Wittgenstein on Meaning

Wittgenstein changed the course of philosophy with his 1953 book, Philosophical Investigations. One of his most famous ideas is “meaning is use”. But what does that mean, and why was it so influential?

00:00 - Intro
01:01 - The Augustinian View of Language
03:41 - Why Augustine?
05:14 - Wittgenstein’s objections to the Augustinian view
11:44 - The Cartesian model of the mind
15:39 - Games and Family Resemblances
19:31 - Language games
21:05 - Form of life
25:17 - Meaning as use

If there’s a topic you’d like to see covered, leave me a comment below.

Links:

Get in touch on Social media!

#philosophy #meaning #wittgenstein

[ericchiang]

I absolutely love this series! Thank you Mark!

[Contribute_TakeCare_Learn_Play]

When you start talking in this video I get it. Some people tell me In dutch I "zaag" a way of saying complain over elaborate. Other people say what I feel when I start this video : "when you talk you just want to listen". I guess it's subjective. And probably sometimes this overelaboration as seen here is also a trait that carries on

[ayodhyakinkarkabi]

Please make some videos on tractatorian view on solipsism and inner and outer distinction of Philosophical Investigations

[paulodetarso]

Some questions: Isn't "game" a word that resemble something in the world? Now, we can't break the rules of grammar, we can't avoid to use the basic structure of subject verb predicate to express yourselves, so is grammar a structure, a basic one, or a "language game"? Another, how can we verify/confirm his teory? How can I test it if the instrument of testing is already a "language game"? Finally, if evertyhing is a "language game", so his teory is already one, so isn't it a circular definition, like saying "substance is what substance is"? Well, it sounds a very cool and charming teory, and must work very well at a pub or a party, but it is so metaphysical, like Heidegger: meaning is the opening of the individual to the collective Dasein and its horizonts, its limits.

[Opposite]

The Cartesian mind:
I think there is something strange about his criticism of the Cartesian model.
Yes, I do not have direct access to other minds and their internal ideas, but I do not have direct access to anything in the external world at all.
I can only indirectly access the external world and other minds mediated by my senses.
Okay, maybe my access to other minds is more indirect because it is mediated by the behavior of their bodies, but this seems just to be a difference in degree and not of kind.
And the thing is, I can still refer to the president of the United States even without having meet him in person.
Even if no one could speak with him in person and instead everyone would rely on a piece of technology to mediate their interaction, I would still be able to refer to him.
In conclusion, what is private and what is public is only a difference in degree and therefore the fact that other minds are „private“ can not be a reason to dismiss the entire Cartesian model.


Another problem I think is, that language might not be my only way of accessing other minds, maybe by communicating with pictures or by brain scans.
Of curse all this is still indirect, but this might give us more then just one way to access their „private“ Ideas.
And maybe with future technology, there might even be the possibility to temporarily fuse two bubbles of experience into one, giving one direct access to other minds.

Context independent ostensive definitions:
I don’t see any particular problem with the vagueness of a reference relation established by such context independent ostensive definitions.
For example, I observe how a person uses the word when he sees a particular entity or property.
Okay, If a person says a word if he sees the entity or property, then I might not be able to exactly pin point its referent, I am not even able to conclude that this sign has a referent at all.
But if this persons frequency of the usage of the word increases with the presence of this entity or property, then I will recognize a pattern that allows me to reduce the space of possibilities.
Maybe I will never be able to reduce the space of possibilities to one single entity, but this seems to be only a problem if one thinks that words that refer must always refer to one single referent.
But maybe the vagueness is not a problem at all, maybe words can and do refer to multiple referents even if one tries to refer to one single entity or property.
Maybe reference can be and is just vague.

Individual vs. collective usage:
I think I would also call into question whether or not there is a clear cut difference between individual usage and collective usage.
Over time, a regularity of usage will be established and people will try to correct others if they use words anomalously.
Later rules will be established that are descriptions and prescriptions of the underlying regularities of usage.
But the same scenario can be repeated in the case of the individual.
In both cases, simple rules and their meanings are established per induction and pattern recognition and later more complex rules will be built from those simple rules, making induction and pattern recognition redundant for the establishment of new rules.
Those more complex rules can then even contain anomalies in the regularity they postulate, giving us the ability to describe any finite irregular behavior with a complex rule.
But those simple rules on their own are not able to account for all possible behaviors.
And this difference between complex and simple rules is what allows us to establish simple rules by induction and pattern recognition.
A Individual is from that point of view a linguistic community on their own with its own regularities and rules of usage.
If the individual then wants to communicate with others, his way of using words must then resemble to a sufficient degree other peoples way of using it.

[frankavocado]

The earlier and later Wittgenstein would probably agree that truth tables codify the semantics (i.e. meaning) of simple logical propositions. The earlier W., I suspect, would adhere to a correspondence theory of truth (albeit at some 'atomic' level), and then suggest that seeing this as the root of all meaning leads to paradox (throw away the ladder etc...). The later W. would claim the meaning of the word 'truth' could be seen in all the ways it is used, which can include a 'correspondence' game. So the later W leaves room for correspondence in forms of life such as logical reasoning and scientific endeavour. I am not sure then that the correspondence ghost is entirely exorcised by the 'Investigations'. It is no longer the font of *all* meaning, necessarily, but it remains an important game in aligning us with the world.

[jackdarby]

What is language?
Language is under the highest genus of quality. It is sensible quality. It is sensible quality that is auditory in character. It is sensible quality that is auditory in character and significant of something. It is significant sensible quality thay is auditory in character, significant of something and whose to power to signify comes convention.

[tomholroyd]

Category theory has been useful in understanding the relationship between syntax and semantics. Non-binary logic (which humans use) is well modeled. Words are objects, and the morphisms are the relations between words. This word can come after that one, but that word cannot. LLMs capture these statistical morphisms, the ordering relations of words in use.

There is another level, a functor, which relates syntax to semantics; it takes the objects, the words, to a representation of what they are, their meaning. This is deep math and needs more attention. The arrows in the target category take meanings to meanings, perhaps the essence of thought

[willieluncheonette]

"This is for the real adepts in madness, who have gone beyond all psychiatry, psychoanalysis, who are unhelpable. This third book is again the work of a German, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Just listen to its title: TRACTATUS LOGICO PHILOSOPHICUS. We will just call it TRACTATUS. It is one of the most difficult books in existence. Even a man like G.E.Moore, a great English philosopher, and

Bertrand Russell, another great philosopher - not only English but a philosopher of the whole world - both agreed that this man Wittgenstein was far superior to them both.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was really a lovable man. I don't hate him, but I don't dislike him. I like him and I love him, but not his book. His book is only gymnastics. Only once in a while after pages and pages you may come across a sentence which is luminous. For example: That which cannot be spoken should not be spoken; one should be silent about it. Now this is a beautiful statement. Even saints, mystics, poets, can learn much from this sentence. That which cannot be spoken must not be spoken of.

Wittgenstein writes in a mathematical way, small sentences, not even paragraphs - sutras. But for the very advanced insane man this book can be of immense help. It can hit him exactly in his soul, not only in the head. Just like a nail it can penetrate into his very being. That may wake him from his nightmare.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was a lovable man. He was offered one of the most cherished chairs of philosophy at Oxford. He declined. That's what I love in him. He went to become a farmer and fisherman. This is lovable in the man. This is more existential than Jean-Paul Sartre, although Wittgenstein never talked of existentialism. Existentialism, by the way, cannot be talked about; you have to live it, there is no other way.

This book was written when Wittgenstein was studying under G.E.Moore and Bertrand Russell.

Two great philosophers of Britain, and a German... it was enough to create TRACTATUS LOGICO PHILOSOPHICUS. Translated it means Wittgenstein, Moore and Russell. I, on my part, would rather have seen Wittgenstein sitting at the feet of Gurdjieff than studying with Moore and Russell. That was the right place for him, but he missed. Perhaps next time, I mean next life... for him, not for me. For me this is enough, this is the last. But for him, at least once he needs to be in the company of a man like Gurdjieff or Chuang Tzu, Bodhidharma - but not Moore, Russell, not Whitehead. He was associating with these people, the wrong people. A right man in the company of wrong people, that's what destroyed him.

My experience is, in the right company even a wrong person becomes right, and vice-versa: in a wrong company, even a right person becomes wrong. But this only applies to unenlightened men, right or wrong, both. An enlightened person cannot be influenced. He can associate with anyone - Jesus with Magdalena, a prostitute; Buddha with a murderer, a murderer who had killed nine hundred and ninety-nine people. He had taken a vow to kill one thousand people, and he was going to kill Buddha too; that's how he came into contact with Buddha.

The murderer's name is not known. The name people gave to him was Angulimala, which means 'the man who wears a garland of fingers'. That was his way. He would kill a man, cut off his fingers and put them on his garland, just to keep count of the number of people he had killed. Only ten fingers were missing to make up the thousand; in other words only one man more.... Then Buddha appeared. He was just moving on that road from one village to another. Angulimala shouted, "Stop!"

Buddha said, "Great. That's what I have been telling people: Stop! But, my friend, who listens?"

Angulimala looked amazed: Is this man insane? And Buddha continued walking towards Angulimala. Angulimala again shouted, "Stop! It seems you don't know that I am a murderer,

and I have taken a vow to kill one thousand people. Even my own mother has stopped seeing me, because only one person is missing.... I will kill you... but you look so beautiful that if you stop and turn back I may not kill you."

Buddha said, "Forget about it. I have never turned back in my life, and as far as stopping is concerned, I stopped forty years ago; since then there is nobody left to move. And as far as killing me is concerned, you can do it anyway. Everything born is going to die."

Angulimala saw the man, fell at his feet, and was transformed. Angulimala could not change Buddha, Buddha changed Angulimala. Magdalena the prostitute could not change Jesus, but Jesus changed the woman.

So what I said is only applicable to so-called ordinary humanity, it is not applicable to those who are awakened. Wittgenstein can become awakened; he could have become awakened even in this life.

Alas, he associated with wrong company. But his book can be of great help to those who are really third-degree insane. If they can make any sense out of it, they will come back to sanity."

[jeff__w]

This discussion of Wittgenstein’s understand of language makes me wish he had read BF Skinner’s _Verbal Behavior, _ which came out several years after his (Wittgenstein’s) death. It would have made his life a lot easier. I knew next to nothing about Wittgenstein and this video was fascinating—and clear, too.

[septillionsuns]

Now, let's dig into some Frederick Jameson . . .

[kharnakcrux]

I expected... Better from Wittgenstein.
The meaning of meaning is more than just use, and it's absolutely necessary to have precise and unambiguous definitions, in order to do any useful philosophy...
Value, love, beauty, identity, consciousness... etc.