Wittgensteins Philosophical Investigations: The first 100 aphorisms and Language Games Felix Rebolledo October 14, 2010

In the first 100 aphorisms of Wittgensteins Philosophical Investigations (1953) two main questions drive the text which will occupy him throughout the book: how do words acquire meaning and how does language work? Essentially, language results from the aggregation of signification arising from the imbrications and reticulation over time of instances of relation and interaction under different conditions and contexts. In LWs Philosophical Investigations an understanding of language is not to be derived from an assessment of its essence, from a high-level definition of what language is. (92) Instead LW looks to examine language as construed by what Nicolas of Cusa would call its possest, what it does and how it goes about doing it. He does this by using a method based on dont think, but look! (66)a method based on description rather than interpretation to find similarities and relationships within that which can be done with language. (23) And by looking for common features in these doings we can perhaps come to see patterns in the modes of relation and interaction that emerge at even the simplest levels of communication. (24) These situations, these assemblages of linguistic interactionthese gamesconstitute that which is at stake in language at its most fundamental level. Thus, not only does the game constitute a part of language, it is representative of the whole, consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven, the language game.(7)

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In LWs conception, the dynamics of the accretion of meaning, certitude and accuracy which result from different trainings (6), functions both at a semantic and a syntactical level. His discursive strategy is to erect a scaffolding that uses a variety of voices that play off each other as well as situations or games that shed light on language use. To paraphrase Deleuze (1980) writing on Spinoza, the form of the discourse is so completely adequate to the content of the philosophy that perhaps the manner in which LW proceeds formally has something to tell us about the concepts being developedthe structure of his book would appear to illustrate the very same process of the accretion of meaning he develops in the text, i.e. that we know very little about language at first, but our understanding develops and becomes more pointed and precise as we read and allow the aphorisms to pile one on top of each other, overlap and criss-cross. Both constitutive elements of his discourse, the statements that make up the pluri-vocal repartee and the games, when taken at face value on their own, appear insignificant and inconsequential. Yet, like the creation of meaning in language from what sometimes appear to be trivial bits of interactive communication, when taken together as the outcome from the temporal process of dynamic accretion, we can see the operative moves which define the form that the evolution of language as a directed, living, open-ended entity will eventually take. (87) It is important to underline here the presence of time; language does not exist on its own and neither do its constituent parts. The whole is based on an evolutive emergence of significative interbeing whose origins cannot be ascertained and which unfolds with an uncertain teleology yet directed within fuzzy boundaries. (88)

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As Deleuze and Guattari say in What is Philosophy? (1994) the task of philosophers is to create new concepts. And in order to do so, they often find themselves working words into novel, unexpected architectures of signification to see what new bodies can be created and how they will choose to articulate these inventionsthis in essence is a playing with language games that will yield structures of meaning that tend to seek constancy, accuracy, certainty and stability. This can entail a novel juxtaposition of common words, a repurposing of the meaning of words and sometimes it is a question of inventing new words but always within a milieu of invention predicated on the building up of meaning resulting from the imbrications and reticulations of smaller-scale simulations and models. For example, rather than playing on the Expression/Content opposition in constructing his new take on language, LW has taken the word game and repurposed it to satisfy his needs with regards to showing what language does, how it does it and the rules that are its wardens: his use of the word/concept game defines itself through games and acquires heft, accuracy and stability as LW describes and analyses that which is at play. These observations will serve to formulate patterns of interaction while exhibiting that very same inventive, evolutive dynamic that is fundamentally operative in language and based on games. Instead of the usual Lincoln Logs of overly-defined nouns, verbs, modifiers etc and their rigorously predetermined assemblage points, LWs building blocks are cunning, fuzzy, shifty, promiscuous bits that play with each other according to plastic rules of engagement. His playing pieces are like mutating Lego blocks of instances of meaning that can be assembled in such a way that we can easily make out what they are trying to do but will shape-shift and modify their contact points and valence to overcome structural or discursive problems and adapt to new contextual difficulties.

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A language, no matter how simple or sophisticated, needs to be undergirded by a relatively stable set of rules which define its normal functioning so as to lend coherence and constancy of meaning to utterancesthese rules are usually known as grammar and establish functional parameters. Depending on the language, they are not usually set a priori and emerge into being over time in response to the demands of interaction. However, contrary to the rules of most games which tend to be strictly codified to maintain a common ground and provide an isotropic texture to the unfolding of signification on the playing field, the rules of language are a pliant, shifty bunch; they might be stable but they are often made to bend, transform and mutate to accommodate the evolving context, content and intent of linguistic interaction and invention. In the same way that war is regulated by rules of engagement and dating by rules of etiquette, unchecked demands placed upon human relation and interaction can lead to a chaotic (oftentimes undesirable) release of subjectivity when the rules of the game, so to speak, become all is fair in love and war. Both levels of play are regulated except that one level of play is more codified and the other less so. Usually, a more regulated or codified game is seen as more civilised in its playing out a simpler, more limited game plan on a more contained playing field; the other is usually characterised by freer, more complex interplay that is wide open. This does not necessarily mean that one level exhibits or requires more inventiveness or creativity than the other. In the interpretation of simple and complex, perhaps it is more a question of evaluating the degrees of freedom that are involved in or that ensue from interaction instead of looking at mappings of cleverness or indices of complexity to rate, value and judge a particular game, what is importance is that they manage to maintain a

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specific enunciative consistency. (Guatarri, 34) However, the de-regulation can be taken one step further: as LW asks in (83), Is there not also the case where we play and make up the rules as we go along? Yet, as it is often said about communication, one cannot not communicate. All languages, all instances of linguistic interaction, are guided by rules, even if it is the rule to abide by no rules which guides the play.

References: Deleuze, Gilles. Les cours de Gilles Deleuze: Spinoza. 1980. Accessed from

www.webdeleuze.com 02.10.2010 Deleuze, Gilles and Guatarri, Felix. What is Philosophy? Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell. 1994. New York: Columbia University Press Guatarri, Felix. Chaosmosis: an ethico-aesthetic paradigm. Translated by Paul Bains and Julian Pefanis. 1995. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Invstigations. (1953)

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