Kristine Marie T.

Reynaldo Professor Zosimo Lee Philo 204 12 April 2013

On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations

I. Departing from the traditional notion that philosophy ought to contemplate Big Questions such as Truth, Metaphysics, Mind, and Morality, and seek knowledge of such ideals and universals, Wittgenstein advocates philosophical practice that is more grounded in reality. Instead of abstracting and explaining super-concepts, philosophers should consider the subjects of everyday thinking and speak the language of the everyday. Furthermore, they should look into the workings of language and understand how we use it. For Wittgenstein, philosophical problems arise from our persistent misunderstanding of concepts in striving to grasp their essenceto define and understand them once and for all, in complete and simple terms. Such a goal leads to deep disquietudes because it is illusory. In the attempt to find general theories for ideas, philosophers often

come up with reductive explanations instead, which fail to account for the manifold ways in which we apply ideas and speak of them. Thus, we are perpetually unsatisfied with any explanation that ultimately proves to be lacking, and yet we persist. Dazzled by the prospect of achieving the ideal, we often overlook what is. For Wittgenstein, it is in the consideration of the actual that the value of philosophy lies. Meaning is to be found in the study of our usual modes of expression, and the ways in which we use them. For him, Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language (PI 109). What does this battle consist in? For one, it involves resisting the impulse to consider words apart from their context, to force on them essential definitions and generalize such definitions. For meaning-making is more complex than naming, or determining the connection between a sign and its referent, visualizing the image words paint in our minds, or diagramming sentences. There is more to making sense than arranging words according to proper syntax or looking them up in a dictionarythough such practices are part of it. To accomplish meaning is to be aware of not only the denotations and connotations that attend a word, but of the circumstances surrounding it: its place in a sentence, the sentences role in a language game, the kind of language game being played, the intention of its players in making their moves, the forms of life that inform linguistic practice,

and the social world in which all of these are embedded. For meaning is contextual; the sense of a word may vary from one sentence to another. It all may sound too complicated, and we wonder how we accomplish meaning at allindeed, often grasp it in an instant. But we burst forth into the world as part of societies organized by the practice of language. We flail and swim in the ceaseless currents of signs from the moment of beingperhaps even before that first utterance: a cry and imbibe the conventions for making meaning, learn them in training and practice. For language governs human relations, and gives us tools with which to parse our reality. Just as we orient ourselves in physical, temporal, and sociocultural spaces to go on, we make sense of a word or an expression by situating it.

If there is an essence to language, and therefore, the meaning of a word, it is this: its instability. It is not only that there is no one-to-one correspondence between a signifier and its signified, or that not every word refers to an object in the external world and may be relied upon to mean only that thing; language itselfas system and activityis neither static nor delimited and complete. We may see language as something alive, in flux, just as wethe people who use itare alive, in flux, and traffic in it. Wittgenstein compares it to 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 (PI 18). Like an ancient city, the boundaries, surface structures, signs, and modalities of language are ever-shifting. Some of the expressions in our language are, to use a familiar phrase, as old as time; some have fallen out of use; every year new words are coined to accommodate new concepts; while other words lose some of their denotations and acquire different ones through time. As the world and societies evolve, so does language and our uses for it, the language-games we play and the rules that govern them. (Once, a man in a superior position commenting on a womans youthful good looks in a professional setting would be no matter; now he will be called out and criticized for it, even if he is the president of the United States of America.) In the attempt to regulate the essential instability of language and meaning, we codify conventions. And so new additions to the Oxford English Dictionary are debated and widely publicized at the end of the year, the Modern Language Association issues a new edition of its handbook every so often, and the same modes of discourse (exposition, description, narration, argumentation) are taught in composition classes. And so articles on email and texting etiquette abound, driving exams require knowledge of traffic rules and signs, and scientific studies are used to back up and formalize interpretations

of human behavior. Yet such prescriptions are themselves contingent on changing social realities, prevalent practices, modes of expression, and what John McDowell calls the congruence of subjectivities (143), and can only guide us so far. As Wittgenstein points out, though we lay down rules, a technique, for a game when we follow the rules, things do not turn out as we had assumed That is just what we say when, for example, a contradiction appears: I didnt mean it like that (PI 125). Even when we have an understanding of the language-game and its rules, even when all the moves are perspicuous, we cannot map out the progression of moves, nor predict how the language-game will proceed, or if, indeed, it will stay just that kind of gameand there are an infinite multiplicity of language games, each with an attendant, usually nonexclusive set of rules and uncertain criteria for individuation. Thus, to accomplish meaning, one must abandon the misguided pursuit of universals or the inflexible and dogmatic reliance on rules that are themselves the product of convention and tied to particular contexts, and dip into the stream of life to examine the complexity underlying the seeming familiarity of ordinary language and its use in actual cases. Given the essential instability of language, how is meaning to be pinned down? Wittgenstein saysand here we see his rejection of overgeneralization and essential definitionsFor a large class of

casesthough not for allin which we employ the word meaning it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language (PI 43). Since there is no fixed relation between a signifier and a signified, and sincewhat with the multiplicity of language-games every move may be made to accord with a rule to justify an interpretation, we can use the same words to mean different things. For instance, the sentence I am here may mean (be used to say): Where are you? or You can count on me or Gotcha! In such cases, the words used are not as important as how they are used to mean, and how they are used to mean, again, depends on their context. If intention were always apparent, determining the use of an expression would pose no problem. Alas, it is not, for intention is an interior phenomenon. Since we cannot grasp anothers interiority, we must refer to what is public: language, which not only gives us the tools for expression, but also codes the expression with contextual clues so that we may apprehend the speakers purpose. This is why Wittgenstein says that the investigation of meaning is a grammatical one (PI 90). The essence or gist or meaning of an expression may be clarified by paying attention to its grammar. Wittgensteins notion of grammar is not limited to rules for semantic, syntactic, and morphological usage (surface grammar), but includes other norms

about what constitutes sense or nonsense, or how language may be used in particular activities (depth grammar). Grammar tells what kind of object anything is (PI 373) by helping identify the languagegame being played, and the significations that may be associated with an expression in that context. An expression may signify, may only constitute a move in a language game, if it is meant to accomplish something. If somebody suddenly says, Blue, another may ask, What is that supposed to mean? I can think of the color, but what am I supposed to do with it? A word cannot mean outside a language game. If, for example, before the one said Blue, the other asked, With what color would you like us to paint the walls of your room? then that utterance would make sense, would be properly situated in the language game being played. And if the question were, How do you feel today? the answer blue would take on a different meaning altogether. The ability to remark on the grammar of expressions, to identify the nature of the language game being played, and to employ linguistic techniques with regard to conventions to articulate thoughts, feelings, desires, etc. are functions of the mastery of language. And because language is a social activity, familiarity with forms of life inheres in its mastery. Sociocultural context determines the kinds of language-games a society engages in and the rules that regulate them. A community that believes in the sacredness of a mountain, for

instance, would not tolerate uttering profanities, making noises, or acting in an irreverent manner while traversing it. Meaning-making involves not only linguistic facility, but also social cognition. For communication, even in its most primitive forms, to be possible, there must be intersubjective knowledgeshared practices, standards, traditions, culture, modes of expression. In an act of communication, one investigates the grammar of both sentence and situation. Meaning is accomplished when the intention is externalized in expression, contextualized and apprehended according to conventions, and given the appropriate response. Consider the following examples: When I ask, Wheres the exit? and the guard turns her head to the left, pouting her mouth in that direction, I go left. When I corner my brother and say, Hello, my favorite little Brother Bear! How handsome you look today! and he replies with, What do you want from me? I grin. When I run into an acquaintance in the hallway and he asks, How are you? I dont launch into a litany of all the difficulties Ive been dealing with in the past week and instead reply with, Im good, how about you? Underlying the above examples are cultural assumptions and social standards, which may or may not be consciously thought of in the moment of communication, but which inform our moves in the

language-game because we have become habituated to them, learned them through training, customs, past experiences, and so on. Such habituation is what allows us to grasp meaning in an instant. What does it mean to say something meaningful? It is, to some extent, to have a sense of what is acceptable and to be expected in a particular situation, and let that sense guide use.

II.

The role of philosophy, as Wittgenstein conceives it, is therapeutic: to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use (PI 116) and describe how they function in the actual practice of language, in concrete cases. Such a practice of philosophy aims to dispel conceptual confusions and philosophical conundrums that arise when language goes on holiday (PI 38); to avoid ineptness or emptiness in our assertions (PI 131); and to clarify meaning, not by reforming language or presenting an absolute and complete system of prescriptive rules for its application (such as are put forth in Wittgensteins earlier Tractatus), but by exhorting us to attend more carefully to what is. For, according to Wittgenstein, everything is revealed in the grammar of an expression, and the criteria for understanding are available in the public institution of

language. Things are as they appear and need no further explication, if we look closely enough. Thus the aim of philosophy is primarily descriptive. Rather than pursuing essential definitions for ideas and ideals, or producing new knowledge or seeking answers to deep philosophical questions enterprises that are, to Wittgenstein, misguided, philosophy ought to inquire into those aspects of things that are most important for us [which] are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity (PI 129) an exercise that is not so much uncovering as it is illumination. As Wittgenstein says: Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it. For it cannot give it any foundation either. It leaves everything as it is. (PI 124) The notion that the proper aim of philosophical practice is description has been criticized for being conservative and pessimistic. Given the exalted view of philosophy as a discipline that provides insight into the nature of the universe, the meaning of life, the foundations of knowledge and belief, and other such profound concerns of the human condition, the role Wittgenstein assigns to philosophy seems a tad too humble. In a recent essay, for example, Michael Lynch asserts:

philosophy can and should aspire to be more than just a description of the ordinary. That is because sometimes the ordinary is mistaken. the philosopher must also take conceptual leaps. She must aim at revision as much as description, and sketch new metaphysical theories, replacing old explanations with new.

But Wittgensteins philosophy is not merely descriptive, does not seek to maintain the status quo. Indeed, change lies at the heart of it. Consider his view of language and forms of life as ever evolving, his idea that we can make up the rules of our language-games as we go along. Consider the great conceptual leaps he made between the Tractatus and the Investigations, his resistance to constitutive definitions and dogma. He may emphasize the importance of studying what is, but not at the expense of considering what could or ought to be. After all, it is only by examining established modes of thought and expression that we are able critically to interrogate themthe first step to opening up spaces for change. Consider the once-universal he of patriarchal discoursethe use of masculine pronouns by default to refer to humanity in general or a hypothetical third person in particularwhich was recognized, questioned, and eventually largely discarded for more gender-sensitive language with the rise of

feminism. Here we see how a change in forms of life, which includes cultural attitudes, leads to changes in the way language is used. Just as philosophical problems arise when language is like an engine idling (PI 132), real-world problems arise when we get lazy in the investigation and application of our intentions and concepts. Fogelin notes, The central point of the Tractatus is to place limits upon language to protect the ethical from babblingparticularly the babbling that takes place in sophisticated circles. Paul Engelmann captured the force of this position when he remarked that ethical propositions do not exist; ethical actions do exist (99). But as Wittgenstein says in the Investigations, Words are also deeds (PI 546). The ways in which we think and talk about what we think influence our actions, allow us to connect with our community, and shape the conditions we live in. Language bears upon our experience of the world, of other people, and of ourselves. The failure to scrutinize our mental habits, to be honest with our intentions, to be mindful of the words we choose to convey our meaning, and to take responsibility for our silences and utterances, plays a part in the degradation of our forms of life. Thus, our practice of language has moral implications.

One of the features of language as conceived in Investigations that makes it relevant to discussions of morality is its social aspect. Language is what facilitates intersubjectivity. Ones consciousness is

an opaque sphere. Only when one expresses his interiority by appealing to public criteria to constitute a concept of the self, describe inner states and processes, and convey thoughts, feelings, and other such private phenomena, does ones subjectivity become accessible and relatable to others. Take pain, for instance. Only I can have/feel my pain. But another can know that I am in pain if I externalize this private experience, by reporting it or otherwise expressing it through my behavior (which, like words, can be described by grammar). Say, I have dysmenorrhea. I hunch over my desk, my arms around my lower abdomen, my face in a grimace. I may not say anything, but another can tell that I am in pain, because these expressions fit into the public criteria of what being in pain looks like. Or, my dog dies, and though I am grieving, I act like there is nothing out of the ordinary and everything is going well. Then I tell a close friend, Bogarts dead. My delivery may be nonchalant, but the friend knows how much I loved the dog, and she is reminded of her own experience of sorrow over the passing of a person who mattered to her. She cannot have my pain, but she knows what it feels like, knows what commonly attends the concept of grief implied in the sentence Bogarts dead. So she hugs me and says, There, there. Thus the publicly available criteria of language, used to characterize private experience, makes empathy possible. Ones

subjective experience may not be fully communicated in its particularityfor, as Bill Ashcroft writes, Even in the most empathetic exchange the speaker and hearer are never really present to one another. The experience of one conversant can never become the experience of the other (298) because each interprets the others meaning through ones own subjectivity; ones habits of mind and past experiences influence ones understanding and limits what is revealed in language. Meaning-making is also circumscribed by the relationship between the players of a language-game and their knowledge of each others subjectivity, because intersubjectivity allows for divergences in shared or partially shared meaning, as in inside jokes only fully comprehensible between intimates. Nevertheless, this does not contradict the public nature of language and of meaning as social accomplishment. By using language to convey meaning by coding a message with linguistic and social context, understanding may be achieved.

One may ask, Given the social nature of language and a utilitarian conception of meaning, whats the use of expression when one expects no interpersonal engagement in the course of a languagegame? If, when one speaks (or writes, as the case may be), one does not seek to interact or participate in dialogue, is there sense in

verbalization? Does it not amount to writing words on sand when one is alone in a beach? Perhaps the underlying question here is, What drives mere selfexpression, and is there value in such an activity? One might answer that there is no sense in saying something if one does not intend to put it to some practical use, such as articulating ones opinions to influence anothers behavior. But Wittgenstein does not apply the use-theory of meaning to all utterances. Recognizing our complex use of language and the various modalities of expression, he says, If the feeling gives the word its meaning, then here meaning means point (PI 545). Words can be wrung from us,like a cry. Words can be hard to say (PI 546). If a feeling gives rise to expression just because it needs expressing, then the truth of the feeling gives the expression meaning. Self-expression as reflection and release is also a kind of language-game, and has value even if its only purpose is to make sense, to oneself, of ones inner experiences. In this way, Wittgenstein shows the impossibility of private language, because one still needs to appeal to public criteria, which in turn implies the existence of a community of language practitioners, to characterize and identify private states. As David Foster Wallace points out, this avoids the solipsistic consequences of mathematical logic as language-paradigm (109), which considers only discrete facts, as pictured by truth-functional schemata, independent of speakers and

listeners. He further states that it constitutes the most powerful philosophical attack on skeptic-/solipsisms basic coherence (109) and allays the deep disquietudesthe paralyzing anxiety of skepticism Descartes Cogito engendered.

It is interesting to consider solipsism and language in relation to the advent of technologies that give rise to new language-games. Modern modes of communication such as email and texting, which strip conversational language-games of some of the context clues that attend face-to-face interaction, present new challenges for representation and situating meaning. Of a different class is interaction with robots and other automata, and the question of the legitimacy of engaging in a language-game with a nonhuman technological entity programmed with artificial intelligence, such as the popular chatting robot SimSimi, and the possibility of making meaningof advancing meaningful linguistic movesin that context. If standards for making meaning are arrived at (constructed) through repeated, accepted use and cumulative performance, which eventually give rise to linguistic conventions, and if SimSimi can learn and employ linguistic techniques based on previous conversations with its millions of users the world over, then, with enough data and a sophisticated algorithm, could we be said to have a meaningful conversation with a personified computer code with no subjectivity of its own but processes data input

by other peoples subjectivities and adapts accordingly to practice language? The language-game with SimSimi starts out regularly enough. If I say, Im tired, SimSimi might reply, Aw, you should get some rest! But after a few more moves in the language-game, it begins to lose sense, i.e. SimSimi starts giving inappropriate responses in the context of the conversation. The use theory of meaning does not place too great an emphasis on the role of consciousness in accomplishing meaning, which occurs in the public sphere, using the publicly available tools of language. As Hallett puts it, Unimportant for the ability to understand, inner experiences are equally unimportant for the ability to use signs. On the sending as on the receiving end communication can go without them (67). But the rapid breakdown of sense in interactions with nonhuman, intelligent entities reminds us that language is a human activity; communication, a social enterprise, embedded in forms of life; and understanding achieved through cognition, previous experience, and practice situated in concrete instances of language use. Wittgenstein says, only of a living human being and what resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say: it has sensations; it sees; is blind; hears; is deaf; is conscious or unconscious (PI 281). Look at a stone and imagine it having sensations.One says to oneself: How could one so much as get the idea of ascribing a

sensation to a thing? One might as well ascribe it to a number!And now look at a wriggling fly and at once these difficulties vanish and pain seems able to get a foothold here (PI 284). SimSimi, by virtue of algorithm, may be able to parse sentences or process linguistic patterns. However, it cannot do the same for forms of life, because it is not a life form. If we ascribe sensation or speech to it, we do so only in a secondary sense, like personifying dolls (PI 282). The languagegames we engage in with it are more akin to the language-games we play when we are, essentially, talking to ourselves rather than talking to other people. For how do you delineate the concepts of self and other when the other exists in internalized forma projection, a wish, a fantasy? If meaning crosses no intersubjective space because it originates in one subjectivity, if it is accomplished at all? Such cases exemplify the complexity of language and its use, of the role of the mind in understanding, and the necessity not just of logical analysis, but social engagement.

The arbitrariness of signs makes us depend on conventional associations and the congruence of subjectivities to assign meaning. Thus, though language is in flux, there must also be a modicum of regularity in its practice for rules to serve a purpose. If rule became exception and exception rule; or if both became phenomena of roughly equal frequencythis would make our normal language-games lose

their point (PI 142). Take lying, for instance. Though Wittgenstein states that it is a language-game that needs to be learned like any other one (PI 249), being, unfortunately, a part of our forms of life, it cannot be universalized. Understanding depends on shared knowledge of realities and the correct apprehension of contextual clues and intention, and someone who lies flouts these standards, by withholding knowledge of reality, or misrepresenting it or his intentions, thus deliberately misdirecting grammatical investigation. I believe Kant thought honesty a categorical imperative because, if reason is what makes us human, then depriving another of the proper use of his reason by deceiving him is an affront to his humanity. But Wittgenstein shows that the commitment to truth is important, because to misuse language by deception would make our normal language-games lose their point. This would lead not only to conceptual chaos and the deterioration of language, but to the deterioration of human relations.

We name things so that we can talk about them. Grammar tells what kind of object anything is (PI 373)that is, how we use our words in concrete instances. Thus, grammar allows us to say something meaningful about the world, and is the basis for metaphysics. In investigating the ways in which we use words, we also examine the ways in which we construe the concepts we associate with them, and think about them. Because we ascribe value to

concepts and apply them in normative ways, we need to define our concepts by examining how we express them, in what circumstances, and to what ends. Take concepts such as good and bad, for instancewhat sort of deeds and events fall under such criteria? Is unchecked economic growth good because it represents increased profit, or bad because it represents widening inequality and the exploitation of natural resources and cheap labor for the benefit of the few? Grammatical investigation does not only clarify our concepts, but behooves us to be more responsible in applying themto say what we mean and mean what we say, as it were. For it is so easy to be bewitched by language, to rationalize our subjective interpretations of a word or a sentence to justify our use of them outside the language game that is their home, to conceal from others and, more dangerously, to conceal from ourselves our perversions of their meaning. George Orwell presents the case so strikingly in Politics and the English Language: Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are

imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such a use of words, which divests them of their usual contexts in order to mislead, is intellectually dishonest. It not only disrupts meaning-making by using intentionally vague language, but also evades the analysis of moral philosophy. It exemplifies a kind of linguistic bewitchment that may be rectified by grammatical investigation.

Another way in which the bewitchment of language may impede meaning-making is tied to that which makes meaning-making possible: convention, and its constituents of habit and imitation, which are functions of training in the use of language. Some expressions have survived through time and remain part of our language not because they are usefulthat is, convey meaning effectivelybut because they are repeated thoughtlessly. Clichs and buzzwords typify this. They are the equivalent of white noise in thought and discourse. Such expressions become more problematic if we allow that language and thought, and by extension, practice, exist in a dialectical relation with one anotherthat the way we talk about things influences the way we think about them, and vice-versa. Thus, the careless use of expressions betrays sloppy thinking, and as Gary Gutting says in

What Philosophers Know, effective action requires accurate thought.

Those who charge Wittgenstein with pessimism say that he abandoned the Big Questions of traditional philosophical pursuit, deeming them pointless and illusory, because he had grown tired of serious thinking and invented a doctrine which would make such an activity unnecessary (Russell qtd. in Horwich). On the contrary, grammatical investigation demands constant intellectual vigilance, for in every move in every language game lies the possibility of misunderstanding and the opportunity of demystification. And because the critical interrogation of language and the social conditions it reflects should not end in theorizing but in linguistic and even political activity, Wittgensteins later philosophy also entails social engagement, as well as the mindful practice of language.

Meaning (making it and making sense of it) is performative as much as it is retrospective. For one can make sense of something only in the context of what came before itprior moves in the language game, linguistic conventions, and the practices and traditions from which they came. It is a function of accumulated performances, of repeated and repeatedly accepted utterances. Thus meaninglike language, like cultures, like peopleis ever-evolving, alive, and subject

to change. Meaning is constructed in discourse, and discourse shaped by human agency, and it is in this possibility not only of meaningful expression, but of meaningful action, interaction, and intervention that the morality of Wittgensteins philosophy of language lies. Underlying all of this is the necessity of investigating established modes of thought and speech in the attempt to understand and to be understood. Anyone who uses language is caught up in this constant attempt to communicate, to learn in practice, and to bear upon the world. The more one is exposed to instances of the various ways in which expressions are used, the more one is exposed to human relations, activities, cultures, placesthe weave of life in which language is threadedthe more one refines ones sensitivities and notions of nuance, and the better one creates and conveys meaning. In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein wrote, Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent (7). With such a stark statement he summarily dismissed the infinite richness of human life and expression, and invalidated judgments of aesthetics or morality, which, arguably, represent the highest aspirations of humanity. Soon afterward, he gave up the practice of philosophy. But with Philosophical Investigations he turned around and reclaimed the value of the actual and the everyday, exhorting us to take off our blinders in the pursuit of the ideal and open our eyes to what, once

seen, is most striking and most powerful (PI 129) there, henceforth changing the way we practice and conceive of philosophy. It is not a matter of complicating things, but of clarifying them.

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1953. Print.