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Philosophy of Education and Wittgenstein's Concept of Language-Games, by Jonathan Dolhenty, Ph.D. (Continued)
The Concept of Language-Games The main theme of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations seems to be that language is best viewed as an activity that involves the uses of words as tools. Words have a multiplicity of uses and to understand a word is to understand the uses to which it is put. It is confusing, therefore, to consider words as merely standing for objects. Philosophy does not seek theories, according to Wittgenstein, nor does it attempt to find objects for words as labels. Philosophical problems arise because language is misconceived and to investigate philosophically means to attend to the uses of language and to come at a problem from numerous directions. The story is told that Wittgenstein one day saw a football game being played in a field as he was passing by. He was then struck with the thought that in language we play games with words. This incident apparently gave birth to a central concept in his philosophy, the concept of the language-game. [33] In an attempt to clarify what he meant, Wittgenstein used two important metaphors. He suggested that languages are games:
Then he suggested that languages are tools:
Language, like many an individual game or games as a class, is autonomous, requires no justification, is not a product of ratiocination, nor constantly accompanied by parallel thought processes. Wittgenstein drew an analogy of language with chess to illustrate the autonomy of language. In the game of chess it is not essential to point to some object outside of the game for meaning. Meaning takes place within the game of chess, just as winning occurs within the game and not outside of it. Language also requires no justification. In a sense the rules of language are arbitrary because, like the rules of chess, their aim is that of language itself. Wittgenstein maintained that "if you follow other rules than those of chess you are playing another game" and, similarly, "if you follow grammatical rules other than such-and-such ones, that does not mean you say something wrong, no, you are speaking of something else." [36] Furthermore, language is not the result of ratiocination but is simply a part of our natural history. Wittgenstein stated:
Wittgenstein considered language to be an instrument, a tool, and a language has been learned only when we can play the various games that constitute the language concerned. [38] Earlier in the development of his philosophy, as seen in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein thought a language was a picture of the world but, later, in the Philosophical Investigations, this view was repudiated and language, as a concept, came to be seen as something which cannot be defined. Language was no longer thought to be a simple product but came to be viewed as a complex process. The word "language" is not, according to Wittgenstein, the name of a single phenomenon. Instead it is the name of the class of an indefinite number of language-games. Wittgenstein drew an analogy between language and an ancient city to help in explaining what he meant:
In other words, new forms of language or new language-games come into existence while others become outdated and are forgotten. It is important to realize, however, as Hartnack pointed out in his commentary on Wittgenstein, that "the members of the class of all language-games have no...property in common." [40] Wittgenstein, in the Philosophical Investigations, gave many examples of language-games, among them
These are all activities in the language that we understand, expressions of our form of life, and as Wittgenstein states, "to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life." [42] A language-game is a whole "consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven." [43] A language-game cannot be understood outside the context into which the language is woven. The total environment in which the language is used is part of the language game or, as Kenny stated it, "the words plus their behavioral surroundings make up the language-game." [44] If, in any given language, one cannot ask questions, give orders, describe things, or make requests, then these activities do not exist there. That is what seems to be meant by saying that language-games are expressions of a form of life. [45] The study of language-games means the study of the use of language against the background and within the context of a form of life. Why did Wittgenstein suggest the use of the word "game" in his concept of language-game? To answer this question is to reconsider what Wittgenstein said about language. Language is a term that cannot be defined, it has no essence. The problem was raised by Wittgenstein when he pointed out that someone might object to his use of the term "language-game" because he had not said what the essence of a language-game is nor, for that matter, what the essence of language itself is. What is common to all the activities included within the concept of language? Wittgenstein answered:
At this point in his discussion, Wittgenstein introduced the concept of "game." One could ask the question: "What is a game?" If language involves just the use of words as labels, then there is a definite answer to this question. If, however, the term "game" is used in a variety of ways, it could be that there is no "object" or essential nature to which the term calls attention. Is there something common to the activities that we call games? Wittgenstein answered:
After examining various games and showing that, in comparing various games to one another, that many common features drop out while others appear, Wittgenstein concluded that "the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and crisscrossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail." [48] Board-games have some similarities with card-games but also many differences. What of ball-games and card-games? Is "winning" an essential feature of a game? Consider a child throwing a ball against a wall. Is "winning" and "losing" a feature in this example? What about competition? Is this essential to a game? Consider the game of solitaire. Many other examples could be cited but the point that Wittgenstein is making is that the term "game" has a variety of uses and refers to no outside "object" or essential nature. The concept that Wittgenstein introduced to characterize the similarities among games is "family resemblances." He explained this by saying "the various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. overlap and criss-cross in the same way," so he concluded that "'games' form a family." [49] So do the various uses of a word, Wittgenstein argued, and to search for common meanings of a word is a productive as looking for the essential feature of games. The only way we can make sense out of the meanings of a word is by examining language as it is used in all the ways it is used. What is meant by the concept of family resemblances can be further explained by considering the word "chair." What is the essential nature of a chair? H. G. Wells presented the following problem:
Consider also barrels or boxes used to sit on. What of stools? The word "chair" appears to present the same problem as the word "game." There are many similarities but also many differences, and to search for the common meanings of these words is unproductive. Wittgenstein emphasized that one must look at language as it is to make sense out of the terms that make it up and give consideration to the language-game in which the word is being used. He then went on to discuss the notion of meaning. The Concept of Meaning as Use Philosophical analysis is a way of clarifying terms, concepts, and propositions. It is an activity which should prevent one from being led astray by the sometimes misleading appearances of language. Concepts are composed of propositions which are composed of terms and the meanings of words become extremely important in understanding any given proposition and concept. Wittgenstein's concept of meaning becomes relevant here. It has sometimes been thought that Wittgenstein presented a theory of meaning which would aid philosophers in analyzing the meanings of words used in propositions. But it must be remembered that Wittgenstein eschewed the idea that philosophy results in theories. There is not, then, a theory of meaning nor a theory of language-games in Wittgenstein's philosophy. But meaning and language-games are concepts related to each other and language-games are a way of getting at the meanings of words in any given language. Bogen suggested that "language games belong to a technique for examining uses of words and sentences in ordinary language..." [51] The way to clarify our propositions, according to Kenny's interpretation of Wittgenstein, is "to show how they are applied in language-games." [52] The way to understand the meaning of a word is to consider it within the language-game to which it belongs. The meaning of a word, then, is its use in the language:
The context or situation in which the word is used, the way it is handled within that background, what is done with the word, and the way in which the word is used are all relevant to the meaning of a word. The analysis of the meaning of a word must be performed with context in mind. [54] Hartnack said that "the meaning of a word is learned by discovering its use" for "if its use has been learned, its meaning has been learned, too." [55] The way in which a word functions is a clue to grasping the meaning of a word and, wrote Wittgenstein, "One cannot guess how a word functions" but "One has to look at its use and learn from that." [56] To understand the meaning of a word, then, is very much like understanding an action which does not make sense until one notices what the act does and, then, realize what the action is for, what its purpose is, and what meaning it has. The language-game in which a word is used is critical in understanding the meaning of the word. Language itself is a comprehensive form of life combining the most diverse elements according to rules which are flexible and varied. The language-game is representative of a form of life and words have meanings only within the context of the language-game.
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