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The Problem of the Model Language-Game in Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Helen Hervey
Helen Hervey
Affiliation:
Oxford.
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Extract

In his Memoir of Wittgenstein Professor Malcolm describes the occasion on which, as far as he knows, the idea that as an activity language is a game, or that ‘games are played with words’, first occurred to Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein was passing a playing field where there was a game of football in progress. As he watched the game, the thought suddenly flashed into his mind, ‘We play games with words!’ This account may be compared with that given by Professor von Wright, on the basis of Wittgenstein's own report, of the way in which he was with equal suddenness struck with the thought that a proposition is a ‘picture’. He was looking at a diagram which showed the positions of certain persons and vehicles involved in an accident—‘That is a proposition!’ was the thought which on this earlier occasion darted into Wittgenstein's mind. Thus, it seems, was germinated the theory developed in the Tractatus that propositions, that is to say, meaningful propositions, are ‘pictures of reality’ (Tractatus, 4.01).

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 36 , Issue 138 , October 1961 , pp. 333 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1961

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References

page 333 note 1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Oxford University Press, 1958, p. 65.

page 333 note 2 loc. cit., p.7. The words ‘That is a proposition!’ have been reported by Miss Anscombe.

page 333 note 3 Paragraph references to the Philosophical Investigations (1958) will be included in the text.

page 336 note 1 Compare also par. 133.

page 337 note 1 Although in saying this, it should be added that it is not such enumeration for its own sake in which Wittgenstein is interested, nor the investigation of the uses of just any words. His highly selective procedure, in the light of his theoretical purposes, will emerge more clearly later.

page 338 note 1 The Blue and Brown Books, Blackwell, Oxford, 1958, p. 28. Italics mine.Google Scholar

page 338 note 2 op. cit., p. 17.

page 338 note 3 Ibid.

page 338 note 4 Blue Book, p. 17.

page 339 note 1 op. cit., p. 81.

page 340 note 1 op. cit., p. 8.

page 341 note 1 Blue Book, p. 23—italics mine.

page 342 note 1 Blue Book, p. 28.

page 342 note 2 Ibid., p. 28.

page 344 note 1 Blue Book, p. 43.

page 344 note 2 Speaking of the model languages here discussed, Wittgenstein himself states that in these languages ‘there was no such thing as asking something's name’(27).

page 345 note 1 Professor Ryle has suggested ‘colour exemplar’ as a more appropriate translation of ‘Farbmuster’.

page 345 note 2 For a further discussion of this point see my article ‘The Private Language Problem’, The Philosophical Quarterly, January 1957.

page 347 note 1 Blue Book, p. 52.

page 348 note 1 Blue Book, pp. 55–7, passim.

page 348 note 2 Blue Book, p. 59.

page 350 note 1 Moore, G. E., ‘Wittgenstein's Lectures in 1930–33’, Mind, January 1954, p. 5.Google Scholar