roangelo.net

Home - Wittgenstein's Logic of Language | Bibliography

The Limits of Language

The importance of the normal case when trying to figure out the meaning of philosophically perplexing language.

These are brief logic of language (How is nonsense distinguished from language with meaning in the context of philosophical problems?) and historical studies.

Topics on this page ...

• Importance of the normal case in the logic of language to philosophy
  • Various types of normal case
• The Limits of Language (Die Grenzen meiner Sprache)
  • The Concepts of Infancy
• "Over-reaching" and "under-reaching" (not knowing oneself)
• Is there a relation between "the meaning of life" and Ethics? (First blush, very rough remarks apropos of Schweitzer's account of Nietzsche)
• Induction and adduction
• If you are held captive by an inapplicable picture of how language works, you will find no way out of your philosophical perplexity (Pictures bar the door)

---

What is normal, like what is knowledge, belongs to the community, not the individual. The word 'normal' doesn't simply mean 'usual' here; it is not purely descriptive; it indicates a rule or norm or standard, in this case the public standard for the use of language.

Importance of the normal case in the logic of language to philosophy

Subtitle: the importance of how we normally use language: Further clarification of the distinction between sense and nonsense ("grammar") in the philosophy of Wittgenstein ... Remarks apropos of "An objective distinction between meaning and meaningless".

"How do I know that the color red can't be cut into bits?" That isn't a question. (PG i § 81, p. 126-7)

Of course we could give a sense to the combination of words 'to cut red into bits' by inventing a language-game in which it would be a move -- but we can always do this with any combination of words (The key is "invent"). And that is why when in philosophy we give a grammatical account we must describe the normal case (PI § 246; cf. a form of expression's "original home" (ibid. § 116)) -- because otherwise the distinction between sense and nonsense would be lost. Thus, in "Wittgenstein's logic of language", when we say that a combination of words has meaning, 'meaning' = 'defined use in our language'. And likewise when we say that a combination of words is without meaning or "nonsense", 'nonsense' = 'undefined'. The defined use is precisely the 'normal' use -- i.e. the held-in-common way [or, shared by all the speakers of the language in a community, e.g. the community of educated English speakers, way] we have of using the word.

What we can say here is that, as we normally use the word 'red' (i.e. the color words), 'to cut red into bits' is an undefined combination of words and therefore nonsense. 'Red is cut into bits' is "not a sentence in our language -- so far it is not a move in the language-game" (PI § 22; cf. ibid. § 49, Z § 294). And so we say here that, as we normally use the word 'red' (i.e. the color words) -- but not in every case we might invent = "dream up" = imagine = describe (ibid. § 87), -- 'to cut red into bits' is an undefined combination of words and therefore it is nonsense. (In logic of language remarks, 'nonsense' DEF.= 'undefined', as distinct from e.g. 'foolish'.)

"How do I know that the color red can't be cut into bits?" Would it be an answer to say: "I have learnt English" (PI § 381)? In the sense that an English speaker recognizes that the combination of words 'cut the color red into bits' is undefined, yes. We simply don't use color-words that way. We don't use the word 'red' the same way we use the expression 'red piece of paper' e.g. -- i.e. when we cut a red piece of paper into bits, we do not "cut red into bits" (whatever that would be when it's at home).

Remember our aim in philosophy, that our investigations in philosophy take their light from -- i.e. are guided by -- particular philosophical problems (ibid. § 109), which very often (although not always) have as their source our failure to understand the logic of our language (i.e. how to distinguish sense from nonsense, e.g. how to recognize that there is no rule rather than to insist that there somehow "must" be one); our perplexity very often has its source in that particular type of self-mystification. Thus our aim is not to idly invent grammatical curiosities (e.g. various things we might do with the combination of words 'round square' or 'square circle' e.g.) -- unless inventing uses for an undefined combination of words helps us to resolve our perplexity, e.g. by removing a pre-conception that may have us in its grips, such as e.g. preconceptions about the way our language works (e.g. the picture "Words are names and the meaning of a name is the thing the name stands for, regardless of whether the thing is tangible or abstract").

This rule we must follow, that the argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses. (Isaac Newton, Rule IV of Rules for Reasoning in Philosophy)

That the argument from normal usage not be evaded by ad hoc invention (creative imagination). If philosophical confusion arises from a muddled understanding of our common concepts, it is those concepts -- our normal "language-games" -- that we have to make clear to ourselves.

If in our investigation stops along the way to describe every possible use we can think up for a word or combination of words, to describe every logically possible meaning we can imagine for a given combination of words, we are never going to get anything done in philosophy. We have to remember why it is that we are asking these questions in the first place. ("If you put your foot on every stone, you'll never get there," my mother's father used to say to her, a saying which has very wide application. "If you stop to step on every stone ...")

The normal case, "not every one I can imagine" (PI § 87), although imagining possible alternative cases is also an important method in philosophy's conceptual investigations (as e.g. in The Fable of The Born-Blind-People).

[The remarks in this paragraph are not quite right, not quite clear, but they do point to an idea.] Now, suppose we ask: which word is it, which mistake, that makes the expression 'I am cutting red into bits' senseless? This shows that the expression, in spite of its senselessness, makes us think of a quite definite grammatical system (to which belongs 'I am cutting something red into bits'). That's why we say 'Red can't be cut into bits' and so give an reply; whereas we wouldn't make any reply to a combination of words like 'is have good'. But if one is thinking of a particular system, a language-game plus its application, then what is meant by saying "The expression 'I am cutting red into bits' is senseless" is first and foremost that this expression doesn't belong to the particular game its appearance makes it seem to belong to.

"... not be evaded by hypotheses" = that our project in logic of language, namely concept [conceptual] clarification [clarifying concepts, demuddling], not be shipwrecked by the imagination.

Query: is language game a common concept?

In Wittgenstein's jargon, [the expression] 'language-game' is [makes] a comparison: we may [-- although we may choose not to, for nothing forces us to make use of a particular metaphor: making a comparison is one way of looking at things (CV p. 61 [MS 134 143: 13.-14.4.1947 § 5]), nothing more than that --] compare using language to playing a game (actually, to playing many different [types, or, kinds of] games: it is a simile. But our use of language is not normally called a "language-game", but instead, as we "commonly" = "normally" use that expression, by 'language game' we games such as e.g. charades or rhyming slang (e.g. "trouble and strife" = "wife"; or "butcher's hook" = "look", as in "to take a butchers") if it is done to amuse rather than to keep secrets from outsiders to the community.

To understand Wittgenstein's metaphor, however, it is not necessary to point to what are ordinarily called language games, but instead e.g. ball games will serve to explain one type of comparison Wittgenstein made -- namely, children's games, where you are thrown a ball and must catch it, or dodge it -- for in philosophy, according to Wittgenstein, we are confused about which we should do: try to catch or try to dodge. Philosophical perplexity (Plato's "wonder") very often is the result of our not knowing the rules of the game (as in "language game") = "not knowing our way about" (PI § 123). Cf. the "cultural map" of anthropology: how to navigate within a particular community, e.g. a community of speech. (Note, by the way, that when Wittgenstein wrote 'language game' in English, he did not use a hyphen; his translator Anscombe introduced the hyphen when she rendered his German word Sprachspiel into English; what the hyphen does do, however, is to make clear that this is Wittgenstein's jargon in contrast to what are normally called language games.)

The "rules of the game" (as in "language-game", where what is defining of a game is its rules) = "grammar". Which sounds quite simple, but it is not -- because the comparison is between using language and playing a game according to rigid rules (as we do in chess e.g.), but we don't everywhere (or even usually) necessarily follow fixed rules when we use language (PI § 81). In the cases of language use that very often perplex us in philosophy the rules are unclear (i.e. not rigidly prescribed) -- because our concepts ('concept' = 'rules for using a word') are more or less undefined at their borders [or, frontiers] -- i.e. at the limits of their application, so that one cannot say [This is logical impossibility] whether "x" is an instance of the concept or not, as in e.g. "Is this particular "x" a religion or not?" The temptation of habit in such cases is for us to expect there to be an essence, a defining one-thing-in-common (which was Plato's expectation in his earlier dialogs). And so we seek an "analytic" definition or proposition -- i.e. we try to grasp the essence of a concept that simply does not have one (as if our mind were a sorcerer's crystal ball). When this happens the most that can emerge from it is: the invention of a rule -- the invention, not the discovery of one (although we may delude ourselves into believing that we have discovered one). That is, where there is no rule, the temptation is to invent one (or to simply throw our hands up in perplexity, as if the matter were too deep for man to fathom). Now, it sometimes does happen that in the course of philosophical investigations, we invent new rules for cases where there are none -- if, that is, the invention of a new rule will bring clarity to a philosophically perplexing case (as I have done above with my definition of the word 'concept' as 'rules for using a word'; sometimes a tool is too dull to do any useful work, and so we sharpen it for our own special purposes. But, note that we use the word 'concept' in a variety of ways (many unclear), of which my own use is only one).

A norm is a standard (a rule or standard)

It is important to note how a norm functions. It is not just the observation that "in the majority of cases", but of noting a pattern or way of life -- a model; a model which sets (and is used as) a standard.

---

The Limits of Language

D i e  G r e n z e n  m e i n e r  S p r a c h e  bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt. (TLP 5.6: "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world", tr. Ogden)

The German die Grenzen, although translated to English as 'limits' by Wittgenstein himself also means: the border lines (e.g. of a political frontier, or of a body of water); cf. an die Grenzen = at the borders.

On on the one hand, Trying to go beyond the limits of language is "utterly hopeless" (LE p. 12): "Running against the borders? Language is not a cage." Or is "language a cage" (a later remark Wittgenstein made)? -- But if language is a cage, of what kind is it? The limits of language are the limits of "grammar" (that word in Wittgenstein's jargon) in the Philosophical Investigations; the limits language do not lie in essence of language, as in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Or do they?

Well, every form of expression that does not have the form "This is how things stand" -- i.e. that is not a statement of fact (or, statement of sense perception (but note that a statement is a concept, not a percept)) -- is not nonsense, if we use the word 'nonsense' as we normally do -- but only undefined words or combinations of words are. The first account (which is the TLP's account of sense and nonsense), if it were true, would belong to the essence of language, the second (i.e. defined or undefined combinations of words) belongs to grammar.

"Essence belongs to grammar" (cf. PI § 371; aside: without exception?) -- what does that statement mean? The TLP's supposedly "real definition" of "nonsense" (but what would a real definition of a concept in the case where nothing more is meant by the word 'concept' than 'rules for using a word' -- look like? It could only be an account of the grammar of the concept-word) is not the result of a factual investigation laying bare the essence of the "thing" language, but only a definition of how Wittgenstein is using that word in the TLP, which is not our normal way. The TLP makes the mistake Wittgenstein later characterized as "trying to express by the use of language what ought to be embodied in the grammar" (PP iii, p. 312) ... although of course, it was not the TLP's intent to eccentrically (more or less arbitrarily) redefine the word 'nonsense' (But if you do define the word 'nonsense' as the TLP does, then many of the propositions that come at the end of that book do appear to follow from it. But Wittgenstein did not intend that: he intended those propositions to follow from the essence of language, as that essence is revealed in the TLP).

Trying to cross the border? There is no border! For -- and this is a grammar/logic-of-language remark -- there is no other side, and a 'border' cannot have less than two sides. How can there be a border if there is no other side? Well, Engelmann used this metaphor: the border is the shoreline of an island, of the land mass, where language has sense; but on the other side of that shoreline lies a vast ocean of "nonsense" and, Wittgenstein said, it is precisely that side (which is the side on which are found God and ethics) that is the important side to our life. And so the TLP's expression "the limits of language" is not itself nonsense ... if, that is, we define the word 'nonsense' as Wittgenstein does in that book. But again, it must be remarked that as we normally use the word 'nonsense', nonsense that has meaning is not nonsense at all! (Note that although we do sometimes use the word 'nonsense' to mean 'foolishness', we don't always use the word that way; we also use it in the only way that interests logic-of-language -- namely, 'nonsense' = 'undefined').)

Variation. There is also this picture suggested by the word 'limits' -- that if there are limits, then there must be a way to pass beyond them, perhaps by "blitzing the border", perhaps by stealth ... However, in the TLP's picture of how our language works, beyond the frontier, on the other side -- there is nothing, "not even a place for you to go": On one side there is sense and on the other side nonsense -- i.e. where 'nonsense' = "what is not possible to put into words" at all (not no way, not no how), according to the TLP's account of language.

Although very strange to tell the TLP does put "nonsense" into words: the entire book was "nonsense", according to its author at the time of its publication. However, when is "nonsense" not nonsense? Well, a "senseless sense", a "meaningless meaning" does not exist (PI § 500): there is defined language (defined within a context, within the circumstances of our life where that language has a role) and there are undefined words or combinations of words, which are noise ("sounds without sense"). That is the post-TLP Wittgenstein's account of the relation between grammar and sense and nonsense. Thus "on the other side" -- i.e. beyond -- the language-game type statement-of-sense-perception, there lies a vast collection of language-game types that do not consist of reports of sense perception and yet are not nonsense because of that.

If taken out of the context of the TLP, the expression "limits of language" would actually be a still-born metaphor. But even in the context of that book: can you speak of "the limits of my world" unless you can see beyond those limits -- as you can look across one country's border into another's? But consider that even if you do not have absolute pitch yourself -- i.e. even if you are percept-blind in this particular case -- you can still describe what it would be like if you had absolute pitch, as e.g. that you would be able to do such-and-such that you are unable to do now. And I do not need to as it were understand Greek in order to see that although I hear the sound, its meaning is unknown to me.

On the other hand, what is the meaning of TLP 5.62b-c: "... what solipsism means, is quite correct ... That the world is my world, shows itself in the fact that the limits of the language (the language which I understand) means the limits of my world ["... the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) means the limits of my world"]", tr. Ogden [Pears, McGuinness]? In other words: Wittgenstein's meaning for 5.6 is not so easily seen. If I conjecture that my percepts are unique ... but a percept without a concept is not language -- and the language that we speak we acquired in our childhood from others. And you cannot dodge that fact by claiming that even my acquisition of language was simply an acquisition of new percepts -- because percepts are not concepts, and when you acquire language what you acquire is concepts not percepts. Solipsism treats our language as if it were a private language, a notion that Wittgenstein was later to argue strongly against (PI § 243 ff).

The Concepts of Infancy

Infants apparently have a quite limited pool of concepts (If by 'concept' we mean 'rules for the use of a word', then infants have no concepts; however, in another sense of 'concept' = 'organizing principle' it seems that infants do); e.g. they respond to faces but not to clouds and trees, so it is said. If you placed a photograph in front of an infant, for the infant it would be an blind percept -- i.e. one without meaning -- i.e. one without a meaning = one without a concept. Concepts give percepts meaning. However, you cannot say, And vice versa. For a concept without a percept is not empty = meaningless (and, no, clearly I don't know what Kant meant by the word 'concept'). The propositions of maths e.g. are not meaningless, although they are empty of percepts.

Helen Keller "became totally blind and deaf at nineteen months ... her instruction began at the age of seven years". She wrote an account of her dreams in August 1900 when she was twenty years of age at Joseph Jastrow's request (Fact and Fable in Psychology (1900), "The dreams of the blind", iii, p. 351-353). Using a typewriter, she wrote --

Before and after my teacher first came to me, [my dreams] were devoid of sound, or thought or emotion of any kind, except fear, and only came in the form of sensations. I would often dream that I ran into a still, dark room, and that, while I stood there, I felt something fall heavily without any noise, causing the floor to shake up and down violently; and each time I woke up with a jump.

One would not say of Helen Keller as she was as a child before she learned language that "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world" -- unless he were defining the word 'world' eccentrically, as I think Wittgenstein's TLP does. Nor would one say that of a dog or a cat or other thing that resembles man (PI § 360).

---

"Over-reaching" and "under-reaching" (not knowing oneself)

Note: this continues the discussion of the meaning of the word 'over-reach' (or 'overreaching') in Greek thought. For that word may, as in Plato's Republic (Book One or the Thrasymachus 349b) and Gorgias (483b-c), be used to mean 'over-reaching others', that is, seeking to gain advantage over other men. But 'to over-reach' has another meaning which may be of more use to ethics, to "Know thyself" or how the wise man lives man's life.

Grammatical remarks (The word 'grammar' in Wittgenstein's jargon). Once one has reached one's limits -- which may be either (1) the limits of one's individual abilities -- the second part of "Know thyself" (i.e. the limits of one's reach, or of what is "within one's reach" as in "the length of one's arm" e.g.), or (2) the limits of ethics (i.e. the line between good-doing and wrong-doing) -- then if one tries to go further [to go beyond mankind's limits (in this case, ethics) or one's individual limitations], then one over-reaches (or tries to over-reach) oneself, and fails (ability) or does what is unethical (wrong-doing).

"I would do all that may become a man. Who does more is none."

Macbeth's words (from memory, although i, 7 is different: "Prithee peace. / I would dare all that may become a man; / Who dares more is none") allude to over-reaching the ethical limits of mankind. Wrong-doing does not "become a man" qua man [i.e. the individual man as an instance of mankind, which is the first part of the two parts of "Know thyself", in my account of those parts at least].

"Your Highness will be careful not to over-reach," said Colonel Geraldine. (R.L. Stevenson, The Suicide Club, "The Adventure of the Hansom Cab", (1878))

The statement alludes to the Prince's swordsmanship, to his certainty of victory in the duel. And I think his aide is reminding him to "Know thyself", and so that "over-reach" means: to attempt to do what is or may be beyond one's ability as an individual (the second part of "Know thyself").

When someone attempts [or, undertakes] to do what, if he knew himself [i.e. his own limits] he would know to be beyond his ability, then he is "over-reaching" himself. That is part of the counsel "Nothing too much!", in this case over-estimating the place/extent of one's limits. Of course one may under-reach oneself as well, in which case you could say "Nothing too little!" The rendering "Nothing in excess!" would mean not attempting to go beyond the limits in either direction (as in "over confidence" and "excess modesty").

Well, these are merely grammatical remarks, reminders of various ways we use the expression 'over-reach'. But if an conceptual investigation makes the notion of "Know thyself" clearer, then it is worthwhile.

---

Induction and adduction

Query: various common words have meanings that support his ideas about recollection and learning, this is an example of ...

Plato's reasoning may be an example of induction (discovery) or of adduction (seeking confirmation of a pre-conception).

The query's "meanings" may be an allusion to Phaedo 65d: "Have you ever seen any of these things with your eyes?" e.g. "absolute equality", the question being: If you have never seen the thing, then how is it that you know of it (i.e. the "meaning" of the common word 'equality')? Plato: if you have never seen it with the eyes of your body, then you must have seen it when the eyes of your soul were not blinded by the eyes of your body.

Questions about "meanings" belong to "the logic of our language" -- but until we have set a criterion for distinguishing between sense (i.e. language with meaning) and nonsense (i.e. language without meaning) -- i.e. for determining what the "meanings of common words" are ..... "A fact is not a fact except within a theory" (Goethe) -- i.e. there are no facts that are independent of a way of looking at things, a frame of reference, a point of view ["All fact is already theory"]. "The facts about how we use language" e.g. In "Wittgenstein's logic of language", yes, we can give a grammatical account -- but is Wittgenstein's the only possible logic of language or are there alternatives? (If you cannot even describe a single alternative, then what?) But we seek in logic a non-theoretical "theory" of meaning (The theory of abstraction is an example of a theoretical theory of meaning). And so where does that leave us? In search of an objective distinction between sense and nonsense that will "support [Plato's] ideas about recollection and learning". (That I can think of none, cannot describe even one, more's woe to me.)

Query: adduction Socratic.

Is another term for 'to adduce' -- 'to bring/call forth examples'? Propositions (theses, assertions of knowledge) must face the test of Socratic dialectic (cross-questioning), and that test will in many cases be only so worthwhile as the counter-examples we find to challenge the theses with.

The remarks above are philosophy; but the following query is not philosophy, for it has life only within a "community of ideas" -- i.e. within a given way of looking at things.

Query: in philosophy give examples of how we are deceived by the conspiracy of language.

That is an example of writing-according-to-a-thesis (or in-accord-with-a-thesis), also known as "the method of adduction". It is not philosophy, for Are we deceived by language? is the philosophical question?

That language -- i.e. that our failure to understand the logic of our language -- leads us up the garden path is Wittgenstein's thesis/theory. Can examples be adduced? Yes, easily -- within Wittgenstein's way of looking at things/the frame of reference of Wittgenstein's philosophy, of his way of distinguishing sense from nonsense. However, language may look very different from the point of view of a "theoretical", rather than a grammar-logic, "theory of meaning".

Query: how to teach language-games, Wittgenstein.

Goodness! what might this query be after? Does it put a "savage" interpretation (PI § 194) to Wittgenstein's logic tool "language-games"? as if these "games" were a way to amuse [a technique for amusing] children? But the "language game" of adding-and-take-away, although it teaches arithmetic to a child, is (or to some children is) what we ordinarily call a game to the child.

When a philosopher, Wittgenstein e.g., says "Look at things this way!" or "Make this comparison!" that is rather like saying "Thou shalt ...!" or "Thou shouldst ... [because if you had, you wouldn't find yourself in this muddle]!"

Query: what are the verbal games of Wittgenstein?

This query, which, according to my site's logs, came from a server in Chile, is quite good as a reminder, because by 'verbal' we mean 'either or both written and spoken' and a language-game may be either, although the games Wittgenstein describes are most often spoken ones.

Note: there is a revision apropos of Goethe's maxim "All fact is already theory".

Query: words of wisdom of Socrates' and their meaning. Socrates, wise man story.

The second query may allude to the story of the oracle at Delphi. Both queries, however, may allude to the type of stories about Socrates found in Diogenes Laertius, for by 'wise man' many mean "someone who said wise things" -- that is, someone who made (often oracle-like) pronouncements that others regard as profound (The sayings attributed to the Seven Wise Men of Greece, such as "Know thyself" and "Nothing too much", and the sayings of Confucius e.g., are examples of these). But, now, that is very different from philosophy, for philosophy does not consist of mere sayings but of reasons forged into arguments that are able to stand up against refutation in Socratic dialectic. (Although statements are made within a frame of reference (Goethe's "every fact is only a fact within a particular theory"), but within that frame of reference they can be put to the tests of clarity, reasoning, and experience.)

---

Is there a relation between "the meaning of life" and Ethics? (First blush, very rough)

Note: these remarks respond to Albert Schweitzer's (or his translator's rendering of Schweitzer's) account of Nietzsche's ethics. According to Schweitzer, Nietzsche calls for veracity (in contrast to hypocrisy) in way of life and the assertion (rather than the suppression) of one's own personality.

... Nietzsche's criticism means that only that ethic deserves to be accepted ... which springs from independent reflection on the meaning of life, and comes to a straightforward understanding with reality. (Civilization and Ethics, tr. Campion (1929), Chapter 15, p. 176)

By "a straightforward understanding with reality", I believe Schweitzer means: (1) a thoroughly honest-with-oneself assessment of the way one actually lives one's life, and (2) the formation of an ethics that faces up to that assessment, free of all hypocrisy (e.g. of the dishonestly of mandating a selfless way of life -- "Love thy neighbor as thyself" -- when in fact the way one is living is hardly that -- for one gives only mouth honor to helping poor Lazarus at the rich man's gate, meanwhile living as the rich man in that story lives. Dishonesty like this).

As to "... which springs from independent reflection on the meaning of life": But ethics cannot be based on "the meaning of life", because that meaning is unknown to man, and indeed unknowable by man, given that it is impossible to define the expression 'meaning of life' in such a way as to provide criteria for answering the question of what life's meaning is (The expression 'the meaning of life' is vague -- but that is the concept man himself has made it to be -- and apparently wants it to be; it belongs to man's eternal questions without answer). Man (mankind) knows neither his origin, much less the origin of the universe (Obviously there are scientific and theological (although religion itself is not theoretical) theories, but a theory is not knowledge), nor his destiny as an individual or his destiny as a species (the future, if any, of man's existence) -- and would not knowledge of those be an essential element of knowing "the meaning of life"? (If a man asks why he exists and answers that he does not know, that is a religious view of life.) Man can base ethics on reflection about our life as I have explained the precept "Know thyself" -- and that method is not merely what ethics is based on, but is ethics itself, for 'ethics' is 'the thorough-going use of reason when reflecting about good and evil'; man can e.g. reflect about: living in accord with the excellence that is proper to man and to oneself as an individual man.

Title of an article in the public prints: "Exploring life's meaninglessness". Does life's meaning or meaninglessness lie outside man, as a characteristic of the world ("non-natural property"). If life is "meaningless", who makes it so? If life is "meaningless", what makes it so -- i.e. what would it be like if life were not "meaningless"? Those are grammatical questions. ((Inside man: Life's meaning as a way of looking at things.))

He [Nietzsche, unlike the idealist Fichte] means to remain at all costs elemental, and he therefore avoids philosophizing about the universe, showing himself thereby to be a true moralist like Socrates. (ibid. p. 177)

Surely, to know the meaning of life it is necessary to know man's place in the universe, but, as explained above, that is unknown and unknowable. Again, an ethics founded on independent reflection about our life is possible, but an ethics founded on independent reflection about the meaning of life is not -- well, not unless one presumes to know what one does not know (which is the cardinal wrong-doing in philosophical thinking, man's original sin in philosophy. But, yet, that may be what Nietzsche is doing when he asserts that thoroughgoing selfish life-affirmation is the good for man, what the meaning of man's life is).

Schweitzer says of "the Greek sophists" that they had "anticipated" Nietzsche [as, I would say, e.g. Callicles in the Gorgias does].

There is a great difference, however, between [Nietzsche] and his predecessors. They are for living a full life because it brings them enjoyment. He, on the other hand brings to the theory [of thoroughgoing life-affirmation] the much deeper thought that by living one's own life victoriously to the full[,] life itself is honored [for life is honored by fully affirming its worth (life-affirmation)], and that by raising life to a higher power the meaning of existence is brought out [that meaning being: the good for the individual man is thoroughgoing life-affirmation]. (ibid. p. 178-179)

If I understand that statement, and I may not understand it [the material in brackets is my conjecture about what Schweitzer is saying], it concerns "ethics = life-affirmation" according to Nietzsche. But that is not a correct account of Callicles' thought, for according to Callicles "living a full life" is living in accord with the meaning of existence shown by man's nature itself: living one's life to the selfish full is the natural way for a human being to live, in contrast to living in accord with the social conventions designed by the weak to repress the strong (physis versus nomos).

Comment: Callicles' account is not an account of the excellence that is proper to man, but instead simply an account of what the raw nature of man is according to Callicles. That raw nature may also be the topic when Plato has Socrates question "whether I am a monster more complicated and more furious than Typhon or a gentler and simpler creature" (Phaedrus 230a). But that type of account does not arrive at the ethical aspect of "Know thyself", for "the raw nature of man" in itself is not the excellence that is proper to man, for nature is amoral: morality enters only with human evaluation (for 'ethics' is 'reasoned reflection') of "what is natural". It is from that evaluation that the excellence proper to man is discovered.

---

If you are held captive by an inapplicable picture of how language works, you will find no way out of your philosophical perplexity

Query: we don't understand what a point in geometry is.

"It is beyond mankind's ability to understand [it confounds the human understanding]." As if geometry itself were the tragic condition of humanity (an "eternal unanswerable question")! Wittgenstein: "... what the depth of philosophy is" (PI § 111): what it is in this case is: self-mystification with a self-creation (Cf. the worship of negative numbers). What happens here? It may be (and therefore it may also not be) that man observes a phenomenon (a compass resting-point in the sand), misconceives that location in the sand as a "some thing" (an entity "of some kind"), and assigns a name to "it", namely, 'point'. And as soon as man creates that name, he creates perplexity in himself -- "because if it is a name, then, after all is said and done, it must be the name of something".

As man were an illiterate child trying to decrypt its own scribbling, he asks himself about his own creation, "What is a point?" thus endowing a "geometric point" -- which is actually a mere concept -- with an existence independent of its creator. But given that the background to his question is a misunderstanding of the logic of our language, he fails to see this. And so: "A point is a kind of object. What kind? Well, I have it: a geometric object!" But an object's an object for all that, and so man thinks: there must be something (some thing) there (or out there). And there is.

But what is "there" is like the ether, for it is a Cartesian grid. But, now, do you imagine that a Cartesian grid is an "intangible object" (for like "the ether" the grid is imperceptible) in space? But what is it then? Here is one possibility: the grid is a method for assigning addresses based on a chosen point of reference (the grid's "origin"). Geometry's points are unique addresses in the plane. "But," man asks, "what kind of object is an address?" And so it will go on in this way for the man who is held captive by this particular picture (PI § 115) of how language works: that "All nouns are names of objects, of one kind or another".

The way out of this perplexity, according to Wittgenstein (and according to me for what that's worth), is simple to tell: Don't ask "What is a geometric point?" but ask instead "How do we use the word 'point' in geometry?" But although that is indeed simple -- the answer to the question of which method should be used to make that description is not. My account of that method is my account of Wittgenstein's logic, conceptual tool, revision of the concept "grammar" in his jargon, or "logic of language" in mine. But it is the work of many years to learn that method.

Contrast asking for a description of how we use a word, e.g. 'point', with asking "what the thing named by the word 'point' is". The first question is about logic of language ('logic' = 'grammar' in Wittgenstein's jargon), and what is important about logic in this context is that in logic nothing is hidden from public view. But as to the second question, it asks for speculation (metaphysical) -- for how otherwise would such a question be answered. It does not ask for the facts in public view, for those are easily stated once we wash away our mistaken preconceptions; the difficult thing is only this: to see and accept what is right in front of your eyes (cf. CV p. 63 [MS 135 103 c: 27.7.1947]: "God grant the philosopher insight into what lies in front of everyone's eyes").

[On which side is the door barred?]

---

Site copyright © September 1998. Send Internet mail to Robert Wesley Angelo. Last revised: 14 July 2013 : 2013-07-14

The URL of this Web page:
https://www.roangelo.net/logwitt/limits-of-language.html

Wittgenstein's Logic of Language - Introduction and Table of Contents | Bibliography | Site Search | Site Map