17.1513, Review: Philosophy of Lang: Wittgenstein (2005)

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Subject: 17.1513, Review: Philosophy of Lang: Wittgenstein (2005)

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1)
Date: 11-May-2006
From: Chaoqun Xie < cqxie at 163.com >
Subject: The Big Typescript: TS 213: German-English Scholars' Edition 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 17:52:41
From: Chaoqun Xie < cqxie at 163.com >
Subject: The Big Typescript: TS 213: German-English Scholars' Edition 
 

Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-2444.html 

AUTHOR: Wittgenstein, Ludwig
TRANSLATORS: Luckhardt, C. Grant; Aue, Maximilian A. E.
TITLE: The Big Typescript: TS 213
SUBTITLE: German-English Scholars' Edition
PUBLISHER: Blackwell Publishing
YEAR: 2005

Chaoqun Xie, Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, 
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies; Foreign Languages 
Institute, Fujian Normal University

INTRODUCTION

The editors and translators, C. Grant Luckhardt and Maximilian A. E. 
Aue, deserve credit for presenting a high-quality German-English 
edition informing the reader about various important themes that are 
to be recurring in Wittgenstein's later thoughts. As noted in the 
Introduction, Wittgenstein began what it is to be called ''The Big 
Typescript'' at the time of his return to philosophy in 1929 to study for 
a PhD as an ''Advanced Student'' (vi-e). In addition to providing some 
background information about the text, the Introduction talks about 
how the text is edited and translated to ensure scholarliness and 
readability. Indeed, they made it. As I see it, anyone interested in 
Ludwig Wittgenstein should not miss The Big Typescript written 
between the Tractatus and the Philosophical Investigations. In what 
follows, I will present a summary before making some critical 
evaluations.

SUMMARY

Topically speaking, this typescript can be roughly divided into 19 
parts. Part 1 is about understanding. For Wittgenstein, the 
word ''understanding'' is not metalogical, and understanding, which 
consists in having a particular experience, doesn't begin until there is 
a proposition; understanding is a correlate of explanation. Of course, 
it might be helpful to be reminded of the fact that understanding is 
closely related to interpreting.

Part 2 concerns meaning. According to Wittgenstein, the concept of 
meaning originates in a primitive philosophical conception of 
language, and meaning is ''the location of a word in grammar'' (26e); 
since the meaning of a word is what the explanation of its meaning 
explains, what we should ask is not about the definition of meaning 
but the definition of explanation of meaning (cf. Wittgenstein 1953). 
Wittgenstein furthers argues that meaning is not an experience but a 
stipulation (35e). In the second part, Wittgenstein also discusses 
meaning as feeling, primary and secondary signs, etc.

Part 3 is related to the issue of proposition. Wittgenstein believes that 
a proposition is everything with which one means something, that 
meaning is laid down in grammar, that ''proposition'' is equivalent to 
the words ''language'' and ''grammar'' and that what is to count as a 
proposition is determined in grammar. In this part, the similarity of 
proposition and picture, the relationship between proposition and 
reality, the nature of hypothesis and the problem of the ''Heap of 
Sand'', among other things, are also illustrated.

Part 4 is entitled ''Immediate understanding and the application of a 
word in time''. The questions Wittgenstein attempts to answer include: 
How does understanding a sentence accompany uttering or hearing 
it? Is the meaning of a word shown in time? Is the meaning of a word 
only revealed in the course of time as its use develops? Does 
knowledge of grammatical rules accompany the expression of a 
sentence when we understand it -- its words? Is meaning, when we 
understand it, grasp ''all at once'', and unfolded, as it were, in the 
rules of grammar?

Part 5 is devoted to the nature of language, where Wittgenstein asks, 
among other things, Can we use explanation to construct language to 
get it to work? What effect does a single explanation of language 
have, what effect understanding? Can one use the word ''red'' to 
search for something red? Does one need an image, a memory-
image, for this? For Wittgenstein, language is not defined as an 
instrument for a particular purpose, the connection between language 
and reality is made through explanations of words, which explanations 
belong in turn to grammar, and language functions as language only 
by virtue of the rules we follow in using it, just as a game is a game 
only by virtue of its rules. Wittgenstein is against talking 
about ''meaning something'' as an indefinite process but about the 
actual use of the word, and ''meaning something'' should be talked 
about ''only when it is part of the language-calculus'', but ''then we 
really don't need the words 'meaning something', for that always 
suggests that we are dealing with processes that don't belong to 
language but stand apart from it, processes whose nature is 
essentially different from that of language'' (157e).

Part 6 discusses thought and thinking, where Wittgenstein places 
much emphasis on the mechanism of thinking, the location of thinking, 
the purpose of thinking and the reason for thinking, and how one 
explains the essence of thought by its purpose, its function. As far as 
the reason for thinking is concerned, Wittgenstein's point is that ''It is 
not possible to give a rational basis for why we should think'' (180e).

Part 7 is devoted to the discussion of grammar, where Wittgenstein 
argues, among other things, for the unaccountability of grammar to 
any reality and the arbitrariness of grammatical rules. At one point, 
Wittgenstein reminds us that ''Our investigation shouldn't endeavour to 
discover the exact meaning of words; but ¡­give exact meanings to 
words'' (199e) and that ''Our task is not to improve our language, to 
make it more exact, or possibly even to try to replace it with an 'ideally 
exact' one'' (200e). For Wittgenstein, language and grammar should 
be viewed as a calculus, ''as a process that follows fixed rules'' (203e).

Part 8 is focused on intention and depiction, where Wittgenstein 
elaborates upon the following questions: If in copying I am guided by a 
model and thus know that I am now moving my pencil in such a way 
because the model goes that way, is a causality involved here of 
which I am immediately aware? If we ''depict in accordance with a 
particular rule'', is this rule contained in the process of copying 
(depicting), and can it therefore be read out of it unambiguously? 
Does the process of depicting embody this rule, as it were? How does 
one use a general rule of representation to justify the result of 
representation? How are out thoughts connected with the objects we 
think about? How do these objects enter out thoughts? In this part, 
Wittgenstein criticizes the confusion related to the 
words ''psychological process'' and ''mental process'', arguing that the 
process of copying on purpose, of copying with the intention to copy, 
is not essentially a psychological, inner process.

While Part 9 concerns logical inference, Part 10 deals with generality. 
In Part 10, Wittgenstein argues that the proposition ''The circle is in 
the square'' is not a disjunction of cases, and has nothing to do with a 
particular position. Wittgenstein criticizes the inadequacy of Frege's 
and Russell's notation for generality and his earlier understanding of 
generality. Part 11 discusses expectation, wish, belief, reason, motive, 
intention and other related topics.

Part 12 dwells upon philosophy, where Wittgenstein points out that the 
difficulty of philosophy is not the intellectual difficulty of the sciences, 
but the difficulty of a change of attitude. In discussing the view that our 
grammatical investigations are fundamental, Wittgenstein emphasizes 
that ''The importance of grammar is the importance of language'' 
(305e), that ''All that philosophy can do is to destroy idol'' (305e) and 
that ''Philosophy is not laid down in propositions, but in a language'' 
(313e). This part touches upon various important issues related to the 
study of philosophy that are to be further expounded in the 
Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein 1953).

Part 13 concerns phenomenology, dealing with visual space in 
contrast to Euclidean space and its relationship with the seeing 
subject. Minima Visibilia and colors and the mixing of colors are also 
discussed in this part. Part 14 talks about the representation of what is 
immediately perceived, idealism, ''having pain'', memory-time, ''here'' 
and ''now'' and, color and experience as formal concepts. The last 5 
parts concern the philosophy of mathematics. Part 15 focuses on the 
foundations of mathematics, Part 16 on cardinal numbers, Part 17 on 
mathematical proof, Part 18 on inductive proofs and periodicity and 
Part 19 on the infinite in mathematics and the extensional viewpoint.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

Ludwig Wittgenstein is a legend both in terms of life and work. Anyone 
with a nodding acquaintance with him might not deny that he, as one 
of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, has been 
and is still surprisingly exerting so much impact upon so many lines of 
inquiry, from religion to linguistics, from psychoanalysis to the arts, 
and from ethics to an increasing number of fields outside philosophy.

The Big Typescript provides an ideal and essential access to 
understanding how Wittgenstein developed his philosophical ideas 
and thoughts after the Tractatus and before the Philosophical 
Investigations. For me, those sections on understanding, meaning, 
proposition, the nature of language, thought and thinking, grammar, 
intention, and philosophizing are particularly inspiring and thought-
provoking; as a matter of fact, it can be said that Wittgenstein's work 
on these and other related topics have made visible contributions to 
the development of the philosophy of language and pragmatics. To be 
more specific, I think Wittgenstein has made direct or indirect 
contributions to the formation and development of speech act theory 
proposed by Austin (1962), even the controversially influential 
relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986/1995) has drawn upon 
much from Wittgenstein's ideas. Interestingly if not unfortunately, 
Wittgenstein largely goes unmentioned in these works. What I mean 
by this is not that all Wittgenstein wrote down is correct and flawless; it 
is self-evident that no man is perfect and that no man can be perfect. 
And Wittgenstein is no exception. One may not and need not agree 
with all Wittgenstein has said, but it would be oversight to ignore him, 
especially for those interested in language use, language 
understanding and language interpreting. Reading Wittgenstein, one 
may be greatly impressed not only by his presentation of extraordinary 
ideas in ordinary language, but also by his uniquely compelling mode 
of presentation and illuminating rhetoric, which is quite different from 
much of present-day scholarship.

In sum, Luckhardt and Aue have done a good job of providing an 
accessible edition of Wittgenstein's Big Typescript that is essential to 
understanding and interpreting the evolution of Wittgenstein's 
thoughts after the Tractatus. Anyone interested in Wittgenstein should 
consider possessing a copy of it.

REFERENCES

Austin, J. L.1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford 
University Press.

Sperber, D. and D. Wilson. 1986/1995. Relevance: Communication 
and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.

Wittgenstein, L. 1953. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER


Dr. Chaoqun Xie is an associate professor at the Foreign Languages 
Institute, Fujian Normal University. Currently, he is also a post-doctoral 
research fellow (supervisor: Prof. Ziran He) at the Center for 
Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign 
Studies, China. His research interests include pragmatics and 
philosophy of language.





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