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
Meaning and Use
We saw, in the last lecture, how Wittgenstein criticized the Augustinian picture and the complex referential conceptions of linguistic meaning that elaborate it. He demonstrated the vacuity of labelling all words as names and refuted the claim that sentences are combinations of names, the essential function of which is to describe how things are.
Int. But all that was purely destructive! Didn't he have anything constructive to say about what it is for words or sentences to have a meaning?
PMSH. Oh, come now! It wasn't purely destructive. After all, you learnt a great deal about naming and reference, about explanations of meaning and about what counts as description.
Int. All right – that's fair enough. But nevertheless, Wittgenstein surely owes us an explanation of what it is for a word to have a meaning, and what meaning is?
PMSH. Yes, he does. And as we shall see in a moment, he discharges his obligation with much subtlety. But before I explain this to you, I want to draw your attention to something. You talk comfortably about a word having a meaning and about words having meanings. Be careful. The very form of words inclines one to think that meanings are things words have – that words and meanings stand in some mutual relationship: here the word, there the meaning. Wittgenstein compared this thought with the thought: here's the money, and there's the cow that one can buy with it. But that is altogether misconceived. The right comparison is with this: Here is the money, and this is its purchasing power.
All right. The first thing we must do is to examine the conception of word meaning that Wittgenstein advanced in place of the variations on the Augustinian, referential conception.
In Investigations §43, Wittgenstein wrote:
For a large class of cases of the employment of the word ‘meaning’ – though not for all – this word can be explained in this way: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.
This remark has sometimes been said to express Wittgenstein's theory of meaning as use. That is a misdescription. For his brief observation is neither a theory nor any part of a theory. Wittgenstein did not think that there could be any such thing as a philosophical theory of meaning – only a clarification of the meaning of the word ‘meaning’.
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.