Word-play and Atomic words

In the Philosophical Investigations (§43), Wittgenstein claims that “[f]or a large class of cases of the employment of the word ‘meaning’—though not for all—this word can be explained in this way: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.” In other words, in many but not all cases, the meaning of a word can be understood to be nothing more than the way the word is used in a language game. Is Wittgenstein correct?

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For Wittgenstein (1965), “a large class of cases of the employment of the word ‘meaning’… can be explained in this way: the meaning of a word is its use in a language.” His thesis claimed that words do not hold meaning in themselves, but through the language games and contexts in which the words are used. In this essay, I will argue that Wittgenstein’s thesis for understanding language is a strong descriptive theory of natural language. However, I will also argue that Wittgenstein’s argument may be too narrowly focused on his thesis, such that he failed to consider the elements of language that are comprehensible without context, and the implications of such elements.

Wittgenstein’s thesis is a rejection of Augustine’s argument for meaning as representation. To him, the conception that “every word has a meaning… correlated with the word… [and that meaning] is the object for which the word stands” is far removed from how language is used. In fact, Wittgenstein would argue that “When we say ‘every word in language signifies something’ we have so far said nothing whatever; unless we have explained exactly what distinction we wish to make.” (Wittgenstein, 1965) That is, words do not have meaning by representing objects, unless the conditions in which the words are used are specified.

For Wittgenstein, the meaning of words depends on their use in the various language games that we participate throughout our daily living. Language games are the sets of procedures and routines by which we are trained to use language (Luco, 2016). These games determine how we should use the language and behave in response to words, and thus what the words mean within the game. Language games are also “complete” (Kemp, 2013) as “one could perfectly well imagine such a skill-set being the only one mastered” to understand those terms. Moreover, Wittgenstein argued that “there was no way to cut out the specifically linguistic capacity for dissection and investigation.” (Kemp, 2013) To isolate and examine separately these elements would lead to one unable to understand the words.

To illustrate this, Wittgenstein imagined a shopkeeper filling an order by a shopper for ‘five red apples’. He observed that the shopper and the shopkeeper understood the terms ‘five’, ‘red’, and ‘apples’ not by accessing what the words stood for, but through the language game (in this case, ordering apples) that is embedded within the relevant form of life (i.e. context) of grocery shopping. Thus, they understood ‘five red apples’ through the environment of the grocery shop, the activity of purchasing groceries, and the skills both shopkeeper and shopper have mastered to achieve their goals, such as picking the fruits stored under a drawer marked “apples”, comparing the colours of the fruit against the correct red colour, and counting up the cardinal series of numbers to five.

Both shopkeeper and shopper understood the words by applying said words within the context based on their experience and training. The shopper and shopkeeper understood the term ‘red’ through several participations in this language game, such that they have established an agreement that the word ‘red’ would refer to the colour of a certain type of ripe apples, which they both learned from their training of buying and selling apples. This also applies to the other term ‘apple’ – as both the shopkeeper and shopper would agree on, after participating in several language games, the correct fruits that constitute as apples, including characteristics that are not essential to the concept of apple, such as the right size, shape, and even ripeness.

Moreover, Wittgenstein argued that speakers of the language do not understand words by accessing the represented essential concept. For example, the understanding of ‘red’ within this context does not apply to other contexts, nor does it rely on any essential element of the concept of red. The meaning of the word is thus not some abstract entity, but instead its use within the language game (Kemp, 2013). Hence, even the meaning ‘five’ is not a representation of the concept of the number five; it merely consists in the facts that it is used by a customer to order a certain number of apples, and the shopkeeper carrying out the behaviours to fill the order (Luco, 2013). Crucially, this would also imply that we would not be able to understand the words when taken out of context. Since the meaning of ‘five’ consists only in the facts of the language game and the form of life, it would not be derived from an abstract concept of five, and thus without context, we would not be able to grasp a meaning for ‘five’.

Taken together, we can construct the following argument for Wittgenstein:

Premise 1: If words stand for objects, they have meaning out of context.

Premise 2: If words have meaning out of context, then we can understand words out of context.

Premise 3: We cannot understand words out of context.

Conclusion 1: Words do not have meaning out of context.

Conclusion 2: Words do not stand for objects.

First, if we accept the representationlist view that words represent objects, then we also accept that the meanings of words are derived from some essential element correlated to the represented object, independent of context. Consequently, we must then accept that, in principle, we can understand the words without relying on the context. However, as discussed in Wittgenstein’s arguments above, we cannot understand words out of context. Hence, we should conclude that words do not have meanings based on some essential element of their represented object. Consequently, words do not represent objects.

As summarized by Kemp (2013), Wittgenstein’s thesis argued that the meaning of language is based on its use in the wide varieties of language games. As such, “no one thing is common to the sundry activities we characterize by means of the word.” Language is a family resemblance concept, similar to how we conceptualize tools. Like individual tools, the words are not things of which “the essentials can in principle be characterized at one fell swoop.” (Wittgenstein, 1965) Thus, Wittgenstein “does not impose a specious uniformity on language by saying such things as that every word expresses a meaning,” but rather emphasizes on the diverse uses of words (Kemp, 2013). In other words, Meaning is use.

In my opinion, there is strong evidence for Wittgenstein’s argument. One chief support is the transformation of the meanings of words – from the usual meanings – into euphemisms, metaphors, and puns when different contexts are accessed. These word-plays consist of using words to mean objects that are not what the words usually represented. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) referred to this phenomenon as carrying a structure from one conceptual domain (source) to another (target). Though complex, wordplay is widespread amongst older speakers who have greater mastery of various contexts to successfully understand the language beyond its literal use, since they have greater familiarity with such usage through experience and training. These uses are sophisticated examples in favour of Wittgenstein’s thesis. For example, in academic settings, the term ‘recycling’ is a euphemism for plagiarism. However, some speakers will not understand the term in that sense, as they had not been exposed to such usage. To begin, they may misapply the term or misunderstand the actual intents of the speakers. However, with experience and training, they will soon have a better grasp of the term’s usage in the academic context, and adopt the term appropriately.

While Wittgenstein provided a strong descriptive account of how language gains meaning from use, I argue that he may have overextended when rejecting that language does not represent things. Wittgenstein’s thesis is a rejection of Augustine’s argument; since the right context is necessary for language to gain its meaning (Conclusion 1), it implies that language does not represent things (Conclusion 2) independent of context. However, words in natural language often rely on context to gain meaning because natural language is often imprecise, heuristic, and adapted for convenience. It is due to this need for convenience and speed that natural language came to rely on context and usage to form meaning. Hence, while Wittgenstein’s observations of meaning as use have merit, it does not show with certainty that language must rely on context, nor that words do not represent things.

Moreover, I object to one of Wittgenstein’s argument that terms like ‘five’ do not represent things, as I argue that these terms are atomic, and must gain its meaning through accessing its represented object. We find several words in natural languages that are still meaningful without context. These words are referred to as atomic terms, and they have meanings that represent fundamental properties, such as shape, number, and dimension. One such atomic term is ‘five’ in Wittgenstein’s apple-shopping example. Wittgenstein argued that the shopkeeper did not understand the word ‘five’ through accessing the concept of five, but rather from its usage in their trade of picking and counting apples for sale. However, if we were to inquire of their understanding of ‘five’, it is reasonable to think that the shopkeeper understands that ‘five’ in ‘five red apples’ represents a numerical concept of five. To support this, we can consider if the shopkeeper is able to fill an altered order that writes ‘the sum of three and two red apples’. The shopkeeper is likely to have rarely, if not never, come across this term, but would likely still be able to understand the order, and – crucially – to carry out the same actions to fill it. Hence, this implies that the shopkeeper is accessing some concept of that is represented by the term ‘the sum of three and two’, which is the number five.

Compare Wittgenstein’s conception of ‘five’ with the Fregean conception:

Sentence 1: “five red apples”

Sentence 2: ‘the sum of three and two red apples”

Per Wittgenstein, the two sentences should express two different propositions, i.e. different meanings. Sentence 2 would require different skills and context from Sentence 1, and thus it is used differently than from Sentence 1. However, the intuitive reaction recognizes that both Sentence 1 and Sentence 2 hold the same proposition, since the term ‘five’ and the term ‘the sum of three and two’ refer to, or represent, the same concept: the number five. Thus, we must at least concede that there do exist some terms that necessarily represent things and are comprehensible outside of context.

Furthermore, if we accept the above argument, that some terms in a language do represent things, then we could consequently conceive of a language where almost all words are developed to represent things, and thus can be understood independent of context. If atomic terms do represent actual things, then they can be comprehensible without context. We can then also conceivably accept that more complex terms and sentences could be developed even without context. Complex terms are formed by combining atomic terms or other complex terms, and they represent the combination of things, concepts, and properties that are represented by the more basic terms. Since each iteration avoids the need to incorporate context, these complex terms could be comprehended without understanding context.

In conclusion, I argue that language does have essential elements, which were not captured in Wittgenstein’s thesis of language. While his description of the meanings of words may be mostly right, I argue that the reliance on context and usage is a product of the imprecise and unstructured development of language. In principle, through a mix of atomic terms (that represent fundamental properties and things) and the complex terms that are assembled from combining said atomic terms, it is conceivable to develop a language in which understanding is done through accessing the represented objects, and thus understanding can be achieved independent of context. (1950 words)

References

Kemp, Gary. “What is this thing called Philosophy of Language?” Routledge. 2013.

Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Luco, Andres. “Wittgenstein and Language games.” Language & Being/ HY4013. Sem. 2, 2016. Nanyang Technological University.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1965.