Augustine's conception Flashcards
§§65, 67 (what is essential to a language game)
- Someone might object: you talk about all sorts of LG’s, but have nowhere said what is essential to an LG, and so to language- what makes these activities into language or parts of language. Response: there is no one thing in common, but many kinds of /affinity/ between different languages/LGs
- W can think of no better name for these similarities than ‘family resemblances’, such that members of a family overlap and criss-cross in the same way. “And the strength of the thread resides not in the fact that some one fibre runs through its whole length, but in the overlapping of many fibres”.
§68 (the concept of a number)
Interlocutor: “so in your view the concept of number is explained as the logical sum of those individual interrelated concepts; cardinal numbers, rational numbers, real numbers, and so forth”- not necessarily. For one can give the use of the word ‘number’ rigid boundaries, but one can also use it so that the extension of the concept is not closed by a boundary- just as with games.
Tennis analogy: the game is still regulated even if there isn’t a rule for how high one can hit the ball
§§69-71 (Explaining a FR concept)
§69: if we were to try to explain the concept of a game to someone, W thinks we would describe games to them, adding the description ‘this and similar things are called ‘games’’
§71: “one can say that the concept of a game is a concept with blurred edges”. Frege compares a concept to a region, and says that a region without clear boundaries can’t be called a region at all. But is it senseless to say ‘stay roughly here’?
§78 (Knowing a FR concept)
§78: someone who is surprised that we can know something without being able to say it might be thinking of an example like ‘I know how many metres high Mont Blanc is’- but certainly not of an example like ‘I know how the word “game” is used’, or ‘I know how a clarinet sounds’.
§79-80 (naming and fixed meanings)
§79: “I use the name “N” without a fixed meaning.” Some might call this nonsense, and they can do so so long as it doesn’t prevent them seeing how things are.
Moses case- I might mean the man who did what the Bible relates of Moses, or at least much of it- but have I decided how much needs to be false about the person for my proposition to be false?
§80: suppose a chair that I see keeps disappearing as I try to touch it. Have we rules ready for these cases, to say whether the thing is still to be called a ‘chair’?
§81, 83 (games as calculi)
§81: F.P. Ramsey: logic is a ‘normative science’. This is closely related to a recognition W had that we often in philosophy compare language with games, calculi with fixed rules, but we can’t say that someone who is using language must be playing such a game.
The most can be said is that we construct ideal languages- and these are not even ideal in the sense that those languages might be better or more perfect than our everyday language- they are not.
§83: it is possible to play with someone with a ball, starting various games without finishing them, such as throwing the ball about aimlessly, chasing one another with the ball, and so on- we should not say that they were playing a ball game the whole time according to fixed rules. They may even have been making the rules up or altering them) as they went along.
§85-87 (rules as signposts)
§85: a rule is like a signpost- it does not leave definite and precise instructions, or even say that one has to follow it in the direction of its finger as opposed to some other direction. There is no one way of interpreting them, and they do sometimes leave room for doubt.
§86: if we add to LG.2 a chart for which witten signs mean which building stones should be brought, we might misinterpret which signs are meant to apply to which stones. Even if we added a written rule to the chart to say that is is the stone parallel to the sign that is denoted, we could require further rules to explain this one, and so on. There is no meaningful way to talk about a complete chart here.
§87: We shouldn’t think that an explanation hangs in the air unless supported by another one- they can rest upon other ones, but these extra explanations will only be needed to prevent a misunderstanding that would arise were it not for the explanation. the signpost is in order if, under normal circumstances, it fulfils its purpose.
§39-40, 47, 60, 64 (Simples)
39 Should names signify simples? “The word ‘Excalibur’ [Nothung][3], say, is a proper name in the ordinary sense. The sword Excalibur consists of parts combined in a particular way. If they are combined differently Excalibur does not exist. But it is clear that the sentence ‘Excalibur has a sharp blade’ makes sense whether Excalibur is still whole or is broken up. But if ‘Excalibur’ is the name of an object, this object no longer exists when Excalibur is broken in pieces; and as no object would then correspond to the name it would have no meaning.”
- 40 “It is important to note that the word ‘meaning’ is being used illicitly if it is used to signify the thing that ‘corresponds’ to the word. That is to confound the meaning of a name with the bearer of the name. When Mr. N.N. dies one says that the bearer of the name dies, not that the meaning dies.”
47. -What sense of ‘composite’? Chessboard. “To the philosophical question: “Is the visual image of this tree composite, and what are its component parts?” the correct answer is: “That depends on what you understand by ‘composite’.” (And that is of course not an answer but a rejection of the question.”
60 Critique of the notion of “simples:” broom, broom stick, and brush. If names are to name simples and sentences are to join simples together into complexes, “then does someone who says that the broom is in the corner really mean: the broomstick is there, and so is the brush, and the broomstick is fixed in the brush?” Imagine two different language-games (a) one played with names for complexes, and (b) one with names for simples—in what sense is one an analysis of the other?
- Imagine a variant of the game in (48) where people have names for rectangles having two (or more colors) but not for individual colors—the French tricolor:
“In what sense do the symbols of this language-game stand in need of analysis? How far is it even possible to replace this language-game by (48)?—It is just another language-game even though it is related to (48).”
§43 (meaning and use)
43 “For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word ‘meaning’ it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.”
“And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.”
§50 (elements)
50 “One would, however, like to say: existence cannot be attributed to an element, for if it did not exist, one could not even name it and so one would say nothing at all of it.—But let us consider an analogous case. There is one thing of which one can say neither that it is one metre long, nor that it is not one metre long, and that is the standard metre in Paris.—But this is, of course, not to ascribe any extraordinary property to it, but only to mark its peculiar role in the language-game of measuring with a metre-rule.”
-The “standard metre” passage anticipates the discussion of 210-242 [“At some point reasons give out.”] The “enablers” are not simples—that, I believe, is the whole point of the “standard metre” passage!
cf 213 “A doubt is [only] possible in certain circumstances.”
-Cf., I, 50 (the discussion of the standard metre). The standard metre serves as the basis of the practice of metre measurement, and without it, this practice is impossible. But (at least within the context of the game of metre measurement) we can not justify it as the standard for the practice—while we can settle questions about the length of other objects (and justify our claims regarding their lengths) by referring to the standard, we can not answer questions about its length (nor justify such claims) similarly. Here “reasons will give out, and doubts are not possible.
§94, 99 (Subliming propositions)
94 “‘/A proposition is a queer thing!/’ Here we have in germ the subliming of our whole account of logic. The tendency to assume a pure intermediary between the propositional signs and the facts. Or even to try to purify, to sublime, the signs themselves.—For our forms of expression prevent us in all sorts of ways from seeing that nothing out of the ordinary is involved, by sending us in pursuit of chimeras.”
99 It seems as if sentences must have definite senses—exact senses. But do boundaries have to be exact, do enclosures have to be without holes?
§135 (defining propositions)
135 “What is a proposition” is like “What is a game”! (Also like: “What is a number?”)
136 Saying “Propositions are sentences capable of being true or false” is like saying “Kings (in chess) are pieces capable of being checked.” “But this can mean no more than that in our game of chess we only check the king.”
-He offers the “disappearance theory of truth:” “‘p’ is true” = “p.”
§107, 114, 116, 124. 130 (actual and sublimed language)
- 107 “The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement [for an exact language]. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation; it was a requirement.) The conflict becomes intolerable; the requirement is now in danger of becoming empty.—We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk; so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!”
- 114 When we look at Tractatus 4.5 (“the general form of a proposition is….”), we think we are getting at the essence but “…one is merely tracing round the frame through which we look at it.”
116 “When philosophers use a word—‘knowledge’, ‘being’, ‘object’, ‘I’, ‘proposition’, ‘name’—and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must ask oneself; is the word ever actually used in this way in the language which is its original home?—
What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.”
124 “Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.”
-130 “Our clear and simple language-games are not preparatory studies for a future regularization of language—as it were first approximations ignoring friction and air- resistance. The language-games are rather set up as objects of comparison which are meant to throw light on the facts of our language by way not only of similarities, but also of dissimilarities.”
§527 (Understanding and musical themes)
§527: understanding a spoken sentence is closer than one thinks to understanding a musical theme- we make judgements about which parts are conclusions, which bits are in parentheses etc. through the rhythm of the sentence. But we couldn’t give explanations of these recognitions of meaning, except perhaps by comparing the sentence to something else with the same rhythm.
§82 (What do I call ‘the rule by which he proceeds’?)
- What do I call ‘the rule by which he proceeds’?—The hypothesis that satisfactorily describes his use of words, which we observe; or the rule which he looks up when he uses signs; or the one which he gives us in reply if we ask him what his rule is?—But what if observa- tion does not enable us to see any clear rule, and the question brings none to light?—For he did indeed give me a definition when I asked him what he understood by “N”, but he was prepared to withdraw and alter it.—So how am I to determine the rule according to which he is playing? He does not know it himself.—Or, to ask a better question: What meaning is the expression “the rule by which he proceeds” supposed to have left to it here?
