We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
A Beginner's Guide to the Later Philosophy of Wittgenstein Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2024
Representation by Means of Language
When Wittgenstein turned to writing what became the Philosophical Investigations, he thought hard about how to begin the book. His primary theme was to be the nature of language and linguistic representation. In 1931, he wrote that he should begin his book with an analysis of an ordinary sentence such as ‘A lamp is standing on my table’ since everything should be derivable from this. What did he have in mind?
His concern was with how sentences manage to represent. Such a humdrum sentence as ‘A lamp is standing on my table’ is meaningful – it has a meaning. By using such a meaningful sentence, one describes a certain state of affairs. One says that there is a lamp on one's table, and what one says may be either true or false. How does a sentence in use, a sequence of sounds one utters, manage to do all this – to represent a situation, to describe how things are, to be true or false? – The question is odd, and it may well engender a feeling of bafflement. You may well feel that you can't really see a problem. You may be inclined to say that this is just what sentences in use do! — Let me try to show you that there is more that is puzzling about linguistic representation that comes immediately to the eye. I shall do so by means of a little dialogue between myself and an interlocutor, who I imagine as a thoughtful member of my audience given to asking good questions. I’ll set the ball rolling:
PMSH. When one says ‘A lamp is standing on my table’, one produces a sequence of sounds. A parrot may do that no less than you or I. But if a parrot squawks ‘A lamp is standing on my table’, these are just empty sounds. The parrot is not describing anything, and it understands nothing. It is just mimicking the sounds it hears. But if you or I utter the sentence in an appropriate context, it has a meaning – it signifies something, describes something. So how is this effected?
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.