[lit-ideas] Re: Sounds right to me
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:53:54 -0330
Thanks to RP for a very clear and emlightening account of two senses of
"language-game" in the Wian corpus. T'l analyses/reconstructions of the
competencies presupposed by either sense is possible, I would think. I've been
arguing that "language game" as presented in the Brown Book constitutes a T'l
condition for the possibility of meaning, language and onowledge, whether W
identified things in this way or not. Interesting to think what a T analysis of
the other sense of language game would look like. That would involve a
reconstruction of the competencies present in master-level performance
(asssuming W knew something about philosophy of course.) Hubert Dreyfus, along
with some philosophers of education are into that kind of thing.
Walter O
(The least confused in RP's language game of hierarchical confusion)
Quoting Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>:
> Eric's comments are useful, as always, but although he's dead right
> about the assumptions underlying Walter's questions, his assimilation of
> language games to games is misleading. The segué from language games to
> games is too easily made. The initial talk about games, and their
> similarity to language in some broad sense, has its roots in
> Wittgenstein's quarrel with Frege, who had said that a concept without
> clear and definite boundaries is no concept at all. Wittgenstein
> skirmishes with this notion throughout the early sections of the
> Investigations (he wonders, for example, why 'Stand roughly here,' isn't
> a perfectly clear request).
>
> Against Frege, he introduces the notion of games, lists their obvious
> differences (and similarities), and asks by what standard might they all
> be called games. (Talk of 'family resemblance follows this.) This
> invocation of games is specific to the question of the need for clear
> and precise boundaries—of concepts, and of the use of words.
>
> Then there's a shift, not always noticeable, perhaps.
>
> In §84, he notes that he'd said earlier that 'the application of a word
> is not everywhere bounded by rules,' and goes on to ask, 'But what does
> a game look like that is everywhere bounded by rules? whose rules never
> let a doubt creep in, but stop up all the cracks where it might?'
>
> In §83 he'd said, 'Doesn't the analogy between language and games shed
> light here? We can easily imagine people amusing themselves in a field
> with a ball so as to start various existing games , but playing many
> without finishing them and in between, throwing the ball aimlessly into
> the air, chasing someone with the ball and bombarding one another for a
> joke and so on. And now someone says: The whole time they are playing a
> ball-game and following definite rules at every throw.
>
> 'And is there not also the case where we play—and make up the rules as
> we go along? And there is even one where we alter them—as we go along.
>
> One of his targets here is the view of language (as founded on rules
> which are themselves founded upon unalterable logic) in the Tractatus;
> and this is a different target from the stricture that concepts in order
> to be usable must be demarcated with absolute precision.
>
> Language games. Wittgenstein introduces language games briefly in the
> Blue Book, and in more detail in the Brown Book. In the Brown Book
> they're presented as primitive elements of language out of which our
> complex natural languages might be constructed. (How, he does not say.)
>
> But in the Investigations, things are different. There, language games
> are presented as examples (usually fanciful) stripped of the messy
> trappings that surround our everyday talk. They are part of the
> 'reminders assembled for particular purposes,' that make up his
> technique. Language itself (whatever that could mean) is not one vast
> language game. However, he does sometimes refer to 'the language game
> played with...,' and also remark, with respect a particular word or
> expression, 'This language game is played.' They are meant to be clear
> and to help us see things that are unclear.
>
> He wants the simple language games he imagines to be perspicuous: not
> themselves complicated or mysterious; and especially not in need of
> further interpretation or of any worry about their (ordinary) game-like
> variability.
>
> So we have four confused commentators: Walter, Eric, John McCreery, and
> me. I come last, so I'm the most confused of all.
>
> Robert Paul
>
> Eric wrote:
>
> > As I read Wittgenstein, the notion of 'language game' was never intended
> > to be a rigorously defined technical construct. It was, rather, what he
> > seemed to see as a suggestive image, one that invites the analyst to
> > consider what people are doing when they communicate, rather than
> > focusing on what they are saying.
> >
> > The notion of 'game' served, in that context, several purposes. Every
> > game has its rules, and every game's rules are arbitrary in an important
> > sense. The only answer to "Why does the knight move this way" is
> > "because that's how knights move." In general, adults don't expect
> > there to be further answers. It is a concrete illustration of his
> > dictum that explanations stop somewhere.
> >
> > Second, apart from involving human beings and having some notion of
> > rules, games differ so much from one another that it's hard to see makes
> > them all games. What exactly do cribbage and ice hockey have in
> > common? Games bear family resemblances to one another, and the family
> > of games is pretty capacious. I think Wittgenstein meant for us not to
> > be searching for exactly what the language game is that is under way.
> >
> > Finally, the 'meaning' in a game is not to be found by examining the
> > rules nor even, generally, in examining how the rules constrain the
> > choices before the players. It is, instead, to be found in how the
> > players interact with one another through the actions offered by the
> > rules -- the meaning is in what they're doing, not in syntactic analysis
> > the rules might offer.
> >
> > Wittgenstein's referring to language games in talking about language was
> > not, I believe, intended as a "theory of language" or something else
> > that could be tested with empirical research. It was, instead, intended
> > as a suggestive metaphor that might lead those who caught its sense to a
> > reconsideration of how they think about language.
> >
> > Walter's first question, as I read it, appears to presume that "language
> > games" are definable things, which I do not think Wittgenstein actually
> > believed.
> >
> > Walter asks: "What did W himself actually believe regarding the status
> > of language games for the possibility of meaning and knowledge?"
> > Something that can have a 'status' in this sense, is something that can
> > be defined independently of that status, i.e. something which can be
> > identified and then the status of which can be assessed. This is
> > decidedly not what I think W was trying to describe.
> >
> > I'm not entirely sure what Walter is asking in the rest of his
> > question. If he was asking what connection W drew between language
> > games and the possibility of meaning and knowledge, I would suspect that
> > the answer is that W in a way had no question about whether meaning and
> > knowledge were possible, since there are frequent non-technical,
> > practical circumstances in which we ask "what do you mean?" and "how do
> > you know?", questions which are widely accepted as legitimate and
> > questions which often can receive answers that the questioners accept as
> > legitimate. In that sense, of course meaning and knowledge are
> > possible, though exactly what we're calling 'possible' with that
> > statement might be intractably elusive, because the myriad situations in
> > which "what do you mean?" or "how do you know?" might legitimately be
> > asked bear only a family resemblance to one another.
> >
> > But the bottom line is that the question I think Walter's asking has
> > misunderstood what Wittgenstein is doing when he talks about language
> > games. He is not expounding a theory of language, he is inviting
> > attention to a facet of what is happening when we talk about language.
> >
> > So when Walter goes on to ask "What possibilities for meaning and
> > knowledge are there independent of the construct of language games?" I
> > think he greatly misses the point. The short answer to the question is
> > "none" -- but to give that answer is to acknowledge that the question
> > makes sense when the entire point of the exercise with language games
> > has been to encourage setting aside the sort of analysis that leads to
> > those kinds of questions.
> >
> > W goes on to ask, "Assume that human beings did not/could not engage in
> > language games, what would the 'meaning' of a word or statement itself
> > mean?" Again, the simple answer is that assuming human beings could not
> > engage in language games is assuming human beings have no language. The
> > meaning of the question seems to have been assumed away with its
> > assumption. But more importantly, the idea that such a question is
> > useful is exactly what W was calling into question.
> >
> > So, in closing, I *don't* think W saw the force of the question.
>
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