chasing one
another with the ball and bombarding one
another for a joke and so on. And now
someone says: The whole time they are
playing a ball-game and following definite
rules at every throw.
83. See how far this new model of language
is from the model of language as a calculus?
Yes, there are rules, but the rules are not
binding in the same way that they are in
calculus. The rules of langauge do not
confine every movement that is made. In
languge, one can stop, metaphorically
speaking, to toss the ball up into the air.


And is there not also the case where we play
and-make up the rules as we go along? And
there is even one where we alter them-as we
go along.


This is a particularly significant observation.
In language we will find ourselves making up
meanings for words as we go along. "What
do you mean by that?" someone asks you.
Then you say, "I mean..." and you give the
word a definite sense, not a sense that is quite
what it is in the dictionary, but a definite
sense. You are making up the rules of this
language game as you go along.
84. I said that the application of a word is
not everywhere bounded by rules. But what
does a game look like that is everywhere
bounded by rules? whose rules never let a
doubt creep in, but stop up all the cracks
84. Am I right that games are not completely
bounded by rules? Sure, there are gaps in the
stated rules. But can't we imagine some sort
of implicit rule that guides us in the spaces
between the rules?
where it might? -- Can't we imagine a rule
determining the application of a rule, and a
doubt which it removes-and so on?

But that is not to say that we are in doubt
because it is possible for us to imagine a
doubt. I can easily imagine someone always
doubting before he opened his front door
whether an abyss did not yawn behind it, and
making sure about it before he went through
the door (and he might on some occasion
prove to be right)-but that does not make me
doubt in the same case.
Sure, we can imagine such a thing, but we
need not. It is not a requirement of games
that they be everywhere bounded by rules.


85. A rule stands there like a sign-post.--
Does the sign-post leave no doubt open about
the way I have to go? Does it shew which
direction I am to take when I have passed it;
whether along the road or the footpath or
cross-country? But where is it said which
way I am to follow it; whether in the
direction of its finger or (e.g.) in the opposite
one? --And if there were, not a single sign-
post, but a chain of adjacent ones or of chalk
marks on the ground-- is there only one way
of interpreting them?-- So I can say, the sign-
post does after all leave no room for doubt.
Or rather: it sometimes leaves room for doubt
and sometimes not. And now this is no longer
a philosophical proposition, but an empirical
one.
85. And even if we stated rules (like sign-
posts) every space, this would not leave us
with some flexibility in how we played the
game. Even sign-posts have to be
interpreted. Even if a hand

points in a certain direction, where is the rule
that says I must follow it in the direction of
the finger?




And even if we assume that the hand points
towards the flag, is it pointing to the stripes
or the stars? Or the flag as a whole? Or to
the colors? Is there not room for
interpretation here? Is everything completely
bound by rules? And if we have this
flexibility in pointing, is there not room for a
similar flexibility in how we interpret the
rules of a game?


86. Imagine a language-game like (2) played
with the help of a table. The signs given to B
by A are now written ones. B has a table, in
the first column are the signs used in the
game, in the second pictures of building
stones. A shews B such a written sign; B
looks it up in the table, looks at the picture
Imagine the workers in a language-game
like (2) having the following table to use to
make their selection of stones.

opposite, and so on. So the table is a rule
which he follows in executing orders.-One
learns to look the picture up in the table by
receiving a training, and part of this training
consists perhaps in ~e pupil's learning to pass
with his finger horizontally from left to right;
and so, as it were, to draw a series of
horizontal lines on the table.

Suppose different ways of reading a table
were now introduced; one time, as above,
according to the schema:



If we did include arrows in our own culture,
it would likely look like this:


For the most part, however, the action that
the arrows prompt is so common in our own
culture that the arrows are not needed. We
all approach such tables with our eyes
already trained to look in the way the arrows
are intended to guide us.
another time like this:


or in some other way.

For this kind of looking, however, we would
need arrows:



--Such a schema is supplied with the table as
the rule for its use.
But what Wittgensein had in mind for this
tribe is two tables. For exxample, imagine
one being up on a wall, and the other being in
one's hand.






However, if their mythology required a more
complex, the rule might be:




Or, imagine things more complex,, still.
Perhaps this language game is not for the
purpose of building but for the purpose of
assuaging the temper of the gods, and
supppose, too, that the paths the gods want
their servants to take to read these tables
requires them to work through a maze of
arrows such as this:


in order to read a table like this:



Can we not now imagine further rules to Now, suppose the various rules in the
explain this one? network of arrows was tied to a mythology so
that each arrow represented a sacred path that
must be followed exactly. Not only did this
sacred path guide how one's eyes were to
move, but also how one stood and the
expression one put on one's face:




And, on the other hand, was that first table
incomplete without the schema of arrows?
And are other tables incomplete without their
schemata?
The initial table seemed easy to us:


But the ease we felt
surely reflected the
years of training we
had in reading such a
table. We no longer
needed guidance to
look from left to
right. The straight
arrows may have
provided
such guidance to one uninitiated, but only if
that person had already had training in how to
read arrows, how to follow a line with the
eyes. Years of reading make it natural for
English speaking people to follow the line
from left to right, but, of course, there are
other traditions. We could complicate things
further by a requirement that the reader of the
table must jump from line to line, or move
the eyes back and forth, or up and down the
line. There is no end of complicating
possibilities. Yet, these possibilities do not
confuse us. We have been trained to see and
read such tables so we do with ease, just as
we have been trained to read the words on
this page and do that with ease -- even though
it was not always so.
All these implicit rules seem to guide our
behavor, and rules we can no longer state,
that no longer guide us in a concscious way.
Do we want to say that the table needed to
include such rules in order to be complete? If
so, would any table ever be complete?

87. Suppose I give this explanation:

I take 'Moses' to mean the I man, if
there was such a man, who led the
Israelites out of Egypt, whatever he
was called then and whatever he
may or may not have done
besides." --

87. LW is going to try to show us (or remind
us) how difficult it can be to tie down the
meaning of even an apparently simple
sentence. This may seem to you like a
change in subject, because we are no longer
talking about tables and arrows, but the
subject is much the same. We are noticing
how many gaps there are in the rules we
might use to interpret things, how much of
our understanding takes place without our
noticing how it all works.

But similar doubts to those about "Moses"
are possible about the words of this
explanation (what are you calling "Egypt",
whom the "Israelites" etc.?). Nor would these
questions come to an end when we got down
to words like "red", "dark", "sweet".
As soon as you try to pin down these words,
you can see how hard it is to make sure the
person in history that we talk about refers to
"Moses." Maybe the real person had a
different name and maybe his story has been
modified through the years. Has it been so
modified that the person we think of as
"Moses" is no longer congruent with the
historical figure? It is possible to doubt all of
these things.
"But then how does an explanation help me
to understand, if after all it is not the final
one? In that case the explanation is never
completed; so I still don't understand what he
means, and never shall!" --
As though an explanation as it were hung in
the air unless supported by another one.
This is Wittgenstein's questioning voice,
voice of aporia, wondering. If I can't tie
these things down with an explanation, I not
only fail to understand who Moses is, but I
fail in all similar attempts. Exaplanations
cannot help me understand! (or so it seems
to the aporetic voice).
It seems (when in this apoetic mood) that
we must be able to use explanations to tie
down all the ambiguities, or else nothing will
ever be known.

Whereas an explanation may indeed rest on
another one that has been given, but none
stands in need of another -- -unless we
require it to prevent a misunderstanding.
That is, we may be able to use one
explanation to explain another -- but no
additional explanation is needed except to
prevent misunderstanding. You do not need
an explanation for the statement "The chair I
am sitting in is uncomfortable," unless you
don't understand it (and you might not, for
example, if it looked o you that I was not
sitting at all.)
One might say: an explanation serves to
remove or to avert a misunderstanding -- one,
that is, that would occur but for the
explanation not every one that I can imagine.
The confusion comes about because we
imagine that explanations contain a complete
rule that require no training to interpret.
Explanations canavert misunderstandings but
only for those whose training is sufficient to
understand the explanation. And, we cannot
find sufficient explnations to replace that
history of training.
88. If I tell someone "Stand roughly here"-
may not this explanation work perfectly? And
cannot every other one fail too?

But isn't it an inexact explanation? -Yes;
why shouldn't we call it "inexact"? Only let
us understand what "inexact" means. For it
does not mean "unusable". And let us
consider what we call an "exact" explanation
in contrast with this one. Perhaps something
like drawing a chalk line round an area? Here
it strikes us at once that the line has breadth.
So a colour-edge would be more exact. But
has this exactness still got a function here:
isn't the engine idling? And remember too
that we have not yet defined what is to count
as overstepping this exact boundary; how,
with what instruments, it is to be established.
And so on.


We understand what it means to set a
pocket watch to the exact time or to regulate
it to be exact. But what if it were asked: is
this exactness ideal exactness, or how nearly
does it approach the ideal?-Of course, we can
speak of measurements of time in which
there is a different and as we should say a
greater, exactness than in the measurement of
time by a pocket-watch; in which the words
"to set the clock to the exact time" have a

different, though related meaning, and 'to tell
the time' is a different process and so on.-
Now, if I tell someone: "You should come to
dinner more punctually; you know it begins
at one o'clock exactly"-is there really no
question of exactness here? because it is
possible to say: "Think of the determination
of time in the laboratory or the observatory;
there you see what 'exactness' means"?

"Inexact" is really a reproach, and "exact"
is praise. And that is to say that what is
inexact attains its goal less perfectly than
what is more exact. Thus the point here is
what we call "the goal". Am I inexact when I
do not give our distance from the sun to the
nearest foot, or tell a joiner the width of a
table to the nearest thousandth of an inch?

88-5
No single ideal of exactness has been laid
down; we do not know what we should be
supposed to imagine under this head-unless
you yourself lay down what is to be so called.
But you will kind it difficult to hit upon such
a convention; at least any that satisfies you.


Aphorism 89-94 from
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
with commentary on the right by
Lois Shawver

Wittgenstein:
(Emphasis in
bold is inserted
by Shawver to
enhance
commentary.)
Shawver commentary:
89. These
considerations
bring us up to
the problem: In
what sense is
logic something
sublime?
For there
In 89, Wittgenstein wants to study the idea that logic is sublime, not
challenge it. The question is: How did we come to believe that logic is
sublime? Is there any sense in which it is?
The people of our culture have believed that logic is sublime for a long,
long time. Since Aristotle, at least, philosophers have been inspired with
the idea that logic is something something lofty. It seems if we could only
get logic right, define things precisely enough, then we could make sense
of all things.
seemed to
pertain to logic
a peculiar
depth
-a universal
significance.
Logic lay, it
seemed, at the
bottom of all
the sciences.--
For logical
investigation
explores the
nature of all
things. It seeks
to see to the
bottom of
things and is
not meant to
concern itself
whether what
actually
happens is this
or that.


--It takes its
rise, not from
an interest-- in
the facts of
nature, nor from
a need to grasp
cause
connexions: but
from an urge to
understand the
basis, or
essence, of
everything
empirical. Not,
however, as if
to this end we
had to hunt out
new facts; it is,
rather, of the
essence of our
investigation
that we do not
seek to learn
anything new
This glorification of logic emerges, not from our need to grasp particular
connections, (such as what specifically causes what), but a desire to find a
key that will open up the world for us, make it all make sense. The quest is
not to uncover something new, but to understand something that is already
before us, but confuses us.


by it. We want
to understand
something that
is already in
plain view. For
this is what we
seem in some
sense not to
understand.
Augustine says
in the
Confessions
"quid est ergo
tempus? si
nemo ex me
quaerat scio; si
quaerenti
explicare velim,
nescio".

this translates as: "What therefore is time? If you don't ask me, I know - if
you ask me, I don't know." In other words, this lofty logic is something we
understand until we are asked about it. Then, suddenly, we see how
confusing it is to us.
-This could not
be said about a
question of
natural science
("What is the
specific gravity
of hydrogen?"
for instance).
Something that
we know when
no one asks us,
but no longer
know when we
are supposed to
give an account
of it, is
something that
we need to
remind
ourselves of.
(An it is
obviously
something of
which for some
reason it is
difficult to
remind
oneself.)
This feel that we understand until we think about it is characteristic of
logical problems, but not of scientific ones. There are many scientific
problems that we either no the answers to or we don't. The answers to
scientific problems do not typically have this strange capacity to slip away
from us when we think more about them.

90. We feel as
if we had to
penetrate
phenomena: our
investigation,
however, is
directed not
towards
phenomena,
but, as one
might say,
towards the
'possibilities' of
phenomena.


When we feel that logic is lofty, we feel as though we had to penetrate
phenomena, but we do not actually look at what we are studying in order to
try to penetrate it with our logic. We simply think about things, or study
them, in our reflection, which is sometimes quite divorced from any kind
of observation. We might ask about our subject, for example, in
relationship to certain possibilities. We might ponder, for example, if time
would continue to exist if the world stopped turning.
We remind
ourselves, that
is to say, of the
kind of
statement that
we make about
phenomena.

"And we remember," we might say to ourselves, "that time seems to be
pass more quickly when you're busy. What does that mean about time?"
So, this kind of logical reflection is more reflective than observational.
Thus Augustine
recalls to mind
the different
statements that
are made about
the duration,
past present or
future, of
events. (These
are, of course,
not
philosophical
statements
about time, the
past, the present
and the future.)
Our
investigation is
therefore a
grammatical
one. Such an
So our investigation is not based on observations of new data. Instead, it is
a study of the things we say or have said. Our purpose is to clear away
certain misunderstandings that seem to block clarity about the topic that
interests us. It is grammatical in the sense that we might ponder the
meaning of certain terms.


investigation
sheds light on
our problem by
clearing
misunderstandi
ngs away.

Misunderstandi
ngs concerning
the use of
words, caused,
among other
things, by
certain
analogies
between the
forms of
expression in
different
regions of
language.


Many of these misunderstandings result from the fact that there are
superficial similarities between different regions of langauge. If I say
"love" when I am scoring tennis, this does not mean the same thing as
when I speak endearingly. These things continuously confuse us.
-Some of them
can be removed
by substituting
one form of
expression for
another; this
may be called
an "analysis" of
our forms of
expression, for
the process is
sometimes like
one of taking a
thing apart.


Some of this confusion can be removed by replacing words with other
words that seem less confusing. "Love" we might say, "means zero" so
instead of saying the score 30-love. We might say that the score is 30-
zero, in order to be less confused and confusing. There are many multiple
uses of most terms that get confused this way, and we are scarcely aware of
them. When we do study them, unravel the equivocations, this we might
call "analysis."
91. But now it
may come to
look as if there
were something
like a final
When we analyze the equivocations, straighten things out, it sometimes
begins to appear as though we could finally get a picture of the accurate
meaning, that we could invent, even, ways of talking that allowed tus o
speak in ways that are completely clear, so that the problem at hand is
solved.
analysis of our
forms of
language, and
so a single
completely
resolved form
of every
expression.
That is, as if our
usual forms of
expression
were,
essentially,
unanalysed; as
if there were
something
hidden in them
that had to be
brought to light.
When this is
done the
expression is
completely
clarified and
our problem
solved.

It can also be
put like this: we
eliminate
misunderstandi
ngs by making
our expressions
more exact; but
now it may look
as if we were
moving towards
a particular
state, a state of
complete
exactness; and
as if this were
the real goal of
our
investigation.
When we are mystified like this, we think we can find a way to put things
that will eliminate all misunderstandings. It will just require, so we think,
more exactness. It even seems that exactness, not clarity, is the real goal of
our investigation.
92. This finds
expression in
questions as to
the essence of
So, when philosophers ask about the essence of language they often strive
for more exactness.
language, of
propositions, of
thought.
-For if we too
in these
investigations
are trying to
understand the
essence of
language - its
function, its
structure, --yet
this is not what
those questions
have in view.
It may seem that this is what we, in this book, are trying to do as well. But
the questions we ask are different.


For they see in
the essence, not
something that
already lies
open to view
and that
becomes
surveyable by a
rearrangement,
but something
that lies beneath
the surface.
Something that
lies within,
which we see
when we look
into the thing,
and which an
analysis digs
out.

Their questions are about essences and ours or not. They are looking for
something real that lies beneath the surface. They want to dig out
something deep that they are looking for. We are trying to understand that
which is in view, but which we somehow have difficulty understanding.
'The essence is
hidden from us':
this is the form
our problem
now assumes.
We ask: "What
is language?",
"What is a
proposition?"
And the answer
If we are in their frame of reference, and we ask questions about the
essence of things, we look for answers that can be given now and do not
require future experience. The essence of language cannot change. If
langauge has an essence, so they think, it exists everywhere that langauge
exists, and we need to unravel it without looking at future language. Not
so for us. We will look at changeable aspects of language that happen to
create patterns during our cultural experience. For example, whereas they
will look for what "truth" really is, apart from any true statement, we will
be inspired to notice the ways in which this term is used in our culture.
to these
questions is to
be given once
for all; and
independently
of any future
experience.


One person
might say "A
proposition is
the most
ordinary thing
in the world"
and another: "A
proposition -
that's something
very queer!" --
And the latter is
unable simply
to look and see
how
propositions
really work.
The forms that
we use in
expressing
ourselves about
propositions
and thought
stand in his
way.
When they are looking for essences they do not look at the way the
statements actually work and how we use them. They look for something
hidden from us. We look for something we can watch and see.


Why do we say
a proposition is
something
remarkable? On
the one hand,
because of the
enormous
importance
attaching to it.
(And that is
correct). On the
other hand this,
together with a
misunderstandi
When this logic of propositions seems remarkable, it is for two reasons.
One I endorse: There is much importance attaching to language, and why
and how that is so is worthy of our reflection. The second reason we think
logic is remarkable is that we are seduced by certain illusions that tell us
that language is alien to other things in the world. We will find the
distinction between language and non-language quite blurry. Our culture
tends to polarize the world, mistakenly I feel, into language and not-
language, failing to see that the distinction is not so complete as we at first
think.
ng of the logic
of language,
seduces us into
thinking that
something
extraordinary,
something
unique, must be
achieved by
propositions.


-A
misunderstandi
ng makes it l
ook to us as if a
propositions did
something
queer.


Our recognition of the importance of language, plus our having been
seduced into seeing it as something completely different from non-
language, makes langauge propositions (statements) seem very odd,
indeed.
94. 'A
proposition is a
queer thing!'
Here we have in
germ the
subliming of
our whole
account of
logic.


And so we say, in our state of mystification, "a statement that talks about
things, that is a proposition - is a very odd thing." Seducing ourselves into
this mystification I will call "subliming" our account of logic. It is the way
in which we make logic, and language, mysticial.
The tendency to
assume a pure
intermediary
between the
propositional
signs and the
facts. Or even
to try to purify,
to sublime, the
signs
themselves.

When we sublime the logic of our langauge in this way, we turn it into a
kind of ghost which is seems to work as an intermediary between the
statements we make and the words we say. We try to get rid of the words
(signs) themself and stare at the essence, this linguistic ghost, so to speak,
that connects our words with the facts they are meant to portray.

-For our forms
of expression
prevent us in all
sorts of ways
from seeing that
nothing out of
the ordinary is
involved, by
sending us in
pursuit of
chimeras.

Seduced by the ghost of language into seeing apparitions between words
and things (into seeing "selves" "minds" "schizophrenia" as things), for
example, we are distracted and do not notice the ordinary that is involved.
95. "Thought
must be
something
unique". When
we say, and
mean, that
such-and-such
is the case, we -
- and our
meaning-- do
not stop
anywhere short
of the fact; but
we mean: this-
is-so. But this
paradox (which
has the form of
a truism) can
also be
expressed in
this way:
Thought can be
of what is not
the case.


This aphorism simply talks about the puzzle that is of interest in this
section of the text. We should let ourselves feel this aporia as much as
possible, I think, so Wittgenstein can help us learn our way out -- because
although we may be alert to the paradoxes and confusions here, we are not
always so alert, and can't be, because we have to let down our guard, so to
speak, to let language function with us so we can understand what people
are saying.
This notion that "thought can be of what is not the case" is a matter of
some profundity in philosophy. The paradoxes in philosophy that that
thought produces have been known since the pre-socratic Parmenides.
Socrates met Parmenides when he was a young man and it is arguably
Parmenides that started the whole tradition of Platonic illusion. Parmenides
thought that "all was one" and that we should resist the thought that we can
think negations. It is negations (thought about what is not the case) that
confuse us, Parmenides argued. To consider the paradoxes of "thinking
about what is not the case" - consider the statement "Where does the hole
in the donut go when you eat the donut?" Thinking about what is not the
case leads us into paradoxical aporias, Parmenides would have said and
many philosophers who have come later have struggled with this paradox
(especially Sartre in his work Being and Nothingness). But the point here
in LW is that it seems, nevertheless, that we can do it. We can think "It is
not the case that today is Thursday." This is perplexing if langauge is
designed to point to objects. We might also say, "There are no unicorns."
And, since unicorns are fictions, and (according to the old theory), words
work by pointing to objects then language is functioning in a most
mysterious way -- so it seems. It seems, can you tell, that language can
actually point to something mysteriously ghostlike that corresponds with
the words. I don't mean that we can point to a picture of a unicorn. We
could point, so this way of thinking suggests, to the concept of a unicorn
that exists for all of us that know the name. But, where does this ghostlike
thing, this concept, exist?

96. Other
illusions come
from various
quarters to
attach
themselves to
the special one
spoken of here.
Thought,
language, now
appear to us as
the unique
correlate,
picture, of the
world. These
concepts
proposition,
language,
thought, world,
stand in line
one behind the
other, each
equivalent to
each. (But what
are these words
to be used for
now? The
language-game
in which they
are to be
applied is
missing.)


In this aporia, we say to ourselves, it seems that various illusions attach to
the notion that we can point to this mysterious object of meaning. It
suddenly appears, when we are pointing that thought, say the unicorn, or
the hole in the donut, must create a picture of something in the world. But,
in our aporia, we ask ourselves, "How can that be?" How can we, point to
something that isn't there? How can we, for example, point to the "self"
when the self is a ghost of some kind, a ghost of meaning? How can we
point to the hole in the donut? How can we point to "language"?
"Thought"? etc. And, thinking this way, langauge seems like something
unique, something that can point beyond the visible world, point deep into
something hidden and mysterious. Language appears to be us to be
something remarkably powerful, almost magical. And, if we decide we
cannot point to these things, do these words "hole" "mental picture of the
world" make any sense?
97. Thought is
surrounded by a
halo. --Its
essence, logic,
present an
order, in fact
the a priori
order of the
world: that is,
the order of
possibilities,
which must be
common to
both world and
In this aporia, it seems, that thought is surrounded by a kind of halo. This
halo of thought is "essence" or "logic", and this logical-essence-halo seems
to hold the world in some kind of order, to organize it. Without that
organizing halo the world would appear chaotic. But this organizing halo
must be completely simple, perfect in someway. It would not work for this
metaphysical-halo of essences to have something confused about it,
something fuzzy. And, we must have this organizing principle prior to our
being able to make sense of anything. Without this organizing principle,
all if confusion. -- folks, this is pure Plato. The Platonic writings we have
include beautiful tales about how this works. In the Platonic dialogue, The
Phaedrus, Plato hasSocrates saying, "[t]here abides the very being with
which true knowledge is concerned; the colourless, formless, intangible
essence, visible only to mind, the pilot of the soul."
Many postmoderns refer to this writing, this writing that seemed to cast an
thought. But
this order, it
seems, must be
utterly simple.
It is prior to a
experience,
must run
through all
experience; no
empirical
cloudiness or
uncertainty can
be allowed to
affect it --It
must rather be
of the purest
crystal. But
this crystal does
not appear as an
abstraction; but
as something
concrete,
indeed, as the
most concrete,
as it were the
hardest thing
there is
(Tractatus
Logico-
Philosophicus
No. 5.5563).


illusion over the way we think. See Nietzsche andDerrida, for example, as
well as Wittgenstein. And, see my writing - which I'll send you an
Electronic copy of if you like, describing how postmodern philosophies
have seen this mystification to have emerged out of the writing of Plato. I
describe this in the first part of my paper, "Postmodernizing the
Unconscious.
http://www.california.com/~http://postmoderntherapies.com/pmth.html/sha
wver.htm I believe that this is where Wittgenstein and Derrida begin to
come together. This mystification here that Wittgenstein is talking about
is Derrida's "logocentrism." He talks about it quite explicitly in Of
Grammaology, and I go over that, as I recall, in my paper.
We are under
the illusion that
what is
peculiar,
profound,
essential, in our
investigation,
resides in its
trying to grasp
the
incomparable
essence of
language. That
is, the order
existing
And, so, in this state of mystification we are under the illusion that there is
some essence of langauge, some magical essence, and that we are trying to
grasp this essence, which is just beyond our grasp. This essence consists in
the organizing principles, concrete almost, ghostlike organizing principles.
And these appear to be permanent fixtures in the world. How can they
change, we say in our illusions, they are the principles that control the
world of human understanding? See #91
between the
concepts of
proposition,
word, proof,
truth,
experience, and
so on. This
order is a super-
order between -
-so to speak--
super-concepts.
Whereas, of
course, if the
words
"language",
"experience",
"world", have a
use, it must be
as humble a one
as that of the
words "table",
"lamp", "door".
98. On the one
hand it is clear
that every
sentence in our
language is in
order as it is'.
That is to say,
we are not
striving after an
ideal, as if our
ordinary vague
sentences had
not yet got a
quite
unexceptionabl
e sense, and a
perfect
language
awaited
construction by
us.-- On the
other hand it
seems clear that
where there is
sense there
must be perfect
order. So there
But there is aporia while in this mystification, because, for example, we
know that it is a bit odd to say that we can point to nothing, and yet it
seems we can. It seems with my concepts, I can point to the fact that John
is not in his seat. I see the seat empty. How can I do that? Then, noticing
this aporia and we think that the problem is that the language that we use is
not quite perfect enough, so we want to make it more perfect, more exact.
This perfect language awaits our construction. What will it be like? Well,
it seems, it will be much like the one we have, only more exact, more
perfect. Thinking like this, we say to ourself that the organizing principle
that controls everything is there even in the fuzzy imperfect principle, but
still, things do not quite work correctly. The organizing principle is
perfect, we just have a language that is an imperfect picture of it. There are
a few flaws, and we must figure them out and fix them.

must be perfect
order even in
the vaguest
sentence.

99. The sense
of a sentence --
one would like
to say-- may, of
course, leave
this or that
open, but the
sentence must
nevertheless
have a definite
sense. An
indefinite
sense-- that
would really
not be a sense
at all. --This is
like: An
indefinite
boundary is not
really a
boundary at all.
Here one thinks
perhaps: if I say
"I have locked
the man up fast
in the room --
there is only
one door left
open"-- then I
simply haven't
locked him in at
all; his being
locked in is a
sham. One
would be
inclined to say
here: "You
haven't done
anything at all".
An enclosure
with a hole in it
is as good as
none. --But is
that true?
In this perfect language, that, in our mystification it seems we must
construct (if we are to gain any clarity) we may, of course, allow for a
sentence to have some flexibility. We might have a structure like, "The
book is on the table" that could be adapted to "The pen is on the table."
But, it seems, there must be something quite definite in the boundaries of it
all. We can't have the basic rules be flexible. If I leave any of the basic
rules flexible, it seems, I might as well not have any rules at all. (Think
how this relates to Lyotard and his notion that we negotiate the basic rules
of our language in paralogy. We can say, now, in our postmodernism,
"This is what I mean by X" and, sometimes, people can follow us.)


100. "But still,
it isn't a game,
if there is some
vagueness in
the rules". --
But does this
prevent its
being a game? -
- "Perhaps
you'll call it a
game, but at
any rate it
certainly isn't a
perfect game."
This means: it
has impurities,
and what I am
interested in at
present is the
pure article. -
But I want to
say: we
misunderstand
the role of the
ideal in our
language. That
is to say: we too
should call it a
game, only we
are dazzled by
the ideal and
therefore fail to
see the actual
use of the word
"game" clearly.

And so, let me ask you, must there be exact rules in order for us to have a
"game"? Or is this just an illusion of our logocentrism? The mystified
voice responds, well, you can call this game without precise rules a game if
you wish, but it is not a perfect game. But, now, as I think through this,
finding my way out of the fly bottle, Wittgenstein says, I want to say that
we misunderstand the nature of our task here. We are far too dazzled by
the dream that increased precision will show us clarity.