language as action, meaning as social context

Yes that is indeed an Interview with Bryan Magee there is a whole host of them up Youtube, some are better than others but they are generally quite good.


In paragraph 1-38 of Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein build's up a critique of Augustine's conception of language and part of this critique involves a description of a simple language game of a tribe of builders, who use the words Block, Slab, Pillar as instructions to one another on what kind of rock to bring. Wittgenstein then goes onto compare this basic version of a language with our what we would call more 'complete' language, such as the phrase we may use such as 'Bring Me The Slab' and asks us why we feel the basic language game incomplete, when it fulfills the role that it plays within this basic society of builders, what Wittgenstein is really trying to say is that our language is never complete and is always growing around what Wittgenstein would call our form of life and such language isnt ever complete. Testament to this is the list of 300 Words being added to The Collins English Dictionary this year. This section of Philosophical Investigations is also important in critiscism over certain views people hold about meaning and use. The use of the paragraph from Augustine is also important as it outlines how Augustine believed he learnt langauge as a young child and how this is a believable but false picture of language.


Wittgenstein was certainly not saying that we should leave the wall of ignorance intact, but rather that by not recognising the many different use's that language can have and how we use language in differently in different language games, we present ourselves with problems which would otherwise not confront us and by describtion of our language and its uses we can escape many of these problems that confront us. Recognition of this will help us solve many of the Philosophical problems (Wittgenstein would call them puzzles as he believed there are no true Philosophical problems, which is part of what led to the clash between him & Popper) that our language leads us into.

hi R.Danneskj?ld

i think searles assertion that speech and writing are language acts, and studying their intended use is very interesting. He of course goes further and attempts to find it seems to me the structure of intent and its manifestation as language. The use of language in a social context as a meta narrative.

Wittgenstein he seems to claim thought this to be futile. To attempt such a thing was to create the very 'problems' you mentioned because the language game of the meta theory could not include by its necessary particular form, the characteristics of other language games?

Wittgenstein observes that some things cannot be defined in a singular way. They can only be understood by bringing together a number of forms. These forms can be used to relate different things together under 'family' resemblances. Thus a chair cannot be simply defined, but its familiar characteristics can be brought together to create understanding and in that kind of understanding different chairs can be compared. Eg something to sit on, something near a table, something with legs that make it stable, and so on.... and thus a dolls house chair can be compared to a dining table chair compared to a designer chair and so on. There is no one reducible form or characteristic for a chair. No established order of the various characteristics of a chair. Not even a characteristic that is necessarily the case for all chairs. Eg legs, to sit on, use at a table. None of those characteristics are necessary for a chair. And yet we understand and use the word chair. In fact it is when understanding requires complex ordered reduction that most people find a narrative difficult to use and understand. We tend to use these flexible narratives more commonly, with their flexibility in built by the very nature of their multitudinous roots and lack of strict hierarchy.


He goes further and says that in order to understand the language of the chair..... then see how it is used. Ie the language and the chair. The language game (or narrative) in question will use the term chair through its own set of characteristics. The chair itself will be understood through the different uses it has socially and also how different narratives teach and use the meaning of the word chair.


Many of the problems of philosophy arise when we take the analytical narrative (which intends to find the ordered underlying structure as a form of meaning) and apply it to forms that are more generally used and understood in the context of various and inconstant characteristics. Ie narratives that do not reduce the world to single structure, but rather to a dynamic collective of forms.


Thus to ask the question 'what is the structure and physical basis of the soul?' is to align oneself with the analytical philosophical narrative and apply it to a form that was taught and used by a completely different kind of language game. Such philosophical questions are likely to create semantic confusion, conflict and rejection. They appear frequently on philosophy forums.


But it should be noted that Wittgenstein is not rejecting ordered hierarchal structure as a valid means of understanding and use of language. It is just that it is not always useful to do so.... and often quite apparently so. It seems that to him an example of such a case is the analytical study of language itself as an attempt to solve its hidden riddles. The riddles are the pixies and imps created by asking something of the world using an inappropriate language game. You can never catch them using the language game that created them. But choose the right game and the questions are eminently answerable........ the false riddles do not appear in the first place.


I think this sounds ace ?.. but I do like chasing pixies And besides, who decides the difference between a narrative created riddle and a riddle that the narrative can answer? Maybe pixies are real?


We learn words and language by example. We learn what a chair is from a finite number of examples. The word chair is ambiguous. Common language is ambiguous and we learn to talk and use such language before we demand certainty of definition. Fuzziness is eminently useful and adequate, and comes before clarity. Eg Mathematics must follow after common language. Total clarity as a demand, comes after the ability to make such a linguistic demand, which is made possible by ambiguous language forms themselves. Ambiguity (not chaos) is at the root of language as it is learnt, and ambiguity within a form is not possible if the basis of that form is singular and focussed. It must be multitudinous.


It is through the refinement of fuzziness (for its usefulness) that we can conceive of the logos. The pure well behaved centre, yielding perfect clarity of understanding. Or even, just the pure well behaved centre....... beyond perfect clarity of human understanding. As we refine, some of us strive for purity. It is a concept and intent that the ambiguity and use of language is bound to create. Pure knowledge, complete understanding. Clarity leading to the concept and intent, of certainty. The rejection of uncertainty as satisfactory. A quest, a faith, a demand, for oneness.

No one as such decides the difference, but rather the Philosopher provides elucidations by examining how we use language! We describe how we use language in our various and overlapping language games and examine how the use of our ordinary language can lead us into Philosophical problems to quote Wittgenstein ' People are deeply imbedded in philosophical, i.e., grammatical confusions. And to free them presupposes pulling them out of the immensely manifold connections they are caught up in. ' the vastly complicated connections require a proper description of how we use language within overlapping language games should reveal what we intend to mean.It is important to remember that Wittgenstein does not intend to advance any particular theory. 'Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.' (PI 124). A good example of this method in use is contained within Gilbert Ryle's ordinary language classic 'The Concept of Mind' which goes into vast detail examining how we use language with the aim of solving a Philosophical problem and the main target in Ryle's book is Descartes Mind Body problem, this modest method can lead us to rethink the issue totally as put by our very own Jgweed.