meaning as use(less)?

meaning as use(less)?

[ or ]

how to use wittgenstein.

© jeremy rose 2007

 

How to Use Wittgenstein.

A usage theory of meaning has been blatantly thrust on Wittgenstein as father figure to such a concept. While it would be possible to argue against this sentiment, asserting that Wittgenstein did little more than simply to extrapolate on Saussure’s basic premise that meanings are assigned randomly to utterances and letter patterns, my purpose here is not to dispel the myth that such an idea was first instantiated by Wittgenstein. Rather it is to present and support a possible interpretation for his concept of meaning as use. Perhaps the most commonly misquoted phrase in all of the Philosophical Investigations is the sentence “Meaning is use.” – it appears nowhere in the English text; nor does the German original suggest that any such sentence be brought into being. The nearest passage, however, is relatively close in meaning to this statement, however less quotable in an everyday setting – “For a large class of cases – though not for all – in which we employ the word ‘meaning’ it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.”[i]

Now, from the perspective of structural analysis, the first segment of this quotation is relatively straightforward. “For a large class of cases – though not for all – in which we employ the word ‘meaning’ it can be defined thus […]” can be, I believe, unequivocally understood to mean, “Dear reader, we can define meaning like this […]” and thus it can be ignored for the purposes of our discussion. While I do not take the systematic removal from discussion of a passage from the text lightly, I doubt that this particular omission from the analysis will turn many a head, since the purpose here is to talk about Wittgenstein’s definition of meaning. “The meaning of a word is its use in the language”, he blatantly states. Our task, then, is not to discover his intended meaning, since his death makes the certainty of such an exercise a relatively moot endeavor. It is to apply an interpretation to this statement and “try it on for size”, so to speak.

In his recent article in Mind, Paul Horwich presents a convincing yet highly complex interpretation of Wittgenstein’s statement[ii], vigorously attacking Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, insofar as Kripke argues that in Wittgenstein there is a paradoxical anomaly that makes meaning as use both incomprehensible and moot[iii]. It is from this diving board that I wish to plunge into a significantly streamlined interpretive model. Meaning is use is a statement about instance-level[iv] language and not about the definitional model or linguistic acquisition in a broad sense.

There is a fixed-definition theory of language that states (in an extremely simplified interpretation) that all words have a definition (or series thereof) that cannot be modified or (in some versions of the theory) interpreted beyond set guidelines, as laid out in some document, such as the dictionary of a language. In contrast, another theory may be proposed whereby a framework of definitions exists in the background but that each time a word is spoken, its explicit meaning is determined by the context, the game in which it is used. From this model comes the separation of definition-level and instance-level meanings of a word. The underlying definition of a word is, in the vast majority of cases, the textual version that can be found in a dictionary. The instance-level meaning is based on this definition and modified by the scenario in which the word is spoken. An extremely complex version of this model is presented, perhaps for the first time, later in the Philosophical Investigations, as the theory of Language Games.[v]

It is fairly simple to come up with examples of such a two-phase model but the simplest explanation may be the one that Wittgenstein himself uses, using the letters X and Y, representing theoretical words in some non-existent language. In §§556-557 of the Philosophical Investigations, he clearly outlines the difference between usage-definition and theory-definition. Unlike the stereotypical approach that cries, after Wittgenstein, definition is dead, Wittgenstein himself makes the case for there being a way to use a word, a correct way, perhaps more than one, and that this is built upon by the language game that is circumstance.

His explanation of why X and Y are both the same and different, depending on circumstance, is quite striking. While X and Y have different meanings, strictly speaking, in theory, their usage-meaning may be either exactly the same or the opposite. In this way, using the most extreme of examples, Wittgenstein outlines the framework of a theory of meaning as use, one completely compatible with the dictionary[vi].

A less theoretical example, if one is desired, is the word bad, whose use in everyday English is basically the dictionary version of the word but whose use in ebonics, often in music or rap, is the exact opposite, at times, but not always so. This necessitates both the definition as a solid-state concept and the language-game for understanding to occur.

It is important to consider here the break that is signified with the accepted tradition in this simple passage in §43 of the PI.[vii] We have already established that he is arguing for a two-phase model of meaning but this exists at the word level, not at the sentence or paragraph level. From this, however, it can be extrapolated that the root of meaning, for Wittgenstein, is grammar, not logic. “Wittgenstein think that if we focus on a sentence and ask, apart from any consideration of the context of significant use, what does ‘it’ mean, then we will unwittingly end up seeking its meaning in the realm of the psychological.”[viii] Hence there is a concentration on the use, the context, the game, rather than on the dictionary-lookup side of the equation. While the word’s meaning must be based in common usage, in definition, once the word has acquired its situational meaning, its instance-level meaning, the original definition on which it is based becomes moot. The sentence and the paragraph derive their sense only from the instance-level meaning.

Wittgenstein, then, in this section is making a rather strong yet simple point. Meaning is use but that does not mean that it is only use, or that this is the root of meaning, from the beginning. Words, he says, in agreement with most of the accepted historical linguistic model, are assigned their meanings at random, and are linked to them in a rather fixed manor. Through our playing of language games, however, we can shift this meaning, refine it, even flip it on its head. We create an instance-level meaning on top of the definition that we already know. Meaning, therefore, begins as definition. In the end, though, it is use.

 

[i] Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. Anscombe, §43 (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2001). The German text, “Man kann für eine große Klasse von Fällen der Benützung des Wortes ‘Bedeutung’ – wenn auch nicht für alle Fälle seiner Benützung – dieses Wort so erklären: Die Bedeutung eines Wortes ist sein Gebrauch in der Sprache.”, when loosely translated, holds much the same meaning as the accepted translation in English that I have cited here. While my personal feeling on the interpretive nature of this translation is that it warrants much discussion, especially in §43, this is far outside the scope of this paper and, in the interest of simply addressing the question of meaning as use, all translations will be assumed to be relatively correct.

[ii] Horwich, Paul. “Meaning, Use and Truth: On Whether a Use-Theory of Meaning Is Precluded by the Requirement that Whatever Constitutes the Meaning of a Predicate Be Capable of Determining the Set of Things of Which the Predicate is True and to Which It Ought to be Applied” in Mind, New Series, Vol. 104, No. 414 (April 1995), pp. 355-368.

[iii] As far as I am concerned, Kripke settled firmly on a small subsection of Wittgenstein’s text, discovered a theoretical problem, and wrote his entire text based on a fundamental flaw in Wittgenstein that does not exist in the larger context of his work. His argument, however, centers around the concept of truth in meaning and, since I have no desire to deal Kripke another blow, believing that Horwich has already settled this particular argument, his book is only of cursory relation to this discussion.

[iv] I believe that instance-level is a self-defining term but I shall elaborate in the interest of minimal confusion which, in the study of Wittgenstein, is an often overlooked endeavor.

[v] To understand the concept of instance-level definition, however, a thorough appreciation of Wittgenstein’s discussion of Language Games is not required.

[vi] In his brief article, “Do Word Meanings Exist?” in Computers and the Humanities, 34: 205-215 (2000), Patrick Hanks, editor of the Oxford English Dictionaries explains through a discussion of the necessity for simplicity in everyday life and speech, his support for this two-phase model, as seen in the later Wittgenstein. Demonstrating that usage-meaning does not eliminate, rather it embraces the dictionary and definitional model, as a foundation. From this basic foundation, of course, the instance-level meaning comes forward and, once linked with other words in the sentence and the paragraph, conveys the full meaning of the utterance pattern (within the confines of the language-game, that is). This line of argumentation is taken up by Gordon Baker in “Wittgenstein on Metaphysical/Everyday Use” in The Philosophical Quarterly 52:208, where he argues, much like I have done here, that language is simple, that we need not eliminate common definition to accept that context and the language games that are being played at the moment can modify this widely-held definition of a word, which we rely on for mutual comprehensibility, across multiple language games.

[vii] In “Leaving the World Alone” in The Journal of Philosophy 79:7 (July 1982), pp. 382-403, Jonathan Lear outlines the shock treatment that Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations gave the world of analytical positivism, that he had only created, for all intents and purposes, a few short decades before. Wittgenstein, according to Lear, is arguing that philosophy can do no more than to describe but that we, as philosophers, must talk about language, and we must do so through the usage of it, since it is in the usage of words and our relationship with them that we can truly understand language and fully speak about it like we have never been able to do with theory alone.

[viii] Conant, James. “Wittgenstein on Meaning and Use” in Philosophical Investigations 21:3 (July 1998), pp. 222-250. While this article primarily deals with the questions of nonsense and early Wittgenstein, the third section is a succinct explanation of what could be the motivation behind the meaning as use theory, as presented in the Philosophical Investigations. This is strikingly linked to the argument against private language, which is a fundamental point that must be accepted before believing that the two-stage usage model of definitions is correct, since a private language would necessitate a simple one-phase relationship between word and internal concept that cannot be broken. For more on this, the complete article that I have already cited is a good introduction, as is Edward Craig’s “Meaning, Use and Privacy” in Mind Vol. 91, pp. 541-564, where the two-phase usage model is held up against the concept of ideal internal meaning.