Wittgenstein: Opening Investigations

By Michael Luntley

In this provocatively compelling new book, Michael Luntley offers a revolutionary reading of the opening section of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations

• Critically engages with the most recent exegetical literature on Wittgenstein and other state-of-the-art philosophical work
• Encourages the re-incorporation of Wittgenstein studies into the mainstream philosophical conversation
• Has profound consequences for how we go on to read the rest of Wittgenstein’s major work
• Makes a significant contribution not only to the literature on Wittgenstein, but also to studies in philosophy of language

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Feb 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781118978498

Book preview

Preface

I have been offering classes on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations at the University of Warwick for more than twenty years. I remember a moment in one of my undergraduate classes about ten years ago. We were discussing Wittgenstein’s critique of ostensive definition and looking at the text around §§30 and 31. I remember my own internal commentary to self as the class was discussing these sections. I thought how naïve the formulation was in the text and I realized I had very little grip on what exactly the argument against ostensive definition was meant to be. I realized that I couldn’t see any interesting argument in the text. I recall a sense of wanting to move on, to move on to later sections where there was plenty to get your teeth into, real granularity of detail. I wanted to move on. I felt almost embarassed that we were supposedly looking at a powerful argument against ostensive definition as a fundamental method of assigning meaning, for I couldn’t see it. It wasn’t clear that the students could either. It wasn’t clear that there was real philosophical traction to the discussion.

It was from that moment that I stopped teaching the standard reading of how the Philosophical Investigations open. I began to read, again and again and again, the opening sections with a view to understanding what was going on as Wittgenstein invites us into the frame of his investigations. During a period of sustained sabbatical leave, I slowly re-read the Investigations several more times and gradually came to the view that I now set out, in some detail, in this short study. For the standard reading, Augustine is the foil for Wittgenstein’s potent arguments. On my reading, Augustine is not the villain in Wittgenstein’s text; he’s the good guy. Most of what he says, Wittgenstein agrees with.

Fragments of the reading that I now set out in some detail below have surfaced in a couple of recent essays of mine: ‘What’s doing? Activity, naming and Wittgenstein’s response to Augustine’ in A. Ahmed (ed.) Wittgenstein’s Investigations: a critical guide Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 30–48 and ‘Training, training, training: the making of second nature and the roots of Wittgenstein’s pragmatism’ European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy. Symposia: Wittgenstein and Pragmatism a Reassessment, 2012, 4(2), 88–104. But the present study is a sustained attempt to unpick in detail the landscape of the opening sections of the Philosophical Investigations. The appendix picks up some issues from my earlier 2003 book on Wittgenstein (Wittgenstein: Meaning and Judgement), but I have not plotted in general the points where I now depart from that earlier book. What I would now say about family resemblance, rule-following, the inner/outer distinction and so on is shaped in many different ways by the reading I set out here for the opening of Wittgenstein’s work. But the details of how all that goes must wait for another occasion.

I have been fortunate in the intellectual environment that gives the surround to my work on Wittgenstein. My sense of how Wittgenstein’s investigations can integrate with ongoing explanatory work in philosophy is richly informed by the wealth of work in the philosophy of mind and language in my immediate environment. Context matters and I have been blessed in the context I enjoy at Warwick. This has informed my thinking in all sorts of ways too subtle to fully track let alone articulate, but an early version of some of the material that now sits in Chapters 1 and 2 formed the basis for a Wednesday morning discussion group about three years ago, and I recall and acknowledge now the contributions from Naomi Eilan, Johannes Roessler, Hemdat Lerman and Guy Longworth that I took on board that day. Such acknowledgment only scratches at the surface of the powerful sense of the buzz around core issues in the philosophy of mind that reverberates around Warwick and it flows from many quarters and many colleagues. More recent discussions with Peter Poellner and Eileen John on primitive normativity and aesthetics have helped me latch onto issues that I now think are central to my reading of the Investigations.

Many more classes at Warwick, both undergraduate and postgraduate, have accompanied me on my attempt to provide a coherent reading of how Wittgenstein’s masterpiece opens. I have been opening up the Investigations to students in ways ever more distanced from the standard reading for several years now and I am grateful to all those students who took my classes and kept me on my toes. I recall recent groups, but struggle to name those from even four or five years ago, but should any of my past students find themselves looking at this book, then count yourself within the domain of those to whom I say: thank you, it was a pleasure studying Wittgenstein with you.

A recent doctoral student of mine, Seyedali Kalantari, had a particular and direct influence on my thinking. Ali was working on issues on the normativity of content and not directly engaged with Wittgenstein. But helping him get clear on the detours of a large body of work in an argument that is basically an off-shoot from Kripke, helped me enormously in framing the issues I pursue here. I was aware of those debates about normativity, but working with Ali serendipitously required that I engage more fully with that work at about the same time that I became aware of Ginsborg’s work on primitive normativity. I am still not sure if I agree with everything in Ginsborg’s 2011 seminal paper, but I think it is the most interesting contribution to discussions of normativity in the last couple of decades. Its timing was fortuitous. I found it addressing issues that I was only half aware of, but which were key to making sense of my own attempts at getting clear about Wittgenstein’s methodology.

There is one last acknowledgment that I regret I was aware of too late to give in person. When I read Pears’ two-volume study, The False Prison, I quickly assimilated a great many of the ideas contained in it. The more recent, Paradox and Platitude had a similar impact. But it has only been in the final drafting of the current work and during the delivery of my most recent graduate class on the Investigations in spring 2014 that I realized properly the extent of my debt to Pears’ work. Of all the many books on Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, it is Pears’ books that I now most value and cherish. Although it falls outwith the compass of the main focus of this study, I include a short appendix on what becomes of the private language argument if my account of Wittgenstein’s treatment of ostension is right. That appendix is my defence of the core to Pears’ reading of the private language argument. It’s not quite the same as his reading, but the heart of the case owes much to his account. Pears thought the private language argument was the centrepiece of the Philosophical Investigations. Fashions change. Many now think it is not even an argument. But I think Pears was right. That appendix is a brief homage to the enormous influence that Pears has had on my own thinking.

I am indebted to the hard work and insight of two readers who read the penultimate manuscript for Blackwell. Their comments showed a care and attention to what I was doing and a perceptiveness and rigor that was a delight. Their attention to and engagement with the details of the project emboldened me to make a small number of final distillations in a handful of places to help sharpen the distinctive features of the reading on offer here.

I remember little now of how my own children first acquired the craft of using language to organize themselves, their lives and the culture in which we live. But, like most of us lucky to become grandparents, I find myself noticing much about the way that Ava and Mabel step into the imaginative arena of the language games by which we navigate our ways. This book is for them. And whether or not they ever get to be concerned by the things which I treat here, may they never lose the joy and spontaneity of their early attempts to join in the games we play with words. May they never stop wanting to explore and to go on.

down at the Sheep Dip,

July 2014

Introduction

I.1 Things Unravel – A Snapshot

Pulling on a loose thread can unravel a garment. This short monograph pulls on what looks like a very small loose thread, but one that threatens to unravel the received wisdom about how the Philosophical Investigations begin. The loose thread concerns what Wittgenstein says about ostensive definition.

Wittgenstein famously says,

… an ostensive definition explains the use – the meaning – of a word if the role the word is supposed to play in the language is already clear. (§30)

The idea of role concerns appropriate regularities of use. It seems right to say then that Wittgenstein holds,

ostensive definition explains the meaning of a word only if its appropriate regularities of use are already clear.

Suppose we assume that a fundamental assignment of meaning to a word is one that works independently of (or prior to) grasp of appropriate regularities of use. In that case, from (1) it follows that it is false that,

ostensive definition is a fundamental method of assigning meaning to a word.

So Wittgenstein endorses (1) and not-(2). Let us agree on that. Does this mean that Wittgenstein argues against the idea of ostensive definition as a fundamental method of assigning meaning to a word? Clearly not. Merely holding (1) and not-(2) is not to argue against (2). One might think that not-(2) is trivially true by virtue of what is involved in providing a definition of meaning. Of course, if in addition to (1) and not-(2) one held

If there were such a thing as a fundamental method of assigning meaning to a word it would be (or at least it would substantially involve) ostensive definition

then the endorsement of (1) and not-(2) would implicitly amount to an argument against (2), rather than a mere endorsement of not-(2). Most commentators on the opening sections of the Philosophical Investigations think that endorsing (1) and not-(2) amounts to arguing against ostensive definition as a fundamental method of assigning word meaning. Perhaps they assume that (3) is true and take Wittgenstein to be endorsing (3)?

Here is where the loose thread lies. Three observations on the text:

Wittgenstein nowhere targets (2) with an argument; that is, he provides no argument in favor of not-(2); he takes it as trivial and obvious that (2) is false.

Wittgenstein does not hold (3). Indeed, he has an alternative account of what a fundamental assignment of word meaning involves – ostensive teaching.

Wittgenstein endorses the role of ostensive teaching as a fundamental method of assigning meaning to a word, he does not criticize it.

If (a), (b) and (c) are right, Wittgenstein is not criticizing ostensive definition as a fundamental method of assigning word meaning in the opening sections of the Philosophical Investigations. If this is right, it undermines the common claim that the Philosophical Investigations open with a critique of a picture/conception of language and language learning that includes (2). If this is right, and if ostensive teaching is a viable candidate for a fundamental method of assigning meaning (one that does not require a prior grasp of linguistic regularities) then there is potential for an explanation of linguistic regularity and an account of what it is to acquire a grasp of linguistic regularity. And if this is right, Wittgenstein is potentially party to explanatory projects in the philosophy of language. Furthermore, whatever Wittgenstein means by the thesis of the autonomy of grammar, it does not rule out the scope for explanatory claims about grammar – the patterns of linguistic regularity. Such an explanation would be an account of that which determines linguistic regularity. Finally, if Wittgenstein allows scope for the possibility of explanatory moves about linguistic regularity, then Wittgenstein allows the potential for explanatory moves regarding whatever notion of normativity, if any, accrues to linguistic regularity.

I think (a), (b) and (c) are right. Pulling on these loose threads takes us down a long and unravelling reassessment of how the Philosophical Investigations begin.

I.2 Four Key Points

The opening sections of the Philosophical Investigations are pivotal in understanding not only how Wittgenstein’s masterpiece starts, but also where it is going. In this book I provide a re-appraisal of how the Investigations start. The key points of this are:

the opening of Investigations does not comprise a critique of a position, let alone one that underpins most philosophy of language, it comprises investigations of the first moves in providing a theory of language;

the opening sections do not give a critique of a model of language learning, they provide the preliminary investigations of a model of language learning;

there is no critique of ostensive definition as a fundamental method of assigning meaning to a word, the role of ostensive definition in Wittgenstein’s investigations is, with respect to the idea of a fundamental assignment of word meaning, benign;

the model of language learning that Wittgenstein endorses leaves space for an explanation and justification of linguistic regularity (what Wittgenstein calls grammar).

A further consequence of point (iv) is to provide space for a reading of the rule-following arguments later in the Investigations that provides an explanation of the normativity of rule-following. Such a reading provides an explanation that avoids the familiar dilemma between reductionist and descriptive accounts of the normativity of rule-following.1 There is much at stake in getting the opening sections right. What we say about how the text opens bears on much of the rest of the text. Getting the opening sections right consists not so much in uncovering things that other readings miss, but in seeing aright the details that, for the main part, are well known.

There is something quite distorting about the way Wittgenstein’s opening paragraphs have become presented. This is due to a number of factors, not least of which is the way that Wittgenstein’s apparently effortless conversational style can encourage assimilation of what he is doing into the frame of commentators’ preoccupations regardless of the fine details of formulation and expression in Wittgenstein’s own words. To adapt one of Wittgenstein’s own injunctions – do not rush to impose an order of argument upon the text, but look and see. In this book I shall do a lot of look and see.

If points (i)–(iv) are right, Wittgenstein’s Investigations include discussion of substantive philosophical theses, theses about what constitutes language learning and claims about the explanation and justification of grammar – the patterns of linguistic regularity. This stands in contrast to what has become the dominant quiestist reading of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy.2 Wittgenstein’s quietism is taken as a therapy against the pretensions of philosophical explanation. His thesis of the autonomy of grammar encourages the view that all that we can do is describe regularities in word use, not explain them. The autonomy of grammar thesis is, however, contentious, both with respect to what it means and with respect to whether Wittgenstein endorsed it throughout his later writings.3 The heart of the idea that grammar is autonomous is simply this: the patterns of linguistic regularity, howsoever we classify those regularities, are not to be explained by reference to the way the world is. There is no metaphysical underpinning to linguistic regularity. Such regularities can be described, but not explained. When Wittgenstein talks of the autonomy of grammar, it is invariably formulated in terms of the absence of a metaphysical underpinning (e.g. PG §137). My claim that Wittgenstein endorses theses that explain and justify linguistic regularity is compatible with eschewing a metaphysical underpinning. Indeed, I think that there is a major and substantive project to explicate Wittgenstein’s concept of linguistic regularity. That project is initiated in the present study, but it involves an investigation of a much broader scope than I attempt here. Nevertheless, my reading of the opening sections as endorsing substantive explanatory claims stands too much in contrast with dominant readings to allow me to defend the explanatory pretentions of Wittgenstein’s masterpiece without offering some detailed examination and defense of those pretensions. Accordingly, Chapters 1 and 2 concentrate on the substantive matters that support (i)–(iv). In Chapters 3 and 4 I explore the methodological consequences of this reading.

One of the hardest things in reading Wittgenstein is giving due consideration to his respect for silence. He shows us tantalizing views of the philosophical landscape that he surveys, but hesitates to articulate what he is showing us. As he says in the preface:

The philosophical remarks in this book are, as it were, a number of sketches of landscapes which were made in the course of these long and meandering journeys.

… this book is really just an album (pp. 3–4)

It is possible that this is a faux modesty, a surprising conceit, given the profundity of the views that he puts on display. It is possible also that the hesitation is a function of the therapeutic purging of the urge to articulate philosophical propositions. But by the end of this short study I aim to have put into focus an alternative account of this hesitation to articulate and of the idea that what Wittgenstein offers is an album. Given the substantive theses still at play in my reading of the opening sections, the respect for silence is not due to a therapeutic purging. In contrast, I suggest that this silence reflects a different but equally fundamental re-orientation in methodology, a re-orientation that suggests a potent philosophical thesis: the philosophy of language (an explanatory project to understand what makes us language-using creatures) starts with a phenomenology of our encounters with meaning, a phenomenology that takes the aesthetics of our experience of words as the root of its enquiries. Indeed, I aim to draw together the resources for seeing that the Philosophical Investigations is, fundamentally, an aesthetic investigation.

I.3 Seeing the Text Aright

One factor that has been influential in shaping most readers’ understanding of the Investigations is the impact of Baker and Hacker’s magisterial commentary on the book.4 There is much to admire in their work, but their reading reflects the time of their study. Their commentary came out against the backdrop of an industrialization of the business of producing a systematic theory of meaning. The idea of a systematic theory of meaning was foundational for a swathe of philosophical work undertaken in the shadow of Davidson’s seminal papers and the debates they spawned, especially those influenced by Dummett. While it is true that, in some sense, Wittgenstein’s investigations undermine certain conceptions of the idea of a theoretical account of meaning, much hangs on what we expect from a theory in this area and what range of items cover the alternative to a theory of meaning. Wittgenstein famously remarks,

There must not be anything hypothetical in our considerations. All explanation must disappear, and description alone must take its place … (§109)

But this instruction is quite opaque without first clarifying what is meant by explanation, and what constitutes description.5 So a major theme in this book concerns what Wittgenstein means by description and how much of an explanatory project survives his antithesis to theorizing in philosophy and what kind of explanation it provides. But, to borrow the closing phrase of the above paragraph, I want to emphasize that the reading I provide does not, for the main part, derive from new discoveries in the texts; the reading is produced … not by coming up with new discoveries, but by assembling what we have long been familiar with. And note, the idea of assemblies of the familiar does not require that the assemblies themselves are familiar. What is assembled is familiar, but the way that things get assembled might yet be novel and revelatory. That idea alone shows one space for Wittgenstein to occupy a methodology that continues doing philosophy, for example by providing assemblies that are novel, revelatory and potentially explanatory.6 So, what is assembled is perhaps familiar and descriptive of familiar points about word usage. But the assembly that throws the familiar into relief can make available connections that had hitherto been missed. That is the status of the assemblies that I aim to provide about Wittgenstein’s own words. Providing such assemblies is, I think, a way of doing philosophy and a way of coming to see that such assemblies can be explanatory. Getting the assemblies right is not itself a matter of mere description; it is a matter of making connections the correctness of which is judged, in part, by the explanatory leverage they provide. And sometimes it is a matter of making connections that are new and open-ended: connections that embody a recommendation to think and to live differently.

Seeing the text aright is not, of course, a direct result of simply taking a long hard look and see. It requires that we approach the text with some key questions, issues and assumptions about what is at stake. And so I must acknowledge my own philosophical preoccupations. My reading of the opening passages focuses on a fundamental philosophical issue the understanding of which is shaped by how we read Wittgenstein’s opening investigations. The issue concerns a pair of core questions about reference:

how does language connect with things?

and,

what entitlement do we have to a robust concept of objectivity for word use?

The second question requires some explanation. There is a naïve and intuitive picture of how question (a) bears upon (b) that makes (b) a pressing question. The naïve and intuitive picture arises from reflecting on the idea of linguistic regularity. Whatever account one gives in answer to (a), it seems undeniable that part of what it is for a word to have meaning is for there to be some notion of a pattern of appropriate use for the word, for example in terms of how it combines with other words to form complex expressions that are candidates for truth and falsity. Words do not merely stand for things; that they stand for things enables them to be used in systematic and regular ways in combination with other words. There is a regularity to word use and that regularity picks out patterns that are constitutive of what it is to use words correctly.

It is tempting to think that one’s answer to (a) will bear upon this idea of linguistic regularity. One might think it is plausible that the patterns of correct use of a word are determined by the nature of the thing to which the word refers. For example, the word book can form complex expressions (that are true or false) by combining with some words (e.g. color words) but not others, because of the nature of the object picked out by the word. Reference – what the word picks out – determines the pattern of use: linguistic regularity is determined by reference. That is the naïve and intuitive view.

For the moment, there are two points that I want to note: first, the idea of the pattern of correct/incorrect use of a word (linguistic regularity) is what I mean by grammar and second, the idea that grammar is determined by reference is what I shall call the determination thesis. The concept of ‘grammar’ is a term of art for Wittgenstein and for Wittgenstein’s interpreters. It carries considerable baggage, especially with regard to the issue of the status of the normativity, if any, that accrues to the patterns of correct/incorrect word use.7 I prefer Pears’ use of the more neutral expression linguistic regularity.8 This considered under-statement of an idea signals that there are patterns of use that are part of what it is for words to have meaning without prejudging the issue of the nature of those patterns and, in particular, what concept of normativity we might want to credit to those patterns. I will use the word grammar when referring to other scholars’ discussion of Wittgenstein’s notion of linguistic regularity, but will not mean more by that than I mean with the concept of linguistic regularity.

A major faultline in the interpretation of Wittgenstein’s concept of grammar concerns the question whether his concept of grammar changed from the middle writings to the Philosophical Investigations.9 Those who see a change in the concept, track that change as movement from an initial conception of grammar as a tool with general application that marks the bounds of sense, to a piecemeal survey of use in particular cases. On the former conception in which grammar is, in Hacker’s words, a tool for auditing the bounds of sense, there is a general project to achieve a clear view of the bounds of sense. On the latter piecemeal conception there is no such general project. In its place there is a piecemeal study of how, when the rules for word use are observed