Rules, Language & Reality

[Philosophy Now]

George Wrisley considers how some of Wittgenstein’s later ideas on language relate to reality.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/58/Rule ... nd_Reality

[Dunce]

Linguistic meaning is normative. That is, there are right and wrong ways to use words. If we use words in the wrong way we may fail to say anything meaningful. For example, if I say, "The window was dog," then I'm misusing either 'window' or 'dog' in such a way that I'm talking nonsense.

The window's rectangle woodiness rounding,
Up-p**** floppy-lop ears, wet nose alerting
Hard glass is sheeny health furry thick coating
In fury unhinged out of pane bounding.
Streak through rain barking
Out of bounds pounding,
Street stone pave echo woof bow-wow sounding
The window was dog,
The window was hounding.

[Ginkgo]

Linguistic meaning is normative. That is, there are right and wrong ways to use words. If we use words in the wrong way we may fail to say anything meaningful. For example, if I say, "The window was dog," then I'm misusing either 'window' or 'dog' in such a way that I'm talking nonsense.

The window's rectangle woodiness rounding,
Up-p**** floppy-lop ears, wet nose alerting
Hard glass is sheeny health furry thick coating
In fury unhinged out of pane bounding.
Streak through rain barking
Out of bounds pounding,
Street stone pave echo woof bow-wow sounding
The window was dog,
The window was hounding.

Nice poem. Sounds like something Lewis Carroll would be happy with.

I think this illustrates perfectly the point the latter Wittgenstein was making in his "Philosophical Investigations", viz., the confusion that beguiled himself and many others philosophers of language.

Wittgenstein finally came to the conclusion that language is something we all learn by way of 'language games'. In other words, language is learned analogously, much in the same was as we learn how to play various types of games. "Out of bounds pounding" as an utterance would be very similar to someone playing chess and suddenly making an attempt to move the Rook in a diagonal direction.