Date post: | 03-Apr-2018 |
Category: |
Documents |
Upload: | kristine-reynaldo |
View: | 223 times |
Download: | 0 times |
of 26
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
1/26
Kristine Marie T. Reynaldo
Professor Zosimo Lee
Philo 204
12 April 2013
On the essentiality of grammatical investigation:
Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
I.
Departing from the traditional notion that philosophy ought to
contemplate Big Questions such as Truth, Metaphysics, Mind, and
Morality, and seek knowledge of such ideals and universals,
Wittgenstein advocates philosophical practice that is more grounded in
reality. Instead of abstracting and explaining super-concepts,
philosophers should consider the subjects of everyday thinking and
speak the language of the everyday. Furthermore, they should look
into the workings of language and understand how we use it. For
Wittgenstein, philosophical problems arise from our persistent
misunderstanding of concepts in striving to grasp their essenceto
define and understand them once and for all, in complete and simple
terms. Such a goal leads to deep disquietudes because it is illusory.
In the attempt to find general theories for ideas, philosophers often
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
2/26
come up with reductive explanations instead, which fail to account for
the manifold ways in which we apply ideas and speak of them. Thus,
we are perpetually unsatisfied with any explanation that ultimately
proves to be lacking, and yet we persist. Dazzled by the prospect of
achieving the ideal, we often overlook what is. For Wittgenstein, it is in
the consideration of the actual that the value of philosophy lies.
Meaning is to be found in the study of our usual modes of expression,
and the ways in which we use them. For him, Philosophy is a battle
against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language
(PI 109).
What does this battle consist in? For one, it involves resisting
the impulse to consider words apart from their context, to force on
them essential definitions and generalize such definitions. For
meaning-making is more complex than naming, or determining the
connection between a sign and its referent, visualizing the image
words paint in our minds, or diagramming sentences. There is more to
making sense than arranging words according to proper syntax or
looking them up in a dictionarythough such practices are part of it.
To accomplish meaning is to be aware of not only the denotations and
connotations that attend a word, but of the circumstances surrounding
it: its place in a sentence, the sentences role in a language game, the
kind of language game being played, the intention of its players in
making their moves, the forms of life that inform linguistic practice,
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
3/26
and the social world in which all of these are embedded. For meaning
is contextual; the sense of a word may vary from one sentence to
another.
It all may sound too complicated, and we wonder how we
accomplish meaning at allindeed, often grasp it in an instant. But we
burst forth into the world as part of societies organized by the practice
of language. We flail and swim in the ceaseless currents of signs from
the moment of beingperhaps even before that first utterance: a cry
and imbibe the conventions for making meaning, learn them in training
and practice. For language governs human relations, and gives us tools
with which to parse our reality. Just as we orient ourselves in physical,
temporal, and sociocultural spaces to go on, we make sense of a word
or an expression by situating it.
If there is an essence to language, and therefore, the meaning of
a word, it is this: its instability. It is not only that there is no one-to-one
correspondence between a signifier and its signified, or that not every
word refers to an object in the external world and may be relied upon
to mean only that thing; language itselfas system and activityis
neither static nor delimited and complete.
We may see language as something alive, in flux, just as wethe
people who use itare alive, in flux, and traffic in it. Wittgenstein
compares it to an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
4/26
old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods;
and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight
regular streets and uniform houses (PI 18). Like an ancient city, the
boundaries, surface structures, signs, and modalities of language are
ever-shifting. Some of the expressions in our language are, to use a
familiar phrase, as old as time; some have fallen out of use; every
year new words are coined to accommodate new concepts; while other
words lose some of their denotations and acquire different ones
through time. As the world and societies evolve, so does language and
our uses for it, the language-games we play and the rules that govern
them. (Once, a man in a superior position commenting on a womans
youthful good looks in a professional setting would be no matter; now
he will be called out and criticized for it, even if he is the president of
the United States of America.)
In the attempt to regulate the essential instability of language
and meaning, we codify conventions. And so new additions to the
Oxford English Dictionary are debated and widely publicized at the end
of the year, the Modern Language Association issues a new edition of
its handbook every so often, and the same modes of discourse
(exposition, description, narration, argumentation) are taught in
composition classes. And so articles on email and texting etiquette
abound, driving exams require knowledge of traffic rules and signs,
and scientific studies are used to back up and formalize interpretations
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
5/26
of human behavior. Yet such prescriptions are themselves contingent
on changing social realities, prevalent practices, modes of expression,
and what John McDowell calls the congruence of subjectivities (143),
and can only guide us so far. As Wittgenstein points out, though we
lay down rules, a technique, for a game when we follow the rules,
things do not turn out as we had assumed That is just what we say
when, for example, a contradiction appears: I didnt mean it like that
(PI 125). Even when we have an understanding of the language-game
and its rules, even when all the moves are perspicuous, we cannot
map out the progression of moves, nor predict how the language-game
will proceed, or if, indeed, it will stay just that kind of gameand there
are an infinite multiplicity of language games, each with an attendant,
usually nonexclusive set of rules and uncertain criteria for
individuation.
Thus, to accomplish meaning, one must abandon the misguided
pursuit of universals or the inflexible and dogmatic reliance on rules
that are themselves the product of convention and tied to particular
contexts, and dip into the stream of life to examine the complexity
underlying the seeming familiarity of ordinary language and its use in
actual cases.
Given the essential instability of language, how is meaning to be
pinned down? Wittgenstein saysand here we see his rejection of
overgeneralization and essential definitionsFor a large class of
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
6/26
casesthough not for allin which we employ the word meaning it
can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language
(PI 43). Since there is no fixed relation between a signifier and a
signified, and sincewhat with the multiplicity of language-games
every move may be made to accord with a rule to justify an
interpretation, we can use the same words to mean different things.
For instance, the sentence I am here may mean (be used to say):
Where are you? or You can count on me or Gotcha! In such
cases, the words used are not as important as howthey are used to
mean, and how they are used to mean, again, depends on their
context.
If intention were always apparent, determining the use of an
expression would pose no problem. Alas, it is not, for intention is an
interior phenomenon. Since we cannot grasp anothers interiority, we
must refer to what is public: language, which not only gives us the
tools for expression, but also codes the expression with contextual
clues so that we may apprehend the speakers purpose. This is why
Wittgenstein says that the investigation of meaning is a grammatical
one (PI 90).
The essence or gist or meaning of an expression may be
clarified by paying attention to its grammar. Wittgensteins notion of
grammar is not limited to rules for semantic, syntactic, and
morphological usage (surface grammar), but includes other norms
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
7/26
about what constitutes sense or nonsense, or how language may be
used in particular activities (depth grammar). Grammar tells what
kind of object anything is (PI 373) by helping identify the language-
game being played, and the significations that may be associated with
an expression in that context.
An expression may signify, may only constitute a move in a
language game, if it is meant to accomplish something. If somebody
suddenly says, Blue, another may ask, What is that supposed to
mean? I can think of the color, but what am I supposed to do with it?
A word cannot mean outside a language game. If, for example, before
the one said Blue, the other asked, With what color would you like
us to paint the walls of your room? then that utterance would make
sense, would be properly situated in the language game being played.
And if the question were, How do you feel today? the answer blue
would take on a different meaning altogether.
The ability to remark on the grammar of expressions, to identify
the nature of the language game being played, and to employ
linguistic techniques with regard to conventions to articulate thoughts,
feelings, desires, etc. are functions of the mastery of language. And
because language is a social activity, familiarity with forms of life
inheres in its mastery. Sociocultural context determines the kinds of
language-games a society engages in and the rules that regulate
them. A community that believes in the sacredness of a mountain, for
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
8/26
instance, would not tolerate uttering profanities, making noises, or
acting in an irreverent manner while traversing it.
Meaning-making involves not only linguistic facility, but also
social cognition. For communication, even in its most primitive forms,
to be possible, there must be intersubjective knowledgeshared
practices, standards, traditions, culture, modes of expression. In an act
of communication, one investigates the grammar of both sentence and
situation. Meaning is accomplished when the intention is externalized
in expression, contextualized and apprehended according to
conventions, and given the appropriate response.
Consider the following examples:
When I ask, Wheres the exit? and the guard turns her head to
the left, pouting her mouth in that direction, I go left.
When I corner my brother and say, Hello, my favorite little
Brother Bear! How handsome you look today! and he replies with,
What do you want from me? I grin.
When I run into an acquaintance in the hallway and he asks,
How are you? I dont launch into a litany of all the difficulties Ive
been dealing with in the past week and instead reply with, Im good,
how about you?
Underlying the above examples are cultural assumptions and
social standards, which may or may not be consciously thought of in
the moment of communication, but which inform our moves in the
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
9/26
language-game because we have become habituated to them, learned
them through training, customs, past experiences, and so on. Such
habituation is what allows us to grasp meaning in an instant.
What does it mean to say something meaningful? It is, to some
extent, to have a sense of what is acceptable and to be expected in a
particular situation, and let that sense guide use.
II.
The role of philosophy, as Wittgenstein conceives it, is
therapeutic: to bring words back from their metaphysical to their
everyday use (PI 116) and describe how they function in the actual
practice of language, in concrete cases. Such a practice of philosophy
aims to dispel conceptual confusions and philosophical conundrums
that arise when language goes on holiday (PI 38); to avoid
ineptness or emptiness in our assertions (PI 131); and to clarify
meaning, not by reforming language or presenting an absolute and
complete system of prescriptive rules for its application (such as are
put forth in Wittgensteins earlier Tractatus), but by exhorting us to
attend more carefully to what is. For, according to Wittgenstein,
everything is revealed in the grammar of an expression, and the
criteria for understanding are available in the public institution of
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
10/26
language. Things are as they appear and need no further explication, if
we look closely enough.
Thus the aim of philosophy is primarily descriptive. Rather than
pursuing essential definitions for ideas and ideals, or producing new
knowledge or seeking answers to deep philosophical questions
enterprises that are, to Wittgenstein, misguided, philosophy ought to
inquire into those aspects of things that are most important for us
[which] are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity (PI 129)
an exercise that is not so much uncovering as it is illumination.
As Wittgenstein says:
Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of
language; it can in the end only describe it.
For it cannot give it any foundation either.
It leaves everything as it is. (PI 124)
The notion that the proper aim of philosophical practice is
description has been criticized for being conservative and pessimistic.
Given the exalted view of philosophy as a discipline that provides
insight into the nature of the universe, the meaning of life, the
foundations of knowledge and belief, and other such profound
concerns of the human condition, the role Wittgenstein assigns to
philosophy seems a tad too humble. In a recent essay, for example,
Michael Lynch asserts:
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
11/26
philosophy can and should aspire to be more than just a
description of the ordinary. That is because sometimes the
ordinary is mistaken. the philosopher must also take
conceptual leaps. She must aim at revision as much as
description, and sketch new metaphysical theories,
replacing old explanations with new.
But Wittgensteins philosophy is not merely descriptive, does not
seek to maintain the status quo. Indeed, change lies at the heart of it.
Consider his view of language and forms of life as ever evolving, his
idea that we can make up the rules of our language-games as we go
along. Consider the great conceptual leaps he made between the
Tractatus and the Investigations, his resistance to constitutive
definitions and dogma. He may emphasize the importance of studying
what is, but not at the expense of considering what could or ought to
be. After all, it is only by examining established modes of thought and
expression that we are able critically to interrogate themthe first
step to opening up spaces for change. Consider the once-universal
he of patriarchal discoursethe use of masculine pronouns by
default to refer to humanity in general or a hypothetical third person in
particularwhich was recognized, questioned, and eventually largely
discarded for more gender-sensitive language with the rise of
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
12/26
feminism. Here we see how a change in forms of life, which includes
cultural attitudes, leads to changes in the way language is used.
Just as philosophical problems arise when language is like an
engine idling (PI 132), real-world problems arise when we get lazy in
the investigation and application of our intentions and concepts.
Fogelin notes, The central point of the Tractatus is to place limits
upon language to protect the ethical from babblingparticularly the
babbling that takes place in sophisticated circles. Paul Engelmann
captured the force of this position when he remarked that ethical
propositions do not exist; ethical actions do exist (99). But as
Wittgenstein says in the Investigations, Words are also deeds (PI
546). The ways in which we think and talk about what we think
influence our actions, allow us to connect with our community, and
shape the conditions we live in. Language bears upon our experience
of the world, of other people, and of ourselves. The failure to scrutinize
our mental habits, to be honest with our intentions, to be mindful of
the words we choose to convey our meaning, and to take responsibility
for our silences and utterances, plays a part in the degradation of our
forms of life. Thus, our practice of language has moral implications.
One of the features of language as conceived in Investigations
that makes it relevant to discussions of morality is its social aspect.
Language is what facilitates intersubjectivity. Ones consciousness is
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
13/26
an opaque sphere. Only when one expresses his interiority by
appealing to public criteria to constitute a concept of the self, describe
inner states and processes, and convey thoughts, feelings, and other
such private phenomena, does ones subjectivity become accessible
and relatable to others.
Take pain, for instance. Only I can have/feel my pain. But
another can know that I am in pain if I externalize this private
experience, by reporting it or otherwise expressing it through my
behavior (which, like words, can be described by grammar).
Say, I have dysmenorrhea. I hunch over my desk, my arms
around my lower abdomen, my face in a grimace. I may not say
anything, but another can tell that I am in pain, because these
expressions fit into the public criteria of what being in pain looks like.
Or, my dog dies, and though I am grieving, I act like there is
nothing out of the ordinary and everything is going well. Then I tell a
close friend, Bogarts dead. My delivery may be nonchalant, but the
friend knows how much I loved the dog, and she is reminded of her
own experience of sorrow over the passing of a person who mattered
to her. She cannot have my pain, but she knows what it feels like,
knows what commonly attends the concept of grief implied in the
sentence Bogarts dead. So she hugs me and says, There, there.
Thus the publicly available criteria of language, used to
characterize private experience, makes empathy possible. Ones
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
14/26
subjective experience may not be fully communicated in its
particularityfor, as Bill Ashcroft writes, Even in the most empathetic
exchange the speaker and hearer are never really present to one
another. The experience of one conversant can never become the
experience of the other (298) because each interprets the others
meaning through ones own subjectivity; ones habits of mind and past
experiences influence ones understanding and limits what is revealed
in language. Meaning-making is also circumscribed by the relationship
between the players of a language-game and their knowledge of each
others subjectivity, because intersubjectivity allows for divergences in
shared or partially shared meaning, as in inside jokes only fully
comprehensible between intimates. Nevertheless, this does not
contradict the public nature of language and of meaning as social
accomplishment. By using language to convey meaning by coding a
message with linguistic and social context, understanding may be
achieved.
One may ask, Given the social nature of language and a
utilitarian conception of meaning, whats the use of expression when
one expects no interpersonal engagement in the course of a language-
game? If, when one speaks (or writes, as the case may be), one does
not seek to interact or participate in dialogue, is there sense in
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
15/26
verbalization? Does it not amount to writing words on sand when one is
alone in a beach?
Perhaps the underlying question here is, What drives mere self-
expression, and is there value in such an activity?
One might answer that there is no sense in saying something if
one does not intend to put it to some practical use, such as articulating
ones opinions to influence anothers behavior. But Wittgenstein does
not apply the use-theory of meaning to all utterances. Recognizing our
complex use of language and the various modalities of expression, he
says, If the feeling gives the word its meaning, then here meaning
means point (PI 545). Words can be wrung from us,like a cry.
Words can be hard to say (PI 546). If a feeling gives rise to expression
just because it needs expressing, then the truth of the feeling gives
the expression meaning. Self-expression as reflection and release is
also a kind of language-game, and has value even if its only purpose is
to make sense, to oneself, of ones inner experiences.
In this way, Wittgenstein shows the impossibility of private
language, because one still needs to appeal to public criteria, which in
turn implies the existence of a community of language practitioners, to
characterize and identify private states. As David Foster Wallace points
out, this avoids the solipsistic consequences of mathematical logic as
language-paradigm (109), which considers only discrete facts, as
pictured by truth-functional schemata, independent of speakers and
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
16/26
listeners. He further states that it constitutes the most powerful
philosophical attack on skeptic-/solipsisms basic coherence (109) and
allays the deep disquietudesthe paralyzing anxiety of skepticism
Descartes Cogito engendered.
It is interesting to consider solipsism and language in relation to
the advent of technologies that give rise to new language-games.
Modern modes of communication such as email and texting, which
strip conversational language-games of some of the context clues that
attend face-to-face interaction, present new challenges for
representation and situating meaning. Of a different class is interaction
with robots and other automata, and the question of the legitimacy of
engaging in a language-game with a nonhuman technological entity
programmed with artificial intelligence, such as the popular chatting
robot SimSimi, and the possibility of making meaningof advancing
meaningful linguistic movesin that context. If standards for making
meaning are arrived at (constructed) through repeated, accepted use
and cumulative performance, which eventually give rise to linguistic
conventions, and if SimSimi can learn and employ linguistic
techniques based on previous conversations with its millions of users
the world over, then, with enough data and a sophisticated algorithm,
could we be said to have a meaningful conversation with a personified
computer code with no subjectivity of its own but processes data input
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
17/26
by other peoples subjectivities and adapts accordingly to practice
language?
The language-game with SimSimi starts out regularly enough. If
I say, Im tired, SimSimi might reply, Aw, you should get some rest!
But after a few more moves in the language-game, it begins to lose
sense, i.e. SimSimi starts giving inappropriate responses in the context
of the conversation.
The use theory of meaning does not place too great an emphasis
on the role of consciousness in accomplishing meaning, which occurs
in the public sphere, using the publicly available tools of language. As
Hallett puts it, Unimportant for the ability to understand, inner
experiences are equally unimportant for the ability to use signs. On the
sending as on the receiving end communication can go without them
(67). But the rapid breakdown of sense in interactions with nonhuman,
intelligent entities reminds us that language is a human activity;
communication, a social enterprise, embedded in forms of life; and
understanding achieved through cognition, previous experience, and
practice situated in concrete instances of language use.
Wittgenstein says, only of a living human being and what
resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say: it has
sensations; it sees; is blind; hears; is deaf; is conscious or unconscious
(PI 281). Look at a stone and imagine it having sensations.One says
to oneself: How could one so much as get the idea of ascribing a
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
18/26
sensation to a thing? One might as well ascribe it to a number!And
now look at a wriggling fly and at once these difficulties vanish and
pain seems able to get a foothold here (PI 284). SimSimi, by virtue of
algorithm, may be able to parse sentences or process linguistic
patterns. However, it cannot do the same for forms of life, because it is
not a life form. If we ascribe sensation or speech to it, we do so only in
a secondary sense, like personifying dolls (PI 282). The language-
games we engage in with it are more akin to the language-games we
play when we are, essentially, talking to ourselves rather than talking
to other people. For how do you delineate the concepts of self and
other when the other exists in internalized forma projection, a wish, a
fantasy? If meaning crosses no intersubjective space because it
originates in one subjectivity, if it is accomplished at all?
Such cases exemplify the complexity of language and its use, of
the role of the mind in understanding, and the necessity not just of
logical analysis, but social engagement.
The arbitrariness of signs makes us depend on conventional
associations and the congruence of subjectivities to assign meaning.
Thus, though language is in flux, there must also be a modicum of
regularity in its practice for rules to serve a purpose. If rule became
exception and exception rule; or if both became phenomena of roughly
equal frequencythis would make our normal language-games lose
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
19/26
their point (PI 142). Take lying, for instance. Though Wittgenstein
states that it is a language-game that needs to be learned like any
other one (PI 249), being, unfortunately, a part of our forms of life, it
cannot be universalized. Understanding depends on shared knowledge
of realities and the correct apprehension of contextual clues and
intention, and someone who lies flouts these standards, by withholding
knowledge of reality, or misrepresenting it or his intentions, thus
deliberately misdirecting grammatical investigation. I believe Kant
thought honesty a categorical imperative because, if reason is what
makes us human, then depriving another of the proper use of his
reason by deceiving him is an affront to his humanity. But Wittgenstein
shows that the commitment to truth is important, because to misuse
language by deception would make our normal language-games lose
their point. This would lead not only to conceptual chaos and the
deterioration of language, but to the deterioration of human relations.
We name things so that we can talk about them. Grammar tells
what kind of object anything is (PI 373)that is, how we use our
words in concrete instances. Thus, grammar allows us to say
something meaningful about the world, and is the basis for
metaphysics. In investigating the ways in which we use words, we also
examine the ways in which we construe the concepts we associate
with them, and think about them. Because we ascribe value to
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
20/26
concepts and apply them in normative ways, we need to define our
concepts by examining how we express them, in what circumstances,
and to what ends. Take concepts such as good and bad, for
instancewhat sort of deeds and events fall under such criteria? Is
unchecked economic growth good because it represents increased
profit, or bad because it represents widening inequality and the
exploitation of natural resources and cheap labor for the benefit of the
few? Grammatical investigation does not only clarify our concepts, but
behooves us to be more responsible in applying themto say what we
mean and mean what we say, as it were. For it is so easy to be
bewitched by language, to rationalize our subjective interpretations of
a word or a sentence to justify our use of them outside the language
game that is their home, to conceal from others and, more
dangerously, to conceal from ourselves our perversions of their
meaning. George Orwell presents the case so strikingly in Politics and
the English Language:
Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the
inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle
machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary
bullets: this is calledpacification. Millions of peasants are
robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads
with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of
population or rectification of frontiers. People are
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
21/26
imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the
neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is
called elimination of unreliable elements.
Such a use of words, which divests them of their usual contexts
in order to mislead, is intellectually dishonest. It not only disrupts
meaning-making by using intentionally vague language, but also
evades the analysis of moral philosophy. It exemplifies a kind of
linguistic bewitchment that may be rectified by grammatical
investigation.
Another way in which the bewitchment of language may impede
meaning-making is tied to that which makes meaning-making possible:
convention, and its constituents of habit and imitation, which are
functions of training in the use of language. Some expressions have
survived through time and remain part of our language not because
they are usefulthat is, convey meaning effectivelybut because they
are repeated thoughtlessly. Clichs and buzzwords typify this. They are
the equivalent of white noise in thought and discourse. Such
expressions become more problematic if we allow that language and
thought, and by extension, practice, exist in a dialectical relation with
one anotherthat the way we talk about things influences the way we
think about them, and vice-versa. Thus, the careless use of
expressions betrays sloppy thinking, and as Gary Gutting says in
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
22/26
What Philosophers Know, effective action requires accurate
thought.
Those who charge Wittgenstein with pessimism say that he
abandoned the Big Questions of traditional philosophical pursuit,
deeming them pointless and illusory, because he had grown tired of
serious thinking and invented a doctrine which would make such an
activity unnecessary (Russell qtd. in Horwich). On the contrary,
grammatical investigation demands constant intellectual vigilance, for
in every move in every language game lies the possibility of
misunderstanding and the opportunity of demystification. And because
the critical interrogation of language and the social conditions it
reflects should not end in theorizing but in linguistic and even political
activity, Wittgensteins later philosophy also entails social
engagement, as well as the mindful practice of language.
Meaning (making it and making sense of it) is performative as
much as it is retrospective. For one can make sense of something only
in the context of what came before itprior moves in the language
game, linguistic conventions, and the practices and traditions from
which they came. It is a function of accumulated performances, of
repeated and repeatedly accepted utterances. Thus meaninglike
language, like cultures, like peopleis ever-evolving, alive, and subject
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
23/26
to change. Meaning is constructed in discourse, and discourse shaped
by human agency, and it is in this possibility not only of meaningful
expression, but of meaningful action, interaction, and intervention that
the morality of Wittgensteins philosophy of language lies.
Underlying all of this is the necessity of investigating established
modes of thought and speech in the attempt to understand and to be
understood. Anyone who uses language is caught up in this constant
attempt to communicate, to learn in practice, and to bear upon the
world. The more one is exposed to instances of the various ways in
which expressions are used, the more one is exposed to human
relations, activities, cultures, placesthe weave of life in which
language is threadedthe more one refines ones sensitivities and
notions of nuance, and the better one creates and conveys meaning.
In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein wrote,
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent (7). With such
a stark statement he summarily dismissed the infinite richness of
human life and expression, and invalidated judgments of aesthetics or
morality, which, arguably, represent the highest aspirations of
humanity. Soon afterward, he gave up the practice of philosophy. But
with Philosophical Investigations he turned around and reclaimed the
value of the actual and the everyday, exhorting us to take off our
blinders in the pursuit of the ideal and open our eyes to what, once
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
24/26
seen, is most striking and most powerful (PI 129) there, henceforth
changing the way we practice and conceive of philosophy.
It is not a matter of complicating things, but of clarifying them.
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
25/26
Works Cited
Ashcroft, Bill. Constitutive Graphonomy. The Postcolonial Studies
Reader. Eds. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin.
London: Routledge, 1995. 298-302. Print.
Fogelin, Robert J. Wittgenstein. 2nd ed. London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1987. Print.
Gutting, Gary. What Philosophers Know. Interview by Richard
Marshall. 3: AM Magazine, 10 Dec. 2012. Web. 9 Apr. 2013.
Hallett, Garth. Wittgensteins Definition of Meaning as Use. New York:
Fordham University Press, 1967. Print.
Horwich, Paul. Was Wittgenstein Right. Opinionator. The New York
Times, 3 Mar. 2013. Web. 9 Apr 2013.
Lynch, Michael. Of Flies and Philosophers: Wittgenstein and
Philosophy. Opinionator. The New York Times, 5 Mar. 2013.
Web. 9 Apr 2013.
McDowell, John. Non-Cognitivism and Rule-Following. Wittgenstein:
To Follow A Rule. Eds. Steven Holtzman and Christopher Leich.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. 141-62. Print.
Orwell, George. Politics and the English Language (1946).
www.mtholyoke.edu. n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2013.
Wallace, David Foster. The Empty Plenum: David Marksons
Wittgensteins Mistress. Both Flesh and Not: Essays. New York:
Little, Brown and Company, 2012. Print.
7/28/2019 On the essentiality of grammatical investigation: Meaning and morality in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
26/26
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Trans. G.E.M.
Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1953. Print.