3concept of Language - Roshan Ara
3concept of Language - Roshan Ara
3concept of Language - Roshan Ara
Al-Hikmat
Volume 26 (2006), pp. 47-62
WITTGENSTEIN’S CONCEPT
OF LANGUAGE GAMES
ROSHAN ARA*
ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new
houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and
this surrounded by a multitude of new borough with straight
regular streets and uniform houses.”1
The book contains loosely connected paragraphs as
Wittgenstein himself says: “it travels over a wide field of thought
criss-cross in every direction.” The book carries many un-
answered questions, implicit hints, imaginary dialogues, images,
metaphors and epigrams.2
By the time he wrote, The Philosophical Investigations, he
rejected the three assumptions of his early period namely that
language is used for one purpose, the presenting of facts, that
sentence acquires meaning in one way that is through picturing
and that language essentially has a clear and firm structure of the
formulae in a logical calculus.
In the Tractatus, he has expressed the view that language is
as complex as a living organism. So in order to grasp the meaning
and essence of language one must make it clear and lucid. One
should make a distinction between surface grammar that is
grammar as it appears on the surface and ‘depth grammar’ that is
a thorough analysis of complete forms of language as are
discovered in factual language.3
In the later development of his thought, Wittgenstein seems
to repudiate the earlier notion of the uniformity of language
which would restrict the word to a rigid and demarcated use, a use
which would suit all cases. He came to think that language is
flexible, subtle and multiform. This paradigm for explaining the
multiformity of language is discussed in much detail in the Brown
Book by Wittgenstein in 1934-35. He makes use of words like
‘bricks’, ‘slabs’ which refer to objects and prima facie it looks
like logical atomism with its concept that the elements of
language reflect data in reality. It happens to be a language game
when a builder utters the word ‘slab’ and his assistant brings him
the object that is needed. A great deal of training is needed in
order to understand that on hearing a certain word one is to carry
out a certain task just as a child learns the use of words on the
Wittgenstein’s Concept of Language Games 49
may be added that what Wittgenstein call forms of life are what
social philosophers call social facts or “institutional facts”. But it
is important to remember that established patterns of action are
not static. Wittgenstein illustrates this with an example. If one
takes up the criminal code of a country one cannot make out from
the code in what manner the inhabitants of that country deal with
a thief, for it is not a book of social anthropology. The rules
proceed from the decision people make to implement the rules.18
As far as the Wittgenstein’s example of shopping for five red
apples goes, we have one meaningful activity or form of life
carried out by three language games — in this case counting,
identifying colours, and picking out objects. One can imagine the
three games functioning by other different forms of life for
example awarding five red apples, painting a picture of five red
apples and teaching arithmetic with the help of five red apples.
There is deeper sense of the form of life and this is expressed
in persuasion sympathy, hope, expectation expressions of
incitements etc. This touches on a further question to which
Wittgenstein alluded in the Tractatus, survival after death. What
Wittgenstein calls the mystical and the unsayable now pervades
speech so much so that speech becomes inter-woven with action
and attitude of life, and yet able to give expression to the question
of the soul.
In other words, one believes in after life and hope for reward
if one adheres to a particular form of life and refuses to accept it
if one adheres to another form of life. It may be added that there
are five references to forms of life in the Philosophical
Investigations and these are interwoven with language. It is so
because speaking language is a part of a form of life.19
Wittgenstein’s remarks on “Games and Definitions” could be
applied to aesthetics. Morris Weitz in his article “The Role of
Theory in Aesthetics” propounds the view that Wittgenstein was
extra ordinarily gifted with artistic ability. He could design a
house, mould a statue, conduct an orchestra or write an imaginary
dialogue.
56 R. ARA
provided in the last five centuries by science can play havoc when
applied to philosophy. For it inclines us to search for explanations
instead of describing grammatical conventions, to construct ideal
languages instead of describing our own, to conceive of
metaphysics as a super physics instead of searching for the roots
of metaphysical paradoxes in linguistic confusion.
It is the contention of later Wittgenstein that grand philoso-
phical systems can finally be traced to linguistic confusion.
Idealism and materialism, theism and pantheism, monism and
pluralism, etc., can be shown to be controversies generated by
linguistic confusion. We can also trace them to pictures
embedded in our language.
The traditional conception of philosophy viewed the subject
as the mother of all sciences or the most fundamental and
profound inquiry into the nature of reality etc. However, the later
Wittgenstein maintains that philosophy is a product of linguistic
confusion. It is to these confusions that endless and baffling
questions of philosophy can be traced to. The illusions of
philosophy are rooted in deep features of our language. These
deep and complex features of language determine our thought and
orientate our approach of looking at them.
Later Wittgenstein recommends a thorough analysis of
language to determine the sources of our philosophical troubles.
Wittgenstein deems different methods as different therapies with
a view to liberating the philosopher from deep and pervasive
puzzlement. According to Later Wittgenstein, the philosophical
problems do not have a solution like mathematical questions or
scientific queries. Assimilating philosophical problems to either
mathematical propositions or scientific theories smacks of highest
methodological confusion. We have to understand the genesis of
philosophical problems in the all-pervading linguistic confusion,
when we understand that philosophical problems are not real
problems but products of linguistic confusion. When we
understand the origin and development of philosophical
problems, our itch for asking philosophical questions dies down.
Philosophy is a battle of human intelligence against the
bewitchment of language. Philosophy traps us into muddles felt
Wittgenstein’s Concept of Language Games 61
REFERENCES
1 C. A. Van Peursen, Ludwig Wittgenstein (London: Faber and Faber),
p. 75.
2 Ibid, p. 75.
3 Ibid. p. 79.
4 Ibid. pp. 82-86.
5 Ibid. p. 100.
6 Ibid. p. 109.
7 Rush Rhees, Discussion of Wittgenstein (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1970), pp. 55-56.
8 Ibid, p. 57.
62 R. ARA