The latest issue of Philosophical Investigations contains an article by Phil Hutchinson and Rupert Read titled "Toward a Perspicuous Presentation of "Perspicuous Presentation'" (the article can also be found here under "Papers 2005 +"). Read and Hutchinson open with a brief discussion of PI §43:
The history of Wittgenstein scholarship can be mapped in various ways. One profitable way would track the attention paid and emphasis accorded to Wittgenstein's use of modal terms. So, for example, while some take him to have propounded a use-theory of meaning, others point to the actual wording of PI §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." What is at stake here? First, Wittgenstein limits the scope: a definition in terms of use will not apply to all cases in which we employ the word "meaning." Indeed, we are not, it seems, obliged to define meaning in terms of use even in a "large class of cases," we merely "can" for our purposes. The remark is better heard as an orientation to an aspect, or a suggestion of how to act, than as a definition, let alone a statement of fact.
That much Wittgenstein scholarship glosses the wording of PI §43 and thereby ignores the elementary points we have made earlier, is, we think, telling; it suggests the (strength of the) impulse towards the extracting of theories, or at the least some positive philosophical project (non-occasion sensitive, non-contextual, non-person-relative), from Wittgenstein’s PI, despite his explicit protestations to the contrary. While some are candid regarding such an endeavour, many others are less forthcoming and less explicit in their willingness to saddle Wittgenstein with a theory. (pp. 141-2)
Similar comments are found in Eugene Fischer and Erich Ammereller's introduction to Wittgenstein at Work: Method in the Philosophical Investigations:
Consider, e.g. a sentence frequently read as advancing a 'use theory of meaning', the claim that an expression's meaning consists in its use: 'For a large class of cases of the use of the word "meaning" – though not for all cases of its use – one can explain the word thus: the meaning of a word is its use in language' (43, our translation). This formulation is not only remarkably cautious (the italics are Wittgenstein's), but also stops noticeably short of advancing any claim about 'what the meaning of a word is'. It is not 'about word meaning' but about one of the different actual uses of the word 'meaning': it contents itself with the claim that in many (though not all) cases in which we speak of a word's 'meaning', one can explain what we are saying by paraphrasing it as a statement about the word's use in language. When the idea that 'the meaning of a word is its use' does crop up, it does so not as an assertion but in the antecedent of a conditional employed in setting up an objection Wittgenstein proceeds to attack (in 138, taken up again in 197). If that idea was one that Wittgenstein wished to advance as a philosophical claim, then it would seem rather puzzling why he should have done this in so offhand a manner. Indeed, as the general philosophical claim would certainly be far from uncontroversial (even if anyone thought it should be), it would seem downright startling that Wittgenstein did not bother to explicitly defend it. (p. xii)
Here are sections 138 and 197 of the Investigations:
138. But can't the meaning of a word that I understand fit the sense of a sentence that I understand? Or the meaning of one word fit the meaning of another? – Of course, if the meaning is the use we make of the word, it makes no sense to speak of such 'fitting.' But we understand the meaning of a word when we hear or say it; we grasp it in a flash, and what we grasp in this way is surely something different from the 'use' which is extended in time!
197. "It's as if we could grasp the whole use of a word in a flash." – And that is just what we say we do. That is to say: we sometimes describe what we do in these words. But there is nothing astonishing, nothing queer, about what happens. It becomes queer when we are led to think that the future development must in some way already be present in the act of grasping the use and yet isn't present. – For we say that there isn't any doubt that we understand the word, and on the other hand its meaning lies in its use. [...]
I think that §197, together with §30, suggest that the above interpretation of §43 is mistaken. Contrary to what Fischer and Ammereller claim, §197 does not involve a conditional formulation. Wittgenstein says, "For we say that ... its meaning lies in its use." And in §30, Wittgenstein writes,
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.
The apposition of 'use' and 'meaning' here is a clear indication that Wittgenstein understood the meaning of a word to be its use.
This view is supported by the Philosophical Grammar:
But I might also say: the meaning of a word is what the explanation of its meaning explains.
[...]
The explanation of the meaning explains the use of the word.
The use of a word in the language is its meaning. (pp. 59-60)
And the Blue Book (these passages are quoted by Hacker; see below):
The meaning of a phrase for us is characterized by the use we make of it. [...] We ask: "What do you mean?", i.e., "How do you use this expression?" (p. 65)
We are inclined to forget that it is the particular use of a word only which gives the word its meaning. Let us think of the old example for the use of words: Someone is sent to the grocer with a slip of paper with the words "five apples" written on it. The use of the word in practice is its meaning. (p. 69)
In his exegesis of §43 (online here; cf. here), Peter Hacker gives a different account of Wittgenstein's "cautious" formulation. According to Hacker,
An alternative, more plausible possibility is to look for exceptions to this explanation of 'the meaning of a word' (cf. AWL 48 (see 2.1 below)). For the phrases 'the meaning of a word' and 'the use of a word' are not everywhere interchangeable. W. speaks of experiencing the meaning of a word, but one would surely not call that 'experiencing the use of a word'. He speaks of meaning blindness, but one could not speak of this phenomenon as 'use blindness'. This interpretation is reinforced by PLP 175f., where Waismann notes that 'the meaning of a word is the way it is used' is not quite correct, for their are cases where it seems forced. To remedy this defect, he continues, we need a detailed account of the grammar of 'meaning' as it appears in various linguistic contexts: i.e. an account of what it is to understand the meaning of a word, to explain the meaning of a word, for two words to have the same meaning, etc. W. emphasized that not every use is a meaning, and not every difference in use is tantamount to a difference in meaning. (Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning, Part II, p. 120)
Saturday, March 15, 2008
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About Me
- N. N.
- I am a doctoral student in philosophy writing a dissertation on Wittgenstein.
5 comments:
I'll never understand these people; how they can think that Wittgenstein's work supports their view is completely unclear to me. Everything sensible speaks against it.
I guess it's a case of seeing what one wants to see.
Brandon,
I agree that "everything sensible" speaks against their interpretaiton. I think they are particularly concerned with this issue because it represents an obvious support for the view, contrary to their own, that the later Wittgenstein was involved in "some positive philosophical project." But I think their reading is tortured, not to mention obviously inconsistent with several of Wittgenstein's pronouncements.
WIttgenstein clearly believes that sometimes it is helpful, for his purposes in PI, to consider "meaning" as "characterized by" use. Surely we can all agree (before even considering his more overtly "anti-theoretical" pronouncements) that his use of this idea falls well short of engraving a tablet with the still-smoking letters "MEANING = USE". Yet on the other hand I can't see how the ends in question, or even his means to them, could be thought of as anything short of "some positive philosophical project". Of course R & H append the standard qualification: "(non-occasion sensitive, non-contextual, non-person-relative)"; but this isn't enough to save their position from skepticism. Still, I don't find Hacker's response at all attractive, as it typically looks more like a flatfooted recoil into dogmatism than a nuanced account of how to reconcile Wittgenstein's (seemingly doctrinal) means with his (explicitly non-doctrinal) ends. (Simply relabeling apparently "metaphysical" theses as "grammatical" hardly addresses the problem.)
And again, your quotations don't help in the slightest. Even when you dig one up that might as well say "nyaah nyaah nyaah, meaning is use, it is it is it is!", all that means is that in the context of that quotation he finds it appropriate to speak that way without qualification. (That picture is a duck. Really.) But these quotes don't even do that. Seriously, as an English speaker, what do you make of the phrase "But I might also say:"? Or again, the claim that meaning is "characterized by" use (or that it "lies in its use," or that the use "gives the word its meaning", or that if we are interested in meaning we should "look to" the use) looks fairly qualified to me. To take these phrases simply to tweak the content of the doctrine (sorry, "grammatical" account) rather than saying anything about the attitude with which it is held (especially given what that content is, and its role in Wittgenstein's argument!) just strikes me as perverse, at least as a global attitude (and Hacker is nothing if not consistent). But I can understand how R & H's deflationary pronouncements seem to invite such treatment.
And yes, some of that applies to Baker too. I read Hacker's article you sent me, and some of it was on target in that way (and a few others). However, it left untreated the part (aspect!) of Baker's interpretation that I like: the aspect-seeing part – that is, the connection of the aspect-seeing part of PI with the earlier part. (Yes, I recognize that the part of PI which is specifically devoted to aspect-blindness was written later than the first part, but that observation is surely well short of decisive; I don't mean the sort of "connection" which could be refuted in that way.) We can come back to this.
I agree that he qualifies it, but to be honest, I'm not quite sure how to understand the qualification. That said, I am confident that R&H and F&A are wrong in their understanding of the qualification. Given W's unqualified formulations elsewhere, I'm inclined to treat the qualification as insignificant. I think, that is, that the question "What does that word mean" can always be replaced by the question "How is that word being used."
Simply relabeling apparently "metaphysical" theses as "grammatical" hardly addresses the problem.
There's a difference between 'grammatical' (as Hacker uses it) and 'metaphysical.' There is no attempt to ground grammar in an independent reality. The claim is always 'This is how we use words'; 'Why do we use words this way' is a question that's never asked (the question and its answers are nonsense).
Seriously, as an English speaker, what do you make of the phrase "But I might also say:"? Or again, the claim that meaning is "characterized by" use (or that it "lies in its use," or that the use "gives the word its meaning", or that if we are interested in meaning we should "look to" the use) looks fairly qualified to me.
I read these in the light of unqualified statements such as "The use of a word in the language is its meaning," "The use of the word in practice is its meaning," and "the use – the meaning – of the word."
As you suggest, questions concerning these particulars must, fairly quickly, become questions about Wittgenstein's method (including his 'anti-doctrinal' statements). In this post, I only wanted to respond to R&H and F&A on the particular formulations concerning 'meaning' and 'use.' I'm planning more posts on W's method (they'll be packaged as discussions of the articles in Wittgenstein at Work: Method in the Philosophical Investigations; check out the link in the post; there are some very intersting titles by a broad spectrum of commentators).
I wouldn't go as far as claiming that everything sensible speaks against the therapeutic reading of PI. I actually find myself symphatizing with parts of their criticism of the bird's-eye-view understanding of Übersicht, specifically with respect to the additivity of 'surviews' (whether W advances any positive philosophical theses/positions/doctrines at all is another, although not independent, question). It seems to me that PI §133, where W insists that problems are being solved not one/the problem, provides indirect support for this approach. There is no indication that the solutions achieved should add up to a general presentation of the mechanics of grammar. Instead, what is emphasized is that "the series of examples can be broken off".
I too would like to hear more about the methodological use the issue of aspects can be put to. The fact that the discussion of aspect-seeing in PI Part II was written later than the metaphilosophical sections is clearly of no interest. Even more so, since the 'immediate progenitor' of PI §122 in TS 220 (quoted by Baker) clearly makes references to the topic of aspects.
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