Table Of ContentWITTGENSTEIN'S LATER PHILOSOPHY
By the same author
LOGICAL POSITIVISM
THE QUEST FOR MEANING
Wittgenstein's Later
Philosophy
Oswald Hanfling
Reader in Philosophy
The Opell University
--
MACMILLAN
© Oswald Hanfling
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First published 1989 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
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Companies and representatives
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ISBN 978-0-333-47575-1 ISBN 978-1-349-19954-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-19954-9
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
List of Abbreviations viii
1. Introduction 1
2. The Tractatus and the 'Essence of Human Language' 4
A. The correlation theory of meaning 4
B. Atomism and 'the substance of the world' 9
C. Truth-functions and 'the essence of language' 14
D. What cannot be said 22
3. Meaning and Use 31
A. The Tractatus versus the later philosophy 31
B. Meaning and use 42
C. 'What we say' and the problems of philosophy 48
4. 'Explanations Come to an End' 55
A. Ostensive explanation: the step 'outside language' 55
B. Verbal explanation: 'seeing what is common' 63
C. Verbal explanation: a mathematical instruction 74
D. Mental explanation: 'the myth of mental processes' 76
5. Language and the Privacy of Experience 88
A. The 'private language' argument 88
B. The meaning of 'private' 91
C. 'How do words refer to sensations?' (PI 244) 93
D. 'In what sense are my sensations private?' (PI 246) 95
E. The double meaning theory 100
v
vi Contents
F. 'Only of a living human being ... ' (PI 281) 102
G. Inventing a name for a sensation 108
H. Imagining a use for the sign '5' 112
I. The non-private context 115
J. Criteria and the problem of 'other minds' 118
6. Language-games and Objectivity 127
A. Realism and its alternatives 127
B. Pluralism 129
C. The limits of pluralism 133
D. Convention, invention and discovery 137
E. Conventionalism and 'the given' 142
F. Rules, games and language-games 146
G. Conclusion 151
7. Knowledge, Certainty and Doubt 152
A. Do I know I am sitting in a chair? 152
B. The 'peculiar logical role' of Moore's propositions 159
C. Knowledge, doubt and action 164
D. Knowing what we mean 169
E. 'Should I say "I believe in physics"?' (OC 602) 171
8. Conclusion 175
Notes and References 178
Indexes 188
Acknowledgements
The author and publishers wish to thank the following who have
kindly given permission for the use of copyright material:
Basil Blackwell for extracts from 'What Does the Private Language
Argument Prove?' from Philosophical Quarterly, 1984, 'Does Lang
uage Need Rules?' from Philosophical Quarterly, 1980, and from 'On
the Meaning and Use of "I Know" , from Philosophical Investigations,
1982, all by Oswald Hanfling.
Croom Helm Publishers Ltd, for extracts from 'Criteria, Conven
tions and Other Minds' by Oswald Hanfling, from Ludwig
Wittgenstein: Critical Assessments, Volume II, edited by S. G.
Shanker.
The author further wishes to acknowledge Justyn Balinski who
compiled the indexes.
vii
List of Abbreviations
BB The Blue and Brown Books.
LK Logic and Knowledge, Bertrand Russell (Allen & Unwin,
1956).
OC On Certainty (Blackwell, 1969). References are to sections.
PG Philosophical Grammar (Blackwell, 1974).
PI Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell, 1958). References to
Part I are by sections (e.g. PI 109) and references to Part II
are by page numbers (e.g. PI p. 226).
PR Philosophical Remarks (Blackwell, 1975).
RFM Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (Blackwell, 1978).
WVC Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, Friedrich Waismann
(Blackwell, 1979).
Z Zettel (Blackwell, 1967). References are to sections.
References are to page numbers except in the case of OC, PI Part
I, and Z.
viii
1
In trod uction
This book was written to provide a general discussion of
Wittgenstein's ideas, especially his influential later philosophy,
rather than to put forward some new theme or thesis which had
escaped previous commentators. In the course of writing, however,
I found that one particular aspect of his thought seemed especially
important; and I believe that various misunderstandings of his
ideas, by professionals and ordinary readers, by those hostile and
those sympathetic to his views, have stemmed largely from a
failure to grasp, or come to terms with, this aspect of his thought.
Wittgenstein more than once expressed a fear that his work
would be widely misunderstood. Sometimes the point at issue is
straightforward enough, as in PI 307, where he anticipates that he
will be regarded (wrongly) as a behaviourist - one who maintains
that statements about the mind can be reduced to statements about
behaviour. But the more difficult matter to grasp is that which
he sometimes expresses by saying that his method is 'purely
descriptive' (BB 125). 'We may not', he wrote in the Investiga
tions, 'advance any kind of theory .... We must do away
with all explanation, and description alone must take its place'
(PI 109).
These remarks have not, of course, gone unnoticed. Nevertheless
there is a continuing tendency to ascribe to him such and such a
theory (of language, mind, knowledge and so on) and to assimilate
his ideas to one of the traditional schools or '-isms', I believe that
this involves a failure to come to terms with the essential originality
of his (later) ideas, and their discontinuity with what had gone
before. Another source of misunderstanding has been the desire
to ascribe to him hard-and-fast views or claims in place of what he
actually says, which may be more tentative and qualified. A
common pitfall here is to treat as obviously rhetorical some of his
questions which were really intended as questions, and not to have
'obvious' answers supplied by the reader. Another is to resort to
the cruder, more dogmatic statements that we sometimes find in
his less finished drafts, or notes of lectures, to make up for what
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