WITTGENSTEIN

later
■ Born :Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein
■ 26 April 1889
■ Vienna, Austria-Hungary
■ Died : 29 April 1951 (aged 62)
■ Cambridge, England
■ Nationality: Austrian
■ Notable work:
■ Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
■ Philosophical Investigations
■Notable ideas
■ Picture theory of language
■ Truth functions
■ Truth tables
■ Use theory of meaning
■ Language-games
■ Private language argument
■ Family resemblance
■ Rule-following
■ Forms of life
■ Ordinary language philosophy
■ Ideal language analysis
■ Depth and surface grammar[4]
Philosophical Investigations
■ The book was published posthumously in 1953.
■ the book is considered by many as being one of
the most important philosophical works of the
20th century
■ The work continues to influence contemporary
philosophers working in the philosophy of
language and mind.
■ Language-games
Family resemblances
■ Meaning is use
 Philosophical Investigations
■ 1. realized his Tractatus views were fundamentally mistaken.
■ Tractatus: essence of name: referent
■ essence of proposition: describe the world

• 2. his mistake is that of taking the essence of language to be

exemplified by one among its many uses.
■ “But how many kinds of sentence are there? Say as
sertion,question, and command?—There are countless
kinds: countless different kinds of use of what we call
"symbols", "words", "sentences". And this multiplicity is
not something fixed, given once for all; but new types of
language, new language-games, as we may say, come into
existence, and others become obsolete and get forgotten.”
what language-game is?
“In the practice of the use of language one party calls out the words, the other
acts on them. In instruction in the language the following process will occur:
the learner names the objects; that is, he utters the word when the teacher
points to the stone.—And there will be this still simpler exercise: the pupil
repeats the words after the teacher——both of these being processes
resembling language.”
“And the processes of naming the stones and of repeating words after
someone might also be called language-games.”
“I shall also call the whole, consisting of language and the actions into which
it is woven, the "language-game".”
 Language-game
■ Meant to bring into prominence
the fact the speaking of language
is part of an activity, or of a form
of life.
Each uses of language,
or language games, is
governed by
distinctive rules
■ Examples：
Giving orders , obeying
them, describing objects,
making up and telling
stories, reporting on events,
playing a role in a movie,
translating form a given
language into another
language, praying, offering
greeting.
uses of language Various tools Different uses
(hammers, planes, files)

Can not be
characterized to
Various language games we play have an essence.
have no one thing in common
which makes us use the same
word for all, they are related to
one another in many different
ways.
■ In summary, Wittgenstein uses the term “language
games” to mean:

■ language is made up of various “games” which have their own

rules the “speaking” of language is part of an act or part of
form of life.

■ To understand the meaning of words one not only needs to

know the conventional usage of them but also to pay attention
to their pragmatic use.
2. Family resemblance
■ Various language games we play have no one thing in
common which makes us use the same word for all,
they are related to one another in many different ways.
■ Consider for example the proceedings we call “games”.
I mean board-games, card games, ball-games, Olympic
games, and so on. What is common to them all? ---
Don’t say: “ there must be something common, or they
would not be called ‘games’”--- but look and see
whether there is anything common to all.--- For if you
look at them you will not see something that is
common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a
whole series of them at that … And the result of this
examination is : we see a complicated net work of
similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes
overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail.
Family resemblance
■ Eg. AB, BC, CD, DE
■ 1. characterize the similarities for the various resemblances between members of
family.
■ 2. no one characteristic or set of characteristic is present in all family members.
■ 3. the family resemblance nature of many natural language expressions are not as a
matter of empirical fact governed by necessary and sufficient conditions(充要条件),
but are employed on the basis of over-lapping and criss-crossing sets of
characteristics.

Important expressions of philosophy: goodness, knowledge, justice,

beauty… are family resemblance, have no fixed meaning.
■ I say “there is a chair.” What if I go up to it, meaning
to fetch it, and it suddenly disappears from sight? ---
“So it wasn’t a chair, but some kind of illusion.” ---
But in a few moments, we see it again, and are able to
touch it and so on --- “ So the chair was there after all
and its disappearance was some kind of illusion” ---
But suppose after a time it disappears again--- or seems
to disappear. What are we to say now? Have you rules
ready for such cases--- rules saying whether one may
use the word “chair” to include this kind of thing
It is not logically possible to fix the
meaning of empirical expressions.
No empirical term’s meaning can be fixed,
not even the mundane expressions like chair.
Instead of theorizing about meaning
we should focus on USE
■ Inattention to the Produce theorizing based
word usage on too few examples

Create further Formulate

puzzles pseudo-questions
■ Traditional philosophy is an ill-conceived
discipline which can never succeed .
■ They can not be solved, and can only be
dissolved depending on recognizing them for
what they are.
Cultural or social context

■ Ingredient, solve the issues of mental representation.

■ an individual’s meaning or intending something is as much or
more an observable and outer process as it is a psychological
or neural event.
■ The meaning of an expression can only be fully explained by
introducing into its explanation external rules of acting or the
practices formulated by these rules.
■ For W:
■ (1)human beings as members of society engage in a complex series
of actions and practices , one constituent of it is language use

■ (2) those action and practices consist in behaving in various ways

under various circumstances

■ (3)We must take into account the actual circumstances

that can or could obtain
■ W: rejects his previous tripartite theory of meaning which ignores
social or cultural context of meaning
To understand the meaning of a sentence is to
understand those conventions that determine its
correct uses.

■ Meaning is a function of contextual factors,

Monetary value
■ Green bits of paper, their value ,and a cognitive process of
intending these values by those bills.
■ Question: how can these bills, which could buy so much in
1951, have so little value today? Have our intentions changed
so much?
■ Take account of the context surrounding their use
■ The fluctuating market, supply and demand, failing
government, play an essential role in determination of
monetary value.
■ If we want to resolve this kinds of problems and paradoxes, we
must recognize and emphasize the observation regarding
meaning.
Meaning is a function of contextual factors
The meanings of words, sentences, statements, etc, are a
constantly fluctuating phenomenon.

Any sentence in a natural language can be said to have a

meaning translatable across languages
The sentence may have numerous correct uses,

To understand the meaning of a sentence , is to understand those

conventions that determine its correct uses.
■ Man———You are MBA ? (Master of Business Administration)( 你是
工商管理硕士?)
■ Woman———Def ! MBA , but now divorced. (Married By
Accident )( 当然, 阴差阳错成家了,不过已经离了)
■ Man———Really ? I ' m MBA. Can I be your friend ? (Married But
Available )( 真的? 我是留守男士, 可以交 个朋友吗?)
■ Woman———You are too MBA. (Must Be Aspiring )( 想得 美!)

Language game
Family resemblance
Meaning as use