Abstract
We shall begin our investigation of Wittgenstein by presenting, in this first chapter, a viewpoint which helps one to understand not only Wittgenstein but also much of recent philosophy of language. This viewpoint was introduced into scholarly discussion in a special case by Jean van Heijenoort in his perceptive paper on Frege’s conception of logic.1 He characterizes it as a contrast between two conceptions of logic, which he labels ‘logic as language’ and ‘logic as calculus’. He explains the former view in effect as a doctrine of the universality (in the sense of inescapability) of logic. We cannot as it were get outside our logic and its intended interpretation. For instance, an ‘important consequence of the universality of logic is that nothing can be, or has to be, said outside of the system.’
Written jointly with Merrill B. Hintikka
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Notes
See his important paper, ‘Logic as language and logic as calculus’, Synthese, vol. 17 (1967), pp. 324–30.
Cf. here also Jaakko Hintikka, ‘Frege’s hidden semantics’, Revue internationale de philosophie, vol. 33 (1979), pp. 716–22.
Cf. here Jaakko Hintikka, `Language-Games’ in Jaakko Hintikka et al., editors, Essays on Wittgenstein in Honour of G. H. von Wright (Acta Philosophica Fennica, vol. 28, nos. 1–3), North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1976, pp. 105–25.
In his paper ‘Semantics: a revolt against Frege’ in G. Flöistad, editor, Contemporary Philosophy: A New Survey, vol. 1, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1981, pp. 57–82.
Peter Hylton, ‘Russell’s substitutional theory’, Synthese, vol. 45 (1980), pp. 1–31; Warren Goldfarb, ‘Logic in the Twenties: the nature of the quantifier’, Journal of Symbolic Logic, vol. 44 (1979), pp. 351–68.
Jaakko Hintikka, ‘Wittgenstein’s semantical Kantianism’, in E. Morscher and R. Stranzinger, editors, Ethics, Proceedings of the Fifth International Wittgenstein Symposium, Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, Vienna, 1981, pp. 375–90.
Ibid., note 6, and Jaakko Hintikka, ‘Das Paradox transzendentaler Erkenntnis’, in Eva Schaper and Wilhelm Vossenkuhl, editors, Bedingungen der Möglichkeit: ‘Transcendental Arguments’ und transzendentales Denken, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1984, pp. 123–49.
Peter Geach, ‘Saying and showing in Frege and Wittgenstein’ in Jaakko Hintikka et al., editors, Essays on Wittgenstein,pp. 54–70.
See note 3 above.
Jaakko Hintikka, ‘C. S. Peirce’s “First Real Discovery” and its contemporary relevance’, The Monist, vol. 63 (1980), pp. 304–15.
Rudolf Carnap, The Logical Syntax of Language,Kegan Paul, London, 1937, p. 282. (The German original appeared in 1934.)
This letter has been published in Michael Nedo and Michele Ranchetti, editors, Wittgenstein: Sein Leben in Bildern und Texten, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1983, pp. 254–5.
This latter quotation is from MS 113, p.40 (in the actual pagination common to MSS 112–13, p. 310), dated 16 February 1932. The German original reads as follows: ‘In der Grammatik wird auch die Andwendung der Sprache beschreibt; das was man den Zusammenhang zwischen Sprache und Wirklichkeit nennen möchte.’
In MS 110, pp. 194–5, Wittgenstein acknowledges that his ‘grammatical investigations’ differ from those of a philologist in that he is interested in rules which a philologist does not consider at all. Wittgenstein does not specify, however, what these rules are like. What we shall attempt in chapters 7–8 below is to spell out the nature of such rules: they are rules of language-games.
The quote is from MS 113, pp. 119–20 (pp. 390–1 in the actual pagination). The German reads: ‘Die unrichtige Idee ist, daß die Anwendung eines Kalküls in der Grammatik der wirklichen Sprache ihm eine Realität zuordnet, eine Wirklichkeit gibt, die er früher [vorher] nicht hatte.’
See Anthony Kenny, Wittgenstein, Penguin Books. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1973.
For the connection, see Tractatus 5.6–5.62, 5.5561.
Garth Hallett, A Companion to Wittgenstein’s ‘Philosophical Investigations’, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1977.
The passages which show Wittgenstein’s faith in the idea of language as the universal medium during his middle period include the following: MS 108, pp. 192, 260, 265, 269; MS 109, pp. 16, 79, 97, 212, 225, 290; MS 110, pp. 99, 141, 189; MS 111, p. 134. It is also instructive to read Philosophical Remarks,XV, sec. 171: The basic mistake consists, as in the previous philosophy of logic, in assuming that a word can make a sort of allusion to its object (point at it from a distance) without necessarily going proxy for it... A form cannot be described: it can only be presented.
It seems to us that Wittgenstein’s point comes across more forcefully if Nutzen is translated as `usefulness’ and not as mere ‘use’, as in the usual translation.
The German reads: Das Verhältnis, die Beziehung zwischen Gedanken und Wirklichkeit gibt die Sprache durch die Gemeinsamkeit des Ausdrucks wieder. Anders kann sie dies Verhältnis nicht darstellen. Wir haben hier eine Art Relativitätstheorie der Sprache vor uns. (Und die Analogie ist keine zufällige.)
This is verified by what Wittgenstein says in MS 107, p. 143: `Einstein: the way a quantity is measured, is the quantity.’ [`Einstein: Wie eine Größe gemessen wird, das ist sie.’
The German text reads: `Wie es keine Mataphysik gibt, so gibt es keine Metalogik. Das Wort “verstehen”, der Ausdruck “einen Satz verstehen” ist auch nicht metalogisch, sondern ein Ausdruck wie jeder andre der Sprache.’
The German text reads: Eine Versuchung zu glauben, das Wort “verstehen”, der Ausdruck: “einen Satz verstehen”, seien metalogische Worte. “Verstehen” und “meinen” sind Worte wie alle anderen.
Examples are offered inter alia by PI,I, secs. 190–2, 209–11, 213, 216, 227, 231, 261, 278, 289, 325, 352, 360, 465, 479, 491, 497, 527. 625, 626, 674, 676, 681, etc. Other examples are found in such works as Zettel; cf., e.g., secs. 225, 233, 330.
See, e.g., note 2 above.
Peter Hylton, ‘Russell’s substitutional theory’, note 5 above.
Gottlob Frege, ’Über Begriff und Gegenstand’, Vierteljahrschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie,vol. 16 (1892), pp. 192–205. (See pp. 196–7.)
Hylton, ‘Russell’s substitutional theory’, p. 9.
See, e.g., PI,I, secs. 59–60, 261, 394, 577, etc.
Cf., e.g., PI,I. secs. 253–4.
Cf., e.g., Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics,Appendix I, sec. 7.
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Hintikka, J. (1997). Wittgenstein and Language as the Universal Medium. In: Lingua Universalis vs. Calculus Ratiocinator. Jaakko Hintikka Selected Papers, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8601-6_6
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