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Criticism of Meaning as Use

Query: criticism of Wittgenstein's use theory of meaning.

But it isn't a theory if by 'theory' we mean a speculative hypothesis about what something truly is, e.g. about what the meaning of language truly is. When the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus asks what the logic of our language is, it asks a metaphysical question, namely "Where does the limit of language meaning really lie, the limit beyond or outside which language is nonsense?"

Wittgenstein's question

What is the answer to Wittgenstein's question, "Words are only spoken sounds, marks on paper, and so what gives those sounds or marks meaning?" That is (logically, not historically) the first question of philosophy. It is called in my jargon at least, the logic of language.

Two possible answers - The first

The historical Socrates, Saint Augustine, and the TLP: "words are names, and the meaning of a name is the thing the name stands for". We use words to talk about those thing; it is the nature of those things that is the meaning of language, and the interest of logic-philosophy. In other words, if you want to know what the meaning of a word = name is, look at the thing the word names: that thing is the word's true meaning (Socrates' logic of language).

That appears one possible answer to Wittgenstein's question, although it also appears to be a naive picture of language meaning, for how do we learn the nature of things? and how do we know whether of not we have learned it? We learn, so it is said, by a mysterious process of abstracting their essences [deselecting whatever is unnecessary to their identity], and this regardless of whether those things are tangible or abstract, and regardless of whether we can state in words what those essences are.

Two objections - The first

"... and how do we know whether or not we have learned the nature of some thing?" In philosophy there is the Socratic standard for knowing, namely being able to explain what we know to others (To 'explain' means to put what we think we know into words that can be put to the tests of public experience and reason, cross-questioned both by ourselves and by our companions); and contrariwise if we are unable to explain what we think we know, then we don't know it.

The nature of some thing = what some thing's name names = the meaning of a word But if we cannot put into words what we know, then how is our companion to know whether we mean the same thing by that word or not? A meaning so cloudy is only a shadow, an illusion of a meaning. It is not objective -- i.e. publicly verifiable -- and therefore it is not what we call 'knowledge'. It is not what I have called a "logic of language".

Two objections - The second

Is it phenomena that give their meaning to words, as Plato thought. Or is it words that give meaning to phenomena, as Kant thought? (Not bare words, of course, not spoken sounds or marks on paper -- but 'rules for using words' = 'concepts'.)

In other words, do phenomena determine concepts or do concepts define = set limits to the extent of -- phenomena. Phenomena in themselves are nebulous -- they are percepts without concepts, in Kant's jargon -- and percepts without concepts are blind: percepts cannot set limits to concepts, because percepts = phenomena do not as it were exist before they are defined into existence by concepts. Concepts set the limits to phenomena; concepts say what the phenomena are -- not vice versa.

"There are many ways to slice a pie" -- concepts say how the pie is/is to be sliced.

In Plato's dialogs about what the true nature of love, or knowledge, or virtue, or justice is, the one thing that is clear -- is that we are talking without knowing what we are talking about. Plato's questions are irresolvable so long as we presume that things give meaning to concepts rather than that concepts give meaning to things.

Where does a name, which is a label, that lassos a phenomenon -- affix itself to the phenomenon like a collar to a cat? Well, of course it does not: the lasso is not made of rope but of rules that define the borders of a concept. (What is the relationship between phenomena and concept-formation? The temptation to hypostatize abstractions, as if there were "abstract objects" and "abstract terms" their names and they independently existing things.)

Two possible answers - The second

Philosophical Investigations: "in many cases, the meaning of a word is its use in the language."

Or rather, one particular meaning of a word is "its use in the language" (PI § 43), because there are many other meanings of the word 'meaning' in our language. But the particular meaning Wittgenstein chose permits language meaning in philosophy to be rule-based, public and therefore objective (verifiable). (A choice, of course, that is unless Wittgenstein's statement here is a thesis, a theory about what the meaning of 'language meaning' really is. Which is it?)

A word's use in the language is explained by the rules governing its use (or "grammar", i.e. rules both syntactic and semantic). In other words, 'language meaning' is defined in many cases as 'the rules for using a word'.

Do you imagine that there must be a true meaning of the word 'meaning', and that all other meanings of that word are false?

It's not possible to understand Wittgenstein's later work without understanding the difference between metaphysical and comparative principles. Comparative principles -- e.g. using language is like playing a game -- belong to a "logic of language" rather than to a "theory of meaning", an example of which would be: "using language is essentially playing a game following strict rules". Without this understanding you will try to see Wittgenstein's work as if it were "philosophy done in the old way", which it isn't (or doesn't seem to be). You will be pounding a square peg into a round hole.

Rules of a game comparison and consequent first criticism

Wittgenstein's later work begins with a selected definition of the word 'meaning', one that is best explained by comparing language use to playing a game: if the game is played according to the rules, a move in the game has meaning in the game; similarly, if word is used according to the rules of language ("grammar" in Wittgenstein's jargon), then the word has meaning in the language.

First criticism

From which comparison comes the first criticism of Wittgenstein's metaphor, namely that although many, indeed most games are played according to strict rules, for the most part we do not follow strict rules when using the words of our language (Most concepts do not have well-marked boundaries, because their boundaries are not well-marked). And so wherein lies the usefulness of the comparison? The basic answer is that comparisons draw our attention not only to similarities but also to dissimilarities, and that seeing dissimilarities, e.g. that the borders of concepts, unlike the rules of games, are seldom well-defined (and that in language use syntactic analogies -- unlike mathematical analogies, if maths is compared to a game -- are more often false than true), is very important for the understanding of philosophical problems -- and for their resolution. (There is a A second criticism, not easily answered.)

Logic of meaning versus Theory of meaning

A selected definition of a word is not a theory of meaning; it is a logic of meaning ("Logic is the study of everything subject to rules" [TLP 6.3]). Definitions are rules for the use of words. "Nominal definition", which is based on the assumption that "all words are names and the meaning of a name is the thing the word names", is part of logic, and has been at least since Aristotle.

Definitions are not comparisons, even if the definition is best explained by a comparison.

Logic does not make hypotheses about what the meaning of language really is, but only describes the various things we call -- i.e. ways we use the word -- 'meaning'. There are many meanings of the word 'meaning' in our language -- besides the one Wittgenstein chose for his later work in philosophy. And Wittgenstein's meaning of 'meaning' was not arbitrarily chosen but was chosen because it makes an objective distinction between sense and nonsense by means of rules of grammar (BB p. 65").

Tilt at windmills, not pinwheels. Philosophers and Sophists

Note that Wittgenstein wrote that "the meaning of a word is its use in the language". An academic's look at "the meaning is use doctrine" which remarks that "reading the old man to sleep" is a use of language is thoughtless and silly. When studying philosophy go to the original source whenever possible, namely in this case to Wittgenstein's own works and don't get entangled in the scribblings of the Sophists (the university professors, the "professional philosophers").

Do I say the same things the "academic authorities" say? I don't know: I haven't read them in fifty years, and those I read at that time left a very bad impression: philosophy done in the old way: vague (with few definitions of words or examples to make their meaning clear), mixing verbal and real definitions up all over the place, being oblivious to that distinction, classifying Wittgenstein's work as belonging to this or that ill-defined category, (Russell's "a linguistic philosophy", as if the conceptions of philosophy of A.J. Ayer, Gilbert Ryle, and J.L. Austin weren't very different from Wittgenstein's), etc., the traditional "fog and filthy air" of the professional philosophers.

Logic DEF.= the study of rules

Rules are not statements of fact, although the same proposition may be used to state a rule and to state a fact about what we actually do with the words of our language, as e.g. 'The word 'cat' is the common name of a class of animals' -- that proposition both states a rule and is a description of the English language. But rules themselves are not true or false statements of fact.

The difficulty here is to propound a simple change in point of view -- but a change so fundamental as to be difficult to grasp, the liberation from supposing that language has an independent life of its own to seeing it as a tool under our control. It change may be compared, maybe helpfully, to a Gestalt shift.

Wittgenstein chose a particular meaning of 'meaning' (a particular definition of the word 'meaning') -- why? Because the meaning of 'meaning' Wittgenstein chose makes possible in philosophical discussion a verifiable distinction between language with meaning and language without meaning. (That distinction is what I am calling a "logic of language", in this case Wittgenstein's logic of language.)

There are many meanings of the word 'meaning'. In choosing one, Wittgenstein did not invent a theory about the "true meaning" of language. Criticism of Wittgenstein's "meaning is use" which presumes that he did this, completely misunderstands his work in philosophy.

Wittgenstein's comparisons

In explaining what he meant by the word 'use' here, Wittgenstein made comparisons (A is like B in such and such way, not A is really B. Does it make anything clearer to call a comparison a theory?) For example, language is like a tool-chest, and words are like individual tools; the meaning of a word is the work it is used to do in the language, as a tool is used to do work. Another comparison: using a word is like playing a game ("language game") by following rules; a word is used the way a chessman is used (PI § 108).

"Questions that are not" - Second criticism

How then shall "meaning is use" be criticized? One way would be to ask whether the meaning of 'meaning' Wittgenstein chose does not merely sets an arbitrary limit to philosophical discussion, a limit which has the consequence that most traditional problems of philosophy, including the eternal questions, are not problems at all, but mere bewitchment by language. Plato's discussion of the immortality of the soul or mind is ruled out, because we do not use the word 'mind' Plato's way in the language game that is that word's original home (PI § 116). Does language really only have meaning under the conditions Wittgenstein sets?

The philosopher says: Look at things this way! (CV p. 61)

Every way of thinking is all right as long as it isn't stupid. (Wittgenstein to Sraffa in 1935)

But, on the other hand, the limit Wittgenstein set wasn't arbitrarily set. For if there is no distinction in philosophy between language with meaning and language without meaning, then what becomes of philosophy? That is the very question that troubled Plato (Parmenides 135a-c). But is Wittgenstein's solution the only possible one?

What gives meaning to words? Wittgenstein answered that in most cases it is their use in the language, and to explain this he offered comparisons to the varied work done with the tools in a tool-chest and to the activities in games. This contrasts with the answer that words are names and the meaning of a name is the thing it names.

Topics on this page ...

Notes: many of the remarks that follow are first-blush and philosophically stupid. My more considered views are found in the Introduction to the site and Description of the Elements of Wittgenstein's logic of language.

Words that follow 'Query' were Internet searches that were directed to the wrong pages of this Web site. They suggested thoughts to me that I have written down here.

The distinction between sense and nonsense, or language with versus without meaning, is called "logic of language" on this site.

Words and Things

Are all words names of things, of objects and phenomena, regardless whether those things are perceptible or "abstract"? And if words are names of things, then are those things real, existent things?

"Theaetetus-flies"

Query: Wittgenstein. Socrates, for when we think about something we must think about something real.

About the statement 'Theaetetus flies', Plato asks, But what if there is no Theaetetus Sophist 263a? If 'the meaning' = 'the thing named or stood for' ("a logos", i.e. proposition, "is a combination of names" (Theaetetus 202b)), then, because there is nothing for the name 'Theaetetus' to stand for (because no one bearing the name 'Theaetetus' exists), 'Theaetetus flies' must be a meaningless combination of words (mere sound without sense).

Query: are our words meaningless if the thing they refer to does not exist?

Wittgenstein says to be struck by this, that "Thought can be of what is not the case" (PI § 95). Plato, to the contrary, invents "logical form" (in contrast to "apparent form") to show that that thought cannot be of what is not the case (Sophist 237a); thought can only be of what is different from what exists, not of what does not exist.

No birds were flying overhead -- There were no birds to fly. (Lewis Carroll)

It seems that the query's assertion is absurd, that "The meaning of a word is the thing the word names" cannot be a correct definition of the word 'meaning' as we normally use that word. (Wittgenstein's looks at the proposition 'Mr. N.N. is dead', and says it is Mr. N.N. not the meaning of 'Mr. N.N.' that has died, i.e. ceased to exist.)

Alexius Meinong (1853-1921)

Do I understand Meinong's thought? I've no idea. I have read that he is talking, not about what exists independently of thought, but of necessities of thought only. But he says that if gold mountains and square circles did not exist, we could not even deny that the propositions 'There is a gold mountain' and 'There is a round square' were true. Or maybe he says something very different. (Etienne Gilson's view.)

Whatever can be imagined -- i.e. described, regardless of whether it exists or has ever existed independently of the description -- is called a "logical possibility" (in contrast to a "real possibility"). Now, 'gold mountain' names a logical possibility whereas 'square circle' does not. Why? Because 'square circle' is nothing more than an undefined combination of words, i.e. nonsense, and even God cannot imagine nonsense (because there is nothing to imagine). In contrast, although no such mountain exists, we can describe what it would be like if a gold mountain did exist. In logic, 'nonsense' ≠ 'fanciful' but 'logically impossible'.

A contradiction in sense but not in form. And vice versa

Why is the proposition 'There is a square circle' logically impossible? Is it because there is a contradiction in form? No, it is because there is a contradiction in rules, and that contradiction makes this proposition, not false, but nonsense. (So a contradiction can have at least three values -- because a contradiction in form need not be as well a contradiction in sense; it may even be true.) And a contradiction in rules need not have the form of a contradiction (although it may be rewritten to give it that form). As in this case, the proposition 'Figure A is a circle, and figure A is a square' is not a contradiction in form. Nonetheless, just as the proposition 'There is a round square' is also a contradiction that does not have the form of a contradiction, the proposition 'Figure A is a circle, and figure A is a square' is a contradiction.

And so Meinong does not so far as I can see explain how it is possible to think nonsense, e.g. the combination of words 'There is a square circle', in order to say that there is no such thing. But Meinong too is struck by the need to explain how "Thought can be of what is not the case".

"If elves did not in some way exist, you could not deny that they exist." Does that mean: If you could not describe what it would be like if elves did exist, you could not describe what it would be like if they did not exist? (The question of the existence of elves is grammatical not factual question.)

Theaetetus 189a

Socrates to Theaetetus: "And if someone thinks mustn't he think something?" -- Th.: "Yes, he must." -- Soc.: "And if he thinks something, mustn't it be something real?" -- Th.: "Apparently." (Theaetetus 189a quoted in PI § 518)

When we say ... that his art is a practice of deception, shall we be saying that, as an effect of his art, our mind thinks what is false ...? ... [and] by false thinking, thinking things that are not? ... Does that mean thinking ... that things that are not in any way, in some way are? (Plato, Sophist 240d-e, tr. Cornford)

Dreams are thoughts of what is not. If Theaetetus dreams that he flies, his "mind thinks what is false", but mustn't thinking what is false be thinking "that things that are not in any way, in some way are"? Then does Theaetetus "in some way" fly?

Must round squares in some sense exist? And if they do not exist, then how can we talk about them, for would we not then be talking about nothing? And yet the combination of words 'round square' is not meaningless in every sense of the word 'meaning'.

Why is it difficult to get hold of this question in the way Plato did? Is it because Wittgenstein has found a way out of this conundrum -- with his method of asking about how we use language rather than for its "meaning" (where by 'meaning' is meant "the object a word stands for"). Because then it will be clear to us that all words are not names of objects (not of any kind of objects whether tangible or imperceptible). The combination of words 'round square' e.g. is not the name of anything (either of anything possible nor "impossible", i.e. of "what is not in any way").

Does that answer Plato's question? Only if we are willing to break with Plato's picture of words as names.

When Plato speaks of "names" and "verbs" as the two parts of speech necessary for the construction of a proposition (Sophist 261d ff.), he takes verbs to be the names of actions. But if that is so, then 'to be' names an action; thus to exist is an act.

Gilson insists that this is so, saying that this is the greatest insight of metaphysics: "the act of being is, within every being, the act of acts".

Wittgenstein: "so long as there is a verb 'to be' which seems to function like the verbs 'to eat' and 'to drink'" we will suffer from philosophical -- that is "grammatical" -- confusion. Thus we do not fail to understand the logic of our language so much because we are stupid, but because language suggests false paths for us to follow.

"The map is not the territory." No, but neither is the meaning of the map the territory. Otherwise a map to which no territory corresponded (e.g. the map of Claudius Ptolemy [fl. 127-48 A.D.] showing an imagined land link between Africa and China) would be meaningless. -- Of course, we could define the word 'meaningless' as 'a sign to which nothing corresponds'; but that definition might not be too useful, because then, would we not have to speak of meaningless language (such as Ptolemy's map) which nonetheless has meaning? (But nonsense that can convey meaning is not nonsense. Would it be helpful to call the so-called eternal questions without answers "nonsensical questions"?)

Query: nonsensical questions.

Well, this is it: Are the unanswerable questions (unsolvable riddles or quandaries) of our life nonsense? For if they are, then our fundamental view of existence is not even built on sand. Indeed, Wittgenstein called those questions "buildings of air", "houses of cards" (PI § 118).

Assign a meaning to the question before you try to answer it.

Query: is religion a language game?

If by 'language game' we mean a part of speech, such as color-words, number-words, and many others, then is there a religion-word part of speech? (Wittgenstein used the expression "superstitious words" to classify 'ghost' and 'spirit'.)

On the other hand, we might mean: Is it useful to regard religion as a category of things that resemble one another in various ways, neither one, nor all, nor several of which ways is defining of that category (class) or a collection language games? (That requires some discussion: Religion and language games.)

However, I have to say that the combination of words 'Is religion a language game?' has no clear meaning and that we really ought to clarify the question before we try to answer it, e.g. what would be a model of the kind of answer you are looking for? Or maybe in philosophy to clarify a question is to answer it.

Query: Socrates related principle; is it possible to know anything with absolute certainty?

Is the meaning of the expression 'absolute certainty' clear to you? Are you asking whether there are propositions which cannot possibly be false? But what kind of "impossibility" would that be? What sort of propositions are "logically necessary"? Or are you asking whether there are any beliefs about which it is impossible for you to be mistaken? But again, what kind of "impossibility" would that be?

Real versus Logical Possibility, where 'real' means 'empirical' or 'experiential', and 'logical' means 'describable'. "The kind of certainty is the kind of language game" (Philosophical Investigations ii, xi, p. 224e).

For example, the propositions of pure mathematics have the force of a system of rules behind them, not the force of experience. However, does someone's certainty that he has never been far above the surface of the earth (G.E. Moore) have the force of experience or the force of logic behind it? Or neither? Can you verify that you have never been to another planet?

Again, it is not obvious what meaning the combination of words 'absolute certainty' might have. Often in philosophy if you define your question you also answer it (and sometimes the answer will be that your question has no clear meaning).

Query: Wittgenstein, is it appropriate to call a pattern of language use a game?

If you define 'appropriate', you may find a way to answer your own question. (The expression 'pattern of language use' suggests Wittgenstein's expression "way or form of life".) The answer may be that sometimes that is a useful comparison to make, but not always. There may be an analogy to be made between language use and games, but note that a comparison must note similarities (alike) and dissimilarities (unalike).

Query: Tolstoy's theory that science is meaningless.

That should suggest just how many meanings there are of the word 'meaning' (and 'meaningless') -- not just the one Wittgenstein chose for his logic of language. (Again, Wittgenstein's work is not Philosophy of Language.) In the query 'meaningless' means 'of no importance', 'of no value' or 'of no help' e.g., not that it is nonsense ("sound without sense"). Tolstoy might have meant e.g. that the solution to the riddle of life's meaning is not to be found in scientific knowledge or theory (in which case 'meaningless' = 'of no significance' or 'futile').

There are also many meanings of the word 'theory'. By 'Tolstoy's theory' may be meant 'view' or 'idea' or, as uneducated people, say 'philosophy'. Do you think that what 'theory' might mean in this particular case must have been clear to the person who wrote this query? When we ask philosophical questions we are often lost, looking for we don't know what. Our thoughts have the quality of vagueness. And then too, some words, e.g. 'theory', are routinely thrown about thoughtlessly or carelessly.

The one correct interpretation versus other possible interpretations

Query: meaning of the short story The Country of the Blind by Wells.

That is yet another 'meaning' of the word 'meaning' that has nothing to do with conventions for using words (or "grammar" in Wittgenstein's jargon). In the query 'meaning' would mean something like 'the correct interpretation' although it does not say by which criterion to decide what is correct.

Edward Shanks wrote that Wells' story is a myth than can be interpreted in many different ways ("a myth with all its subtly shifting possibilities of interpretation"). In my Postscript to Fable of The Born-Blind-People I understood Wells' myth "The Country of the Blind" differently than Wells intended it to be understood (I mistook his "meaning"; I incorrectly "interpreted" his intention); because as I have since discovered Wells regarded his story as a political myth or parable rather than as a "form of life" myth. (Wells later even added bits of story or political commentary, none of which I have read, to the original story of 1904.)

Synonyms for 'interpretation' here are 'a way of looking at' and 'a way of understanding' -- one out of many possible ways. Whereas Wells intended (meant) his story to be read as a parable about political or ideological conformity, I read it as a parable about a basis of linguistic conformity.

Query: why is metaphysics philosophical nonsense?

Before asking why we must ask if (The conclusion comes at the end of an investigation, not at its beginning). The first question to ask: Is metaphysics nonsense or is it other things as well? But that requires definitions of the words 'metaphysics' and 'nonsense' -- i.e. that the question be refined, given a definite sense. (An example of this is Wittgenstein's eccentric definition of 'nonsense' in the TLP.) And once a definition of those words is given -- by examining a variety of examples rather than talking in generalities -- the question will be answered.

Query: metaphysical vocabulary, meaningless pseudo-problem.

First, some ≠ all. Some metaphysics may be nonsense -- but that would hardly be unique to metaphysics. It would not be the defining quality in the Platonic-Socratic sense of 'definition', which according to Aristotle includes what distinguishes this (i.e. metaphysical) type of nonsense from all other kinds of nonsense.

The query seems to suggest that all metaphysics is nonsense. And its meaning would be: If metaphysics is nonsense, why is it nonsense? The word 'pseudo' would mean a problem "in appearance only". So this would be more than a generalization from a few examples -- it would be the claim that metaphysics is essentially nonsense. And that would require specific definitions of the words 'metaphysics' and 'nonsense'. Because what may be called the eternal and unanswerable questions of philosophy are most certainly not nonsense ("mere sound without sense"). So then what does the query mean by 'metaphysics' -- only the specific kind of problems Kant and later Wittgenstein discussed?

If there are many meanings of 'meaning', there are also many meanings of 'meaningless' to select among. In Wittgenstein's logic-of-language 'nonsense' = 'undefined language' -- i.e. words or combination of words that either name nothing or have no use in the language. But that is only Wittgenstein's later selected sense of 'nonsense' (Wittgenstein's jargon). Many metaphysical propositions are demonstrably the result of a failure to understand the logic of our language, e.g. by following false grammatical analogies. Kant's criticism is not so easy to prove, but his argument is that metaphysics is "nonsense" only in the sense of being impossible. Only, however, Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus makes the claim that the great problems of existence (life) are "not problems at all" [4.003] but only "pseudo problems" that can't even be put into language that is not "nonsense".

Grammar without Rules

Wittgenstein defined 'grammar' as "any description of the use of language", that is, of any use of words within the language.

Query: are there rules for beauty?

Does the word 'beauty' have a grammar? That may mean: Are there any rules, specifically semantic rules (rules saying what is sense, what nonsense), for using that word? Wittgenstein wrote in another context:

... it is a language without grammar, you couldn't say what its rules are. (Culture and Value (1998 rev. ed.) [MS 137 88b: 4.11.1948])

If we cannot explain the use of a word -- if we cannot give an account of that use to others -- then isn't that word nonsense?

Question: if someone does not learn to use the word 'beautiful' when he acquires language as a child, will he ever learn to use that word? Dostoyevsky: "beauty demands a response." -- When we learn to use the word 'beautiful', do we at the same time learn to respond (or is it the other way around)? Compare the word 'ouch' -- even someone who has never experienced pain might nonetheless describe the circumstances in which people use that word: he would at least know that it was an appropriate exclamation if a person banged his knee or elbow. But we would say that even if he does describe when that word is used, he nonetheless does not appreciate why anyone says 'ouch' (the point of this language game), that he understands, but he does not understand. And might we not say the same about 'beautiful?

Earlier discussion: Is 'beautiful' a word without a grammar? (Using 'grammar' in Wittgenstein's sense (jargon), the expressions 'logical grammar' and 'semantic grammar' are pleonasms.)

Rather than say "It's a language without a grammar; you couldn't say what its rules are", it would be better -- i.e. clearer -- to simply say that it is a language without rules. Otherwise it sounds as if you were suggesting that there really were rules, but we just couldn't say what they are, because they are somehow hidden from view, which sounds all too much like the "theory of abstraction": it is like saying that there "really" is an essence even when no one can say what it is; it simply must be there. (The only "must" here is the necessity imposed by a preconception.)

There are many meanings of the word 'grammar', but I think Wittgenstein's general definition is the one most useful to logic of language. Because an explanation (description) of meaning does not have to be given in the form of rules; there are other techniques (ways).

However, "Are there rules for beauty?" might be taken in other ways [senses]. For example. You might think that if all art had a common nature, then if we could identify that nature we would have a fail-safe [fool-proof] set of rules for creating works of art. In Plato's Euthyphro Socrates asks for an absolute standard of judgment. Do I know whether there is a defining common nature? Would we, like Socrates, have to undertake an empirical investigation to answer that grammatical question? Or would there be some other way?

[Socrates] had the skill to draw his argument from facts. (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers ii, 29)

According to Wittgenstein, in the cases we have to deal with in philosophy, we do not need to discover new facts, but instead to "arrange what we already know" (PI § 109). How do you prove that? Wittgenstein says that there are no theses in philosophy, but this is clearly one. Russell: "... and its negative doctrines unfounded."

The Greek sculptors did make rules for carving female bodies (Let us take the Greek word 'beautiful' in our sense of 'handsome' rather than in their additional sense of 'fit for its purpose'). The ancient Egyptians had rules for the drawing of their kings. But a formula in aesthetics does not work like a formula in mathematics -- that is, it does not always give the correct result, if, that is, that something beautiful is the result wanted. That just is the grammar of the word 'beautiful'. Saying that "there are no rules" for the application of that word is the same as saying that its application is not objective or verifiable. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is a grammatical remark -- but isn't it also a statement of extralinguistic fact (anthropology)?

Nonetheless, there are some rules even in this case, e.g. children do not learn to apply the word 'beautiful' by taking a vote; the possibility of disagreement belongs essentially to its grammar.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Not in the way the duck is in the stomach of the wolf. "There is no disputing taste." But there are near universally admired starlets -- and if there were not similar responses it seems the concept 'beauty' could not be formed. Yet the absurdity is that it impossible to define the word 'beauty' except by means of disputable examples. ("Different people find different things beautiful" -- I want to ask, what do they find them? As if 'beautiful' = x. That is a misreading of the logic of this language.)

Query: redefinition, game, Wittgenstein.

It strikes me that it was Plato, adapting Socrates, who "redefined" the word 'game' (not Wittgenstein (the "grammar" of 'game') -- by demanding an essence (defining common nature) for the things we call 'games'. Wittgenstein -- as Ockham had before him -- looked at language without the requirements (prerequisites, preconditions) that certain philosophers had made (and which, consequently, later were taken for granted by many philosophers and school teachers).

Query: when did Wittgenstein suggest language games?
Query: Wittgenstein, word games.

I actually don't know. That idea does appear in The Blue Book. But I'm not sure that I should have written on that page: "In dictation to his students [in 1933-1934], Wittgenstein gave his earliest account." All I should have said is that it is the earliest I know of.

Norman Malcolm wrote that, looking at a soccer match it occurred to Wittgenstein that "we play games with words" (Memoir 2e p. 55) and in Malcolm's view this is the origin of the concept 'language games', which is Wittgenstein's jargon (Anscombe's translation added the hyphen, maybe to indicate that it is jargon: the hyphen is not found in Wittgenstein's Blue Book, which was dictated in English (the German word is Sprachspiel)). And it seemed significant to Wittgenstein that when a ball is thrown it sometimes isn't caught: soccer players sometimes miss passes: they "get their signals crossed" -- i.e. we do not always understand what is said to us. When comparing using language to playing games, this is important to remember. One might say that a move in chess cannot be misunderstood -- but do we normally use language according to rules as fixed as those of chess?

When we talk of "word games", however, normally (i.e. when not using jargon) we mean either actual games or instances of deception ("playing with words"). With respect to Moore's list of things he claims to know (e.g. I know that this is a hand, that I have never been very far from the earth's surface), Wittgenstein told Malcolm that rather than denying Moore's claim (as if it were false -- i.e. claiming instead that Moore does not know), it would be better to say that in Moore's examples the word 'know' has "no clear meaning" (ibid. p. 70, 72).

Did Wittgenstein mean, however, that Moore's was not a use of language at all -- i.e. that it was nonsense? If I use a screwdriver to do the work of a chisel, I am misusing the screwdriver because I may very easily damage its head, making it useless to do the work a screwdriver is designed to do; however, if I twirl the screwdriver over my head the way I might a key on a string, I am not misusing the screwdriver -- instead, I am not using it at all (that is, I am not using it to do any work as a tool). I do not know if that analogy is a misunderstanding of Wittgenstein's metaphor or not. However, we might say that the analog of using a screwdriver to do the work of a chisel would be using a word in a way that was not in accord with its established use (and so may mislead people). Wittgenstein gave the example of 'infra-red light' which we might say is a misuse of the word 'light'. So in Moore's case, I think Wittgenstein meant that: it is not clear whether Moore is using our word 'know' to do any work or not (although he is not using that word the way we normally do).

The Limits of the Method of Language Games

Note: this continues the discussion Religion and Language games: Is Wittgenstein's method -- because that's what it is -- of language games useful for understanding religious language and religion?

Query: language as language games. Wittgenstein notes.

But is that how Wittgenstein always looks at philosophy, namely as being best understood by means of comparing language as it is used in philosophy to playing of games (as in "language games")? He does not in his lectures on aesthetics; and I said that was not his method in the philosophy of religion either -- was I correct? "I shall think of you after my death, if that should be possible" (LC p. 53). -- Is that statement a move in a language game? What would saying that it is make clearer? -- "My normal technique of [understanding] language leaves me [i.e. breaks down, fails me]" (ibid. p. 55). -- Now what is this "normal technique" here if not the method of language games? "I shall think of you ..." -- Well, is that nonsense? No, it is what Wittgenstein has called a "picture".

This seems one of his most useful insights: "a picture held us captive" (PI § 115). We sometimes make for ourselves pictures that mirror no facts (~TLP 2.1) -- i.e. not every statement is an hypothesis. What is the language game here? Well, there isn't one. Wittgenstein: "I would not say: If a man [who believes in the Last Judgment] said he dreamt it would happen tomorrow, would he take his coat? (LC ii, p. 62) -- Asking that question would be the "normal language game".

Query: what are Wittgenstein's religion games?

Well, we know they are not normal language games if verification of whether someone believes is not logically possible, as in Wittgenstein's example: we can't test whether someone believes the world will end today by asking if he takes his coat or locks his door or pays his electric bill (cf. 'I believe it will rain tomorrow' -- tomorrow does he take his umbrella?) And so why does that man say he believes the world will end tomorrow, for he does not use the word 'believe' as we normally do? In Wittgenstein's view of religious language, it is not because that man is making a conceptual blunder (i.e. doesn't know the rules of the game) -- no, "for a blunder, that's too big" (LC p. 61-62).

The point of comparing the use of language to a game played according to rules is to make the meaning of language -- i.e. the rules for its use -- clear. There are everyday (normal) language games with the phrase 'I shall think of you' and others with 'after my death', but not with the two combined into 'I shall think of you after my death'. If we try to imagine (invent) a language game with that combination of words, what would its rules be -- i.e. how would we know if anyone were playing that game correctly or not? 'After my death, I intend to ...' is, as we normally use the phrase 'I intend to', nonsense; cf. 'Is there life after death?' as we normally use the word 'death'. '... if that be possible' is not hypothetical because a propositional hypothesis can be put to the test (verified or falsified). 'I shall think of you ...' That picture would have to fit into a person's view of life, their religious view (for it seems to be a religious picture) of life. Someone might say that man's religious view was absurd -- but could they say it was nonsense (language without meaning)? Except in a negative way, the game method of comparison is not useful here. There is no transaction.

Criticism of "Meaning as Use"

Note: this continues the discussion of the nature of Wittgenstein's principles, and it is in that particular context that the expression "meaning as use" may be clearer (Wittgenstein's comparisons in contrast to Archimedes' principle of displacement).

Query: problems with Wittgenstein's meaning is usage theory.

The word 'theory' suggests Wittgenstein's work seen from the perspective of Russell's idea of philosophy as a quasi-science ("to understand the world as well as can be"). As if Wittgenstein had suggested a philosophical theory (hypothesis) about the essence of language meaning -- as if the word 'meaning' were the name of an obscure phenomenon of some sort in a cloudy sky.

By 'usage' Wittgenstein meant language as a custom or institution, as in the case of the names of emotions. Maybe, then, the query is about "Wittgenstein's meaning is use theory".

One possible source of confusion about "For a large class of cases, though not for all, the meaning of a word is its use in the language" (PI § 43) is that, although it is a comparison -- namely, "We use words like we use tools" -- the proposition 'The meaning of a word is its use in the language' has the form of a statement of fact (a proposition that can be true or false).

A rule -- or, in this case, a method in philosophy -- may also be stated in the form of a statement of fact. For example, Wittgenstein's rule "Ask for the use rather than the meaning can be rewritten "The meaning of a word is its use in a particular context, rather than an essence ("meaning") the word retains in all contexts". And that this possibility misleads us is shown by the confusion in philosophy between factual and conceptual investigations (Z § 458), as between real and verbal definitions of words. For example, is it clear to us whether Wittgenstein is making a statement of fact (thesis) or if Wittgenstein is making a rule: is he "defining a thing" (meaning) or defining a word ('meaning')?

Every proposition looks like a statement of fact -- but Wittgenstein said that meaning is not a matter of form (syntax) but of use in the language: "What do we actually do with this language? Do we use it to state a fact or to state a rule? That is what you must ask if you want to know the meaning of the language."

Now, ask yourself, Is it possible to falsify Wittgenstein's assertion? How? -- wouldn't it have to be by showing that Wittgenstein's comparison is fruitless, that contrary to what Wittgenstein wrote, (1) "our words cannot be compared to tools in a way that (dis)solves philosophical problems", and (2) "our use of language cannot be compared to playing games in a way that makes the meaning of our language clear"? In that sense, and only in that sense, Wittgenstein's comparison (A is like B in such-and-such ways) is a thesis that must be put to the test of Socratic cross-questioning. (But that is the nature of all philosophy.)

What does the thesis (in the Socratic dialog sense) "For a large class of cases ... the meaning of a word is its use in the language" (PI § 43) contrast with? With for instance the alternative view that all words are names and the meaning of name is the thing the name stands for, regardless of whether that thing is concrete of "abstract".

Notes: "... for a large class, though not for all". For example, we explain the meaning of the word 'cow' by pointing at cows or pictures or drawings of cows: "We call things like this and this cows" -- not by stating what the common nature of things called by the name 'cow' is.

Of course, we could always say that the use of the word 'cow' in the language is to be the common name of cows: That would be to use name-of-object as a part of speech.

But if not all words are names, then how is the meaning of non-names to be stated? An example of this would be to ask what use we make of the word 'this', which is not a name-of-object word but instead a pointing-out-word ("demonstrative pronoun").

The rule "A noun is the name of a person, place, or (any)thing (and everything else)" belongs to syntax, not to language meaning. Not all nouns are names.

If we ask for the use in the language -- i.e. for the specific meaning of 'meaning' Wittgenstein chose -- that will make clear to us what should be obvious to us, but is not, namely that not all words are names of things, e.g. the words 'idea' and 'elf' are not (It is superstition that whispers again and again to us that they are).

The Philosophers of Ancient Greece and the Enlightenment

He possessed a strong sense of responsibility toward those who have gone before, bequeathing us our culture and civilization, and toward those who will follow us, to whom we must hand on what we have both received and worked to improve. (Professor Kataoka, who knew Nagai Takashi, said this about him; quoted in Glynn, A Song for Nagasaki (1988), xxix)

If my forehead were higher, my work better, that is what I would like to say about these philosophical pages, that they remember the great men to whom we owe what is most worth having in life -- the philosophers of ancient Greece who invented the ideas we call 'the art of reasoning' (logic, criticism), the standards (1) of investigation by the natural light of reason alone, and (2) of the method of Socratic cross-questioning (because philosophy must be put into words: we must be able to explain and defend what we know to others), and freedom of conscience and 'free speech' (Plato, Gorgias 461d-462a).

The period [c. 495-322 B.C.] which intervened between the birth of Pericles and the death of Aristotle is undoubtedly, whether considered in itself or with reference to the effect which it has produced upon the subsequent destinies of civilized man, the most memorable in the history of the world. (Percy Bysshe Shelley, "On the Manners of the Ancients")

But Thales of Miletus was born around 636 B.C. and Zeno of Citium did not die until 264 B.C. and they too belong to that history at least as much as Pericles. The ancient Greek philosophers and their European counterparts of the Aufklärung invented all our worthwhile ideas.

These and the like are the foundation, always at risk of being undermined, of Western Civilization, and a far greater gift even than its music (from Corelli to Bach to Brahms to R. Strauss) and Classical and Renaissance art and architecture (which is, I think, saying something which Wittgenstein would certainly not have said, in contrast to Albert Schweitzer's view of the Enlightenment (Civilization and Ethics (1929), viii, p. 95-96))

From both Protagoras and Socrates comes the idea that to find the truth or to understand we must question everything, even what is most dear to us. The natural light of reason is the friend of truth, not its enemy. (Rather than acceptance, rebellion is characteristic of Western, philosophical man.)

An inscription that could be placed over the door of the school of philosophy: No one enters here except through the school of humility (Epictetus' exhortation to philosophy). Here the word 'humility' = 'self-knowledge' = 'the Socratic distinction between what I know and what I only think I know (but do not)'. "Confess thine ignorance", although it comes from a religious text [sc. The Imitation of Christ], is the foundation of philosophy, an earnest restatement of Socrates' demand. The "examined life" means: the life of self-criticism. To "confess thine ignorance" is to "Know thyself", which is impossible for the vain man (Apology 21c-d), for the closed-minded man, for the pretentious man, in a word, for the man who thinks he knows what he does not know, that he is wise when he is not, as who does not?

Without Greece, Rome and Europe there would be no schools, no libraries, no hospitals or foundling homes, no universities, no philosophy, no natural science, no Gregorian Calendar, no architecture in the West, no Christianity, no universal human rights, no freedom of individual conscience, no democratic ideal, and for many places there would be no written language and no sense of time or history. In other words, in my view, Western Civilization's culture has given the world everything that is most worth having, except those things that are gifts that no man can give.

The limit of Schweitzer's vision (I think)

Albert Schweitzer, in contrast, seems to have had little appreciation of Classical thought (with the exception of Roman Stoicism) and no appreciation of the Middle Ages (the life of faith), both of which he dismisses. As he saw it, everything worthwhile Western Civilization has to offer is the product of the Enlightenment, in which was born, Schweitzer believed, the application of reason to all things. But the thoroughgoing application of natural reason began with the Greeks, especially as symbolized by Socrates, as Schweitzer recognized.

"What philosophy is?"

Query: Socrates claimed not to know, and that's what philosophy is.

Which I remembered as: Socrates said "I don't know", and that's what philosophy is. Philosophy -- both the word 'philosophy' and the phenomenon -- can be defined as: the rational search for knowledge and understanding in logic, ethics and metaphysics.

We can say that if we understand what Socrates was talking about when he said that he did not know. Socrates' philosophical mission, according to Plato's Apology [28e, 37e], was to discover the false wisdom -- i.e. thinking one knows what one does not know -- of both himself and anyone else he discoursed with. What Socrates did know, because he had set a criterion for knowing, was that he himself was without knowledge [wisdom] (ibid. 23b) of what is most important for man to know, namely not only the general principle (which is rational moral virtue) by which man should live his life, but also what must be done in any particular case (This is why in Plato's portrait of him Socrates seeks common nature definitions of the ethical virtues of piety and justice, courage, self-control). What Socrates believed he knew was that his method of question, answer and cross-question (dialectic) was the way to seek wisdom.

For Socrates and all philosophers in the Socratic tradition, philosophy is seeking to know [the truth] through the thoroughgoing use of reason kept in check by common experience. (Plato's philosophy, in contrast, is not confined to what is knowable but speculates in metaphysical theses.)

Query: Socrates said, "I am not wise."

The Socrates of Plato and in Diogenes Laertius claims to know only his own ignorance (Phaedrus 235c, Diog. L. ii, 32), or "Socratic ignorance". (But note that Xenophon's account of what Socrates knows, which he based on a source other than Plato, often seems different.)

Query: the beginning of wisdom is "I do not know".

The question is if that is also its end.

Other possible summaries are:

Socrates asked, How do you know? and that's what philosophy is.
Socrates asked, What do you know? and that's what philosophy is.

Socrates held that if a man knows anything, he can propound what he knows to others. Socrates set a criterion for saying either that someone knows or does not know (or, in other words, he selected one sense of the word 'know' for use in philosophy, as Wittgenstein would later select one sense of the word 'meaning'). Socrates asks for an explanation of what one knows, and then by cross-questioning either agrees to one's thesis or refutes it by finding it unclear or self-contradictory (Republic 331e-335e); and further, if a thesis is refuted, he may suggest ways to modify the original thesis in order to remove the unclarity or contradiction.

Query: we do not know what we do not know, by Socrates.

Socrates' aim in philosophy -- although there was more to Socrates' mission in philosophy than this according to W.K.C. Guthrie -- was to confront man with the demand to give an account of what he knows, to make him aware of things he doesn't know despite his assumption, often stubborn, that he does know them.

Query: who defined philosophy as asking of questions?

Although it is not Socrates' own definition, if a definition of philosophy is what it is, the source of the ideas is the figure of Socrates.

Between truth and poetry

Query: philosophy, the rise of Christianity.

Nietzsche wrote:

Europe has gone through the school of consistent, critical thinking; Asia still does not know how to distinguish between truth and poetry, and is not conscious whether its convictions are derived from ... methodical thinking or from fantasies. (Human, All-Too-Human, 256, tr. Kaufmann)

What is not false in this assertion (Certainly Nietzsche is not talking about Confucius) is that Europe's roots spring from the Greek philosophers, and Asia's roots do not. Even Europe's religion strove to reconcile itself with Greek thought in the creation of the strange hybrid of philosophy and religion called 'Catholic theology' ("You are a Catholic. You believe in reason," a character says in Graham Greene's story). The distinction Nietzsche made is vital. Our Greek heritage is to subject everything to the test of reason: "Dare to know!" Kant wrote, which means "Dare to doubt!" Dare to question every authority both contemporary and ancient in order to see who is wise and who is not. The alternative is an eternal tutelage and dwelling in nebulosity.

"Why are we born?"

The Greek view was that everything has its own work to perform (its own function) and therefore its own distinctive excellence (W.K.C. Guthrie. A History of Greek Philosophy iii (Cambridge: 1969) p. 442). But what then is man's function or purpose (ergon) -- what was man made for? That question is taken up in the Catholic catechism and answered: "to love and serve God". But the Greek, or at least the Socratic answer, would be: the function of man is to live in the way that is rationally good, because the specific excellence proper to man is rational moral virtue. The philosophical answer is earthbound; it sees the immensity of space, but falls silent. It is hardly the cosmic answer of religion. It is instead "I don't know", and may leave behind nothing but longing.

I would not call Wittgenstein a great philosopher. Plato certainly, but not Wittgenstein. A great, although not perfect, logician (in his sense of the word 'logic'), that I would call Wittgenstein. Neither would I call him a great soul.

"The Language of Percepts" is Concepts

"Do you find the fact that you might never have been born disturbing?" (Max Frisch, from memory)

Why call this a fact? Do I know that I might never have been born? This is, instead, a way of looking at things, the picture of reality as not a spider's web.

Do you think the world would exist if you did not exist? My world is not the world of anyone else, despite what we have in common. "We agree in the language we use ..." If I imagine the world without me in it, I am only imagining what the world looks like through my eyes. Don't I think that the world exists independently of me, of my thoughts? What are we calling "the world"? Even "sense datum" -- whatever that is when it's at home -- is after all my sense datum, no one else's. And if we agree in the language we use, then we have already moved beyond percepts to concepts (There is no "bare percept" language -- or what would it look like?)

Query: percept language.

Percept language is concepts. ['sign' = marks on paper, spoken sounds, gestures, the physical aspect of language only, and 'concept' = sign + rules of grammar or "rules for the use of words".]

To be talked about is to have already been conceived (Goethe: "Das höchste wäre zu begreifen": The most important thing to remember is that all fact is already theory, i.e. that any fact only exists as a fact within some conceptual scheme or other).

Actually, Frisch wrote "thought" rather than "fact" (tr. Skelton), if there is that distinction to be made here.

Umbrella versus Essence

Note: this is a comment about my using the image of an umbrella to define the word 'philosophy'.

The trouble with the expression "umbrella word" is that it suggests that this is not the usual case, as if words defined by essence were the usual case. I would not e.g. call the word 'game' an umbrella word, but you could make a classification scheme of {umbrella-word} versus {essence-word}.

Moral Concepts

Note: this continues the discussion "Forms of Life".

A dog cannot steal; a human being can. So we see that our concepts 'theft' and 'possession' (in some cases) are "moral concepts" -- i.e. dependent on ethics for their meaning.

You can exercise a dog, but a dog cannot exercise.

Among my teachers in Philosophy

I received an Internet mail (I don't receive many) about my earliest Philosophy of Religion pages, to which I replied:

I would certainly count Albert Schweitzer among my teachers in philosophy as well as Wittgenstein; I think Schweitzer's ideas added [for me] much needed balance to Wittgenstein's ideas about religion [religious belief, religion as a way of life].

The philosophers from whom I have most learned

Who are the philosophers who have most affected (or perhaps determined) my own thinking? The historical Socrates of logic and ethics (as distinct from Plato's metaphysician), above all in Plato's Apology and in Xenophon (at first only for the philosophical method and way of life and the demand for an account of what we know as the standard for knowing in philosophy, but then later for ethics as rational).

Then two of almost equal weight, taken chronologically: (1) Ludwig Wittgenstein (for "logic", or clearer to say, using Wittgenstein's own expression as my jargon, "logic of language", but certainly not at all for his anti-rationalist world-view); and consequently (2) Albert Schweitzer (for his anti-anti-rationalist world-view). Also Immanuel Kant's ideas have affected my thinking (powerfully but only by hearsay -- and because I have given my own meaning to his words, treating them as aphorisms, only I don't know how connected with their original meanings).

Beyond his general thoroughgoing rationalism, Schweitzer's writings forced me to see and to accept the distinction between critical theology (historiography) and religion. For I was much attached to the story of Jesus as being born in a stable, but now I see that the story in Luke is not history but myth. It pained me that this is so, but it was an essential lesson for the understanding. That doesn't make the story any less beautiful, but it does affect my picture of the historical Jesus (in contrast to the Jesus of religion).

On the other hand, I regard all the miracle stories as myths, yet if the religious picture of Jesus making the blind see, the lame walk is nonetheless part of how I see him, then why be troubled over the nativity story? Because the birth in a stable would be a natural rather than a supernatural event. That is one way for religious myth to be distinguished from history in the Synoptic Gospels, our only source for the life of Jesus ... although if all religious myth is removed, then the natural history of Jesus's life and the response to it doesn't make sense. If all he had done was to preach the nearness of the kingdom of God and the ethics of love as the way to belong to the kingdom, would he have been regarded as anything more than a prophet?

But to religion what is known to have really happened is not vital; important is only what is believed to have happened -- i.e. religion is belief-in, not belief. And although the miracles cannot be removed from the story if the story is to make sense, given the world-picture of people in that time and place, a world-picture that made no clear distinction between natural and supernatural history (their belief in miracles and signs and dreams and divine inspiration), they could have regarded the entire Gospel story as being the history of Jesus' life.

The infancy and childhood narratives belong to a frame that someone has put around the life of Jesus. They are not part of the picture. On the other hand, how is what belongs to the picture, what to the frame, to be decided, by what criterion?

Philosophers who have not affected my thinking are the Medieval thinkers (Platonism and Aristoteleanism), and Spinoza and Hegel; pantheism is a picture that has always been repugnant to me, because the cruelty in and of the world is monstrously palpable.

"I would count ..." although there are countless others who are a profound presence in my thinking [life], even if only for a single idea expressed in a remembered saying. There are many writers I read in my youth whose ideals still affect my thoughts about life and ethics, and there are others, Dostoyevsky and E.T.A. Hoffmann e.g., whom I now regard as representatives of Romanticisms that are an obstacle to the philosophical way of life, like romantic love and desire, an illness of the understanding, a wound to be healed of (Kant).

The Winter Seed

What good can one do in an age which distinguishes private from state ethics, allowing the latter every cruelty and barbarity? Should one "shelter behind a wall" (Plato)? One can in the view of Seneca at the very least not wholly withdraw into oneself but instead serve "the great republic by working to improve the general outlook of mankind, and to hasten the coming of a new age" (Schweitzer, Civilization and Ethics, v, p. 58), like "the winter seed" (ibid. p. 60).

But if it comes about that the thoughts suggested by reverence for life become common among us, there will be a mode of thought [provided] which will affect us all [which will work in everybody], and spirituality will become general and active [and a spirituality aroused which will show itself in everybody]. (ibid. xxii. This is the revised translation by Mrs. Charles E.B. Russell, 3rd ed. (1946), p. 272 [Bracketed is the unrevised translation, Civilization and Ethics, xxii, 2nd ed., p. 276])

Nothing in my experience would justify Schweitzer's hope. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness knows it not. "Pop" exists because, to paraphrase R. Schumann, the populace wants the popular (It certainly doesn't incline to go "the bloody hard way", and it is easily led -- i.e. misled -- in the other direction [downwards] by politicians and the "entertainment industry" which both ruthlessly exploit it). I think that human beings are shallow because either it is our nature to be ("No one can jump higher than his own forehead"; however, I doubt whether many of us really have such low foreheads: we really don't try to jump as high as we can) or because we want to be shallow (although according to Socrates that can only be the case if someone is ignorant of the good, granted that "Virtue is Knowledge", which it is, where there is knowledge).

"The Lord is kind, and his goodness is everlasting"

He asked with something at once hopeful and hopeless in his eyes, "Do you believe that the idea of Reverence for Life is gaining ground?" (Frederick Franck African Sketchbook (1961), p. 165)

He must ... feel deeply unhappy that he has underestimated the Africans surrounding him. (p. 164)

In what way, I wonder? Perhaps he should have felt unhappy that even someone who had worked at his hospital did not understand his point of view. Schweitzer rejected what Franck calls "Progress" (p. 162); when he stayed at a modern hotel in Europe he asked, "Why do I need running water in my room -- am I a fish?"

There is a danger that they [the colonial peoples] will assimilate the externals of our culture instead of what it possesses of value. (Schweitzer, "Our Task in Colonial Africa", in Joy, Arnold, The Africa of Albert Schweitzer (1948))

Schweitzer wanted Africans to be free -- but not merely 'free' in the sense of politically independent. He wanted them to be free to develop their own culture, their own African way of life; colonization had disrupted African civilization, and although, because Europe had involved Africa in the world economy, that could not be entirely undone, Schweitzer's hope was for the Africans to become self-sufficient (Schweitzer came from a farming community, a self-sufficient Alsatian village) in their own villages (which had been, and still largely was in Schweitzer's time, their way of life before the Europeans came).

What Schweitzer certainly did not want was for the Africans to imitate the Western way of life, to become victims of capitalism's culture-destroying "progress" [homogeneous, anonymous consumerism, exporting raw materials to Europe while importing manufactured goods from Europe]. From Schweitzer's point of view, the Africans did not as it were need "running water"; what the African needed was to become his own man.

Do those who imagine Schweitzer's views were racist -- (At worst he may have extended his view of the primitive black Africans in his district to the whole of black Africa, an extension he had no right to make based, as he himself said, on his own limited experience) -- understand the man? Are they able to make any sense of his work in Africa? Schweitzer's ethic was an ethics of love, not of hate (Racism is false generalization, a pretext for denigration, which is a form of hatred). And the Christianity he preached to the Africans was not a Western Church dogma -- but a view of life that offered the Africans freedom from "nature-spirits, ancestral gods [and] fetishes", that the superstitions that filled their lives with fear should be replaced by peace [Note].

"One should have the skin of a hippo," he said abruptly and without explanation, "and the soul of an angel." (African Sketchbook, op. cit. p. 158; the skin of the hippo is two-inches thick.)

"Thank the Lord, for He is kind"

[The three of us] crossed the yard to the dining room .... The twenty people in the dining room ... became quiet and sat down. The last chair stopped scrapping ... Schweitzer's eyes quickly darted up and down the long table, then they closed. "Thank the Lord, for He is kind and His goodness is everlasting. Amen," he said quietly. (ibid. Psalm 136)

If I mean the God of Nature, then that isn't true. But Schweitzer made this conceptual distinction, that if I mean God as found in the human heart, then I can say this, and it is true, that God is kind and love is everlasting.

Benedict Daswa

Primitive man does not ask what causes things, but instead who causes them, and there remain many places on earth where primitive thinking rules men's live. After the village of Mbahe suffered natural (weather) disasters some people wanted to hunt down whoever was behind these disasters, and when Benedict Daswa, a school teacher and Catholic, tried to stop them by teaching against belief in witchcraft, he was ambushed and martyred. This was in January 1990 in Limpopo province, South Africa. About Blessed Benedict Daswa, retired bishop Patrick Slattery said: "he helped liberate people from internal oppression, the kind that stifles people and makes victims of jealousy and fear" (March 2015).

Unphilosophical Remarks

Working at philosophy versus only pretending to work at philosophy -- the difference is that thinking that does not force itself to cross-question itself is not philosophy. If you put forward a thesis, you must put the thesis to the test as if someone else had put it forth. (Of course making philosophically stupid remarks, from the surface only, is not philosophy either.)

To hold discourse (dialog, dialectic) with yourself -- that is, to try to refute your own opinions as if they were your companion's, is what Socrates meant by 'examining one's thought and life'. Human beings like to air opinions (points of view) -- when that requires no thought and faces no opposition. The only difference between a chattering ape and a human being is if the human being has philosophy.

Belief is measured by willingness to take risks (Ramsey)

If I remember aright, when Frank Ramsey spoke about the concept 'probability', he Ramsey-partial-beliefset a standard or criterion: how much money would someone be willing to risk (wager)? "I think this proposition is probably true." One historian might say, "I will wager my reputation as a scholar." But another, an archaeologist e.g., might say, "Opinions are likely to change; this is at present my considered opinion"; in a word: another historian might be willing to risk nothing at all, but instead "stammer ... something about tradition, intuition, an unmistakable impression, the stamp of genuineness and the like" (Schweitzer). If you don't know, then say that you don't know. If you want to add that you feel inclined to believe, say what exactly inclines you. And if you really must speculate, then use the word 'may', as in 'It may be ...' with its inherent 'just as it may not be'.

Ramsey on the concept 'measuring belief': Is the person willing to risk money on it? And I think also such things as e.g. is he willing to go to prison or death for justice as Socrates did when he held public office (Plato, Apology 32b-33a) or for freedom of inquiry and speech, or does he only give mouth honor to doing what is right?

Again, if I recall aright, Pragmatism, which I don't understand, asks of any given proposition, "What is its cash value?" Cash value as a criterion of truth. So this is not related to Ramsey's discussion.

Query: is philosophy easy?

Newton found Euclid easy, unbearably easy ("proofs of the obvious"). I did not. A subject can be worthwhile without being easy. I would say that whether or not it will be worthwhile for you to take a course in the philosophy department will depend on "what manner of man" and thinker your professor is (or on whether your texts are worthwhile despite your professor) as well as what manner of man you are, for although philosophy can be studied by anyone it is studied only at one's own level. As to the probability of the proposition of your finding a professor of philosophy whose teaching will be worthwhile for you being true? I would be willing to wager in its favor US $0 at most; I wouldn't go higher. (This is Ramsey's definition, i.e. measure of 'belief' or 'degree of belief' by means of the concept 'probability'.)

If anyone tells you that philosophy is easy, it is someone who has never studied philosophy, regardless of what they may have done at school. No philosopher ever found philosophy easy.

Eduard Zeller's Account of Socrates

Note: this supplements the discussion Socrates' Logic of Language, of Socratic definition and ethics, of Socrates' mission in philosophy.

... know this of a truth -- that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. (Apology 41c-d, tr. Jowett)

In my Quotations from Memory I wrote: Why? Because the only evil that can happen is for a man to do evil, and a good man does not do evil. Reason (rational ethics) says that, but experience contradicts it. Experience says that flesh can only endure so much, after which it will do evil in order to make the pain stop. Experience asks if any man is invincibly good?

The following is from: Eduard Zeller. Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy. 13th ed., rev. Nestle, tr. Palmer. (London: 1931) Chapter 27: "The Socratic Philosophy":

Socrates laid no claim to authority; he was far more occupied in teaching men to think for themselves. He made no precise formulations of doctrine (Apology 33a-b). [Note 1] It is on this account difficult to assign him a place in philosophy [He was certainly not a systematic philosopher] .... He was a "philosopher" in the original, modest sense of a man who, while recognising the limits of human knowledge, seeks after the truth (Phaedrus 278d). From a negative point of view it is certain that he rejected natural science. As positive achievements Aristotle ascribed to him the process of induction, definition and the founding of ethics. (Metaphysics 1078b; Nicomachean Ethics 1145b)

Socrates had much in common with the Sophists; first a critical attitude towards everything that seemed to be founded merely on tradition; further the chief object of his thought -- man as a knowing, active, social being; thirdly, that in his philosophic reflections he always started from experience. But he could not remain content with the subjectivity and relativity of the sophists. Behind morals he sought morality, behind prevailing law justice, in the history of existing states fixed principles for the communal life of man and behind the gods divinity. These were for him not theoretical, but practical problems which were comprehended in one question -- how to live rightly. Its answer he considered to be the condition and the guarantee of happiness (eudaemonia) for man whose most important problem is care for his soul. (Laches 185e, Gorgias 513d, 487a, 491e, 492d, 500c, 507d, 527e)

Socrates naturally thought an answer to those questions impossible without some insight into the nature of good and evil (agathon and kakon). We have to bear in mind that these two Greek words had a double sense -- a moral and a material sense -- [as in the expressions] "to do good" and "to fare well", "to do evil and "to fare ill".

What follows is not in accord with my view of Socrates. Because I disagree with Zeller's notion of "unshakeable conviction", as if this were not entirely a matter of being guided by reasons. However, if I do what I say I know is wrong, it is a case of: I say I know that x is the good, but I think that y (i.e. not-x) is really the good -- i.e. of my ignorance of the good, of mistaking the not good for the good.

Socrates was convinced that there is only one real misfortune -- to do evil and only one real happiness -- to do good. (Gorgias 470e)

Knowledge of the Good

Since no one wishes to make himself unhappy or to do harm to himself, no one is voluntarily evil. He who knows what the good is will do good. (Protagoras 351b ff., 357b ff.) By this "knowledge" he did not mean of course a purely theoretical knowledge which needed only to be learnt, but an unshakeable conviction based on the deepest insight into and realisation of what is really valuable in life, a conviction such as he himself possessed. The opposite of this "knowledge" of the good is therefore not error but self-deception.

It follows from these principles that no one should under any circumstances do wrong, not even to his enemies, and that it is better to endure any kind of suffering, even death, than to commit a wrong. Hence the moral is something unconditioned and is the same in all its forms. But it is also a strength; the good man is stronger than the evil man and the latter can therefore do him no real harm; for the only real harm is spiritual and produced only by one's own wrong doing. (Gorgias 527c-e)

It is implicit in his train of thought that no prospect of reward for virtue is held out; for doing good itself is Eudaemonia ["happiness"]. It is the great thing about the Socratic ethics that it is turned towards this world. The question of life after death he leaves open. His [ethics] is unaffected by its denial or affirmation. (Apology 40c ff.) Thus Socrates detached ethics from religion ... [Note 2]

Note 1: Philosophy as an activity of criticism [TLP 4.112] in contrast to Bertrand Russell's conception of philosophy as doctrine, the formulation of theories aimed "to understand the world as well as can be".

I have not found in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations anything that seemed to me interesting .... Its positive doctrines seem to me trivial and its negative doctrines unfounded. (Bertrand Russell, My Philosophical Development, New York: 1959, p. 216)

Wittgenstein's acts of negative criticism are based on his doctrines, preconceptions about language meaning. An example is "Only in the stream of life has language meaning" (Malcolm, Memoir (1984), p. 75), which is actually a negative doctrine. [BACK]

Note 2:

"Is there no reward then?" Seems it to you so small a thing, and worthless, to be a good human being ...? (Epictetus, Discourses iii, 24)

But I do not see that Zeller's "thus" is justified, unless religious morality is identified with rewards and punishments. In any case, being detached from religion is not its most important quality. Rather, as Plato says in the Gorgias, the morality of Socrates is the good both for this life and for any afterlife that may follow it. As to rewards, that assumes that doing what is vicious rather than what is virtuous were in any way desirable, as if doing what is evil could be better than doing what is good! [BACK]

The Irrational, and Rationality Gone Mad

Not all human beings use reason to reach decisions: it is not possible with all human beings to convince them by stating the reasons for and the reasons against; they will instead decide on the basis of what, after brooding, seems right to them, regardless of any arguments you may present them with. That is one meaning of the word 'irrational' -- being unwilling or unable to use reason where reason is available. But another meaning of the word 'irrational' pertains to where reason is unavailable, as in the following case:

The art historian Kenneth Clark thought that the appeal of opera was precisely that it is irrational (Civilisation: a personal view (1969) p. 243), or as philosophers would, say "non-rational". When under the influence of art or love, it may seem that what is of greatest importance in human life is irrational. Wittgenstein may have thought that: "... all that music has meant in my life."

Rationalism as madness

When we are ill, however, we are grateful for the rationality of a capable doctor ... although, in my experience, in many doctors this "rationality" goes far too far: I have seen doctors and nurses treating lab results and vital-sign monitors -- i.e. pieces of paper and machines -- rather than treating the human being who is lying in front of them. That is rationality gone mad.

How does a mother know when her child is ill? Not because she has studied medicine, but because she knows her child. Florence Nightingale says that observation is part of nursing (Notes on Nursing (1859), xiii). The mother has eyes that see, ears that hear and hands that feel --

[Wittgenstein said to Drury,] "You don't take enough notice of people's faces; it is a fault you ought to try to correct." (Recollections p. 126) "I think in some sense you don't look at people's faces closely enough." (ibid. p. 96)

-- and, of course, she sees her child every day. Medical rationality must always be balanced by this kind of empiricism.

Wittgenstein approved of Drury specializing in psychiatric medicine because: "You at least know that "There are more things in Heaven and earth" etc." (ibid. p. 152). The clues to relieving human suffering -- which is the very thing that doctors seek to do -- may not always be found in lab reports and vital-sign monitors, and it often appears to me that hospitals forget this.

[Cf. Statistics as madness: "But I only have one daughter."]

Ways of Life, and Philosophy as Definition

Query: life form, Wittgenstein, biology.

That is a very interesting query, because -- in which ways, if any, did Wittgenstein intend "form of life" to equal "life form"?

When speaking to Rhees, Wittgenstein used the form of expression 'ways of life' rather than 'forms of life'. The latter is Anscombe's translation of Lebensformen. Wittgenstein's On Certainty has: "something that lies beyond being justified or unjustified; as it were, as something animal" (§§ 358-359).

The expression 'way of life' does not at all suggest the biological expression 'life form'.

Metaphysics and thought-experiments

Query: a metaphysical question.

Should this query be sent to: A metaphysical statement may have three values (but "true" and "false" are not among them, because it cannot come into conflict with experience, otherwise we would not call it 'metaphysical'; it can be valid or invalid, i.e. consistent or inconsistent only), which was where it was sent; or to Questions without answers? What do we want to call 'metaphysics'? If we want speculation about the imperceptible, then we will reserve that word for the pictures that philosophers invent.

The nearest equivalent to metaphysics in philosophy is "thought experiment" in physics. The nearest equivalent physics has to metaphysics is "thought experiments".

Query: metaphysics of language.

That would be the type of theories philosophers invent about meaning: what is language's "true" or "real" meaning? We could say that the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is built on a metaphysics of language: "the essence of a proposition" -- its "general form" -- is a string of "names" mirroring a fact: This is how things stand (A "fact" is a relationship among things). When philosophers talk about the essence of meaning, that could be called "metaphysics of language".

Query: metaphysical language, does it have meaning?

Now you owe us two definitions: 'metaphysical' and 'meaning'. ("What is the meaning of a word?" and is metaphysics possible?)

"Language and thought"

Query: how does language limit the expression of our thoughts?

The forms of expression of our language, which we inherit when we acquire language, lay out well-worn paths, like the grooves in a gramophone disk (Z § 349) or like railroad tracks. We almost never leave the path. Custom and habit, our laziness about thinking things through limit our thinking, as well as the height of our forehead.

It is very hard "to say a new word" -- i.e. give birth to a new idea; sometimes a new form of expression is invented, but more often the "new word" is said using old forms of expression that have been given a new meaning [Kierkegaard's said that "conceptual revisions" are made by the thinkers of each generation]. But new ideas are rare [breaking out of the grooves, leaving the well-worn path, is rare]: there is no rarer creature than a philosopher; from the point of view of "limits" in mathematics, in a ratio with the total population, philosophers don't exist.

The query ("language limits the expression of thought") sounds as if there were two things: language and thought, as if language were a necessary medium for thoughts (like water is for fish: where there is no water, there fish cannot go), as if we had many thoughts for which no language existed with which to express them, and that language set the limits to [or, limited] our thoughts in that way.

But that is not the case: what limits our thoughts is concept-formation (the invention of new concepts): we can always invent more "language" -- either by inventing new linguistic signs or by redefining old ones -- with which [i.e. by means of: we use language as we use tools] to express our thoughts.

Again, the way "language" -- in the sense here, not of 'bare linguistic signs' (spoken sounds, marks on paper, in sand or clay) but of the 'common usage -- i.e. already defined uses -- of linguistic signs' [This is the distinction between a sign and its meaning] -- limits thoughts is found in the formulas of language [thought] that we learn and rather thoughtlessly repeat from childhood on; our thoughts stick to the "grooves", to the well worn paths, pre-laid out for us by our common language. That is the way "language limits our thinking"; not "language limits the expression of our thoughts", which is a misleading form of expression. Or, again, bare linguistic signs do not limit our thinking but instead usage (custom, habit) does.

Related discussions: "Is there a way to learn philosophy without getting any jargon involved?" | Narrowing the circle of thought by limiting vocabulary (George Orwell) | Enlarging language to limit thought (Orwell's "slogan swallowers") | Can language be used to limit emotion? (nameless, unconceptualized emotion)

Query: no one teaches children grammatical rules.

Syntax and natural language. (In the case of mathematics, children are taught grammatical rules.) In the beginning, it appears, children learn-acquire language by imitating (and then by following analogies, syntactic patterns), and even later only occasionally do adults correct them. Of course, from the point of view of Wittgenstein's logic of language, "broken English" serves just as well as school-taught English, because that logic is only concerned with the sense or meaning of language -- i.e. with the work that signs are used to do -- not with whether or not a form of expression is "proper English" (cf. CV p. 15 ("Riddles of technology"), PI § 98).

Socrates' Philosophy of Definitions

Query: Socrates, philosophy of definition.

The two-part definition according to Aristotle of 'Socratic definition' is stated in Socrates' Logic of Language. But to take the query in a different way, we really could say that Socratic .Philosophy was definition -- i.e. that his philosophical method was to seek definitions (cf. logico-philosophicus, which I take in my Preface to mean: "the philosophy of logic" (PI § 108), or, one might say "Logic philosophy" (in contrast to say Cartesian philosophy) -- i.e. looking at philosophical questions from the point of view of the logic of language).

But not as if Socrates wanted definitions for their own sake (logic is a tool, not an end as it was for Wittgenstein) -- because his examination of definitions would lose its reason for being without Socrates' search for knowledge in ethics, Plato's "no small matter, but how to live", because as those who think they know what they don't know are misled themselves and mislead others, without knowing what the good is for man, man cannot do what is good.

Wittgenstein's Philosophy, in contrast, wants "definitions", that is, grammatical clarity, for its own sake (CV p. 7), although he wrote that his investigations of language were only done for the sake of clarifying (selected) philosophical problems (PI § 109). (Engelmann's view of Wittgenstein's intent is a bit different.)

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