Lingua 67 (1985) 37-63.

North-Holland

READING WHORF THROUGH WI’ITGENSTEIN

A Solution to the Linguistic Relativity Problem

Ranjit CHATTERJEE
Chicago, USA*

Received May 1985

This paper juxtaposes Whorf’s writings on language with Wittgenstein’s, revealing

continuities of a striking nature in their thought. It is argued that the linguistic relativity
principle (LRP) is a concomitant of a structuralist view of language. Tendencies are
shown in both writers that are atypical of structuralism but which anticipate con-
temporary poststructuralism. Wharf’s advocacy of the LRP is shown to be a conscious
redtcrio ad nbsrtr&~r of structuralist linguistics, which he wished to transcend, and
is shown to have done so - although perhaps not so clearly as Wittgenstein - thus in
fact indicating in his own work what the solution to the puzzles of the LRP was.
This solution involves dialectics and is similar to what was arrived at in ancient Asian
tl1ougl1t.

1. Introduction

‘It’s only by thinking even more crazily than philosophers

do that you can solve their problems.’
Ludwig Wittgenstein, C&Ire utld value
In a paper on linguistic relativity, Langacker has observed that speaking
of the relationship between language and thought is like embracing a cloud
(1976: 355). Fishman (1982: 1) notes that ‘we are currently witnessing a
revival of Whorlianism in linguistics and anthropology and it is a wondrous
sight to behold’. Linguists and anthropologists, male and female, avidly
embracing clouds makes a charming spectacle. One may be forgiven for
joining it.
By presenting parallelisms between the writings of Whorf and Wittgenstein
on language, together with supporting arguments, a way can be found out
of the linguistic relativity fly-bottle. The solution, though definitive, may

* Author’s address: 3512 S. Blackstone Avenue, Chicago, IL 60615, USA.

0024-3841/85/$3.30 0 1985, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland)

38 R. Cltotterjee / Rendittg Wtotf tltrottglt Wit/gmtsreitt

disappoint readers expecting a yes/no answer while satisfying those who

can be seduced into a few dialectical steps.’
Following Alford (1978,1982), I shall use the term hguisfic relutivify
primiple (henceforth, LRP) for the notion associated with Whorf. He used
the term, himself (Wharf (1956: 221)). No fine distinction is drawn between
linguistic relativity and cultural relativity. In some contexts, therefore, LRP
may be read as LCRP. Among other things, the LRP is a discourse problem,
common, for instance, to all academic disciplines, scientific, human, or
social. In approaching it one need not confine oneself to linguistic or
anthropological literature - neither Whorf nor Wittgenstein did. Allusion
is made below to problems arising from the LRP in the fields of sociology,
psychiatry, literary criticism, and physics.
An analogical relationship exists between the general idea of a language
having a structure and the Kuhnian idea of science operating within certain
paradigms at certain times. * Linguistic elements have meaning and functions
by virtue of the oppositions they enter into with the other elements in a
language, and scientific terms likefirce and gravity have particular meanings
within each scientific paradigm. The LRP therefore raises its head just as
awkwardly in the question of translation between languages as in that of
the interparadigmatic use of theoretical terms (‘(...) in the transition from
one theory to the next words change their meanings or conditions of
applicability in subtle ways’, Kuhn (1970 : 67) ; Whorf (1956 : 246) speaks
of the dialects of scientific thought becoming mutually unintelligible). Philo-
sophy of science is therefore one area where the LRP,. or what Fishman

i The use of the term clialectic is explained in section 6. This paper began as a description
of the remarkable parallels in the writings of Whorf and Wittgenstein. It was expanded to
account for linguistic relativity as an inevitable consequence of the structuralist view of
language. A brief critique of structuralism and Whorf and Wittgenstein’s relationship to it
became necessary. Finally it evolved into an explanation of the import of linguistic relativity
in the entire thinking on language of both writers, with some reference to poststructuralist
work. I wish to thank Paul Friedrich and Robert Stecker for commenting on earlier drafts,
and some friends at the National University of Singapore, whom I shall identify in the
Singapore manner by their initials only, for their warm collegiality : VL, RL, DDC, JP, BR.
MJT, DMER, LLG, TH, GB, LKK, MG, MN, and CEN. None of them are responsible
for any errors that may be found here. Research for this paper was assisted by National
University of Singapore Research Grant no. RP4/82.
’ In pointing this out we are at once landed in a Wittgensteinian predicament to do with
the instability of word meaning. Masterman (1970) lists 21 ways in which Kuhn uses the
word parmfigttt. The use of the word srruc~ttre would doubtless be threatened by similar
computations. One can only proceed with business as usual.
calls ‘Whorfianism’, has had a distinct effect through the agency of Wharf’s
writings.3 Other areas are sociology (Chua (1979), Giddens (1976), Dixon
(1977)); psychiatry (Doi (1981)), and literary translation and criticism (Steiner
(1975), Coetzee (1981)). This rather wide sector of human knowledge that,
has recorded the impact of Whorf and the LRP - from the natural sciences
through the social to the literary - is what suggests that the question of
linguistic relativity has to do quite broadly with the nature of discourse in
general, academic, scientific and everyday. For paralleling the range of
disciplines the LRP affects are the levels of the linguistic medium itself
that become involved - not just discourse between speech communities,
but between dialect groups (see, for example Miller (1968 : 79), quoting the
field theorist Weisgerber); Friedrich (1978 : 446) on American vs. British
English; Whorf himself (1956: 246-247), and ultimately at the intersex/
interpersonal or even intrapersonal level (cf. e.g., Dixon’s linking of the LRP
to the private language question, as treated by Wittgenstein).4 One
therefore has the feeling that to clear up the puzzles and paradoxes of the
LRP would be to illuminate fundamental and general aspects of human
communication.
The strategy followed in this essay is first to relate the origins of the LRP
to the linguistic structuralism of von Humboldt’s work. Parallels between
Wharf’s formulations and Wittgenstein’s are displayed next. It is then argued
that labelling Wittgenstein a linguistic relativist, as Whorf is held to be,
does not further an understanding of Wittgenstein’s view of language and
his philosophy as a whole, nor does it explain Wharf’s desire to transcend
linguistic relativity (cf. Whorf (1956 : 263), Hymes (1964: 119)). This pro-
blem is approached by showing how Wittgenstein’s ‘exteriorization’ of
language, or his anti-essentialism - a term explicated on p. 45 and p. 47
below - dissolves the uporiu or self-engendering paradox of linguistic rela-
tivity, and how both Wharfs and Wittgenstein’s rejection of what they
saw as ‘the Western scientific approach’ is a dialectical antithesis in their
thought to their own tactical presentations of a LRP.
This study suggests that propounding the LRP was just one facet of
Wharf’s intellectual effort. An equally consistent, if less dramatic interest
in the universal principles of speech runs through his work. Apart from

3 Kuhn explicitly acknowledges Wharf’s inspiration and influence (1969: vi), and uses Witt-
genstein’s notion of family resemblances (1969 : 44-45). Feyerabend connects Wharf, Wittgen-
stein and incommensurability (1978 : 114-l 15).
4 Wittgenstein produced several arguments against the possibility of a private or intrapersonal
language (cf. PI (par. 243-315)).
the intense grammatical analyses that he undertook towards these two ends,
Whorf outlined a position on the philosophy of science which has been
developed by influential philosophers. At one point, his discussion directly
implies the concept of paradigm (Wharf (1956: 218)). Whorf also had an
abiding interest in both Eastern and Western religious mysticism - with
some parallels in Wittgenstein - which gives the totality of his work the
character of a ‘Tao of linguistics’. I attempt here to untangle this knot of
interdisciplinary issues by concentrating on, the origin and the solution of
puzzles spawned by the LRP, with the caveat that the way to the solution
leads also to dissolution.

2. Structuralism and the LRP

‘Linguists are becoming more and more interested in the

genealogy of linguistics!
Jacques Derrida, Margins of pl~i/osoplty

Two interdependent claims being made here are: (a) that the LRP is
engendered by structuralist thought on language, and (b) that structuralism
itself is embedded in the philosophical context of Kant’s thought and the
reactions to it.5 If these are established, it would follow that the solution
to the question of linguistic relativity lies as much in an inquiry into the
philosophical assumptions behind the admittedly problematic statements
of the LRP, as in the empirical testing of a supposedly unambiguous hypo-
thesis. In other words, granting that the issue is deeply rooted in philosophical
interests larger than the description of languages, the uncovering of those
interests is as legitimate a route to the solution as one that requires the
conversion of a philosophical problem into an empirical issue. If the philo-
sophical compulsions at work in linguistics that led to the formulation of
the LRP are not necessary, then neither is the LRP. On the other hand,
looking into the compulsions may show them up in a different light, or

5 For amplification of (b), see Miller (1968: 25-26), where the rejection of the Critique of
h-e Rcasotr by Hamman and Herder, and its adoption and extension to language by Hum-
boldt is described. De Mauro (1967: 16-18) suggests that Kant himself skirted the question
of language, sensing an ‘explosive charge’ in it. ‘(...) the parallels between Kantian thought
and the structuralist outlook’ are noticed also by Norris (1982: 4). Point (a) is anticipated,
though not developed, by Norris (p. 5); Hymes ((1966: 114): ‘Linguistic relativity is a notion
associated, via Whorf 1940, with the structure of language’), and Lyons (1977: 245).
 R. Cltauerjee / Rcarhg Whorl rlrrolcglr Wir!gonrein 41

reveal them not to be the same for all proponents of the LRP. This attention
to the ‘philosophical archaeology’ or genealogy of linguistic relativity dis-
tinguishes the present treatment from ‘the revival of Whorfianism that
Fishman notes.6
The origins of structuralism in modern linguistics lie in the writings of
Wilhelm von Humboldt. As regards Saussure, ‘(...) the Geneva linguist
in fact expressly reaflirmed some of Humboldt’s most fundamental con-
ceptions of language’ (Miller (1968 : 38), cf. also p. 42). It is in Humboldt
that one sees the invention of the metaphor of structure in groping towards
answers to the great questions of language, thought, and meaning. ‘Language
can be compared to a gigantic web’, suggests Humboldt, ‘in which there is
a more or less clearly recognizable connection between each part and the
other, and between all parts and the whole’. Even more explicitly, he speaks
of ‘the definite and limited circle’ of one’s language, and of ‘the totality
of speech’. To supplement the metaphors of web and circle, language is
viewed as an organism: ‘Language partakes of the nature of everything
organic, so that every element . . . exists only by virtue of the others’. From
these anticipations of Saussurean structuralism linguistics inherited the picture
of each language as an hermetic unity, a complete structure. In the Cows,
Saussure speaks of language as ‘a self-contained whole’ (p. 9), and ‘a well-
defined object in the heterogeneous mass of speech facts’ (p. 14). Metaphor
became reality, and almost ever since, in Wittgenstein’s phrase, ‘a picture
held us captive’ (Philosophical Imesrigations (henceforth PI), (par. 115)),
‘(...) a picture from which it followed that language and thought were
equivalent, for Humboldt as for Saussure and Sapir and that the elements
of the “structures” expressing this equivalence, as well as the structures
themselves, were incommensurable with those of another language’ (cf.
Penn (1972 : 20,24)). The situation is acknowledged by Saussure in the Cows
as follows: ‘The value of just any term is accordingly determined by its
environment; it is impossible to fix even the value of the word signifying
“sun” without first considering its surroundings: in some languages it is
not possible to say “sit in the sun”’ (p. 116).
The Humboldtian picture was brought to America by Boas, whence Whorf
received it via Sapir. In Europe itself it was taken up by the neo-Humboldtians
Weisgerber and Trier, with reinforcement from the published version of
Saussure’s lectures.’
6 The wide range of disciplines that have registered the effects of the LRP is of course
also nn indication of its philosophical import.
’ I have relied on Miller (1968) for details of the preceding history. Cf. also Penn (1972: 54),
 At the present juncture in the history of linguistics, it will not be necessary
to insist that Chomskyan linguistics was a form of structuralism, having
taken over the lmgctc-parole and synchrony-diachrony oppositions.s (The
incompatibility of the latter two was challenged by the neo-Humboldtians;
cf. Miller (1968 : 42).) While Chomsky accepts many of Saussure’s strategies,
one consequence of them, the LRP, had to be avoided. In early Chomsky
(1957: 103) this was not a great problem, since the role of meaning was.
as in Bloomfield, minimal. Referential theories of meaning such as Good-
man’s were given a nod of approval. By the early 1960’s Chomsky had
advanced the possibility of a universalist pinning-down of the system of
all attainable concepts (Chomsky (1965: 160)). True to the structuralist-
relativist view, this possibility had already been rejected by Saussure, who
pointed out that ‘if words stood for pre-existing concepts, they would all
have exact equivalents in meaning from one language to the next’ (Cours
(p. 116)). This Chomsky and his supporters could not accept, since it brings
relativism with it. So they argued that perfect translatibility exists because
all languages have the same ‘deep structure’ which includes a data-base or
bank of all possible concepts. Put in slightly different terms, when meaning
could no longer be kept .out of linguistics as conceived by generativists,
a full-fledged referential theory, akin to those of Husserl’s Logical Itwesti-
gnrions and Wittgenstein’s early Tmcmrus Logico-Plrilosophictts, in which
language directly reflects reality, was the obvious choice to keep the specter
of linguistic relativity at bay. Fodor’s idea of a universal ‘language of
thought’ became useful here. (This logical-refefential view of meaning mean-
while, unbeknownst to linguistics, was the very one propounded rigorously
by Wittgenstein in his Trucmtlrs and comprehensively rejected in his major
later work, the PI.)
By the above account some facets of the history of twentieth-century
linguistics fall into place. Relativism is an inevitable consequence of struc-
turalism. The more strictly one is a structuralist, the more one must insist
on the equation of language and thought, and thus of each language with
the set of thoughts that can be thought in it. It was shown how this

where the intellectual line from Humboldt to Wharf is traced. A forthcoming work that
has been announced as showing that ‘(...) several claims about langunpe udvqnctd by Wilhelm
von Humboldt (...) nre bused on philosophicnl wsumptions. arguments und hypotheses rather
thnn on empirical research on natural languages’. is Manchester (forthcoming). us per advance
description in John Benjamins’ catnlog, 1973-1953.
8 Those not convinced of this point may find Anttila’s (1976) paper. ‘Who is R structuralist’?‘,
of interest.
predicament, deriving from Humboldt and ultimately from Kant, was re-
inforced by Saussure, and how Chomsky tried to escape it by wedding a
structuralist view of language to a referential view of meaning.

3. Whorf and Wittgenstein: The parallels

Wittgenstein habitually used the words ‘language’ and ‘culture’ inter-

changeably. In the B~OIWIBook (p. 134) he says: ‘Imagine a use of language
(a culture) (...)‘, and a few lines later : ‘we could also imagine a language
(and that means again a culture) (...)‘. In the PI (par. l9), he says : ‘(...) to
imagine a language means to imagine a form of life’, and in the Lectrrres
nr~n Comvrsnrioru (p. S): ‘What belongs to a language game is a whole
culture’. We see from this not only that language and culture are equated,
but also that ‘culture’ and ‘form of life’ are closely related. In the first
equation Wittgenstein is being more Whortian than Whorf himself, who
denied ‘that there is anything so definite as “a correlation” between culture
and language’ (Whorf (1956: 138-139)).
In Zertel #373 through #379. Wittgenstein suggests the relativity of
concepts created in response to differences considered important by various
groups of people. These thoughts are summarized in #375: ‘These are the
fixed rails along which all our thinking runs, and so our judgment and
action goes according to them too’. #387-388 discuss how concepts essen-
tially different from ours might arise - from ‘an education quite different
from ours’.
In the Blue Book @. 59), Wittgenstein observes that our minds are in the
grip of our ordinary language : ‘Our ordinary language, which of all possible
notations is the one that pervades all our life, holds our minds rigidly in
one position, as it were, and in this position sometimes it feels cramped,
having a desire for other positions as well’.’ From here it is a short step
to distrusting philosophy in the form of a particular language, and that
step is taken in Zetrel #323: ‘Being acquainted with many languages
prevents us from taking quite seriously a philosophy which is laid down in
the form of any one’.rO

’ According to Pears (1970: 3). Wittgenstein in his later philosophy ‘suggested’ that ‘our
language determines our view of reality, bexuse we see things through it’. Against this, sty
below. pp. 49-50.
” These and the few lines which follow them are to be compnred to Whorf (1956: 252).
 The idea that ‘series of meanings in any language are incommensurable
with those in any other’, proving ‘that no series of meanings can be considered
as based, in the end, in the designation of a universal and eternal series
of concepts and/or categories of things’, and that this idea seems to be held
in common by Whorf and Wittgenstein, has been suggested also by de Mauro
(1967 : 44-46).
Friedrich Waismann, Wittgenstein’s collaborator and systematizer of his
thought, reflects and amplifies some ‘Whorfian’ remarks of his senior
partner.’ i Zettel #323, quoted above, appears in Waismann (1968 : 176)
thus : ‘(...) I want to say that philosophy begins with distrusting language
- that medium that pervades, and warps, our very thought’. Waismann is
quite enthusiastic about the LRP, although he could scarcely have known
it as such.12 In his essay ‘Analytic-synthetic’, speaking of slow changes
in language reflecting a change in world view, he says: ‘This suggests a
theme so vast that it might be the subject of a long treatise: the way,
namely, in which language moulds our apprehension of qualities, processes,
human actions, etc.’ (1968: 175). A little later we find what is virtually a
paraphrase of Sapir’s famous words : ‘... if we spoke a different language
we would perceive a different world’.r3
The above evidence indicates an apparently sympathetic attitude towards
the LRP in Wittgenstein’s thought. I should like next to take the comparison
further in two ways: (1) by showing the similarities between Whorf and
Wittgenstein in their conception of ‘grammar’, and (2) by showing that an

‘I On the nature and importance of the Wittgenstein-Waismann relationship, see Baker

(1979) esp. p. 280.
I2 The neo-Humboldtians Weisgerber and Trier may have been a source of these thoughts
for both Waismann and Wittgenstein, cf. Miller (1968: I I). Fritz Mauthner is one detinite
source. Voeglin and Sebeok (1953: 23) in their Chapter Three’ of Resh of r/w conference
of anthropologists ad hgrtisrs, cite his lines ‘which might as well have come from Wharf :
‘Hstte Aristoteles Chinesisch oder Dakotaisch gesprochen, er hgtte zu einer ganz anderen
Logik gelangen mtissen, oder doch zu einer ganz anderen Kategorienleehre [sic]‘. We know
that Wittgenstein had read Mauthner: he is one of the few writers ever mentioned by
Wittgenstein in works he himself wished to publish. Cf. Tractam 4.0031 : ‘All philosophy
is a “critique of language” (though not in Mauthner’s sense)‘. Thus, a signilicant link in the
history of ideas is established.
I’ It is ironic that Whorf himself would dissent from this Sapiresque ‘strong form’ of the
‘hypothesis’ associated with his name. Speakers of Hopi and ‘Standard Average European’
would perceive a lot in common since, among other things, ‘(...) the apprehension of space
is given in substantially the same form by experience irrespective of language’ (Whorf (1956:
158)).
 45

anti-essentialist view of meaning, coupled with the notion of ‘meaning as

use’, as well as concepts suggestive of ‘language games’ and ‘family resem-
blances’ are all present in the writings of Whorf, making each of the parallels
more than superficial.
To illustrate the first point I refer to Friedrich’s formulation of what
he calls ‘Wharf’s most exciting claim: that the basic ontology or meta-
physics or philosophy or world view (these terms are not rigorously dis-
tinguished by him) is structured or determined or organized by grammar
(in the relatively limited sense of morphology and syntax and basic voca-
bulary). Going beyond this . . . gramnar is said by Whorf to provide the
form for metaphysics or even to be identifiable with or reducible to meta-
physics’ (Friedrich (1979 : 444)), original emphasis; some of Whorfs evidence
for this claim is then summarized by Friedrich). If this is so, Wharf’s
position is to be understood in terms of Wittgenstein’s famous epigram
in the PZ(par. 371) : ‘Essertce is expressed by grammar’. This laconic statement
is expanded in Zetfel #55 in terms even closer to Whorf’s, as Friedrich
interprets them : ‘Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought
and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language’.r4
‘Grammar’, of course, is not used often in this sense in linguistics today.
Wittgenstein distinguished between ‘surface’ and ‘depth’ grammar (PI (par.
664)): ‘In the use of words one might distinguish “surface grammar” from
“depth grammar”. What immediately impresses itself upon us about the
use of a word is the way it is used in the construction of the sentence, the
part of its use - one might say - that can be taken in by the ear. - And now
compare the depth grammar, say of the word “to mean”, with what its
surface grammar would lead us to suspect. No wonder we find it difticult
to know our way about’.15 It emerges that Whorf and Wittgenstein agree
on a usage corresponding to the latter’s ‘depth grammar’. As Hallett
(1977: 602) points out in his commentary on PI (par. 664), most of what
has traditionally been called grammar would come under ‘surface gram-
mar’.16 (It is not implied here, of course, that Whorf as a working linguist
never used the word grammar in its ordinary sense.)
‘* For a related statement, cf. Wharf (1956: 240): ‘(...) segmentation of nature is an aspect
of grammar - one as yet little studied by grammarians. We cut up and organize the spread
and flow of events as we do, largely because, through our mother tongue, we are parties to
an agreement to do so, not because nature itself is segmented in esactly that way for all
to see’.
Is For some discussion of Wittgenstein’s ‘depth grammar’ from a linguistic point of view.
see Chatterjee (1983). Cf. also Whorf (1956: 262).
I6 Linguists will notice that the distinction has nothing to do with ‘deep’ and ‘surface’ in
 The second point is about the conception of meaning held by Wittgenstein
and Whorf. Although Whorf, in Larlguage, though and realitv, did remark
that ‘the very essence of linguistics is the quest for meaning’ (p. 79). he
did not develop his semantic ideas as extensively as Wittgenstein did. The
latter’s Blue Book opens with the question ‘What is the meaning of a word?’
and concludes: ‘Let’s not imagine the meaning as an occult connection the
mind makes between a word and a thing, and that this connection confains
the whole usage of a word as the seed might be said to contain the tree’
(pp. 73-74). Whorf cautions that ‘we should not (...) make the mistake of
thinking (...) that a word DOES have an exact meaning, stands for a given
thing’ (1956: 259). Wittgenstein observed that the word meaning was being
illicitly used if used to signify the thing that ‘corresponds’ to the word
(PI (par. 40)).
There is a string of remarks in the Blue Book (pp. 25-29) about the
same lack of exact meaning noticed by Whorf: ‘We are unable clearly to
circumscribe the concepts we use; not because we do not know their real
definition, but because there is no real “definition” to them (...) I want
you to remember that words have those meanings which we have given
them; and we give them meanings by explanations . . . That is, if we are
ready to give any explanation; in most cases we aren’t. Many words
in this sense then don’t have a strict meaning. But this is not a defect . . .
there are words of which one might say: They are used in a thousand
different ways which gradually merge into one another. No wonder that
we can’t tabulate strict rules for their use’. Whorf observes that ‘(...)
the meanings of specific words are less important than we fondly fancy . . .
We are all mistaken in our common belief that any word has an “exact
meaning”. We have seen that the higher mind deals in symbols that have
no fixed reference to anything, but are like blank checks, to be filled in
as required, that stand for “any value” of a given variable, like . . . the
-y, y, ; of algebra’ (Wharf (1956: 258)). Even the examples adduced by
the two writers promote the conclusion that they were making precisely the
same point. Whorf: ‘(...) consider the word “bar” in the phrases : iron bar,
bar to progress, he should be behind bars, studied for the bar, let down
all the bars, bar of music, sand bar, candy bar, mosquito bar, bar sinister,
bar none, ordered drinks at the bar! But, you may say, these are popular

TGG. Chomsky was quite mistaken in equating his usage with Wittgenstein’s (Chomsky
(1971: 78)). I hope to take up the entire question of Chomsky’s reading of Wittgenstein in
a future paper.
 R. Clmrrerjw / Readitrg WlrorJ rlrrough Wittgensrein 37

idioms, not scientific and logical use of language. Oh, indeed? “Electrical”
is supposed to be a scientific word. Do you know what its referent is? Do
you know that the “electrical” in “electrical apparatus” is not the same
“electrical” as the one in “electrical expert “? In the first it refers to a current
of electricity in the apparatus, but in the second it does not refer to a
current of electricity in the expert. When a word like “group” can refer
either to a sequence of phases in time or a pile of articles on the floor,
its element of reference is minor. Referents of scientilic words are often
conveniently vague, markedly under the sway of patterns in which they
occur’ (1956 : 260). Wittgenstein : ‘We may say of some philosophising
mathematicians that they are obviously not aware of the difference between
the many different usages of the word “proof’; and that they are not clear
about the difference between the uses of the word “kind”, when they talk
of kinds of numbers, kinds of proofs, as though the word “kind” here
meant the same thing as in the context “kinds of apples”. Or, we may say,
they are not aware of the different nzeu?lings of the word “discovery”,
when in one case we talk of the discovery of the construction of the pentagon
and in the other case of the discovery of the South Pole’ (Bhre Book
(pp. 2%29)).”
This attitude to word meaning held in common by Wittgenstein and
Whorf I will characterize as anti-essentialist, i.e., refuting the idea that
words are like labels attached to things, that the meaning of a word is of
the same nature as the form of the word, definite and reproducible - what
Wittgenstein satirized as the ‘here the word, there the meaning’ view of
meaning (PI (par. 120)). In the anti-essentialist view, we might note in
passing, it is ironic that the very ideas it combats - the ‘Picture Theory of
Meaning’, words as pictures of objects in the mind, with strings of words
directly reflecting patterns of ‘reality’, which derive from the literal-positivist
interpretation of the Tracttztus - are the ideas that have held sway in
modern linguistic semantics in the guise of ‘feature analysis’ and the technique
of ‘lexical decomposition’. Wittgenstein and Whorf are thus equally removed
from atomist semantics of the latter kind. They are also at variance with
a corollary of the Chomskyan view of word meaning, which claims that it
can be experimentally determined ‘what words really mean’ (Chomsky
(1972: 23)). This is how Waismann sees Wittgenstein’s position: ‘Wittgen-
stein saw through a big mistake of his time. It was then held by most

I7 Whorfs ‘electrical’ and Wittgenstein’s ‘proof’ may be read as examples of Wittgenstein’s

‘depth grammar’.
philosophers that the nature of such things as hoping and fearing, or intending,
meaning and understanding could be discovered through introspection, while
otl~ers, in particular psychologists, sought to arrive at an answer b)r csperhetlt,
having only obscure notions as to what their results meant. Wittgenstein
changed the whole approach by saying: what these words mean shows
itself in the way they are used - the nature qf‘wderstanditlg reveals itself irl
granunar, 11ot in experitmwt ’ (Waismann (1968 : 37), emphasis added).
To elucidate his view of meaning as use within whole spheres of culture
and convention Wittgenstein used the device of language game to express
the context-bound nature of semantic activity. Indeed, such a device is
pointed to inevitably once the anti-essentialist view of meaning has been
arrived at. So we may expect some trace of it in Whorf’s work. I think
it can be argued that Whorf hints at language games when he speaks of
constantly shifting reference in our use of words: ‘That part of meaning
which is in words, and which we may call “reference”, is only relatively
fixed. Reference of words is at the mercy of sentences and grammatical
patterns in which they occur. And it is surprising to what a minimal amount
this element of reference may be reduced’ (Whorf (1956 : 259)).
The Wittgensteinian notion ofjhMl)J resemblance suggests that our concepts
do not have essential primitive features to define them, rather they are
linked to each other by overlapping sets of features as in members of a
family who may not have any one characteristic, say a nose, in common,
and yet resemble each other. Thus the concepts tree, platrt, shwb, grass,
cactus have a family resemblance. This implies that in general our concepts
do not have sharp boundaries or fixed reference (cf. PI (par. 67,77)). This
idea is found in Whorf: ‘(...) the word “dog” refers to a class with elastic
limits. The limits of such classes are different in different languages. You
might think that “tree” means the same thing, everywhere and to everybody.
Not at all’ (Whorf (1956: 259)).
Finally, Wittgenstein stressed that the linguistic sign (or word) was dead
until used in a conventional setting: ‘(...) only in the stream of thought and
life do words have meaning’ (Zettel # 173) ; ‘(. . .) if we had to name anything
which is the life of the sign, we should have to say that it was its [(se (B/M
Book (p. 4)); ‘every sign by itself seems dead. What gives it life? In l/se
it is alive’ (PI (par. 432)). This realization ruled out formalist, reductionist,
‘predictive’ semantic theorizing for Wittgenstein. Whorf is again in concord,
supplying an analogy from quantum physics: ‘The PLACE of an apparent
entity, an electron, for example, becomes indefinite, interrupted; the entity
appears and disappears from one structural position to another structural
position, like a phoneme or other patterned linguistic entity, and may be
said to be NOWHERE in between the positions. Its locus, first thought of
and analyzed as a continuous variable, becomes on closer scrutiny a mere
alternation ; silliatiom “acttralize” it, structure beyond the *probe of the
measuring rod governs it; three-dimensional shape there is none, instead -
“Arupa” ’ (‘non-form’, Whorf (1956 : 269), emphasis added).’ *

4. The parallels: Problems and a solution

However close the parallels shown so far in the writings of Whorf and
Wittgenstein may be, by themselves they raise more problems and solve
nothing. If it be claimed that they prove Wittgenstein to have been a
Whortian, a relativist, we must remind ourselves that Whorf stressed the
LRP, or ‘Whorfianism’, in order that it be transcended (cf. section 1). To
label Wittgenstein a Whorfian is unhelpful also because it does not tie in
very well with the entirety of his philosophy, in which he stressed that he
did not wish to assert any theses except those that nobody would deny -
‘Philosophy only states what everyone admits’ (PI (par. 599)).” Therefore,
to impute to Wittgenstein the thesis of relativism would require a demon-
stration either of its coherence with the rest of his thought, or of his
considering the thesis beyond dispute. Neither of these is plausible. As has
been suggested about Wittgenstein - and perhaps this is applicable to Whorf
as well - one must look not for what he said, but for rlre point of his
saying it.
What could the point have been ? Let us assume that this is not a case
of a freak idea not integrated with the rest of his philosophy and therefore
of no consequence, nor yet a case of commitment to a thesis of linguistic
relativity elsewhere withdrawn, as with Cassirer (Miller (1968 : 45n.)). It
might be argued that Wittgenstein in fact withdrew his advocacy of the
LRP in such remarks as PI (par. 206): ‘The common behavior of mankind
is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown
language’. But this remark too does not sit well with many others. ‘The

” The pioneer quantum physicist Niels Bohr, who took a keen interest in epistemology,
concurs with Who&: in language ‘The practical use of every word stands in complementary
relation to attempts of its strict definition’ (1945: 315).
I9 Cf. G. H. von Wright: ‘A singular “holisticity” and integratedness characterizes Wittgen-
stein’s philosophy. Everything in it is connected with everything else’ (quoted by Hallett
(1977 : 63)).
common behavior of mankind and ‘the system of reference’ seem intended
to be read in scare quotes. Hallett is surely right when he comments:
‘One is inclined to say that our common nature explains this agreement,
so is the ultimate basis of language and logic; but for Wittgenstein the
bountiful reserve of human nature, from which all our actions flow (B/UC
Book (pp. 143-144)), was as mythical as the ethereal logic machine grinding
out inferences’ (1977 : 241).
The right answer seems to lie in a feature of Wittgenstein’s method of
doing philosophy. He often appears to be taking up a position on one side
of a controversial issue, or discussing examples indicating such support.
But when pressed if he was expressing an opinion within a specific discipline,
committing himself to a thesis, as it were, he would issue a disclaimer;
for instance : ‘But I’m not doing child psychology !’ A documentable illustra-
tion of this attitude is found in Clrlt1rr.e a& value (p. 37): ‘If we look at
things from an ethnological point of view, does that mean we are saying
that philosophy is ethnology? No, it only means that we are taking up a
position right outside so as to see things lllot+e objecrively’. Later on the
same page: ‘One of the most important methods I use is to imagine a
historical development for our ideas different from what actually occurred.
If we do this we see the problem from a completely new angle’. Towards
the end of the PI Wittgenstein asks: ‘If the formation of concepts can be
explained by facts of nature, should we not be interested, not in grammar,
but rather in that in nature which is the basis of grammar?’ Then he answers
his own question: ‘But our interest does not fall back on these possible
causes of the formation of concepts: we are uot doing natwal scietrce;
nor yet natural history - since we cati also itwerlt jictitious natural history
for 01~ purposes’ (PI (p. 230’), emphasis added). The last sentence is the
clincher - it does not matter, for Wittgenstein’s purposes, whether his
examples are true or false, correct or mistaken - what matters is how
successful they are in levering the minds of his audience out of intellectual
ruts, as part of his ‘battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by
means of language’ (PI (par. 109)).
There are further interesting complications. We have seen how the LRP
is closely tied to the origins of structuralism. Thanks to the previous work
of Miller and Penn, two other concomitants of the LRP have been established.
The first is the necessary equation of language and thought by proponents
of the LRP (Miller (1968 : 26, 39)) and the second is a necessary belief in an
‘extra-human source of language’ (Penn (1972 : 11,54)).
Taking the second point first, a belief in an extra-human source of
language is hard to attribute to either Whorf or Wittgenstein. While an
early relativist, Hamman, believed in God as the extra-human source;
Humboldt in the people’s Geist (a very vague notion), and Sapir in ‘man’s
psychic or spiritual constitution’ (in other words, Geist), Penn records that
Whorf ‘makes no serious statement about the origin of langua’ge’ (1972 : 28)
- a characteristically modern linguist’s restraint. Interestingly enough,
Chomsky’s position, requiring a genetic saltation rather than gradual evolu-
tionary development of the human speech capacity (Toulmin (1971: 373-
374)), has much in common with the structuralist viewpoint of Humboldt
and Sapir. ‘O On Wittgenstein’s part there is no commitment to a genetic
leap rather than to a gradual acquisition of language. His discussion of
primitive language games, gestures and exclamations suggests rather a gra-
dualist view of language acquisition by the species.
A separation thus begins to appear between Whorf and Wittgenstein on
the one hand and the typical structuralist-relativist thinkers on the other.
This separation becomes clearer over a major structuralist tenet, the identity
of thought and language - to get back to the first of the two points above.
Neither Wharf nor Wittgertsreiu assented to sucl~ an idehjicarion. This may
seem surprising in the case of Whorf. But asserting the contrary is a failing
of those who see Whorf as a one-issue thinker. Penn (1972: 23) suggests:
‘We might look to Whorf as the one who went out back on Humboldt’s
limb and implied that language and thought are identical and that thought
without language is not possible’. The fact that Sapir did imply this is
well documented. For Whorf, however, consider statements like the follow-
ing : ‘Some have supposed thinking to be entirely linguistic. Watson, I believe,
holds or held this view (...) His error lies in going the whole hog (...)’
(1956 : 66 n.). Elsewhere he observes : “‘Thinking in a language” does not

*O Levi-Strauss, hrrodtctiou ro r/a, work q/ Marcel Maus, makes a classic example of

‘genetic saltation’ as a consequence of the structuralist view of language: ‘Whatever may
have been the moment and the circumstances of its appearance on the scale of animal life,
Iatrguage co~tl~l err/r have bear honk irr ottc Jdl stroop. Things could not have set about
acquiring signification progressively. Following a transformation the study of which is not
the concern of the social sciences, but rather of biology and psychology, a transition came
about from a stage where nothing had a meaning to another where everything possessed it’.
(Quoted by Jacques Derrida. In : Srntcrurc~, sigrr and play i/t r/w discourse of rhe hutnan sckwccs
(1978: 29l), emphasis added). A book notice writer in Lg. (Vol. 59(4): 885) points out that
‘the generativist program assumes instantaneous acquisition’. No sptxitic mention has been
made in this paper of one leading structuralist, Piaget, since his discourse, like any other,
is subject to the LRP. For an account of epistemological problems in Piagetian formalist
psychology, see Feldman and Toulmin (1975).
necessarily have to use WORDS . . . Much thinking never brings in words,
but manipulates whole paradigms, word classes, and such grammatical
orders “behind” or “above” the focus of personal consciousness’ (1956:
252n.). The spirit of these remarks contrasts with Saussure’s comparison
of language ‘(...) with a sheet of paper; thought is the front and sound the
back; one cannot cut the front without cutting the back at the same time’
(Cours (p. 113)). Finally, a detail unnoticed by Penn : Sapir and Whorf had
diametrically opposed views on the importance of thought vis-d-vis language.
Whorf says that language ‘for all its kingly role, is in some sense a super-
ficial embroidery upon deeper processes of consciousness, which are necessary
before any communication, signalling or symbolism whatsoever can occur,
and which also can, at a pinch, effect communication (though not true
AGREEMENT) without language’s and without symbolism’s aid’ (Wharf (1956 :
239)). Instead of beginning with ‘deeper processes of consciousness’, Sapir
makes language ‘(...) primarily a prerational function. It humbly works up
to the thought that is latent in, that may eventually be read into, its
classifications and its form; it is not, as is generally but naively assumed,
the final label put upon the finished thought’ (1921 : 15). For Sapir, thought
is latent in, and eventually ‘read into’ language. For Whorf, the ‘deeper
processes of consciousness’ are the base on which language is a ‘superficial
embroidery’ (Sapir’s ‘final label’). The reader must judge which of these
visualizations is the more convincing.
On the part of Wittgenstein, language and thought are distinct. The
Tructatw contains the epigram ‘Language disguises thought’ (4.002). In
his Notebooks 1912-1916 Wittgenstein answers the question ‘Does a Gedanke
consist of words?’ with an emphatic ‘No !‘. Hallett (1977: 42) observes:
‘Only when we take the step from language to thought does the full target
of the Zmwstigations come into view (...) on page after page, his barbs wing
towards the same fortress, this beautiful, simple, all-embracing plan of our
linguistic and mental operations : “proposition, language, thought, world
stand in line one behind the other, each equivalent to each”’ (PI (par. 96)).
In PI (par. 304), Wittgenstein suggests a radical break with the idea that
language . . . always serves the same purpose: to convey thoughts’. Talking
(aloud or silently) and thinking are distinguished, even though, Wittgenstein
adds, ‘they are in closest connection’ PI (p. 217’), cf. also PI (p. 211’)).
These remarks may well be directed against the behaviorist psychology of
Watson, the same man from whom Whorf dissents explicitly. Of course,
anyone who asserts, as Wittgenstein did famously, that ‘that which we
 R. Clmrre+e / Reading Wharf rhrouglr Wittgetrsteh 53

cannot speak of, we must pass over in silence’, might be held to grant
mental activity or states inexpressible in language.

5. ‘Structure beyond the probe of the measuring rod’ : The LRP and post-
structuralism

We have seen the genesis of the LRP in structuralism. Wittgenstein’s

thought has affinities with what has come to be known as post-structuralism
in the last decade and a half. 21 Just as the best-known post-structuralist,
Jacques Derrida, proceeds by rigorous re-readings of leading structuralists
like Saussure, Levi-Strauss and Benveniste, Wittgenstein in his later work
remains in dialogue with the structuralist aspects of the work of his pre-
decessor, the author of the Tmtatus. He dissolves the closed schemas and
watertight categories of structuralism with alternative conceptions of lan-
guage, involving an infinitude of language games and overlapping family
resemblances.22 I try in this section to show what happens to the LRP when
its questions are considered from a position - for want of a better word,
since deconstructionists would not wish to take any position at all - that
questions the metaphors of structuralism.
As Norris (1982 : 2) observes, much of Jacques Derrida’s work is ‘devoted
to the task of dismantling a concept of “structure” that serves to immobilize
the play of meaning in a text and reduce it to a manageable compass’.
Among other aspects of Derrida’s view of structure drawn together by
Norris is the point that the concept ‘structure’ easily becomes part of a
self-sustaining methodology that wilfully forgets its own metaphorical birth.
Derrida refuses to accept that meaning structures correspond to deep mental
sets or patterns which determine intelligibility. He stresses rather that each
positing of a structure involves an act of structuration by the structuralist
and not the perception of a structure that is objectively ‘there’ or ‘given’
in a text. Roland Barthes, whose work spans structuralism and post-
structuralism, ultimately sees structures ‘endlessly producing new possibilities
of sense’. This view of structure remains always conscious of ‘the radical

2’ Cf. Richard Rorty (1984: 5): ‘Much of what Derrida says about language sounds pretty
much like what the PI said’. Several papers have appeared establishing this connection.
** .As an example of Wittgenstein’s withdrawal of his view of language as a formal object,
cf. PI.(par. 108): ‘We see that what we call “sentence” and “language” has not the formal
unity that I imagined, but is the family of structures more or less related to one another’
(cf. also note 23).
metaphoricity of structure’ as an operative concept. It parallels Wittgenstein’s
insistence that every sign, every ‘rule’ constitutive ‘of structure has to be
humanly interpreted every time it is used. While the inaugurator of the
structuralist view of language, von Humboldt, speaks of language as a
‘gigantic web’ with connections between each part and between all parts
and the whole, Wittgenstein suggests that we ask ourselves if our language
is complete. His rival metaphor (PI (par. 18)) is of language as a city of
ancient origins, with the attendant ambiguities of cultural diversity, functional
differentiation, fluctuating aesthetic norms, and a lack of closure marking
off the city from the countryside (except such as may be imposed by the
municipal authorities) : ‘(. . .) ask yourself whether our language is complete;
. . . (And how many houses or streets does it take before a town begins to
be a town?) Our language can be seen as an ancient city; a maze of little
streets and squares of old and new houses, and of houses with additions
from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs
with straight, regular streets and uniform houses’. The city metaphor occurs
in Whorf, infused with the idea of overlapping family resemblances, when
he remarks that ‘we cannot tell exactly where any neighborhood leaves
off . . . “sustain” might become “nourish”, or it might become “continue”.
“Nourish” might become “feed”, and “continue” might become “long”’
(Wharf (1956 : 39)).
While von Humboldt speaks of the ‘definite and limited circle’ of one’s
own language, Wittgenstein suggests that our grammar, and therefore our
language, does not have ‘surveyability’ or ‘perspicuity’. (~be~siclttlicl~keit,
PI (par. 122)).23 One might recall also Saussure’s belief in a language as a
system where everything holds together (011rout se tient), which has apparently
survived through a ‘willed forgetting’ of Sapir’s contrary realization that
‘all grammars leak’ (1921 : 38).
As soon as one drops ‘structure’ as but ‘a metaphor to contain the unruly
energies of meaning’, and with it the structuralist view of language, unite de
lungage disappears. ‘Derrida, questioning the unity of language itself (...)
radically opens up textuality’ (Spivak’s Preface to Derrida’s Of Gramma-
tology, p. lxxiv). 24 As there is no more an encapsulated whole, the relativitv-

” ‘The later Wittgenstein (...) plunges us into a multiplicity of language games and linguistic
forms, where it is a mistake to seek the common structure’ (Rosen (1980: 182)). Whorf
speaks of ‘structure beyond the probe of the measuring rod’ (1956: 269). One might inter-
polate : the srrrtctrrrolisr measuring rod, perhaps the only one linguistics has recourse to.
** J. R. Firth anticipated this deconstructive point : ‘Unity is the last concept that should be
applied to language. Unity of language is the most fugitive of all unities, whether it be
 R. Chrrerjee / Readitlg Wlrorf rlrrorcglr Wittgensreitr 55

engendering bounds between one language and another disappear, but may
now crop up between two statements in the same language, between any
two statements at all. This led Wittgenstein to see language as an infinite
series of language games taking their meaning not from smaller structures
embedded in larger wholes, but from the ‘forms of life’ in which they occur.
‘That this is so’, Erich Heller has written, ‘is one of Wittgenstein’s most
striking realizations; and indeed not only renders the “rules of language”,
as he well knew, logically unmanageable but also makes their “description”,
which he hoped for, a task that could not be fulfilled even by a legion of
Prousts and Wittgensteins: for what is the “form of life” which, in one
language, is shared by Goethe and Hitler, or, in another, by Keats and the
Daily News?’ (Heller (1967 : 105)).

6. Dialectic and dissolution

The dialectic is a critical method. It has various negative characteristics.

No position is advanced, no ontological commitment made, no other method
condemned. No revision is sought of ‘facts’ or ‘conclusions’ arrived at by
other methods. On the positive side, the dialectic seeks to bring out weak-
nesses in the processes by which facts and conclusions are arrived at. It
cancels itself when the immediate problem has been dissolved or totally
recast. Without denying the validity of the principle of contradiction, it
takes recourse to self-contradictory statements. In linguistics, the nature of
the dialectic is exemplified by the asymmefric dualism of the linguistic sign.
This phrase, which was coined by the Prague linguist Sergei Karcevskij and
much acclaimed by Roman Jakobson, seeks to capture the predicament
that along with the identity of the linguistic sign with its referent (A = A,),
there must co-exist the contrary realization that A # A,. More generally,
the dialectic method is conscious of conflicts in rationality, which it attempts
to reduce by moving from one standpoint to another until a penultimate
position is reached, to which, insofar as any outlook or position is still
held, it remains recursively applicable. 25 The dialectic method thus seeks

historical, geographical, national, or personal. There is no such thing as rdae la/tgrte rlrre and
there never has been’ (Firth (1957: 29)).
25 For further details see Murti (1980: 9,554) Come (1966: 26l), Karcevskij (1929), and
Jakobson (1971); for a comparison of analytic philosophy and the dialectic method, cf. Paz
(I971 : 81-82). Paz’ comments on the dialectic needing a foundation should be contrasted
with Murti’s account.
to expose the ‘inside’ or ‘foundation’ of a system of thought by a penetrating
and methodologically reductive critique. In the present section the well-
known contradictions associated with the LRP receive a long-overdue dialec-
tical treatment, leading to their dissolution.
The clearest reference to the dialectic in Wharf’s own writings may be
found in the last few lines of his last published paper, in the distinction
drawn between common and tratwcendertt logic (Wharf (1956 : 268-269)).
The LRP in Wharf’s work is one conclusion of a structuralist view of
language, to be left behind when the contradictions of that view become
visible. Similarly, to Jacques Derrida it is not a question of rejecting the
entire Saussurean project or denying its historical significance, rather one of
driving that project to its ultimate conclusions and seeing where these work
to challenge the project’s founding assumptions (cf. Norris (1982: 30)).
Here some substance can be added to Hymes’s insight that Whorf formulated
the LRP in order that it be transcended. Wharf’s purpose, I shall try to
show, is compatible with Wittgenstein’s method.
I have already discussed how the dissolution of cross-linguistic relativity
in post-structuralist terms results in the appearance of a pervasive intra-
linguistic relativity. Now let us. see what happens to the LRP when the
dialectic of metaphor is applied to it. Nietzsche, a philologist by training,
is a pioneer in the theory of metaphor. 26 So-called literal language, Nietzsche
argued, has three layers of metaphorical transitions buried in it - the first
from nerve stimulus to image, the second from image to sound or word,
and the third from word to concept. In none of these. transitions can a
‘literal’ or ‘proper’ relationship to the preceding sphere be established.*’
Details and implications of Nietzsche’s views are conveniently presented
in Hinman (1982). My task here is made easier by an incisive study of
Wittgenstein’s potentially metaphorical view of language (Gill (1979)) that
makes it easily relatable to Nietzsche’s ‘The ladder that enables us to
move from no expression to explicit expression is metaphoric expression’,
Gill observes (1979: 274). ‘Thus it is not the sort of ladder which can be
kicked over. For we are still and always standing on it!’ A similar pre-
dicament is sketched by Donald Davidson in his paper ‘On the very idea
of a conceptual scheme’, in which he concludes that ‘there is no chance

26 Some essays bearing on this aspect of Nietzsche’s work appear in D. Allison (cd.) (1977):
cf. also Chatterjee (1984).
n Cf. PI (par. 356): ‘For isn’t it a misleading metaphor to say: “My eyes give me the
Sormation that there is a chair over there”?’
that someone can take up a vantage point for comparing conceptual schemes
by temporarily shedding his own’ (1973-1974: 7).
No conceptual scheme, no metalanguage. Whorf in fact conflated the
literal and the metaphorical poles of language, the scientific-referential and
the poetic-emotive, in his aphorism, ‘science begins and ends in talk’ (1956:
220-221).28 Wittgenstein viewed mathematics, music and logic as equally
‘linguistic’ (cf. PI (par. 527)), Hallett thereon (1977 : 214) : ‘Wittgenstein’s
frequent derogatory references to a “metagame” (. . ,) “metacalculus” (. . .)
“metalogic” (.. .) “metamathematics” (...) and the like (...) suggest the
general drift’). Whorf describes mathematics and music as ‘ultimately of
the same kindred as language’ (1956 : 248).
In denying that ‘any word has an exact meaning’, and in claiming that
words are ‘symbols that have no fixed reference to anything . . . like blank
checks, to be filled in as required’ (cf. p. 46, above), Whorf comes close
to combining a metaphorical with a ‘use’ view of meaning. Gill (1979)
establishes Wittgenstein’s metaphorical view of language, and his consistent
linking of meaning and use is part of it.*’ Any view of meaning that stresses
the metaphoricity and use-dependent nature of linguistic elements - recalling
here Whorf’s view that linguistics is essentially the quest for meaning -
becomes radically non-structural and non-reductive, and therefore incapable
of sustaining a structurally derived and deterministic LRP. By such contra-
dictions, Wharf’s texts are seen to point beyond the seemingly explicit state-
ments that are generally taken to represent his thought. They are part of a
via negariva that leads to the abiding involvement both Whorf and Wittgen-
stein had with critical linguistic philosophies akin to those of Madhyamika
Buddhism (as expounded by Murti and Conze) and Taoism (as expounded
by Hansen).
Yet another route to the dissolution of the LRP lies in the skepticism
expressed in common by Whorf and Wittgenstein towards the idea of a
self or ego. Whorf speaks of the ‘web of Maya, illusion begotten of
entrenched selfhood’ (1956 : 262). Wittgenstein was consciously taking apart
the Cartesian cogito with his Lichtenbergian ‘It in me thinks’ against
Descartes’ ‘I’ (cf. Hallett (1977 : 418,445)). A similar rejection of the ‘Car-
tesian ego stemming from Nietzsche and Freud is a feature common to the
post-structuralists.
I8 The force of this aphorism could not have escaped Thomas Kuhn. Cf. also Nietzsche:
‘Language is, in fact, the lirst stage of the occupation with science . ..’ (Hwnarr, all too hwarr
(p. 1 I)).
I9 Hallett (1967) is a generally sound exposition of Wittgenstein’s view of meaning.
 Only if one posits an ego, of course, can one speak in terms of a world
view or Weltanschauung for collections of egos that form speech commu-
nities. A person’s Weltanschauung may in fact be incommensurable with
one he develops at another point. T.S. Eliot remarked that his views had
evolved so much from the time he wrote his doctoral dissertation that in
later life he ‘could not understand it’ (Eliot (1964: 10)). One may ask how
Eliot knew that he did not understand his own dissertation. Did he have a
‘neutral conceptual scheme’ calibrating two world views? Being able to
compare two conceptual schemes implies being able to understand them
both. Eliot would surely have made a more profound statement if he had
said that he did not know his own mind - in the year of his dissertation or
at any other time.
One last way of dissolving the LRP like a piece of sugar in a cup of
water, as Wittgenstein would say. Using a variety of methods and arguments,
Wittgenstein provides a non-representational view of language, entirely by-
passing the need to posit mental images, abstract ideas, a priori and innate
patterns, and such metaphysical baggage. To a large extent this is a con-
sequence of his linking of meaning with use. But ‘holistically integrated’
with this are his discussions of sensations, colors, and rule-following. The
details of the argumentation are neither statable in brief nor quite necessary
here.30 But we may cull a relevant maxim from the results. This could be
stated as no structure without representation. If a language can be seen as
an open-ended series of intersubjective language games, it need have no
representation at the individual or communal level. Without such a repre-
sentation, there is no question of a represented structure on the basis of
which one language may be said to be relative to another. It will be noticed
that this point articulates with the interrogation already mentioned of unit&
de langage by Firth and the deconstructionists (cf. note 24). By positing
representation, a problematique or metaphysic is set up only within w/tic/z it
becomes necessary to speak of linguistic relativity at all.
The dialectical dissolution of the LRP can be seen prefigured, or in
abbreviated form, in Nietzsche’s Beyond good and evil. It is first introduced
thus: ‘The singular family resemblance between all Indian, Greek and
German philosophizing is easy enough to explain. Where there exists a
language affinity it is quite impossible, thanks to the common philosophy
of grammar - I mean thanks to unconscious domination and directing
by similar grammatical functions - to avoid everything being prepared in

30 Brown (1976) provides a convenient summary.

 R. Clrarrerjcr / Reading What-f rlrrougll Witrgmsteitl 59

advance for a similar evolution and succession of philosophical systems:

just as the road seems to be barred to certain other possibilities of world
interpretation’ (1973 : 32). Some pages later comes the swift dialectical
countermove: ‘Ought the philosopher not to rise above the belief in gram-
mar? All due respect to governesses: but is it not time that philosophy
renounced the beliefs of governesses?’ (1973 : 48).

7. Conclusion

Parallels between Whorf and Wittgenstein are.not confined to their views

on language and meaning. In fact, the parallels in other areas are even more
direct and provide circumstantial support for the agreements on language.
They are sometimes expressed in curiously similar phraseology. In one of
his last pieces (1941), Whorf speaks of ‘the impending darkness’. Wittgenstein
writes of ‘the darkness of this time’ in his Preface to the PI four years later.
This was not just the common reaction to World War II. Both felt alienated
from the spirit of Western science. Whorf complained that ‘science cannot
yet understand the transcendental logic of such a state of affairs [‘formless-
ness’], for it has not yet freed itself from the illusory necessities of common
logic (.. .)’ (1956 : 269). In a still unpublished manuscript dating from 1930-
1931, Wittgenstein complained that ‘the typical Western scientific man (...)
does not understand the spirit in which I write’ (Wittgenstein Nuc/&z.ss
(ms. no. 109: 206), quoted in Halett (1977: 67)). Yet Whorf had faith till
his premature death at 44 in the scientific study of language, if not as an
end in itself, as part of a process of liberation - ‘many neuroses are simply
the compulsive working over and over of word systems, from which the
patient can be freed by showing him the process and pattern’ (1956 : 269).
Wittgenstein’s therapeutic view of his activity is well-known though not
uncontroversial : ‘(. . .) the philosopher’s treatment of a question’, he remarks
in the middle of the PI (par. 255), ‘is like the treatment of an illness’.
However, in a dialectical advance, both look to a cessation of thought
activity. ‘The stilling of this activity . ..‘. says Whorf, ‘though difficult and
requiring prolonged training, is by reliable accounts from widely diverse
sources, both Eastern and Western, a tremendous expansion, brightening

” As Heidegger is so largely responsible for the revival of philosophical interest in Nietzsche

in our time, it may be relevant to note hints of his acceptance of linguistic relativity. Cf.
Heidegger (1982: 8,23). Waismann (1968: 6) was aware of Nietzsche’s references to the issue.
and clarifying of consciousness, in which the intellect functions with
undreamed-of rapidity and sureness’ (1956 : 268-269). The dialectical contra-
diction in Wittgenstein is thus described by one writer: ‘At the same time
as Wittgenstein worked out his “thoughts”, he was compelled to eliminate
them. The ultimate tendency of Wittgenstein’s “thought” was the suppression
of all “thought”’ (Mora (1967: 108)). Wittgenstein battled against the
bewitchment of intellect by language, and the editor of Whorf’s posthumous
selected writings notes his author’s ‘seeming discomfort with the straitjacket
represented by language’ (Carrol(1956 : 23) introduction to Whorf, Language,
thougIlt and reality).
This paper now rests its case. Perhaps the case is not watertight. A number
of clues are left scattered for the reader to explore, consisting mainly of
insightful treatments of topics on the philosophical fringes of the LRP,
such as Murti (1980), Hansen (1983) and the works of Wittgenstein and
Waismann. However, I claim to have demonstrated the following beyond
reasonable doubt:
(1) By reference to previous work of those who have felt it at work in
their own disciplines, that the LRP is a general problem of all discourse
or human communication, including scientific discourse.
(2) That the LRP is an outcome of a structuralist view of language,
a point noticed by Hymes (1966).
(3) That there is remarkable correspondence, if not total agreement,
in the views of Whorf and Wittgenstein on the nature of language.
(4) That there are tendencies in both writers that separate them from
the prevailing structuralism of their times and link them to contemporary
post-structuralist developments.
(5) That the transcendence of the LRP that Wharf was groping for can
be found by reference to rarely cited passages in his own writings,
which are clearly reflected in Wittgenstein’s work.
(6) That the views of both writers are substantially allied to certain
Eastern philosophies of language that lead to mysticism through
introspection and the stilling of thought. I should like to suggest
that post-structuralism points in the same direction, but this must
remain only .a suggestion, for the present.
By the company it keeps, Wharf’s linguistic thought is seen to be not
eccentric or deviant, but in its basic insights akin to both the wisdom of
the ancients and the conclusions of a great modern philosopher.
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