The Death of Metaphysics

A couple of posts ago (“Of Simples and Samples”), I attempted to explain the distinction Wittgenstein makes at §50 between the different linguistic roles played by (on the one hand) a means of representation, and (on the other) the thing represented. This is an absolutely crucial point with far-reaching consequences for philosophy and, to be honest, I don’t think I really nailed it. So let’s have another go.

I’ll start with a language-game (based on the one at §48) which hopefully gives a rough idea of the general approach found in works such as the Tractatus.

Imagine a world made of the following, utterly simple elements: ●, ●, ●. We shall name them “R”, “B” and “G”. If any two elements appear next to each other they are said to form a compound object. For example, we shall call ●● the compound object “p”, and ●● the compound object “q”.

So a state of affairs such as: “●●  ●●“ can be described by the proposition “p, q” and this proposition can be further analysed into “RB, BG”. The most elementary proposition would simply name an element: “R”. It would mean something like “This →● is R”.

We can say of p and q that they exist (or don’t exist), and also that they have (or have not) been destroyed. But we cannot say either things of R, G or B because existence and destruction are only to be thought of in terms of the combination or non-combination of elements. So words such as “existence” and “destruction” only operate at the level of compound objects, not at the level of elements.

A report of the total destruction of everything might be: “R, G, B”, representing the state of affairs: “●  ●  ●“.  In such a case nothing of which we could say “it exists” does exist, and everything of which we could say “it has been destroyed” has been destroyed. Of course, the elements are still there – they must be, or else it would be impossible to describe the state of affairs. But we can say nothing at all about them – not even that they exist. All we can do is name them. (Here the scenario’s limitations should be borne in mind; ●, ● and ● are not actual examples of utterly simple elements. For instance, they have both area and shape.)

This act of naming, however, is crucial because it is the means by which language is connected to the world. It is a form of what might be called “ostensive identification” linking name and object at the most fundamental level possible, and allowing us to see with complete clarity whether what we say is true or false. The statement “This →● is R” either correctly picks out the element ● or it doesn’t.

In the Investigations, Wittgenstein sums things up as follows:

What does it mean to say that we can attribute neither being nor non-being to the elements? – One might say: if everything that we call “being” and “non-being” consists in the obtaining and non-obtaining of connections between elements, it makes no sense to speak of the being (non-being) of an element; just as it makes no sense to speak of the destruction of an element, if everything we call “destruction” lies in the separation of elements.

Philosophical Investigations §50

He then makes the same point in a slightly different way: “One would like to say, however, that being cannot be attributed to an element, for if it did not exist, one could not even name it, and so one could state nothing at all about it.”

It is this second formulation he goes on to consider, and he does it by way of a comparison with the standard metre in Paris. In Wittgenstein’s time this was a rod of platinum-iridium which served as the authoritative sample of the length “1m”. (It has since been replaced by a definition involving the speed of light, which can be found here; this does not affect the argument.) Wittgenstein points out that, in an important sense, we can say neither that the standard metre is or isn’t 1m long. This is because “being 1m long” depends on matching the length of the standard metre, and a sample cannot meaningfully be measured against itself.

This might seem mysterious, but it actually just reflects the peculiar role of the sample in the language-game. It is a rule by which we establish the convention “1m”. Or, as Wittgenstein puts it: “it is not something that is represented, but is a means of representation” (§50). Without it we could not talk about things being (or not being) 1m long.

It could be put like this: “The standard metre is 1m long” looks like a description (which could be true or false), but in fact it is the expression of a rule governing the use of the phrase “1m”. It is not an empirical statement, but a grammatical one.

So although we might be tempted to claim that the length “1m” must exist or else we couldn’t even say “nothing is 1m long”, this would be confused. What has to exist (if we are to play the language-game we play with the word "1m") is part of the language: the means of representation. And the means of representation (the rule) will be neither true nor false, because it doesn’t describe the world; it defines a concept governing the use of a word (and in the case of the standard metre it is internally linked to a whole cluster of other concepts involving length and measurement).

Hopefully it is clear how this analogy relates to the case of elements. The meaning of “This →● is R” appears to rely on an intrinsic quality of the world – a quality which must exist (eg, the element ●). But actually its meaning depends not on the world but on the rule governing its use. This point can be easily missed because the rule takes the same form as the statement, making it look as though there were only statements. The statement “This →● is R” is a successful application of the rule “This →● is ‘R’”. And the statement “This →● is R” is false because there is no such rule as “This →● is ‘R’”. So the claim that (eg) “red must exist” boils down to the fact that if there’d never been a red-coloured object then we couldn’t have the rule “This →● is ‘red’”. (Hence, 15^th C. Europeans could not have a rule governing the colour-word “carmine”, because before Spain conquered the New World and brought back dyes made from cochineal insects, Europeans had simply never seen the colour before.) What do exist are red objects. But, from the point of view of meaning, what must exist is a rule.

This insight in turn gives us a clearer view of the confusion over “existence” and “destruction” in my initial language-game. There I said that “existence and destruction are only to be thought of in terms of the combination or non-combination of elements”. What sort of statement was that? An empirical one? No. It was a rule: a definition that governed the use of “existence” and “destruction” in the game. And it was this rule – not any necessary quality residing in objects – that made it impossible to talk of elements existing (or not existing) or of their being destroyed. It may look like a statement about the world to say, “we cannot assign existence or non-existence to elements”, but it’s actually a restatement of the rule. As such, it is part of the means of representation, not something that is represented.

So was the rule the right one? Well, imagine while playing with Lego you decide that only two (or more) bricks stuck together count as “existing”. Would that be the right rule? It seems not so much right – or wrong – as pointless. Language has gone on holiday.

Statements such as “simple elements must exist” are metaphysical. They claim to reveal a priori necessary truths about the world. If Wittgenstein is right (and there are many who would say he is not), then such statements are revealed as essentially empty. Insofar as they have any meaning, they are misleading expressions of the rules of our language – and rules are neither true nor false. Aside from that, they are merely examples of a subtle (and extremely tempting) form of nonsense, a shadow cast by grammar.

Language-Games

One of the most striking features of the Philosophical Investigations is how little technical jargon it contains. If, like me, you suspect that the amount of rubbish talked usually rises in direct proportion to the amount of jargon used, this is a very encouraging sign. The book is not entirely jargon-free, however, and the first technical (or quasi-technical) term it introduces is the phrase “language-game”. This turns out to be a hugely important term, and it's useful to look at how and why Wittgenstein uses it. It is first introduced at §7:

We can also think of the whole process of using words in (2) as one of those games by means of which children learn their native language. I will call these games “language-games” and will sometimes speak of a primitive language as a language-game.

And the process of naming the stones and of repeating words after someone might also be called language-games. Think of certain uses that are made of words in games like ring-a-ring-a-roses.

I shall also call the whole, consisting of language and the activities into which it is woven, a “language-game”.

This is less a definition than a broad hint as to how Wittgenstein will use the term, but it’s worth noting that (a) even the simple builder’s language at §2 involves more than one language-game (teaching and use) and (b) the whole of language itself can be thought of as a language-game, made up of a series of inter-woven and cross-cutting sub-games.

From this, we get two broad uses of the term:

1. Language-game as a thought experiment, involving invented situations or uses of language; and
2. “Game” as an analogy for language as we actually use it in our lives.

The language-game thought experiment

Language-game thought experiments serve two (complementary) functions. First, they shed light on language by allowing us to focus on the basics: “It disperses the fog if we study the phenomena of language in primitive kinds of use in which one can clearly survey the purpose and functioning of the words” (§5).

The building game at §2 is a typical example. By virtue of its very primitiveness it helps clarify concepts such as meaning and understanding. For example, the builder’s call of “slab!” clearly means “bring me a slab” despite the fact that he has no such form of words in his language (his entire vocabulary is merely “slab”, “block”, “pillar” and “beam”). But in what sense can “slab” mean “bring me a slab” to someone who cannot say the latter phrase? Well, in the sense that he wants a slab to be brought to him. In other words: meaning is use. Here we see the first small step in Wittgenstein’s dismantling of the idea that words such as “meaning”, “understanding” and “intending” refer to mental states. There will be much more on this later.

The thought experiment’s second function is to reveal the inadequacy of certain conceptions of language (usually conceptions formerly asserted by Wittgenstein himself). Again, the building game is an example: by demonstrating what Augustine’s picture of language would look like in practice it highlights the narrowness of his account, revealing how little it captures of what we actually do with words. (We shouldn’t think, therefore, that such primitive games reveal the essence of language. Each one is just a single example of the various ways language is used - they are basic, but not privileged.)

This destructive function is perhaps even more evident in another type of thought experiment used by Wittgenstein: the “what-if” experiment. Rather than presenting simplified versions of our linguistic behaviour, these ask us to imagine situations radically different from our own. At §257, for example, he asks: “What would it be like if human beings did not manifest their pains (did not groan, grimace, etc.)? Then it would be impossible to teach a child the use of the word ‘toothache’.”

Here, the thought experiment seeks to free us of the idea that our concepts are somehow necessary. By imagining how things might have been different, we see that our language is not designed for any possible creature in any possible world; it is a language for us, living in our world. It reflects all the vagaries of our nature and the environment in which we operate. This remark might seem obvious, but (Wittgenstein claims) the misguided tendency towards essence and necessity is remarkably insidious and lurks unquestioned behind many of the philosophical problems which baffle us. One way or another, his thought experiments seek to drag this tendency out into the light.

The game analogy

So how does our language operate, then? It is in attempting to answer this question that Wittgenstein draws upon games as an analogy for language. In fact, this analogy is central to his whole approach and is used to highlight several crucial (and often overlooked) points:

i. Language (like a game) is an activity. It is embedded in, and gets its purpose from, the sorts of things that human beings do. As Wittgenstein explains at §23: “The word ‘language-game’ is used here to emphasize the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.” All too often, philosophers present language as essentially something passive. It is (for example) a way of getting an idea from my mind into yours. Why we might want to do this is felt to be neither here nor there (or something that will take care of itself). Wittgenstein considered this an important error.

ii. Language, like a game, is out there in the world. It is a shared activity (though, to be sure, there are some language-games we play by ourselves). It is not a matter of private phenomena (thoughts, sensations, etc) that others can only guess at using behavioural clues.

iii. Language, like a game, is normative. It is rule-bound, but not exhaustively so. There are just enough rules as are needed for the (language) game to work. So, for example, there are no rules in tennis about how high one is supposed to throw the ball when serving (§68). Likewise, there are rules for determining the correct use of words but they are only as rigid as the situation requires. Thus, language can function without being like a logical calculus where everything must be precisely defined and each possible step determined by strict laws.

iv. Language is diverse. We have as many games as we find amusing or interesting, and in the same way there are as many uses of language as we find beneficial or significant. Note, though, that our language-games are inter-connected. The game of teaching words, for example, presupposes the game of using of words in practice. Without the other, neither has a function. The same cannot be said of actual games – we could have snooker without poker. Indeed, we could have stud poker without draw poker. It should also be noted that what counts as a language-game will depend on the aspect of language under consideration. There are as many language-games as there are ways of classifying our linguistic concepts.

v. The concept “Language”, like the concept “game”, is a family-resemblance concept (NB: this is another of Wittgenstein’s technical terms; I hope to say something about it in another post). There is no clear distinction between linguistic and non-linguistic activity and no single definition of what language is – and hence no essence either.

vi. Language, like a game, is “free-floating”. Its rules are up to us – they do not get ultimate validation from the world. We are free to construct whatever games we wish and, in the same way, we are free to construct whatever linguistic concepts we wish. This point is very easy to misunderstand; it does not mean (for example) that language has no connection with reality. In what way is it connected? Well, in what way is the game of football connected with reality? We don’t play football with cannonballs or soap bubbles. Why not?

Both through thought experiments and by analogy, Wittgenstein uses the idea of language-games to reveal language as something public, active, diverse and constituted by rules which are up to us rather than determined by any supposed necessary structure of the world. Fruitful as it is, however, the analogy should be treated with a degree of caution. It is just an analogy. Language is not a game. Wittgenstein is not saying that what we do is trivial, or that his philosophy merely plays with words. Our linguistic capabilities have a huge role in defining what we are as human beings, so to get a clearer view of our language is to get a clearer view of ourselves. As he puts it at §19: “to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life”.

Wittgenstein, Names, Meaning and Use

The first 45 sections of the Investigations touch upon a wide range of topics, but their central concern is to combat the picture of language suggested by the quote from Augustine in §1: “the words in language name objects [….] Every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands.”

Wittgenstein’s first criticism of this account is that words do far more than simply name objects. The language-game he outlines in §2 (where a builder calls out “slab”, “block”, etc, and his assistant brings the appropriate objects) demonstrates this by its very primitiveness. Since our language goes way beyond the basic functions allowed for in Augustine’s description, his version clearly doesn’t capture the whole picture (a point Wittgenstein makes explicitly at §3-4).

In §8 Wittgenstein extends the building language-game to include number-words, colour samples and the words “this” and “there” – ie, examples of the sorts of features left out of Augustine’s account – and then (at §10) makes the following remark:  

Now what do the words of this language signify? – How is what they signify supposed to come out other than in the kind of use they have? And we have already described that.

The terminology here moves from “name” to “signify” – and the italics show that this is not meant to escape our notice. Why introduce this new term? Well, “signify” is akin to, but not identical with, “name”; it is broader, more diffuse – we can either say, for example, that the word “ring” names or signifies the object I put on someone’s finger; but while that ring can signify my love, it cannot name it. So (the thought goes) although we may concede that words do more than name, perhaps we can still show that something similar is going on by adopting “signify”.

Wittgenstein’s response to this rejects such a move. In fact, he seems to consider it an example of what he elsewhere (§254) calls a “typical expedient in philosophy” – in this case, using a flexible term (or form of words) to shoe-horn different activities into the same category. Thus, although it is possible to say both “’X’ signifies the number…” and “’Y’ signifies the colour…” this does not make the use of number-words and the use of colour samples the same any more than the word “ring” signifying a ring is the same as a ring signifying undying love. In a specific context “’X’ signifies the number…” could be useful – ie, it could remove a particular misunderstanding – but here it is part of an inappropriate imitation of scientific reductionism, blurring the facts rather than revealing an underlying connection. Indeed the fact that it is possible to represent markedly different activities using the same basic sentence-structure is one of the linguistic features that tempts us to assume there is such a thing as the “ultimate essence” of language. For me, Wittgenstein debunks this spurious type of assimilation rather effectively when he says (§22):

We might very well also write every assertion in the form of a question followed by an affirmative expression; for instance, “Is it raining? Yes!” Would this show that every assertion contained a question?

Notice also how Wittgenstein’s immediate response to the question at §10 is to bring things back to the matter of use. This is a recurrent pattern in the Investigations: a particular notion (or theory) of meaning leads to puzzlement at which point we are urged to consider how the relevant word or phrase is actually used in various situations.

Why does this help? Because words are like tools (§11) and language is what we do with those tools. And so “what does this word mean?” is akin to “what is this tool for?” or “how is it used?” And, as with tools, the answer may not be as straightforward as you think. Consider a hammer: I can use it to knock in a nail, or pull a nail out, or smash away an obstruction or stop my instructions blowing away in the wind, or even as an ornament (but I can’t use it to glue a tile to the wall – not everything is “up for grabs” and it is significant that there are limits to the flexibility of language as well as hammers).

It follows from this that explaining meaning is not a matter of forming a reductive hypothesis but of painstakingly describing what we already know: how words are used. This insight will form the basis of Wittgenstein’s whole approach to philosophy.

The importance of use is glanced upon at various points in the Investigations’ opening sections until, at §43, he more or less lays his cards on the table:

For a large class of cases of the employment of the word “meaning” – though not for all – this word can be explained in this way: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.

And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.

I must admit, I have always found this crucial passage troubling. In fact, thinking about it often produces precisely the sort of “mental cramp” Wittgenstein mentions in relation to such questions as “What is meaning?” (The Blue Book, page 1).

I shall describe my confusion not simply to highlight my own dimness – though that’s always worth bearing in mind – but as an example of how infuriatingly difficult it is to break free of the misleading conceptions of language “which send us in pursuit of chimeras” (§94). Academic commentators such as (the excellent) Peter Hacker tend to make it look dauntingly easy: this is why the Augustinian picture of language doesn’t work, and this is the Wittgensteinian version we should replace it with. Job done. All I can say is that I’ve been studying Wittgenstein on and off for over twenty years and I still sometimes find myself falling into the same old traps. It is a comfort, however, to realise that Wittgenstein himself seems to have had a similar problem. Again and again in his later works he complains about how hard it is “to keep our heads above water” (§106) and only days before his death he commented “I do philosophy now like an old woman who is always mislaying something and having to look for it again; now her spectacles, now her keys” (On Certainty, §532).

Anyway, on with the philosophy. I have no difficulty with the general message of §43 (that meaning is use), but there is a further aspect to it which often sends my mind reeling, namely: what sorts of words does its caveat (“though not for all”) refer to? Take a moment to read the passage again, consider it, and see what you think.

It is all too easy to suppose that Wittgenstein is saying there are some types of words whose meaning is somehow “untainted” by any particular use. Such words would, so to speak, “carry their meaning with them” from situation to situation. It should go without saying that this is a startlingly un-Wittgensteinian conception (and that alone ought to alert us to the possibility that we’ve taken a wrong turn).

All the same, this reading seems to be confirmed by the final sentence of §43. Isn’t Wittgenstein here saying that in the case of proper names (eg, “Jones”) the bearer is the meaning of the name? That would at least provide an example of a word which carried its meaning with it, but it would also directly contradict a point Wittgenstein has emphatically made just three sections earlier:

It is important to note that it is a solecism to use the word “meaning” to signify the thing that ‘corresponds’ to a word. That is to confound the meaning of a name with the bearer of the name.

Philosophical Investigations §40

Either we conclude that Wittgenstein has made a remarkable blunder and started arguing against himself, or we go back and think more carefully about what he’s actually saying in §43. So which is it?

Well, after a lot of thought, I realised this: §43 is simply about the different ways we explain the term “meaning”. It says we do not always explain meaning in terms of use. It does not say that there are some words whose meaning is totally independent of their use. One might reword it as follows:

“In most cases the employment of ‘meaning’ can be explained as a reference to the use of the word in question. A description of use is what we mean by ‘meaning’ in such cases. But even when it is not done this way – eg, where a name’s meaning is explained by pointing at the bearer – it is still not the case that the bearer is the meaning.”

Or, to put it in the form of a dialogue:

A: What is meant by “meaning”?

B: Most of the time the meaning of a word is its use in the language. But in this case I explain the meaning of “Jones” by pointing to him, thus →.

A: So he → is the meaning of “Jones”?

B: No! He is a human being. How can a human being be a meaning? No object can be a meaning because meaning is not a thing. He → is the bearer of the name “Jones” – in other words, he is the person I want you to bring when I say “fetch me Jones”.

Or, finally, to express it as a grammatical distinction: One does not say, “Hello, I am the meaning of the word ‘Jones’.” One says, “Hello, I am Jones.”

Even as I typed them out, I could feel my grasp of the above points squirming to get away from me. There is something eerie about how difficult it is to keep these (seemly simple) conceptual distinctions in focus. Again, this was something Wittgenstein often remarked upon:

 [Philosophical problems] are solved through an insight into the workings of our language, and that in such a way that these workings are recognized - despite an urge to misunderstand them. [...] Philosophy is a struggle against the bewitchment of our understanding by the resources of our language.

Philosophical Investigations §109

Five Red Apples

Now think of the following use of language: I send someone shopping. I give him a slip of paper marked "five red apples". He takes the slip to the shopkeeper, who opens the drawer marked "apples"; then he looks up the word "red" in a chart and finds a colour sample next to it; then he says the series of elementary number-words - I assume that he knows them by heart - up to the word "five", and for each number-word he takes an apple of the same colour as the sample out of the drawer. -- It is in this and similar ways that one operates with words. -- "But how does he know where and how he is to look up the word 'red' and what he is to do with the word 'five'?" -- Well, I assume that he acts as I have described. Explanations come to an end somewhere. - But what is the meaning of the word "five"? - No such thing was in question here, only how the word "five" is used.

This passage, from §1 of the book, has always charmed me. The situation presented is a beguiling mix of the mundane and the strange – what could be more prosaic than buying apples? And yet no grocer’s store in the world has ever operated quite like this. Doubtless, this was intentional on Wittgenstein’s part; it helps us to see a simple use of language with fresh eyes. And for all its apparent whimsy, the scene’s “action” has clearly been chosen with great care: it quietly introduces a remarkable number of the book’s major themes.

First, it is an example of a “language-game” (although this term is not introduced until §7) – an intentionally basic situation designed to focus attention on language in use rather than any abstract account of its “essence”.

Then there are the specific words involved: five red apples. A number, a colour and a physical object. Together with the shopkeeper’s responses, they draw attention to the variety of uses words can have. In particular, they undermine the notion that the basic function of words is to name objects. Apples, of course, are objects, but what about “red” or “five”? In this situation it seems clear that no objects are involved (but compare it to, say, “Red is more vivid than brown” or “five is a prime number”).

The end of the passage then introduces two striking features of the Investigations: the impatient interjection of questions by an imagined interlocutor, and Wittgenstein’s adroit side-stepping of those questions. The interlocutor reappears throughout the book – in fact at times the Investigations resembles a loosely-structured dialogue. This is linked (I think) to Wittgenstein’s conception of his philosophy as a sort of therapy – a careful untangling of the linguistic knots which lead to philosophical bewilderment (for example, the notion that the essence of words is to name objects). And so the book often reads like a very strange session on a psychiatrist’s couch.

As for Wittgenstein’s response to the interlocutor’s questions, it is not so much that he doesn’t answer them (though he doesn’t) – it is more that he rejects their very validity. It is symptomatic of the depth of Wittgenstein’s attack on “traditional” philosophy (the philosophy of Descartes, Hume and his own earlier work) that he does not seek to provide solutions to its problems but to reject the basic assumptions upon which it is founded – misguided assumptions that, he believes, give rise to the problems in the first place.

Finally, we get the first example of a cryptic aphorism in the almost throw-away remark “Explanations come to an end somewhere”. This obliquely draws attention to the role of explanations in language. As Wittgenstein later points out (eg, §10), they are given to correct (or prevent) particular types of misunderstanding in particular contexts. So long as they do that job (in other words, so long as people act in the required way) no further explanation is necessary. They come to rest in behaviour, not in an “ultimate” or “foundational” explanation which somehow prevents any possible misunderstanding. And yet it is precisely such “ultimate” explanations that philosophy so often seeks to provide.