G'day All
Over the next few days, I am going to start posting some of the questions from this morning's class.
I may edit them slightly either for grammar or to make them clearer as people who weren't present in class may want to comment. If I've completely missed your point, please scream out at me.
Okay here we go:
1). What is a 'word' according to Wittgenstein?
2). In rejecting Augustinian realism about language does Wittgenstein offer a kind of linguistic idealism which ultimately leads to solipsism?
3). Isn't memory a pre-condition for language rather than the other way around?
4) How does Augustine's theory (and by implications presumably the TLP) account for words that don't refer to objects e.g 'this, that, prepositions'?
5). How is the primitve language of the builders a 'language game'. Isn't the process of naming objects a way of setting up the game in the first place?
Feel free to comment and it would be great to hear from some commentators other than the usual suspects, although we're always happy to hear from the usual suspects too.
R
on 4): I'd be wary about thinking that the TLP is the target, at the very opening of PI. The essays in my THE NEW WITTGENSTEN suggest otherwise; see especially Conant's essay. Witt in TLP was already a 'holist' about sentences, and already a 'contextualist' about them having sense. He didn't think that you could assign meanings to individual words.
ReplyDeleteOn 2), I'm surprised to see idealism, linguistic or otherwise, raised as a possible interpretation for Wittgenstein in the PI. One of the most common interpretations of the work as a whole (of the later parts, especially) is that Wittgenstein is promoting some kind of behaviourism. Behaviourism and idealism are, of course, exactly opposed: a large part of the point of behaviourism, as Ryle saw it, was to put idealism to bed once and for all (if mental states are identical with behaviour, then you can simply read someone's mental states off of their behaviour). You can expect that people are going to disagree on how to interpret any sufficiently complex piece of philosophy, but surely something has gone wrong if both idealism and behaviourism are on the table.
ReplyDeleteWell, Marinus, your favourite philosopher of all time- Bernard Williams is famous (or notorious) for his accusation that Wittgenstein is a linguistic idealist. It's a theme which Gellner also takes up in his Words and Things. Whether its a valid interpretation is another question.
ReplyDeleteAnd Rupert, is your claim that the TLP is never the target of W's remarks or just not in the opening sections. That seems to go against the Preface. Unless your point is that when Wittgenstein uses expression such as "the author of the TLP, for example" we are to take it that the speaker is not LW but a Kierkegaardian pseudonymous voice?
ReplyDeleteIn 371. Wittgenstein says, "Essence is expressed in grammar." Then in 373. he states that, "Grammar tells what kind of object anything is." Which seems to indicate that Wittgenstein thinks that words have no universal essence but rather derive their particular "meaning" from the grammar- according to its contextual application.
ReplyDeleteFurther on in 383. Wittgenstein asserts that, "...the nominalists make the mistake of interpreting all words as names, and so of not really describing their use, but only so to speak, giving a paper draft on such descriptions." This appears to me as his continuing focus on highlighting the misguiding nature of an Augustinian understanding of language.
My question, then, is this: is Wittgenstein positing a form of linguistic nominalism, which is to say words are only particulars according to their contexts not universals?
Regards,
Damian
and explain to me precisely Damian, why you are abandoning philosophy?
ReplyDeleteNot abandoning exactly, I just don't want to teach philosophy. I think the studying for a degree is something you need for a job, but studying the subject matter is something quite different- if not in some cases completely separate. This is not to say I am against formal education in anyway, rather, I just came to the conclusion that while there is a lot of time to study philosophy that, if I don't want to teach it, perhaps the better choice might to get a job that I want while doing english and philosophical studies in my quite time.
ReplyDelete...Is that a yes on the above?!
I thought I might take a crack at number three as I am procrastinating from study.
ReplyDelete"Isn't memory a pre-condition for language rather than the other way around?"
If we are to take Wittgenstein as a linguistic nominalist then I think the answer must be no. The word memory is no-thing, but instead what is implied by the word. For example, I could say that the baby has a fantastic ability to memorise the order in which I demonstrated how to line up the toy animals; and this would appear to be true by the fact that the baby consistently creates the same order. So in this instance the baby isn't- likely- thinking to itself I must memorise the order, rather i think, it would be more fair to say it is simply replicating what it has previously seen, consistently. To this extent the word memory does not point to something in the child but rather that the adult using the word is implying that: when in the circumstance that required the baby to perform a task in the same manner consistently it did so. This, if I have been clear enough, is what I mean by "memory is no-thing it is what the word implies".
Certainly we can say, and I have heard it said, "thats not memory thats repetition". This is true too I suppose but, following Wittgenstein, I am lead to ask you "well what do you mean by memory then?"
If you give me a linguistic definition then surely this would only indicate, again, that memory is no-thing in itself, but rather whatever your definition implies that it is. Conversely, if you perform an experiment and say 'Aha, there that mark on the chart, that is memory", I will be lead to ask what you mean by the mark on the chart being present is called memory and has no-one had memory that hasn't had it indicated on such a chart?
To this extent I think Wittgenstein is indicating the contextual nature of words as present in their grammar, and expressed most readily in the different language games. I haven't got the quote present but I believe he says that nothing changes and everything is left the same; I take this to mean that regardless of the use of language the action itself was the same all that changed was what was implied by the use of a word.
In summation then, the answer to the question must be no because memory is what is implied by the word, and as such belongs to a linguistic framework- grammar- that allows the person to communicate with themselves or another person. I think this is why Wittgenstein says back to the rough ground.
love to hear a reply.
Regards,
Damian