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Wittgenstein's Logic of Language

Motto: Every explanation I can give myself, I can give you too. And when I do this, I do not tell you less than I know myself.  (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations §§ 210, 208)

by Robert Wesley Angelo

"To seek to know and understand by the natural light of reason and experience alone" (Thales of Miletus). "Socrates held that if a man knew anything, he could explain what he knew to others" (Xenophon, Memorabilia iv, 6, 1). "And that which we know we must surely be able to tell?" (Plato, Laches 190c, tr. Jowett) "That I was a little better off, because I did not think I knew what I do not know" (Plato, Apology 21d).


A Synopsis of Wittgenstein's Logic of Language

Précis: The elements of Wittgenstein's later logic of language: a description of the definitions, metaphors and methods Wittgenstein used to make the distinction between language with meaning and language without meaning verifiable by selecting a rule-defined meaning of 'meaning' and the standard of what is in plain sight, revising the concept 'grammar' to include rules of sense and nonsense and identifying logic with those rules rather than with syntax.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Synopsis: an explanation of first principles, or what Wittgenstein was about in philosophy. The Synopsis itself is in thirteen chapters, divided across three Web pages.

Page One:

  1. Wittgenstein's use of the words 'logic' and 'grammar'(Concept revision, and why logic = grammar = meaning = use in the language)
  2. The False grammatical account ("Words are names and the meaning of a name is the thing the name stands for")
  3. The Distinction between a sign and the meaning of a sign(Why logic of language uses quotation marks)
  4. Wittgenstein's selected meaning of 'meaning' (Comparison of words to tools. Comparison of using words to playing a game by following rules)
  5. Kinds of definition (Verbal versus real, ostensive, and play-acted)
  6. 'Grammatical remarks' ("Grammatical reminders")

Page Two:

  1. The Rules of the game (Defining common names. The concept 'games' and "family likenesses")
  2. Kinds of rules of grammar (Reported, Invented, Assigned)
  3. Concepts have indefinite borders(Generally, we do not use language according to well-defined rules)
  4. Meaning as a usage, custom or institution (Patterns of behavior)

Page Three:

  1. 'Nonsense'. And contradiction (Are contradictions either false or undefined combinations of words ("nonsense")?)
  2. 'Language games' (Wittgenstein's jargon defined by a general definition and examples)
  3. Meaning is not a matter of form, but of use in the language.

[Table of contents for the Appendixes, which are further writings in logic of language and philosophy]


Words are only spoken sounds or written marks and as such are without meaning. Therefore what gives words meaning? In other words, how is language with meaning (sense) distinguished from language without meaning (nonsense) in philosophy? That distinction is "the logic of language". And it is the first question in philosophy.

Introduction

As general definitions in Wittgenstein's context, logic DEF.= the study of rules, and grammar DEF.= the study of the rules of language. But any description of the public conventions (rules) for the use of words in the language, including the rules of sense and nonsense, is "grammar" in Wittgenstein's revision of that concept. The Synopsis describes the elements of Wittgenstein's grammar.

Logic and Philosophy

Although Wittgenstein's logic of language is thoroughgoingly rational ("discourse of reason"), different conclusions may be drawn from it, and it may be used in various ways. For me Wittgenstein's logic is only a tool for making language meaning clear (verifiable); I draw no philosophical conclusions from it. But from his logic of language Wittgenstein draws the conclusion (if this isn't really a presumption) that metaphysical speculation is mere conceptual confusion (or "grammatical jokes"), that the riddle of existence (TLP 6.5) is a grammatical illusion rather than the nature of our life.

Note that the limits of Wittgenstein's philosophy are not the same as the limits of traditional philosophy, because Wittgenstein's philosophy excludes not only metaphysics (because it is nonsense) but also ethics, because in Wittgenstein's view ethics has a non-rational subject (namely "absolute value").

But Wittgenstein's view of ethics (Plato's "no small matter, but how to live") is not the only one possible, and there is a proposition type, namely ethical proposition, quite different from the proposition types of metaphysics and logic -- but at the same time not about non-rational "value" or "conscience".


Outline of the Introduction


The Two Parts of Wittgenstein's Work

My work consists of two parts: the one presented here plus all that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the important one. (Wittgenstein, Letter to Ludwig Ficker of circa September-October 1919)

When he nevertheless takes immense pains to [mark the limits of] the unimportant [the first part or "what can be put into words"], it is not the coastline of that island [i.e. the first part] which he is bent on surveying with such meticulous accuracy, but [instead] the boundary of the ocean [the second part, the important part, "the mystical", "what cannot be put into words"]. (Engelmann, Memoir, tr. Furtmüller, McGuinness, p. 97; cf. Drury's The Danger of Words p. xiv)

That may never have changed and the Philosophical Investigations also consist of two parts, one written, one silent ("It is impossible for me to say one word in my book about all that music has meant in my life").

For "the second part", the silent part, I rely on Wittgenstein's friend Paul Engelmann and student, later friend M. O'C. Drury who have given an overview (description) of the second part, the question of life's meaning (which, contrary to TLP 6.5, Wittgenstein later recognized is problematical) and of God and ethics ("value").

The second part is alluded to by remarks like "What men mean when they say, The world is there, lies close to my heart" (LE/Notes p. 16) and "It is there -- like our life" (OC § 559).

And it is shown by the way Wittgenstein lived, by his religious view of life, by the very singular manner of man (as Bertrand Russell said) Wittgenstein was. Ludwig Wittgenstein (b. Austria 1889, d. Britain 1951)

The Synopsis I have written is only about the first part of Wittgenstein's work, the logic of language. It says nothing about Wittgenstein's second part, the part he called "the inexpressible" and "the mystical" in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 6.522 (tr. Ogden), the important part according to Wittgenstein, although the eternal questions, which Wittgenstein had said are not questions at all (TLP 6.5), would belong to that part.

Logic of Language and Philosophy

I don't, however, see that anyone must share Wittgenstein's view of philosophy in order to use his logic of language in the service of the Socratic standard for clarity and knowing what is true in philosophy, nor agree that the limits of what can be said either in ethics or about "the sense of the world" (TLP 6.41) are where Wittgenstein said they are. I myself don't, but on the contrary I share Socrates' view that one must be cured by philosophy, not Wittgenstein's view that one must be cured of it. Indeed I would say this, that you must first use Wittgenstein's logic of language as an antidote to philosophy, and then use philosophy as an antidote to Wittgenstein's view of philosophy.

'Logic of language' (Definition)

By a logic of language I mean DEF.= a way of distinguishing between sense and nonsense, that is, between language with meaning and language without meaning, when discussing philosophical problems.

Wittgenstein's way makes the distinction objective (public and therefore verifiable) by broadening our concept 'grammar' to mean "any description of the use of language", and often by narrowing the meaning of 'logic' (generally 'the art of reasoning') to 'the study of rules'.

Wittgenstein compared using words to moving pieces on a game board (Wittgenstein's simile was "language game") -- both acts are done by following rules. The rules of a game define the game -- and it is the following or not following of the rules that distinguishes sense from nonsense.

What must anyone be doing if he is not talking nonsense -- following rules? But if the rules of a particular language game are not strict, does that mean that rules don't define that game? If 'meaning' is rule-defined, then in the absence of rules how is sense to be distinguished from nonsense? (Not all "language games" are primitive language games, i.e. not every use of language is a game, especially not in philosophy, where concepts with indefinite borders and vagueness are both the subject and the tools we work with. In philosophy using language is like playing a game only in a very limited way.)

The expression 'logic of language' as defined here may be my jargon, but the expression itself comes from the TLP's Preface: "the logic of our language is misunderstood" (see also 4.003a, PI § 93b (cf. § 345), and OC § 599b). How to put right this misunderstanding is, in my view, Wittgenstein's master question in philosophy. (The words 'objective' and 'verifiable' are not necessary if a subjective distinction is the same as no distinction (cf. PI § 258). But those words can be used for emphasis.)

Wittgenstein's view of philosophical problems

Wittgenstein's logic of language is a study of the rules of language, but of which rules? Wittgenstein found that the meaning of language is not a function of the form of language (for if it were, the rules of syntax couldn't produce nonsense, but they can and do) but of the ways the signs of language (spoken sounds, ink marks) are used to do some work, regardless of their form (syntax).

In philosophy, Wittgenstein thought, language does no work: philosophy's problems are no more than idle combinations of words (syntax). Philosophy's task is to show this: philosophical investigations clarify language meaning rather than solve philosophical problems.

The Fundamental Mistake

The fundamental mistake philosophers make is to suppose that philosophy's first question is "Is it true?" rather than "What is its meaning?" Any proposition must have at least three possible values: It may be true or false -- or it may be nonsense (i.e. an undefined combination of words). And if it is not nonsense, a proposition may be a statement of fact or a rule of grammar (i.e. an explanation of the use of language). Which is the proposition 'There are physical objects'? Is it obviously true or grammar or nonsense?

Note.--Wittgenstein's logic of language is a collection of tools (concepts) and methods for working in philosophy itself. It is not Philosophy of Language, i.e. language is not looked at for its own sake, but only for the sake of the philosophical problems in which language is involved (PI § 109). Nor is the Philosophical Investigations a theory about "what the meaning of language really is"; rather, there are many meanings of 'meaning', from which Wittgenstein chose the one he thought most useful for his work in philosophy.

Asking about the meaning of language while setting aside the question of the truth and falsity was Wittgenstein's later method in philosophy. (CV (1998 rev. ed.) [MS 105 46 c: 1929]; cf. Plato, Republic 339a)

Conceptual versus Factual Investigations

The essential thing about metaphysics: it makes no distinction between definitions of words and hypotheses about things. (Z § 458, PI § 383)

When we philosophize, Wittgenstein thought, the distinction between factual and conceptual investigations is not clear to us, but that philosophical problems are always conceptual problems (i.e. problems about the meaning of language) rather than factual problems (i.e. problems about the nature of things) (RPP i § 949), problems that result from being mystified by the strange constructions that syntax allows and by the pictures that language suggests to us (PI § 109).

And because it is our misunderstood concepts that create philosophical problems rather than our ignorance of seemingly vague or cloudy phenomena that appear to be independent of our concepts, the only task for philosophy, in Wittgenstein's view, is to clarify our concepts.

The fundamental mistake of metaphysics is its presumption that abstract terms are the names of "abstract objects".

"All fact is already conceived fact"

Concepts (in many cases 'concept' DEF.= 'rules for the use of a word', but sometimes by 'concept' we mean a picture or plan, a model of how something works, an idea) rather than phenomena are the subject of philosophy because concepts set the limits of phenomena, not "phenomena" the limits of concepts. If we replace 'theory' with 'concept' in Goethe's statement that "All fact is already theory", that is the idea: that there are no facts independent of concepts: all fact is already conceived-fact (cf. "conceived-percept").

The question "Why investigate the use of words rather than the phenomena they name?" reverses the order of the relationship between concepts and phenomena -- the concept says what the phenomenon is (e.g. 'love', 'time'), not vice versa. Kant's statement "percepts without concepts are blind" means that we cannot explain concept-formation by "the percept in itself", i.e. the phenomenon independent of our concept of it, for how would we put that into words? (Even Russell's proposition 'The grass is green' requires the concepts 'grass' and 'green' and 'proposition'.)

For Wittgenstein, philosophy seeks to understand concepts, and towards that end it describes the public facts about our use of language (PI § 125) (the public facts are a community's "conceived facts"), as well as questioning what it would be like if various general facts of nature were otherwise than they are (ibid. II, xii, p. 230). But although the relationship between public facts and some concepts seems obvious (OC § 617), philosophy cannot explain the relationship between "absolute reality" or "reality in itself" (of which there is no such thing) and concept-formation, which is the self-delusional project of metaphysics, in Wittgenstein's view.

Philosophical investigations = conceptual investigations. (Z § 458)

Philosophy clarifies the use of words (the limits of concepts), not the nature of things. The difficulty in philosophy is to distinguish metaphysics from logic.

Wittgenstein's distinction between grammatical (conceptual) and non-grammatical (factual) investigations is dependant on a way of looking at language meaning, i.e. on a particular, selected definition of 'meaning', which is what Wittgenstein's logic of language is.

Note that although all investigations of grammar are conceptual investigations, not all conceptual investigations are investigations of grammar. All philosophy is not grammar.

"Defining words, not things"

Contrary to what Wittgenstein says, it is not always in philosophy but only in logic (or logic-philosophy) that we define words not things, because, after all, the metaphysician does want to define things. Sometimes that has meaning; sometimes it is nonsense -- nonsense because concepts define things, not vice versa (at most the metaphysician may revise a concept [reconceptualize], but that does not mean discover the truth).

Metaphysics does not understand this relationship, and so instead of trying to clarify a concept by describing the use of a word in the language -- it seeks to discover the nature of the thing or class of things the word is presumed to name. Metaphysics assumes that: Words are names of things and The true meaning of a word is the true nature of the thing it names.

Thus Plato asks, "What is justice?" "What is knowledge?" "What is beauty?" as if the answers to those questions were clouds drifting about quite independently of our concepts, waiting for the philosopher to capture them in his net, like butterflies.

To say that in philosophy we define words not things is either to describe a project in philosophy or to put forth a metaphysical thesis (a statement about what the nature of philosophy really is). Wittgenstein seems to have done both.

"The essence of metaphysics"
... and the eternal questions

Are there counter-examples to Wittgenstein's claim that metaphysics is nothing more than conceptual confusion (PI §§ 111, 309)? E.g. someone who asks whether the essence of man is mind and body or mind alone (as Plato and Aristotle ask, for it is no small matter whether man lives his life directed towards this world or towards an afterlife), or someone who asks how man should live his life, does not seem to be confused about the grammar of the word 'man' (Does "essence belongs to grammar" (ibid. § 371) here?), as if he were "bewitched by language" (ibid. § 109), e.g. by misleading grammatical analogies or language-conjured pictures (ibid. §§ 90, 115), but instead he seems puzzled by the phenomenon of man. "Were it a thing obvious and easy to know thyself the precept might not have passed for an oracle" (Plutarch; cf. Plato, Phaedrus 230a). Is it because "the logic of our language is misunderstood" that Socrates asks what the specific excellence proper and unique to man is (e.g. is it "discourse of reason" or "rational moral virtue")? or that philosophers ask if man is able even in principle to perceive all that exists? or if there is an afterlife? The answers to such questions may seem unknowable -- but that does not make them mere conceptual confusion, nor does it make them not philosophy (as they were philosophy "with all philosophers before" Wittgenstein).

Plato's theory of learning (recollection) is not nonsense language, nor is his myth of the cave (Republic 515c). Metaphysical speculation is not knowledge, but it is not necessarily nonsense either. Is belief in the possibility of an afterlife superstition (Does the word 'soul' belong to a superstitious world-picture only)?

Indeed, Wittgenstein's own statement -- at first an insight but then a philosophical thesis -- about the essence of metaphysics is itself a counter-example. Because Wittgenstein's remark does not belong to grammar -- it does not state rules for using the word 'metaphysics' -- but is instead a remark about the phenomenon of metaphysical thinking. And yet Wittgenstein's remark does not seem to be nonsense, a mere undefined combination of words.

What is the meaning of a word? If the meaning of a word is the thing the word names (PI § 43b), then we can speculate about what the true nature of that thing is, and thus metaphysics is possible. If however the meaning of a word is a mere description of the conventions for the word's use in the language (ibid. § 43a), then metaphysics is not possible.

Although, even if metaphysics is impossible in some cases, may it not be possible in others? This is determined by the particular case, not by a general thesis (BB p. 18). Philosophy is done in the trenches, not on the heights.

The Fallacy of SOME, therefore ALL

... and its negative doctrines unfounded. (Russell)

Two notes.--First, the quality Wittgenstein identifies cannot be the entire essence of metaphysics because, if metaphysics is conceptual muddle, it is not conceptual muddle about just anything, but only about philosophical things. Second, since "in all instances" does not follow from "in some instances", Wittgenstein has to be saying what the defining common nature of metaphysics is, if his claim is to have an "all" level of generality, because otherwise Wittgenstein would commit "The Fallacy of SOME, therefore ALL". That fallacy is the danger to our philosophy of "thinking with only one kind of example" (PI § 593).

One should thus always ask when exaggerated dogmatic claims are made: What is actually true in this? Or again: In what case is that actually true? (CV p. 14, remark from 1931)

But there are remedies to Wittgenstein's over-reaching claim about metaphysical-philosophy (namely counter-examples and counter points of view) -- just as there are the remedies Wittgenstein prescribed for some kinds of conceptual blunders in metaphysics (e.g. spotting false analogies suggested by syntax and the misleading definition of 'noun').

Then is there another way, a different logic?

A philosopher says: Look at things this way! (CV p. 61, remark from 1947)

Wittgenstein's logic is a logic of language, one selected meaning of 'meaning' and 'nonsense', not the logic of language. "Look at language-meaning this way", which is what the philosopher says, presumes that there may be other ways of seeing philosophical problems, alternative logics of language, each "like a pair of glasses on our nose through which we see whatever we look at" (PI § 103).

How much I'm doing is changing the way of thinking and how much I'm doing is persuading people to change their way of thinking. (LC iii, 40, p. 28)

But it would be no easy thing to invent an alternative logic of language to Wittgenstein's. Of course we can always invent a use for an undefined combination of words, e.g. for nonsense such as 'What is the location of the mind?' (BB p. 6-7), that makes it not nonsense, but that is not to invent a new or alternative logic of language.

Logic is objective (verifiable)

Note well that the question is: Is there another objective way to distinguish sense from nonsense? For example, W.E. Johnson's definition of 'meaning', namely "If I say that a sentence has meaning for me, no one has the right to say it is meaningless", is not a logic of language, because by Johnson's definition language can only seem (or seem not) to have meaning to some individual (cf. PI §§ 293, 258). Johnson's definition of 'meaning' is not a public and thereby objective standard, unlike Wittgenstein's public rules based definition. (Socrates' definition of 'meaning' sets an objective standard, but it renders most words undefinable = without meaning, and the barrenness of that logic of language as revised by Plato was criticized by Wittgenstein.)

Wittgenstein's comparisons, similes, metaphors

Wittgenstein purposely wrote in the down to earth language of everyday life and with lots of examples. His logic is not difficult to understand (or at least the difficulty is not in the obscurity of its language) -- once the nature of its principles is understood.

When Wittgenstein said: Compare using language to playing a game according to rules, he was not saying that language really is a game. His principle of investigation was comparative, not speculative about the absolute nature of things -- i.e. what Wittgenstein invented was a comparison, a comparison, not an identification.

What I invent are new similes. (CV p. 19, remark from 1931)

A 'simile' is a comparison using 'like' or 'as'. It says that A is like B in such-and-such a way or ways, not in all ways: A is not identical to B. (Simile is a subclass of metaphor, and vague metaphors are a principal barrier to clarity and understanding. Comparisons need to be spelled out (made explicit).)

Games with Strict Rules as a Model

In philosophy we often compare the use of words with games ... that have fixed rules, but cannot say that someone who is using language must be playing such a game. (PI § 81)

In general we don't use language according to strict rules -- it hasn't been taught to us by means of strict rules either. (BB p. 25)

Wittgenstein's "primitive language games", which are games played according to strict rules, may in this way be misleading, because although what defines a game for logic is its rules, it may also be an absence of rules that defines -- and makes ill-defined -- a particular language game.

A game with strict rules is used as an object of comparison. Actual language is compared to that object (as to a model or standard) -- in order to note similarities and dissimilarities to the object, not to presume that language conforms or must (as in Plato) conform to that object (Logic is not metaphysics) (PI §§ 130-1).

We must have a clear view of what the ideal is, namely an object of comparison -- an object to measure against like a yardstick (or measuring rod) -- instead of making it a prejudice which everything has to conform to. (CV p. 14, remark from 1931; cf. p. 26: "a good unit of measurement", from 1937)

Wittgenstein's yardstick -- i.e. his logic of language -- is not Procrustean. And this reflects the grammar of our language, which is for the most part Protean. In other words, although concepts with well-defined (definite) borders (i.e. words with essential definitions) are often seen as a model, most concepts have indefinite borders (i.e. most words do not have essential definitions).

There are many meanings of 'meaning'

When Wittgenstein wrote: The meaning of a word is its use in the language (PG i § 23, p. 60; cf. PI § 43: "for a large class of cases -- though not for all"), he was not stating what language meaning "really" is, nor was he simply reporting how we normally use the word 'meaning', but he was defining the word 'meaning' in the sense of limiting its meaning. There are many meanings of the word 'meaning'; Wittgenstein chose one (for his work in philosophy).

The nature of this principle is made clearer when it is stated in the form: Ask for the use (in the language) rather than the "meaning".

On the other hand, Wittgenstein does not only select one meaning of 'meaning', but also shows that other meanings cannot be the meaning of language -- if language meaning is objective, verifiable, knowable. And non-objective meaning, as e.g. W.E. Johnson's subjective meaning, is no more serviceable than "subjective knowledge" (OC § 555) would be.

The standard Wittgenstein set for meaning is like the standard Socrates set for knowing in philosophy: to know is to be able to explain (put into words) and defend one's claim to know when questioned by others. For Johnson might have said, "If I say I know something, no one has the right to say I don't know it." If language meaning and claims to know were not verifiable, there could be no philosophy because reason would have nothing to anchor itself to.

The metaphor of use in the language in contrast to the picture suggested by the word 'meaning'

The reason for the precept "Ask for the use rather than the meaning' is that the expression 'meaning of a word' suggests an object of some kind, whether perceptible or abstract (ghostly). The picture: Words are names, and the meaning of a name is the thing the name stands for, where 'thing' may mean any thing (object, phenomenon, idea). In contrast, the expression 'use of a word in the language' suggests a tool that we use to do some work in our life.

Look at the sentence as an instrument, its meaning as its employment. (PI § 421)

The word 'use' makes a word (or sentence) active, 'meaning' passive. If a word is a tool, it is used by us to do various kinds of work, and it has no life apart from that work. In contrast, if the meaning of a word is an independently existing thing it names -- a constant regardless of context (ibid. § 117) -- then language is in control of us, not we in control of language.

Most words do not have essential definitions

The more fundamental trouble with the presumption (preconception) that the meaning of a word is the essence of the thing or class of things it names is that most words do not have essential meanings (i.e. some one defining thing in common), but can only have their meaning explained by examples. In other words, the preconception is a false conception.

Comparative versus Factual Principles
(The logic of comparison)

Wittgenstein's principles are methods ("Ask for the use of a word as if you were asking for the use of a tool" and "Compare using language to playing a game by following rules") or comparisons ("The rules for using language are like the rules for playing a game: when the rules are followed the language has sense"). Some principles, e.g. the Archimedean principle that water cannot be compressed, aim to state facts about the world. Wittgenstein's principles do not.

What I invent are new similes. (CV p. 19)

New comparisons, definitions, and methods of understanding. Not new doctrines, hypotheses or theories about reality. After he returned to Cambridge in 1929, the aim of Wittgenstein's philosophy was clarity for its own sake. He said of this way of philosophizing --

This method consists essentially in leaving aside the question of truth and asking about sense instead. (CV (1998 rev. ed.) [MS 105 46 c: 1929])

"Philosophy before Wittgenstein" (Russell)

As Wittgenstein saw it, philosophy's aim essentially is to clarify language meaning in philosophical muddles (PI § 109; TLP 4.112, 4.111). Contrast that with Bertrand Russell's statement: "as with all philosophers before [Wittgenstein in his later work], my fundamental aim has been to understand the world as well as may be" (My Philosophical Development (1959), p. 217), which according to the Stoics would seek to answer three questions: What is real (in contrast to ephemeral or illusion). How to reason (logic). How to live our life (ethics). After the TLP Wittgenstein limits philosophy to logic (which amounts to the distinction between sense and nonsense), and his exclusion of ethics and metaphysics, makes philosophy far less than what the earliest philosophers had made it to be, which was indeed "an understanding as well as may be" of what reality is and of how to live our life.

Russell wrote about Wittgenstein's later philosophy that "its positive doctrines seem to me trivial and its negative doctrines unfounded" (My Philosophical Development p. 216). Although I agree that its "negative doctrines", if universalized, are unfounded (its project to silence metaphysics unjustified), I disagree that its "positive doctrines" are trivial. The Synopsis is an account of those "doctrines", and they are not trivial if they can indeed be used to make a verifiable distinction between language with meaning and nonsense. And although I do think that one should be cured of Wittgenstein's "negative doctrines", I also think that his "positive doctrines" are serviceable for being at least partly cured of the vagueness and confusion that surrounds us in philosophy and in life.

Note.--It is a mistake to speak of Wittgenstein's logic of language in the context of the Tractatus, because the Tractatus claims to be the logic of language, not a logic of language -- not a selected meaning of 'meaning', but the meaning of 'meaning'. It is thoroughly metaphysical.

If the TLP were indeed the logic of language, then logic would indeed be "the study of everything subject to law" [6.3] in the sense of laws of nature in contrast to conventions.

The word 'convention' is synonymous with the word 'rule', and thus in Wittgenstein's later work, by 'logic' is meant the study of rules, not of natural laws. (A method of study is also a set of rules.)

The Elements of Wittgenstein's later Logic

All the elements of Wittgenstein's concept 'grammar' described in the Synopsis appear in Wittgenstein's writings, lectures or conversations. But they are nowhere gathered together in one place and presented solely as a logic of language. They are the tools that Wittgenstein assumed the readers of his works to be already familiar with -- although Wittgenstein, if he did not invent them all, so revised (redefined) them that they could only be gotten from him.

Warnings (about my work and about philosophy itself)

Wittgenstein was a philosopher, which means not only that he was extraordinarily intelligent (clever) but also -- and far more importantly -- that he was gifted with focus and a new way of looking at things. But I am not. And so to all I have written must be added "if I have understood and seen deep enough" (CV p. 48, 62). There is a saying that "a man can't jump higher than his own forehead". I am not very tall in philosophy.

Philosophy is cross-questioning

Work in philosophy is Socratic dialog: the cross-questioning of theses, whether by holding discourse with oneself alone or with one's companions. And that is to say that its results are the results of the day: new objections (cross-questions) and new theses to test may occur to us in the following days. Philosophy is then revision, philosophizing revising (refining).

About one of his earlier views, Wittgenstein told Drury, "That is just the sort of stupid remark I would have made in those days" (Recollections p. 98). I have over the years made a lot of stupid remarks on this site, and I have often been wrong in my understanding of how to apply Wittgenstein's logic to particular philosophical problems.

Clarity in philosophy

Nothing in philosophy stays clear for very long, only for so long as we see no problem with it.

But in that case we never get to the end of our work! -- Of course not, for it has no end. (cf. Z § 447)

Wisdom is the ever-elusive Proteus, philosophy the illusion of catching him (cf. Plato, Euthydemus 291b-c) or the field where Pinocchio was told to bury his money.

In his last notes written in the last months of his life, Wittgenstein wrote:

Is my understanding only blindness to my lack of understanding? It often seems so to me. (OC § 418)

But see, I write one thing, then another just the opposite. And which shall stand? (Wittgenstein, in January 1951)

"A bag of rusty nails"

It sometimes happens that a philosophical question is not asked, or no longer asked, because it disappears when looked at from a new point of view. That is what a philosopher creates: a new way of looking at things. That is what Wittgenstein did when he revised the concept 'grammar', chose a verifiable meaning of 'meaning', and identified logic with grammar. From Wittgenstein's point of view many metaphysical questions (e.g. about "time" and "force" and "the mind") are not questions but only misconceptions (misunderstandings of concepts or the use of words in the language).

An example of a change in way of thinking or looking at things, is the replacement of the rational ethics of Socrates with Wittgenstein's "absolute value" (and Kant's "end in itself"), or vice versa.

A change in point of view (or frame of reference) may have the result that --

These thoughts which seem so important to you now, will one day seem like a bag of old, rusty nails, no use for anything at all. (Recollections p. 118)

Not scholarship or historiography

Through the years Wittgenstein developed his fundamental ideas. The Synopsis is only about his last revisions. It is not a work of historiography or scholarship; there is no "review of the literature" (Aristotle, Metaphysics 980a21-993a).

Logic-philosophy

Towards the end Wittgenstein tended to use the word 'logic' rather than the word 'grammar' and at times to refer to his own work as 'logic' rather than 'philosophy' (OC §§ 56, 82, 628, 68; Z § 590). However, he always saw his work as being "the philosophy of logic" (PG i § 77, p. 121) -- i.e. as looking at philosophical questions from the point of view of the logic of language ("It is possible to be interested in a phenomenon in a variety of ways" (PI § 108) or points of view). To Drury: "My fundamental ideas came to me very early in life" (DW p. ix); e.g. TLP 4.112, 5.4732-5.4733, 6.211.

Wittgenstein titled his book "Logical-philosophical Treatise" because logic was the foundation of his way of thinking. Not all philosophers have founded their philosophy on logical form (as the TLP had) or on a rule-defined distinction between sense and nonsense (as Wittgenstein later had).

When Wittgenstein uses the word 'logic' to mean "grammar" ('grammar' in his jargon -- although note that Wittgenstein's identification of logic with "grammar" is not jargon), is he using the word 'logic' the way Socrates did? Wittgenstein's use is similar, or to use his metaphor, it is an heir (BB p. 28) to Socrates' use of the Greek word logos. Wittgenstein did not choose either the word 'grammar' or the word 'logic' arbitrarily. He revised those concepts; he did not invent them.

Wittgenstein's logic of language is for me, as I see philosophy, one of the three foundations of philosophy, if there really are more than two (namely, criteria for meaning and for knowledge).

Writing about philosophy - in order to give an account of what you think you know

Wittgenstein, somewhat like the historical Socrates, asks for an account of what you know -- "If a man knows anything, he can give an account (explanation) of what he knows to others", an account to be tested for unclarity or contradiction in cross-questioning (Xenophon, Memorabilia iv, 6, 1; cf. this site's motto). An "explanation of meaning" or "grammatical account" (in Wittgenstein's jargon (PP ii, p. 276)) -- is an account of what you think you know (PI §§ 69, 75).

A grammatical account should be a description of "what anyone knows and must admit" (Z § 211; PI § 599) because it has been put into words "open to the public" and therefore verifiable.

The Socratic standard may not be beyond criticism (PI § 78), but it is an essential part of how I see philosophy and also of how I (as well as M. O'C. Drury) look at Wittgenstein's work in philosophy ("to say no more than you know"). What cannot be put into words is not the subject of philosophy, which is discourse of reason, although if someone says that something cannot put into words, that has to be questioned in the light of the logic of language.

In the Phaedrus Plato says that the only reason to write anything down is to provide yourself with refreshment both for your memory and for your old age (276c-d). But there is also this:

It is only the attempt to write down your ideas that enables them to develop. (Recollections p. 109)

You have to find your own way to what you want from philosophy. No one can do this for you. But maybe what others have written can be useful to you in this way:

In my attempt to understand the thought of others my own thought became clearer. (A. Schweitzer, Out of My Life and Thought, tr. Lemke, xiv)

Philosophically stupid

"Every way of thinking is all right as long as it isn't stupid," Wittgenstein wrote to Sraffa in 1935. Of course we sometimes think stupid things (Dummheiten), but sometimes mustn't be always. In philosophy the word 'stupid' would mean thoughtless or presumptuous -- i.e. thinking oneself wise when one is not, thinking one knows what one does not know (Plato, Apology 29a; cf. OC § 549) -- not thought through or unquestioning (Apology 37e-38a) or based on weak reasons (LC i, p. 59).

Thinking that one knows a thing when one does not know it. Through this, I believe, all the mistakes of the mind are caused in all of us. And furthermore to this kind of ignorance alone the name of stupidity is given. (Plato, Sophist 229c, tr. Fowler)

A way of thinking is not stupid simply because from some other point of view it may be a mistaken way, e.g. that "a word is a name and its meaning is the thing it names (stands for)" (Augustine's picture; cf. "nominalism"), or that "the meaning of a common name is the common nature it names" (Plato's way of thinking), or that "the meaning of our psychological words (such as 'hope', 'fear') is to be discovered by introspection" -- those ways of thinking are not stupid, although they are mistaken from Wittgenstein's point of view where 'meaning' is defined as 'rules of grammar'.


THE SYNOPSIS

1. Wittgenstein's Use of the Words 'Logic' and 'Grammar', being the first chapter of A Synopsis of The Elements of Wittgenstein's Logic of Language [See Table of Contents above]


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The Introduction above and the Synopsis itself are the present stage of my own understanding of Wittgenstein's work in philosophy. (Summer-Fall 2024)

As to the rest, over the years uneven revising has made a patchwork of contrary ideas. Revising -- i.e. replacing old stupid remarks (often because they are first blush) with remarks that at present don't seem stupid -- is rethinking. And the thoughtful tortoise can never catch the first blush Achilles.

APPENDIXES

These pages are written from the point of view of Wittgenstein's logic of language, and they may not be understood without first understanding that logic.

Regardless of their specific topics, the background of these pages is Wittgenstein's revision of the concepts 'grammar' and 'logic'. That revision and the standard set by the historical Socrates have been my points of reference.

A.  Remarks about Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Introduction and comments, with explanations of the meaning of the book's title "Logical-philosophical Treatise", and the TLP's eccentric definition of the word 'nonsense', or when nonsense is not nonsense (because language that conveys meaning is, after all, not nonsense).

B.  The Place of Examples in logic of language. Examples are the only way, not an inferior way, to explain the meaning of words that do not have essential meaning, which most words of natural language have not. Not theories of meaning but examples are the true masters to follow in logic.

C.  Statements-of-Fact: the grammar (logic) of sentences of the form statement-of-fact (proposition), many of which are not statements of fact. The history of the word 'logic' (the Greek maid-of-all-work word logos).

D.  The Philosophy of Psychology: The language of moods, dispositions and sensations ("feeling"), and The language of mind (Parallel vocabularies: psychological and physiological).

E.  Fable of The Born-Blind-People: the word 'know' as a tool in a community's life. With postscripts about H.G. Wells' The Country of the Blind, and George Orwell's 1984 (using language to control what can and cannot be thought).

F.  Questions without Answers. About "the riddle" which Wittgenstein said does not exist. "Why is there anything rather than nothing? Is all of reality perceptible? Are good and evil real? Is there an afterlife? Am I dreaming?"

For Wittgenstein what is most important about our life cannot be put into words, and therefore it cannot be the subject of philosophy. The contrary view is that not only can it be put into words, but that it is the most important part of philosophy.

G.  The Philosophy of Mathematics: What are numbers? The philosophy of geometry: What are geometric points? The views of philosophers of mathematics do not affect the calculi of mathematics.

H.  First Principles. Etienne Gilson and Thomas Aquinas: are there "naturally known, necessary truths" without which thought is impossible, e.g. "The whole is greater than the part"?

i.  Questions about M. O'C. Drury's essay "Concerning Mind and Body" (the word 'consciousness'). Pictures of the mind: pictures that mislead rather than show the use of the word 'mind' in the language.

J.  The Philosophy of Time. Not all nouns are names of things, and 'time' -- like 'point' in geometry and 'mind' in psychology -- is an example of that. The use in the language of the word 'time' as opposed to speculation about the nature of the thing the word 'time' is imagined to name. Grammar versus fanciful pictures.

K.  The Philosophy of Science: (1) M. O'C. Drury, (2) Arthur Eddington, and (3) James Jeans.

L.  Comparison of the Projects in Philosophy of Isaac Newton and Ludwig Wittgenstein. (Wittgenstein's theories about the origins of philosophy.)

M.  Historical asides:

N.  Socrates, Plato, Xenophon

O.  Notes about John Maynard Keynes' Biographical Essays:

P.  The Philosophy of Religion:

Q.  Quotations from Memory: Philosophical remarks and sayings, mostly paraphrased, and with overlong comments.


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"The difficulty in philosophy is to say no more than you know" (BB p. 45). Something not easily done. And because Socrates does not think he knows what he does not know, Apollo's oracle says that no man is wiser than Socrates (Plato, Apology 29a, 23a-b). "He only errs who thinks he knows what he does not know" (Saint Augustine). It is difficult not to err. "And were it a thing obvious and easy the precept might not have passed for an oracle" (Plutarch).