Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations

Question: Does Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, specifically Sections 1 to 27, require “only clarification and explanation” and not “supplementation and embellishment”? (Lugg 2012, 21).IntroductionI must undergo extensive training to fully understand Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, particularly Sections 1 to 27. My question is: Do I need to read the Philosophical Investigations for clarity and explanation alone, without offering my own embellishment and supplementation? In other words, does Wittgenstein mean what he says or say what he means in a straightforward manner, so that there is no need for me to interpret his thoughts? In this three-page essay, I revisited Wittgenstein’s views in Sections (§§) 1 to 27 to determine whether I understood or misconstrued him. At the end of my article, I inferred that I have taken Wittgenstein’s sections at face value and have understood him fairly well as I delved into a portion of his philosopher’s mind.Body: Answers to my questionIn §1, Wittgenstein discusses words, names, and meaning. He analyzes, interprets, and points out the inherent weakness of Augustine’s primitive language conception. Augustine conceived that words name or, linguistically, stand for objects to have meanings; that is, each word has a definite meaning. In this first section, Wittgenstein hints at the idea that words are not just about naming objects; they are more than mere nomenclature or a collection of words or names, such as in sentences. Hence, not all words can be interpreted as names because of their arbitrariness as conventional referents to objects. Explicitly, an inner idea’s arbitrary association with a name is left undetermined given the non-essentiality of words to names and to their meanings. This section is indeed about words having meaningfully correlated names.In §§2 to 4, Wittgenstein discusses primitive language. He acknowledges that Augustine’s original idea was correct but overly simple. Simply pointing at four (4) objects (that is, block, pillar, slab, and beam) and naming them offers an important message that words are assigned a “philosophical notion of meaning” in a “complete [naming system of a] primitive language” (Wittgenstein 2009, 39). Concisely stated, the simplest of human languages may not consist merely of a list of names (nomenclature). Nevertheless, Wittgenstein notes that a simple (or “primitive”) conception of language was introduced for an increasingly more detailed understanding of the diversity and complexity of fully developed language games later on, which was precisely Wittgenstein’s sophisticated analytic philosophy of language. It was in §2 that Wittgenstein implied the various actual uses of ordinary language through a variety of ways (e.g., description, explanation, etc.). For example, “how the word ‘five’ is used” might suggest that a word has a meaning depending on its use (Wittgenstein 2009, 39).In §3, Wittgenstein contextually repeats Augustine’s unidimensional, limited, or unencompassing way of conceiving a descriptive “system of communication.” Wittgenstein offers an alternative explanation in rectifying one’s view about language in general, other than a specific language. For Wittgenstein, there are countless ways of looking at alternatives to how language is to be habitually understood as it is or was. On the other hand, in §4, Wittgenstein muses about the definition of a game by providing the same point as in §3 but using another example (Wittgenstein 2009, 355). In a nutshell, §§2 to 4 represent Wittgenstein’s view that Augustine’s theory of language is an oversimplification of the philosophy of language.From §§5 to 10, primitive language forms depict all words as names. Starting in §5, Wittgenstein considers two ways of interpreting a script of the primitive application of human thought in applying language through training and not explaining; hence, the conceptual challenge that arises when understanding the notion that a word names its object. Reading on, §6 discusses how children learn language through ostensive (or pointing-at-an-object) teaching via the association of a word with a thing (cf. §2). Wittgenstein counterintuitively points out that “[w]ith different instruction the same ostensive teaching of these words would have effected a quite different understanding” (Wittgenstein 2009, 43).It is in §7 that Wittgenstein discusses for the first time language-games by returning to his example in §2 as he reflects on the builder’s language and the process of learning a language. For instance, a teacher points to and then names an object while the pupil listens and repeats the name of the object pointed at. In other words, rote language and learned action is a language game. Section 8 is thus an expanded version of §2 of a language game using “there,” “this,” number-words, letters, and color samples. Further, in §9, prior learning accompanied by learning by heart is included in the game (that is, under the previous sections), but Wittgenstein still insists on the important distinction between the use of words and the mere learning of words by means of ostensive teaching. As such, Wittgenstein’s §10 discusses words having meaning according to their use or to what they signify.Under §§11 to 16, words’ variety of uses implies that learning a language is more than just naming. Section 11 is where words are likened to tools in a toolbox in a language game (that is, words having uses just as tools do). However, a literal tool’s use could be grasped at face value, while words may sound or look the same and yet may or may not have different uses, especially in philosophy. Under §12, which is similar to §11, but with the addition of another example, words are analogized with a locomotive’s cabin having a variety of levers that perform different functions in accomplishing tasks. All the same, they are all levers – as stated poignantly. Wittgenstein continues in §§13-14, emphasizing that words that signify something mean something; it is nonsense to overgeneralize. In §15, naming or marking serves as a preparatory signifier in a language game. It is related to tagging, labeling, or branding. However, a label or word is not a name; it only signifies the label for a name. In §16, as in §8, color samples perform word-functions; hence, they serve as linguistic tools. Thus, §§11-16 recap that language is more than just naming.From §§17 to 27, Wittgenstein explicates the diversity in the classification of words. In §17, he mentions the different kinds of words that different people purposefully classify. He then supports his statement in §18, asserting that each language has its own history before evolving into a complex system of communication. Specifically, in §§19 to 25, the same words have different possible uses, such that “[t]o imagine a language is to imagine a form of life,” implying the variety of uses of language (for example, giving orders, reporting, questioning, answering) (§19). Some like-sounding words function as sentences in a variety of ways, too (elliptical, imperative, degenerative, etc.). Wittgenstein then compares and contrasts thinking from uttering a word.In §20, Wittgenstein states how thinking or linguistic conception precedes utterance and adds that the same sense means the same use. He acknowledges that the richness of a specific human language lies in its variety of vocal tones, bodily languages, rhetorics, inter alia (§21). In particular, Wittgenstein notes that other forms of language may or may not achieve the same outcome or use of a word or sentence (§22). Hence, as there are a multiplicity of language games, so too are there a multiplicity of diverse uses of “all the things we call ‘signs,’ ‘words,’ [and] ‘sentences’” (§23). Nonetheless, one should not confuse an analysis of one kind with another (e.g., logical analysis versus chemical analysis). Wittgenstein then writes that speaking a language is a form of language game.Given the variety of language-games comes a descriptively rich “possibility of transformation,” not with something oozing with grammatical illusion (§24). Wittgenstein implies that a language (such as thinking or speaking) is indeed a part of human history and convention. Dogs, for example, do not have histories and conventions (§25). Further, in §26, he reiterates §16, but with the addition of naming as name tagging as a preparation for the what? Surely, other than naming objects and talking about things, they also have various uses (§27).Summary and InferenceIn summary of §§1-27, Wittgenstein used the word “game(s)” as an example to provide clarification and explanation and to show initially how a language game is to be viewed (that is, one of the various examples of how words are used). For Wittgenstein, there are no common definitions or meanings for most words or games used in language, except for the language games present in people’s use of a language. Wittgenstein’s simple language game example illustrated an understanding of the various uses of language depending on syntax, semantics, context, circumstances, etc. (cf. §12). Concisely, a language game must be looked at from a wide array of perspectives. Inferably, through clarification, explanation, and reiteration, “nothing is hidden” (§435) from Wittgenstein’s preliminary sections, as I attended closely to and was “before [my] eyes” (§129)” (Lugg 2012, 34).ReferencesLugg, Andrew. A Sort of Prologue: Philosophical Investigations §§1–7. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2012.Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Fourth. Edited by P. Hacker and J. Schulte. Translated by G. Anscombe, P. Hacker and J. Schulte. Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.

---

[1] In §593, Wittgenstein stated that the primary cause of diseases in philosophy is the use of “one-sided diet” or the nourishment of thinking “with only one kind of example” (355) the reason he may have used different examples in this philosophical language game pursuit.