The Purpose of Philosophy
"The sickness of a time is cured by an
alteration in the form of life of human beings, and it was possible for
the sickness of philosophical problems to get cured only through a changed
mode of thought and of life."
--Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics
Wittgenstein shares with the 20th century a limited
view of philosophy. Philosophy is not the love of knowledge nor is
it an attempt to grasp the essential nature of reality. It is about
language, or what has been called "the linguistic turn" in
philosophy. But Wittgenstein also rejects the ability of philosophy to
offer any absolute claims about reality.
Ironically, in his understanding, the purpose of philosophy is to function as
therapy for the disease of philosophy: "What is your aim in
philosophy?--To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle" (#309).
Philosophy should not attempt to do the work of science; it should not be
a theoretical discipline, but one that deals with the particulars. It
should not attempt to provide explanations of reality; rather, it should
seek to clearly set out examples to be investigated. Philosophy is a
descriptive discipline: "[W]e eliminate misunderstandings by making
our expressions more exact" (#90). However, its descriptiveness can
never be used to proscribe what is acceptable: "Philosophy
may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end
only describe it. . . . It leaves everything as it is"
(#124). In one sense, philosophy seeks to offer a clean field
on which to build: "What we are destroying is nothing but houses of
cards and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they
stood" (#118). What follows after is, perhaps, ethics and religion.
Participation in the Investigation
For Wittgenstein, philosophy is about clearing away
misconceptions, but it does so in order to stop trying to theorize--"To repeat: don't
think, but look!" (#66). Wittgenstein amusingly observes, "[P]hilosophical
problems arise when language goes on holiday" (#38). Language
will not settle down into a stable form for philosophers to contain it.
Often, inexact definitions are all we really need and to attempt and offer
more sharply defined ones may actually distort the matter. Thus, the "method" (for lack of a better word) of Philosophical
Investigations is found in the form it takes--a long series of
remarks. In a sense, he is inviting us to learn
to play the game with him. Thus, he offers his reader various thought
experiments. Sometimes he places the problem in question into an everyday
scenario, but just as often he creates imaginary language games or
fictional thought
problems. We are to think along with him, and he often creates a kind of
Socratic dialogue by putting the objections of an interlocutor (who may
sometimes be right) in quotation marks,
which he will then answer (or at least further mystify!). The
dialogue itself is part of the shared exploration, yet it is also part
confession, an invitation to us (and perhaps to God) to his own paradoxes.
"The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or another piece
of plain nonsense and bumps that the understanding has got by running its
head up against the limits of language. These bumps make us see the value
of the discovery" (#119).This suggests that it can be helpful to
treat Wittgenstein's work as a species of interrogative wisdom literature,
designed, like Ecclesiastes, to bring us to the end of our
pretensions concerning wisdom. In its lasting purpose, Philosophical
Investigations is a journal of exploration that ends in dead-ends,
but the exploring of those dead-ends helps to clear away the nonsense.
Meaning & Use
To understand what he is trying to clear away, you
need to understand that Wittgenstein is rejecting aspects of his earlier
work. Wittgenstein is responding to an early 20th century
version of meaning and language, logical positivism, in which arguably he played
the major role.
Essentially, the logical positivists argued that once the meaning of each
word is clearly designated then the logical feasibility of a claim can be
tested. All statements are either empirically verifiable or they are
meaningless. (Of course, this statement itself is not verifiable!) The
logical positivists championed an ideal language made up of designated
simples. But the later Wittgenstein insists that it is a mistake to treat language as
nothing but sentence-combinations of words which each name a single object.
Indexicals, for example, throw propositions into disrepute because their reference
shifts with each new utterance. Language doesn't simply represent
reality in a kind of one-to-one correspondence; instead, one should pay
attention to the various kinds of specific uses to which language is put
and avoid generalizations. A large majority of
words (though not all) are determined by their use, and their use changes
with each new situation: "[T]he meaning of a word is its use in the
language" (#43). Ostensive definitions cannot fix the absolute
meaning of something once and for all time. Indeed, language must proceed
such definitions to make them possible. Words are defined by other words,
after all. We can often
understand the meaning of words within a given context without any need of
a definition. This is in part because the meaning of sentences is more or less
clarified by the way they are used in context. For example,
Wittgenstein points out, why should an arrow point to something? Only
because of an agreed-upon social usage: "The
arrow points only in the application that a living being makes of it"
(#454).
This, however, is not the same as saying that
meaning can simply be reduced to use; rather, it always occurs within the
context of use. Propositions cannot be isolated from their context--a
context which is made up of not just other sentences but the social cues
that are part of the actual purpose of the language. Wittgenstein
went so far as to say that "essence is expressed in grammar
(#371) and "grammar tells what kind of object anything is. (Theology
as grammar)" (#373).
"Language-games"
"Philosophy is a battle against the
bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." (#109)
For Wittgenstein, language is spoken within a
particular kind of social context or activity that gives shape to the
kinds of sentences involved (cf. #23, #249). These activities are like games in
that they are governed by various rules, and differing games have
differing rules, and similar games can be played differently at different
times if different players so choose. It is better to speak of "family
resemblances" than singular meanings. It is impossible to theorize a
singular use or pattern for language; instead, "we see a complicated
network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall
similarities, sometimes similarities of detail" (#66). Language use
is always inexact, with differing uses of a word possessing more or less
measure of explicit definablity, and yet this is not a problem. Language games are "rather set up as objects
of comparison which are meant to throw light on the facts of our
language" (#130). They are not proscriptive theories as to what
reality must look like; instead, they are fuzzier social agreements that
have a large variety of different purposes.
Wittgenstein uses the very example of a
"game" to explore this (cf. #66). "One might say that the
concept 'game' is a concept with blurred edges." But this is not a
weakness because the examples one can use are sufficient to make oneself
understood: "Here giving examples is not an indirect means of
explaining--in default of a better. For any general definition may be
misunderstood too" (#71).
A private language used by
only one person is finally impossible (or least incoherent) because even a
private language must in principle be subject to verification by another
person. Meaning is a form of social exchange; it requires a public meaning
that can be gone along with or objected to: "If language is to be a
means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions but
also (queer as this may sound) in judgments" (#242). "Yes:
meaning something is like going up to someone" (#457).
Consciousness can, therefore, only be attested to in public
language: "An inner 'process' stands in need of outward
criteria" (#580). For example, Wittgenstein uses the example of pain. He insists
that we cannot speak of pain based simply on our private sense
impressions. Most of our descriptions of pain are expressions of pain
rather than true descriptions. ("I really hurt here." or
"Ouch!" as opposed to "an observable neural stimulation
occurs when the hand is placed on the hot stove.") For pain to be
recognizable by others, it has to be observed according to certain customs
of expression (e.g. the face scrunches up, the person screams, etc.).
Rules
"We have been told by popular
scientists that the floor on which we stand is not solid, as it appears to
common sense, as it has been discovered that the wood consists of
particles filling space so thinly that it can almost be called empty. This
is liable to perplex us, for in a way of course we know that the floor is
solid, or that, if it isn't solid, this may be due to the wood being
rotten but not to its being composed of electrons. To say, on this later
ground, that the floor is not solid is to misuse language."
--The Blue Book
"To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an
order, to play a game of chess, are customs (uses, institutions).
To understand a sentence means to understand a language. To understand a
language means to be master of a technique" (#199). The attempt to
make sense of language through introspection misses an essential element
of language, and that is that it is bound by varying sets of rules. We
have to engage the rules, the conventions, that govern a word's use within
a social context. This is not to say that we consciously have to be aware
of the rules; they can be entirely tacit. We learn the customary use of
language, the rules of the game, by "getting in the game,"
through example and experience: "A good ground is one that looks like
this" (#483). This process of rule-enculturation is decidely a
different task than that of interpretation: "[T]here is a way of
grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is
exhibited in what we call 'obeying the rule' and 'going against it' in
actual cases" (#201).
Rules are in a way precursory to language. The very process of speaking is premeditated on acceptance of the
common pattern of making meaning. Obedience to the rules of the
language-game, then, is not in the moment a matter of perspective but of
immediate participation and of comprehension: "When I obey the rule,
I do not choose. I obey the rule blindly" (#219). Rules
cannot be made for every possible contingency, but then that isn't their
point anyway (cf. #80--the disappearing chair). And likewise, rules are
never intended to remove all possible doubt. At some
point the justification of one's position, ideas, and language must come
to an end for fruitful conversation to really begin: "Justification
by experience comes to an end. If it did not it would not be
justification" (#485). "If I have exhausted the justifications I
have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say:
'This is simply what I do'" (#217). "We expect this, and
are surprised at that. But the chain of reasons has an end"
(#326). In this sense, language rules are like sign-posts, they are not
exhaustively defensible explanation, but then they were never intended
to be, even if such a thing were possible.
Rules, then, are nurtured within socio-linguistic
patterns: "The word 'agreement' and the word 'rule' are related
to one another, they are cousins" (#224). Wittgenstein relates these
practices to Lebensform (life-form). "[T]o imagine a language means to imagine a
life-form" (#19). By "forms of life," Wittgenstein is
suggesting that language is inseparably tied to the way human beings live
their lives. Indeed, the use of a common language requires something like
a common life-form, which is not the same as a sharing of opinions
(#241). It is rather what makes disagreement even intelligible. For
games to make sense that must occur within a particular practice:
"The game, one would like to say, has not only rules but also a point"
(#564), and this point helps distinguish the essential from the accidental
elements. And, thus, if we intuit the goal or telos of the game then
we can even object to rules that aren't contributing to the end in mind:
"If I understand the character of the game aright--I might say--then
this isn't an essential part of it" (#568). But at some point you do
not justify the way the game is played (e.g. "It does not matter why the
knight moves three, then two or two, then three spaces. The piece simply
does."). An infinite justification of the rules renders the game
meaningless, so neither are the essential and inessential always air-tight
categories, nor need they be to "play the game."
"Understanding a sentence is much more akin to
understanding a theme of music than one may think. What I mean is that
understanding a sentence lies nearer than one thinks to what is ordinarily
called understanding a musical theme. Why is just this the pattern
of variation in loudness and tempo?" (#527) We respond that we know
because we have developed a sensitivity to the musical form and
composition, and while certainly analyzable, there is no way to finally
set down a list of rules that encompasses all the technique involved or
all the intuitive comprehension of something like a gestalt.
Seeing That, Seeing As, & Seeing an Aspect A
good example of these investigations is the detailed study Wittgenstein
makes of the weaknesses in perception theory. When we see that, we
recognize an object to be something. When we see an object as
something else, we recognize a relationship between two things. When we do
this, we call attention to some aspect of the object. What happens,
however, with a drawing like the duck-rabbit? It can be perceived as one
or the other, though never both together. We are forever toggling back and
forth between perceptions, or one becomes more steady for a time. It is,
of course, possible not to perceive both possibilities, but once the other
is recognized, we remark, "Oh! I see now!" Seeing each aspect is
not the same as interpretation because each aspect presents itself equally
and at the point of sudden apprehension. Language games work in much the
same way. |