Initiation and Newness in Education and Child-rearing

The general introduction to this volume stressed Wittgenstein’s insistence on initiation into the ‘language-game’. After all, in order to understand the meaning of a concept one has to take into account the particular circumstances of its use and in a case of difficulty, Wittgenstein suggests, to ask oneself how we learned the meaning of this word. Together with the social determination of ‘action’, it brings out one of the basic themes of this philosophy: the third-person perspective. Section 298 of On Certainty reads:

“‘We are quite sure of it’ does not mean just that every single person is certain of it, but that we belong to a community which is bound together by science and education” and somewhat further he writes: “You must bear in mind that the language-game is so to say something unpredictable. I mean: it is not based on grounds. It is not reasonable (or unreasonable). It is there — like our life” (C, # 559).