Reflections on Language Games, Madness and

Commensurability1
ngeles J. Perona, Madrid

Abstract
The aim of this paper is to investigate whether we should consider madness to be
the outline of the nonsense that marks the limits of the health of our intellect, or
whether madness and health are closely intertwined. My hypothesis is that to
some extent, and in some of its uses, madness may be necessary in order to pre-
serve the health of the intellect in the face of unusual situations. Thus in the fol-
lowing pages I will deal with certain uses of “madness” that are semantically close
to “dissent” and “criticism”, after which I will argue, first, that language games
must be considered commensurable. Secondly, I will defend that we understand
expressions such as “the health of our intellect” and “madness” in a non-dichot-
omic absolute key, since in not doing so we can play certain language games
wrongly and, in the extreme, we can end up in a specific kind of madness
that may be defined as fanaticism.
In order to do so, I am going to refer to some basic concepts coined by the so-
called “Second” Wittgenstein (concepts such as “language game”, “rules”, “gram-
mar”, “form of life”, “world image”…), but first I must warn that I do not intend
to reconstruct anything like a genuine Wittgensteinian approach. I am interested
in using these concepts as useful tools to think about the issue itself, going even
beyond Wittgenstein.

1. Madness and incommensurability

Among the many references we can find to the notion of madness in
Wittgenstein’s work is the following aphorism from Culture and Value:
If in life we are surrounded by death, so too in the health of our intellect we
are surrounded by madness.2

1 Paper written in the framework of the Research Project DGICYT HUM2007 –

60464 Metaescepticismo y el presente de la epistemologa: postwittgensteinianos
y neopopperianos.
2 Wittgenstein 1980, 44 (circa 1941 – 1944).

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
244 ngeles J. Perona

This is surely a disturbing statement with several layers of meanings. To

begin with, we may infer from it that we humans are inherently limited
beings, so much so that human life can only be understood by grasping
and considering the girth of death that outlines it. But Wittgenstein
points out here a second limitation and he presents it in parallel to
death, thus endowing it with the same ultimate, definitive character of
death. This second limitation is madness as the outline of the health of
our intellect.
However, it is not necessary to turn to philosophy to realize that this
interpretation contains some misunderstandings, because although in or-
dinary life the radical distinction and ultimate boundary between life and
death is obvious (and even in this respect medicine offers some difficult
cases to decide), it is extremely difficult to characterise madness as a clear-
ly defined boundary. This last difficulty gains philosophical depth when,
as Wittgenstein did in his latest works, madness is considered as a gram-
matical issue, rather than a pathological one.
As usual in the latest Wittgenstein’s asystematic works, there is no fin-
ished definition of what he understands by “madness”. Rather, he pres-
ents different uses of the term, which is perfectly consistent with his met-
aphor of language as a multiuse toolbox3. According to this, it seems clear
that madness has to do with the deviations that occur in language games.
Not, however, with all deviations; only with those that are particularly
anomalous because they open a grammatical gap.
Mistakes and misunderstandings are the typical anomalies of lan-
guage games. However, madness does not fit into this category of anom-
aly. The misunderstanding and the mistake are the kind of anomaly that
comes from an action that cannot be taken in by the language game that
is being used; and it is a characteristic of language games that they in-
clude the possibility of mistakes being made, that is why they have guide-
lines that allow us to contrast and identify them. Mistake, Wittgenstein
points out4, takes place in the middle of what the one who makes the
mistake knows aright. This is the reason why neither the misunderstand-
ing nor the mistake dissolves the language game. None of them defy the
system of reference; rather, mistakes are proved in connection to the truth
of the propositions that belong to that frame of reference5.

3 PU 11.
4 G 74.
5 G 83.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
 Reflections on Language Games, Madness and Commensurability 245

As for mental disturbance, we can say that it is a false belief, such as

mistakes, but of a different kind6. And the difference between considering
something as a mistake and considering it as madness lies in the fact that,
contrary to someone that makes a mistake or a misunderstanding, the
mad person produces an anomaly that attacks the foundations of the lan-
guage game because it challenges the system of reference (though not in a
deliberate and conscious way). Moreover, the mad person talks out of
context7; the mad person is the subject that is grammatically isolated,
the subject that does not participate in the grammatical agreement with
the rest8. That is, neither within several language games nor within one
specific language game can one justify the explanation of the behaviour
of the mad person. The mad person’s position is so eccentric that by con-
trast it shows the reality of the grammatical agreement we operate with.
However, the mad person is not just someone who holds a false belief
which is not a mere mistake because he or she is placed outside the con-
text, but someone who, because he or she holds his or her belief, at the
same time raises certain doubts about other beliefs which are decisive
within the language game. This can be explained if we consider that
our relationship with language is not atomic: “What I hold fast to is
not one proposition but a nest of propositions”9. That is, the amalgam
of behaviour, action and verbal statements of a mad person challenges in-
directly the world image10 characteristic of the “health of our intellect”
and, to the same extent, it contains a seed of doubt regarding that
world image. This aspect of holding certain doubts (a specific kind of
doubts) is what distinguishes the mad person from the reasonable person 11,
which initially doesn’t mean that the lack of madness requires the exis-
tence of absolutely unquestionable beliefs, but that in order to doubt
one must have grounds12.
Therefore, when one talks about madness one addresses an extreme
anomaly, because at its heart madness entails the questioning of very
basic foundations (better, foundation-walls) of the existing world
image; these foundation-walls are precisely what Wittgenstein called cer-

6 G 71, 72.
7 G 465.
8 Ariso 2006, 90.
9 G 225.
10 Wittgenstein deals with the connection between language game and world image
(Weltbild) in different places along his work, for example, in G 93, 94 and 95.
11 G 220.
12 G 323.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
246 ngeles J. Perona

tainties. In this sense we may state together with Wittgenstein that mad-
ness surrounds the health of the intellect.
Note that curiously enough, in this questioning of the foundation-
walls madness meets skepticism (although in the first case it is not delib-
erate, and in the second it is). By attacking the foundation-walls or cer-
tainties of language games, both the skeptical and the mad person break
up with the reference framework in question. In both cases, the break-up
must necessarily raise a doubt in the very place where doubt makes no
sense. However, despite these coincidences, the break-up is not the
same in each case.
It is worth mentioning that the first immediate difference is that
whereas the mad person replaces the world image of the healthy language
game (which, as we mentioned before, it questions indirectly) with an-
other world image characteristic of the new game from which he or
she is speaking, the skeptical person does not seem to speak from a differ-
ent game from the one he or she questions. This may be seen merely by
observing how each of them lives and acts, since verbal statements entail
specific attitudes towards the world. So whereas the mad person holds an
iron consistency between what he or she says and what he or she does, this
is not so in the case of the skeptical person. This proves that doubt is nei-
ther a mere mental state nor a feeling that can be reached through intro-
spection; it is a language’s use that entails action13, like all uses of lan-
guage. This brief comparison between madness and skepticism would
prove Wittgenstein right when he shows that there is no such thing as
a merely speculative doubt, or rather that, against Descartes, this kind
of doubt would be irrelevant14. The very actions of the skeptical person
would help to prove that in fact he or she doesn’t have any doubt.
To keep on with the aim of exploring the notion of “madness”, I will
add another difference with skepticism. Once the mad person has been
considered as such from the standpoint of the healthy language game,
the anomalies that take place in the attempts to communicate are seen
as irremediable cases of lack of understanding, that is, examples of in-
commensurability.
When these cases are clinically diagnosed, if they origin conflicts,
they are solved by means of medication and/or isolation from society.
Under these circumstances, the subjects are treated as sick bodies with

13 G 61 and 62.
14 G 120.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
 Reflections on Language Games, Madness and Commensurability 247

which communicative interaction is not possible, since they make an un-

manageable private use of language.
There are, nevertheless, other cases which we refer to with the term
“madness”, but whose clinical diagnosis is not all that clear. The use of
the term “madness” here is by analogy and, although it is a source of mis-
understandings, the fact that it is used in this way is relevant for philos-
ophy. To begin with, the cases of madness by analogy have a philosophical
interest because they cannot be reduced automatically to impossible pri-
vate language games, but rather show something similar to an attempt of
dialogue with the prevailing language game. However, as in all extreme
clinical cases, deep down, the cases that cannot be assimilated to the latter
ones also attack the basic beliefs of a healthy language game, and they
may ultimately leave no space for an amalgam between the healthy and
the mad language games. When they surface in an extreme form, they
create situations which bring face to face two principles that are so irrec-
oncilable that their supporters call each other fools and heretics. Here, it
is no longer possible to provide the other with reasons, so (we can say
with Wittgenstein) the time has come to turn to persuasion like “when
missionaries convert natives”15.
It is worth stopping to think about the sequence I have just drawn:
madness – incommensurability – two irreconcilable principles – persua-
sion. Thus we can see that madness in its analogical use is not always the
limiting outline of the health of our intellect; we can see that to some
extent and in some of its senses, madness runs through the health of
our intellect and may even be a necessary element to keep that health
in unusual situations. All this, provided that, even though reflection
will take us beyond Wittgenstein, we keep the idea that the meaning
of “madness” depends on its use in the reference language game.
In order to develop my argument I will mention three archetypal
cases of madness by analogy, and in two of them I will lean on literature.
But first I would like to comment briefly on the notion of incommensur-
ability.
It is widely known that such concept became prominent in philo-
sophical debates as a result of the publication of The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn. The general context where it was used
was clearly an epistemological one, given that the question under discus-
sion was what gives way to scientific revolutions, i. e. to the radical
changes in the way of making science and explaining the world. The the-

15 G 611 and 612.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
248 ngeles J. Perona

sis Kuhn tried to put forward can be found in statements such as the fol-
lowing:
[The proponents of competing paradigms] though each may hope to convert
the other to his way of seeing his science and its problems, neither may hope
to prove his case. The competition between paradigms is not the sort of bat-
tle that can be resolved by proofs.
We have already seen several reasons why the proponents of competing
paradigms must fail to make complete contact with each other’s viewpoints.
Collectively these reasons have been described as the incommensurabilty
of the pre- and postrevolutionary normal-scientific traditions…16
We may understand better why those ideas were so controversial if we
consider some of the points added by Kuhn in his Postscript in 1969,
like when he states that
that debate is about premises, and its recourse is to persuasion as a prelude to
the possibility of proof. Nothing about that relatively familiar thesis implies
either that there are no good reasons for being persuaded or that those rea-
sons are not ultimately decisive for the group…There is no neutral algorithm
for the theory-choice…17
From these two quotes I would like to highlight two ideas: the first one is
clearly expressed when Kuhn says that complete contact between view-
points cannot be achieved, from where it can be derived that a partial
contact is possible. The second idea that stands out is that there is neither
an algorithm nor a neutral language that both positions use in the same
way and to which one may turn to in order to solve the confrontation
and make a choice. In the aforementioned Postscript Kuhn turns to the
combination of both ideas to try to put an end to the charges of irration-
alism and unlimited relativism against his theory. And among the reflec-
tions he develops in this framework there are a few that are particularly
interesting for our purpose. Setting foot on Quine’s World and Object,
Kuhn holds that “what the participants in a communication break-
down can do is recognize each other as members of different language
communities and then become translators.”18 And despite the fact that
translation will never be complete or perfect because (as we mentioned
before) there is no neutral metalanguage that we can turn to, translation
is, however, in Kuhn’s opinion, “a potent tool both for persuasion and for

16 Kuhn 1970, 148. Italics by the author of this paper.

17 Kuhn 1970, 199, 200.
18 Kuhn 1970, 202.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
 Reflections on Language Games, Madness and Commensurability 249

conversion. But even persuasion need not succeed, and, if it does, it need
not be accompanied or followed by conversion.”19
Certainly, the notion of translation presented here (imperfect and in-
complete in itself ) reveals a conception of rationality which is far away
from those monist models that are centered on epistemic values such
as the uniqueness of truth, certainty in the Cartesian way, confidence, ab-
sence of doubt and eradication of fallibility. On the contrary, it arouses a
plural and antifundamentalist image of rationality that carries the feeling
of epistemic fragility. However, that does not make it less plausible, but
more suitable to account for whatever happens. On the other hand, it
is worth mentioning the conceptual link of Kuhn’s theory with Wittgen-
stein, so obvious that he relies on Philosophical Investigations (specifically
on the notion of language game) to explain the notion of paradigm20.
But beyond Kuhn and the lacks of understanding and difficulties
raised by his statements, with time the idea of incommensurability has
been used in contexts other than its original one. Most remarkably, it
has been generally interpreted in absolute terms, that is, as complete in-
commensurability. Think of the debates about identity, difference, ethno-
centrism and multiculturalism that took place in the 1980s; remember
the postmodern criticism to the universalism of Modernity, such as Lyo-
tard’s or MacIntyre’s. The conclusion that there is no such thing as one
model of rationality, that there is no universal and ahistorical linguis-
tic-rational framework where all the languages, cultures, traditions or
world images can be translated without gaps, entailed the so-called crisis
of epistemology and, with it, the permanent threat of an unlimited rela-
tivism and the apparent impossibility to face the conflicts between world
images rationally. The problem is that there still are conflicts, and on
some occasions they are so extreme that they destroy coexistence. In
these situations the question always is: what can we do? Despite the
Kantian echoes in this question, after the postmodern debate it seems
that we just have to pick up Wittgenstein’s aforementioned statements
and admit that under such circumstances the confronted principles are
so irreconcilable, the incommensurability between them is so deep, that
their followers call each other fools and heretics. Madness is precisely
what the other embodies, what is absolutely alien to one’s own world
image, what is beyond the limits of one’s own health of intellect.

19 Kuhn 1970, 202, and 203.

20 Kuhn 1970, 44 f.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
250 ngeles J. Perona

However, as I anticipated before, this deep gap between madness and

the health of our intellect is too restrictive, and unsuitable in the last
term, since there are analogical uses of the term madness where it inter-
weaves with the health of our intellect. Madness is thus, on one side, the
expression of a conflict between forms of life or within a form of life. On
the other side, madness reveals elements that take part in the processes of
change of the forms of life, processes for which a non-complete commen-
surability is a condition of possibility. Let’s see it.

2. Solipsistic madness

The first archetype of madness to which I will refer can be found in a

famous passage of Don Quixote. It is the one where Sancho tries to dis-
suade his lord from tilting at some windmills that Don Quixote takes for
giants. Finally, already in despair at Don Quixote’s imperviousness to the
arguments and evidences he provides, Sancho decides to play along with
his lord. That is, he acts as one usually does with those considered as non-
dangerous madmen; after providing reasons and then trying to persuade
him unsuccessfully, he lets him face reality’s resistance to his beliefs and
the harsh consequences of his actions. In this context, it is precisely the
harshness for life that follows the clash with reality that draws the divid-
ing line between the mad person and the sensible person, between fantasy
and reality21.
Notice that this kind of mad person talks and acts in a way that is
perfectly consistent with his language game, with his alternative world
image. This kind of madness, this kind of lack of health of the intellect,
helps to illustrate the abovementioned difference between doubt linked to
madness and the doubt that accompanies skepticism. Don Quixote’s ad-
ventures raise extreme doubts about the prevailing world image by means
of verbal expressions reinforced by action. Mad Don Quixote is not a
skeptic, his problem is of another nature: he is the only speaker in the
language game he practises; his language community is the one of the
old chivalresque novels, that is, a world image long disappeared (which
he yearns for). This is why he is a solipsistic madman. It is striking

21 In the field of analytical philosophy this resistance of physical life to human will
is termed “obstance”, though there are authors such as B. Williams that consider
this notion to be too limited to explain widely the relationship between reality
and resistance to will. (See Williams 2002, chapter 6).

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
 Reflections on Language Games, Madness and Commensurability 251

that he intends to stop being the only speaker, since he has an eagerness to
communicate, to make himself understood and even to win followers. It
is precisely here where I wanted to arrive with this example, since it shows
how Don Quixote’s missionary eagerness sets foot on the supposition that
commensurability with the humans around him is possible22.
Perhaps this example may lead us to conclude that in cases such as
this one there is not a complete break-up of communication. Despite
the enormous disagreement in the world image shown by the speakers,
they convey messages, they dialogue and argue. There is commensurabil-
ity whenever it is understood as a partially communicative interpellation
between the speakers. From here we can conclude that commensurability
can be considered as an event which never results in a mere accommoda-
tion of other world images to one’s own without one’s own changing sub-
stantially. But neither is commensurability necessarily the mutual integra-
tion or amalgam of confronting language games, since persuasion is not
always successful. In fact, if we go a little further, we can think of situa-
tions where persuasive commensuration does not finish in its own failure
because of reality’s resistance to will (as in the case of the solipsistic mad-
man), but gives way to confrontation and to defeat, wilfully inflicted by
one of the parts on the other. And at this point we arrive at a second case.

3. Dissent, madness and fanaticism

Having used the expressive force of the literary symbol as a cornerstone

for reflection, now I will turn to history as a meeting point of irreconcil-
able sociopolitical situations in which equally irreconcilable world images
are confronted. Dictatorships and totalitarianisms are the most immedi-
ate examples. Remember for instance that the Mothers of the Plaza de
Mayo were branded as madwomen by the Argentinian dictatorship; or
that Stalin imprisoned dissidents in psychiatric institutions in order to
get rid at least of part of them. Not to speak of Franco’s dictatorship,
which relied on the valuable support of science and scientific truth.
The “scientific” studies by psychiatrist Antonio Vallejo N gera in Franco’s
concentration camps were used to legitimate the repressive political meas-
ures that the regime displayed against the war losers, such as kidnapping
the children of the “rojos” (the reds) and interning them in trustworthy

22 I leave aside the so many times mentioned lucidity as a characteristic of Don

Quixote’s madness and eccentricity.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
252 ngeles J. Perona

educational institutions where they would grow up internalizing the val-

ues of the “true” Spain. In his excellent book Los psiquiatras de Franco,
Enrique Gonz lez Duro quotes this statement by Antonio Vallejo
N gera:
The corroboration of our hypothesis has an enormous sociopolitical signifi-
cance, since if active marxists are preferably antisocial psychopaths, as we
think, the segregation of these subjects since their childhood will free this
society from such a terrible scourge23.
As I said before, in this kind of situation there are two confronted and
irreconcilable world images where one of them makes up for the inade-
quacies of persuasion by means of the physical or symbolic annihilation
of the other. By mentioning these political examples I want to show (from
the outset and beyond Wittgenstein) that the interactions between speak-
ers, to the extent that they are interactions between forms of life and
world images, do not come down to ratio-linguistic practices (i. e., giving
reasons, persuading), but instead that power understood as a symbolic
and “bodily” domination also mediates in these interactions and in estab-
lishing use and meaning.
However, what I intend to draw attention to with these historical-po-
litical references is a specific nuance of domination: domination under-
stood as a kind of conatus that sometimes goes beyond the rules of the
language game and alters it. Because if there must be the kind of incom-
mensurability between principles with which we are now dealing, at least
one of the two groups involved will use language without allowing doubt
(nor even mistakes) in regard to a vast amount of beliefs. And the more
doubts are raised about this use of the language game from the opposite
position, the less flexible it becomes and it appears to be more rigid, thus
attempting to be more infallible. This gives way to a use of the term
“madness” which allows us to consider as a mad person or a heretic any-
body who dares to dissent and thus raise doubts.
It is important to notice a peculiar feature of this political use of
“madness”: it is a malicious use. By branding all political critics and dis-
sidents as mad, the descriptions and explanations offered (when they are
offered) enclose epistemic misuses which aim at producing an assimila-
tion between dissidents and those who live forms of life which from a
healthy point of view are both internally consistent and deviant. Conse-
quently, they are disallowed both as valid interlocutors and exponents

23 Vallejo N gera 1939, 52, quoted by Gonz lez Duro 2008, 149.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
 Reflections on Language Games, Madness and Commensurability 253

of an acceptable form of life. More precisely, we can state that these epis-
temic misuses set foot on frauds of what Wittgenstein calls “see as”. This
can be illustrated with the empirical-clinical research carried out by Val-
lejo N gera with groups of political prisoners who belonged to the Inter-
national Brigades and “female marxist criminals”24. It is striking that, de-
spite describing the differences between prisoners according to their na-
tionality (Latin American, North American, Portuguese, British…), to
their ideology, to their cultural or socio-economic status, however, in
the end he sees them all as marxists, and therefore as antisocial psycho-
paths or mentally handicapped people, which according to him explains
the fact that they are marxists. His argument incurs in two very obvious
epistemic mistakes, i. e., circular reasoning and a begging of the question,
but also in a conceptual confusion (it mistakes marxism for antifascism)
and in a severe epistemological problem: the absolute acritical dominion
of ideological criteria in the organization and interpretation of the data.
In many historical occasions (Franco or Stalin are just two of the
many possible examples), persuasive strength has been increased by im-
prisoning that kind of mad people or simply by putting an end to
their lives. To be sure, the fear caused by these political practices in the
rest of the people is highly persuasive, but their epistemological and
moral validity to sustain a form of life can be contested.
If we now do the mental exercise of looking at these cases from the
opposite point of view, we will find a further analogical use of “madness”
that does not refer to the position taken by the speaker that raises doubt
through dissent, or what is called “criticism” in other cases, but rather to
the position of the one who censors doubt and paralyzes its language
game. From the standpoint of the dissident or the critic, these situations
are assimilated to what we usually call dogmatism (in epistemic language)
and fanaticism (in political language); and when at a colloquial level
those expressions appear related to madness, then they represent a case
of madness that is different from the first one we mentioned (that of
Don Quixote). In Don Quixote’s passage there stands out a sincere excess
of doubt about the reasons and evidences he is offered. Dogmatics-fanat-
ics are reproached for a selfish lack of doubt about their own language
game that, simultaneously and clearly, closes the possibility of a multiplic-
ity of rational uses and a multiplicity of forms of life. Why is madness
mentioned in both cases? Perhaps because both Don Quixote and the

24 See Gonz lez Duro 2008, chap. 4.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
254 ngeles J. Perona

dogmatics-fanatics support “their truth” by means of a blind unyielding

conviction.
In the 223rd entry of On Certainty, Wittgenstein wonders whether he
might be crazy and is perhaps not doubting about everything that he
ought to be doubting about. The case we are now dealing with would
prove that certain uses of “madness” show that this is possible, which
leads us to conclude that both certainty and reasoned doubt (including
dissident doubt) are equally necessary for the health of our intellect. Cer-
tainly, we cannot question everything at the same time, since this would
lead us to the absurdities of skepticism. But likewise, not even certainties
(and even less the nests of beliefs) can become dogmas, since the effects of
the invalidation of the framework of rationality may sometimes be as ab-
surd as the effects of skepticism, although they are always more tragic.
From what we have seen up to now we may conclude that the health
of our intellect demands, on the one hand, that we doubt for very precise
grounds25 and, on the other hand, that we leave open the possibility for
doubt. And, furthering our reasoning, we could conclude that sometimes,
for the health of our intellect both as an antifanatic and antidogmatic
guarantee, we need to practice a specific kind of doubt: a critical inter-
pellation which in spite of its non-delirious nature touches the borders
of delirium and makes the limits of commensurability clear. But how
far can this doubt be taken without falling into madness, either for doubt-
ing too much or for doubting too little? Is there any criterion to distin-
guish between the healthy and the definitely crazy exercise of doubt?
These questions remind us of Wittgenstein’s troubling about the question
of what can be accepted as grounds for doubt: the logical possibility or
the plausibility, the fact that it is reasonable? For Wittgenstein, both
cases are difficult to define26.

4. Criticism, madness and change in language games

To follow this path in our research, we can turn to a third case that entails
a special interest because, besides showing the relevance of the social fac-
tor in the configuration and establishment (contingent, of course) of the
foundation-walls of language games, it reveals the possibility of disrupt-

25 G 458.
26 G 454.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
 Reflections on Language Games, Madness and Commensurability 255

ing severely the foundation-walls of the framework of reference while

avoiding fanatic madness or solipsistic madness as consequences.
I am talking about the case in which somebody questions a shared
certainty (or several certainties) to such an extent that he or she is consid-
ered as half crazy. There are situations that share the extravagance and lu-
cidity of a kind of madness (such as the aforementioned archetype of Cer-
vantes), and which characteristically question basic beliefs (certainties) in
the language game and even strip them of their basic position. However,
these situations do not destroy nor are they the cause of the abandonment
of the language game and they do not entail the physical or symbolic de-
struction of the person who raises the doubt. That is, in these situations
the anomaly doesn’t point at replacing the language game, or reinforcing
it paroxysmally against fundamental changes; neither does it dissolve
through a mere correction of mistakes, nor acknowledging in oneself
the external limits to the will to hold a belief. Rather, I am pointing at
situations that require the introduction of half-revolutionary changes in
the foundation-walls of the language game. And when I describe those
changes as half-revolutionary, I mean those that would substantially mod-
ify the world image but without replacing it completely, without breaking
up with it.
Given these conditions, such situations are not cases of grammatical
isolation or increased confrontation between language games, but instead
they point at the question of how language games change internally, and
more specifically, they point at the possibility of introducing changes in a
non-organic way. They would be examples of radical modification and
correction of the game (but I insist, not a correction of simple mistakes
or misunderstandings in the use of rules, but mistakes which are inherent
in the foundation-walls of the game). They would be examples of differ-
ent uses of the language game in question whose effects would be per-
formative to a more determining extent than usual; that is, performative
of real novelties regarding the world image of the language game in ques-
tion.
I will turn to literature again in order to analyze this third possibility.
The issue appears, with the expressive strength typical of this genre, in the
32nd example of El Conde Lucanor, the superb work by the Infante Don
Juan Manuel, dated from 1335. It is entitled De lo que contesci a un rey
con los burladores que fizieron el paÇo 27 [What Happened To a King With
The Rogues Who Wove The Cloth], undoubtedly a well-known tale, al-

27 Infante Don Juan Manuel 1986, 214 – 219.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
256 ngeles J. Perona

though in the version offered by Hans Christian Andersen in the 19th

century. Here I am going to stick to the Infante Don Juan Manuel’s
story, since in Andersen’s version there are important modifications
that change completely both the approach and some of the issues men-
tioned in the tale.
The story, which is supposed to have an Arab source (as Alfonso I.
Sotelo points out in the mentioned edition), is about a Moorish king
who is cheated by three so-called weavers who say that they are able to
make a special fabric from certain materials, among them very expensive
ones such as gold, silver and silk. And what makes the fabric so special is
that it cannot be seen by those who are not the children of whom every-
body believes to be their father. Once he hears this, the king thinks the
cloth can be a good tool to increase his assets at the expense of some
of his subjects, because “los moros non heredan cosa de su padre si
non son verdaderamente sus fijos” [“for among the Moors only legitimate
children inherit their father’s property”]28. With this aim in mind, he pro-
vides the tricksters with all the necessary elements to weave the cloth.
The vassals the king sends during the process of weaving the cloth, as
well as himself, react by praising a fabric they cannot see, and no-one
dares to admit publicly that they do not see it for fear of losing their pos-
sessions (the kingdom in the case of the king). While they are all playing
this language game, the day of the major festivity arrives and the king or-
ders a suit made of the fabric. And supposedly wearing it, the day of the
festivity he rides a horse through the village but nobody dares say that
they don’t see the suit. And this goes on until
un negro, que guardava el cavallo del rey e que non ava que pudiese perder,
lleg al rey e dxol: –SeÇor, a m non me empeÅe que me tengades por fijo de
aquel padre que yo digo, nin de otro, e por ende, dgovos que yo so Åiego, o
vos desnuyo ides.“29 [„a black groom, having nothing to lose, came to him
and said: –Sire, I don’t care if you take me for the son either of the father I
say or of any other man, anyway I tell either I’m blind or you go naked“].
From that moment on, we are told how the rest and finally the king him-
self admit the trick played on them.
This example allows us to reflect on several issues. First of all, the tale
tells about a situation that could be placed within the uses of madness by
analogy that connotes either a collective mistake or a collective trick, or
both. It is such a situation that the speakers of a language game are

28 Infante Don Juan Manuel 1986, 215.

29 Infante Don Juan Manuel 1986, 218.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
 Reflections on Language Games, Madness and Commensurability 257

drawn by very specific reasons (the fear to lose their properties) to accept
a new belief that turns out to be seemingly compatible and simultaneous-
ly contrary to the grammar of their game. It is a strange phenomenon if it
is observed with Wittgenstein’s eyes, since from his reflections one can
gather the idea that the mistakes or misunderstandings are always partial
and relative to the language game in question. As we said before, language
games have room for mistakes or misunderstandings and likewise they
have means to detect and correct them. This case, however, is not a sim-
ple mistake in the use of rules, but a widespread mistake that affects the
foundation-walls of the game. This is why it is not exactly a kind of mis-
take, since we would never say that the speakers are wrong30, but some-
thing like “the speakers live in a crazy situation”. What is the difference
between this case and the case of the mistake? The difference lies in
the fact that distortion affects certainties, or rather, it affects two sources
of evidence and truth which are considered to be reliable.
It seems clear that trusting the information provided by a sense such
as sight is a basic element of the world image of the tale. And the tale also
shows that the beliefs that depend on sight are established collectively by
the group of speakers. So in principle the fact that each one acts as if they
accepted the belief in the supposed virtues of the cloth just because the
rest of speakers also act as if they accepted them, is not incompatible
with the world image that is set forth in the tale.
On the other hand, if we take the denouement of the story into con-
sideration, it is worth mentioning that the new belief that had been ac-
cepted (the existence of a cloth with special properties) is finally incom-
patible with the language game. But this only happens when there is a
modification of the language game that allows seeing it as a false belief,
the result of a trick based on fear. And what appears then as a trick cannot
be simply assimilated to a mistake in the use of the language game rules,
since in fact it is an anomaly that sets foot and affects at least another
basic belief (or rule) of the game: the belief according to which the
king is an indisputable source of truth regarding that stratum of reality
that is the social and political order. Moreover, closely linked to that
rule also operates the one that says that the king cannot make a mistake,
and this is because rather than a man, who is fallible and can be deceived,
he is the king, that is, the supreme authority and the one who holds su-
preme power in the strict sense of this expression in medieval political
ideology. That is why, in principle, all the beliefs held by the king have

30 The situation rather reminds of the one Wittgenstein points to in G 195.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
258 ngeles J. Perona

to be integrated among the rest of beliefs. This is what happens in the

tale. So if the health of our intellect (the sense and truth of what we
say) depended only on the rules governing the language game, that is,
on the autonomy of grammar, then there would be reasons for the
“black groom” in the tale to be treated like a madman (similar to the sol-
ipsistic one, not to the fanatic), because he is the only one that questions
the king as a source of evidence. The denouement of the tale, however,
gives priority in the political side to the freedom to contradict the king
and at the same time links that freedom to the epistemic authority of
the sense of sight as a source of evidence (always fallible, but evidence
in the end) and truth. So among the many difficult problems that this
example brings up we find all those regarding truth and its relationship
with power, freedom, deceit, fantasy, lie, truthfulness and realism. A
field which is too wide for the length of the present paper.
If more modestly we take up the questions with which we approached
this third case, that is, if we ask again how far can we stretch doubt with-
out falling into madness, either for doubting too much or too little, or
what can we admit as grounds for doubt, we see that the tale refers to
the uses established by the whole community of speakers and/or the de-
cisive speakers. This (the fact that the use depends on certain speakers
above others) happens when the communitarist ideal detected in Witt-
genstein’s concept of language game shows its boundaries when it is
tinged by medieval monarchy, for example31. Speakers are never only
speakers, that is, they never find themselves only in the symmetrical sit-
uation typical of mere users of a language game. This proves to be ex-
tremely relevant if we want to think (beyond Wittgenstein) about the
change processes in language games (and in the attached forms of life),
as well as about the processes of justification of evidence and establish-
ment of truth.
But there is something else about which the tale incites us to think:
what makes speakers (including the king) believe in the magical virtues of
the cloth in the first place? Fear, mentioned in the text, and probably also
ambition. What leads the speakers (beginning with the king) to finally

31 I am not surrepticiously suggesting the usual association between the reflections

by the latest Wittgenstein and a conservative political philosophy. In fact, if I had
to follow that thread, I would do it by connecting with any of the contemporary
thinkers that usually turn to the latest Wittgenstein to tackle important political
problems which are typical in democratic systems. For example, remember: Hab-
ermas 1982, Rorty 1989, Mouffe 2000, Cabanchik 2006.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
 Reflections on Language Games, Madness and Commensurability 259

accept what the groom says, and what keeps them from responding fanat-
ically in the face of the doubts about the hegemonic world image that are
raised by the serious criticism implied in the groom’s words? Perhaps ea-
gerness for glory (especially in the case of the king) or the relief of getting
rid of fear. Emotions, feelings.
So for conflicts such as this there are exits that don’t require turning
to any neutral metalanguage. That is, there are cases where two different
ways of “seeing as” face each other, challenge each other (which is a var-
iation of commensurability), and the situation is solved persuasively, with
feelings leading the persuasive activity. What is not clear is why some-
times persuasion is guided by a specific kind of feeling and other times
by the opposite feelings, why sometimes the groom is listened to and
other times he is crushed or ostracized as if he were a madman. Most
probably there is not a single cause or a single reason that explains
this, but several ones; in any case, what we can argue is that they include
emotions and feelings.
With all we have seen up to now, we may conclude that the health of
our intellect, that is, the sense and truth of what we say (moreover, the
relationship between language and world) depends indeed on some gram-
matical rules, but they are rules that emerge intertwined with non-univo-
cally and non-evidently sane practices. That is, neither rules for being
rules nor practices as such are a guarantee and an unmistakeable norm
for the health of our intellect32. On the other hand, we have drawn atten-
tion to the fact that the rules are applied in accordance with limits which
are not exclusively grammatical, such as the aforesaid eagerness for dom-
ination, emotions and feelings. These are decisive elements that favour or
hinder commensurability, persuasion and changes in world images.
We cannot rule out that from a philosophical point of view those lim-
its could be grasped more easily if we took the naturalist element of be-
liefs into account, an element which Wittgenstein points to when he
mentions “something animal” or the “very general facts of human na-
ture”. Perhaps from this starting point we could build a lean transcenden-
tal argument33 which would explain (non complete) commensurability
and persuasion. But this is the subject for another paper.

32 PU 131.
33 I am not pointing to a supposed transcendental language game or to a limited
community of communication in Karl Otto Apel’s sense.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06
260 ngeles J. Perona

Bibliography
Ariso, Jos
Mara: “Desorientacin, locura y huecos gramaticales: Wittgenstein
escribe sobre lo inaudito”, en: Logos. Anales del Seminario de Metafsica,
vol. 39, Madrid 2006, 77 – 91.
Cabanchik, Samuel M.: El abandono del mundo, Buenos Aires 2006.
Gonz les Duro, Enrique: Los psiquiatras de Franco. Los rojos no estaban locos,
Barcelona 2008.
Habermas, Jrgen: Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften, Frankfurt a. M. 1982.
Infante Don Juan Manuel: El conde Lucanor, Edicin de Alfonso I. Sotelo, Ma-
drid 1986.
Kuhn, Thomas S.: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, second edition, en-
larged, Chicago 1970.
Mouffe, Chantal: The Democratic Paradox, London/New York 2000.
Rorty, Richard: Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, New York 1989.
Vallejo N gera, Antonio: La locura y la guerra, Valladolid 1939.
Williams, Bernard: Truth and Truthfulness. An essay in Genealogy, Princeton
2002.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig: On Certainty/ber Gewissheit, ed. by Gertrude E. M.
Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright, Oxford 1974. [= G]
–: Culture and Value, ed. by Georg Henrik von Wright in collaboration with
Heikki Nyman, Oxford 1980.
–: Philosophische Untersuchungen/Investigaciones filosficas, transl. by Alfonso
Garca Su rez and Ulises Moulines, M
xico/Barcelona 1988. [= PU]

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet
Heruntergeladen am | 20.03.15 03:06