In one of his harshest judgments on philosophy Wittgenstein observes at PI, 194: “When we do philosophy we are like savages, primitive people, who hear the expressions of civilized men, put a false interpretation on them, and then draw the queerest conclusions from it.” He does not document the extent to which this actually goes on in philosophy, or where it goes on, if it does. When he makes the remark he has been discussing possibility. In that case perhaps he has a point. It might well apply as well to much of what is said in philosophy about thought, meaning, and understanding - in short, about the mind. When we reflect philosophically on those “mental” or “intentional” ways of speaking in which we describe so much of what we do it is easy to start down a path, no one step of which is exactly “savage” or “uncivilized,” but which ends up with something “queer” in the sense of being completely and irretrievably mysterious.

I want to look at one - but only one - way in which Wittgenstein thinks this happens, and what he does, or suggests, to counteract it. It can start with puzzlement over the meanings of words. Not with wondering what some particular word means, but with wonder at the very phenomenon of meaning. Words as we encounter them are sounds or marks, but obviously not all sounds or marks are meaningful. Leaves make sounds in the wind, and a snail makes marks in the sand. It is not even their being produced by human beings that makes sounds or marks meaningful. Humans also produce sounds and marks which have no meaning, and often do so intentionally. As Wittgenstein puts it, mere sounds or marks on their own seem “dead” (BLBK, p. 3).