Forms of Life and Language Games 3868381228, 9783868381221

Citation preview

Jesús Padilla Gálvez, Margit Gaffal (Eds.) Forms of Life and Language Games

APORIA Apori/a HRSG. VON / EDITED BY Jesús Padilla Gálvez (University of Castilla-La Mancha) ADVISORY BOARD Pavo Barišić (University of Split) Michel Le Du (University of Strasbourg) Miguel García-Baró (University of Comillas) Margit Gaffal (University of Castilla-La Mancha) Guillermo Hurtado (National Autonomous University of Mexico) Antonio Marques (New University of Lisbon) Lorenzo Peña (Spanish National Research Council) Nicanor Ursua Lezaun (University of the Basque Country) Nuno Venturinha (New University of Lisbon) Pablo Quintanilla (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru) Aporia is a new series devoted to studies in the field of philosophy. Aporia (Aπορία) means philosophical puzzle and the aim of the series is to present contributions by authors who systematically investigate current problems. Aporia (Aπορία) puts special emphasis on the publication of concise arguments on the topics studied. The publication has to contribute to the explanation of current philosophical problem, using a systematic or a historic approach. Contributions should concern relevant philosophical topics and should reflect the ongoing progress of scientific development.

Volume 5

Jesús Padilla Gálvez, Margit Gaffal (Eds.)

Forms of Life and Language Games

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

North and South America by Transaction Books Rutgers University Piscataway, NJ 08854-8042 [email protected] United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, Turkey, Malta, Portugal by Gazelle Books Services Limited White Cross Mills Hightown LANCASTER, LA1 4XS [email protected]

Livraison pour la France et la Belgique: Librairie Philosophique J.Vrin 6, place de la Sorbonne; F-75005 PARIS Tel. +33 (0)1 43 54 03 47; Fax +33 (0)1 43 54 48 18 www.vrin.fr

2011 ontos verlag P.O. Box 15 41, D-63133 Heusenstamm www.ontosverlag.com ISBN 978-3-86838-122-1 2011 No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use of the purchaser of the work Printed on acid-free paper FSC-certified (Forest Stewardship Council) This hardcover binding meets the International Library standard Printed in Germany by buch bücher.de

CONTENTS Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ and Margit GAFFAL Forms of Life and Language Games. An Introduction

7

P. M. S. HACKER Language, Language-Games and Forms of Life

17

Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ Language as Forms of Life

37

Margit GAFFAL Forms of Life as Social Techniques

57

Norberto ABREU E SILVA NETO The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

75

Cecilia B. BERISTAIN Language games and the Latticed Discourses of Myself

107

Pierluigi BIANCINI From Umgebung to Form of Life: a Genealogical Reading

121

António MARQUES Wittgenstein on Experience and Memory

141

Vicente SANFÉLIX VIDARTE Wittgenstein and the Criticism of Technological and Scientific Civilization

153

Michel LE DU Wittgenstein and Hayek on Rules and Lines of Conduct

175

Nuno VENTURINHA Wittgenstein’s Debt to Sraffa

187

Jakub MÁCHA Art as Institution and Expression

197

Forms of Life and Language Games An Introduction Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ and Margit GAFFAL Nobody would doubt that the debates raised by Ludwig Wittgenstein have inspired contemporary philosophical thinking. His writings have stimulated scientific investigations and have advanced many issues that had been addressed by traditional philosophy. Consequently, many classical questions have become subjects of debate in which intellectually respectable philosophers participated actively. In fact, the questions raised by the Viennese philosopher initiated debates on a reconsideration of philosophical terminology. It appears as if we realized after a careful reading of his arguments that we are beginning a new field of reflection. Something very similar happens with a term that has generated at least three significant controversies since its creation, and will probably generate more disputes in the following years. This concerns the German expressions “Lebensform”,1 “Lebensformen”2 and “Form des Lebens”,3 1

Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 124, p. 212 f.; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 180a, Notizbuch, p. 5r; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 142, p. 13; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 220, p. 10; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 227a, p. 16; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 227b, p. 16; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 235, p. 8; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 239, p. 11; Wittgenstein, PU, 23 (Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 142, p. 18 f.; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 220, p. 16; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 227a, p. 21 f.; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 227b, p. 23; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 239, p. 16); Wittgenstein, PU, 241 (Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 227, p. 159; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 227b, p. 159; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 241a, p. 5 f.; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 241b, p. 5 / 6b; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 242, p. 1); Wittgenstein, PU, Teil II (MS 144), , |1|, p. 993; Wittgenstein, PU, p. 174/489. (Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 144 p. 1); Wittgenstein, MS 137, 59a; Wittgenstein, MS 176. Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 176, Notizbuch, p. 51v.; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 175, Taschennotizbuch, p. 55v.; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 165, Taschennotizbuch, p. 110 f. 2 Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 119, Vol. XV, p. 147 f. / 74v; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 129, p. 35; Wittgenstein, PU, Teil II (MS 144), , |99|, p. 1082; Wittgenstein, PU, p. 226/572; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 229, p. 333; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 245, p. 245; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 160, p. 26r / 26v. 3 Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 160, p. 26r / 26v; Wittgenstein, Eine philosophische Betrachtung, p. 202; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 115, p. 239 (108). Vol. XI. “Philosophische Bemerkungen”; “Philosophische Untersuchungen”; Wittgenstein, Forms of Life and Language Games, (Eds. Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ, Margit GAFFAL), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2011, 7-16.

8

Forms of Life and Language Games

which is translated into English as “form or forms of life”. Although L. Wittgenstein mentions the term no more than a dozen times in his writings, the way he used has provoked controversial discussions among philosophers. Therefore it seems appropriate to present a brief summary of the arguments proposed by Wittgenstein and other scholars in the context of form of life in this introduction. First, I will make reference to the time at which the term was first introduced and entered philosophical discussion. It is important to keep in mind that the meaning of “Lebensform” in the nineteenth century was very different from that of the beginning of the last century. The first two entries on ‘form of life’ can be found in the dictionary of the Brothers Grimm in 1838. The first entry addresses the physical condition of the heavenly bodies and its corresponding forms of life, which reads as follows: “Lebensformen, f.: die physische Beschaffenheit der Weltkörper und die auf denselben möglichen Lebensformen.”4

The second entry is a rather abstract description in which forms of life are characterized as a kind of poetry of mental urge, upheaving and rounding off: “...eine Poesie des geistigen Drängens und Gährens, des emportreibens und abrundens der Lebensformen.”5

More specifically, two different themes are mentioned in these quotations: on the one hand it brings up the idea of the physical texture of the world and possible forms of life that are related to it. On the other hand, it introduces a poetic concept of intellectual excitement whereby forms of life are inspired. In the first decade of the last century the interested reader came across the term “Lebensform” in several books that were published in Austria and Germany. These works emerged probably because the study of BEE, Item 115, Philosophische Bemerkungen, p. 239; Wittgenstein, VB, 62, C&V, 31, MS 118: 17r (17.8.37); Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 118, Philosophische Bemerkungen, p. 17r / 17v; Wittgenstein, MS 127, p. 128; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 127, Taschennotizbuch F. Mathematik und Logik, p. 128. 4 Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm, Lebensformen, Jenaer litt.-zeitung 1838, no. 179 s. 468. See: Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm. 16 Vols. S. Hirzel: Leipzig, 1854-1960. 5 Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm, Lebensformen, blätter f. litt. unterhaltung 1846 s. 163. See: Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm. 16 Vols. S. Hirzel: Leipzig, 1854-1960. Vol. 12, Spalte 439.

Forms of Life and Language Games. An Introduction

9

forms of life allowed a detailed analysis of the techniques that are involved in social structures.6 Form of life seems to be a relevant means to establish a link between cultural development and the application of social abilities.7 There is a certain affinity between forms of life on the one hand and abstract concepts, such as “civilization”, “village” or “religion” on the other hand.8 Consequently, several authors established a relation between the semantic field of “form of life” and notions such as ‘culture’ and ‘social order’. We shall analyze this relation in more detail. The first author who used the term “form and forms of life” in 1905 in an extensive monograph entitled ‘Lebensform: Anmerkungen über die Technik des gesellschaftlichen Lebens’ was Alfred Wechsler who wrote under the pseudonym W. Fred.9 It was probably due to this monograph that the term “form(s) of life” became known in the german-speaking world. Apart from the fact that Wechsler had coined a new expression, two aspects shall be highlighted in this context. First, the expression is used to point to the notion of style of life. And the second aspect has to do with the subtitle of the book, which indicates that the author attempts to give a detailed explanation of the various techniques underlying social life. More specifically, the author provides a scrupulously precise description of the peculiarities and regularities of everyday life and establishes guidelines that appear in modern societies.10 In this outstanding book A. Wechsler gives a detailed description of the techniques that sophisticated people used during socialzing. These include such topics as forms of social life and sociality, appearance and reality, the role of fashion in society, ways of entertainment and leisure time activities, the relation between men and women, and manners and formalities, to name but a few. More than seventy years later, H. v. Hofmannsthal wrote a book review of A. Wechsler’s monograph which he 6

W. Fred (Alfred Wechsler), Lebensformen. Anmerkungen über die Technik des gesellschaftlichen Lebens. Georg Müller, München, Leipzig, 1905. 7 E. Spranger, Lebensformen. Geisteswissenschaftliche Psychologie und Ethik der Persönlichkeit. Niemeyer, Halle a. S., 1921. 8 O. Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes. First Edition: two volums. First volume: Gestalt und Wirklichkeit. Braumüller, Wien, Leipzig, 1918; 3rd ed. Beck, München: Beck, 1919; Beck, München, 1923. Second volume: Welthistorische Perspektiven. Beck, München, 1922. 9 Fred, (Alfred Wechsler), 1905. 10 These aspects are systematically examined in the contributions of M. Gaffal and N. Abreu e Silva Neto.

10

Forms of Life and Language Games

had entitled ‘Lebensform W. von Fred’.11 And it seems that it was due to this review that a broader readership became familiar with the monograph. Another author who used the expression “form of life” in his writings was the psychologist E. Spranger. One of his most important works of the 1920ies was entitled ‘Lebensformen. Geisteswissenschaftliche Psychologie und Ethik der Persönlichkeit’12. In this book he examined psychological phenomena from a humanistic point of view with a special focus on the ethics of personality. In addition to the mental and physical level, he highlighted the primitive condition and the “ontic” character reflecting the rules and norms that guide a person’s spiritual and intellectual life. Spranger underlined that it is essential to gain an a priori-understanding of forms of life.13 His book is particularly relevant as it analyzes the structures of mental life. According to his view, soul is the core of spiritual life and a typical feature of one’s inner life is that it follows its own rules, as he calls it. E. Spranger was interested in the relation between the subjective perception of art objects and the objective world. He presupposed certain unalterable and fixed structures in both a person’s inner life as and in human culture as a whole. In this context he speaks of a “collective team spirit”, which is apparent in the organization of each society and is considered an objective spirit. He thought that individual thoughts and actions could only be understood in their cultural context in which they are embedded. Forms of life thus are instruments of knowledge which include aesthetic, religious, social, political and economic aspects of mankind. The Austrian physician and psychotherapist Alfred Adler used the term “form of life” frequently in his book entitled ‘The meaning of life’. From his perspective the expression describes all those learning processes that develop in the human psyche during the first years of life, especially at the age from three to five.14 He assumed that the form of life shapes a child’s mental prototype and creates a kind of psychological mapping which marks the regularity according to which an individual develops along the rest of his life. 11

H. v. Hofmannsthal, Lebensformen von W. Fred, in: Gesammelte Werke, Reden und Aufsätze (1891-1931), Fischer, Frankfurt a. M., 1979, p. 400. 12 Spranger, 1921. 13 Spranger, 1921, 33. 14 A. Adler, Der Sinn des Lebens. (1933). Cited from the edition: Alfred Adler Studienausgabe, Ed. K. H. Witte, Vandehoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2008, 135.

Forms of Life and Language Games. An Introduction

11

More specifically, the form of life a child has acquired during infancy is the fundamental base on which its capacity to generate new capabilities and skills rests. On the other hand, an infant is constrained in two ways, first, by genetic characteristics and hereditary factors and, second, by its dependence on the environment. In the case of a wellbalanced proportionality between wakefulness and sleepiness on the transition from day to night, a person will gain an advantage concerning his or her form of life.15 An individual form of life unfolds best at times when a person is awake and fully conscious. Nevertheless it must be mentioned that in Adler’s writings the term “form of life” is often used rather vaguely and has a plain meaning which serves to describe the general character or qualities under which the child develops. This development proceeds along with the interaction among child, parents and significant others as well as the environment and conditions of life. The German historian and philosopher Oswald Spengler used the expression “form of life” only rarely in his writings. In the second volume of his book ‘The Decline of the West’, subtitled as ‘The Prospect of World History’, the author introduced the term “Lebensform” mainly in the singular and used the expression only six times. He saw the reason for the creation of the term in as a reaction to the “sudden changes” that had taken place in many people’s lives. However, he added that the exact reason remained unclear and put it like this: “...die Lebensform des Menschen wie jede andre ihren Ursprung einer plötzlichen Wandlung verdankt, deren Woher, Wie und Warum ein undurchdringliches Geheimnis bleiben wird.”16

Later he mentioned that the individual becomes aware of his own form of life only if he is confronted with another form of life which is very different from the own one: “Erst an fremden Lebensformen wurde man sich nun der eignen bewußt”.17

He suggested further that the relation between old and new civilizations tends to be covered by a dense layer of Western European and American forms of life, whereas characteristic elements of ancient civilizations gradually disappear. He explains this in the following quote: 15

Adler, 1933 (2008), 146. Spengler, 1963, Vol. II, p. 592. 17 Spengler, 1963, Vol. II, p. 594 f. 16

12

Forms of Life and Language Games “Und auch auf jedem andern Formgebiet bestand die Beziehung dieser jungen zu den alten noch bestehenden Zivilisationen darin, daß sie sie sämtlich durch eine immer dichtere Schicht westeuropäischamerikanischer Lebensformen überdeckte, unter denen die alte eigne Form langsam dahinschwindet.”18.

O. Spengler’s interest was actually mainly focused on Russian culture which marked the starting point of his investigations of various East European countries. He dealt with the discussion on religion in Russia initiated by L. Tolstoy and F. Dostoyevsky. In fact, L. Tolstoy had created a monumental literary description of the idiosyncrasies of Russian customs. In his novels he realistically depicted the situation of people living in a hostile society. He portrayed the nature of the characters revealing their peculiarities using a pure literary style. F. Dostoyevsky, on the other hand, used a kind of extreme realism in his novels to give a detailed analysis of the existential problems and the psychological complexity of his stricken fictional characters. His protagonists are confronted with their fate and their lives under difficult conditions, God and religion and above all their own conscience. Spengler saw the problem in the fact that Russian people did not have any appropriate urban spaces to develop their appropriate forms of life, their own religion and their own history. Thus he says: “...das stadtlose Volk, das sich nach seiner eigenen Lebensform, seiner eigenen Religion, seiner eigenen künftigen Geschichte sehnt.”19

These quotes show that the term “form of life” is linked to a process of sudden change due to a process whereby the individual gradually gains awareness. This development is considered synonymous with “civilization” and “people”. However, all these terms occur in a strictly psychological and sociocultural context. Spengler assumed that two forms of life struggled for primacy20 and that these forms have a certain inner structure of symbolic character. He considered “Lebensform” to have a dualistic nature.

18

Spengler, 1963, Vol. II, p. 610. Spengler, 1963, Vol. II, p. 794. 20 In propria vocem: “Es ist demnach klar, daß auf den Höhen der Geschichte zwei große Lebensformen um den Vorrang kämpfen, Stand und Staat, beides Daseinsströme von großer innerer Form und sinnbildlicher Kraft”. Spengler, 1963, Vol. II, p. 1011. See: p. 1013. 19

Forms of Life and Language Games. An Introduction

13

Finally, I shall draw your attention to a book that has attracted little attention but is probably relevant because it was easily accessible for L. Wittgenstein in the Cambridge University Library. These are the two volumes on human speech published by Hermann Ammann.21 The second volume is entitled ‘Lebensform und Lebensfunktionen der Rede’ and can be translated as form of life and vital functions of speech. The author starts from the assumption that the nature of proposition is to be determined by the social character of speech acts. He says this of speech acts: “Die Einsicht in den sozialen Charakter des Sprechaktes bestimmt heute die Auffassung vom Wesen des Satzes.”22

In fact, it seems that H. Ammann was twenty years ahead of his time when he explained speech functions and described the mutual relation between speaker and listener. He supposed that describing an event does not only require naming the facts (Tatsachen) but rather a depiction of the state of affairs (Sachverhalt). It is possible to describe the state of affairs because of the knowledge that one has acquired earlier.23 The book contains a chapter in which speech acts are compared to forms of life.24 The author distinguishes different linguistic levels that correspond to dissimilar and sometimes conflicting forms of life.25 Primitive forms of syntax are part of elemental speech such as, for instance, exclamations. Linked to these are phenomena such as curse, profanity, outbursts, tort, libel, congratulations or blessings. From the moment at which the speaker drafts a phrase the expression loses its vitality and the statement leaves a somehow rational and unemotional impression in the listener. During the discourse statements acquire their meaning whereby the listener can decode the message.26 Special attention should be given to those impersonal constructions which are formulated in German by the particle ‘es’. These verbs have a minimum logical-conceptual content and have a high sensitivity when applied to a certain context. He examines the transformation of language from subject to predicate.27 He is interested in the difference of the effect 21

H. Ammann, Die menschliche Rede. Sprachphilosophische Einrichtungen. Teil I (1925) and Teil II (1928). Moritz Schauenburg, Lahr, 1925/28. 22 Ammann, 1928, vol. II, 1s. 23 Ammann, 1928, vol. II, 13. 24 Ammann, 1928, vol. II, 42 ff. 25 Ammann, 1928, vol. II, 42. 26 Ammann, 1928, vol. II, 43. 27 Ammann, 1928, vol. II, 46 f.

14

Forms of Life and Language Games

that language produces once we use a noun or a verb. Ammann analyzes what he calls the lively nature of language. Finally, Ammann presents a list of compound terms and underlines that the subject and predicate are constitute the essence of the content.28 According to H. Ammann forms of life are primarily expressed by speech acts. As such, a person discloses information through a discourse. In this context the author examines three types of speech, such as first, the monologue as a means of attracting the listeners´ attention. The second is the chorus community and the magic and religious function of speech. And third, he considers the verbal clause as “form of life” and speaks of the independent nature of speech by itself (Eigenleben). As is known, L. Wittgenstein used the term “Lebensform” in both the singular and the plural. However, the discussion gradually focused on the question whether form of life should be approached from a monistic standpoint.29 Taking this monistic perspective into account, the singular would prevail over the use of the plural. Therefore it seems natural that there exists a plurality of forms of life.30 The second phase of discussion focused on the question whether form(s) of life point(s) to a peaceful coexistence of different cultures or rather a struggle for cultural dominance.31 Motivated by the debates that 28

Ammann, 1928, vol. II, 48. N. Garver, Die Lebensform in Wittgensteins Philosophischen Untersuchungen, Grazer Philosophische Studien, 21, 1984, 33-54; N. Garver, Naturalism and Transcendentaly: The Case of «Form of Life», en: Teghrarian, S. (ed.), Wittgenstein and Contemporary Philosophy, Bristol, Thoemmes Press, 1994, 41-69; N. Garver, Die Unbestimmtheit der Lebensform, Wittgenstein Studien, 2/95, 1995, Dateiname: 07-295.TXT; N. Garver, Die Unbestimmheit der Lebensform, in: W. Lütterfelds, Andreas Roser (ed.), Der Konflikt der Lebensformen in Wittgensteins Philosophie der Sprache, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M., 1999, 37-52. 30 R. Haller, Die gemeinsame menschliche Handlungsweise, Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 33, 1979, 521-533; R. Haller, “Lebensform oder Lebensformen” – Eine Bemerkung zu N. Garvers ‘Die Lebensform in Wittgensteins Philosophischen Untersuchungen’, Grazer Philosophische Studien, 21, 1984, 55-64; R. Haller, Variationen und Bruchlinien einer Lebensform, in: W. Lütterfelds, Andreas Roser (ed.), Der Konflikt der Lebensformen in Wittgensteins Philosophie der Sprache, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M., 1999, 53-71. 31 Lütterfelds, Wilhelm / Andreas Roser (ed.), Der Konflikt der Lebensformen in Wittgensteins Philosophie der Sprache, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M., 1999. See the following articles: K. Neumer, Lebensform, Sprache und Relativismus im Spätwerk Wittgensteins, in: Lütterfelds, Roser 1999, 72-93; R. Raatzsch, Ketzer und 29

Forms of Life and Language Games. An Introduction

15

took place in the nineties of the last century, the issue had mainly an aggressive and war-like connotation. In other words, the fundamental question was whether different cultures are doomed to fight against each other in a struggle for dominance of forms of Western life. Surprisingly scholars neglected a possible peaceful coexistence of forms of life in which people respect each other and tolerate the difference. Recently, a new work has attempted to show new ways in the discussion pointing to the need of reflecting on the nature of experience.32 The book seeks to clarify the mutual relationship between the two aspects of attention. As we have seen in the early discussions, the key issue addressed by L. Wittgenstein in his work is the relationship between language and different forms of life have been left untreated. This volume intends to summarize the discussions on the topic “form and forms of life” that are situated on the intersection of language, culture and sociology. We want to show that within these disputes several scholars have ascribed certain positions to Wittgenstein that neither he nor his contemporary colleagues had taken. The aim of this volume is to present a profound investigation of the related expressions “Lebensform”, “Lebensformen” and “Form des Lebens”. If we analyze the use of the three concepts in Wittgenstein’s works the difference in meaning becomes obvious. This difference has been largely neglected in the secondary literature and has been taken note of. The present volume is a collection of papers which were read at the International Congress held at the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Toledo (Spain) in June 2011, under the general theme of Forms of Life and Language Games. The Congress was attended by specialists of different countries. What we offer here is the outcome of a careful selection of essays. The congress was devoted to Wittgenstein’s thoughts on philosophical anthropology, philosophy of language, cultural studies and psychology. One of the aims of the congress was to consider and carefully Rechtgläubig. Narren und Weise, in: Lütterfelds, Roser 1999, 94-119; E. von Savigny, Wittgenstein “Lebensformen” und die Grenze der Verständigung, in: Lütterfelds, Roser 1999, 120-137. C. Sedmak, The cultural game of watching the games, en: Lütterfelds, Roser 1999, 171-189. J. Simon, Lebensformen. Übergänge und Abbrüche, in: Lütterfelds, Roser 1999, 190-212. 32 António Marques and Nuno Venturinha (Eds.), Wittgenstein on Forms of Life and the Nature of Experience, Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. M., 2010.

16

Forms of Life and Language Games

examine the importance of culture, anthropology and language for philosophical discussion. I would like to thank all the colleagues who accepted the invitation to participate in the congress and thereby contribute to the book. I am indebted to the public institutions that have financially supported the Congress. Financial support was provided by the MICINN, Spanish Government, (FFI2011-12575-E). On this occasion, we benefited not only from the continued and generous support from the Diputación of Toledo and the Obra Social de la Caja de Castilla-La Mancha but also from the University of Castilla-La Mancha and the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences in Toledo.

Language, Language-Games and Forms of Life P. M. S. HACKER 1.

A language-using animal

Our rational powers endow us with possibilities of thinking, feeling, intending and acting that far exceed anything available to other animals. The horizon of thought is determined by the horizon of the behavioural expression of thought. A being can intelligibly (truly or falsely) be said to think only that which can be expressed in its behaviour. The human behavioural repertoire includes an indefinite variety of linguistic behaviour. Consequently, the horizon of human thought is vastly wider than that of other animals. We can speak, and so think, of specifically dated events, of the distant past and remote future. We can speak, and so think, not only of what does exist, but also of what does not. We can think – because we can express – general thoughts, seek for and discover general laws of nature. We can think how things might be and how they might have been. We can imagine – because we can describe – endless possibilities, and we have the power of creative imagination, of pictorial representation, aesthetic appreciation, and a sense of humour. We are selfconscious, i.e. able to reflect on – because we can avow or report – our attitudes and affections, reasons and motives, character traits and relationships with others, and take such factors into account in thought, affection and action. We can apprehend and construct truths of reason (arithmetic, geometry and logic). We live in time in a quite different sense than other animals. We are historical beings. We have a history – both personal and social. Our sense of identity and cultural form of life is bound up with stories of the past and of our past, which mould our lives, relationships and values. We can attain knowledge of good and evil, we have a conscience, a sense of obligation, and are susceptible to feelings of guilt, shame and remorse. We are responsible for our deeds. We are rational creatures. The ability to act for reasons is correlative to the ability to reason, to derive conclusions from premises, and to make inferences from what we know or think we know. Inferring from available Forms of Life and Language Games, (Eds. Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ, Margit GAFFAL), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2011, 17-36.

18

Forms of Life and Language Games

evidence or deriving a conclusion from a set of premises, are not mental processes. To infer is to assert or think one proposition on the ground of others, as warranted or well-supported by others. Reasoning, apprehending ‘therefore-s’ and ‘because-s’ between evidence and conclusion, between propositions and their consequences, is, again, a prerogative of languageusers – even though it obviously has primitive analogues in pre-linguistic anticipations of events and apprehensions of causal connections. A dog or a bird may learn that B regularly follows A, and prepare itself for B when it sees A. It may learn that V-ing produces B which brings about C, and so V when it wants C. But that falls short of reasoning from premises to a conclusion, from grasping the ‘therefore-s’ and ‘because-s’ intrinsic to reasoning, and from viewing the truth of one proposition as a warrant or justification for holding another to be true. Alone among animals, we are born with the second-order ability to learn to speak a language. This is exercised in the early years of our lives, and we acquire mastery of a language. Mastery of a language, exhibited in the stream of life, is a mark of having a mind. Without having learnt to speak and to engage in the endless activities of language-using creatures, we would not be rational animals, would not reason, think, feel and act for reasons, and would not possess the distinctive powers of intellect and rational will that are constitutive of having a mind. Nor would our experience, perceptual, affective, and active alike, be concept-saturated as it is.1 To have mastered a language, Wittgenstein argued, is to have learnt a vast range of forms of action and activity and of reaction and response to speech (and, in literate societies, to writing) and to circumstance which are constitutive of a human form of life. It is to be able to communicate by the use of language and to respond to the use of language by others. It is to be able to reason and deliberate. But, notwithstanding the claims of theoretical linguists and philosophers of language (including the author of the Tractatus), it is not to know a calculus of language or a generative grammar. Since the invention of function-theoretic calculi of logic at the turn of the twentieth century, the logical analysis of language has dominated analytic philosophy. Successive generations of philosophers endeavoured 1

For further elaboration and detailed defence of these very general claims, see P. M. S. Hacker, Human Nature: the Categorial Framework. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2007.

Language, Language-Games and Forms of Life

19

to present the depth-grammar of natural language as consisting of some variant or other of the Frege/Russell predicate calculus. Understanding a language, they argued, consists in tacit knowledge of its depth-grammar and lexicon, from which the meaning of all possible sentences of the language can be derived. Since the middle of the twentieth century, with the demise of behaviourist linguistics, cognitive linguistics (as advanced by Chomsky and his followers) has come to dominate theoretical linguistics and has greatly influenced psycho-linguistics. On this view, mastery of a language consists of non-conscious ‘cognizing’ by the ‘mind/brain’ of the depth-grammar of a language, innate knowledge of the universal grammar of all human languages (according to Chomsky), and possession of a mental dictionary (Treisman) or neural lexicon (Levelt, Coltheart) correlating concepts with words. This is alleged to be what makes it possible for us to interpret the speech of others. It is not my purpose here to survey the reflections on language by philosophers, psycho-linguists, neuro-linguists and theoretical linguists in the course of the last century. What I shall do is examine the salient notions that form the conceptual framework for reflection on languageusers, their linguistic powers and activities. My aim is to provide an overview of the family of concepts associated with linguistic meaning. One of the purposes of this overview is to show how Wittgenstein’s conception of a language-game and of a form of life provide the stage-setting for an integrationist conception of language.2 This is diametrically opposed to the various forms of truth-conditional theories of meaning that have bedevilled philosophical reflections on language for the last four decades. 2.

Linguistic communication

To learn a language is to learn a rich and open-ended array of forms of action, the performance of which is integrated with the general forms of behaviour of the linguistic community to which one belongs. A language is above all a means of communication, and only secondarily a means of representation (not all linguistic communication involves representation). To learn a language is to learn to talk, to speak – and to respond to the speech of others. It is to learn to do a vast array of things with words, 2

For integrationism in linguistics, see the writings of Roy Harris and his followers. Harris, however, would not recognise Wittgenstein as advancing an integrationist conception of language.

20

Forms of Life and Language Games

symbols and gestures. It is to learn to request, entreat and plead, to comply, refuse or complain, to state one’s intentions, to express affections, attitudes, desires and aversions, pleasure and pain, to ask and answer questions, to guess and hypothesize, to describe and to learn to respond to descriptions of how things are, were or will be and how they might be or might have been, and so on and so forth through the myriad forms of action and response (both verbal and non-verbal) that the young learn at their parents’ knee. The activities thus learnt are intelligible only as strands within the tapestry of human life. For one has to learn the language-games in which these manifold forms of behaviour are embedded. In short, to learn a language is to become a participating member of a culture. To achieve mastery of a language is to learn to engage in a wide variety of language-games that are part of the form of life of the culture into which one is born. To learn a language-game is to learn to make moves in the game. To use a sentence is to make such a move. A large, if indeterminate, amount of common background knowledge, shared background presuppositions concerning regularities in nature and constancies in our own nature, common discriminatory powers and shared primitive responses, provide the framework for human beings to engage in language-games. In the absence of this framework, no communication by means of language would ever take place. A given language-game is played only in appropriate communicative contexts in the stream of life. So too a given move in a language-game occurs only in a certain context within the game. Finally, a word typically occurs only in the context of a sentence, which is uttered as a move in a language-game. A language-game is played with more communicative instruments than spoken words and sentences. Words are uttered with intonation contour, and are accompanied by facial expressions and hand gestures. These are an integral part of the communicative act. Indeed gesturing alone (shaking or nodding one’s head, thumbs up or down) may constitute a fully fledged act of communication. In highly literate cultures such as ours, the characteristic features and conventions of writing and reading should not be overlooked. The introduction of script has transformed human civilizations – but not because it maps the sounds of speech onto script (it commonly doesn’t) – but rather because it introduces a wide spectrum of novel linguistic possibilities and activities. It has made it possible to make and keep a record of events, to make inventories, to keep accounts, to signpost, to label, to codify laws, to record trials, to produce and transmit texts, to engage in correspondence, and so on and so forth. It would be mistaken

Language, Language-Games and Forms of Life

21

to restrict our concept of a language to word-language alone, for the very symbols that are involved in human communication incorporate more than just words. Samples, for example, are an integral part of our languages. For we often explain words by ostensive explanations that make use of samples (as when we explain what colour-words or measure-words mean). We make use of samples in our actual assertions and orders (as when we tell someone to bring 28 inches [i.e. this ☞ — length] of this ☞ ☐ material, in this colour ☞ ■, from the drapers). So too iconic symbols are an (increasingly) important part of our communicative activities. Any attempt to describe the mastery and use of language, and to theorize about language and linguistic meaning that overlooks these facts will be defective. It is surprising that mainstream reflection by philosophers and linguists on the nature of language by and large sidelined all this. This is primarily because thought was generally held to be independent of language. It was held to be an operation with ideas or concepts. The result of thinking was commonly conceived to be the generation of languageindependent thoughts and judgements. Thoughts or judgements were conceived to be representations or depictions of how things are. These ideational or conceptual representations could then be ‘translated’ into the medium of language for purposes of communication. The primary use of language was considered to be telementation. What the others do with the thoughts thus transmitted or induced is another matter. This natural misconception has characterized philosophical reflection since antiquity. If one begins one’s investigations of the nature of language from the primacy of the communication of thought, then all one’s reflections are likely to be distorted. For thoughts – what we think – are typically either true or false, and are expressed by assertoric sentences. So one will be prone to assign analytic primacy (that is: primacy in the order of analysis) to representation and hence to truth and assertion, and functional primacy to naming (the essential function of words is to name or stand for things) and describing (the essential function of sentences is to describe how things stand).3 This is patent in the Port Royal Logic and Grammar as well as in Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book 3 in the seventeenth century, which books moulded thought and reflection about language for the next two centuries. It is equally patent in Frege’s Begriffsschrift and Basic Laws of Arithmetic in the late nineteenth century. 3

These are two of the pillars of what Wittgenstein characterised as the Augustinian conception of language.

22

Forms of Life and Language Games

It is no less evident in Russell and Whitehead’s Principia, and in the Tractatus. It continues to flourish today among many theorists of language. A second fountainhead of misconceptions arose at the end of the nineteenth- and beginning of the twentieth-century. This was the invention of the powerful function-theoretic system of modern mathematical logic. It was represented by its inventors not merely as a calculus ratiocinator, but as a formal language – a lingua characterica (as Frege, alluding to Leibniz, called his own concept-script), or as a ‘logically perfect language’ (as Russell described the logical ‘language’ of Principia Mathematica). Neither Frege nor Russell claimed that natural languages were constructed according to the principles of their logical languages. On their view, by contrast with their invented artificial languages, natural languages were logically defective. But Wittgenstein, in the Tractatus, argued that since logic is a transcendental condition of representation, every possible language must have the depth-grammar of such a calculus. Carnap and subsequently his followers in the USA denied that every possible language must have the same logico-syntactical depth-grammar, advocating instead a ‘principle of tolerance in logic’. But they likewise held that a language must be a system of logico-syntactical rules and a lexicon of names standing for things (objects, properties and relations) from which all possible well-formed sentences can be generated. Such ideas, reinforced by Tarski’s reflections on the concept of truth for formal systems, came to full fruition fifty years later, with the idea of a theory of meaning for a natural language advanced by Davidson and (somewhat differently) by Dummett in the 1970s. A theory of meaning for a language was thought to be a deductive theory that would generate the meaning of any well-formed sentence of the language from an array of word-meanings given by ‘axioms’. The meaning of a sentence or utterance was held to be given by specification of its truth-conditions on the model of Tarski’s T-sentences. This conception of a theory of meaning gave primacy to the declarative sentence and to the concept of truth. Speech was generally conceived to be the transmission of thoughts from speaker to hearer, either on the telementational model or on the Fregean Platonist model. Anything further could be allocated to pragmatics. To insist, as I have above, on the truism that a language is a means of communication needs elaboration. For, to be sure, telementational conceptions of language likewise insist that language is a means of communication – its whole role and function is to communicate thoughts. But these conceptions already distort the concept of communication. For

Language, Language-Games and Forms of Life

23

while telling someone what one thinks is indeed a form of communication, telling someone the time, the way to the station, where Jack is and when Jill will return, telling someone one’s intentions, confessing, recounting, and joking are also forms of communication, but do not communicate one’s thoughts. A fortiori, asking someone the time, ordering someone to do something, making a promise, warning or threatening, blessing or cursing, greeting, introducing oneself or another, telling a story, and so forth, are not a matter of communicating one’s thoughts, nor are they a matter of communicating propositions. 3.

Meaning

What a word, sentence, or utterance means, what a speaker means by a word, what he means by the sentence he utters, and what he means by uttering it are linked. The concept of ‘speaker’s meaning’ is interwoven with the psychological concepts of intending or having in mind, and hence with the purpose a person may have in word and deed. A speaker means such-and-such by an expression he uses (by ‘You there!’ he meant Jill, by ‘the Canterbury Quad’ he meant the back quadrangle at St John’s College, Oxford, and by ‘Let’s have a preprandial drink’ he meant: Let’s have an aperitif before lunch). We explain what a speaker meant by the sentence he uttered by paraphrasing it, and perhaps spelling out any anaphoric references and indexicals. We may further explain what he meant by what he said by elaborating the implications he had in mind. We also speak of what someone meant (intended) to say, but didn’t. But if he said what he meant to say, we may add that he also meant what he said, i.e. that he was serious, and not jesting. Note that the meaning of a sentence cannot be true or false. It is what is said by the use of a sentence – that is: the statement or assertion made – that can be true or false. One cannot sensibly say that the meaning of the sentence ‘Schnee ist weiss’ is true. It is the statement made by uttering that sentence, namely the statement that snow is white, that is true. It is equally mistaken to suppose that an assertoric utterance means the state of affairs that it presents. Neither the sentence ‘It is raining’ nor its utterance mean that it is raining. The sentence ‘It is raining’ means the same as ‘Es regnet’, ‘Il pleut’, or ‘Rain is falling’. What may mean that it is raining is the drumming sound on the window panes. And, of course, what the speaker means by his utterance of the sentence ‘Es regnet’ is that it is raining – that’s what he said, and he means exactly what he said. And what

24

Forms of Life and Language Games

he meant by saying what he said may be this: that we should run for it before we get drenched. Although the verb ‘to mean’ has the superficial appearance of a verb of action or activity-verb, that is deceptive. To say something and to mean something by what one said is not to perform two actions, saying and meaning, but only one. (Try doing what you did when you meant something by your words but without saying anything!) To remember having meant such-and-such by an expression, is not to remember a further action over and above saying what one said. Unlike what is signified by typical action- and activity-verbs, one cannot intend or decide to mean something by a word or sentence, one cannot be ordered to mean something and then agree or refuse to mean what one was ordered to mean, one cannot try to mean something by a word and then succeed or fail. In short, meaning something by an expression is not accompanying one’s utterance by a mental act or activity of any kind. In what follows, we must bear in mind the varieties of speaker’s meaning, and take care not to confuse what words mean with what speakers mean by them.4 Contrary to what Humpty Dumpty averred, what one means by one’s words is not just a question of who is to be master. Rather, as Alice rightly retorted, the question is whether one can make words mean so many different things. In fact, it is the conventional meaning of the words that one uses that is the master. By ‘There’s glory for you’ (despite Humpty Dumpty) one cannot mean that there’s a nice knock-down argument for you. In short, what one can mean by a word one utters presupposes its conventional meaning and cannot be invoked to explain it. Paul Grice and his followers tried to explain linguistic meaning in terms of speaker’s communicative intentions, that is: in terms of speaker’s meaning. There are three fundamental reasons for rejecting recourse to speaker’s meaning in clarifying the concept of linguistic meaning. First, the communicative intentions suggested by the proposed programme of reductive analysis are complex. They involve the intention that one’s utterance of a sentence ‘s’ should induce the belief that p in the addressee, the intention that the desired belief be produced as a result of 4

For elaboration, see Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations §§661-93. For commentary, see P. M. S. Hacker, Wittgenstein: Mind and Will, vol. iv of the Analytic Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell, Oxford, 2000, Part 1 – Essays, Essay IX, ‘The mythology of meaning something’; Part 2 – Exegesis, §§66193.

Language, Language-Games and Forms of Life

25

the addressee recognising one’s primary intention in uttering ‘s’, and the intention that part of the addressee’s reason for believing that p should be his recognition of one’s intention. But in order to have the intention to induce in the hearer the belief, for example, that the sun is setting, by uttering the sentence: ‘The sun is setting’, one must already know what that sentence means. For one intends one’s addressee to understand the words one utters as one understands them oneself. Otherwise one could not intelligibly be said to intend to induce in him the belief that the sun is setting by means of his recognising one’s intention in uttering just those words, and for him to take one’s utterance of those words as part of his reason for believing what one said.5 Secondly, this reductive analysis of meaning in terms of speakers’ communication-intentions is flawed by failure to address the question of the conditions under which it makes sense to ascribe certain intentions to someone. We must bear in mind the general principle that the limit of a creature’s intentions coincides with the limits of its possible behavioural expression of its intentions. To intend by one’s utterance ‘s’ to induce in an addressee a belief that p by means of his recognition of one’s intention to do so, and to intend this to be part of his reason for believing what one intends him to believe, one must already be a mature language user in possession of the concepts of belief, recognition, intention and reason for belief. So the communicative intentions suggested in order to explain what it is for expressions to have a meaning already presuppose, and so cannot explain, mastery of a language and grasp of the meanings of words in a language. Thirdly, according to this reductive account of linguistic meaning, to mean by one’s utterance that things are thus-and-so entails intending to induce in one’s addressee the belief that they are. But that is mistaken. One may utter the sentence ‘s’ and mean by it that p, while being absolutely certain that one’s hearer will not believe that p. Or one may know that he already knows that p. Or one may be indifferent as to whether he believes thus or not, caring only to take a stand. What is crucial for communication is not that the addressee believe what one says in making an assertion by the use of a declarative sentence, but that he understand what one said.

5

B. Rundle, Grammar in Philosophy. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979, pp. 406 f.

26

Forms of Life and Language Games

However, that presupposes the conventional linguistic meaning of the words one uttered.6 In general, meaning something by an expression one uses presupposes that the expression has the meaning it has, and cannot serve to explain its meaning, save in cases of ambivalence. What gives the sounds and signs of a language the meaning they have is the normative practice of using them. 5.

Meaning and use

It has been characteristic of philosophical semantics over the last half a century to focus on the connection between meaning and truth, arguing that the meaning of a sentence is given by specification of its truthconditions and that the meaning of a word consists in its contribution to the determination of the truth-conditions of any sentence in which it may occur. This assigns analytic priority to truth and to declarative sentences. It is important to note that the inspiration for the truth-orientated theories of meaning did not arise from reflection upon the roles of the concept of meaning in our conceptual scheme. Their advocates did not focus upon the use of the word ‘meaning’ and its manifold connections within the web of words associated with linguistic meaning. The inspiration for the idea of a theory of meaning for a natural language lay in the systems of mathematical logic invented for the purpose of the logicist project of reducing arithmetic to pure logic. The driving force behind subsequent reflections upon theories of meaning was above all to answer the question of how we can understand sentences we have never heard before, and to explain the logical powers of sentences (or the propositions they express) in terms of their alleged underlying logical forms. This truth-theoretic route is not the route that Wittgenstein, after 1930, believed should be followed. He did not give any analytic priority to the connection between meaning and truth. Instead, he described the warp and weft of meaning, explanation of meaning and understanding. I shall try both to explain and to elaborate his ideas. There are many aspects of language and linguistic meaning that give rise to conceptual confusion. Conceptual confusion results from unclarity 6

I. Rumfitt, ‘Meaning and Understanding’, in: F. Jackson and M. Smith, The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, pp. 427-53.

Language, Language-Games and Forms of Life

27

about the use, and from the misuse, of the problematic words at hand – in the current instance words such as ‘meaning’, ‘having meaning’, ‘having a meaning’, ‘meaningless’, ‘meaning the same as’, ‘meaning something different from’, and so forth. To clarify conceptual problems in this domain, what is needed is not a compositional theory of meaning that will deliver for any well-formed sentence of the language a specification of its meaning in the form of a statement of its truth-conditions. What is needed is an overview of the conceptual field of semantic discourse. For what has to be brought into view is the web of connections between the concept of meaning and related concepts. The concept of word-meaning is linked to a group of adjacent notions: to what a word applies to, to what it signifies, to what it names, to what it stands for, to what it refers to, and to what it is a word for. There can be no presumption that these are the same. Each requires separate scrutiny. This will not be done here. We distinguish, with respect to words in a language, between those that have meaning and those that are meaningless – such as ‘Hey diddle diddle’ or ‘Fee-fi-fo-fum’. Among words that have meaning, we can distinguish those that have meaning, but do not have a meaning (like ‘Tallyho’ or ‘Hello’), and those that have a meaning.7 The phrase ‘having a meaning’ can be misleading in as much as it invites reification. It has led some theorists of language, such as Dummett, to speak of attaching meaning to a word, of the meaning of a sentence being composed of the meanings of its constituent words. In the case of Putnam, it has led to speaking of meanings being inside or outside the head. This should be avoided. We must bear in mind the fact that the question ‘What is the meaning of “W”?’ means the same as ‘What does “W” mean?’, and neither involve a relative Wh-pronoun, but an interrogative one. It is a request for an explanation of what “W” means – not an explanation of what ‘themeaning-of-“W”’signifies. It is answered by giving an explanation – not by identifying a meaning. It is more akin to ‘What is the value of this coin?’ than to ‘What did you buy with that coin?’ So, the notion of the meaning of a word or phrase is linked to that of an explanation of meaning. For the meaning of a word (or phrase) is given by an explanation of what it means. Explanations of meaning may take many different forms. The one that has most attracted philosophers ever 7

See B. Rundle, ‘Meaning and Understanding’, in: H.-J. Glock (ed.), Wittgenstein – a Critical Reader. Blackwell, Oxford, 2001.

28

Forms of Life and Language Games

since Socrates is analytic definition, in which the necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of a word are spelled out. But there are yet other kinds of analytic definition, such as contextual definition, recursive definition, and so forth. A quite different form of explanation of meaning is ostensive definition or explanation. The most familiar kind of ostensive definition involves the use of an ostensive gesture and a sample, as in explanations of colour names, names of lengths or weights. But there are yet other kinds, such as explanations of names of smell and tastes (no ostensive gesture), or of the names of directions of the compass (no sample). Requests for explanations of word-meaning typically arise with respect to a particular phrasal or sentential context. So it is unsurprising that a common form of explanation of what a word means is by phrasal or sentential paraphrase. An alternative is contrastive paraphrase. Some words (family-resemblance terms) are explained by means of a series of examples together with a similarity-rider: these, and other things like these, are Ws (or ‘are called “Ws”). And so on. Explanations of what words mean are not akin to explanations of empirical phenomena. They are normative, for they provide standards (norms) for the correct use of the word they explain. ‘A vixen’, we may explain, ‘is a female fox’ – so any animal that is a female fox is correctly described as a vixen. ‘This ☞ ■ colour is black’, we may explain, ‘so anything that is this ☞ ■ colour is correctly characterized as being black’. Explanations of meaning are, in a perfectly ordinary and down to earth sense, rules for the use of the words they explain. They explain how the word or phrase is to be used, and hence, of course, how it is generally used. It is important to bear in mind that explanations are typically called for when there is a failure of understanding or misunderstanding. An explanation is adequate if it serves to avert the misunderstanding and to secure the questioner’s ability to go on to use the word correctly. It is not required of an explanation of meaning that it specify for every possible object in every possible circumstance whether the word applies to it or not. That Fregean demand for determinacy of sense is incoherent.8 For it seeks to eliminate not merely vagueness, but the very possibility of vagueness. This presupposes that there is such thing as circumscribing all possible circumstances. But there is no such thing. The assertion that vague concepts are unsuitable for the purposes of logic is one thing, the Fregean suggestion that there are no vague concepts is another. It is an unwarranted 8

See G. Frege, Basic Laws of Arithmetic, vol. ii, §56.

Language, Language-Games and Forms of Life

29

stipulation rooted in the misguided idea that concepts are functions, coupled with the idea that a function must be defined for every admissible argument. Moreover, the idea that vague concepts are intrinsically defective is itself misconceived – for often that is just what is needed. (As Wittgenstein ironically remarked ‘I asked him for a breadknife and he gives me a razor blade because it is sharper!’1) The concept of a rule for the use of a word, given by an explanation of meaning, is in turn linked to the concept of a practice. For a rule is internally related to those acts that count as being in accordance with it. The rule to do so-and-so in such-and-such circumstances is the rule that is complied with by doing so-and-so in those circumstances. But this internal relation is not forged by nature. It forged by the practice of going by the rule. That the signpost ➔ (which for present purposes may be considered a guiding rule) means ‘Turn right!’, that the traffic sign ☒ means ‘Stop’ is determined by the practice of its use. Turning right is what we call ‘following the signpost’; and stopping at the sign ☒ is what we call ‘complying with the stop-sign’. Rules are alive only in practices, in the context of the activities of being guided by them, justifying what is done by reference to them, correcting and criticizing deviant behaviour by reference to them, and so forth. (This is but one of many reasons why linguists’ and neuroscientists’ talk of there being ‘rules in the brain’ is incoherent.) Explanations of meaning are given in words, gestures and samples – all of which belong to the means of representation, not to what is represented. Despite the deceptive appearance of ostensive definitions (for example, in pointing at samples), of family-resemblance explanations in terms of a series of examples plus a similarity-rider, and despite the relatively recent conventions about the use of quotation-marks apparently indicative of metalinguistic descent connecting words and world, explanations of meaning remain within language. We explain what words, phrases and sentences mean by other words, phrases and sentences (as well as samples and gestures). The explanations we give are not descriptions of how things are, but expressions of rules for the use of the expression explained. It is an illusion that we must ‘exit’ from language in order to correlate words with the things that are their meanings. For things aren’t meanings of words, and the meanings of words are no more correlated with words than uses are correlated with tools. 1

Wittgenstein, MS 120, p. 142v.

30

Forms of Life and Language Games

It was Wittgenstein who drew our attention to the link between the concept of the meaning of a word and the concept of the use of a word. For a large class of cases, he wrote, though not for all, we can explain the phrase ‘the meaning of a word’ as having the same meaning as ‘the use of the word’.9 To ask what a word means is to ask how it is (to be) used. To explain what it means is to explain how it is (to be) used. To know what it means is to know how it is (to be) used. Once one has been reminded of this nexus between meaning and use, it becomes clear that much theoretical talk of meanings, for example that the meanings of words are ideas in the mind (British empiricists), or that they are objects, properties and relations in the world (Tractatus), or that they are abstract entities that the mind can mysteriously ‘grasp’ (Frege on ‘senses’ of words), is misconceived. What a word means, i.e. how it is used, is not a kind of thing. Meanings are not attached to words, and they are not constituents of thoughts, propositions or meanings of sentences. The concept of the meaning of a word is at home in requests for explanations of wordmeaning, in statements that such-and-such an expression is meaningless (e.g. ‘Fee-fi-fo-fum’, ‘round square’ or ‘transparent white glass’), or that this expression means the same as, or means something different from, that one. So the concept of word-meaning is bound up with the concepts of sameness and difference of meaning, with ambiguity and polysemy. One should note that lexical synonymy is not an all or nothing, context-free, business. One expression may mean the same as another in one sentential context, but not in a different one. Ambiguity or polysemy of typesentence (both lexical and syntactic) commonly disappears in context of use – ambiguity is not as ubiquitous in the actual use of language as some linguists have suggested. Explanations of meaning, we have noted, are in effect rules for the use of the explananda. But many of the rules for the use of a given word are taken for granted in explanations of meaning in as much as the general category of the explanandum is understood. Someone who asks what colour magenta is already knows that what it is predicable of is extended (or is just a flash of coloured light) and is detectable by sight; that being that colour all over excludes being any other colour all over at the same time; that magenta admits of different intensities; that it may be matt or glossy; and so on. These features are partly constitutive of the concept of colour. These statements are in effect expressions of a range of rules for 9

L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2009, §43.

Language, Language-Games and Forms of Life

31

the use of colour words – for they determine what it makes sense to say in using colour words (and also what makes no sense). So if one knows that ‘magenta’ is a colour-word but not which colour it signifies, one already knows its location in the web of words. This is why Wittgenstein remarked that the meaning of a word is ‘its place in grammar’.10 And, of course, that is why so much philosophical (conceptual) clarification involves reminding us of different strands and nodes in the network of conceptually associated words. The concept of word-meaning is linked in various different ways with such concepts as grounds of application, criteria, and verification. The logical positivists in the inter-war years were mistaken to advance the principle that the meaning of a sentence is given by its verification conditions. Nevertheless, it would be a serious error to overlook the manifold conceptual connections between meaning, grounds of application, criteria and verification. To be sure, many predicates are applied to a subject without any grounds of application at all. (One does not say that one is in pain on the basis of any evidence; one does not judge something to be red on any grounds – one does not need grounds, one can see that it is red; and one does not have evidence for judging 252 to be 625 – a calculation is not evidence; and so on.) Nevertheless, there are many expressions that are applied on grounds, that have criteria for their application, and that are conceptually bound up with the manner in which the correctness of their application is verified. ‘Pain’ does not mean painbehaviour. We can typically recognize people to be in pain without making any inference from evidence – we can see the pain on their face. Nevertheless, someone who has not grasped that such-and-such behaviour is a justifying criterion for ascribing pain to another person has not grasped the concept of pain, and does not know how to use it. The manner in which the application of a word is verified is sometimes partly constitutive of its meaning.11 So too are the constitutive grounds (criteria) for its application. Words not only have a meaning they also have a point. It always makes sense to ask of a given word what its point is, what purpose it fulfils in our talk and thought. For philosophical clarification, this question is often important. Its answer makes clear what needs called forth the concept thus expressed. So it makes clear crucial features of the role of the problematic expression in the lives of members of the culture in question. 10 11

L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Grammar. Blackwell, Oxford, 1974, p. 59. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §353.

32

Forms of Life and Language Games

For our concepts lay down paths for our thought, determine transitions of thought, and mould our behaviour. If we are puzzled, as we are, by the concept of knowledge, it is helpful to ask what the point of the concept of knowledge is, why we have an expression in our language which has these very peculiar features, what needs it meets. If we labour under the illusion that arithmetic is the science of numbers – a description of timeless truths about a domain of abstract objects, it is helpful to reflect on the point of number-words and concepts of number, and of their role in a culture. We have focused thus far on the notion of word-meaning, while conceding that words fulfil their role (primarily) in sentences. It has been customary, over the last decades, to aver that words have a meaning only in the context of a sentence, that the meaning of a sentence is given by specification of its truth-conditions, and hence that the meaning of a word is its contribution to the determination of the truth-conditions of any sentence in which it occurs. This is not the place to confront truthconditional semantics. All I wish to do is to suggest qualms, and point out that there is no need, for someone who is puzzled about one aspect or another of word-, sentence-, and utterance-meaning, to go down this route. It is not true that words have a meaning only in the context of a sentence – they do not lose their meaning when they occur in lists (e.g. of words beginning with ‘Z’; of synonyms; of antonyms; of shopping; of animal names), in crossword puzzles; Scrabble, and other word games; on labels (on bottles, clothes, tools, wine decanters); or on notices (on houses, shops, pubs, street signs). It is not true that the meaning of a sentence is given by specifying its truth-conditions. The concept of the meaning of an empirical, assertoric, utterance is indeed bound up with the concept of truth. For to understand what was asserted is to know what is the case if it is true and what is the case if it is false. But the concept of truth does not give one any purchase on the concepts of word-, sentence-, and utterance-meaning. (i) Sentences have a meaning, but they are not bearers of truthvalues. So they cannot be said to have truth-conditions. It is what is said by the use of appropriate declarative sentences, the statement made or proposition expressed, that can be true or false. (ii) The interrogative and imperative discourse-forms are markers of questioning and ordering (requesting, etc.). What is expressed by their use (questions and orders) bears no truth-values. But the words that occur in

Language, Language-Games and Forms of Life

33

them have exactly the same meaning as they do in declarative sentences being used to assert something to be the case. (iii) Explicit performative sentences such as ‘I promise to go to the lawyer with you’, are not used to make an assertion at all (in this case, it is used to make a promise, and a promise is neither true nor false). But the words in an explicit performative use of a sentence have the same meaning as they do in the corresponding third-person or past tense declarative sentence used assertorically. (iv) The very concept of a truth-condition is problematic. If the truthcondition of a conjunction ‘p & q’ is that both conjuncts be true, then a truth-condition is a condition that the complex (molecular) sentence must satisfy in order to be true. It is a condition on the sentence. And, of course, it presupposes that the meanings of the constituent conjuncts is given (otherwise they could not be said to be true or false). But the modern postTarskian idea of a truth-condition is held to apply to elementary sentences too, in the form of a so called T-sentence: ‘“p” is true if and only if p’. But this is no longer a condition on the sentence, for its being the case that p is not a condition that any sentence ‘p’ can intelligibly be said to satisfy. (One cannot say that the condition which the sentence ‘Snow is white’ must satisfy in order for it to be true is that snow be white.) It is a circumstance in the domain of what is represented (the ‘world’). Hence the alleged truth-condition of an elementary proposition is unlike that of molecular propositions such as ‘p & q’, ‘p ⊃ q’, ‘p v q’, where the truthconditions are conditions the constituent elementary propositions have to satisfy. So advocates of truth-conditional accounts of meaning must decide which claim they are advancing – that the meaning of a sentence is given by specifying the condition that the sentence must satisfy to be true, or that the meaning of a sentence is given by specifying how things must be in reality for the sentence to be true. In the former case, one might say that the meaning of the molecular sentence is indeed explained, on the assumption that the constituent sentences have a meaning and a truth-value. (In effect all that has been explained is the meaning of the truth-functional connective involved.) In the latter case, it is not at all clear that an explanation of the meaning of the sentence is being offered at all. For what is being given is an explanation of what it is for the sentence (or proposition it expresses) to be true, namely that things are as it describes them as being (i.e. ‘It is true that p if and only if p’). But that presupposes, and does not explain, the meaning of the sentence.

34

Forms of Life and Language Games

(v) It seems patent that outside philosophical essays on meaning and logical operators, we do not (and indeed could not) explain the meaning of sentences in terms of something called their truth-conditions. ‘Species become differentiated by natural selection’, ‘The Second World War was arguably caused by the punitive clauses of the Versailles Treaty’, ‘It is debatable whether Hamlet can be said to be suffering from a Oedipal complex’ are sentences which one may well not understand. But one’s understanding is not going to be furthered by specification of truthconditions, but by quite different kinds of explanations of meaning. It is not true that the meaning of a word is given by specifying its contribution to the determination of the truth-conditions of any sentence in which it may occur. It is, of course, true that the meaning of a sentence (declarative, interrogative or imperative) depends upon what its constituent words mean. That does not mean that it is literally a function of the meanings of its constituent words and their mode of combination – that one can calculate the meaning of the sentence from the meanings of the words. What the constituent words in a sentence mean is given by contextual explanations of meaning, not by reference to truth-condition determination. Such explanations may take very varied forms (ostensive explanation, paraphrase, contrastive paraphrase, family-resemblance explanation) tailored to the sentential and circumstantial context of the utterance. Given the meaning of a word in an utterance, and if necessary, what is meant by its use in that utterance, then one can go on to specify what must be the case for the declarative sentence in which the word occurs to be used to say something true. But that is not an explanation of the conditions under which what is said is true, it is an explanation of what it is for it to be true. (Eating the right food and taking exercise are conditions one must fulfil in order to be healthy, but being in good health is not a condition for being healthy – it is what it is for a creature to be healthy). A final point: the concept of meaning that we employ in talking about words, sentences and utterances is not a refined, precise, technical term of a science. It is a common or garden, unrefined and by no means precise, non-technical term of humdrum talk of words and utterances. What belongs to meaning and what does not is not always clear or determined (Is it part of the meaning of the word ‘cat’ that cats don’t grow on trees?). What counts as the same meaning and what as a difference in meaning is often indeterminate, calling for a decision rather than an

Language, Language-Games and Forms of Life

35

investigation (Does ‘however’ mean the same as ‘but’?12). Although it is illuminating to be reminded of the nexus of meaning and use, it is obvious that not every difference in use is a difference in meaning. The difference has to be a significant one, and what counts as significant is both indeterminate and context-relative. Our reflections and reminders display the following primary conceptual links, that were all laid out by Wittgenstein: (i) The meaning of a word is its use in the language. (ii) The meaning of a word is given by an explanation of what it means. (iii) An explanation of meaning is a rule for the use of the word. (iv) The meaning of a word (or phrase) is what is known (or understood) when one knows (or understands) what the word (or phrase) means. (v) The meaning of a word is its place in the web of words. (vi) Knowing what a word means is being able to use it in accordance with accepted explanations of what it means, i.e. in accordance with rules for its use. These are not axioms or principles of a theory. They are not doctrines or theses. They are no more dogmatic than ‘A bachelor is an unmarried man’ is. They are conceptual truisms that Wittgenstein brought into view to contribute to the logical geography of the concept of wordmeaning. They serve to dispel illusions and confusions, e.g. that meanings are kinds of things; that words are attached to meanings; that meanings can combine together to form thoughts or propositions; that propositions consist of word-meanings (that thoughts consist of senses, and judgements of concepts); that the meaning of a word is its contribution to the truthconditions of any sentence in which it occurs; that meanings of words can be stored in neural modules in the brain and associated with words (also stored in the brain in a separate module) to form a mental lexicon; and so on. The concept of meaning is to be clarified by connective analysis, not by semantic theories.

12

No, someone may reply: ‘. . . not, however, Jack’ is grammatical, whereas ‘. . . not but Jack’ is not. All right, one may respond, but do they mean the same in ‘However Jack did not go up the hill’ and ‘But Jack did not go up the hill’?

36

Forms of Life and Language Games

I have done no more than sketch the terrain. A proper picture would have to be very much longer and more detailed. But I hope I have made clear how Wittgenstein’s later conception of language displays the conceptual tie-ups between a host of concepts, the extent to which a multitude of philosophical problems can be resolved by reference to his connective analyses, the manner in which his conception of language, linguistic meaning, language-games and forms of life are knit together to form an integrationist picture of homo loquens and his distinctive activities. St John’s College, Oxford

Language as Forms of Life Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ 1.

Introduction

In a previous work the origins of the difference in meaning between “Lebensform” and “Lebensformen” has been analysed.1 Both concepts have distinct meanings in Wittgenstein’s writings. In another investigation the change in meaning of form of life at the beginning of the twentieth century was examined.2 In the present article the author explores the difference between both concepts and the further expression of “Form des Lebens”. The aim of this article is to show that all three notions are used in different contexts. Therefore the problem of form and forms of life appears much more complex than has been discussed until now. L. Wittgenstein subsumes the totality of linguistic expressions that we perform in a language game under the term “form of life” (Lebensform).3 Thus, we can find the following notes in his famous aphorism: “It is easy to imagine a language consisting only of orders and reports in battle. — Or a language consisting only of questions and expressions for answering Yes and No — and countless other things. — And to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.”4

He uses the verb “imagine” as a link between language, on the one hand and form of life on the other. Does he thereby say that all language is closely related to a form of life? If this were true, then all language use 1

See: Padilla Gálvez, 2010, 113ff. See: Padilla Gálvez, 2012. 3 See: Wittgenstein, BEE, (2000), Item 142, p. 19; Wittgenstein, BEE, (2000), Iterm 142, p. 20; Wittgenstein, BEE, (2000), Iterm 142, p. 13; Wittgenstein, BEE, (2000), Iterm 144, p. 1; Wittgenstein, BEE, (2000), Iterm 165, p. 111; Wittgenstein, BEE, (2000), Iterm 176, p. 50v; Wittgenstein, BEE, (2000), Iterm 176, p. 51r; Wittgenstein, BEE, (2000), Iterm 176, p. 51v. 4 “Man kann sich leicht eine Sprache vorstellen, die nur aus Befehlen und Meldungen in der Schlacht besteht. - Oder eine Sprache, die nur aus Fragen besteht und einem Ausdruck der Bejahung und der Verneinung. Und unzählige Andere. – Und eine Sprache vorstellen heißt, sich eine Lebensform vorstellen.” Wittgenstein, PI, §19. 2

Forms of Life and Language Games, (Eds. Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ, Margit GAFFAL), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2011, 37-56.

38

Forms of Life and Language Games

would reveal a form of life. This assumption would certainly have a significant impact on our understanding of the world that surrounds us and how we relate to it. Language can be understood as a kind of abstraction which comprises explicit elements, implicit rules and symbols. This abstraction may be considered a general framework within which our communication and actions are interwoven. Therefore our actions are not mute but embody a special language and at the same time represent a certain form of life. The concept of form of life refers to interpersonal relationships and takes social conduct, cultural attitudes and interpersonal styles into account that are expressed in our natural language. However, the experience related to our form of life has its limits once we change our linguistic frame, for instance, when we are confronted with a foreign language and culture. Even if we understand the foreign language we often find it difficult to grasp the deeper meaning and context of what is expressed in that language. Wittgenstein describes this experience in the following statement. “One learns this when one comes into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more, even though one has mastered the country’s language. One does not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We can’t find our feet with them.”5

Wittgenstein’s considerations concerning traveling to other countries appears highly relevant. On every journey we undertake we are confronted with the limits that are set by our form of life. Although we might know the foreign language of a country, we tend to feel estranged and experience some kind of alienation, as described in the quote above. In fact, L. Wittgenstein sees the knowledge of a foreign language in relative terms. Knowing a language does not necessarily mean to be familiar with the forms of life that are usual in that foreign culture.6 As such, one may master the language but still maintain an emotional distance to that culture. 5

“Das erfährt man, wenn man in ein fremdes Land mit gänzlich fremden Traditionen kommt; und zwar auch dann, wenn man die Sprache des Landes beherrscht. Man versteht die Menschen nicht. (Und nicht darum, weil man nicht weiß, was sie zu sich selber sprechen.) Wir können uns nicht in sie finden.” Wittgenstein, PI (1980), p. 536. 6 The original text of the Philosophical Investigations (Spätfassung), TS 227 says: “Und eine Sprache vorstellen heißt, sich eine Lebensform vorstellen.” Witgenstein, PI (2001), §19 (p. 753).

Language as Forms of Life

39

However, Wittgenstein emphasizes that mastering a language is part of an activity or a form of life.7 Undoubtedly, the language games that we use in our actions are embedded in a form of life. All members of a culture know the implicit meaning of certain expressions, understand idioms and are familiar with ways of articulating a specific notion. However, this immediate experience collides with what is understood by form of life (Lebensform). One may claim that there is a “form of life” in the singular which constitutes a fictitious absolute scale according to which other forms of life are viewed as different modes of expression on different developmental levels. This standpoint is quite different from the view that there are many different forms of life (plural) on a parallel level which are interrelated but whose proficiency is not measured by one absolute scale. This raises the question of which are actually the linguistic cores of such approach. Concerning this question L. Wittgenstein develops the theory of language games and he puts it like this: “The word “language-game” is used here to emphasize the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.”8 7

The original text of the Philosophical Investigations (Spätfassung) (TS 227) says: “Das Word “Sprachspiel” soll hier hervorheben, dass das Sprechen der Sprache ein Teil ist einer Tätigkeit, oder einer Lebensform.” Witgenstein, PI, (2001), §23 (p. 758). 8 “Das Wort »Sprachspiel« soll hier hervorheben, daß das Sprechen der Sprache ein Teil ist einer Tätigkeit, oder einer Lebensform.” Wittgenstein, PI, §23. This quote is framed in a more complex context. The full text shows the relationship between “forms of life” and “language game” and reads as follows: “Wieviele Arten der Sätze gibt es aber? Etwa Behauptung, Frage und Befehl? - Es gibt unzählige solcher Arten: unzählige verschiedene Arten der Verwendung alles dessen, was wir »Zeichen«, »Worte«, »Sätze«, nennen. Und diese Mannigfaltigkeit ist nichts Festes, ein für allemal Gegebenes; sondern neue Typen der Sprache, neue Sprachspiele, wie wir sagen können, entstehen und andre veralten und werden vergessen. (Ein ungefähres Bild davon können uns die Wandlungen der Mathematik geben.) Das Wort »Sprachspiel« soll hier hervorheben, daß das Sprechen der Sprache ein Teil ist einer Tätigkeit, oder einer Lebensform. Führe dir die Mannigfaltigkeit der Sprachspiele an diesen Beispielen, und anderen, vor Augen: - Befehlen, und nach Befehlen handeln – - Beschreiben eines Gegenstands nach dem Ansehen, oder nach Messungen – - Herstellen eines Gegenstands nach einer Beschreibung (Zeichnung) – - Berichten eines Hergangs – - Über den Hergang Vermutungen anstellen – - Eine Hypothese aufstellen und prüfen – - Darstellen der Ergebnisse eines Experiments durch Tabellen und Diagramme –

40

Forms of Life and Language Games

The quotation confirms a correlation between the term “language game” and the fact that speaking a language is part of an activity or a form of life. We might ask, however, what relevance a language game has as a pre-condition of our form of life. The answer was later given by Wittgenstein who concluded that the agreements made by people are determined by what they consider as true or false. That is, what is considered right or wrong depends on what people say. This coincidence between language and forms of life cannot be reduced to a mere coincidence among speakers’ views. Therefore, Wittgenstein says the following in his Philosophical Investigations: “So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?” – What is true or false is what human beings say; and it is in their language that human beings agree. This is agreement not in opinions, but rather in form of life.9

In the second part of the Philosophical Investigations10 we find some relevant annotations which allow us to be more specific on that issue. He starts with the description of a counterfactual situation in which he asks whether we could imagine an animal in different psychological states such as sadness, joy, fear or hope. And concerning the example of hope he asks further whether only those are capable of hoping who can speak a language? Wittgenstein responds asserting that there is a link between - Eine Geschichte erfinden; und lesen – - Theater spielen – - Reigen singen – - Rätsel raten – - Einen Witz machen; erzählen – - Ein angewandtes Rechenexempel lösen – - Aus einer Sprache in die andere übersetzen – - Bitten, Danken, Fluchen, Grüssen, Beten. Es ist interessant, die Mannigfaltigkeit der Werkzeuge der Sprache und ihrer Verwendungsweisen, die Mannigfaltigkeit der Wort- und Satzarten, mit dem zu vergleichen, was Logiker über den Bau der Sprache gesagt haben. (Und auch der Verfasser der Logisch-Philosophischen Abhandlung.).” Wittgenstein, PI, §23. See: Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 142, p. 18f.; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 220, p. 16; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 227a, p. 21f.; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 227b, p. 23; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 239, p. 16. 9 “So sagst du also, daß die Übereinstimmung der Menschen entscheiden, was richtig und was falsch ist?« - Richtig und Falsch ist, was Menschen sagen; und in der Sprache stimmen die Menschen überein. Dies ist kein Übereinstimmung der Meinung, sondern der Lebensform.” Wittgenstein, PI, §241. 10 See: Wittgenstein, PI, Teil II (MS 144).

Language as Forms of Life

41

language on the one hand, and forms of life on the other hand. The argument is outlined in the following passage: “One can imagine an animal angry, fearful, sad, joyful, startled. But hopeful? And why not? A dog believes his master is at the door. But can he also believe that his master will come the day after tomorrow? – And what can he not do here? – How do I do it? – What answer am I supposed to give to this? Can only those hope who can talk? Only those who have mastered the use of a language. That is to say, the manifestations of hope are modifications of this complicated form of life. (If a concept points to a characteristic of human handwriting, it has no application to beings that do not write.)”11

Wittgenstein answers are laconic as usual and might cause some confusion. It is therefore necessary to briefly clarify his response and its ramifications. The questions he raises are primarily philosophical and not scientific. Therefore they require a conceptual clarification rather than an experimental research on animals. We cannot investigate whether a dog can experience feelings such as anger, fear, sadness or hope until we know what it means if someone ascribes such properties to himself. In other words, we cannot attribute “hope” to a dog if we do not know what “hope” actually means. If we make out those phenomena which we consider as “hope” in its complex forms of life we will get a clearer picture and can delimit its meaning. This is a very subtle and careful way of trying to determine most complex problems. Otherwise we could fall into a trap to ascribe hope to a dog, for instance, just because of the fact that it is waiting in front of the door for his master’s coming home at a five o’clock. The question would then be: does it make sense to ascribe such attributes to a dog because it expects his master arriving and interpret the situation as “the hope of the 11

“Man kann sich ein Tier zornig, furchtsam, traurig, freudig, erschrocken vorstellen. Aber hoffend? Und warum nicht? Der Hund glaubt, sein Herr sei an der Tür. Aber kann er auch glauben, sein Herr werde übermorgen kommen? – Und was kann er nun nicht? – Wie mache denn ich’s? – Was soll ich darauf antworten? Kann nur hoffen, wer sprechen kann? Nur der, der die Verwendung einer Sprache beherrscht. D. h., die Erscheinungen des Hoffens sind Modifikationen dieser komplizierten Lebensform. (Wenn ein Begriff auf einen Charakter der menschlichen Handschrift abzielt, dann hat er keine Anwendung auf Wesen, welche nicht schreiben.” Wittgenstein, PI, Teil II (MS 144), , |1|, p. 993; Wittgenstein, PI, p. 174/489.

42

Forms of Life and Language Games

dog for the arrival of his master”? The attribution of such quality is not supported by any proof showing that the dog has a concept such as hope expressed by its waiting at the door. In order to clarify this issue we need to consult another paragraph in Wittgenstein’s work at the end of the second part in which he says the following about the given: “What has to be accepted, the given, is – one might say – forms of life.”12

Very probably, this statement allows for different readings.13 In fact, to detect the meaning of the participle used as a noun poses some difficulty. Thus, we could present paradigms of forms of life that would be characterized as what is accepted as a given (Hinzunehmende, Gegebene). We could equally interpret the quotation in the sense that the acceptable and given express a relation between different forms of life. What is acceptable and given could be viewed as peculiarity of forms of life. The question is whether we shall determine forms of life by describing their characteristics or clarify it through the given. Likewise, the use of the subjunctive (“sei”) allows for different interpretations. Elsewhere I have systematically analyzed the grammar of the structure “das Hinzunehmende, Gegebene” therefore I want to concentrate on other issues here.14 Suffice it to indicate that the passages in which L. Wittgenstein uses this formula is limited to map a particular language. We shall view the problem from a new point of view. Leave aside the question of what is understood by the given (Hinzunehmende, Gegebene) we shall concentrate on the differences that arise when we deal with animals and children. How could we find out whether a child pretends (verstellen) something? How do you start a custom or usage (Gepflogenheit)? To clarify this matter we shall turn to the following quote: “How does it begin? A child cries, and nobody will speak of pretending. If something looks like pretending, it would be an animal kind of pretence, a form of life // an instinctive movement //. At a certain point we shall have a case where we suspect that he may be pretending. It may be a primitive kind of pretending. We don’t know, however, whether one may really call it that. It depends on the development of the child’s “capacities”. One doesn’t know what he is able to do unless one has observed a certain 12

“Das Hinzunehmende, Gegebene – könnte man sagen – seien Lebensformen.” Wittgenstein, PI, Teil II (MS 144), , |99|, p. 1082; Wittgenstein, PI, p. 226/572. 13 See: Marques, 2010, 143 ff. 14 See: Padilla Gálvez, 2010, 113 f.

Language as Forms of Life

43

course of actions. (••••••••) This is a case of conceptual indeterminacy: “the beginning of a routine”. – It is only in a certain way of life // routine of life // that this is called .”15

The beginning of a form of life is linked to the start of a routine. If we compare this routine with that of animals we can observe different kinds of simulation (Verstellungen). That is, the routine fits into our lives and creates a way of life. It therefore seems that the forms of life are closely linked to the development of skills. 2.

Lebensform versus Form des Lebens

Before systematically studying the reception of the expression “form (s) of life” I want to make a brief reference to a distinction that has not received the attention it would have deserved and seems to have generated some confusion.16 It is the distinction between the abstract concept of “Lebensform” expressed in German by a compound noun and the expression “Form des Lebens” with the linguistic structure of a premodifier in the genitive. The English language does not make such distinction and uses the term form of life for both notions. However, I am of the opinion that the distinction between these two notions helps explains why life is closely tied to a particular language. At first glance, the concept of “Lebensform” and the expression “Form des Lebens” have the same root. A detailed analysis clearly shows, however, that L. Wittgenstein makes a different use of both terms. The term “Lebensform” is closely linked to language and the pertinent question is whether its scope coincides with that of “Form des Lebens”? It is curious that the difficulties arise 15

“Wie fängt es denn an? Das Kind schreit, & niemand spricht von Verstellung // möglicher Verstellung. // Sollte etwas ausschauen wie Verstellung, so wäre es eine tierische Verstellung, eine Lebensform. // eine instinktive Handlung. // Dann einmal tritt ein Fall ein, wo man an Verstellung denkt. Es ist etwa eine primitive Verstellung. Man weiß aber auch nicht, ob man’s so nennen darf. Es hängt das mit der Entwicklung der ‘Fähigkeiten’ des Kindes zusammen. Man weiß nicht, was es schon kann, ehe man nicht einen gewissen Lauf der Handlungen gesehen hat. (••••••••) Es ist hier eine begriffliche Unbestimmtheit: ‘der Anfang einer Gepflogenheit’. – Erst in einer bestimmten Lebensweise // Lebensgepflogenheit // nennt man das .... ,”. Wittgenstein, MS 137, 59a. 16 See: Venturinha, 2010, 13. Cf.: “Umgekehrt könnte ich wirklich einen Sprachgebrauch eine Sprache (und das heißt wieder eine Lebensform Form des Lebens) denken, der die zwischen Dunkelblaurot und Hellblaurot eine Kluft befestigt. etc.” Wittgenstein, MS 115, 239.

44

Forms of Life and Language Games

where least expected. We shall therefore start with Wittgenstein’s quote to which the following section will be dedicated: “Even the devil in hell has one form of life; and the world would not be complete without it.”17

Interestingly, in this extract the term “Form des Lebens” is correlated with everything that generates disorder, confusion, change the facts or that produces calamity. It leaves language aside. Certainly, we must be very careful not to attribute a form of life to the devil as it is not intended to generate such correlation. Wittgenstein puts special emphasis on actions that relate to a certain form of life (Form des Lebens). Even in an imaginary place there is a form of life that creates disorder. But this form of life need not be linked to a fictional subject and the devil will never be a logically appropriate subject for certain forms of life. The peculiarity of Wittgenstein’s argument is that in the imaginary place of hell one could create a certain routine in order to generate disorder, produce chaos and initiate turmoil. In the following quote, the unreal conditional defines the issue further: “Stellen wir uns einen Sprachgebrauch vor (eine Kultur), in welcher es einen gemeinsamen Namen für grün und rot, und einen für blau und gelb gibt. [...] Umgekehrt könnte ich mir auch eine Sprache (und das heißt wieder eine Form des Lebens) denken, die zwischen Dunkelrot und Hellrot eine Kluft befestigt.”18

Again we see how a culture is related to a certain form of life (Form des Lebens) expressed as a specific phenomenon or the attribution of certain properties. In such a culture, language use (Sprachgebrauch) plays a subordinate role. Dialect (Sprachgebrauch) plays an equally subordinate role. This view is expressed in the second sentence of the quote.19 We note that the key part of the argument goes beyond supporting the gap that appears in the language. This gap becomes apparent because of certain cultural differences that determine different forms of life. To this end I want to draw attention to the following quote:

17

See: “Auch der Teufel in der Hölle hat eine Form des Lebens; & die Welt wäre nicht vollständig ohne sie.” Wittgenstein, MS 127, p. 128. 18 See: Wittgenstein, EpB, p. 202. 19 See: Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 115, p. 239 (108). Vol. XI. “Philosophische Bemerkungen”; “Philosophische Untersuchungen”

Language as Forms of Life

45

“Daß das Leben problematisch ist, heißt, daß dein Leben nicht in die Form des Lebens paßt. Du mußt dann dein Leben verändern, und paßt es in die Form, dann verschwindet das Problematische.”20

The text denotes explicitly its scope of application and the expression “Form des Lebens” appears in a causal context. If life is confusing, then it is not in accordance with a form of life. The text suggests even that life is objective and absolute. Wittgenstein recommends us to change a vital pattern of our life in order to adjust it to a form. If we achieve this, he predicts, the confusion disappears. The text creates a direct relation between the difficulties of not living according to the prevailing norms of a certain form of life and the irreparable consequences that this entails. Therefore we have to adopt an appropriate form of life to overcome the problems caused by certain inconsistencies. Whereas Lebensform is a concept that is inseparably linked to language and with it to semantic and grammar, Lebensformen in the plural comprise different forms of life. Rather than to language the second concept refers to social techniques, such as skills and practical know-how that are used in society. According to Lebensform two people from different countries have a different cultural background but may nevertheless share a similar from of life. As such, if we take L. Wittgenstein as an example, he did not seem to have had great difficulties in adapting to the distinguished form of life that his colleagues at Cambridge University maintained, as he himself came from a good home. In contrast to this view, Form des Lebens is mainly linked to the three elements life, culture and language and focuses more on the characteristics and peculiarities that distinguish different cultures. As in the latter notion the focus is on cultural differences the idea of a supposed clash or conflict of cultures is not far to seek. But this is not a notion that Wittgenstein seemed to be interested in. Lebensformen combines elements of life, culture and language. The aim of this distinction is to emphasize that the concept of “Form des Lebens” is directly linked to the empirical world. Some researchers have highlighted this aspect in their works, however, the error is simply that some may have confused “Lebensform” with “Form des Lebens”. We have observed that the terminology used here does not quite fit with the technical terms applied to language that L. Wittgenstein uses when he talks about “Lebensform”. 20

See: Wittgenstein, VB, 62, C&V, 31, MS 118: 17r (17.8.37).

46

3.

Forms of Life and Language Games

Lebensform versus Lebensformen

Recent discussions have concentrated on exploring whether there is a form of life in the singular or there are numerous forms whereby a plural use would be justified. In fact, the meaning in the singular is quite different from that in the plural. The problem we face is to clarify whether certain modes of action different cultures tend to match or to collide. It is also interesting to know whether differences in human conduct may create tension, conflict or contradictions. Consequently, the complex relation in a referential system of acts creates a certain diversity of forms of life that are somewhat opaque. It seems that the plural interpretation allows us to understand different forms of life that subsumes a certain intercultural universalism or intercultural variety. The assumption of a singular form of life can be called a monistic approach. It is a form of life viewed from a biological-cultural perspective. The reduction of all appearances rests on the assumption that there exists only one unique form of life. According to this monistic approach there are degrees of possible variations that may produce conflicts – as described by Hegel. This may ultimately culminate in a struggle between individuals, groups or societies competing for recognition. In this context Newton Garver makes a personal reading of Wittgenstein’s proposal. His perspective is characterized by a nonscientistic approach. According to his view, human actions and practices are the fundament of Wittgenstein’s naturalism. Similarly the concept of “form of life”- as well as most interesting concepts of the second philosophy of Wittgenstein, is an indefinite term.21 It is exactly this imprecision on which the idea of a “conflict of forms of life” is based. While acknowledging that our author did not make any reference to conflict in this sense, he argues however, that so-called “conflicts of forms of life” are certainly relevant in his proposal.22 As such, he is opposed to those interpretations which view Wittgenstein’s forms of life as language games.23

21

See: Garver, 1999, 44. The hypothesis of the indeterminacy of form of life is based on the following text written by Wittgenstein: “Die Unbestimmtheit ist ein unendlich wesentliches Merkmal unsres Begriffs. Sie bedeutet uns endlich viel.” Wittgenstein, MS 137, p 57b. 22 Garver, 1995, III. 23 Garver, 1994, 237-267.

Language as Forms of Life

47

Thus, the continental tradition is oriented to emphasize the variety and the peculiar characteristics of the various cultural expressions that exist in the Western World.24 On the other hand, American philosophers emphasize the monistic perspective within their concept of universality to which the different groups of society belong.25 While Europeans tend to take a pluralistic perspective pointing to a multitude of forms of life and interpreted the noun “Lebensformen” in the plural, Americans prefer the singular version of form of life “Lebensform”. According to R. Haller, Wittgenstein’s use of the term “forms of life” is not limited to mankind. In his response to Garver’s writings Haller explains why he considers Garver’s view as too restrictive.26 Otherwise, Wittgenstein would not have presented counter-arguments or would not have reflected over new concepts. Haller sees these as indicators that Wittgenstein had a pluralistic view of form of life in mind. Forms of life require a certain amount of diversity. Moreover, the concept of forms of life already entails in itself the presupposition of plurality.27 The same as there are multiple languages there are also many forms of life. If we assume that there exists a plurality of forms of life, our interest concentrates on understanding such plurality. How can different forms of life simultaneously coexist in a peaceful way? We need to clarify why communication fails in extremis. Such communicative failure and the resulting conflict could shed light on the features that human beings have in common. However, in our intention to give explanations we should not fall into the trap using of absurd nineteenth century colonialist models. It would not make any sense to propose solutions that generate new conflicts, as suggested by some readings. A form of life cannot colonize other forms of life but rather create certain modes of acculturation. From Haller’s standpoint, the term “forms of life” (Lebensform) is closely related to the facts of life (Tatsachen des Lebens). It is an inherent property of forms of life that we recognize records, investigate facts, gather information and make reports, write or tell each other how we, for instance, react to injustice or maintain a clear relationship between punishment and reward. And, as evidenced by the language games that Wittgenstein

24

Haller 1984, 55 ff. Garver 1984, 33 ff. 26 Haller, 1984, 55 f. 27 Haller, 1999, 55. 25

48

Forms of Life and Language Games

developed, we can imagine how two people communicate with each other in such a way that one gives an order and the other is restricted to obey. 4.

Conflict versus Coexistence

Athough N. Garver underlined that different forms of life do not necessarily entail conflict, in the nineties of last century the problem was nevertheless discussed among German philosophers in terms of conflicts that diverse forms of life can generate. However, this discussion went beyond the topics that Wittgenstein had proposed. Scholars started from the assumption that a cultural monism automatically generates a struggle for supremacy of a form of life, a standpoint that is reflected in Spengler’s thesis. Furthermore, they proposed that a plurality of forms of life would lead to insuperable gaps over time. Accordingly, researchers searched for citations and implicit hints in Wittgenstein’s writings in order to justify and support their assumptions. Many authors focused, for instance, on a rather disturbing passage in the later work of L. Wittgenstein in which he described the following scenario: “Wo sich wirklich zwei Prinzipien treffen, die sich nicht miteinander aussöhnen können, da erklärt jeder den Andern für einen Narren und Ketzer.”28

We note that the text refers to a mutual dependence between the “fool” and the “heretic”. It is assumed that reciprocal understanding cannot develop where two principles collide and cannot be reconciled. A lack of a common denominator between two standpoints creates a strange tension between the actors that inevitably results in mutual accusations. One may ask what happens to dialogue partners that their relationship reaches such disgraceful level? How can interlocutors reach such state of contempt and deep discredit? It seems that these issues can be only be resolved if we find the causes of the dispute. The philosophical discussion in the nineties could be described as follows: the conflict is generated due to the tension that lies between one form of life and another. A book that proclaims this radical approach was published by W. Lütterfelds and A. Roser. The authors aimed at analyzing conflicts of forms of life in L. Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language.29 The discussion centered on the question whether the strategies developed in language 28 29

Wittgenstein, ÜG (1994), 611. Lütterfelds / Roser, 1999.

Language as Forms of Life

49

games may serve as a means to resolve conflicts between different forms of life. It was assumed that different language games can strategically solve conflicts arising from dissimilar forms of life. It was further presupposed that diverse forms of life would inevitably result in a confrontation. It is noteworthy, however, that the authors do not start from the idea that there exists something like peaceful coexistence but that divergent forms of life are doomed to fail and end in clash, conflict or struggle. The authors describe the lines along which the division of forms of life proceeds.30 They ask about the characteristics of a society in which new patterns deviate from the expectations of our experience. Some emphasize the importance of knowing both, the concurrent forces and synergies as well as possible failures in our society that generate lack of agreement. The problem is not so much that we give different names to things but that we radically differ in the application of these things. At that point language games play a crucial role as we use certain linguistic structures that correspond to patterns of behavior rooted in our cultural expectations. When sharing a form of life the relevant aspect lies in agreement.31 What happens if people do not share the same form of life? In this context Ratsch talks about “heretics and believers” on the one hand and “fools and wise” on the other.32 He takes the discussion on forms of life as a basis for exploring the interrelation between understanding, misunderstanding and mistake. He is interested in clarifying the understanding of our own point of view and misunderstanding the other’s position. This approach is similar to another article that examines forms of life and the limits of understanding.33 The authors analyze the cultural game that develops when we are confronted with a conflicting game.34 They investigate the transition and disruption created by different forms of life.35 The book contains other less controversial proposals relating to the indeterminate character of forms

30

Haller, 1999, 53 ff. Haller, 1999, 69. 32 Ratsch, 1999, 94 ff. 33 Savigny, 1999, 120 ff. 34 Sedmak, 1999, 171 ff. 35 Simon, 1999, 190 ff. 31

50

Forms of Life and Language Games

of life,36 the role of language and relativism,37 the opening of frontlines and fringed boundaries, 38 or the relation between language and forms of life.39 5.

“Even the devil in hell has one form of life; and the world would not be complete without it”40

This passage allows for a multitude of readings of which some are appropriate and others inappropriate.41 Could we imagine the existence of a devil living in hell as proposed by Wittgenstein? The quotation is probably a linguistic figure or an idiom. Does the author suggest a dualism of the form hell and world? I don’t think so. The term “form of life” is used in this context to point to the difficulty of understanding a term. L. Wittgenstein plays with language, something very usual in his style of writing, and describes a counterfactual situation reversing the grammatical structure. First he refers to the mischievous world of the devil and speaks of hell in the present tense and of the incompleteness of our real world without its dark side. Such figures of speech are very common in his works and are perhaps part of his typical Viennese way of expression, a peculiarity that seems to cause considerable headache among German scholars. Easier would have been to say that even the devil in hell has a form of life and the world would be incomplete without it. But if he had said it that way, the phrase would have been less creative. The reason of my detailed comment is that I want to point to the importance of applying a progressive interpretation of Wittgenstein’s works rather than a literal one. This becomes obvious by N. Garver’s hint that “conflict” is not related to “forms of life.” Conversely German philosophers focus their discussions on this aspect and view conflict as predestined when they speak of forms of life. As such, philosophers have generated a new issue by applying an inappropriate method of interpretation. From a systematic and methodological point of view all terminological analysis requires interpreters to decide on the type of 36

Garver, 1995, III y Garver, 1999, 37 ff. Neumer, 1999, 72 ff. 38 Schneider, 1999, 138 ff. 39 Schulte, 1999, 156 ff. 40 Wittgenstein, MS 127, p. 128. 41 Cf. Schulte, 2010, 125 ff. 37

Language as Forms of Life

51

interpretation. If we want to analyze “form(s) of life” in more detail and we are not interested in its semantic field, it is advisable to apply a literal interpretation. In that case the interpretation would be based on an analysis of the meaning of “form of life” and its use in philosophical discourse, its role in philosophical grammar, its position in the cognitive system in which it developed and a diachronic study of the concept by comparing the elements that constitute it. Conversely, if we apply a progressive interpretation of form of life, we use analogies and reduce the teleological extent. What we have seen in recent receptions is that interpreters have used the argument of teleological reduction to make an exception for cases which should be interpreted in a literal sense. Some philosophers presuppose that different forms of life result inescapably in conflict, a view that Wittgenstein had never held. Based on a teleological interpretation several philosophers have argued that two irreconcilable principles held by interlocutors result in mutual accusations because their underlying forms of life collide. In doing so, interpreters tacitly apply a teleological reduction of the problem as is described in ‘On Certainty’ of irreconcilable principles. But is this argument justified? And if not, how can we refute it? If we want to invalidate the teleological interpretation on which most of the recent interpretations are based we have to follow these guidelines: present an argument supporting the assumption that the purpose of forms of life is to discuss them in a linguistic context rather than unveiling a supposed inherent conflict due to a plurality of forms of life. Such context is expressed through language games. This shows that this reception uses and abuses of the second method of interpretation and ignores the literal meaning of words. In turn, the misinterpretation creates a circle in contrahendo. The terms “Lebensform”, “Lebensformen” and “Form des Lebens” are taken out of their context. The different uses of the terms are not taken into account. This circle in contrahendo can be resolved by eliminating the external method that does not distinguish between the different meanings of two concepts and an an expression. What is more, L. Wittgenstein warned us of falling into the trap of a circle in contrahendo. It occurs as a result of applying an inappropriate model of explanation on the functioning of “forms of life”. The error “in contrahendo” lies in a violation of the requirement that whichever method we use we need to clarify its constituents and maintain a minimum of

52

Forms of Life and Language Games

coherence concerning the arguments employed. This duty of philosophical activity was created with the use of language and ends when applied to each of the areas related to “forms of life.” Conclusion I started the article with a quote of Wittgenstein in which he indicated that even the devil in hell has a form of life and the world would be incomplete without it.42 What does this form of life refer to in the Wittgensteinian sense? Does it imply that the devil has a particular form of life43 or, rather, that there is a psychic constitution,44 that we could call “evil” or else, does it refer to cultures in conflict?45 The secondary literature has focused on the question whether Wittgenstein understood form of life in the singular with a monistic point of view46 or as a pluralistic approach.47 A further related debate has dealt with the conflict between different forms of life.48 At the beginnings of the last century there was a shift of the meaning of “Lebensform,” new meanings were created which were applied to different fields. From my point of view, there is no doubt that the term is primarily applied to language. Its purpose is to study different forms of life that become manifest in different ways of expression made by speakers. The cultural approach is rejected by Wittgenstein, as the problems associated with “culture” are only expressions of a particular language. His position is consistent with the view of language. His main standpoint is expressed in the aphorisms of his late period in which he emphasized that language is part of an activity or a form of life. Finally it becomes obvious why even the devil in hell has a form of life and the world would not be complete without it. The answer is that even in a supposed (counterfactual) hell the devil would speak a language, but one that is characterized by disorder and confusion. If we used such bewildering language we would perform actions that create misunderstandings and produce turmoil, or else an anxious and harmful form of life.

42

Wittgenstein, MS 127, p. 128. Fred, W. (Alfred Wechsler), 1905, 17. 44 Spranger, 1921 y Adler, 1933 (2008), 135. 45 Spengler, 1922 (1963), 794. 46 Garver, 1984, 33ss. 47 Haller, 1984, 55ss. 48 See bibliography in: Lütterfelds/Roser, 1999. 43

Language as Forms of Life

53

References Abbreviations to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work: - The Bergen Electronic Edition. Oxford University BEE Press, Oxford, 2000. - Das Blaue Buch . Schriften 5. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. BLB - The Big Typescript (TS 213), Ludwig Wittgenstein. BT-2000 Wiener Ausgabe, Ed. Michael Nedo, Springer, Wien, 2000, Vol. 11. - The Big Typescript (TS 213), German-English Scholars’ BT-2005 Edition, Ed. C. Grant Luckhardt, M. A. E. Aue, Blackwell, 2005. - Manuscript …, according to the catalog form G.H. v. MS ... Wright. - Philosophische Bemerkungen (1964), Ed. Rush Rhees, PB WA, Vol. 2. - Philosophische Grammatik (1969), Ed. Rush Rhees, PG WA, Vol. 4. - Eine Philosophische Betrachtung. Schriften 5. Suhrkamp, PhB Frankfurt a. M. - Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ed. J. C. PO Klagge, A. Nordmann, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, Cambridge, 21994. - Philosophische Untersuchungen (1953), Ed. G.E.M. PI Anscombe, G.H. von Wright, Rush Rhees, in: WA, Vol. 1, pp. 225-618. - Philosophische Untersuchungen (2001). (KritischPI genetische Ed. J. Schulte), Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. - Philosophical Investigations (2009). (4th edition Ed. By PI P.M.S. Hacker and J. Schulte), Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford. - Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (1980). RPP-I Volume I. (Ed. G. E. M. Anscombe, G. H. von Wright. Trad. G. E. M. Anscombe). Blackwell, Oxford. - Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (1980). RPP-II Volume II. (Ed. G. H. von Wright, Heikki Nyman. Trad. C. G. Luckhardt, M. A. E. Aue). Blackwell, Oxford. - Über Gewißheit. (1994). Werkausgabe, Suhrkamp, ÜG Frankfurt a. M.

54

Forms of Life and Language Games

- Werkausgabe (8 Vols.), Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M., 1984. - Wiener Ausgabe. (WA, 1 - WA, 5). (Ed. V. M. Nedo). WA Springer Verlag, Wien – New York, 1993-1996. - Wittgenstein’s Lectures. Cambridge, 1930-1932, Ed. D. WL30/32 Lee, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1980. WV32/35(1)/(2) - Ludwig Wittgenstein. Vorlesungen Cambridge 1932-1935 (1979), Ed. Alice Ambrose, Tranl. J. Schulte, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein. Vorlesungen 1930-1935, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M., 21989, pp. 141-442; (1): 1932/33, Cap. I+IV, pp. 147-198, 415-442; (2): 1933/34 y 1934/35, Cap. II+III, pp. 199-414. - Zettel. Schriften 5. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. Z W

Adler, A., 1933: Der Sinn des Lebens. In: Alfred Adler Studienausgabe, Ed. K. H. Witte, Vandehoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2008. Ammann, H. 1925/1928: Die menschliche Rede. Sprachphilosophische Einrichtungen. Teil I y Teil II. Moritz Schauenburg, Lahr. Baker, G.P. / P.M.S. Hacker, 1985: An Analytical Commentary on the ‘Philosophical Investigations’. Vol. II. Wittgenstein, Rules, Grammar and Necessity. Oxford: Blackwell. Fred, W. (Alfred Wechsler), 1905: Lebensformen. Anmerkungen über die Technik des gesellschaftlichen Lebens. Georg Müller, München, Leipzig. Garver, N., 1984: Die Lebensform in Wittgensteins Philosophischen Untersuchungen, Grazer Philosophische Studien, 21, 33-54. Garver, N., 1994: Naturalism and Transcendentaly: The Case of «Form of Life», in: Teghrarian, S. (ed.), Wittgenstein and Contemporary Philosophy, Bristol, Thoemmes Press, 41-69. Garver, N., 1995: Die Unbestimmtheit der Lebensform, Wittgenstein Studien, 2/95, Dateiname: 07-2-95.TXT. Garver, N., 1999: Die Unbestimmheit der Lebensform, in: Lütterfelds, Roser 1999, 37-52. Haller, R. 1979: Die gemeinsame menschliche Handlungsweise, Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 33, 521-533. Haller, R., 1984, “Lebensform oder Lebensformen” – Eine Bemerkung zu N. Garvers ‘Die Lebensform in Wittgensteins Philosophischen Untersuchungen’, Grazer Philosophische Studien, 21, 55-64.

Language as Forms of Life

55

Haller, R. 1999: Variationen und Bruchlinien einer Lebensform, in: Lütterfelds, Roser 1999, 53-71. Hofmannsthal, H. v., 1979: Lebensformen von W. Fred, in: Gesammelte Werke, Reden und Aufsätze (1891-1931), Fischer, Frankfurt a. M., 400. Lütterfelds, Wilhelm, Andreas Roser (eds.), 1999: Der Konflikt der Lebensformen in Wittgensteins Philosophie der Sprache, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. Marques, A., 2010: Forms of Life: Between the Given and the Thought Experiment, in: Marques, Venturinha, 2010, 143-154. Marques, A. and N. Venturinha (eds.), 2010: Wittgenstein on Forms of Life and the Nature of Experience. Peter Lang, Frankfurt a.M. Neumer, K., 1999: Lebensform, Sprache und Relativismus im Spätwerk Wittgensteins, in: Lütterfelds, Roser, 1999, 72-93. Raatzsch, R., 1999: Ketzer und Rechtgläubig. Narren und Weise, in: Lütterfelds, Roser 1999, 94-119. Padilla Gálvez, J., 2010: Form of Life as Arithmetical Experiment, in: Marques, Venturinha, 2010, 113-124. Padilla Gálvez, J., 2012: Digresiones acerca de las formas de vida, Pensamiento (In print). Savigny, E. Von, 1999: Wittgenstein “Lebensformen” und die Grenze der Verständigung, in: Lütterfelds, Roser, 1999, 120-137. Schneider, H.-J., 1999: Offene Grenzen, zerfaserte Ränder: Über Arten von Beziehungen zwischen Sprachspielen, in: Lütterfelds, Roser, 1999, 138-155. Schulte, J. 1999: Die Hinnahme von Sprachspielen und Lebensformen, in: Lütterfelds, Roser, 1999, 156-170. Schulte, J. 2010: Does the Devil in Hell Haven a Form of Life? in: Marques, Venturinha, 2010, 125-141. Sedmak, C., 1999: The cultural game of watching the games, in: Lütterfelds, Roser, 1999, 171-189. Simon, J., 1999: Lebensformen. Übergänge und Abbrüche, in: Lütterfelds, Roser 1999, 190-212. Spengler, O., 1963: Der Untergang des Abendlandes. First edition in two volumens. 1st volumen: Gestalt und Wirklichkeit. Braumüller, Wien, Leipzig, 1918; 3rd edition: Beck, München: Beck, 1919 and new edition: Beck, München, 1923. 2nd Volumen: Welthistorische Perspektiven. Beck, München, 1922.

56

Forms of Life and Language Games

Spranger, E., 1921: Lebensformen. Geisteswissenschaftliche Psychologie und Ethik der Persönlichkeit. Niemeyer, Halle a. S. Venturinha, N., 2010: Introduction, in: Marques, Venturinha, 2010, 13-19. University of Castilla-La Mancha

Forms of Life as Social Techniques Margit GAFFAL 1.

Introduction

By the term form of life Ludwig Wittgenstein has provoked animated discussions among philosophers and among scientists of other disciplines. At the beginning of the twentieth century the expression underwent a shift in meaning. At that time at least four scholars used this term systematically, such as the German-speaking journalist and writer Alfred Wechsler,1 the German linguist Hermann Ammann,2 the German historian Oswald Spengler3 and the Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler.4 German scholars suggested to interpret the term “Lebensform” in line with O. Spengler’s view of it as an abstract concept similar to “civilization”, “village” or “religion”.5 A review of the secondary literature shows that little has been said about what H. Ammann or A. Wechsler6 understood by form of life and A. Adler was rarely mentioned. In this article I want to concentrate on Alfred Wechsler’s writings, particularly on one of his books that is entirely dedicated to the issue of Lebensformen. The aim is to detect similarities and analogies between Wittgenstein’s statements on form of life and Wechsler’s point of view. I will therefore present an overview of the different contexts in which Wechsler used form and forms of life. Although it is uncertain whether Wittgenstein had ever read Wechsler’s book it is still striking that both made use of the newly created terms and referred to the importance of language. What we do know is that in the same year of its publication Wechsler’s book had been reviewed by H. v. Hoffmannsthal, an indication of the importance of form of life for the Austrian culture.7 1

See: Fred (Wechsler), 1905. See: Ammann, 1925, 28. 3 See: Spengler, 1918, 1923. 4 See: Adler, (1933), 2008, 135. 5 See: Lütterfelds / Roser, 1999. Compare: Garver, 1984, 33-54; Garver, 1994, 41-69; Garver, 1995, 07-2-95.TXT and Garver, 1999, 37-52. 6 See: Haller, 1988, 133. 7 See: Hoffmannsthal, 1979, 400. 2

Forms of Life and Language Games, (Eds Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ, Margit GAFFAL), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2011, 57-74.

58

Forms of Life and Language Games

As outlined in the introduction, A. Wechsler was the first author who systematically used the expressions “Lebensform” (form of life) and “Lebensformen” (forms of life) in his writings at the beginning of the twentieth century.8 In 1905 he wrote a book entitled ‘Lebensformen: Anmerkungen über die Technik des gesellschaftlichen Lebens’, which translates as “Forms of Life: Annotations on Social Techniques”. This volume contains a detailed description of the numerous social techniques that people use to manoeuvre through public and private life. It is an extensive compilation of ways of appropriate conduct and manners in many spheres of life. It specifies in detail all the explicit and implicit rules that governed human relationships at the turn of the twentieth century. One could call it a complete guide of decent social behaviour. What is exceptional is that the author reveals all the tacit rules that citizens of the German speaking world tend to use to survive unscathed and to avoid conflict. In fact, he breaks a taboo by criticizing the inconsistencies that existed in the society of his times and discloses the contradictions that people are aware of but are reluctant to address. In altogether nine chapters the author deals with such topics as what is to be understood by form and forms of life (chapter one), the difference between appearance and reality and the evaluation of personality and aesthetics (chapter two). The third chapter deals with fashion and all its related aspects, the fourth covers the theme of society and forms of sociability, such as for instance the role of the salons in high society at the times of the Fin de siècle. Other chapters deal with marriage and love, which is followed by considerations on different types of conversation and gossip. The last three chapters treat topics such as the art of cooking, eating and dining in company, the role of sports and physical education, which is concluded by thoughts on the importance of books and reading and finally what he calls the technique of travelling. 8

He wrote under the pen name of W. Fred, which became later his officially approved name. His publications may be subsumed under three genres, such as travel reports, art descriptions and novels. His travel reports include impressions about Madrid (1905), Salzburg (1908) and India (Indische Reise, 1907). As an art lover he wrote about the Pre-Raphaelites (1900) and contemporary arts and crafts (1902). He focussed, for instance, on modern trends and wrote a book entitled ‘Psychology of Fashion’ (1905) and another guide on interior design (Die Wohnung, 1904). His novels include ‘Letters to a Young Woman’ (Briefe an eine junge Frau, 1900), ‘Novel of a Globetrotter’ (Roman eines Globetrotters, 1903) and ‘Street of Loneliness’ (Strasse der Verlassenheit, 1906), to name but a few. Moreover, he translated O. Wilde’s works into German.

Forms of Life as Social Techniques

59

Wechsler uses the expression forms of life in the plural slightly more often than in the singular, in fact he mentions forms of life on twenty-one occasions and form of life altogether eighteen times. The most important chapter of his book is probably the second entitled “Lebensform and Lebensformen” in which he explains the difference between form of life in the singular and in the plural. When used in the singular it points to the individual form of life whereas in the plural it describes a collective form of life. In his book Wechlser makes reference to another relevant book written by the German writer Oscar A. H. Schmitz, which was published in the same year and was entitled “Complete Guide for Cosmopolitans” (“Brevier für Weltleute”).9 At the beginning of that book Schmitz explained that he had noticed a new group of people emerging in society around 1900 whom he called ‘cosmopolitans’ or ‘world citizens’. He described them as relevant because they had invented their own life style and had developed new forms of life as a result of rapid socio-economic development. This emerging social class had inspired authors such as Schmitz and Wechsler to write down the rules that underlay life in society at the turn of the century. Similarly, A. Wechlser expressed this new phenomenon in the following statement: “The plural has only become necessary recently. (…) The socialization of our forms of life has progressed to such an extent that cosmopolitans have become a class, almost a (religious) order, whose rules are bit by bit put down in writing.”10

In a later chapter on the beginnings of public life he explains that the socio-economic development of the previous ten years had led to new forms of encounter among individuals which had created new forms of life. In fact, the term form of life is closely linked with social changes and the formation of new classes. He mentions that even in smaller towns people have adopted new forms of life which had been a privilege for only a few in previous years:

9

See: Schmitz, 1911, Ch. 39. “Die Sprache hat diesen Plural erst jezt nötig. (...) Jetzt ist die Sozialisierung unserer Lebensformen so weit fortgeschritten, dass die Weltleute ein Stand sind, fast ein Orden, dessen Regeln nun allmählich notiert werden.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 14. 10

60

Forms of Life and Language Games “The economic development of the last ten years has been incredibly fast. [...] Even smaller cities and towns in all other districts are now familiar with new forms of life.”11

This quotation shows that the emergence of new forms of life is clearly related to the process of urbanization. Wechsler made also reference to E. Mach whose books he considered as manuals about forms of life that serve as a guide on the journey through life. In the interpretation of the meaning of ‘forms of life’ Wechsler was inspired by Mach’s description on the internal functioning of human emotions.12 Wisdom was not just some exclusive knowledge of the privileged classes but had become an aspiration of interested citizens.13 “But training of the mind and the nerves, understanding causal relationships, these are the most important skills for people who want to be cosmopolitans in a true and deep sense.”14

It becomes obvious that new forms of life are a result of education and formation. Wechsler considers Mach’s views as essential guidelines for the understanding of cultural techniques that people use to move socially.15 Likewise, he regards society as an organism that follows certain rules and conventions that consist of forms of life or appropriate behaviour. However, Wechsler makes a distinction between social know-how and form of life. Although conventions are of essential importance they are only a result of their time and have to be seen from a diachronic view.16 11

“Die ökonomische Entwicklung der letzten zehn Jahre ist ungeheuer rasch gegangen. [...] Selbst kleinere Städte und in allen Städten weitere Kreise kennen jetzt Lebensformen”. Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 264. 12 See: Mach, 1991 (1922) and Mach, 1991 (1926). 13 This is expressed in the following statement: “Die wahre Weltweisheit ist nicht eine Weltweisheit für irgendeinen Kreis, sondern sie ist der Weg durchs Leben für alle.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 15. 14 “Aber Schulung des Geistes und der Nerven, Begreifen der Zusammenhänge, das sind die wichtigsten Dinge für Menschen, die in einem wahren und tiefen Sinne Weltleute sein wollen.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 15 f. 15 In order to gain an understanding we must explain the history of our civilisation from a physiological and a psychological perspective. In this explanation any kind of absolute judging should be avoided. We should rather try to comprehend the impact that every life function has on cultural development. Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 15 f. 16 He dedicates, for instance, a whole chapter to the phenomenon of fashion, dresscodes and aesthetic perception. He uses the phenomenon of fashion as an example of being both, a collective phenomenon and at the same time transitory and changeable. Wechsler describes fashion as functional and practical according to the activities a

Forms of Life as Social Techniques

61

However, Wechsler does not recommend us to adopt a form of life and stick to it at all cost. He argues that a certain form of life is only justifiable if it is in accordance with what he calls “the deep laws of humanity”. Every citizen is asked to acquire social competence during the process of socialization but this does not just mean picking up modern views and including progressive behaviour in ones repertoire of possible ways of conduct. He underlines the importance of tact and to have a feeling for situations when common sense must replace any sophisticated etiquette. He emphasized that a lack of tact may be worse than a lack of virtue. He puts it like this: “Because we are beginning to understand that a custom or convention is not something eternal, but that it arises from the conditions of time, and that a form of life is not more valuable just because it is there, but only has a right, if it coincides with the deep laws of humanity.”17

What he wants to emphasize is that a socially competent person not only should have a comprehensive knowledge of social rules and manners but should also have a sure instinct for situations in which it is appropriate to suspend a convention. A real cosmopolitan would stand out if brave enough to reject a custom at times when a feeling comes from the depth of a valuable character. In the following section we shall point out what Wechsler considers the difference between individual and collective forms of life.

person has to carry out regularly and at the same time it should meet certain aesthetic criteria. As such, an individual can choose his o her style from a set of eligible options. Equally, fashion is also all-encompassing in that it expresses all forms of life that exist in a culture. He says this of fashion: "Fashion is expression and effect of the impulse of an entire community with only indistinct repercussions on each individual, (...) but that is organically established on the foundation of the whole material culture of all forms of life.” “Die Mode ist Ausdruck und Wirkung jenes dem einzelnen nur dunklen Willens und Triebes einer ganzen Gemeinschaft, (...) der aber immer organisch aufgebaut ist auf dem Grunde der ganzen materiellen Kultur aller Lebensformen dieser Gemeinschaft.” (Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 116.) 17 “Denn allmählich wissen wir, dass die Konvention und die Sitte nicht etwas Ewiges ist, sondern dass sie aus den Bedingungen einer Zeit erwächst, und dass seine Lebensform um nichts wertvoller ist, weil sie einmal da ist, sondern nur dann eine Berechtigung hat, wenn sie mit den tiefen Gesetzen der Menschlichkeit übereinstimmt:” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 16.

62

2.

Forms of Life and Language Games

Form of Life or Forms of Life?

The author dedicates his first chapter to the question whether each individual creates his own form of life or else there are several accepted forms of life shared by certain groups of society. More specifically, he asks whether it is possible for an individual to develop his or her own particular form of life without relating to society in its entirety. He puts it like this: “Why can’t everybody become happy in his way?”18 The answer is that we have to fit in society, adapt ourselves to its rules and conventions and accept how society is organised. If we reject adjusting our lives to the already existing forms of life we run the risk of colliding with the order of society. Life would become too difficult due to repeated clashes with the established rules of public order. Wechsler starts from the assumption that there is the individual form of life that a person develops and there are established forms of life in society to which the individual has to adapt. However, the single has to bring his life into line with the social order. He explains his position in the following quotation: “Now, before you give the answer (…) one may want to figure out the difference between form and forms of life; and that is everybody who has achieved something can choose his own form of life, and - what is more should or must choose it, however the forms of life and the social culture in its entirety cannot be individually created by a person’s own will and nature. And that we, as long as the sphere of society is our destiny, we have to go with the flow.”19

This view is similar to what Wittgenstein says about situations in which life becomes difficult due to a lack of adjustment. He views the reason for the problem in a conflict between one’s individual form of life and the prevailing forms of life in society. Wittgenstein therefore recommends us to adjust our life to the already existing social forms and assumes that this adjustment makes the problems disappear. He says the following: 18

See: Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 18. “Nun, bevor man die Antwort gibt (...) mag man sich über den Unterschied klar zu werden versuchen, der zwischen Lebensform und Lebensformen besteht; und zwar weil sich da zeigen wird, dass ein jeder Mensch, der in sich was ist und was hat, seine eigene Lebensform zwar selbst wählen kann, ja sogar soll und muss, dass aber die Lebensformen und ihre Gesamtheit: die gesellschaftliche Kultur nicht von jedem nach seinem Willen und seiner Natur geschaffen werden können. Und dass wir uns, sowie die Sphäre unseres Schicksals die Gesellschaft ist, einordnen müssen.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 18. 19

Forms of Life as Social Techniques

63

“Daß das Leben problematisch ist, heißt, daß dein Leben nicht in die Form des Lebens paßt. Du mußt dann dein Leben verändern, und paßt es in die Form, dann verschwindet das Problematische.”20

The tasks of aligning oneself and adjusting to given forms of life are requirements that both authors consider essential. In fact, Wechsler pleads that everyone should develop the form of life that he or she considers appropriate. Still, it is impossible for individuals to create and modify culture in its entirety according to own preferences. Nevertheless, one could argue that there are two options according to which we can organise our existence, either as a solitary person leading a secluded life apart from society or else participating actively in socializing. He gives the examples of a man or a woman who acts as he or she pleases without bothering about the impression they leave in others. On the contrary there is a reasonable person who is aware of the fact that the world begins once he interacts with others. In this context the author makes reference to E. Mach’s epistemological approach. E. Mach had pointed out that the material world is composed of the correlation among elements of which human sensations are just a part.21 Wechsler underlines that what is true for the elements of the material world can also be applied to the coexistence of mankind.22 An individual’s world emerges at the point where people relate to the each other and the outer world. Wechsler continues with considerations on the intensity of such interactions and its implications for the form of life. There are people who reject reality by seeking a form of life in some kind of illusion, such as the Buddhist monk, the drug addict or the bookworm. Such people prefer the inner experience to relating to the events that occur in their surrounding. They don’t want to be disturbed and irritated by daily occurrences and replace reality by fantasy. Such misanthropic attitude could be called an enclosed form of life but is still a form of life. He says: “His form of life is the thousandfold radiation and the intimate, serious and conscious fellowship with only few, (...), that has little to do with 20

See: Wittgenstein, VB, 62, C&V, 31, MS 118: 17r (17.8.37); Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 118, Philosophische Bemerkungen, p. 17r / 17v. 21 Wechsler says the following: “Was, wissenschaftlich ausgedrückt, (...) die Mach’sche naturwissenschaftliche Erkenntnislehre aussagt: “Die materielle Welt besteht eben in der Verknüpfung der Reaktionen der Elemente, wovon die Verknüpfung der menschlichen Empfindungen nur ein Teil ist”.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 19. 22 See: Mach, 1991 (1922) and Mach, 1991 (1926).

64

Forms of Life and Language Games those social forms of life, which will be discussed here. Besides this is another type (...): the one who rejects reality, (...) and seeks his form of life in the process of imaginations, feelings and illusions.”23

Even the rules of the monk constitute a form of life and the contents of a book is no more than a reflection of some form of life, even if it is fictional.24 In this context Wittgenstein’s remark that even the devil has a form of life seems interesting because it suggests that form of life subsumes any kind of well-matched way of thinking and acting. A supposed diabolic form of life would therefore include actions that cause confusion, prevaricate and pervert or malign somebody’s character.25 He says: “Even the devil in hell has one form of life; and the world would not be complete without it.”26

A. Wechsler concludes that any kind of experience, no matter if it takes place in a person’s inner or outer world, marks some sort of interface with society. He says that any social encounter, even if it seems insignificant underlies a form of life that is characteristic for a time. Even an apparently closed form of life has some sort of intersection with society: “(…) everything is subject to the forms of life of a time as soon as the social sphere is entered. (...) And if we take into consideration, any

23

“Seine Lebensform ist die tausendfältige Strahlung und die innige, ernste bewusste Zusammengehörigkeit mit Wenigen, (...), die nur wenig zu tun haben mit jenen gesellschaftlichen Lebensformen, von denen hier die Rede sein wird. Nahe diesem Typus wird ein anderer sein (...): der Mensch, der die Wirklichkeit, (...) ablehnt und im Ablauf der Vorstellungen und Gefühle in Illusionen seine Lebensform sucht.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 20. 24 Wechsler puts it like this: “Schon die Bibel und die Klosterregel des Mönches zwingt sie zu Lebensformen, denen sie untertan sind, und wir werden in dem Menschen, der die Gesellschaft verachtet und mit und von Büchern lebt, ein Beispiel sehen, wie auch die Lebensform der Illusion durch die “Atmosphäre der Bücher” eine gesellschaftliche Existenz werden muss.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 21. 25 See the translation of the Greek “diábolos” that literally means disorganize, disturb, mess something up. In this context the English idiom “to play hell with something” appears interesting. 26 “Auch der Teufel in der Hölle hat eine Form des Lebens; & die Welt wäre nicht vollständig ohne sie.” See: Wittgenstein, MS 127, p. 128; Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 127, Wittgenstein, Taschennotizbuch für Mathematik und Logik, p. 128. Cf. Padilla Gálvez, 2010, 113ff.

Forms of Life as Social Techniques

65

independent and coherent form of life has some kind of intersection with society.”27

Wechsler makes again reference to Mach’s view of mankind in his relation to others who rejected a sharp contrast between mankind and world. Following this view, he concludes that all forms (of life) are languages.28 People communicate with each other by using a repertoire of social techniques that form part of their forms of life. This proceeds on both, an explicit as well as on an implicit level, such as for instance, when a rule of etiquette is applied. During the process of communication one, two or more people would recognize the interlocutor’s form of life by the way in which the respective other acts. He explains this in the following statement: “(…) no one is great and rich enough to despise the forms of life into which one was born. It is therefore a matter of the technique of life to know and understand these forms, even if they may not be practiced. All forms are languages.”29

Especially the last sentence that all forms are languages, reminds us of Wittgenstein’s quote at the beginning of his Philosophical Investigations that language and form of life belong together. Language is verbal conduct and as such part of form of life. He wrote this: “And to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.”30

Moreover, Wittgenstein underlined that language games are dynamic in that they emerge and disappear in the course of time.31 27

“(...) unterliegt alles den Lebensformen einer Zeit, sowie die gesellschaftliche Sphäre betreten wird. (...) “Und bedenkt man’s recht, so wird jede noch so unabhängige und in sich geschlossene Lebensform irgendwie eine Schnittfläche mit der Gesellschaft haben.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 21. 28 See Wechsler’s quote in which he says that all forms are languages. Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 22. 29 “(...) kein Mensch ist so gross und so reich, dass er die äusseren Lebensformen der Welt, in die er geboren ist, verachten dürfte. Es ist darum eine Sache der Lebenstechnik, diese Formen, (...) zu kennen, zu verstehen, selbst wenn man sie dann nicht üben mag. Alle Formen sind Sprachen.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 22. 30 “Und eine Sprache vorstellen heißt, sich eine Lebensform vorstellen.” Wittgenstein, PU, §19. 31 See Wittgenstein who says in the Philosophical Investigations: “23. “Wieviele Arten der Sätze gibt es aber? Etwa Behauptung, Frage und Befehl? - Es gibt unzählige solcher Arten: unzählige verschiedene Arten der Verwendung alles dessen, was wir »Zeichen«, »Worte«, »Sätze«, nennen. Und diese Mannigfaltigkeit ist nichts Festes,

66

3.

Forms of Life and Language Games

Society and the Individual

If we take up L. Wittgenstein’s thoughts that language arises out of existing forms of life and regular action32 it seems pertinent to analyze the origin and the context within which forms of life have developed over time. According to such historical standpoint forms of life have been shaped by events that developed within the frame of socio-political processes. As form of life is based on language it is closely linked to a certain culture. Language functions are determined by the circumstances in which they occur and are therefore embedded in a culture. Wechsler reflects about the interaction among individual and society and asks to which extent society permits an individual to exploit one’s full potential. He responds that the more sophisticated a person is the more he or she must keep a distance to others. Socializing with others holds the chance for an individual to develop one’s own personality and thereby achieve self-fulfilment. Therefore he recommends us to gather with people from different socials classes, which enables us to develop a reasonable distance. It is this space or sense of distance that characterises a cultivated character.33 It appears, that individualisation is a two-edged sword as individual preferences and personal peculiarities tend to collide with the collective norms of society. Therefore distance is the only way to avoid other people’s interfering in one’s private life.34

ein für allemal Gegebenes; sondern neue Typen der Sprache, neue Sprachspiele, wie wir sagen können, entstehen und andre veralten und werden vergessen. (Ein ungefähres Bild davon können uns die Wandlungen der Mathematik geben.) Wittgenstein, PU, §23. Cf. Padilla Gálvez, 2012. 32 See Wittgenstein who says the following: “Ich will sagen: es ist charakteristisch für unsere Sprache, daß sie auf dem Grund fester Lebensformen, regelmäßigen Tuns, emporwächst. Ihre Funktion ist vor allem durch die Handlung, deren Begleiterin sie ist, bestimmt. Wir haben eben einen Begriff davon, welcherlei Lebensformen primitive sind, und welche erst aus solchen entspringen konnten.” Wittgenstein, BEE, Item 119, Vol. XV, p. 147 s. / 74v. 33 He says this in the following quotation: “… es gibt für die Ausbildung der Persönlichkeit (...) das wesentliche Mass eines kultivierten Charakters ist.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 34 f. 34 He puts it like this: “I don’t want people to stick their noses in my life and therefore I avoid as far as possible to come too close to others.” (…) This cool calmness, that we tend to call the English way of life, however, is not fashionable nowadays.” In German: “Ich möchte nicht, dass Ihr in mein Leben mit Euren Fingern hineintappt, und deshalb hüte ich mich selbst recht, Euch zu sehr in die Nähe zu kommen. (…)

Forms of Life as Social Techniques

67

In his investigation of different forms of life he takes the English society as a model and says that the English have developed a kind of laidback calmness much earlier than other countries, which allows them individualisation that is in accordance with the rules of society. Economic progress due to the early industrialisation has intensified trade and commerce which translated into the creation of employment. This resulted in the emergence of social classes who developed their respective forms of life. Whereas the Aristocracy had always had their appropriate form of life, the new economic development empowered the normal citizen to develop his respective form of life.35 The author speaks, for instance, about the amount and distribution of working hours in different countries and criticises that unreasonably fixed division into morning and afternoon working hours for all professions in Germany and Austria. On the contrary, the working hours of industrial workers in England and France are continuous and intensive which allows them to lead a life in decent conditions. It leaves them enough spare time to develop their own forms of life.36 Taking the English club as a model example the author describes the members as practising a distinguished form of life that is characterised by a number of implicit rules which are strictly respected. Club members may behave wittily or may appear eccentric or unconventional but they adhere precisely to the tacit rules as if they were state laws, as he calls it. According to T. Parsons concept of social integration37 society provides a model on the organization of life. Following the Structural-Functional Theory the state offers education and formation to its citizens and thus contributes to their socialisation. If the individual complies with the norms of society he or she contributes to the functioning of society. Political institutions guarantee law and order and religious institutions provide moral standards for behaviour. The forms of sociality practised in a society are influenced by the political culture of that country. In contrast to other European countries England had much earlier developed parliamentary structures and with it a culture of decision-making based on compromise. This has had repercussions on the forms of socialisation and forms of life Diese kühle Ruhe, die wir gern die englische Lebensart nennen, ist aber auch nicht die Mode von heute.”See: Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 465 f. 35 See: Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 264. 36 See: Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 391. 37 See: Parsons, 1968, 270.

68

Forms of Life and Language Games

maintained in the public and private sphere. This balance is guaranteed by a protection of the citizen’s individual freedom and returned by the citizen as respect for the rules of society.38 In his comparison of club life in Britain and on the continent he sees some fundamental differences and describes German clubs are primarily sports and games clubs which lack the typical distinguished English attitude. The predominant form of life practised in these clubs is that its members follow the fair and explicit rules of a game or sport.39 Furthermore, Wechsler deals with the role that forms of life have for the individual citizen. He asks for the purpose of manners and social competence and reflects on the functions of customs, conventions and etiquette. He emphasizes that forms of life are not an expression of moral values but they rather methods that allow us to lead our lives without coming into conflict with others. “Forms of life are not just an expression of morally comprehensive worldview (sittliche Weltanschauung), but a means of social techniques.”40

The assumption that a form of life is embedded in culture shall be examined in more detail. R. Haller underlined that forms of life are never just a private matter but commonalities in the way we act and understand things. If two or more people concur in what they consider natural or taken for granted without having to give explanations then we can say that they share a form of life. He puts it like this: “Übereinstimmung im Selbstverständlichen, das keiner Erklärung bedarf, kann daher auch als ein Kriterium der Zugehörigkeit zu einer Lebensform selbst aufgefasst werden. Denn Lebensformen sind, wie man weiss, eo

38

See: Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 250. Wechsler describes clubs on the continent in the following way: “Unsere Klubs sind ausgesprochene Spielklubs (...). Wir haben natürlich in unseren Klubs Mitglieder, die hinkommen um sich eine Zeitung anzusehen oder gelegentlich den oder jene treffen. Aber das wesentliche des englischen Klubs, dass eine bestimmte Geistes-, man könnte fast sagen: Gemütsrichtung irgendwo zentralisiert ist und von dort aus die Einflusswellen laufen, ist bei uns noch nicht durchgedrungen.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 251. 40 “Lebensformen sind eben nicht Ausdruck einer sittlichen Weltanschauung, sondern Mittel zur Lebenstechnik.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 284. 39

Forms of Life as Social Techniques ipso nie privat, sondern Auffassungsweisen.”41

Gemeingut

an

69 Handlungs-

und

Form of life is a relevant tool that individuals need to interact consensually with others. It does not reflect any abstract principle and it is neither an ideology nor a philosophical perspective. Wechsler takes a purely pragmatic standpoint and defines form of life as a modus operandi or a practical know-how of how to deal with particular situations in private or public life. To master a form of life means to have a procedural knowledge of its application. If we lacked such knowledge we would constantly get in conflict with established norms. Form of life is a sum of refined techniques that we use to deal with the occurrences of everyday life. These techniques are organised in a certain order and follow a certain rule that help us to avoid misunderstandings and to overcome obstacles. Form of life is practical knowledge about the correct language and appropriate conduct, fashion and style that we are encouraged to use when communicating with others in order to achieve a pleasant coexistence. In the following quote he explains that people have agreed to follow a set of rules and regulations and it is generally useful for everyone to know these rules: “People have developed a different, finer, and more compliant means: an amount of brief regulations by which people tell one another how they prefer to communicate. It is therefore useful for everyone (…) to know the do’s and don’ts (...) It shall be attempted to bring to mind a few of these forms, which have often been forgotten.”42

However, Wechsler makes a point when he says that a form of life should not become a self purpose or an end in itself. Although form of life is only a social technique and not an inner conviction we should be careful not to become a victim of the dynamic processes that go along with a role that we adopt. This raises the question of how deeply we are rooted in our own language which makes it impossible to overcome the limits set by our own culture. He names the stereotypical characters of the theatre as 41

See: Haller, 1999, 63. “Die Menschen haben ein anderes, feineres, gefügigeres Mittel sich entwickelt: durch eine Summe von kleinen Vorschriften einander mitzuteilen, wie sie sich ihren Verkehr einrichten wollen. Und darum wird es für jeden nützlich sein (...) zu wissen, was man tut und was man nicht tut. (...) Es soll nur versucht werden, einige Formen in ihrem Sinn, der oft aus dem Bewusstsein geschwunden ist, aufzuzeigen.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 304 f. 42

70

Forms of Life and Language Games

examples to show how characters may become entrapped in inflexible role patterns that often result in conflict:43 “Rich characters will incorporate all varieties or many possibilities whereas narrow-minded characters will always suffer from the same fate in any form of life.”44

We must understand that practising a form of life and thereby following a rule implies to be flexible and to take a distance to that rule otherwise we will end up as a victim of that rule. In this context Wechsler criticises, for instance, a Dandy’s behaviour or an egocentric person’s conduct both of who need an admiring audience but at the same time despise their admirers because of a feeling of dependence. Wechsler explicitly warns us of the danger of getting in conflict with the established rules of society. One should avoid any type of discord and should learn to apply methods to protect one’s private sphere. Form of life is a useful skill that can help us to remain unharmed when we interact with others. However, this is not always an easy task because even the slightest emotional upset or secrecy has its manifestations in our appearance and can therefore be easily detected. Following his earlier statement that all forms are language we also communicate via non-verbal behaviour, gestures, movements and by our outward appearance. Once a conflict is made public or a scandal is unveiled we are confronted with serious problems that can destroy one’s life. Therefore, inner emotions should be kept secret and should not interfere with what the visible forms of life. He takes the example of jealousy and puts it like this: “Not being able to tolerate that she or he, with whom we are connected internally in the most intense moments, somehow get into the sphere of a different nature, is a fate that has nothing to do with the outward forms of life.”45 43

There is the youngster, the waiting woman, the boring Don Juan, the notorious liar, etc. all these figures belong to tragic comedy. Whereas flexible characters have a big repertoire of roles between which they can switch, the narrow character will end up in the same role in every form of life. 44 “Sehr reiche Naturen werden alle die Varietäten oder doch viele der Möglichkeiten in sich vereinigen, und enge Naturen werden allerdings in jeder Lebensform das gleiche Schicksal finden.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 279. 45 “Nicht ertragen können, dass Der oder Die, der man innerlich in den stärksten Momenten verbunden ist, irgendwie in die Sphäre einer anderen Natur gerät, ist ein Schicksal, das nichts mit den äusseren Lebensformen zu tun hat.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 287.

Forms of Life as Social Techniques

71

Conclusions One still wonders why A. Wechsler had actually written such an extensive volume on social techniques. What was the aim of this book? Why did he reveal all the implicit rules to a wide public? The reason lies probably in the historic situation around nineteen-hundred when the economic stability and security of the established political classes was about to get lost. Even if the facade of the monarchies in Austria and Germany seemed everlasting the higher classes began to worry that they would not be able to maintain their existing bourgeois-feudal form of life. There was this growing gap between increasing industrialization and politicized masses on the one hand and the rigid structure of the monarchy on the other hand.46 Perhaps Wechsler wrote this book out of concern that society was drifting apart, perhaps he saw a demand for social know-how among the newly emerging social classes. “We want to find a relation to all forms of life that makes our days richer. And thereby take care of our presence as it has come to be in the course of time.”47

Maybe these were his intentions when he wrote the book but in fact he has managed to fascinate his readers even a hundred years later. References Abbreviations to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work: - The Bergen Electronic Edition. Oxford University BEE Press, Oxford, 2000. - Das Blaue Buch . Schriften 5. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. BLB - The Big Typescript (TS 213), German-English Scholars’ BT-2005 Edition, Ed. C. Grant Luckhardt, M. A. E. Aue, Blackwell, 2005. - Manuscript …, according to the catalog from G.H. v. MS ... Wright. - Philosophische Bemerkungen (1964), Ed. Rush Rhees, PB WA, Vol. 2. 46

See: Stolleis, 1992, 454 f. “Wir wollen zusehen, zu allen Lebensformen jene Beziehung zu finden, die unsere Tage reicher macht. Und uns deshalb um die Wirklichkeit, unsere Gegenwart kümmern, wie sie durch die Bedingungen unserer Zeit geworden ist.” Fred (Wechsler), 1919, 59.

47

72

PG PhB PO PU

PI RPP-I RPP-II

ÜG W WA WL30/32 Z

Forms of Life and Language Games

- Philosophische Grammatik (1969), Ed. Rush Rhees, WA, Vol. 4. - Eine Philosophische Betrachtung. Schriften 5. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. - Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ed. J. C. Klagge, A. Nordmann, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, Cambridge, 21994. - Philosophische Untersuchungen (1953), Ed. G.E.M. Anscombe, G.H. von Wright, Rush Rhees, in: WA, Vol. 1, pp. 225-618. and: Philosophische Untersuchungen (2001). (Kritisch-genetische, Ed. J. Schulte), Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. - Philosophical Investigations (2009). (4th edition Ed. By P.M.S. Hacker and J. Schulte), Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford. - Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (1980). Volume I. (Ed. G. E. M. Anscombe, G. H. von Wright. Trad. G. E. M. Anscombe). Blackwell, Oxford. - Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (1980). Volume II. (Ed. G. H. von Wright, Heikki Nyman. Trad. C. G. Luckhardt, M. A. E. Aue). Blackwell, Oxford. - Über Gewißheit. (1994). Werkausgabe, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. - Werkausgabe (8 Vols.), Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M., 1984. - Wiener Ausgabe. (WA, 1 - WA, 5). (Ed. V. M. Nedo). Springer Verlag, Wien – New York, 1993-1996. - Wittgenstein’s Lectures. Cambridge, 1930-1932, Ed. D. Lee, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1980. - Zettel. Schriften 5. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M.

Adler, A., 2008: Der Sinn des Lebens. (1933). Cited from the edition: Alfred Adler Studienausgabe, Ed. K. H. Witte, Vandehoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen. Ammann, H., 1925/1928: Die menschliche Rede. Sprachphilosophische Einrichtungen. Teil I (1925) and Teil II (1928). Moritz Schauenburg, Lahr.

Forms of Life as Social Techniques

73

Fred, W. (Pseud. for Alfred Wechsler), 1905: Lebensformen. Anmerkungen über die Technik des gesellschaftlichen Lebens. Georg Müller, München. Garver, N., 1984: Die Lebensform in Wittgensteins Philosophischen Untersuchungen, Grazer Philosophische Studien, 21, 33-54. Garver, N., 1994: Naturalism and Transcendentaly: The Case of «Form of Life», in: Teghrarian, S. (ed.), Wittgenstein and Contemporary Philosophy, Bristol, Thoemmes Press, 41-69. Garver, N., 1995: Die Unbestimmtheit der Lebensform, Wittgenstein Studien, 2/95, Dateiname: 07-2-95.TXT. Garver, N., 1999: Die Unbestimmheit der Lebensform, in: Lütterfelds, Roser 1999, 37-52. Haller, R. 1979: Die gemeinsame menschliche Handlungsweise, Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 33, 521-533. Haller, R., 1984, “Lebensform oder Lebensformen” – Eine Bemerkung zu N. Garvers ‘Die Lebensform in Wittgensteins Philosophischen Untersuchungen’, Grazer Philosophische Studien, 21, 55-64. Haller, R., 1988: Questions on Wittgenstein, Routledge, London. Haller, R. 1999: Variationen und Bruchlinien einer Lebensform, in: Lütterfelds, Roser 1999, 53-71. Hofmannsthal, H. v., 1979: Lebensformen von W. Fred, in: Gesammelte Werke, Reden und Aufsätze (1891-1931), Fischer, Frankfurt a. M., 400. Kjellén, Rudolf, 1917: Der Staat als Lebensform. S. Hirzel, Leipzig. Lütterfelds, Wilhelm / Andreas Roser (ed.), 1999: Der Konflikt der Lebensformen in Wittgensteins Philosophie der Sprache, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. Mach, E., 1991: Die Analyse der Empfindungen und das Verhältnis des Physischen zum Psychischen. (1922), WB, Darmstadt. Mach, E., 1991: Erkenntnis und Irrtum. (1926), WB, Darmstadt. Padilla Gálvez, J., 2010: Form of Life as Arithmetical Experiment, in: Marques, Venturinha, 2010, 113-124. Padilla Gálvez, J., 2012: Digresiones acerca de las formas de vida, Pensamiento (In print).

74

Forms of Life and Language Games

Parsons, T., 1968: Sozialstruktur und Persönlichkeit. Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt a.M.. Schmitz, Oscar A. H., 1911: Brevier für Weltleute: Essays über Gesellschaft, Mode, Frauen, Reisen, Lebenskunst, Kunst, Philosophie. G. Müller, München. Spengler, O., 1918/1922: Der Untergang des Abendlandes. First Edition: two volums. First volume: Gestalt und Wirklichkeit. Braumüller, Wien, Leipzig, 1918; 3rd ed. Beck, München: Beck, 1919; Beck, München, 1923. Second volume: Welthistorische Perspektiven. Beck, München, 1922. Stolleis, M. 1992: Geschichte des öffentlichen Rechts in Deutschland. Zweiter Band 1800-1914. Beck, München. University of Castilla-La Mancha

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life Norberto ABREU E SILVA NETO “Language game” and “form of life” are two nuclear terms of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and contemporary thought. Among the many aspects and questions comprised in the study of this relation, my focus is directed upon the concept of forms of life: from its appearance as a scientific concept of Biology under the German name, Lebensform, and as “form of life” in its English version, to our days, including its use in Brazilian Portuguese. The meaning and use of this concept has changed through the centuries so that it acquired multiple meanings, and has been interpreted according to different theories and doctrines. It is mostly used as an explanatory or justification concept (in a Kantian perspective), and the scope it covers today is very wide. Therefore, I wrote this work aiming at presenting a panoramic view of these changes, and a description of the most general things we can say about the use of the concept Lebensform or form of life, and on the use Wittgenstein made of it. However, preliminarily, I want to say a few words about a specific difficulty I have to deal with. It refers to the translation of the German concept to Portuguese, my native language. The problem of cultural and linguistic distance that English and Spanish readers experience regarding the environment Wittgenstein lived in was discussed by Padilla Gálvez in his Wittgenstein I – Lecturas tractarianas.1 He remarks that Wittgenstein used many of these German terms with a “flattening naturalness”, as for example, ‘Sacherveralt’; terms which have behind them two hundred years of a ‘philosophical history’ of discussion in the scope of German speech, “even though in Castilian there is not a tradition that agrees with such a meaning”.2 Another example he gives is the term ‘Ding’, a word that has a clear German source and that is probably unheard by many Spanish speakers. So, he defends that we cannot understand the meaning of such terms without summarily 1 2

Padilla Gálvez, 2009. Padilla Gálvez, 2009, p. 13.

Forms of Life and Language Games, (Eds. Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ, Margit GAFFAL), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2011, 75-106.

76

Forms of Life and Language Games

reconstructing the origin and development of their meanings. And in a note, he argues that it is worthwhile in Analytical Philosophy “to reconstruct forgotten parts of the early significance one term had, because otherwise we would not understand adequately the remainders that appear in today’s language”.3 Another aspect remarked by Padilla Gálvez refers to Wittgenstein’s position in view of the changes that happened in German language during the first quarter of the twentieth-century, when many expressions of the former centuries had their meaning changed due to social and linguistic variations of a society in transformation. Considering that Wittgenstein asserted many times “he liked archaism”, and that his preferred readings moved from Goethe to Grillparzer or Nestroy, and also considering Wittgenstein’s own intellectual background, Padilla Gálvez points out that the terminology the philosopher used in his work “is closer to the original meaning than to the derivation generated in the passing of the long history of German language. By this reason, translations should be preceded of a serious outline of the term’s extent.”4 It is not necessary to stress the relevance of these remarks to the study of Wittgenstein’s work and Brazilian students should consider them seriously. Brazilian philosophers use both translations: “forma de vida” (form of life) and “forma-de-vida”, the latter probably coming from the American “life-form”. And, in the first translation of Philosophical Investigations into Brazilian Portuguese, of the five times the term Lebensform appears in this book, four of them are translated as “forma de vida” and one as “modo de vida”. In English, this last expression would better result as “manner”, “way”, or “mode”, but not “form”. The translation of Lebensform as it appears in Philosophical Investigations as “modo de vida” is inconsistent with the translation of other passages as “forma de vida”.5 1.

Lebensform

In a manner similar to the terms mentioned above by Padilla Gálvez, “Lebensform” is a two hundred year old term of the philosophical tradition of the German language. Biology established itself as a science in the 3

Padilla Gálvez, 2009, p. 48 and 49. Padilla Gálvez, 2009, p. 102. 5 Wittgenstein, PI, I § 241. 4

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

77

beginning of nineteenth-century, because of the development of a new image of the autonomy of the living, which became an object of a positive knowledge. In this context, associated with the rise of biology as a science in 1800, Lebensform was, for the first time, stated as a scientific concept. It appeared in the registers of natural history and evolutionary biology of German Romantic biologists, and in the middle of the nineteenth-century, it was translated into English as “life forms” or “life-form”. The term was later used in other scientific fields and at the present time, it appears in the social and epistemological practices of contemporary biosciences and in the vocabulary of many disciplines: biogeography, anthropology, psychology, history, engineering, computer science, theoretical biology, and also in science fiction. The term Lebensform appeared in 1800 in reference to idealized aesthetic possibilities and in a cultural context influenced by Goethe’s doctrines, by concepts of the Kantian intellectual heritage, and the ideas of the materialist vitalist doctrine. But the concept was mainly molded and is imbued with meanings, implications, and traces of Kantian philosophy. And, after its appearance, it was also influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution according to natural selection. Kant’s philosophy and Darwin’s theories give the basis upon which scientific researchers developed the two major perspectives that pertain to the use of the concept: theological and materialist. In a keyword account of the term “life form”, delivered by Helmreich and Roost,6 we can read that even in seventeenth-century England analogous terms to Lebensform were used as arguments over the nature of geological and biological change. They appeared in the work of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), Charles Darwin’s grandfather, that, in a book published in 1794 under the title Zoonomia, used phrases such as “organic form”, ‘animal form’, ‘living forms’, and ‘forms of life’ to enunciate “his theories of evolutionary transformation”. Helmreich and Roost assert that Erasmus Darwin used form “to refer to external changes shaped by internal forces and irritations”.7 They also report that the earliest published instances of ‘life form” they have found appeared in 1844. These authors mention an article where the expression was used not in the context of biology, but to refer to studies of animal magnetism, and they also point out Robert Chambers’ book, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, 6 7

Helmreich and Roost, 2010. Helmreich and Roost, 2010, p. 45.

78

Forms of Life and Language Games

where “forms of life” is used “to speak of the diversity of biological matter”.8 Consequently, after the appearance of these two publications, during the second half of the nineteenth-century this term became common in English appearing as both “life form” or hyphenated as “life-form”. And, Helmreich and Roost stress that in all those uses of life form the expression was “almost always embedded in an account of descent with modification” and that the dominant frame of reference was Charles Darwin (1809-1882) theory of evolution through natural selection.9 But, let us go back to the German language context. Neither Goethe (1749-1832) nor Kant (1724-1804) used the expression Lebensform but their doctrines and ideas should be considered as theoretical foundations (philosophy and method of investigation) for the authors that used and defined this concept in 1800. Goethe gave rise to a line of thinking whose method of investigation (comparative morphology) was reproduced by many, among others Wittgenstein. In Goethe’s epoch science was dominated by a mechanical empiricism and the idea that the result of its effectiveness would bring “happiness” to all. Goethean studies and the method of comparative morphology represented a counteraction against this rationality. In his Encyclopedia, Hegel10 presented extensively and discussed Goethe’s Metamorphosis of the Plants. For Hegel, this book constitutes the beginning of rational thought on the nature of plants that was concerned with the knowledge of the “unity of life”. He also presents Goethe’s central idea very clearly: he says Goethe’s interest was to prove “that all the forms remain only external transformations of one and a fundamental essence, not only in idea but also in existence; because of this each member can easily to change into another”.11 According to Filomena Molder,12 Goethe’s doctrine recovered ways of thinking that science was eliminating or forcing into extinction at that time: the way of thinking that seeks to find the morphological a priori and the admission of a principle of entelechy. To F. Molder, this search is a consequence of all biological investigations of a morphological order; they require the examination of metaphysical themes, which means the 8

Helmreich and Roost, 2010, p. 35. Helmreich and Roost, 2010, p. 35. 10 Hegel, 1997. 11 Hegel, 1997, p. 398 and 403. 12 Molder 1993, p. 9ff. 9

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

79

examination of “questions relative to form, formation, visibility and invisibility of form, to the growing, birth and death of the forms”.13 Goethe’s method of comparative morphology was brought into opposition with the inappropriate application of the methods of natural science to the study of history and to philosophical problems. As described by Haller,14 his method was led by the idea of a ‘Gestalt lore’ or ‘Gestalt analysis of history’ and the manner of approach for revealing what was behind the appearance was “sympathy, contemplation, analogy, direct inner certainty, precise visual fantasy”.15 And, the task for researchers using the procedure for comparative research was “to determine the archetypal forms taken by the passage of history, and to derive from them – per analogiam – statements that … foretell the direction to be taken by the development of history”.16 Goethe’s method served as an inspiring source for natural scientists of nineteenth-century German Romanticism, and, his doctrines were inspired and elaborated in dialogue with Kant’s work, particularly his notion of form and the theories developed in the Critique of Judgment (1790). Goethe wrote about Kant’s influence on his work, especially the one brought about by the Critique of Judgment. He declares that he owes to this text one of the happiest periods of his life, and states that in it he could see his most diverse business put side by side, the productions of Art and of Nature treated as equals, “aesthetic judgment and teleological judgment illuminating each other alternately”.17 In his Critique of Judgment, Kant presents a new model for understanding nature.18 The new image of nature results from his preoccupation with clearly defining the relation between specific and universal. In order to apprehend the particularity of the particular and present a phenomenal representation of nature, Kant makes use of the notions of purposiveness (Zweckmässigkeit), reflexive judgment, aesthetic judgment, and teleological judgment. The notion of purposiveness exerted strong influence upon Goethe’s ideas, especially his notion of morphology. Kant opens the possibility of finding the universal in the single form by 13

Molder 1993, p. 11. Haller, 1988. 15 Haller, 1988, p. 79. 16 Haller, 1988, p. 79. 17 Goethe, 1993, p. 66. 18 Kant, 2010. 14

80

Forms of Life and Language Games

means of the aesthetic experience; a possibility that allows Goethe to conceive science as an aesthetic experience or as a way of experiencing the beautiful. Goethe describes his relation to Kant’s Critique of Judgment: “Even when my way of representation could not always be submitted to the author, when in one step or another it seemed to me something was missing, the great central thoughts of the work were, however, completely analogous to my own creating, acting and thinking: the inner life of art, like that of nature, its mutual action from inside to outside, was clearly expressed in the book. The productions of these two infinite worlds should exist autonomously and one thing that was beside another was absolutely disposed to the other, but not intentionally as if one thing because of the other.”19

Goethe’s method demanded the use of disciplined perception; which was, at the same time, directed to the discovery of supposed existing laws behind the pure forms, the laws of the original or primeval forms (Urformen). German Romantic biologists were moved by Goethe’s demand and defended that, in nature, there existed archetypical aesthetic patterns that served as principles for the deduction of plant and animal forms, and their concern was with the conceptual extraction of forms of life, having Kant’s conception of form as a guide. In the 1770 Dissertation, Kant asserts that “form” consists of the coordination of substances and not of their subordination. Nicola Abbagnano defends that Kant never altered the use he made of the word form that, to the philosopher of Königsberg, always had the meaning of relation or whole or assembly of relations that means order.20 The concept of Lebensform was molded and is imbued with meanings, implications, and traces of Kantian philosophy. It is not possible in this space to get deeper into Kant’s philosophy. The presence of his intellectual heritage should be made clearly precise: his positions and the role his doctrines played in this cultural and scientific context. Hence, from my reconstruction of this context I would like to focus on a particular aspect: Kant’s concern with the cosmological problematic and the elaboration of a cosmological system, which represents an important aspect of his legacy. His interest in and desire to build a cosmological system first appeared in the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens 19 20

Goethe, 1993, p. 66. Abbagnano, 2000.

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

81

(1755), where he applies Newton’s mechanic principles to cosmology, and later his interest appeared in his Dissertation of 1770, but, the highest point of his enterprise is reached in the Critique of Judgment, where the cosmological motive has its resurgence by means of the ideas of system, nature organism, aesthetic judgment, and teleological judgment. Through the development of his cosmology, Kant elaborates the concept of “world”, and by means of publishing these works, he participates in the birth of cosmology as a science. It is worthwhile to note, as reported by Gerard Lébrun, that in the seventeenth-century, the birth of cosmology as a science, far from being a retrograde and obscurantist idea, it (cosmology) was supposed to be “a war machine against metaphysics”.21 2.

Cosmological Meaning

After these brief considerations, I would like to introduce the first official definition of Lebensform that appeared in 1838 in Deutsches Wörterbuch of Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm. It seems to me that the Kantian intellectual heritage is present in this definition or that the idea it conveys could be seen as a figure of Kant’s cosmology. Brothers Grimm defined Lebensform as: “…the physical properties of heavenly bodies and the life forms possible upon them.”22 I use here the transcription and the translation of the definition from German to English made by Helmreich and Roost.23 3.

Weltkörper

My attention was caught by the term “Weltkörper” and considering the mentioned problem of cultural and linguistic distance I have as a native of Brazilian Portuguese language, how could I translate this definition and, particularly, the word “Weltkörper” into my language? The English translation by Helmreich and Roosth, “heavenly bodies” could not help, because in Portuguese I would have “corpos celestiais”, an expression that today would sound very strange in this context. 21

Lébrun, 1993/2010, p. 66. “…die physische Beschaffenheit der Weltkörper und die auf denselben möglichen Lebensformen.” Helmreich and Roost, 2010, p. 31. 23 Helmreich and Roost, 2010, p. 31. 22

82

Forms of Life and Language Games

According to the same Grimm’s Dictionary, Weltkörper was a current expression since the seventeenth-century and used as a technical term of Astronomy. And, from another perspective, through the transcription of a series of passages from the Theory of Heavens, Rudolf Eisler clarifies the use of this term in Kantian lexicon. It means the matter, the primal matter of all things created by God and equipped with power and divine laws. He transcribes from Kant’s Theory of Heavens: “I find matter connected to certain necessary laws. In all its decomposition and scattering I see to self-develop naturally out of these laws a beautiful and ordered whole. This whole does not produce itself by chance and in a contingent way, but it is remarkable that their natural properties produce it by necessity.”24

This matter continues Eisler’s description, once given over freely to these laws and according to convenient mechanical principles, should necessarily produce beautiful combinations, and in this way it can also make emerge the order of the systems in nature. Eisler also explains the use of the concept of “World” (Welt). In Kant’s Metaphysics (Theory of Heavens) the world has its fundament in God, and depends upon Him.25 It is the highest representation of all phenomena, and in transcendental meaning world is “the absolute wholeness of the existing things essence”. And this metaphysics considered possible that “God has created many billions of worlds”. And the condition for the existence of many worlds is given or supposed by means of condition of the possibility of many types of spaces. Eisler transcribes from Theory of Heavens: “…the universe as an object of the senses is a system of forces of a matter that operates mutually in the external objective in the space through movement, and in the internal subjective by means of the feeling of the substances by consciousness, that means, as an object of perception.”26

In my view, in this passage we can touch the rationality of the concept Lebensform. The senses have the universe as an object of perception. The system of forces of the same matter operates in both sides: the external objective and the internal subjective. Matter operates through movement in space (the case for external objective) and by means of the feeling of the substances by consciousness. I understand this mutual 24

Eisler, 1930. Eisler, 1930. 26 Eisler, 1930. 25

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

83

operation as expressing the rationality of the concept and what the researchers of Lebensformen should reveal. If I rightly understood Eisler’s interpretations and explanations, matter (Weltkörper) could mean both at that time: a particular physical substance or the physical universe as a whole. “Weltkörper” expresses Kant’s idea of a totality that produces its parts specifying itself in these parts; specifying itself in forms of life. The physical properties of matter produce in space (the external objective) the forms of life that are apprehended by consciousness in the internal subjective. The objective of the scientist is to achieve the discrimination of form, which is an aesthetical task. So the concept of forms of life appeared as an explanation or an instrument for the explanation of the origin of the universe and the changes in the world. One kind of explanation asserts that the underlying forms of life are internal principles to be made visible by the scientist. And the device for obtaining this visibility was Goethe’s Morphology. That means that the apprehended form would be shaped by inner life forces or inner principles or archetypes. Another kind of explanation emphasizes the relation of an organism with its environment and defends a conception of the environmental form. And a third kind of explanation is based upon Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection: the “force” of natural selection would be the true sculptor of form. Scientific researchers that used the concept of “forms of life” based upon one of these three meanings or explanations are listed below: Karl Eberhard Schelling (1783-1854), a physician and a proponent of theories of animal magnetism, used Lebensform in a book he published in 1806 based upon his thesis under the title: Über das Leben und seine Erscheinungen (On Life and its Manifestations). He refers to the “life form of a heavenly body”.27 Karl Friedrich Burdach (1776-1847), German physiologist that in works of the period 1826-1840 framed Lebensform differently from Grimm but in the same spirit when in 1838 he wrote: “The occurrence of

27

“die Lebensform einem Weltkörper”. Helmreich and Roosth, 2010, p. 46.

84

Forms of Life and Language Games

new life forms is therefore not external, but it is determined by inner life forces and grounded in life itself”.28 Johannes Müller (1802-1858), physiologist and anatomist, used Lebensform in the title of a book he published in 1840: Schlussbemerkungen über die Entwicklungs variationen der tierischen und menschlischen Lebensformen auf der Erde [Concluding Remarks on the Variations of Development in Animal and Human Life Forms on Earth]. As described by Helmreich and Roosth, Müller’s conception of Lebensform was characterized by a double conviction: that “biological systems behaved mechanically and could be subjected to analytic tools developed in chemistry and physics”, and the conviction that teleological principles might be applied effectively where mechanistic accounts fail. So, they conclude that “within this Kantian formulation, Lebensform was something that informed itself”.29 Theodor Bischoff (1807-1882), anatomist used Lebensform in an 1836 article in which, concerning the structure of crocodile hearts, he explains the blood formation in that class of amphibians by pointing out the existence of a direct relation of those amphibian forms of blood circulation to their whole form of life, which happens in various environments: air and earth. In the definition of Bischoff, Helmreich and Roosth state that, Lebensform does double duty: it refers to amphibianess as a general category, but it also points toward the relation of an organism to its environment.30 Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) used Lebensform in 1830 in his Psychologie Vorlesungen. He made a psychological use of the concept to explain differences of values among individuals; to present the character formation of the individual in its relation to society. He uses Lebensform as synonym of Lebenstypus and sees the single individual as the author of a new Lebenstypus.31 Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1836) used Lebensform having it as synonymous with custom, habit. In this sense he voiced: “Yet the common parlance includes (admittedly in one life form less than another) the whole 28

“Das Erscheinen neuer Lebensformen ist demnach kein äusserliches Hinzutreten, sondern von innen her bestimmt und im Leben selbst begründet.” Helmreich and Roosth, 2010, p. 31. 29 Helmreich and Roosth, 2010, p. 32. 30 Helmreich and Roosth, 2010. 31 See: G. Mittelstädt, Historichen Wörterbuch der Philosophie.

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

85

population, and what has influenced one part, will be acquired collaterally by all”.32 In his book On Language: on the diversity of human language construction and its influence on the mental development of the human species, Humboldt defends his belief in a mental power (Geisteskraft) responsible for language and the diversity of languages and also for culture and the diversity of cultures.33 Following this belief we could think forms of life as having a psychological origin. On the other hand, his brother, Alexander von Humboldt (17691859) generalized this notion of Lebensform as custom or habit to the organic world. In Alexander’s conception, physical surroundings (nature of the climate and soil we inhabit) exert influences upon human beings and other animals in a fashion similar to plants. To him, it is the modifications caused by these physical forces alone “that distinguish the first inhabitants of Greece from shepherd Bedouins, and from Canadian Indians”. He also used the term Lebensform referring to the non-human world in an article he published in 1845 about “the microscopic life-forms of the Antarctic seas”.34 Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), biologist, student of Johannes Müller, tried to unify ideas and doctrines of Goethe, Darwin, the discoveries on the nature of electric force of Hertz, the developments of the sciences in nineteenth-century, and the theories of the Animal Magnetism, in a very complex religious materialist scientific theory he created: the Monism. Under the light of this theory he used Lebensform. He assimilated the meaning of costume or culture Wilhelm von Humboldt gave to Lebensform and used it in a broad biological sense. From Goethe’s aesthetic he retained the idea of the archetypes, and from the Darwinians the notion of natural selection, which he considered the most important sculptor of form. 4.

Life form

According to Helmreich and Roosth, in 1899 life-form enters English from the German Lebensform and is used in the Oxford English Dictionary referring to “groups of similar adaptational form [that] by no means coincide with natural families or groups of species”.35 These authors 32

apud Helmreich & Roosth, 2010, p. 33. Humboldt, 1999. 34 apud Helmreich & Roosth, 2010, p. 33 and 34. 35 Helmreich & Roosth, 2010, pp. 30-31. 33

86

Forms of Life and Language Games

speculate about how Lebensform make it into English as life-form or life form, and they suggest the possibility that the Swiss zoologist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) may have imported Lebensform as life-form to the United States or at least popularized it there. In its second appearance in this Dictionary the following is provided for life-form: 1. Biol. A habit or vegetative form exhibited by any particular plant or which characterizes a group of plants. And 2. A living creature; any kind of living thing. Compared to Grimm’s definition. Two meanings: biological and general. Apparently there is no hidden cosmological meaning in these concepts. No divine intention. Plants exhibit vegetative forms. Groups of plants exhibit vegetative forms that are characteristic of them as a group. What to understand by the expression: “a living creature”? A living creature is a kind of living thing. And what is a living thing? Helmreich and Roosth point out that the accent is on “any”. As mentioned above, in England, the dominant frame of reference in biology was Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection. Darwin uses forms of life in his book, On the Origin of Species (1859). For him, forms of life are not expressive of an abstract archetype that emerges from an internal teleological force. According to Helmreich and Roosth, Darwin argued that a process of descent with modifications could be inferred as the force giving form to organisms – form that was transmitted down generations. And that form in his vision “refers to particular arrangements and shapes of living things”. To Darwin, forms of life are species, that means, the “form” (of life) is apprehended as materialized in species (lasting species, but changeable genealogical kinds)”.36 Ernst Mayr, a Darwinian biologist of the present time, pointed out that prior to Darwin’s theories the ideology of teleological thought was dominant and had a deep influence on biology.37 Mayr also remarks that before Darwin there existed three ways of seeing the world: (1) the view of Christian orthodox dogma that we live in a recently created and constant world; (2) the vision of Democritus and of the Enlightenment that we live in an eternal world that does not exhibit a direction or aim, and a world in which all that exists is due to hazard or by need. The adherents of this 36 37

Helmreich & Roosth, 2010, p. 38. Mayr, 2005.

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

87

vision explain everything in terms of movements and forces and refuse to validate any use of teleological language; and (3) the teleological belief that the world is eternal or lasts long; the followers of this vision believe in the development of an ever increasing perfection in the world by the exercise of God’s laws. They defend the opinion that nature has an intrinsic tendency to progress to a final goal; they believe in a cosmic teleology. According to Mayr, Darwin was an adherent of teleology in the beginning of his career: he shared “the common view derived from Aristotle and confirmed emphatically by Kant that apparently purposive processes truly oriented by aims occur only in the living world”.38 However, after having adopted the doctrine of natural selection, he abandoned the teleological perspective. He questioned and refuted the finalist interpretation of evolution of nature as a whole. Mayr reports in his book that in a personal encounter with the philosopher Quine, this logician declared to him he was of the opinion that “Darwin’s biggest philosophical achievement consisted in having refuted Aristotle final cause”.39 And, Mayr also explains that in 1860 “Darwinism” was used to name those who rejected a supernatural origin of the world and its changes. In my research, I have found that there are two interpretations of Darwin’s principle of natural selection. One interpretation is in accordance with the teleological world vision and aims at the revelation and accomplishment of perfection created by God in life and nature. In fact, this interpretation contradicts Darwin’s doctrines. The second interpretation is based on the perspective of the Darwinian practitioners of Evolutionist Biology, doctrine that rejects a supernatural origin to the world and its changes; these researchers defend determinism and are against finalism. For them, teleological processes and phenomena should be treated in its strict materiality and explained in terms of natural causes. Wittgenstein’s student Maurice Drury presented a synthesis of today Evolutionist biology.40 After declaring his complete admiration for Charles Darwin, he asserts that on the basis of Darwin’s and Mendel’s work has grown up the mutation selection theory of evolution: “The theory that the development of all the multitude of living forms both in the vegetable and animal world can be explained in terms of genetic 38

Mayr, 2005, p. 160. Mayr, 2005, p. 106. 40 Drury, 1973. 39

88

Forms of Life and Language Games mutation and the survival of the fittest. New forms arise by mutation and 41 survive by natural selection.”

In The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, Darwin made very clear his materialist explanations, when he compared his positions regarding the expression of emotions to those defended by the physiognomist Sir Charles Bell (1774-1842), a pioneer in the study of this field.42 Darwin made use of Bell’s descriptions of expressions and praised his observations. But, Bell, thinking according to theological structures, defended that there were muscles in the human face designed by God for the display of specifically human emotions. Darwin did not accept this explanation and differed from Charles Bell on the origin of facial expressions. Darwin’s confessed purpose through the study of the expression of emotions was to justify by a fullness of observations that humans are not a separate, divinely created, species. And this aspect was fundamental for his materialist evolutionary theory on the continuity of the species. In his book on philosophy of biology, Mayr offers rules for the discussion about teleology in materialistic terms. He distinguishes five different processes or phenomena in which the word “teleology” has been used, and argues that these phenomena can be described from a materialist point of view and explained in terms of natural causes or by scientific laws: teleomatic processes; teleonomic processes; purposeful behavior in thinking organisms; adaptive characteristics. The only one that cannot be described this way is ‘cosmic teleology’.43 5.

Twentieth-Century

The meaning of forms of life was built in the twentieth-century according to two major directions: (1) forms of life can be apprehended as materialized in species and according to Darwin’s method; (2) forms of life can be classified into types that occupies spaces of physical, metabolic, or ecological possibility. For some researchers, Darwin’s doctrines are considered insufficient and a variety of attempts have been made to expand biological theory and explain living forms pointing to explanations situated in the more universal 41

Drury, 1973, 101. Darwin, 1999. 43 Mayr, 2005, pp. 55-82. 42

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

89

territories of physics, chemistry and mathematics.44 These attempts are developed under the general name of “theoretical biology”: a discipline in which researchers accept the experimental tradition of biology, but also want to epistemologically extend the concept of life forms, especially of form. Their references are not with Darwin’s concepts of: natural selection, the struggle for survival, competition, bio-population, adaptation, reproductive success, female’s choice and male dominance, but those of physics, chemistry and mathematics. They want to extend the concept of life form into the realm of the conjectural. So, Helmreich and Roosth observe that these researchers of theoretical biology “generalized the concept of life form to include purely theoretical and fictional instances”.45 Attention is withdrawn from Darwinian concepts and the focus is put upon the manifestation of organic bodies related to the world physics, in their possibilities of embodiment in space. As described by Helmreich and Roost, “in this moment, life form lost its anchor in living matter and living form is interpreted as an instantiation of form more generally”, that means the emphasis is put upon form. And they continue explaining that in theoretical biology form became a formalism that describes “the mechanisms by which biological structure is generated, often conceived, after the rise of genetic code as purely informatics. As such form comes to be only conceptually useful as far as it is predictive”.46 As a whole, under the premise that life is self-organized form, theoretical biologists of different lines of research try to provide a universal account of life. They seek to reveal an underlying unity that would be present in the diversity and beauty of forms that life is capable of producing. All of these theoreticians, say Helmreich and Roosth, speculate “whether biological theories of form can be grounded in a more universal less contingent process – and whether biology might thereby to become a more universal science”.47 And the apotheosis of such universalistic approach can be found in the computer-simulation driven field of Artificial Life, whose founder, Chris Langton, claimed that the interest of researching artificial life occur as “the attempt to abstract logical form of life in different materials”.48 This idea opens the possibility that life 44

Helmreich and Roosth, 2010, p. 39. Helmreich and Roosth, 2010, p. 39. 46 Helmreich and Roosth, 2010, p. 40. 47 Helmreich and Roosth, 2010, p. 41. 48 Helmreich and Roosth, 2010, p. 41. 45

90

Forms of Life and Language Games

becomes manifest in any material, in any place, which includes cyberspace, and of course, in any part of the universe. Langton is described by Helmreich and Roosth as leaders of the shift in twentieth-century biology toward attempts to create a grand theoretical framework for itself – by analogy to physics that is supposed to be true for the whole universe –; a biological theory that could be true anywhere in the universe. In the universalistic context, the concept of life forms can be and in fact is extended to the unknown, which is made by astro-biologists. Having this hypothesis in mind, these investigators search to find unknown life forms wherever they would be in the universe. This characteristic of broad meaning, given to the concept of life forms, makes it a source for sciencefiction writers. In twentieth-century science-fiction “form of life” became a cliché, a stereotype. In tales and films, the characters’ mission is to explore new and strange worlds and to search for new forms of life and new civilizations. What to think of this search for universals? Putting things very clearly about this subject-matter, Mayr argues that there is an impossibility of reducing biological phenomena to universal laws of physics and chemistry, because the historical aspects of these phenomena are entirely out of the scope of physic-chemical reductionism.49 And he also regrets that some authors, even in recent literature, try to endow evolution with a teleological ability. 6.

Life form and History

In 1919, Huizinga described the medieval epoch using as a research method the investigation of life forms and the literary expression of feelings. The use made by Huizinga represents an instance of the wide range the concept can attain. The very title of the book it is telling: The Waning of Middle Ages: a Study of the Forms of Life, Thought, and Art in France and the Netherlands in the 14th and 15th Centuries. So, form of life is applied to a whole epoch (medieval form of life): two centuries in a wide geographical and cultural space, and all aspects of this period of Middle Ages life are described as life forms. Huizinga situates a life form in a specific time and space. He uses form of life as a basic concept for analyzing a society and a culture. He describes forms of life and thought and uses them as evidence of the spirit of one epoch, as evidence of what 49

Mayr, 2005.

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

91

he wishes to apprehend of a society or culture. Huizinga presents the medieval vision of Lebensform: “Everything that conquered a steady place in life, that changes itself into one of the life forms, acquires a value as if it was by God’s command, from the most common uses and practices or habits to the most elevated things at the universal plan.”50

This declaration can be read as a complement of Kant’s passage from Theory of Heavens above transcribed: “The universe, as an object of the senses, is a system of forces of a matter that operates mutually in the external objective in space through movement, and in the internal subjective by means of the feeling of the substances by consciousness, that means, as an object of perception.”51

To the universal plane belong elevated things and trivial practices or habits. Like matter that, as an object of perception, is perceived or felt as Lebensform, these habits are also perceived as forms of life, because they conquered a steady place in life and acquired a value by God’s command. Everything can conquer this condition and change itself into one of the life forms. It is not possible to reproduce in this paper all the expressions Huizinga composed with “forms of life”. He talks about: medieval forms of life, an expression that comprises a large historical period; bourgeois and nobility forms of life, an expression applied to social classes; true and false forms of life; ideal forms of life are identical to false forms of life. He mentions the search for ideal (or false) forms of life in all areas of life. The three most important life forms of the final Middle Ages are religious, knightly, and courteous love. He speaks about dreamed forms of life and about knightly forms of life. Regarding religious emotions, he divides them in two forms of life: those of the spasmodic expression and those of introspection. Commenting the work of Huizinga, Le Goff states that in the forms of life are hidden:52 infra-structures, meaning by this word the economic aspect; and the belonging of representations to infrastructures; the deep psyche of a society and the intra-biological sensibility of an epoch.

50

Huizinga, 2010, p. 375. Huizinga, 2010, p. 375. 52 Le Goff, 2010, p. 593. 51

92

7.

Forms of Life and Language Games

Wittgenstein’s use of Lebensform

The expression Lebensform was in the air in the first half of the twentiethcentury either in German language space or as “form of life” in English. Wittgenstein made it an important concept of his philosophy so that Haller could point out “forms of life” as a key-term in his thought.53 From whom could Wittgenstein have picked up the expression? Three possible sources were suggested: Eduard Spranger’s book, Lebensformen,54 Oswald Spengler’s work,55 and W. Fred’s book under the same title, Lebensformen.56 Spranger’s book deals with psychology and was published in 1914. His psychology is settled upon an a priori characteristic that there exist basic spiritual types of individuality, and that these structural aspects of spiritual phenomena could be best expressed by the concept of Lebensform. Following these ideas, Spranger made efforts to describe six “forms of life” corresponding to these ideal types of individuality: theoretic, economic, aesthetic, social, religious, and the ambition to power. Thus being, it is possible that the title of Spranger’s book called Wittgenstein’s attention, but I am sure he would never use Lebensform to build any kind of conceptual system or theory. The influence of Oswald Spengler on Wittgenstein is well known and needs a special chapter in order to be developed, and this task goes beyond the objective of this work. The same is valid regarding the relation Goethe, Kant and Wittgenstein. Haller discussed the possible sources from where Wittgenstein could have acquired the concept and mentioned the name of W. Fred, pseudonym of Alfred Wechsler, an author that published, in 1911, a work under the title, Lebensformen: a collection of articles concerning alternative values and whose range of topics included society and sociability, fashion, love and society, sports and games, the art of cuisine and the art of travelling.57

53

Haller, 1988. Janik &Toulmin, 1973. 55 Baker & Hacker, 1980, p. 47. 56 Haller, 1988. 57 Haller, 1988. 54

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

8.

93

The Common Behavior of Mankind

The philosophical problems concerning the relation “language games and forms of life” were extensively analyzed by Haller.58 He defends that in order to evaluate the philosophical relevance of the concept of “forms of life” in Wittgenstein’s philosophy we must take, as a point of departure, his basic concept of “the common behavior of mankind” and its relation to the fundamental leitmotiv of his philosophy: the investigation of the relation between language and reality, relation that emerges continually having the “common behavior of mankind” as ground. Haller calls our attention to a connection that cannot be overlooked: the fact that our statements or sentences have two aspects: they should be true or false, grounded and justified on presuppositions; and that these presuppositions also need grounding and justification. In both aspects of our utterances there are problems: those concerning the presuppositions of utterances which are capable of being true or false, and the problems of their grounding and justification, and these problems are closely connected. But, Haller explains that the grounding of a statement implies more than logical relations, and that “not only finite sets of premises belong to epistemic justification”. Some other conditions that play a significant role in Wittgenstein’s philosophy exist. In a broader sense, says Haller, “presuppositions, grounds, and justifications are themselves conditioned by the facts of nature and history”.59 Haller exposes the reasons why Wittgenstein could have regarded “the common behavior of mankind” as the praxeological foundation of all language games; as the worldview-transcending ground on the basis of which we distinguish forms of life and worldviews. He clarifies that what is to be understood as subsumed under “common behavior of mankind” might be called the nature of human existence, the human being as a social being. And he concludes: “Against the background of the common behavior of mankind, we interpret foreign unknown languages, and draw the boundary between language and the non-human ‘language’ of bees and lions”.60 There is no doubt that Wittgenstein uses the expression Lebensform differently, that means, not as an explanatory concept like the majority of 58

Haller, 1988. Haller, 1988, p. 114. 60 Haller, 1988, p. 129. 59

94

Forms of Life and Language Games

researchers above mentioned. Lebensform has, to him, the importance of a methodological device; it is a tool of his comparative morphology that operates as a praxeological foundation for the understanding of linguistic actions. And, the expression “praxeological foundation” can easily be understood as practices that constitute a form of life: social practices and body techniques; economic, social, cultural, politics, bodily etc. – practices in which a form of life develops itself. However, the concept of Lebensform was not defined by Wittgenstein. What we have are a few occurrences of the expression in its respective context and a task of making explicit aspects of the concept. 9.

Imagine

The first occurrence of the expression Lebensform in Philosophical Investigations, says: “To imagine a language means to imagine a form of life”.61 This sentence was commented by Haller and in order for us to have a good understanding of it, he reminds us that the term language games has four different meanings to Wittgenstein: (1) primitive languages and models of language; (2) speech acts like naming, asking, describing and commanding; (3) activities like play-acting, singing a roundelay and gossiping; (4) the whole language: ‘language and actions into which it is woven”.62 And from his analysis, Haller concludes that there are many languages and also many forms of life, not only one. Haller understands forms of life as “other societies (real or imagined) and other human behaviours”.63 This passage of Philosophical Investigations was analyzed by J. Padilla Gálvez64 and he calls our attention to the fact that to imagine is a mental activity based upon experiences, memory and will. He warns about the consequences such a subjective approach would bring to the investigations, and makes clear that for defining form of life Wittgenstein has no mental states in view but in his work this definition is related to the verb and the activity it denotes and not to the noun.65 And, contrary to the common view among researchers that form of life could be understood as 61

“Eine Sprache vorstellen, heisst sich eine Lebensform vorstellen.” Wittgenstein, PI, I §19. 62 Haller, 1988, p. 117. 63 Haller, 1988, p. 134. 64 Padilla Gálvez, 2010, pp. 113ff. 65 Padilla Gálvez, 2010, pp. 113-114.

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

95

dependent on context, culture and history, Padilla Gálvez will indicate a basis on which we can study the objective structures of form of life: the system of numbers. We will come later to this point. Glock remarked that, in Blue Book, Wittgenstein equated imagining a language with imagining a ‘culture’: “Accordingly, a form of life is a culture or social formation the totality of communal activities into which language-games are embedded”.66 In Culture and Value, we can note Wittgenstein asserting that “Culture is an observance. Or at least it presupposes an observance”.67 And observance means the practice of complying with a law or a custom, the following of rules. If to represent a language means to represent a form of life and if to represent a language is equal to the representation of a culture, someone could imagine language games, life forms, and culture as being identical. But this not the case: form of life is a whole that has parts; one of these parts is human activity, and speaking a language is another part. We should not suppose a relation of identity between language, forms of life and culture. A part of a whole is not identical to the whole. Linguistic actions happen in the context of a form of life. Activities include linguistic activities. Eating, walking, bathing, and other body techniques are also parts of a life form. The form of life offers a whole Gestalt where to consider a particular. So, in Philosophical Investigations we read: “The word must be here emphasize that the speaking of a language is part of one activity, or part of a form of life”.68 And if Wittgenstein characterized culture as observance he also described it as being “like a big organization which assigns its members a place where he can work in the spirit of the whole”,69 and declared in the Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, that: “to a language game belongs an entire culture”.70 The expression Lebensform also appears in the notes Wittgenstein dictated in classes on cause and effect that were published by Rush Rhees. Talking about the game of “looking for the cause”, he asserts: 66

Glock, 1996, p. 125. “Kultur ist eine Ordensregel. Oder setzt doch eine Ordensregel voraus.” Wittgenstein, 1980. 68 “Das Wort soll hier hervorheben dass das Sprechen der Sprache ein Teil ist einer Tätigkeit, oder eine Lebensform” Wittgenstein, PI, I § 23. 69 Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 1980, p. 6e. 70 Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, 1967, p. 129. 67

96

Forms of Life and Language Games “It is characteristic of our language that the foundations on which it grows consist in steady forms of life, regular activity. Its function is determined above all by the action which it accompanies. We have an idea of which forms of life are primitive, and which could only have developed out of these. We believe that the simplest plough existed before the complicated one.”71

In commenting this text, Haller states that he finds it very striking to read that “the forms of life can be understood by looking at two features, one given by the concept of a pure action, and the other by the concept of its regularity”, and he also feels very impressed by the consequences that bring the idea of a “gradation of the concept of form of life”; the idea of a pyramid of forms of life that could be developed out of the basis provided by a primitive form, or the prototype.72 To my view, this is one of the most important questions regarding the use of the concept as a methodological tool in philosophy, as did Wittgenstein. In supplement to Haller’s warning about the direction this text could give for the use of the concept, we can add some words about the use of the word “function”. The expression “steady forms of life” means that they are firm in position or place; fixed, and in the passage the “function” of forms of life is determined by action … The problem consists of the fact that “function” is basically a teleological concept, especially when applied to evolutionary process, as indicated by Mayr.73 To say an activity like language has a function implies to affirm the existence of an end or finality ascribed to it. In this case, we would not suppose ends or finalities determined by divine powers, but we can say the concept of function is part of a teleological way of thinking proper to the construction of conceptual pyramids. And we know Wittgenstein was not for this sort of constructions in philosophy. 10.

Agreement

By means of the concept of Lebensform, Wittgenstein presents a different foundation for language from that provided in the Tractatus. In the place of metaphysical atoms, the foundation of language is then settled on the forms of life, “by shifting patterns of communal activity”.74 What makes sense to 71

Wittgenstein, 1997, p. 381. Haller, 1988, pp. 118-119. 73 Mayr, 2005, p. 82. 74 Glock, 1996, p. 125. 72

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

97

say is not defined anymore by pure logic or logical possibilities but by community agreement. And Padilla Gálvez clarifies that agreements are achieved not because people may have concurring standpoints but when they have resembling forms of life.75 Wittgenstein, he asserts, tried to find in “form of life” an objective basis or unbiased foundation on which mutual agreement could be established. As mentioned above, Haller posits that the origin of the expression Lebensform in Wittgenstein’s vocabulary could have as source the book published by W. Fred, in 1911.76 Haller also suggests that it would not be so far-fetched to find in this book the source from which Wittgenstein developed his idea that men’s language agreement is with forms of life and not in opinions. And, in order to reinforce his suggestion, he put together a passage from the review Hugo von Hofmannsthal published on the book of W. Fred, Lebensformen, in the same year of 1911 and paragraph 241 of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. From Hugo von Hofmannsthal we read: “No one wants to give much weight to forms, and yet everything we do adheres to and depends upon forms. Through forms, the multifarious hangs together fairly well, and presents itself as a whole. Forms are here forms of life (Lebensformen), old and yet new; they proceed in stops and starts, yet express the essential about relations, and say without words what no one would agree if said with words and concepts.”77

And in Philosophical Investigations we find: “So you say also, that the agreement of men decides what is right or wrong?” - Right or wrong is what men say; and in language men agree. This is not an agreement in opinions but in form of life”.78 To consider the forms of life as the background of language use means to introduce in the investigations many other aspects: our techniques, our technology and hence our goals and values. It leads to central questions for political theory and to others about multiculturalism.

75

Padilla Gálvez, 2010, pp. 113ff. Haller, 1988, pp. 118-119. 77 Haller, 1988, p. 133. 78 ““So sagst du also, dass die Übereinstimmung der Menschen entscheide, was richtig und was falsch ist?” – Richtig und falsch ist, was Menschen sagen; und in der Sprache stimmen die Menschen überein. Dies ist keine Übereinstimmung der Meinungen sondern der Lebensform).” Wittgenstein, PI, § 241. 76

98

Forms of Life and Language Games

There is a controversial question: can we speak of only one form of life for the human beings or of different forms of life? In my opinion, we can talk about two basic forms of life in biological sense: plants and animals, including, of course, human beings. If we consider the use made of this concept during its two centuries of existence we can talk about forms of life in a cultural sense. In the context of scientific disciplines, it must be more useful to talk of different “forms of life” than of only one transcendental form of life. And in what refers to the use of the concept as translated into Portuguese, considering that the definition of form of life in the sense Wittgenstein mean it is related to the verb and the activity and not to the noun, it is my opinion that we should have two expressions: “formas de viver” (forms of living) referring specifically to human actions, and “formas de vida” (forms of life) in the general biological sense. 11.

The “given”

In Philosophical Investigations we read: “What has to be accepted, the given, is – so one could say – forms of life”.79 What are we understand as the “given”? Reviewing all that was said about the use of this concept by Wittgenstein I feel a bit perplexed by the answer I could construct. The “given” is what is presupposed; the antecedent condition. It is also the fact, which means, it is both condition and fact. It can be seen as a historical contingent phenomenon or thought of as the historic and cultural dimension. The given is multiple because there are multiple forms of life. It can be seen as the social context of linguistic communication that involves techniques of the body, the expression of emotions and physiognomy. It is seen at the same time as the pragmatic fundament of language (its limits) and as the unexplained basis of language. It can be known as the aprioristic normative sentences that serve as constitutive basis for describing reality. It is considered the local where the connection occurs between language and inter-subjective and social praxis (language and reality). It can be seen as culture. It means human activity. J. Padilla Gálvez considers the understanding of what Wittgenstein means by the expression “what has to be accepted, the given” one of the most difficult questions of the philosopher’s work, and he points out that we can find in this passage a relevant hint at what Wittgenstein calls form 79

“Das Hinzunehmende, Gegebene – könnte man sagen – seien Lebensformen.” Wittgenstein, 1984, II, p. 572.

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

99

of life. Therefore he explored the labyrinth of the rule “given” in the sentence by means of language analysis and having two main questions:80 “How language and form of life are interrelated?” and “What constitutes the so-called ‘given’?” Firstly, even though the expression “the given” denotes an immediate experience, to Padilla Gálvez it seems inappropriate to investigate the structure of the given following subjective temptations, and in order to avoid the trap of subjectivity he argues that Wittgenstein seems to have found the tool to objectively investigate the structure of the given in the field of arithmetic and within the system of numbers.81 After discarding the psychological approach, he develops his arguments taking first into account the context in which the expression occurs in Philosophical Investigations. He reminds the reader the expression “is preceded by remarks about mathematics and followed by annotations about colour that occur within the section of remarks on types of discourse that contain certain necessary propositions”.82 It is a passage in which Wittgenstein reports that mathematicians do not dispute about the result of a calculation and explains this happen because according to the concept of mathematical certainty there is a rule saying that a calculation has always a well determined result. The same happens with the language game of colors that is based on the certainties that rules the statements about colors made by people whom has normal vision. In both cases, Wittgenstein stresses there must have total agreement with the necessary propositions. So, in his article Padilla Gálvez shows the relevance of the concept of rules for the objective study of “forms of life”. In this way, it seems to me that rules are a most relevant aspect of the interrelation between language and form of life. And as Padilla Gálvez describes, to Wittgenstein the language of numbers is a paradigm for the given because rules are expressed in this language, and language is the mode of expression in which rules are communicated, it (language) is a frame within which the rules are expressed. Another characteristic aspect of language is its uniformity which Wittgenstein considered a condition that allows the rule run free. So Padilla Gálvez concludes: “The system of

80

Padilla Gálvez, 2010, pp. 113ff. Padilla Gálvez, 2010, p. 115. 82 Padilla Gálvez, 2010, p. 118. 81

100

Forms of Life and Language Games

numbers forms the basis on which we can study the objective structures of form of life”.83 And finally, Padilla Gálvez recognizes we cannot answer the question about the meaning of “the given”. We can be aware of the fact that the content of what we express verbally is determined by the given, “that what exists”, that it (the given) allows us to speak a language, but we also can know that this awareness cannot help us “to recognize how the language is determined by it”.84 The given, Padilla Gálvez says, demand always the technique of language use, “which is grounded in social life and society” and in order to be clear about it (the given) “one has to understand its constitutive elements and must have acquired its basic components”.85 And the rule is one of its constitutive elements as Padilla Gálvez summarizes: “The rule finds expression in language that is originally given”, and in consequence it is “a result which is determined by the given”.86 There is a “necessary relation between the rule and the given” and this relation corresponds to that “between language and rule in general”.87 To conclude he asserts that “the given can be noticed and recognized, but unfortunately it defies any form of explicit description”.88 12.

Meanings of “Life”

Life is a word rich of divergent meanings. In the Holy Book in the Old Testament, life means material life, but in the New Testament, it acquires the meaning of eternal life, spiritual life. Followers of Platonism will also believe in eternal life, that we have many lives to be lived through reincarnations. From another perspective, Epicureans do not believe in the immortal soul and eternal life for human beings. Human life is strictly limited to the interval between birth and death. But, life has to be lived as the supreme good, the “summum bonum”. There are some agreements between many philosophers and scientists regarding the phenomena characteristic of life: the ability of selfproduction; ability of moving by itself; autonomy of movements; autonomy of nutrition, growing, self reproduction and death; self83

Padilla Gálvez, 2010, p. 120. Padilla Gálvez, 2010, p. 124. 85 Padilla Gálvez, 2010, p. 125. 86 Padilla Gálvez, 2010, p. 125. 87 Padilla Gálvez, 2010, p. 125. 88 Padilla Gálvez, 2010, p. 125. 84

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

101

regulation. Science considers these phenomena as characteristic of life: metabolism, plasticity, reactivity, and reproduction. These characteristics are exactly those in which the character of self-regulation is evident. In his Science of Logics, Hegel identifies life with “the principle that gives start and movement to itself”.89 But if there is agreement in regard to what refers to the phenomena, there is no agreement regarding the “causes” of life. Therefore, from the perspective of the mechanical explanation of the causes, life is due to the physical and chemical organization of bodily matter, and when biologists like Mayr speak of life they think of molecular complexes. Mayr offers us the wide definition of life he accepts. To him, life “must be able of selfreplication and make use of energy or solar energy”, and it must also be capable of making use of “certain available molecules, like sulfides in thermal sources of deep seas”. This kind of life, he explains, “would consist of bacteria or even more simple molecular compositions”.90 In this way, given this basis and under proper environmental conditions, life could be produced spontaneously in the universe. Well, if we follow the definition of life form provided by Oxford Dictionary: “a living creature; any kind of living thing” we should classify these living things called sulfides and other micro molecular compositions mentioned by Mayr as “forms of life”. And as a result, someone could suppose an identity between the two concepts: “life” and “forms of life”. A defender of Vitalism would simply reject the mechanical explanation saying that physical and chemical organization is not enough for characterizing life, because life depends upon a principle of spiritual nature (Hegel). And life (even if we consider it a biological phenomenon) cannot be reduced to universal laws of physics and chemistry, because the historical aspects of biological phenomena are entirely out of the scope of these disciplines. The chemical process was described and analyzed by Hegel in his Encyclopedia. Hegel’s analysis of this process was presented by Stephen Houlgate in his Introduction to Hegel, in the chapter “Life and Embodied Spirit”.91 For Hegel, life is made logically necessary, specifically, by chemistry. Houlgate stresses Hegel’s insistence of the fact that “life is 89

Hegel, 1999, II, p. 250. Mayr, 2005, p. 223. 91 Houlgate, 2005. 90

102

Forms of Life and Language Games

qualitatively different from mere chemistry and irreducible to it”, and quotes the Encyclopedia: “‘animal and vegetable substances… belong to a quite different order; their nature, far from being understood from the chemical process, is rather destroyed in it; what we grasp therefrom is only the way of their death’.”92

And Houlgate continues by asserting that equally Hegel “…acknowledges that life is nothing but chemical activity so organized as to constitute an organic, self-preserving, self-renewing and selfreplicating whole. Digestion, for example, can be understood as the chemical process of ‘neutralizing’ acids and alkalis; but digestive processes are not purely chemical precisely because they are moments of, and serve to sustain, the whole system of an organism. So, in the Encyclopedia, Hegel states that one can, indeed, ‘analyse the individual parts of the living being chemically [chemisch zerlegen].’”93

But, says Houlgate, Hegel also warns that processes within the living organism should not be “…regarded as purely chemical, ‘for chemistry applies only to what is lifeless, and animal processes always sublate [aufheben] the nature of what is chemical.”94 And quoting the Encyclopedia again, Houlgate transcribes Hegel’s idea that “…only at death or in disease is the chemical process able to prevail”. And he concludes by asserting that indeed “…death occurs precisely when the whole organism stops sustaining and renewing itself and breaks up into different, finite chemical processes.”95 After Hegel’s arguments against the reduction of life to mere chemistry, a few words about DNA, RNA and the genetic code, the formula that provides the chemical recipe for making organisms – DNA and RNA – explains how chemical activity organizes and orders itself into living, self-replicating organisms. But how DNA and RNA themselves first emerged is still not fully understood. The ultimate origin of life thus remains enigmatic. And finally the meaning of life for Huizinga, as summarized by Jacques Le Goff: “Firstly, life is this: the use of the body, the use of the 92

Houlgate, 2005, p. 164. Houlgate, 2005, p. 164. 94 Houlgate, 2005, p. 164. 95 Houlgate, 2005, p. 164. 93

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

103

senses”,96 and supplemented by the synthesis presented by Claude Mettra that, informs Huizinga, in his search for representations, “considers fundamental body intelligence and, overall, sentience. Life is apprehended in the way men use their ears, eyes, mouth, hand, and nose. The Autumn of Middle Ages is full of sounds, perfumes and even caresses.97 Helmreich and Roosth argue that since its earliest nineteenth-century enunciations, the concept of life form points to “a space of possibility within which life take shape. Exactly how that space is understood and theorized has transformed as the term traveled into the present”.98 And as result of this elasticity the concept of Lebensform compresses multiple and often divergent meanings. These authors indicate that “life” also has a changing and multivalent semantics and refers to C. S. Lewis’ suggested definition for life: “a linguistic gadget, a tool whereby we can conveniently manipulate the subject matter of biology”.99 13.

After the journey

After this journey to the vast territory of the concept of “forms of life” some concluding remarks. First, this concept is used today in many disciplines and applied in research according to diverse theories and doctrines. The territorial vastness is such that we can classify as form of life: sulfides, molecules, unicellular microorganisms, bacteria, plants, animals, human practices and technologies. We speak also of institutional forms of life, culture is equated with forms of life, whole epochs are characterized as having produced determined life forms, and life form of fictional beings, literary or imaginary like extraterrestrial beings. In short, we have a vast territory whose boundaries are not precisely defined. In scientific literature Lebensform is mostly used as an explanatory concept, either invoking a divinity for the final explanation of the changes in the world or defending a materialist perspective like evolutionary Darwinism. This is not the case with Wittgenstein because life form is not for him an explanatory concept but a methodological device of his “comparative morphology”. He uses it for describing the context of

96

Le Goff, 2010, p. 590. Mettra, 2010, p. 592. 98 Helmreich and Roosth, 2010, p. 27. 99 Helmreich and Roosth, 2010, p. 44. 97

104

Forms of Life and Language Games

different language games, and to teach us our thinking is a reflection of our activity; it reflects our belonging to certain forms of life. To plunge into this subject matter produced anxieties associated with those enigmatic questions: what is the origin of the universe and of the changes in the world? I have no answer. What is life? I would say I am an adherent of the idea defended by Le Goff and Mettra above mentioned that life is the use of the body and of the senses; the use of ears, eyes, mouth, hand, and nose. And finally, I believe my exposition could contribute to do away with the metaphysics underlying the concept of Lebensform. And, I hope to have offered the reader some insight for reflection on the concept. References Abbagnano, N., 2000: Dicionário de Filosofia. São Paulo: Martins Fontes. Baker, G. P. & Hacker, P.M.S. 1980: An Analytical Commentary on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, vol 1. Oxford: Blackwell Darwin, C., 1999: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. London: Harper Collins Publishers. Drury, M. O’C., 1973: The Danger of Words. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. Drury, M. O’C., 1981: Some Notes on Conversations with Wittgenstein and Conversation with Wittgenstein. In: R. Rhees (Org.), Recollections of Wittgenstein. Oxford University Press, pp. 76-171. Eisler, R., 1930: Welt: Kant-Lexikon – Nachschlagewerk zu Immanuel Kant. Enzyklo – Onlyne Enzyklopädie; http://www.textlog.de/32771.html. Eisler, R., 1930: Weltkörper: Kant-Lexikon – Nachschlagewerk zu Immanuel Kant. Enzyklo – Online Enzyklopädie; http://www.textlog.de/33267.html. Glock, H.-J., 1996: A Wittgenstein Dictionary. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Goethe, J. W., 1993: A Metamorfose das Plantas. (M. F. Molder, transl.). Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional – Casa da Moeda. Haeckel, E. H., 2002: O Monismo. (Fonseca Cardoso, transl.). www.ebooksbrasil.org/eLibris/monismo.html. Haller, R., 1988. Questions on Wittgenstein. London: Routledge.

The Uses of “Forms of Life” and the Meanings of Life

105

Hegel, G. W. F., 1995: Enciclopedia das ciências filosóficas em compêndio: A ciência da lógica (volume I). São Paulo: Loyola. Hegel, G. W. F., 1997: Enciclopédia das ciências filosóficas em compêndio: A filosofia da natureza (volume II). São Paulo: Loyola. Helmreich, S. and Roosth, S., 2010: Life Forms: A Keyword Entry. Representations 112. University of California Press, pp. 27-53. Houlgate, S., 2005: An Introduction to Hegel: freedom, truth, and history. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Huizinga, J., 2010: O Outono da Idade Média. (F. P. Janssen, transl.). São Paulo: Cosac Naify. Humboldt, W. v., 1999: On Language: On the diversity of human language construction and its influence on the mental development of the human species. Cambridge University Press. Kant, I., 2002: História Geral da Natureza e Teoria do Céu. (Levi António Malho, transl.). http://www.ulisses.us/tceu-kant.html. Kant, I., 2005: Forma e princípios do mundo sensível e do mundo inteligível. In I. Kant, Escritos Pré-Críticos (P. Licht dos Santos, transl.). São Paulo: Editora UNESP, pp. 219-282. Kant, I., 2010: Crítica da Faculdade do Juízo. (V. Rohden & A. Marques, transl.). Rio de Janeiro: Forense Universitária. Lebrun, G., 2010: Sobre Kant. (O. A. Marques, M. R. A. Coelho da Rocha, R. R. Torres Filho, transls.). São Paulo: Iluminuras. Le Goff, J., 2010: Entrevista de Jacques Le Goff a Claude Mettra. In J. Huizinga, O Outono da Idade Média. São Paulo: Cosak Naify, pp. 587-597. Mayr, E., 2005: Biologia, ciência única: reflexões sobre a autonomia de uma disciplina científica. (M. Leite, transl.). São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. Mettra, C., 2010: Entrevista de Jaques Le Goff a Claude Mettra. In J. Huizinga, O Outono da Idade Média. São Paulo: Cosak Naify, pp. 587-597. Molder, M. F., 1993: Introdução. In J. F. Goethe, A Metamorfose das Plantas. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional – Casa da Moeda, pp. 9-29. Padilla Gálvez, J., 2009: Wittgenstein I – Lecturas Tractarianas. Madrid: Plaza y Valdés. Padilla Gálvez, J., 2010: Form of Life as Arithmetical Experiment. In A. Marques and N. Venturinha (Eds.), Wittgenstein on Forms of Life

106

Forms of Life and Language Games

and the Nature of Experience. Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang Verlag, pp. 113-124. Ribas, A. D. and Vitte, A. C., Manuscript: O Curso de Geografia Física de Imannuel Kant. Manuscript. Francisco Beltrão, Paraná: Departamento de Geografia-Unioeste. Janik, A. & Toulmin, S., 1973: Wittgenstein’s Vienna. New York: Touchstone/Simon and Schuster. Wittgenstein, L., 1967: Lectures & conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wittgenstein, L., 1980: Culture and Value. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, L., 1984: Philosophische Untersuchungen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Wittgenstein, L., 1984: Investigações Filosóficas. (J. C. Bruni, transl.). São Paulo: Abril Cultural. Wittgenstein, L., 1997: Causa y efecto: apprehension intuitive. In Ocasiones Filosóficas. Madrid: Cátedra, pp. 365-404. University of Brasilia

Language games and the Latticed Discourses of Myself Cecilia B. BERISTAIN1 Introduction In this paper I will present my deliberations about the problem of the word ‘I’ or term ‘self’ from a Wittgensteinian point of view. First I shall point out that the question to raise here is not what is the ‘I’ or the ‘self’, as Wittgenstein is fond of presenting it incongruously in the next quote. I interpret it as an ironic remark about some of the ways in which the problem of the ‘I’ has been approached in philosophy, i.e. about perception, knowledge, the parts of the ‘I’, the problem of representation and its derivates:2 “Was ist das ‘ich’ das zugleich sieht und hört und weiß, denkt daß es das und das sieht und hört? Hat das Ich Organe? Oder verschiedene Teile wovon der eine sieht der andere denkt? Wie stellt man sich denn da das Ich vor?” 3

I will rather suggest the question: ‘how do I talk about myself?’ This question is based on the presupposition that the way in which I do talk about myself is not one and is not universal for it does not refer to any metaphysical or ontological essentiality. Thus, the discourses about myself are countless because they change constantly. Therefore the language games in which I use the word ‘I’ or in which I talk about myself are latticed, interwoven in order to form a whole structure and is at the same time given as a form of life. This structure however, is not something like the ‘I’ or the ‘self’ which is trapped inside my body, it is rather that person who utters ‘I am…’. For the use of the word ‘I’ can only exist if there are those who master the technique of language. 1

This paper integrates some aspects of my forthcoming PhD thesis. Wittgenstein, BE, 147/17r. 3 “What is the ‘I’ that at the same time sees and hears and knows; and thinks that it sees and hears so-and-so? Has the I organs? Or several parts whereof one sees and the other thinks? How does one picture the I?” (My translation.) Wittgenstein, Grosses Notizbuch. Sog. C3. 2

Forms of Life and Language Games, (Eds. Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ, Margit GAFFAL), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2011, 107-119.

108

Forms of Life and Language Games

The structure of my talk is as follows: I will first put into question the way in which some philosophers (i.e. Shoemaker, Castañeda and Perry) have explained the problem of the word ‘I’ through self-reference and selfknowledge. Though I will not go too much in detail about such a discussion, for that is not my main point. Secondly I will argue against this picture with Wittgenstein’s explanation and exemplifications of the meaning of a word. I will then suggest that, not the word ‘I’ as a reference is what says something about me, but what shall rather be analysed is how is it that we talk about ourselves through the range of the uncountable language games. Finally I will present the dualistic problem of the ‘innerouter’ suggesting that getting rid of this dichotomy enables a sharable language of our mental/psychological states, experiences, feelings, thoughts, etc. and dissolves the idea of the so-called ‘epistemic gap’ between myself and others. 1.

The use of ‘I’ not as a referential expression, but as language games

The question ‘what does the word ‘I’ refer to?’ is a dreadful trap if we are trying to reflect on the ways we talk about ourselves. The question about the meaning of the word ‘I’ is thorny only if we argue as follows: The meaning of a word lies on the name as the label of the object which it stands for. In this sense, it could be argued that the meaning of the word ‘I’ is the person (or the name of the person?) who utters the word. Or more directly, the word ‘I’ refers to me every time that I use the word. But to what extent can we reflect on this claim in philosophy without falling into linguistic and conceptual confusions? Wittgenstein plainly argues that the word ‘I’ does not refer to a person or to anything at all. My interpretation is that this is because the meaning of a word does not lie on the object which it stands for but the way we use the word in our language games. This shall be analysed in the next pages. From this follows the prevailing problem about the question of the reference and the discussion goes idle trying to answer what it is that the word ‘I’ stands for. Is the ‘I’ the soul? Is it the inner ‘self’? Is ‘I’ only referring to my body but not to my mental states? Does the ‘I’ refer to the person who speaks? There are uncountable authors who have tried to answer this question in one way or the other. For the sake of brevity, I will just mention a few of them.

Language games and the Latticed Discourses of Myself

109

It was about two decades after Wittgenstein’s death that a large group of his commentators discussed if the ‘I’ is a referring expression. The well-known article ‘The first person’, published in 1975 by G.E.M. Anscombe4 has been broadly discussed (1979) by many of her students (Norman Malcolm, Anthony Kenny and Roderick Chisholm among others) and the discussion continues up to the nineties. For instance, in the article ‘Reference and the First Person Pronoun’ by H.-J. Glock and P.M.S. Hacker5 it is rejected that neither defences nor objections to Wittgenstein’s claim that the ‘I’ is not a referring expression are satisfying positions. They present an accurate and detailed explanation of the notion of reference and its failure. Even so, their aim is to analyse how the word ‘reference’ is to be understood in order to conclude that ‘I’ is a “degenerate or limiting case of a referring expression” because for them ‘I’ “is akin to referring expressions in some respects, but not in others.” Moreover, many contemporary philosophers have been influenced by the yet complicated distinction of the two uses of the word ‘I’: the “use as subject” and “use as object” mentioned by Wittgenstein only in the Blue Book.6 They have reflected on the reference of the ‘I’ and the idea that in specific uses of the word (uses as subject) we can refer to ourselves without being mistaken. But the distinction is not too fortunate, for it has some faultiness and this is perhaps why Wittgenstein never brought it up again. This is clearer when we try to give examples other than misidentifying my arm7 after a battle or accident in the ‘use of I as object’. For example, to what extent is the claim ‘I have gained weight!’ a use as object? Is it because it is the body (the outer, what is shown) which has changed? Or on the ‘subject use’ of the word, maybe ‘I believe’, ‘I expect’, ‘I think’ could be good examples, but what about ‘I am hungry’? or ‘I am in Munich’? To what extent is being hungry, having a pain or being somewhere related to the “use as subject” or “use as object” of the word ‘I’? Unfortunately, many have followed this distinction and have made it even more complicated while giving examples of what the ‘immunity to error’ in the “uses as subject” of ‘I’ could imply. The aforementioned 4

Anscombe, 1975, 45 ff. Glock and Hacker, 1996, pp. 95 ff. 6 Wittgenstein, Blue Book, p. 66 f. 7 Moreover as Glock and Hacker say, misidentifying my arm is not misidentifying myself (Glock and Hacker, 1996, p. 100). 5

110

Forms of Life and Language Games

approach has been called the ‘immunity to error through misidentification’ thesis by Sydney Shoemaker. The phrase has been used by him in order to deal with the question of the possibility of perceptual introspection on the knowledge of a ‘self’. The examples that he presents as ‘immune to misidentification’, such as ‘I am angry’, can be compared to Wittgenstein’s examples of the ‘subject use’ of the word ‘I’. For both authors, sentences such as: ‘someone in this room has toothache, but I don’t know who’ is senseless, but each one offers a quite different reason. For Shoemaker the evidence that it is me who is angry when I say ‘I am angry’ is that the expression results from the act of introspection. This is not the case for Wittgenstein for what is in question in this example is not the act of selfknowledge, but the grammar of the uses of words such as ‘knowing’ or ‘having a pain’ and also ‘I’. But there are also other kinds of arguments on the reference of the ‘I’, its misidentification, and the discussion of self-knowledge. Since the late nineteen-sixties Hector-Neri Castañeda and several philosophers have commented on this problem. H.-N. Castañeda talks about the concept of self as unique, primitive, and inexplicable.8 And he says that what we refer to as the ‘self’ is nothing but the ‘I’, and that this ‘I’ is the abstraction of all the concrete I’s. Moreover, he says, the correct use of the first-person pronoun cannot lead us to fail on its reference, while all the other singular references such as names, descriptions and indicators can fail in the reference even when they are been correctly used. Therefore, the uses of ‘I’ are thought in oratio recta. That is, they are not based on cognitive verbs, and have the following properties: a) ‘I’ has a referential priority over all names and descriptions of objects, b) the pronoun ‘I’ has an ontological priority over all names and descriptions. A correct use of ‘I’ cannot fail to refer to the object it purports to refer, c) ‘I’ and all descriptions have an epistemological priority over all pronouns used demonstratively. Contrary to Wittgenstein, in Castañeda’s arguments, privileged self-identification is precisely a reason for him to think that the word ‘I’ always refers and the referent is the speaker. John Perry’s critique to Castañeda is that he has not taken into account the relationship between meaning and sense, and that he has given a different reference to each sense in the uses of the words ‘he’ and ‘I’. To avoid this, Perry uses a rule to specify how the reference to the first person is unmediated and gives a general meaning for I. He does this through what 8

Castañeda, 1999, p. 8.

Language games and the Latticed Discourses of Myself

111

he calls “rule K-I9: In any statement in which it occurs, I designates the speaker of the statement.” Perry reminds us that the word ‘I’ has a psychological role and that any beliefs I have about myself call for an action. In the sentence ‘I am wanted on the telephone’ the correct understanding of the sense and meaning of the word ‘I’ would lead me to go answer the phone. Perry explains this as follows: “I think that, if we look closely at the way the theory would actually work in figuring out what people believe on the basis of belief-attributions, we would find that this result is quite general. What is important about special senses is that they are expressed by the use of I and that they have a certain psychological role. Their reference is immaterial.”10

In my view, none of these approaches is satisfactory. For the problem is not what is the reference of ‘I’, but how do we use the word ‘I’ to talk about ourselves. The following claim from Wittgenstein sheds more light on this and it is worth quoting at length: “Es ist richtig, wenn auch paradox zu sagen: “‘Ich’ bezeichnet keine Person”. (In dem Sinne nämlich, in welchem “hier” keinen Ort bezeichnet). Wenn ich den Gebrauch des Wortes “Ich” beschreiben will, genügt es, wenn ich beschreibe, wie die Personen A, B, C, usw. das Wort verwenden – oder muß ich auch sagen, wie ich es verwende? Wird also in der Beschreibung des Sprachspiels das Wort “ich” auch in dieser Weise vorkommen? – “Ja, willst Du denn sagen, daß Du, Ludwig Wittgenstein, eine besondere Verwendung für dieses Wort hast?” – Nein; aber ich wollte auch nicht sagen: “ich, Ludwig Wittgenstein”, sondern bloß “ich”. –– Diesen Streich kann uns dieses Wort spielen.”11

It is true that one use of our language is sometimes to point at objects in order to show what we mean by a word, say a specific colour like ‘magenta’, or when a child starts to learn a language and we point at objects for him to repeat the word. Yet this use cannot be the description or 9

The ‘K’ is for David Kaplan who has stated such a rule before. Perry, 1983, 15 ff. Perry, 1983, 34. 11 “It is correct, although also a paradox to say: “‘I’ does not refer to a Person”. (Namely in the sense in which “here” does not refer to a place) When I want to describe the use of the word “I”, it is enough when I describe how the persons A, B, C, and so on use the word – or shall I also say, how I use it? – Is the word “I” therefore used in this same way to describe the language game? – “Yes, do you want to say, that you, Ludwig Wittgenstein, have a particular use for this word?” – No; but I also do not want to say: “I, Ludwig Wittgenstein”, but merely “I”. –– This word can play these tricks on us.” (My translation) Wittgenstein, BE, 116/215. My italics. 10

112

Forms of Life and Language Games

definition of a word. The object pointed at is sometimes the referent of a name we utter, but this name is not the meaning of the word, and this is also not the case for the word ‘I’. This is why ‘I’ does not refer to a person – or to anything at all. The meaning of a word is the explanation of its uses in our language. Also in the case of the word ‘I’ we have to look at the uses of it. This means that just like any other word, the word ‘I’ cannot be explained my means of the reference of the object, namely, for some philosophers, the person who utters the word ‘I’. With this it is clear that the uses of the word ‘I’ are the best example of how the meaning of a word is not the reference to the ‘object’ at which it points. Based on Wittgenstein’s explanation of the language games and how it is that we learn the uses of the words, the way we understand the word ‘I’ (or ‘self’, ‘me’, ‘my’ and the like) is not based on an ostensive explanation of the word. The way in which the child learns to use the word ‘I’ – just like any other word – and the way in which we use the word ‘I’ in our every day lives, is one more language game. Furthermore, the many language games in which I use the word ‘I’ allow me to talk about myself in an understandable and shareable manner. The claims about myself, even if the word ‘I’ is not mentioned, do state something about myself, not because of the direct indexical reference but because of the way we learnt to use these expressions. Thus, the ‘I’ as a word is to be understood according to specific language games, namely according to specific rules within diverse contexts, or according to the different discourses in which we have always talked about ourselves. In other words, the gist of my argument is that the ‘I-sentences’ can be thought of as language games, taking as a fact that there are contexts and uses of the word ‘I’ which most of the times draw attention to me as I speak. This picture is not only inferred from the whole of Wittgenstein’s later work, but he also refers to this problem in some particular moments like this one: “What interests us is: How does the word “I” get used in a languagegame?”12

In addition, the language games about myself are different language games than those about ‘the table’ for example. This is clear, but not because, in Searle’s terms, there is a ‘sub-personal’ level when talking 12

“Was uns interessiert ist: Wie wird das Wort “ich” in einem Sprachspiel verwendet.” Wittgenstein, RPP I, 65.

Language games and the Latticed Discourses of Myself

113

about our own mental states. It is rather because we have learnt the contexts of these two games differently. In the same vein, of course, the way in which I talk about myself is different from the way in which others talk about me. But the reason is not only that when I talk about myself I use the words ‘I’, ‘my’, ‘me’ and the like, and when the others talk about me they use the word ‘Cecilia’ or ‘she’. Rather, the reason lies in the way in which we learned to use these two language games, different from each other and different from all the rest. Wittgenstein stresses the fact that what we shall look at are the different functions of the words in our language, and there is no reason to think that the role of the words ‘I’, ‘self’, ‘me’, ‘my’, etc. shall stay our of these descriptions of our language. Let us for example, shortly look at the differences between the language games of proper names, the language games of 3rd, 2nd and 1st person as a referring expression. A first question is: why does it not make sense to point at myself when I say ‘I am the one who has toothache’? When I utter: ‘I have toothache’ I do not point at myself to show who is the one with a toothache. For the word ‘I’ is not a verbal way of pointing at someone. Pointing at someone is not the role of the uses of words related to oneself, but mostly used to point at other persons or objects. I also do not talk about myself using my name, for that is not the role of proper names. This is something we mostly do when we refer to a 3rd person i.e. ‘he is the one in pain, Doctor’. Or: ‘Jon has a toothache, that is why he cannot come to class today’ Moreover, addressing to someone is the typical use for the 2nd person i.e. ‘do you want to have lunch later?’ With claims such as ‘I am…’ ‘I think that…’ etc, what we do is addressing others attention to ourselves. But this can also be done without even speaking i.e. in a context in which, in a group of people someone would ask: ‘who is Cecilia?’ For that, only raising my hand is enough to draw their attention to me. In this sense, the meaning of the word, or better said, what we mean by saying ‘I’ does not have any particularity. It is often thought in philosophy that the way I understand and refer to myself is particular and special, and this is strongly questioned by Wittgenstein. If the particularity is based on a privileged access to my own thoughts and feelings or direct knowledge about my own mental states, then the word ‘I’ or ‘self’ should have a special place in our language and thus a special use. Nevertheless, as we will see in the next section, it is disputed by Wittgenstein that we have any privacy in regard to our own feelings, thoughts, etc. and therefore it is questionable to talk about any direct knowledge or privileged access of

114

Forms of Life and Language Games

ourselves. Therefore, the uses of the word ‘I’ can only be shown through the explanation of the use of our language, or better said, through the description of the language games in which we use the word ‘I’ (or ‘self’ and the like). As Wittgenstein says: “What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.”13

Finally, from these arguments it follows that we cannot talk about ourselves only in one way, not even in countable ways. Rather, the different ways in which we refer to ourselves is simply as vast as language games we have learnt and developed throughout our lives. Let us consider a comparison between the following quote from Baker and Hacker and how it is to talk about ourselves: “There is no one thing called ‘talking about’. Compare talking about how things are, how they seem to be, how they seem to one to be, how they were, how they will be, how they should be, how they might have been, how they would be if…, etc. In each case very different kinds of language-games are involved.”14

In sum, my suggestion is that we do not understand the word ‘I’ differently than all the other words in our vocabulary because it refers to us, the speakers and users of the word. That we use the word ‘I’ in order to draw others attention to ourselves is just what we learn to do with the word ‘I’. These language games of the ‘I’ are thus in no way connected to any metaphysical, internal, private, self-conscious or any psychological mental state which refers to a direct self-knowledge or self-consciousness. As we will see in the next section, these traditional views of a Cartesian ‘ego’ or a Kantian ‘thinking I’ bring more misunderstandings in philosophy than they can explain conundrums. More importantly, we shall look at the differences in the uses and languages games of the word ‘I’ and shall “[…] not assimilate the function of the word ‘I’ to an inappropriate paradigm of reference.”15

13

“Wir führen die Wörter von ihrer metaphysischen, wieder auf ihre alltägliche Verwendung zurück.” Wittgenstein, PI, 116. 14 Baker and Hacker, 2005, p. 91. 15 Hacker, 1990, p. 493.

Language games and the Latticed Discourses of Myself

2.

115

The problem about ‘inner’ discourses and ‘outer’ discourses

The distinction ‘inner-outer’ in relation to my ‘self’ and the ‘self’ of others, my body and the body of others, my feelings and the feelings of others, my pain and the pain of others, my behaviour and the behaviour of others is misleading and rises many pseudo-philosophical questions. For there is nothing like the privacy of sensations, experiences, processes, etc. Therefore, the uses of the word ‘I’ are not based on any direct knowledge or privilege access to our own mental states, feelings, thoughts, etc. based on introspection. If we would have to talk about introspection, it would have to be, in Hacker’s terms, as a form of reflective-thought: “There is such a thing as introspection, but it is not a kind of inner perception – it is a form of self-reflection.”16 We use our language in many different ways and this is the reason why we cannot hide what we are, the same way that we cannot hide our thoughts, feelings, etc. anywhere ‘in’ ourselves. For Wittgenstein it is all open to view. This is why it is wrong to claim that language is a mere tool which brings to light what is hidden inside my ‘self’ and that this expression lies essentially on the outside while the real ‘self’ remains unknown to the others. Wittgenstein alleges that this is a picture which is fixed in our language. A language which, used in philosophy, produces mental cramps and makes us look like the fly bouncing against the glass inside the fly-bottle. He says more clearly: “But there is no more direct way of reading thought than through language. Thought is not something hidden; it lies open to us.”17 In Wittgenstein’s later philosophy there is nothing like a connection of our language and the world, for there is no disconnection existent either. Our language is not a mere tool through which we can externalise what really happens in us. On the contrary, our language is the complete evidence of what we are and there is no more, and no less to it. To paraphrase Wittgenstein, the way we speak is as natural as the way we breath. In this sense, the word ‘I’ and its uses should not be thought as the result of an analysis of two or more parts, as we can clearly see in the traditional philosophy starting with Plato, reinforced by Augustine and retaken by Descartes, just to mention some. To this Wittgenstein says:

16 17

Hacker, 2007, p. 6. Wittgenstein, CL I, p. 26.

116

Forms of Life and Language Games “One symbolism is just as good as the next. The word “I” is one symbol among others having a practical use, and could be discarded when not necessary for practical speech. It does not stand out among all other words we use in practical life unless we begin using it as Descartes did.”18

An aspect of such a Cartesian dualism is the misleading picture of direct / indirect knowledge of my sensations and those of others. The assumption that only I can have direct knowledge of my ‘inner’ experiences, but only indirect and uncertain access to the others’ (arbitrarily through language) results on the idea that sensations, thoughts, feelings and psychological states are private. A critique to Descartes and the dualistic tradition, for example, is expressed by Wittgenstein thus: “If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word “pain” means – must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly?” 19

This is why, when we want to look at where the philosophical problem arises, we shall not be puzzled about the ‘obscure’ nature of the mind, or about its apparently mysterious processes or if they are private or how can I claim knowledge about them. We shall rather look at the way we use psychological, scientific, neurological, etc. concepts in philosophy and only under this light, we can identify philosophical problems based on linguistic misunderstandings. To the apparently common question about the nature of some feelings for example, Wittgenstein confronts his interlocutor in: ““But depression, anger, is surely a particular feeling!” –What sort of proposition is that? Where is it used?” 20

The problem which he presents is the misleading way in which we talk about psychological notions in philosophy. It is translated into philosophy the way in which in psychology the subject is the center of all sensations, feelings, perceptions, emotions, thoughts, etc. He says:

18

Wittgenstein, CL II, p. 63. “Wenn ich von mir selbst sage, ich wisse nur vom eigenen Fall, was das Wort “Schmerz” bedeutet, – muß ich das nicht auch von den Andern sagen? Und wie kann ich denn den einen Fall in so unverantwortlicher Weise verallgemeinern?” Wittgenstein, PI, 293. 20 ““Aber die Bedrückung, der Zorn, ist doch ein bestimmtes Gefühl!” – Was für ein Satz ist das? Wo wird es verwendet?” Wittgenstein, RPP I, 136. 19

Language games and the Latticed Discourses of Myself

117

“He who says ‘I see’ does not describe something which occurs in a person. A person merely utters it and what occurs in him can be itself seen.”21

In his ‘Notes for Lectures on “Private Experience” and “Sense Data”’ Wittgenstein gives innumerable examples of the misleading picture we have of that something which stays behind the expression or cannot be at all described. He insists on the difficulty of using names to label these sensations, feelings, emotions, pains, etc. If we do use names to label things, how are we supposed to label impressions? We can give names to impressions and this seems problematic for most philosophers, but Wittgenstein says that this act of naming looks like a mystification only when the impression appears to us as such an ethereal thing that it just cannot be described with words. And his suggestion is to look at how they are used and understood: “You say you have an intangible impression. I am not doubting what you say. But I question whether you have said anything by it. i.e., what was the point of uttering these words, in what game?”22

This is merely a variation of an example of what happens with the word ‘I’ as well. Conclusions What has been seen in this paper, is that we can better understand the nature of the language games related to terms such as ‘I’, ‘my’, ‘me’, and the like if we use them and understand them in contexts in which no ‘beyond’ is thought of. On the same lines there is not a hidden inner, an evident outer or any possible contradiction between their natures. Although we use such expressions making sense of them in our every day lives and in disciplines such as psychology, Wittgenstein warns us about the misconceptions that these uses can bring to philosophical activity. In concrete then, there is no metaphysical ‘I think’, no solipsistic subject and no psychological ‘self’ as such, without their respective discourses and contexts. The ‘I’, the ‘ego’, the ‘self’ or whatever we want to call it can be 21

“Wer sagt ‘ich sehe’ beschreibt nicht etwas was in einem Menschen vorgeht. Ein Mensch sagt es bloß und was in ihm vorgeht kann selbst gesehen werden.” (My translation) Wittgenstein, BE, 147/38 and Wittgenstein, Grosses Notizbuch. Sog. C3. 22 “Du sagst, Du hast einen ungreifbaren Eindruck. Ich bezweifle nicht, was Du sagst. Aber ich frage, ob Du damit etwas gesagt hast. D.h., wozu hast Du diese Worte geäußert, in welchem Spiel?” Wittgenstein, LPE, p. 204.

118

Forms of Life and Language Games

put in plausible language games together with philosophical discourses as long as we get to understand the grammar of their uses. In other words, what I have briefly shown here is the bigger picture – rather than the particular one of the use of ‘reference’– of the several problems involving the uses of the word ‘I’. To understand these uses as another language game is neither to simplify things nor to reduce anything to language, but to be coherent with Wittgenstein’s explanation of our use of language in his philosophy after 1930. References Abbreviations to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work: BB

(1964) The Blue and Brown Books. Preliminary Studies for the Philosophical Investigations, [1933-35], Blackwell, Oxford.

BE

(2000) Wittgenstein’s Nachlass: The Bergen Electronic Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

CL I

(1980) Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1930-1932, (ed. D. Lee), Oxford.

CL II

(1982) Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1932-1935, (ed. A. Ambrose), Oxford.

LW II

(2004) Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 2 [1949-51], Blackwell, Oxford.

LPE

(1993) “Notes for Lectures on “Private Experience” and “SenseData”” in: Klagge J.C. and Nordmann A. (eds.), Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Occasions, 1912-1951, Hackett, Indianapolis, pp. 200-288.

PI

(2009) Philosophical Investigations, Translated by G.E.M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte. (Rev. 4th ed. by P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte), Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford.

RPP I

(1998) Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1 [194547], Blackwell, Oxford.

Anscombe, G.E.M., 1975: “The First Person” in: Mind and Language, Ed. Samuel Guttenplan, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 45-65.

Language games and the Latticed Discourses of Myself

119

Baker, G.P. and Hacker, P.M.S., 2005: Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning. An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations. Volume 1, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. Castañeda, H., 1999: The Phenomeno–Logic of the I. Essays on Self– Consciousness, Indiana University Press, Indiana. Diamond, C. / Teichman, J. (Eds.), 1979: Intention and Intentionality. Essays in Honour of G. E. M. Anscombe, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York. Glock, H.-J., and Hacker, P., 1996: “Reference and the First Person Pronoun”, in: Language and Communication, 16: 95–105. Hacker, P.M.S., 1990: Wittgenstein. Meaning and Mind. An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations. Volume 3, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. Hacker, P.M.S., 2007: Human Nature: The Categorial Framework, Blackwell, Oxford. Perry, J., 1983. “Castañeda on He and I” in: Tomberlin, James E. (ed.), Agent, Language, and the Structure of the World. Essays Presented to Hector-Neri Castañeda, with His Replies, Hackett, Indianapolis, pp. 15-42. Shoemaker, S., 1968: “Self-Knowledge and Self-Awareness” in: Journal of Philosophy, 65, 19, pp. 555-567. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

From Umgebung to Form of Life: a Genealogical Reading Pierluigi BIANCINI1 The concept ‘form of life’ has raised a series of questions among scholars which is directly inverse to the small number of its occurrences in the Nachlaß. In the Philosophical Investigations it appears only three times2 while seven other occurrences are scattered around in various manuscripts and typescripts, all written in the last period (1936-51). In an article written in 1968 Hunter enumerates four possible readings of the concept that are more or less the same as those presented in the secondary literature: a language-game account, a socio-historical account, the natural-history view and the behaviour package view. Questions were raised about the uniqueness or multiplicity of form(s) of life,3 and about its possible interpretation as a biological matter or a socio-historical context.4 In this work we try to find a different way of addressing the problem starting from a premise: one of the greatest difficulties in talking about ‘form of life’ is due to the philosophical desire to talk of it as unitary, like a well-defined and self-contained idea that from the beginning to the end is always used without any change. Questions and interpretations, like those just reported, are raised when we talk of “form of life” in general, without acknowledging the great variety of uses of this concept that changes from context to context, from remark to remark. Given this premise, our point could be presented as the way of finding an answer to two simple questions: given that Wittgenstein began to use Lebensform only in

1

I would like to thank a number of people for their help in writing this paper, I am indebted to Jesús Padilla-Gálvez and the other participant to the conference for their reminders, hints and critics, that help me to clarify some obscure points of the work. 2 Wittgenstein, PI, §19, §23, §241. 3 Garver, 1994. 4 Conway, 1989. Forms of Life and Language Games, (Eds. Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ, Margit GAFFAL), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2011, 121-140.

122

Forms of Life and Language Games

manuscript 1425 of 1936, what role does it play in his work? Why did he feel the need to use it? The aim is to advance a genealogical interpretation of Lebensform. We will try to find the answer in works just antecedent to MS 142, better known as PI’s Early Draft (Urfassung): the Brown Book, an English Typescript dictated in 1934-5 and part of manuscript 115,6 edited with the title Eine Philosophische Betrachtung (EPB). These works pave the way for MS 142 written in 1936. The philological hypothesis we will try to advance is that to present a comparative analysis of these two (quite) different works will put us in a position to appreciate the role played by Lebensform’s first occurrence (“to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life”) in the economy of the beginning of the PI. From a philological point of view we develop the thesis of a radical turn in Wittgenstein’s conception of the language-game and its function in his philosophy. Until the 1936 crisis the remarks are almost pervaded by a paroxysm in the use of the language-game method, while from MS 142 its application is intended to have a different framework. According to the genealogical reading maintained here this change was prepared by an interlocutory period in which it is possible to trace the ways in which the crisis was going to blow up and at the same time the seeds of the new direction taken by Wittgenstein were sown on the soil of his reflections. EPB is the work that sheds light on this period and it is of primary importance in appreciating the deep transformation in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. In an exegetical perspective the point at issue is the role played by the concept in solving the sceptical problem of world/language relation. According to some critics7 the ‘theory of form of life’ could be taken as a dualistic solution to the problem of dualism: putting the action as “the given” Wittgenstein succeeded in destroying the Myth of Given only replacing it with the Myth of Giving. According to the genealogical 5

When I talk about occurrences of ‘form/s of life” we consider only the German term Lebensform/men, not other combinations of words like Lebensweise (RFM) or Form des Lebens (PR) that, according to some scholars, could be taken as synonymous. Our claim is that the term Lebensform is used in a peculiar way, at least in the occurrences that we are to analyze, consequently we will use always ‘form of life’ in quotes as a compound term. 6 Wittgenstein, MS 115, pp. 118-292. 7 Hurley 1998.

From Umgebung to Form of Life: a Genealogical Reading

123

reading this critique could work if applied to the period that preceded the first occurrence of Lebensform. To answer the second question above: Wittgenstein in writing EPB became aware of the problem posed by the asymmetry of talking of language-games as unfounded systems of notation and felt the need to have a new concept able to express his new, broader way of looking at language as the very environment of human beings constituted in their social practices. This way of putting the issue will make it possible to achieve different objectives. Firstly, we maintain the necessity to consider the period between 1933-36 still as an intermediary period and preparatory to a crisis of the ‘language-game’. Secondly, the entire role played by the first occurrence in the beginning of the PI should be reconsidered in the light of the meaning of the concept Umgebung in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Finally, we will advance a sort of reshaped language-game account according to a new way of interpreting the language-game and its being part of the ‘form of life’. The paper is divided into three parts: in the first we deal with the narrow conception of language(-game) as a calculus, in the second part differences are shown between Brown Book and EPB; the third part is devoted to analysing occurrence PI §19 and to giving an idea of how language-games and ‘form of life’ could be interpreted in the light of our argument. 1.

Language-game as calculus: a narrow conception

The first occurrence of the term Sprachspiel in the Nachlaß is dated March 1932,8 then transposed in one of the typescripts now published as the Big Typescript. The game metaphor was held to criticize the Logical Atomism contained in the Tractatus without abandoning it entirely. The Tractatus was committed to the idea that language is a formal activity like operating a calculus in which rules were deeply rooted in the logical form of the world. In the first years of his return to Cambridge Wittgenstein tried to rethink this old idea without abandoning it entirely: the language-game was in these first years applied narrowly as a synonym of a calculus. David Stern9 has advanced a possible periodization of Wittgenstein’s work distinguishing between the Logical Atomism of the first period, the 8 9

Wittgenstein, MS 113, p. 45r. Stern, 1991 and Stern, 1995.

124

Forms of Life and Language Games

Logical Holism of the works of the second period, immediately following the return to Cambridge, and finally a third and last period of Practical Holism that in his opinion is present just in the Middle Thirties in works like the Blue and Brown Books. According to Stern the ‘narrow’ conception could be found only in its occurrences in the manuscripts written until 1932. The same idea is expressed by Hans Johan Glock: “although the term language-game is first used as equivalent to ‘calculus’ (PG 67) the fact that it replaced the latter by the time of the Blue and Brown Books indicated a shift in Wittgenstein’s conception of language”.10 Surely the following remarks from the Philosophical Grammar could confirm the synonymy with the calculus: “I can only describe language games or calculi.”11 “For us language is a calculus; it is characterized by linguistic activities.”12

According to these remarks Wittgenstein did not give up his former attempt to give an account of language in terms of operations obeying strict rules, but only the atomistic tenet about the relation between atomic propositions and facts. In this new framework propositions are compared with reality not individually but in groups, like the graduating marks of a ruler. The colour octahedron is one of the paradigmatic pictures of this idea of what it means to have a synoptic representation [übersichtliche Darstellung] of the entire grammatical system involved in representing colours. Another example is the cube seen as the representation of a geometrical rule thanks to which he concludes that propositions form ‘systems of propositions’ [System von Sätzen], that is sets of propositions whose members exclude each other thanks to grammatical relations occurring between the words in them: “But how can the cube (or the drawing) serve as a notation for a geometrical rule? Only if it belongs, as a proposition or part of a proposition, to a system of propositions.”13

A problem with Stern’s and Glock’s readings arises when they consider this conception of language-game as a calculus strictly confined to these first remarks preceding the Blue Book: does it really express 10

Glock, 1996, 67. Wittgenstein, PG, 26a, p. 62 12 Wittgenstein, PG, 140d, p. 193. 13 Wittgenstein, PG, p. 55. 11

From Umgebung to Form of Life: a Genealogical Reading

125

another idea of language, different from the calculus? Is the language-game concept conceived in a broader sense than in these remarks? Let us consider what it entails to compare language to a calculus taking the chess metaphor. As first language and chess, just like a calculus, follow a system of rules constitutive of the game and make it a certain kind of game. The second analogy is between words and chess pieces: each word, like each piece of chess, has a meaning/role in the entire system of the game.14 Finally, the activity of playing chess, or speaking a language, entails conforming to such grammatical rules as are given to the speakers/players as norms learned in a process of strict training in which the learner has to associate a kind of move with a kind of situation, quite automatically or following a strict inferential process. Now this conception, even if blurred at the edges, is still present in some passages of the Blue Book where Wittgenstein still talks in similar terms about language:15 “The sentence has sense only as a member of a system of language; as one expression within a calculus.”16

This short passage and the others contained in the Blue Book about chess and training should warn us against taking Stern’s reconstruction as entirely correct: the borderline between a narrow conception of languagegames as calculi and a broader conception of language connected with practical holism should be moved some years forward, to 1936. 2.

EPB: an undervalued work

In 1936 Wittgenstein decided to work on the typescript of BrB dictated to Alice Ambrose and Francis Skinner, and began to write, on page MS115 p. 118, a new work entitled Philosophische Untersuchungen: Versuch einer Umarbeitung. This manuscript is based on the earlier English typescript and in general it is considered only as a failed attempt to transform BrB into a book to be published. In a letter dated 20.11.1936 to Moore he wrote as follows: “when I came here I began to translate and rewrite in German the stuff I had dictated to Skinner and Miss Ambrose. When about a fortnight ago I read through what I had done so far I found it all, or nearly 14

Wittgenstein, PG, p. 130. Wittgenstein, BrB, p. 5, p. 42. 16 Wittgenstein, BrB, p. 42. 15

126

Forms of Life and Language Games

all, boring and artificial”.17 At the same time he decided to stop MS 115 and to begin the new MS142. In the letter Wittgenstein wrote that he was translating but also rewriting his old remarks. Now the question is: why did he feel the need to rewrite them? A possible interpretation could be that he was simply looking for different ways of expressing the content of BrB. In this reading the differences between the texts are due only to the translation from English to German, and rewriting means paraphrasing the previous version. In general this reading seems to be the dominant one, at least considering the lack of interest in the peculiarities of MS 115. To this first shallow reading I oppose a genealogical one, according to which EPB shows some distinctive features of a new and different model of action based on a broader concept of practice (Praxis) than in BrB, which emerges in some key passages of EPB and then is fully exposed in PI. In this broadened version the practice is the ground on which linguistic activity takes place – in EPB Wittgenstein writes about the Hintergrund des Sprachspiels as the set of conditions internal to the game that make understanding possible.18 The differences between the texts could be summed up in a hierarchy of three levels: - Substitution of simple words: for example “Praxis der Sprache”19 instead of language-game.20 - Additions, paraphrases and specifications of concepts: in BrB p. 80 we have “The difference one might say, does not lie in the act of demonstration, but rather in the surroundings of that act in the use of the language” while in EPB21 surroundings is translated as Umgebung and paraphrased as “Der Unterschied könnte man sagen, liegt nicht einfach in dem, was beim Zeigen, sondern vielmehr22 in

17

McGuinness, 2008, p. 257, my italics. Wittgenstein, EPB, p. 166. 19 Wittgenstein, EPB, p. 157. 20 Wittgenstein, BrB, p. 108. 21 Wittgenstein, EPB, p. 120. 22 This term was added later and in our opinion shows the emphasis on the role of Umgebung. 18

From Umgebung to Form of Life: a Genealogical Reading

127

der Umgebung dieses Zeigens, in dem, was ihm vorhergeht, und dem, was darauf folgt”.23 - Completely rewritten passages: Wittgenstein opens BrB with a discussion of the role of ostensive definition in training specifying “I’m using the word ‘trained’ in a way strictly analogous to that in which we talk of an animal being trained to do certain things.” Instead in EPB24 we find the description of how children (die Kinder) are educated (erzogen) in the different uses (Gebrauche) of words. Referring to these descriptions he writes: “Dieses Lernen der Sprache ist wesentlich eine Abrichtung – durch Vormachen, Ermuterung, Nachhilfe, Belohnung, Strafe, u.a.m.”25 The German version appears to be characterized by an attempt to achieve a closer connection between language and practice and, in general, by the appeal to a much broader vision of the role played by the entire field of vital processes in supporting understanding of a language. Comparative analysis affords some interesting insights into the pathway followed in arriving at MS 142. The first hint that is worth mentioning is constituted by the account of training. BrB and EPB share a behaviourist conception of training as a way of conditioning a mechanism to behave, or, better, to react in a certain way to certain external stimuli given by the determinate situation in which the stimulus is given. We have seen the comparison between the training of a human being and the training of an animal, that is a living being without any language – at least language as understood traditionally by the philosophers whom Wittgenstein was referring to. In another passage in BrB in which the point at issue is the role of the image in training, he confirms this behaviouristic stance: “Bear in mind that the image which is brought up by the word is not arrived at by a rational process (but if it is, this only pushes our argument further back), but that this case is strictly comparable with that of a mechanism in which a button is pressed and an indicator plate appears. In fact this sort of mechanism can be used instead of that of association.”26

The same goes the German passage, in which the only difference is given by the use of italics for the verb ableitet, probably to highlight the 23

Wittgenstein, EPB, p. 120, my italics. Wittgenstein, EPB, p. 117. 25 Wittgenstein, EPB, p. 117. 26 Wittgenstein, BrB, p. 89. 24

128

Forms of Life and Language Games

fact that the ‘derivation’ about which Wittgenstein is talking is not of a rational kind (EPB: p. 130). Now anyone in favour of the continuity theory could have a good chance to ask: what about the discontinuity? Where is the supposed transformation in the second manuscript? In EPB,27 Wittgenstein no longer mentions the comparison with animal training; Abrichtung is likened to a process of education of children in a social environment in which the stimulus-reaction process appears to be normatively characterized: “Die Kinder lernen die Sprache, indem sie zu ihrem Gebrauche erzogen werden: d.h. sie werden dazu erzogen, zu bauen, sich der Rufe «Platte!», «Würfel», etc., zu bedienen und auf diese Rufe richtig zu reagieren.”28

The use of verbs like “bedienen” and “reagieren” could be considered as a behaviourist reminiscence but the aspect that marks the difference is the allusion to the Richtigkeit of these reactions. Training in EPB, even if still pervaded by an implicit S-R model of action, begins to show a certain line of thought that will be followed more decisively only in the mature period. Abrichtung is guided by norms and is not in itself autonomously correct: it needs a normative ground to function. Over the years Abrichtung will be more and more equated with Erziehung,29 a concept that involves, as an internal property, the existence of a sociocultural environment, in which actions are learned / taught as processes embedded in the life of the community of subjects. In the remarks devoted to the role of definition in language, we could find a seed of a new philosophical conception. In BrB Wittgenstein denies that the act of demonstration taken as an act of baptism could be sufficient to give a word its meaning, and goes on to say that “the difference, one might say, does not lie in the act of demonstration, but rather in the surrounding of that act in the use of language”.30 This remark is quite ambiguous until it is seen in the framework of BrB: the “surrounding” could well be taken either as an extra-linguistic context of worldly stimuli or the extra-linguistic collection of practices linked with the use of verbal language but not directly engaged with

27

Wittgenstein, EPB, p. 117. Wittgenstein, EPB, p. 117 (my italics). 29 Wittgenstein, Z, §§ 387, 419. 30 Wittgenstein, BrB, p. 80. 28

From Umgebung to Form of Life: a Genealogical Reading

129

linguistic knowledge.31 All these solutions would be problematic and fall into the grip of the dualism between language and world. The German version of the passage is more perspicuous and helps us to have a thorough vision: “Der Unterschied, könnte man sagen, liegt nicht einfach in dem, was beim Zeigen vor sich geht, sondern vielmehr in der Umgebung dieses 32 Zeigens, in dem, was ihm vorhergeht, und dem, was darauf folgt.”

The word Umgebung is used in a peculiar sense: it is quite a technical term, if ever such a term existed for Wittgenstein. Take an example from the German philosophical literature contemporaneous with him: Oswald Spranger – only to talk about an author that Wittgenstein read or could have read in that period. Spranger wrote about Umgebung as the actual context, historically marked as the entire field of social trades and ways of life in opposition to the Umwelt, the vital environment specific to an organism belonging to a certain species (a concept that was very much in fashion in that period thanks to the work of Von Uexküll). Spranger was famous during the 1920’s for the publication of Lebensformen (1927), a sort of bestseller in which he was describing six different ways of life or forms of life each connected to a particular kind of man (theoretische, ökonomische, ästhetische,soziale, Machtmensch, religiöse). Here we are more interested in a paper published in April 1923 with the title Der Bildungswert der Heimatkunde in which the author, following Uexküll’s concept of Umwelt, asserts the need for education to change the empirical context (Umgebung) and biological environment (Umwelt) in a third metaconcept: Heimat. Our hypothesis is that Wittgenstein could have read this very paper, or at least could have had an opportunity to read it and to reflect critically on the use of these concepts. Spranger was one of the most influential figures of the Schulreform, the Austrian movement in which he was involved during his experience as a teacher. The dualistic division between a spiritual world and a material one was very popular and typical of the philosophers belonging to the Geisteswissenschaften as opposed to Naturwissenschaften. Even if Wittgenstein was acquainted with this kind of literature, the term Umwelt never appears in his Nachlaß and the very term Umgebung is not used as traditionally. In the passage quoted above Wittgenstein paraphrases it writing: “in dem, was ihm vorhergeht, und 31 32

Wittgenstein, BrB, p. 103. Wittgenstein, EPB, p. 120.

130

Forms of Life and Language Games

dem, was darauf folgt”; that is to say, all those kinds of linguistic activities that precede and follow the act of demonstration. The environment about which we are talking is not only a historical material context, as usually in that period, but a formal linguistic field in which objects, words and gestures are taken together in a holistic unity. Used in this sense Umgebung has to be distinguished from other terms belonging to the same linguistic framework that express different concepts like Situation, Lage, Zusammenhang, Umstand. The latter terms are used to express the actual context, or the particular occasion on which a certain case takes place. More precisely, Zusammenhang has a temporal and syntactical connotation because it refers to the possibility of having a connection between different events. Situation and Lage allude to a token situation that for this reason could be considered in relation to a certain type. Umstand – more often found in the plural Umstände– is the entire situation in which an event takes place, and for this reason is more akin to all the chain of events that surrounds a certain linguistic process. Umgebung overcomes all these uses and it is either actual or possible. In a certain Umgebung the use of language is particularized as that actual enunciation, but it is just this actualization that embodies all the potential uses offered in a language. To have a better idea of what we mean by these terms, we can imagine the case of a car accident between two cars. Zusammenhang could be taken horizontally as the link between different events connected for this special purpose (∑ai). In our special case it could be: a1 (John drives his car), a2 (Mary drives her car), a3 (John hits Mary’s car). Zusammenhang is represented horizontally because it syntactically combines events on the line of time. The Umstand or circumstance lacks this syntactical dimension: it should be taken as the entire field of objects and phenomena recurring in that case, and could be represented vertically as the logical sum of any object / phenomenon x occurring in that circumstance (∑x). Umstand

Umgebung

c b a

a1 a2 a3

Zusammenhang

From Umgebung to Form of Life: a Genealogical Reading

131

In our reading Wittgenstein implicitly broke with the tradition of distinguishing between two realms and never used the word Umwelt because Umgebung was at the same time the biological environment of a human being and his socio-historical context. The following quotation taken from the lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics given some years later than EPB could be of help in understanding our point: “Aber wie deutet denn also der Lehrer dem Schüler die Regel? (Denn der soll ihr doch gewiß eine bestimmte Deutung geben.) - Nun, wie ander, als durch Worte und Abrichtung? Und der Schüler hat die Regel (so gedeutet) inne, wenn er so und so auf sie reagiert. Dass aber ist wichtig, dass diese Reaktion, die uns das Verständnis verbürgt, bestimmte Umstände, bestimmte Lebens– und Spachformen als Umgebung, voraussetzt.”33

The Umgebung is intended formally as a synonym of Sprachformen – and the same happens in Zettel where it is paraphrased as the “whole Field of our language-games [dem ganzen Feld unsere Sprachspiele]”.34 But at the same time our knowledge of the actual world is made possible by the process of training in a certain normative, conceptually characterized environment that is dubbed Umgebung. Talking about linguistic contexts in this way opens up the path for a broader conception of the role of practice: any act here appears as embedded in a conceptual network which has grown up on a background of actions and processes held together in the same language-game. Far from being a chain of S-R relationships, practice is now characterized as a system of actions directed to a certain purpose and guided by a certain system of rules. EPB contains just a hint of this conception, which was to only to be fully developed in PI – particularly in the rule following argument in sections PI §§199-242. Take the following passage from the Brown Book: “Instead of looking at the whole language-game, we only look at the contexts, the phrases in which the word is used.”35

33

Wittgenstein, BGM VII §44, p. 414. Wittgenstein, Z, § 175. 35 Wittgenstein, BrB, p. 108. 34

132

Forms of Life and Language Games

Wittgenstein is now dealing with the philosophical reification of time based on mistaken and exaggerated attention paid to particular expressions like “time flows” or “time passed …”. The argument here has to urge the philosopher to use different kinds of language-games that could lead him to give up his traditional idea about time. For example: if now is considered as a point in time, to ask “what is the ‘now’” should warn us of its objectification. Italics are usually used to pay attention on a particular concept: what is their role right now? The upholder of the continuity theory could conceive of them as a way of stressing the importance of the languagegame concept as an appropriate method of philosophical description. But the predicate ‘whole’ appears to be pleonastic in this philosophical description. A second interpretation, more akin to our discontinuous and genealogical reading, maintains that italics are used to express that the usual (‘narrow’) conception of the language-game does not fit in very well with the power of the argument. In the discontinuity reading the use of italics is meant as the manifestation of a moment of deep split in Wittgenstein himself, who in the German text was to use a completely different term: “Dies ist leicht zu sehen, wenn Du ansiehst, welche Rolle das Wort im Gebrauche der Sprache spielt, ich meine, in der ganzen Praxis der Sprache, und nicht bloß, in was für Sätzen es gebraucht wird.”36

This short quotation raises a question: why did Wittgenstein not use Sprachspiel in translating “language game”? A possible answer, probably the most interesting for our approach, is that here language-game was too narrow a concept to embrace the entire field of possibilities of realizations in language at which he was striving to arrive. Let us take for a moment another passage from BrB.37 The problem faced here is that of understanding the order of adding 1 to a series of numbers – one of his favourite examples. He considers the possibility that a student could continue the series adding 1 up to 100 and adding 2 starting from 102 etc.38 What kind of rule does he follow? The rule of addition or that of quaddition? Is he just following his intuitions? Or merely conforming to a certain external rule? Wittgenstein ends the regress of questions by setting up the game as the unjustified ground of action: 36

Wittgenstein, EPB, p. 157. Wittgenstein, BrB, p. 143. 38 Wittgenstein, BrB, p. 141. 37

From Umgebung to Form of Life: a Genealogical Reading

133

“It is not an act of insight, intuition, which makes us use the rule as we do at the particular point of the series. It would be less confusing to call it an act of decision, though this too is misleading, for nothing like an act of decision must take place, but possibly just an act of writing or speaking … The chain of reasons has an end.”39

We have an idea of the vicious circle in which the reflections of this period were caught up. The application of the language-game method (which consists in challenging certain philosophical ideas by changing the game until it proves to be senseless) only succeeds when it is taken as a pars destruens but is based on a sceptical baseline that leads to a regress in the games that is endless because, to paraphrase Wittgenstein, it never reaches the bedrock against which the spade turns. Faced with the possible solutions that are given to him by a restricted vocabulary of mental intermediaries (intuition, decision), the only way to stop the regress is to set the act as something that lies at the bottom of the language-game and is un-justified. In an article written some years ago Susan Hurley showed that interpretations of the role of practice and activity in language falls into a petitio principii because of postulating the existence of collections of actions or practices or facts that, at the same time, are their criteria of appreciation. In Hurley’s words, there is an asymmetrical treatment of perceptual/mental data and practices: “Our puzzle, then, is why practice has any advantage over the various discredited intermediaries in either solving or dissolving the problem of content”.40 Paraphrasing PI41 we could say that every course of action could be made out in accord with another action, and so we fall into a different regress that is still vicious: the regress in actions. This is only a qualitative change that does not so much affect the matter: destroying the Myth of Given, this theory of the practice of language falls into the grip of the Myth of Giving. This second Myth is symmetrical to the former but in a reverse angle. Consider, for example, the instruction “Pick a red flower”. The upholder of the Myth of Given takes it for granted that, to execute the order, an intermediary act of perception will be needed as a driver of content or information about the world. On the other side the upholder of the Myth of the Giving will take the reverse track but arrive at the same 39

Wittgenstein, BrB, p. 143. Hurley, 1998, p. 229. 41 Wittgenstein, PI, §201. 40

134

Forms of Life and Language Games

results: the act of picking a red flower is self-interpreting because we “take intentional content for granted and so give agency a special transcendental role in making experience possible”.42 Now we are in a condition to appreciate in more detail the term Praxis in EPB. Wittgenstein consciously chose to talk of Praxis der Sprache instead of Sprachspiele because he was conscious of the vicious circularity of an account that takes for granted the content of languagegames. With the term Praxis he was trying to move away from the narrow and dualistic conception entailed by the use of the language-game and to conceive language as the specific environment in which a human being lives his life. Wittgenstein writes Sätzen in italics, to clarify that his critical objective is the logical conception of language, taken as the realization of linear sequences of written signs with a predetermined meaning as logicians were always inclined to think.43 In summary, in 1936 the language-game method arrived at its saturation showing its limits as a positive answer to the problem of content and understanding. Wittgenstein in writing his German manuscript was probably conscious of this risk of becoming a victim of the Myth of the Giving and strived to avoid this vicious circularity by appealing to some concepts like Praxis,44 Umgebung and Erziehung that could help him in turning his philosophy towards a different theoretical framework. Nevertheless, he was still in the grip of old concepts and words that were saturated with the traditional philosophy he was criticizing. The step, that was still needed, was to effect a conversion in the philosophical attitude towards the problem of language, a step that the concept ‘form of life’ made possible.

42

Hurley, 1998, p. 76. Wittgenstein, BrB, p. 98. 44 Recently Franco LoPiparo starting from a hint by Amartya Sen, advanced an original interpretation in describing the change that occurred in Wittgenstein philosophy during the Thirties. LoPiparo, 2010, 285ff. LoPiparo discussed a possible reciprocal influence of Antonio Gramsci, an Italian philosopher and politician, and Wittgenstein; an influence that was indirectly permitted by the mediation of Piero Sraffa, a friend of both. From this point of view the concept of Praxis, that, together with life [of the community], had a great importance in Gramsci’s work on language, could have affected Wittgenstein’s interest in this notion, and on the other side Gramsci himself could have been influenced by Wittgenstein’s reflection. 43

From Umgebung to Form of Life: a Genealogical Reading

3.

135

‘Form of life’ and Umgebung

Lebensform makes its first appearance in the Nachlaß in MS 142 with its famous occurrence PI.45 A point that is worth remarking on is that, until this first appearance, this occurrence was never modified in all the other versions of the work. To give an example, the second occurrence of Lebensform in PI46 was only added later, as a modification to the original “form der Tätigkeit”. In the light of this philological notation we maintain that Lebensform in PI47 should have had a very special role and could be considered as the concept on which the entire strategy of the beginning of PI was based. We would advance the thesis that the beginning of PI is entirely devoted to destroying a certain philosophical conception of language and world as two distinct entities, and especially the traditional idea of language as a system of (verbal) notations that are to be taken as distinct from the other signs and contextual features; an image in which “every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands”.48 In PI the ‘language-game’ is subjected to a methodological and conceptual change. Conceptually it is now defined as “the whole, consisting of language and actions into which it is woven”49. This broader conception of the game should not be taken as a quantitative adjunction of non-verbal signs and activities to a pre-existing system of verbal signs; language-game is to be considered qualitatively different with respect to its previous definition. Now language is a totality in which words and actions could not be distinct: instead of working linearly now the game works in a holistic way. From a methodological point of view ‘language-game’ is an ‘object of comparison’,50 used to shed light on similarities and dissimilarities in order to achieve a perspicuous representation of the grammar of natural language. But the difference is given by the fact that now the different language-games are viewed in a more general framework, represented by the ‘form of life’. From a methodological point of view, ‘form of life’ functions as a general system of reference for the single, actual language-game. In EPB this role was played by Umgebung, or at least Wittgenstein tried to claim this: words and 45

Wittgenstein, PI, §19. Wittgenstein, PI, §23. 47 Wittgenstein, PI, §19. 48 Wittgenstein, PI, §1. 49 Wittgenstein, PI, §7. 50 Wittgenstein, PI, §130. 46

136

Forms of Life and Language Games

gestures functioned only in their Umgebung. Now the question arises: could we really see Lebensform as replacing Umgebung? To answer the question let us consider PI51 in which Wittgenstein addresses the notion of Abrichtung. We have just dealt with this notion and with its value in Wittgenstein’s theory. Wittgenstein in PI52 faces the question posed by the ostensive definition and shows how any definition is idle without particular training: “Doubtless the ostensive teaching helped to bring this about; but only together with a particular training. With different training the same ostensive teaching of these words would have affected a quite different understanding.”53

An important difference that is worth mentioning consists in the absence of any reference to the context. Wittgenstein is interested in the role of training as a skilled activity and not as an activity that takes place in a given context. This absence is precisely a mark of the new conception he is looking for. He considers training as the process of dwelling in the world: training is the act that gives form and matter to the world of the child. In this sense the training of the child and his vital context are one and the same: there is no ontological difference between the process of training in a community and the process of dwelling in the world. The absence of any mention of Umgebung is the sign that, in Wittgenstein’s thought, the term training has acquired a new role: it is not the process of learning rules for the use of words, it is now the process of growth of a subject in his or her proper environment constituted in that process. In some later remarks in which Wittgenstein addressed the issue, he was more direct in recognizing the link between the meaning of the language game and its Umgebung / Lebensform: “Do we say that anyone who is speaking significantly is thinking? For example the builder in language-game no. 2? Couldn’t we imagine him building and calling out the words in surroundings [Umgebung] in which we should not connect this even remotely thinking?”54

For a better understanding of the foundational role of Abrichtung and its connection with the Umgebung, as a range of possible situations of 51

Wittgenstein, PI, §§5-6. Wittgenstein, PI, §§5-6. 53 Wittgenstein, PI, §6. 54 Wittgenstein, Z, 98 (see even Wittgenstein, OPP, II, 203). 52

From Umgebung to Form of Life: a Genealogical Reading

137

language use, we could think of a language game similar to that in PU §2. Suppose that a builder calls his younger assistant to bring him a hammer without specifying what kind of hammer he wants. Now the helper has to go to take the hammer and has to choose between a claw hammer and a pneumatic one. How can he solve his problem? If he wants to make the right choice he has to know the function of the hammer and this is connected with the kind of context in which he is working: if he has to break a wall he will need a pneumatic hammer. Now this kind of knowledge is something that is due to training in a particular environment and does not belong to the category of information achieved through verbal training. This example is meant to show that context and language-game are embedded in each other. The power of this argument could be appreciated only if we keep in mind what is written in PI: “What about the colour samples that A shows to B: are they part of the language? Well, it is as you please. They do not belong among the words; yet when I say to someone: “Pronounce the words ‘the’, you will count the second “the” as part of the sentence. Yet it has a role just like that of a colour sample in the language-game (8); that is, it is a sample of what the other is meant to say. It is most natural, and causes least confusion, to reckon the samples among the instruments of language.”55

This remark described an ideal double and converging movement from two opposed directions: on one side the words of language become samples, and a sound like “the” could be used in different ways in different occasions, so that it could be a different sample, a different thing on different occasions. But at the same time samples are included among “the instruments of language”: a table could serve as a sign in different language-games. This convergent and ideal movement is paving the way for the conclusion that a language is the entire ‘form of life’, the entire world of a subject. Now we have to answer to a second question: why did Wittgenstein not use Umgebung? In our opinion Lebensform was a better term to express this new holistic stance towards the language-world relationship. The compound term is at the same time composed by ‘form’, something that is transcendental and possible, and ‘Leben’, a term that expresses the 55

Wittgenstein, PI, §16.

138

Forms of Life and Language Games

actualization of the possibilities of human experience in the world. To put it briefly: Wittgenstein felt the need to use a concept that was able to work like the colour octahedron, to give an übersichtliche Darstellung of his idea of the practice of language as the process of constitution of the world. 4.

Time and temporality of the game

‘Form of life’ gives us a new Bild of the world as a concept built by the agent in his or her living processes. This entails that the concept of space is not something given a priori but instead is a conceptual dimension that is given in action. Objects in space are known thanks to their relations with a knowing subject: a subject that is taught to enter in relation with them into a socio-historical community. Before arriving at conclusions this genealogical reading tries to go further and explores a possible interpretation of time and its role in the ‘form of life’. Let us imagine the usual language-game of someone apologizing to someone else. We can imagine that a driver hits another car with his or her own and suddenly says something like “I’m sorry”. In some cases the second driver could answer something like “Don’t worry!” Or again let us consider the possibility of rejecting any kind of apology. How could we take a measurement of the time of this game? Did it take some minutes or just a few hours? Is it really possible to talk about the time of this game? The question about the time of the game is devoid of any meaning if we consider the possibility of taking the material time of the act of apologizing. The game does not have a time, but it has a temporality given by the series of actions made possible in a ‘form of life’. The time of the game is not constituted by a series of events but is the linguistic process in the unity of linguistic expressions and their ground.56 The temporality of the language-game expresses its dependence on the existence of a unitary perspective, a set of possibilities that is like a form of life. The languagegame is the actual realization of a range of other possible games, and its being ‘part of a form of life’ could be explained not quantitatively (as the verbal part of a more extended totality represented by the form of life) but 56

We do not have enough space to go into the details of this suggestion, but it could be a useful way of facing the problem of Nonsense in Wittgenstein: we could consider as devoid of any sense all those games that do not have temporality, like the philosophical reflections on Ethics and Mind in which these subjects are taken out of time.

From Umgebung to Form of Life: a Genealogical Reading

139

qualitatively or conceptually: the ‘form of life’ is actualized by the language-game. Taken in this way the ‘form of life’ is the frayed, dynamic boundary of the game. References Capone A., 2010 Perspectives on Language use and Pragmatics, Muenchen: Lincom. Conway G., 1989: Wittgenstein on Foundations, Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International Garver N., 1994: This Complicated Form of Life: Essays on Wittgenstein, Chicago: Open Court. Glock H.J., 1996: A Wittgenstein Dictionary, Oxford: Blackwell Hunter J.F.M., 1968: Forms of Life in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, in American Philosophical Quarterly 5, no. 4 (October 1968): 233, pp. 233-243. Hurley S., 1998: Consciusness in Action, Cambridge-London: Harvard Univ. Press Lo Piparo F., 2010: Gramsci and Wittgenstein: an Intriguing connection, in Capone (ed.), pp. 285-320. Spranger E., 1923 Der Bildungswert der Heimatkunde, Leipzig, Reclam Spranger E., 1927: Lebensformen, Halle, Niemeyer. Stern D., 1991: The “Middle Wittgenstein”: From Logical Atomism to Practical Holism, in Hintikka 1991 (ed.), pp. 203-226. Stern D., 1995: Wittgenstein on Mind and Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stern

D., 2004: Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investingations introduction., Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

an

Wittgenstein, L., 1956-78: Bemerkungen über die Grundlagen der Mathematik, (BGM) (eds.) G.E.M. Anscombe, R. Rhees, G.H. Von Wright, Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L. 1958: The Blue and Brown Books, (BrB) (ed.) R.Rhees, Blackwell, Oxford.

140

Forms of Life and Language Games

Wittgenstein, L. 1967: Zettel, (Z), (ed.) G.E.M. Anscombe, G.H. Von Wright, Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 1969: Eine Philosophische Betrachtung, (EPB) in Das Blaue Buch. Werkausgabe Band 5, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Wittgenstein, L., 1969: On Certainty, (OC), (eds.) G.E.M. Anscombe– G. H. Von Wright, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1969 Wittgenstein, L., 1969: Philosophical Grammar, (PG), (ed.) Rush Rhees, Blackwell, Oxford 1969 Wittgenstein, L., 2009: Philosophical Investigations, (PI), (eds.) G.E.M. Anscombe, R. Rhees, Blackwell, Oxford, 1953 (ed. Hacker-Schulte, 2009). University of Palermo

The so-called “new direction” of the late Wittgenstein António MARQUES1 I wish to share with you some reflections about the issue of a supposed “new direction” in the later Wittgenstein philosophy, which is to be recognized particularly in the material concentrated in the lost TS 234, based on MS 144, which is named simply in the recent Philosophical Investigations edition by G.E.M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and J. Schulte2 Philosophy of Psychology – A Fragment3. In general I agree with the arguments in favour of the existence of that “new direction”, but I argue also that that claim must be qualified in a certain way. In order to make more concrete my argumentation I will choose two topics that to my mind illustrate and substantiate the existence of this supposed new direction. As we know, it is now generally accepted that the so-called Part II of the PI does not belong to the same work; in other words, the division of one and the same work into a Part I and a Part II was a decision made by the editors, namely Anscombe and Rhees. They decided that a typescript, TS 234, then lost, based on a manuscript (MS 144), which is a collection of 372 remarks, selected mostly from manuscripts written between May 1946 and May 1949, was to be published as Part II of the same work. In their editor’s note they claim that “…If Wittgenstein had published his work himself, he would have suppressed a good deal of what is in the last thirty pages or so of Part I and worked what is in Part II, with further material, into its place”.4 In fact there is no empirical evidence, either written or 1

This paper is a contribution to the project “Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: Re-Evaluating a Project”, funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. 2 L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. (Edition by G.E.M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and J. Schulte), Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell; 4 edition, 2009. 3 In the present text I use this fourth edition. When I quote from the so-called Part II, it will be referred to as PP (Philosophy of Psychology), followed by the number of the section (which remains the same) and the number of the remark that is introduced. 4 L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford, Blackwell, 1958, p. 3. Forms of Life and Language Games, (Eds. Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ, Margit GAFFAL), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2011, 141-152.

142

Forms of Life and Language Games

verbal, that Wittgenstein intended to do that. With his deep and systemic knowledge of the works of Wittgenstein, the contribution of von Wright is decisive for the correction of this important mistake. Now recent editions of PI either present only the so-called Part I (for example, the critique and genetic edition prepared by J. Schulte that presents different stages of the PI conception) or do as in the case of the very recent, fourth edition in Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, revised by Peter Hacker and J. Schulte, which indeed includes the former Part II but now presented as a Fragment on Philosophy of Psychology.5 So the 1953 edition of PI included a Part II because, as mentioned above, Anscombe and Rhees decided on the basis of a verbal declaration of the philosopher to add to TS 227 another typescript without a title. This typescript has unfortunately been lost. We can wonder why von Wright did not take part in that decision since he was also a trustee of Wittgenstein’s work along with both the editors (Anscombe and Rhees) of PI. He explains the reason for this situation (which he regrets) in his foreword to the recent critique-genetic edition by Joachim Schulte: after an operation and due to the necessary convalescence he was unable to take part in the preparatory works. He also implies that even if he could have done so, perhaps the editorial decision would not have been different, but at least he would now be able to recall details of the process6. Anyway let us focus a little bit on some points of the story of Part II that von Wright tells us in the aforementioned foreword and particularly in his well known article on “The Troubled History of Part II of the Investigations”7. My aim is to bring together some pieces of the detailed account von Wright offers us and then to leave you with some observations and suggestions regarding the main philosophical trends of Wittgenstein’s last writings if there are such new trends, which of course can be contested. I can already tell you what my impression is: the main topics and in general the therapeutic methodology that Wittgenstein uses in the PI continue from 1946 onwards, but he selected some themes which were already well identified in PI and exposed them from different perspectives, 5

L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. (Edition by G.E.M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and J. Schulte), Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell; 4 edition, 2009. 6 See G. von Wright’s “Vorwort” to L. Wittgenstein’s Philosophische Untersuchungen, ed. by J. Schulte, Frankfurt a. Main, Suhrkamp, 2001. 7 I used the German translation of this article: “Teil II der Philosophische Untersuchungen – Eine beschwerliche Geschichte” in Wittgenstein über die Seele, ed. E. von Savigny and Olivier R. Scholz, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. Main, 1995, pp. 12-24.

The so-called “new direction” of the late Wittgenstein

143

always following his therapeutic method. These themes or problems are not (to my mind) new problems since they are clearly main topics that one finds in PI. Nonetheless the therapeutic investigation which Wittgenstein submitted them to gives the impression that his thought is beginning to progress towards new directions. In this sense I am not of the opinion that there is a “third Wittgenstein” who found solutions to problems that were not solved or even well constructed by the second Wittgenstein, the author of the Philosophical Investigations8. Anyway I do not wish to discuss here the thesis of another Wittgenstein after the Investigations. For our aims, I want to briefly recall some observations that von Wright made about the so-called Part II and its relationship with Part I. In his article on the troubled history of this part, he tells us that Part I is a complete work corresponding to TS 227 of his catalogue of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass and that it was only in 1945 that it acquired its last form after he had added around four hundred remarks to it picked out from earlier manuscripts from the thirties. Then von Wright says that “[This enlarged version is now the Part I of the printed book. Wittgenstein could after 1945 here or there introduce some improvements, but there is not any section of Part I, which he added after that year”9. Since Philosophical Investigations is a complete work, what is relevant here is that in the printed version10 there is no remark that would be written after 1945 and that what counts as Part II is certainly new material. It is after this, between May 1946 and May 1949, that Wittgenstein wrote new manuscripts, almost only dedicated to the nature of psychological concepts. From this material he dictated two typescripts (229 and 232) in 1947 and 1948 and in the line of his working process he prepared manuscript 144, the basis for the so-called Part II, probably in the middle of 1949 in von Wright and Anscombe’s opinion.11 In this context it is interesting to focus on an interesting point made by von Wright in his article on the troubled history of Part II. Anscombe and Rhees recount that when they visited Wittgenstein in Dublin in December 1948 they were told that he had already written some parts of Part II, but there was certainly no MS 144 and consequently the 8

See the Introduction of D. Moyal-Sharrock to The Third Wittgenstein – The PostInvestigations Works, Ashgate, Burlington, 2004. 9 G. von Wright, : “Teil II der Philosophische Untersuchungen – Eine beschwerliche Geschichte” in Wittgenstein über die Seele, ed. E. von Savigny and Olivier R. Scholz, Frankfurt a. Main, 1995, p. 13. 10 TS 227. 11 See their foreword to volume I of Remarks on Philosophy of Psychology.

144

Forms of Life and Language Games

later lost typescript that was dictated from MS 144, which they added to Part I. Then quite perspicaciously von Wright remarks that “…Even if one doesn’t take into account the lost typescript for Part II, one doesn’t know any typescript that Wittgenstein dictated after 1948. Also there is not any proof to the supposition that beyond the typescripts that existed at the time Anscombe and Rhees visited Wittgenstein in Dublin, that there would be another typescript”12.

This is a relevant remark because it confirms that MS 144 is now the most secure basis from which to reconstruct the so-called Part II and also that we must speak of completely new material, chronologically distinct from Part I. Although this situation does not justify per se the claim that the new material corresponding to that Part represents another stage of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, it can at least promote the view that it represents a new direction to his thought. This is precisely von Wright’s opinion when he writes that he considered it always appropriate to view the so-called Part II with other late writings as the beginning of a new direction in Wittgenstein’s thought13. Elsewhere, von Wright says that “… the text, which is printed as Part II, always appeared to me as a step into a new direction. But these remarks don’t exclude the possibility that both parts could be stronger connected than the way they are now”14.

Also in his Introduction to the genetic-critique edition of the Philosophical Investigations, Joachim Schulte gives a central place to MS 130 for the understanding of this change of direction. Written between the end of 1945 and the spring of 1946, this MS contains two kinds of remarks, with the first ones (ca. 55 pages) being used for the latest redaction of the PI. The other notes of the same MS 130 have a very different character. Schulte even says that a continuous work related to the last reflections on the philosophy of psychology begins with them and continues until 1949. They begin just a new chapter in Wittgenstein’s thought15 As I said, I agree with these views of von Wright and Schulte about the existence of a new direction in Wittgenstein’s work, but I only wish to see a little deeper into what one takes as a “new direction” post PI just because it is not enough 12

Ibidem, p. 18. G.H. von Wright, “Vorwort” to L. Wittgenstein’s Philosophische Untersuchungen, ed. cit., p. 8. 14 G.H. von Wright, “Teil II der PI….”, p. 19 15 L. Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen – Kritisch-genetische Edition, ed. J. Schulte in collaboration with H, Nyman, G.H. von Wright, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. Main, 2001, p. 28. 13

The so-called “new direction” of the late Wittgenstein

145

to say that the last writings from 1946 onwards are dedicated mainly to psychological concepts. On the one hand, Wittgenstein’s late philosophy is not to be reduced to psychological problems; on the other hand, the reader of the Investigations Part I can already find there many remarks that one can consider to be in the domain of philosophical psychology and remember that such themes are recurrent until the last days of Wittgenstein’s working life. As I mentioned, it seems to me that the main topics and in general the therapeutic methodology Wittgenstein uses in the Philosophical Investigations continue in this fragment, but that he selected some problems which were already treated in PI and exposed them under other new aspects following his own method16. Without wishing to enter into details about the notion of therapy, a controversial theme per se, it is generally accepted that this new method involves the notion of a perspicuous view (Übersicht) of the various uses of words and concepts, their articulation, comparison and the recognition of different physiognomies of the same forms, words or concepts. A major consequence of this new way of seeing and understanding is to grasp the essence of certain metaphysical terms bringing them to their everyday use (in the terms of the well known section 116 of the PI). This “new direction” pointed out by von Wright and other authors means, to my mind, simply the continuation of the use of the new method. Wittgenstein could not simply stop exploring new aspects of the same problems. To be precise, the new method to treat philosophical problems forced Wittgenstein to search for new points of view, other morphologies, as he also liked to qualify his kind of investigations. Philosophical problems can be experienced under different aspects and in this sense they are not solved in the usual sense of solving a problem. So the new direction, or chapter in

16

A clear remark about his new method is to be found in Wittgenstein, PI, 133: “We don’t want to refine or complete the system of rules for the use of our words in unheard-of ways. For the clarity that that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear. The real discovery is the one that enables me to break off philosophizing when I want to. – The one that gives peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions, which bring itself in question. – Instead, a method is now demonstrated by examples, and the series of examples can be broken off. – Problems are solved (difficulties eliminated), not a single problem. There is not a single philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, different therapies, as it were” Wittgenstein, PI, 133, (2009).

146

Forms of Life and Language Games

his philosophy, is after all a necessary consequence of the method he believed he had found to solve philosophical problems. In order to justify such a claim, I suggest two different but interconnected topics that deserve a more accurate therapeutic analysis. These are: 1. the transition from the understanding of understanding of words or sentences from their physiognomy to their aspect-changing, and 2. the relation between inner and outer. There can be other equally important topics but these are certainly central points that circulate as a real network in the whole of Part II. Now I shall examine a little more carefully each of these items. 1.

The transition from physiognomy to aspect-changing

In the Investigations physiognomy is a topic related to understanding and meaning or, in other words, to the therapeutic of understanding as conceived as an inner process far from the praxis of language and perception, distant from what can be designated the perception/language system. A relevant remark for the therapeutic of understanding is, for example, PI 531 where understanding a sentence requires, beyond the substitution of one sentence for another, that we can also perceive its singularity. “We speak of understanding a sentence in the sense in which it can be replaced by another which says the same; but also in the sense in which it cannot be replaced by another. (Any more than one musical theme can be replaced by another). In the one case, the thought in the sentence is what is expressed only by these words in these positions. Understanding a poem)”.17

This is intimately linked to the singularity of physiognomy, a major concept in the late writings. To be sure, the notion of aspect, which to my knowledge Wittgenstein does not use in the Philosophical Investigations but appears later, derives from the earlier notion of physiognomy, which by itself means an expressive face. Physiognomic expression points to a condition for what can be seen as understanding the meaning of either a word, or concept, or sentence in the Philosophical Investigations. “((Meaning - a physiognomy))” remarks Wittgenstein in a note inserted in

17

Wittgenstein, PI, 531.

The so-called “new direction” of the late Wittgenstein

147

56818. In their endnotes the editors of the edition referred to here remember other remarks of Wittgenstein’s on the relation between aspect and meaning, for example MS 133: “On the use of a word we see a physiognomy”19 and in MS 137: “The concept is not only a technique, but also a physiognomy”.20 Physiognomic qualities of language are then linked to the clarification of meaning and represent a therapeutic approach to a homogenous pure semantics based on the principle of a substitution salva veritate. Yet this is a poor or incomplete notion of meaning since meaning requires substitution of a concept or expression by another one without loss of sense, but also (and we would say even more) it requires the perception of differences. The difference can appear at first sight not relevant enough, but to recognize differences is an essential element of understanding. In subsequent sections of Philosophical Investigations, namely 532 and 533, Wittgenstein continues to compare the understanding of the sentence (Satz) with that of a poem or a musical phrase (the comparison with music is recurrent in Wittgenstein). Here allow me to make a brief remark. Interestingly, Wittgenstein seems to foresee a difficulty: how is communication based mainly on a (let us call it) semantics of singularity, that is, on a semantics based on physiognomy possible? The answer comes in Philosophical Investigations, insisting on the approach mentioned above: “But in the second case how can one explain the expression, communicate what one understands? Ask yourself: How does one lead someone to understand a poem or a theme? The answer to this tells us how one explains the sense here”.21 This almost overlapping situation between understanding sentences and understanding poetry or music underlines the importance of physiognomy or singular expressivity as a therapy for a truth-conditional semantics, and there is no doubt about this. But perhaps this is not satisfactory enough; perhaps this overlapping suggests more, let us say more therapeutic work on the problem “understanding meaning”. If our claim by stressing the singularity of physiognomy in order to clarify what is understanding (Verstehen) requires more than the quasi overlapping of understanding a sentence and understanding a poem, then 18

Wittgenstein even speaks of a physiognomy of the rules as in Wittgenstein, PI 235: “From this you can see how much there is to the physiognomy of what we call ‘following a rule’ in everyday life”. 19 Wittgenstein, MS 133. 20 Wittgenstein, MS 137. 21 Wittgenstein, PI, 533.

148

Forms of Life and Language Games

the question arises as to whether the above- mentioned “new direction” or “another chapter” includes a further movement from this quasi overlapping of understandings, that is, from a semantics of physiognomy to a semantics of aspect. In other words, it is reasonable to think that there is a transition from the simple notion of physiognomy (the central notion of a semantics of singularity) to the notion of aspect, or rather the experience of the phenomenon of change of aspect. In other words, it is reasonable to think that Wittgenstein deepens his therapeutic position by this transition to the aspect phenomenon. In what sense is this therapy developed in the Fragment corresponding to the so-called Part II? To my mind Wittgenstein did it through the argumentation of a close link between understandinguse of language-perception, that is, three elements forming a system which has its more trivial formulation in the suggestion: “now see this as …, then see it as”. The phenomenon of the reversible figures like the Jastrow duckrabbit interested Wittgenstein very much and through it he makes a new approach to physiognomy and meaning. The reversible experience, “now I see this as a duck head …, now as rabbit head” or from the third person, “now see this as a…, now as ….b”, does not apply simply to visual perception but also to sound experiences and of course spoken language. What is important is to underline that all change of aspect is correlated to change of meaning of one perception (visual or not) which can change aspect or meaning depending on our will and according to the order “now see (hear) this as …, then see it as …”. What is important here is that experience of meaning, like the experience of physiognomic aspect, involves the capacity of seeing aspect changes of the same structure. Wittgenstein invites us to represent a person who is aspect-blind. This person could not jump from one aspect to the other, for example, from one aspect of the head of a rabbit to the head of a duck, from one perspective of the schematic cube to another, to the meaning of “bank” to another meaning of this word and so on. In fact, stressing the relation of physiognomic aspect and meaning is a crucial move to the therapeutic aims and is an improvement of the same semantics of singularity. Now what can be designated as “experiencing the meaning of a word” can only be fully understood if one achieves a transition from a semantics of physiognomy to that of aspect or rather aspect-changing. And it is quite interesting that Wittgenstein stresses in this new form of understanding the understanding only the role of the will: “Seeing an aspect and imagining are subject to the will. There is such an order as ‘Imagine this!’, and also, ‘Now see the

The so-called “new direction” of the late Wittgenstein

149

figure like this!’; but not ‘Now see this leaf green!’”.22 This means that the other can induce me to see something as something, to hear something as something, but not force me to see it like this or that against my will. This is a relevant point that I only touch upon on this occasion. 2.

The inner and the outer

One of the strongest convictions that seems to pervade the whole of the Philosophical Investigations is the privilege of the outer against the inner and this is certainly an adequate picture that the reader gets of the entire work in various passages. Among others, let us remember the well-known section 580: “An ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria”.23 Also when Wittgenstein approaches the status of the psychological concepts, he claims that “the psychologist observes the external reactions (the behaviour) of the subject”.24 The famous private language argument that can be read against the hypothesis that “only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it” points out the need of a therapy of the use of “knowing p” as well as of the use of the concepts in the surroundings of the inner.25 That only I know whether I am in pain presupposes a language that refers to my sensations, a sensation language, whose identity criteria only I possess. But if “my words for sensations are tied up with my natural expressions of sensation, in that case my language is not a ‘private’ one. Someone else might understand it as well”.26 Private objects that only I know could only be admitted if I possessed or rather invented a language that would designate fixed objects in my interior. It is as if my mind was a box to whose interior only I had access, and at which only I could look and see as it were a beetle in my closed box. As you know Wittgenstein uses this image in the well-known: “Suppose that everyone had a box with something in it which we call a ‘beetle’. No one can ever look into anyone else’s box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. – Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. – But what if these people’s word ‘beetle’ had a use nonetheless? – If so, it would be not a 22

Wittgenstein, PI, PP, XI, 256. Wittgenstein, PI, 580. 24 Wittgenstein, PI, 571. 25 Wittgenstein, PI, 245. 26 Wittgenstein, PI, 256. 23

150

Forms of Life and Language Games name of a thing. The thing in the box doesn’t belong to the languagegame at all; even as a Something: for the box might even be empty. – No, one can ‘divide through’ by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is. That is to say, if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of ‘object and name’, the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant”.27

This is a clear statement of the irrelevance of a supposed inner filled with private objects and the argumentation goes with a view to eliminating any object of the mind in the model of the grammar of object and name. Use of language for mutual understanding destroys any fixed/complete object located in a putative private inner for the sake of communication and mutual understanding. The point is not that there are not inner processes, but that understanding them as private objects is irrelevant to what is decisive, that is, the language game used in mutual understanding. The word ‘beetle’ has certainly a use – each of us can understand what is meant by the other – only it is not a name of a thing. The privilege of exterior criteria is here well certified and it may be asked whether the dissolution of private objects, by which Wittgenstein submits the therapy of the grammar of a language of sensations, will not have the negative consequence of erasing just the notion of an inner, a human soul. Of course Wittgenstein is aware that his argument appears as a denying or an erasing of an inner, of any inner, processes. After all, is he not saying that from this point of view “pain” is equivalent to “painbehaviour” when he asks himself28 “‘Aren’t you nevertheless a behaviourist in disguise? Aren’t you nevertheless basically saying that everything except human behaviour is a fiction’ – If I speak of a fiction of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction”29? And in the sections which compound the so-called private language argument one finds some passages that stress this preoccupation, that is, not the erasing of the reality of an inner, which would be the same as to erase the idea of a human mind. Therefore, he balances the irrelevance of private inner processes in sections like “The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person possesses his own specimen, but that nobody knows whether other people also have this or something else. The assumption would be thus possible – though unverifiable – that one section of mankind had one 27

Wittgenstein, PI, 293. Wittgenstein, PI, 281. 29 Wittgenstein, PI, 307. 28

The so-called “new direction” of the late Wittgenstein

151

visual impression of red, and another section another”30 or “… And now it looks as if we had denied mental processes. And naturally we don’t want to deny them”.31 Now as in the case of the aspect-changing, which represents a therapeutic development of the experience of meaning, the duality inner/outer is also submitted to a further treatment that complements the approach we have seen above. Yet refusal by Wittgenstein of the behaviouristic accusation, that is, the quasi erasing of a human mind, does not lead to a sort of rehabilitation of the interior or a revisionist attitude of the irrelevance of a private language of sensations. The movement goes in the sense of stressing first person authority, of the expression contrasting with description and the corresponding dissimulation processes. Let us consider only the first case. The use of certain psychological verbs in the present tense like “to believe”, “to desire”, “to intend” and so on induces a total asymmetry between first and third person authority. But this asymmetry is not a cognitive one; in fact it is based on an expressive authority. This is revealed by the circumstance that I can say, “I desire to go to Toledo”, but it does not make sense to say “I know I desire to go to Toledo” unless on account of a language game allowed by my interlocutor. The certainty that is revealed in the first utterance on all occasions cannot be the same certainty which is supposed to exist in a third person perspective, “I know he desires to go to Toledo”. The other person can be wrong about my desire; I can not. In a certain sense I do not hear what my mouth is saying in a first person expression. In quite an impressive way Wittgenstein says that “If I listened to the words issuing from my mouth, then I could say that someone else was speaking out of it”.32 In addition, “assuming I believe that p” is very different from asserting “I believe that p”. The essential fact is that the asymmetry between these authorities is not an epistemological one, and on that is based the development of the Wittgensteinian reflection about the conceptual pair inner/outer. We must not re-evaluate the supposed epistemological nature of the inner in order to place it in the right position vis à vis the outer. In fact, “I can know what someone else is thinking, not what I am thinking. It is correct to say ‘I know what you are

30

Wittgenstein, PI, 272. Wittgenstein, PI, 308. 32 Wittgenstein, PI, PP, X, 104. 31

152

Forms of Life and Language Games

thinking’ and wrong to say ‘I know what I am thinking’’. (A whole cloud of philosophy condenses into a drop of grammar).33 New University of Lisbon

33

Wittgenstein, PI, PP, XI, 315.

Wittgenstein and the Criticism of Technological and Scientific Civilization Vicente SANFÉLIX VIDARTE 1.

Science and destruction

Despite the fact that Wittgenstein, to whose comprehension of the cultural significance of science and technology we are going to devote this essay, did not make this theme a systematic object of his reflections, he had thoughts about it, as we shall see, which fight against the dominant image of these, and this gives his philosophy a dimension of criticism of society which is initially unsuspected.1 In a remark noted in 1946 Wittgenstein wrote: “The hysterical fear over the bomb now being experienced, or at any rate expressed, by the public almost suggests that at last something really salutary has been invented. The fright at least gives the impression of a really effective bitter medicine. I can’t help thinking: if this didn’t have something good about it the philistines wouldn’t be making an outcry. But perhaps this too is a childish idea. Because really all I can mean is that the bomb offers a prospect of the end, the destruction, of an evil, – our disgusting soapy water science. And certainly that’s not an unpleasant thought; but who can say what would come after this destruction? The people now making speeches against producing the bomb are undoubtedly the scum of the intellectuals, but even that does not prove beyond question that what they abominate is to be welcomed.”2

This is a difficult passage to interpret. In any case, what leaps to the eye is that if it expressing some kind of justification of the atomic bomb it is a rather peculiar justification.3 To examine it let’s consider the case of 1

This work forms part of research project FFI2008-00866/FISO: “Culture and religion: Wittgenstein and the Counter-Enlightenment”, financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. 2 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, 48e–49e. 3 This would be equally true if he expressed condemnation of it at the end. Of course, it would not be condemnation for the sake of mere pacifism (that of the philistines?), for Wittgenstein did not confine himself simply to condemning war: “Nowadays it is Forms of Life and Language Games, (Eds. Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ, Margit GAFFAL), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2011, 153-173.

154

Forms of Life and Language Games

the President of the United States of America at that time, Harry S. Truman. Like Wittgenstein, in the statement he made on 6 August 1945 Truman speaks of the destructive nature of the bomb,4 and yet he is capable of seeing “marvelous” aspects in its construction, such as the size of the enterprise, its immense cost, the secrecy with which it was carried out and, above all, the coordination of science and industry, under the direction of the United States Army, to bring about “the greatest achievement of organized science in history”.5 As far as the justification of the dropping of the bomb is concerned, despite a certain concession to the spirit of revenge – “The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold. And the end is not yet”6 – the considerations that prevail are basically humanitarian. For he argues that, although the Japanese are “savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic”, they, the United States, “as the leader of the world for the common welfare”, cannot allow themselves to drop the bomb on the old capital – Kyoto – or the new capital – Tokyo – of the

the fashion to emphasize the horrors of the last war. I didn’t find it so horrible. There are just as horrible things happening all around us today, if only we had eyes to see them.” Maurice O’Connor, “Conversations with Wittgenstein”, Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Personal Recollections, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981, p. 144. 4 “With this bomb we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction to supplement the growing power of our armed forces”, . 5 The paragraph in the President’s declaration which is of interest here says the following: “But the greatest marvel is not the size of the enterprise, its secrecy, nor its cost, but the achievement of scientific brains in putting together infinitely complex pieces of knowledge held by many men in different fields of science into a workable plan. And hardly less marvelous has been the capacity of industry to design, and of labor to operate, the machines and methods to do things never done before so that the brain child of many minds came forth in physical shape and performed as it was supposed to do. Both science and industry worked under the direction of the United States Army, which achieved a unique success in managing so diverse a problem in the advancement of knowledge in an amazingly short time. It is doubtful if such another combination could be got together in the world. What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science in history. It was done under high pressure and without failure.” Ibid. Obviously the concept of “Organized Science” to which Truman refers is very similar to the concept of “Big Science”. In fact, the “Manhattan Project”, which resulted in the building of the atomic bomb, tends to be identified as the starting point for the latter. 6 Statement by the President on 6 August 1945. Ibid.

Wittgenstein and the Criticism of Technological and Scientific Civilization 155

Japanese empire, and therefore the targets will be purely military ones.7 The final aim is the same as was pursued with the ultimatum issued to the Japanese in Potsdam on 26 July 1945: “to save lives”,8 “to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction”.9 In short, although the atomic bomb seems to be the most terrible thing that has ever been discovered, it can be made the most useful,10 as a guarantee of world peace, especially if one bears in mind the foreseeable future commercial exploitation of nuclear energy,11 so that they must be grateful to Providence for having allowed the Americans to have discovered it, and not the Germans or the Russians.12 Now, coming back to Wittgenstein, if one thing is clear it is that his appreciation of the bomb has nothing to do with that “progressive”, “utilitarian”, “scientific”, “humanist” justification of it. On the contrary, Wittgenstein’s “justification” of the bomb seems to be the very opposite of Truman’s. The aspect of the bomb that attracts Wittgenstein is, basically, that it highlights the destructive nature of science, shocking the philistines and causing panic among the general public. His reservations seem to have to do: 1) with the fact that this panic might, after all, not be real, so that its potential therapeutic effect would be questionable; 7

The statement made by the President on 6 August which announces the dropping of the bomb begins as follows: “Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base.” Ibid. 8 “The target will be … (to) save lives.” Entry dated 25 July 1945 in the President’s diary. Ibid. 9 Statement by the President on 6 August 1945. Ibid. 10 “It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful.” Entry dated 25 July 1945 in the President’s diary. Ibid. 11 “The fact that we can release atomic energy ushers in a new era in man’s understanding of nature’s forces. Atomic energy may in the future supplement the power that now comes from coal, oil, and falling water …” Statement by the President on 6 August 1945. Ibid. 12 “We may be grateful to Providence that the Germans … did not get the atomic bomb at all.” Ibid. Although, for obvious reasons, President Truman only mentions the Germans in his declaration, in his diary he allows himself to be much more explicit: “It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler’s crowd or Stalin’s did not discover this atomic bomb.” Ibid. Note that in this entry the references to Providence have disappeared.

156

Forms of Life and Language Games

2) the fact that, as a good logician, he knows perfectly well what an ad hominem fallacy is – “The people now making speeches against producing the bomb are undoubtedly the scum of the intellectuals, but even that does not prove beyond question that what they abominate is to be welcomed” – and that 3) after all, although it is good that the bomb makes us mindful of the destructive nature of science, if that nature were actually put into effect nobody could predict what might happen. In other words: what Wittgenstein finds good in the atomic bomb is that it shows the destructive nature of the science that has produced it, not the effective destruction that it might bring about. However, even if the meaning of what Wittgenstein wrote is clearer now, clarification is still needed concerning his reasons for considering that science has a destructive nature. And note that these reasons cannot be, or cannot only be, that science has produced a bomb that could destroy humanity; for, in fact, the moral significance that Wittgenstein attributes to the bomb is only that it highlights a destructive nature which, therefore, science already had before it was “disclosed”. 2.

Progress and superstition

In another passage, written in 1947, we find: “The truly apocalyptic view of the world is that things do not repeat themselves. It isn’t absurd, e.g., to believe that the age of science and technology is the beginning of the end for humanity; that the idea of great progress is a delusion, along with the idea that the truth will ultimately be known; that there is nothing good or desirable about scientific knowledge and that mankind, in seeking it, is falling into a trap. It is by no means obvious that this is not how things are.”13

The first thing that draws our attention in this passage is its sceptical tone. Wittgenstein does not dogmatically say that the era of science and technology inevitably leads to apocalypse, but that this is a possibility that cannot be excluded. It would seem, therefore, that Wittgenstein’s aim was to combat an unfounded certainty that dwells in the very heart of the picture or view of

13

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 56e.

Wittgenstein and the Criticism of Technological and Scientific Civilization 157

the world14 that is characteristic of the age of science and technology that is ours, “the idea of great progress”; a term that Wittgenstein actually identifies as the most enduring,15 and therefore essential, aspect of this age, as he had already suggested in another remark made in 1930: “Our civilization is characterized by the word ‘progress’. Progress is its form rather than making progress being one of its features. Typically it constructs. It is occupied with building an ever more complicated structure.”16

When Rudolf Carnap recounted in his “Autobiography” how he met Wittgenstein, in about 1927, and the impression that the latter made on him, he said: “I sometimes had the impression that the deliberately rational and unemotional attitude of the scientist and likewise any ideas which had the flavor of ‘enlightenment’ were repugnant to Wittgenstein”.17

Now we may understand that his impression was not mistaken. It may well be considered that the aim of Wittgenstein’s philosophy is to make us conscious of the irrational, unfounded nature of our faith in progress; the faith that the world picture characteristic of our age of science and technology has inherited directly from the Age of Enlightenment. As we were saying earlier, Wittgenstein in turn was not completely original in this. For example, Tolstoy in his Confession had spoken of “the superstition of progress”.18 But why should “the idea of great progress” be a superstition? Let’s admit that Wittgenstein is right when he places our civilization in the middle of the picture of the world that corresponds to our age of science 14

The concept of “picture of the world” (Weltbild) plays a fundamental role in Wittgenstein’s late work, whereas the concept of “world view” (Weltanschauung), which we can consider as a synonym of it, occupies a prominent place in his early work. 15 In a passage written the same year, in 1947, which we shall quote later and comment on at greater length, Wittgenstein says: “Science and industry, and their progress, might turn out be the most enduring thing in the modern world.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 63e. 16 Ibid., p. 7e. 17 Rudolf Carnap, “Intellectual Autobiography”, Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, La Salle, Illinois, Open Court Publishing Company, 1963, p. 26. 18 See Leo Tolstoy, A Confession and Other Religious Writings, London, Penguin, 1987, p. 26.

158

Forms of Life and Language Games

and technology. Let’s even admit that there is something unfounded in our certainty of this. Would all this be sufficient to describe it as “superstition”? It is Wittgenstein himself who warns us: “It is true that we can compare a picture that is firmly rooted in us to a superstition; but it is equally true that we always eventually have to reach some firm ground, either a picture or something else, so that a picture which is at the root of all our thinking is to be respected and not treated as a superstition.”19

Therefore the fact that belief in progress constitutes “a picture that is firmly rooted in us” does not, in itself, determine its superstitious nature. And I am afraid that the same can be said of its unfounded nature, for, after all, was it not the author of On Certainty who wrote that “At the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded”?20 But if that is so, then every picture of the world that we take as our basis would seem in the final instance to be unfounded, that is, equally superstitious. And if everything is superstition, what does it matter if our certainty in progress is also superstition? So, if we must criticize our belief in progress, we cannot do so because of its lack of foundation. However, might it not be that what a philosophy of critical aspirations should criticize is not so much a belief’s lack of foundation as what we might call our unawareness of its lack of foundation? When the Tractatus evaluates the modern view of the world it seems to point to something of the sort: “At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. So people stop short at natural laws as at something unassailable, as did the ancients at God and Fate. And they both are right and wrong. But the ancients were clearer, in so far as they recognized one clear terminus, whereas the modern system makes it appear as though everything were explained.”21

19

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 83e. Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1979, paragraph 253. 21 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983, paragraphs 6.371 and 6.372. 20

Wittgenstein and the Criticism of Technological and Scientific Civilization 159

What Wittgenstein is criticizing here is a kind of dream of omnipotence, in this case theoretical. The modern view of the world is accompanied by the illusion that everything can be explained. Almost thirty years later, as we have seen, he noted the illuminating quality of the idea of a final knowledge of truth which the progress of science should give us.22 Admittedly, I think we must agree with Wittgenstein that it seems as if the progressive view of the world was especially suitable for generating that kind of what we might call reflexive blindness. But this fault that we believe we have found in the techno-scientific view of the world, which in a sense would even entitle us to describe it as superstitious, is still purely theoretical. And Wittgenstein’s condemnation of it was fundamentally moral. 3.

The decadence of the spirit

When Tolstoy speaks of the “superstition of progress” he is also thinking of that kind of reflexive blindness that we have just noted, and yet the Russian thinker gives an eminently practical bias to that unawareness: the superstition of progress is the typical superstition of our time, by virtue of which men are ignorant of their own ignorance of life. Tolstoy, reflecting on his own case, expresses it with a brilliant comparison: when he still believed that the word “progress” had some vital meaning, he tells us: “… I did not yet understand that in answering ‘live in conformity with progress’, I was speaking exactly like a person who is in a boat being carried along by wind and waves and who when asked the most important and vital question, ‘Where should I steer?’, avoids answering by saying, ‘We are being carried somewhere’.”23

I think that Wittgenstein would have subscribed to these words completely. But at this point, to avoid confusion, it may be necessary to make some clarifications. To do so we shall apply to the notion of progress 22

I think that Drury is saying something along the same lines when he reminds us that for Wittgenstein one of the difficulties in philosophy consisted precisely in saying no more than what we know; a sin constantly committed both by science and by our common sense. See Maurice O’Connor Drury, “Some Notes on Conversations with Wittgenstein”, Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Personal Recollections, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981, p. 97. 23 Leo Tolstoy, A Confession and Other Religious Writings, London, Penguin, 1987, p. 26.

160

Forms of Life and Language Games

the distinction that Wittgenstein applies to evaluative terms in “A Lecture on Ethics”, namely: the distinction between their “trivial or relative sense” and the “ethical or absolute sense”.24 Since the relative sense of valorative expressions simply means fitting in with a certain predetermined standard,25 once that standard has been fixed there is nothing to stop one from speaking precisely about whether there has been progress or not. For example, if we decide to speak about handling, it is quite correct to say that modern cars show clear progress with regard to old ones. “I recently said to Arvid, after I had been watching a very old film with him in the cinema: A modern film is to an old one as a present-day motor car is to one built 25 years ago. The impression it makes is just as ridiculous and clumsy and the way film-making has improved is comparable to the sort of technical improvement we see in cars. It is not to be compared with the improvement – if it’s right to call it that – of an artistic style … What distinguishes all these developments from the formation of a style is that spirit plays no part in them.”26

Just as we can say of modern cars that they are technically better than old ones, we could equally say that modern films are technically better than old films. But does this mean that modern films are of more value than old ones? Are they aesthetically superior? Are they better films? If we bear in mind that for Wittgenstein ethics is about “what makes life worth living”, which obviously includes art, so that ethics also incorporates “the most essential part of what is generally called Aesthetics”,27 we might well say that the passage that we have just quoted illustrates how, for Wittgenstein, even though we may be able to give a perfectly clear sense to the word “progress”, that does not mean that we have demonstrated that this sense is absolute, in other words, that progress is “aesthet(h)ically” of value. Or, to say the same thing with expressions that we have just seen him use: the progress of which we can speak with perfect sense might well be spiritually indifferent (die Unbeteiligung des Geistes) or, we might add on 24

Ludwig Wittgenstein, “A Lecture on Ethics”, The Philosophical Review, 74, 1965, p. 4. 25 See ibid. 26 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 3e. 27 Ludwig Wittgenstein, “A Lecture on Ethics”, The Philosophical Review, 74, 1965, p. 4. We might say, therefore, that for Wittgenstein there is only “aesthet(h)ics”.

Wittgenstein and the Criticism of Technological and Scientific Civilization 161

our own account, culturally irrelevant. For, although Wittgenstein makes an extraordinarily polysemic use of the term “spirit” (Geist) – a term which, we may say in passing, is as absent from his “exoteric” texts as it is omnipresent in his “esoteric” ones – we might well say, very broadly speaking, that it very often functions in his writings as a synonym of the term “culture” (Kultur), and both as normative concepts that allude to the sphere of aesthet(h)ical value.28 The problem arises, therefore, when we turn from “progress” understood in the perfectly clear, but “relative”, sense that we have just outlined to “progress” understood in an “absolute” sense. In his description of Wittgenstein, Rhees recalls his discussion with Farrington in Swansea, in 1943, about the progress of history: “In the discussion Wittgenstein said that when there is a change in the conditions in which people live, we may call it progress because it opens up new opportunities. But in the course of this change, opportunities which were there before may be lost. In one way it was progress, in another it was decline. A historical change may be progress and also be ruin. There is no method of weighing one against the other to justify you in speaking of ‘progress on the whole’.”29

And to illustrate what he wanted to say Wittgenstein took an example that Farrington himself had used in his talk: how the development of iron and coal mining in the Swansea valley had certainly brought about a great increase in industry and production, but at the same time it had left the valley scarred with slag-heaps and old machinery.30 What this argumentation by Wittgenstein against the plausibility of “progress on the whole” suggests to us is that, given the inevitable negative consequences that all relative progress implies, it is not clear that one can speak of progress in an absolute sense. But to objections of this kind an optimist such as Farrington can always reply that, even admitting that ambivalence is inevitable in all 28

I have made a more detailed study of the use that Wittgenstein makes of this term in Vicente Sanfélix, “Una filosofía del espíritu. Wittgenstein y la cuestión judía”, Mariano Rodríguez (ed.), La mente en sus máscaras, Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva, 2005. 29 Rush Rhees, “Postscript”, Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Personal Recollections, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981, p. 222. 30 Also very instructive is the conversation with Bouwsma about the rootlessness produced by progress. See Oets Kolk Bouwsma, Wittgenstein: Conversations 1949– 1951, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, 1986, p. 39.

162

Forms of Life and Language Games

relative progress, the weight of the advantages that it provides is always greater than that of the drawbacks that it generates, so that, after all, we are legitimated in speaking of progress in absolute terms. This intuition, that the undeniable technological and scientific progress of history equally involves moral progress, is extremely widespread. Even to the point that not even the critics of techno-scientific civilization are always free of it. Tolstoy himself might be cited here as a surprising example of what we are saying, for in some of his writings he suggests that the development of science facilitates the ideal of “the union of mankind”.31 However, apart from the fact that, as we shall see, Wittgenstein made a very different evaluation of the “uniting of the world” that progress imposes, it would almost certainly have seemed to him that trusting that the development of techno-science will by itself bring an increase in fraternity constitutes an example of the kind of ritual beliefs that, when we see them in other societies, inevitably bring to the positivist’s mind the word “superstition”: “Men have judged that a king can make rain; we say this contradicts all experience. Today they judge that aeroplanes and the radio etc. are means for the closer contact of peoples and the spread of culture.”32

In reality, countering any kind of optimistic evaluation of the “progressive civilization of Europe and America”,33 it must be said that Wittgenstein judged it unequivocally in terms of decadence. We have already mentioned some of his reasons for this evaluation. The ideal of progress is as omnipresent in our civilization as it is intrinsically empty. In the draft of the foreword that he wrote for Philosophical Remarks Wittgenstein explicitly states his doubts about the goals of our age: “I realize then that the disappearance of a culture does not signify the disappearance of human value, but simply of certain means of expressing 31

See Leo Tolstoy, What Is Art? and Essays on Art, Oxford, University Press, 1975, p. 264. 32 Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1979, paragraph 132. However, the different attitudes of Wittgenstein and Tolstoy can be gathered from their different evaluations of Esperanto. Positive for the Russian – who agrees on this point with Carnap – and absolutely negative for the Austrian: “He couldn’t stand it. A language without any feeling, without richness. Strange, he said. Like a man’s being offended, repelled by another man’s spittle.” Oets Kolk Bouwsma, Wittgenstein: Conversations 1949–1951, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, 1986, pp. 46– 47. 33 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 8e.

Wittgenstein and the Criticism of Technological and Scientific Civilization 163

this value, yet the fact remains that I have no sympathy for the current of European civilization and do not understand its goals, if it has any.”34

Wittgenstein seems to be saying that our civilization, whose main goal is progress, strictly speaking has no goal. If progress is good, it cannot be because of the goodness of the aims that it serves. If we wish to convert it into a value in itself, then inevitably it becomes a bad value. Seeking progress as an intrinsic end, as an absolute value, is simply like walking for the sake of walking – that is, without intending to go to any particular place – or, something that for Wittgenstein would be much more serious, talking for the sake of not remaining silent, even though one may have nothing to say. Or, Tolstoy would have added and Wittgenstein would very probably have agreed, like making art for art’s sake or science for science’s sake.35 Drury recalls the following conversation with Wittgenstein about the uniforms the waitresses in Lyons wore: “Usually, in twenty years’ time the old fashions of dress appear ridiculous; but these uniforms are so well designed that they will never look silly. We are still living in times where a good tailor knows within a fraction of an inch how to cut his cloth. But you and I may live to see that art lost too. When people just don’t know what to wear. Just as in modern architecture they don’t know in what style to design a building.”36

The house that he designed with his friend Engelmann for his sister Gretl may serve as a good illustration of his attitude to technology. The realization of his seemingly simple designs of radiators, doors and windows, or the precise achievement of the proportions that Wittgenstein had determined for the various rooms, posed exasperating problems to the workers who were responsible for carrying them out. As his sister Hermine notes, it seemed that neither time nor money mattered to Wittgenstein in the solving of those problems.37 And, as Wittgenstein himself stated in a 34

Ibid., p. 6e. Tolstoy considered that contemporary art was going through a phase of decadence whose ultimate reason was precisely its lack of purpose. But in the conclusion of What Is Art?, a book that Wittgenstein must undoubtedly have read, given that on more than one occasion he discusses the aesthetic arguments contained in it, the Russian writer extends his conclusions to the realm of science. 36 Maurice O’Connor, “Conversations with Wittgenstein”, Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Personal Recollections, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981, p. 145. 37 See Hermine Wittgenstein, “My Brother Ludwig”, Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Personal Recollections, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981, p. 7. 35

164

Forms of Life and Language Games

remark made in 1930: “Today the difference between a good and a poor architect is that the poor architect succumbs to every temptation and the good one resists it”.38 It is evident that for Wittgenstein, and not only in the art of tailoring, technology had to function to measure. But when technology itself becomes the measure, then one has only to invert Hermine’s remark to realize what values have primacy: the saving of time and money, and efficiency in production. That is: values that are utterly different from aesthet(h)ic(al) values. For Wittgenstein, the apogee of progress, the primacy of technology, can only signify the decadence of the spirit.39 4.

Techno-science and impiety

But the decadence of the spirit that the dominion of techno-science involves is not only decadence of aesthet(h)ics. It is also, for that very reason, a distancing from God,40 since for Wittgenstein, as we must not forget, “What is good is also divine. Queer as it sounds, that sums up my ethics.”41

And, from what we know already, he might have added: “and my aesthetics”. Let us leave aside the reasons that Wittgenstein has for this ultimate identification of aesthet(h)ics with the sacred and, taking it for granted, let us proceed to ask ourselves what reasons he might have for diagnosing the impiety of our techno-scientific civilization. The draft of the foreword that he wrote in 1930 for his Philosophical Remarks may provide us with a clue: 38

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 3e. It is not surprising, therefore, that Wittgenstein saw architecture as a kind of work upon oneself. See ibid., p. 16e. 39 See Maurice O’Connor, “Conversations with Wittgenstein”, Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Personal Recollections, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981, p. 176. 40 “It is very remarkable that we should be inclined to think of civilization – houses, trees, cars, etc. – as separating man from his origins, from what is lofty and eternal, etc. Our civilized environment, along with its trees and plants, strikes us then as though it were cheaply wrapped in cellophane and isolated from everything great, from God, as it were. That is a remarkable picture that intrudes on us.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 50e. 41 Ibid., p. 3e.

Wittgenstein and the Criticism of Technological and Scientific Civilization 165

“This book is written for those who are in sympathy with the spirit in which it is written. This is not, I believe, the spirit of the main current of European and American civilization. The spirit of this civilization makes itself manifest in the industry, architecture and music of our time, in its fascism and socialism, and it is alien and uncongenial to the author. This is not a value judgment. It is not, it is true, as though he accepted what nowadays passes for architecture as architecture or did not approach what is called modern music with the greatest suspicion (though without understanding its language), but still, the disappearance of the arts does not justify judging disparagingly the human beings who make up this civilization. For in times like these, genuine strong characters simply leave the arts aside and turn to other things and somehow the worth of the individual man finds expression. Not, to be sure, in the way it would at a time of high culture. A culture is like a big organization which assigns each of its members a place where he can work in the spirit of the whole; and it is perfectly fair for his power to be measured by the contribution he succeeds in making to the whole enterprise. In an age without culture on the other hand forces become fragmented and the power of an individual man is used up in overcoming opposing forces and frictional resistances; it does not show in the distance he travels but perhaps only in the heat he generates in overcoming friction. But energy is still energy and even if the spectacle which our age affords us is not the formation of a great cultural work, with the best men contributing to the same great end, so much as the unimpressive spectacle of a crowd whose best members work for purely private ends, still we must not forget that the spectacle is not what matters.”42

The techno-scientific age is characterized by the “disappearance of the arts”. In this sense, since, as we have already said, culture is understood by Wittgenstein as a fundamentally aesthet(h)ic(al) phenomenon, this is an age of anti-culture. But this is true also because of another important characteristic which it has and of which this passage informs us. Namely: what we might call its “religating” nature, which we would do well not to confuse with a strictly social dimension. So that the age of scientific civilization is also an age marked by out-and-out individualism. And, in the same measure, anti-religious. In short, therefore, what we have is that for Wittgenstein a civilization that makes the search for techno-scientific progress its goal can only be a civilization marked at the same time by a decline in the arts and relig(at)ion. 42

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 6e.

166

Forms of Life and Language Games

But if what has been said is true, it probably gives us only a very superficial approximation to the reasons why Wittgenstein considers the age in which it was his lot to live impious. Let us see. For Wittgenstein a certain kind of feeling seems to be the common source both of aesthet(h)ic(al) and of religious experience. Perhaps the most obvious kind is wonder (sich wundern). A wonder whose key lies not so much in its object, which need not be at all extraordinary or thaumaturgical, but in the attitude of the subject to something very usual. In the Notebooks written during the war and in the Tractatus Wittgenstein has an expression with which to characterize this attitude: the view of the object (and then the experience is aesthetic) or of the world (and then the experience is ethico-religious) sub specie aeternitatis: “The work of art is the object seen sub specie aeternitatis; and the good life is the world seen sub specie aeternitatis. This is the connexion between art and ethics. The usual way of looking at things sees objects as it were from the midst of them, the view sub specie aeternitatis from outside. In such a way that they have the whole world as background. Is this it perhaps – in this view the object is seen together with space and 43 time instead of in space and time?”

The customary way of appreciating objects, concerning ourselves with their space-time, and therefore causal, connections is the point of view in which we are installed by technology – primitive or civilized, it comes to the same thing – and, systematically, by science. For since, as we already know, for Wittgenstein the realm of aesthet(h)ics or the realm of the sacred, which is the same for him, is what makes life of value, worth living, can we be surprised by his well-known statement in the Tractatus: “We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all”?44 Yet the problem is not so much that science is situated in a completely different perspective from the aesthet(h)ic(al) religious 43

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Notebooks 1914–1916, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1969. Observation dated 7.10.1916. See also Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logicophilosophicus, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983, paragraph 6.45. 44 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983, paragraph 6.52.

Wittgenstein and the Criticism of Technological and Scientific Civilization 167

perspective; the problem is that the former’s imperialism devalues and drowns out the latter, making men lose sensitivity, their capacity for wonder: “In Renan’s ‘Peuple d’Israël’ I read: ‘Birth, sickness, death, madness, catalepsy, sleep, dreams, all made an immense impression and, even nowadays, only a few have the gift of seeing clearly that these phenomena have causes within our constitution.’ On the contrary there is absolutely no reason to wonder at these things, because they are such everyday occurrences. If primitive men can’t help but wonder at them, how much more so dogs and monkeys. Or is it being assumed that men, as it were, suddenly woke up and, noticing for the first time these things that had always been there, were understandably amazed? – Well, as a matter of fact we might assume something like this; though not that they become aware of these things for the first time but that they do suddenly start to wonder at them. But this again has nothing to do with their being primitive. Unless it is called primitive not to wonder at things, in which case the people of today are really the primitives one, and Renan himself too if he supposes that scientific explanation could intensify wonderment. As though lightning were more commonplace or less astounding today than 2000 years ago. Man has to awaken to wonder – and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.”45

The impiety of science also lies in this virtus dormitiva that it possesses. The predominance of techno-science makes one believe that it is only from them that we can learn. Art (and of course religion) would have nothing important to teach us.46 Thereby, according to Wittgenstein, we would be renouncing the possibility of considering things justly from a perspective from which they have a genuine value different from that of a mere means for the satisfaction of a desire. But there is still more. If we have just spoken of wonder as one of the sources of aesthet(h)ic(al) religious pathos, the same must be said of 45

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 5e. “People nowadays think that scientists exist to instruct them, poets, musicians, etc. to give them pleasure. The idea that these have something to teach them – that does not occur to them.” Ibid., p. 36e. Apart, evidently, from diminishing or annulling the sense of dependency that for Wittgenstein, in the final instance, is an essential element of religious feeling. See Oets Kolk Bouwsma, Wittgenstein: Conversations 1949– 1951, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, 1986, p. 55.

46

168

Forms of Life and Language Games

suffering.47 A further reason, the modern man may think, for doing away with that pathos. But this is certainly not Wittgenstein’s perspective; for him, exertion and asceticism constitute an essential element of the seriousness of life:48 “When we were out walking a few days later, Wittgenstein began to talk to me about Lessing. He quoted with great emphasis Lessing’s remark: ‘If God held closed in his right hand all truth, and in his left the single and untiring striving after truth, adding even that I always and forever make mistakes, and said to me: ‘Choose’, I should fall humbly before his left hand and say: Father grant me! The pure truth is for you alone.”49

Now, one does not have to be very sharp-eyed to perceive that the systematic application of technology by which work is converted into 47

“It always makes me think: did these great ones suffer so unspeakably so that some buttface can come today & deliver his opinion about them. This thought often fills me with a sort of hopelessness.” “To get rid of the torments of the mind, that is to get rid of religion.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Movements of Thought: Diaries, 1930–1932, 1936–1937”, Public and Private Occasions, Lanham, Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003, pp. 19 and 199. Wittgenstein (2000), “Misery teaches us to pray”, Oets Kolk Bouwsma, Wittgenstein: Conversations 1949–1951, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, 1986, p. 56. 48 “But of one thing I am certain – we are not here in order to have a good time”. John King, “Recollections of Wittgenstein”, Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Personal Recollections, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981, p. 90. This appreciation of seriousness places Wittgenstein – and, it may be said in passing, also Tolstoy – unmistakably in the sphere of Platonism. Remember that for the Athenian thinker the true philosopher had to be a “spoudaiós”, that is, serious or energetic. See, for example, Plato, The Seventh Letter, 342c. Also, asceticism did not have a strictly personal dimension in Wittgenstein. It led to a political ideal: “I believe that bad housekeeping within the state fosters bad housekeeping in families. A workman who is constantly ready to go on strike will not bring up his children to respect order either.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 63e. Contrary to the way it may seem to us now, this Wittgensteinian ideal might not be very distant from a certain austere communist ideal on which the Gramscian Sraffa may have had some influence: “… Wittgenstein came up to Newcastle to visit me. I took him down to Jarrow, where there was almost complete unemployment. The shipyard there had been closed for several years. The shops were mostly boarded up, and the whole area had a terrible air of dereliction. Wittgenstein: Sraffa is right: the only thing possible in a situation like this is to get all these people running in one direction.” Maurice O’Connor, “Conversations with Wittgenstein”, Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Personal Recollections, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981, p. 137. 49 Maurice O’Connor Drury, “Conversations with Wittgenstein”, Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Personal Recollections, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981, p. 149.

Wittgenstein and the Criticism of Technological and Scientific Civilization 169

industrial production is a direct assault on this spirit. The increasingly abstract and less physical aspect of work,50 and perhaps even more of the mass production – and consequently distribution – of consumer goods, makes both exertion and asceticism lose their value. Wittgenstein perceives the impact of this transvaluation51 in the truly vital area of education: “I think the way people are educated nowadays tends to diminish their capacity for suffering. At present a school is reckoned good ‘if the children have a good time’. And that used not to be the criterion. Parents moreover want their children to grow up like themselves (only more so), but nevertheless subject them to an education quite different from their own. – Endurance of suffering isn’t rated highly because there is supposed not to be any suffering – really it’s out of date.”52

50

“I want to say only that the emphasis on manual labor was something for which he felt strong sympathy. He would have felt no sympathy with a regime whose aim was to do away with manual labor or to make it unnecessary. He would have found no joy in the thought that manual labor could be replaced by machines … I think ‘the way of life for which he felt strong sympathy’ would be one in which manual labor was central in some sense.” Rush Rhees, “Postscript”, Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Personal Recollections, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981, p. 228. On this point, Wittgenstein’s “Tolstoyism” is total. He would undoubtedly have subscribed to these words of the Russian author without any reservations: “The deviation of the science of our time from its true purpose is strikingly illustrated by the ideals which are put forward by some scientists … These ideals are that food, instead of being obtained from the land by agriculture, will be prepared in laboratories by chemical means, and that human labour will be almost entirely superseded by the utilization of natural forces … Man will hardly need to labour, so that all men will be able to yield to idleness as the upper, ruling, classes now yield to it.” Leo Tolstoy, What Is Art and Essays on Art, Oxford, University Press, 1975, p. 283. 51 “Our age is really an age of the transvaluation of all values. (The procession of humankind turns a corner & what used to be the way up is now the way down etc.) Did Nietzsche have in mind what is now happening & does his achievement consist in anticipating it & finding a word for it?” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Movements of Thought: Diaries 1930–1932, 1936–1937, Public and Private Occasions, Lanham, Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003, p. 61. 52 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 71e. The preceding remark is equally significant: “Bach said that all achievements were simply the fruit of industry. But industry like that requires humility and an enormous capacity for suffering, hence strength. And someone who, with all this, can also express himself perfectly, simply speaks to us in the language of a great man.” Ibid.

170

5.

Forms of Life and Language Games

Industry and war

The devaluation of exertion and asceticism, the impiety of science which results from its application to industry … and which threatens to turn against itself, since science itself, ultimately, is for Wittgenstein only the result of exertion, and perhaps it is there, rather than in the view of the world that it might generate consciously or surreptitiously, that its cultural significance, that is, its true value, lies: “These books which attempt to popularize science are an abomination. They pander to people’s curiosity to be titillated by the wonders of science without having to do any of the really hard work involved in understanding what science is about. Now a good book is one like Faraday’s The Chemical History of a Candle. Faraday takes a simple phenomenon like a candle burning, and shows how complicated a process it really is. All the time, he demonstrates what he is saying with detailed experiments. There is a tendency nowadays for scientists when they reach middle age to become bored with real work, and launch out into absurd popular semi-philosophical speculations. Eddington is an example of this.”53

Of course, it is hard to find a solution for the impiety that results from the application of science to industry because, according to Wittgenstein, science itself operates in a way that we might well call “industrial”: “In fact, nothing is more conservative than science. Science lays down railway tracks. And for scientists it is important that their work should move along those tracks.”54

In this conservative conception of science it is barely possible that Wittgenstein cannot have been influenced by the brilliant pages that Weininger devoted to “Science Viewed from the Perspective of Culture” in his posthumous book On Last Things. In it he says: “Thus the working method of science is being mechanized, and confined to established routines … Produce: that is the word for the knowledge factories of today, in which the managers of the great laboratories and seminars admirably perform the functions of the capitalist barons of industry … The Academies of Science are the mighty elders of this 53

Maurice O’Connor Drury, “Conversations with Wittgenstein”, Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Personal Recollections, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981, p. 132. 54 Rush Rhees, “Postscript”, Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Personal Recollections, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981, p. 223.

Wittgenstein and the Criticism of Technological and Scientific Civilization 171

commonwealth, the terrible grandmothers of European culture; and they protect and increase the inheritance. Woe to him who dares to doubt the science that they represent, that this science is the end of ends! He who dares to question the right of science to the use of hospital patients for experimenting with new vaccines is an obscurantist and an anti-Semite. He who deplores that animals are constantly and unnecessarily tortured alive is hated as a sentimental and ridiculous disturber of the peace.”55

And he goes on to attack the two conceptions of science that underlie its practice in our society: the economic conception of science as comfort and business – morally insignificant – and the conception of science as will to power – morally abhorrent. However, in a much more restrained style, Wittgenstein expresses a possible scenario to which this impious industrial science might lead the human race: “Science and industry, and their progress, might turn out to be the most enduring thing in the modern world. Perhaps any speculation about a coming collapse of science and industry is, for the present and for a long time to come, nothing but a dream; perhaps science and industry, having caused infinite misery in the process, will unite the world – I mean condense it into a single unit, though one in which peace is the last thing that will find a home. Because science and industry do decide wars, or so it seems.”56

In the declaration that he made on 6 August 1945, President Truman, as the champion of the common welfare, did not hesitate to take upon himself the role of protector of the world from a danger of sudden destruction,57 he announced a new era in man’s understanding of the forces of nature, and he showed his conviction that atomic power could become a powerful and forceful influence towards the maintenance of world peace.58 55

Otto Weininger, (2008), On Last Things, Lewiston, New York, The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001, p. 137. 56 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 63e. 57 “It has never been the habit of the scientists of this country or the policy of this Government to withhold from the world scientific knowledge. Normally, therefore, everything about the work with atomic energy would be made public. But under present circumstances it is not intended to divulge the technical processes of production or all the military applications, pending further examination of possible methods of protecting us and the rest of the world from the danger of sudden destruction.” 58 See above, notes 14 and 15.

172

Forms of Life and Language Games

In the passage that we have just quoted, Wittgenstein emphasizes something that we have already seen him outline: the progress of industry and science as one of the most enduring, and therefore essential, characteristics of our age. He concedes that this progress may lead to the “uniting” of the world. But, in contrast to the optimism of Truman or even, as we have seen, of Tolstoy, he does not consider that this reduction of the world to one is going to mean an increase in fraternity or a reign of peace. Rather the opposite. The “uniting of the world” will make it more grey. And the impiety of science and industry will keep it in a state of constant war. 59

We should now be in a position to understand the reasons for his diagnosis. If science and technology do not function to measure in this world, if they are not subordinated to an end other than their own progress, the result can only be a growth that does not conform to any parameter other than economic rationality – savings in time and money, increase in comfort, decrease in effort – and that thereby will inevitably lead to massification and, for want of a common aim, a struggle for private interests – remember: “In an age without culture on the other hand forces become fragmented … the spectacle which our age affords us is not the formation of a great cultural work, with the best men contributing to the same great end, so much as the unimpressive spectacle of a crowd whose best members work for purely private ends …” – that is: to war, especially if a cheap and convenient way of waging it is found. That is why Wittgenstein, unlike Truman, who, we will recall, boasted of how science and industry had worked under the direction of the army, considers that the situation that exists is really quite the opposite relationship: it is science and industry that decide wars. Going back to the beginning, perhaps we can also understand why Wittgenstein was able at one point to cherish the hope that the atomic bomb might really be a “salutary invention”. Perhaps the fear that it aroused might make civilized people regain part of the fear – of God, of nature, of fate – that beats in the depths of piety. If so, paradoxically,

59

“‘Wisdom is grey’. Life on the other hand and religion are full of colour.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 62e. Otto Weininger, (2008), On Last Things, Lewiston, New York, The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001, p. 138, for his part, had defended the view that science “homogenizes all our experiences” when it becomes the supreme goal.

Wittgenstein and the Criticism of Technological and Scientific Civilization 173

science and technology, and their progress, would have given us back what they had taken from us: “… On the other hand we may learn from experience that certain primitive tribes are very strongly inclined to fear natural phenomena. – But we cannot exclude the possibility that highly civilized peoples will become liable to this very same fear once again; neither their civilization nor scientific knowledge can protect them against this. All the same it’s true enough that the spirit in which science is carried on nowadays is not compatible with fear of this kind.”60

At the present time, it seems to me that Wittgenstein’s timid hope has been defeated. The spirit of our science continues not to embrace this fear, and we all act as if we were living in a safe world. Conclusion I will conclude with a personal confession – from a Wittgensteinian perspective, what’s more, as is only fitting. Perhaps I am too much a contemporary of our time to be able to appreciate unreservedly the gloominess of the portrait that Wittgenstein offers of our progressive civilization – remember “… in the darkness of this time …”61 – or his undervaluing of the creative and emancipatory aspects of science. Yet I cannot help recognizing that he succeeds in seeing many real aspects of our situation that easily pass unperceived and that his understanding of creativity, of art and philosophy, is profound. Perhaps we would do better not to forget his warning and not to lose sight of his view of all these matters. University of Valencia

60

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 5e. “It is not impossible that it should fall to the lot of this work, in its poverty and in the darkness of this time, to bring light into one brain or another – but, of course, it is not likely.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, London, Macmillan, 1953, p. ixe.

61

Wittgenstein and Hayek on Rules and Lines of Conduct Michel LE DU 1.

Introduction

Friedrich Hayek has dealt extensively, in numerous papers, with the relation between rules and actions. His main topic was not the transition between the two neither the conceptual analysis of the notion of rule: he was rather interested in showing how a stable order can emerge from agents’ actions precisely because those actions are organized by determinate rules. Nevertheless some, at least, of his remarks resemble assertions by Wittgenstein on kindred topics, but they are in reality vastly different and the main purpose of the present paper is to establish why they are indeed so different: it can be understood as a wittgensteinian criticism of Hayek’s assertions on rules and social order. Even if most of what I have to say is critic, this does not mean, of course, that I minor the fact that many of his remarks are insightful, suggestive and original. One of Hayek’s major concerns is with the critic of what he calls constructivism or rationalism. He very often insists that the rules involved in the course of social life have not been established by reason. In fact, one of his main points is to distinguish between formations and institutions. He apparently thinks that the latter term should be restricted to social settings whose rules are explicit and deliberately established. He adds that language is, perhaps, the best example of a formation, ie a social structure, whose rules are implicit and, most of the time, never planned or purposely designed by anybody. What he castigates by using alternately the labels constructivism and rationalism is (1) the empirical assertion that formations are, in reality, underpinned par determinate rules, either explicit or prone to be made explicit simply by one exercising one’s will (2) the normative assertion that the inarticulated rules underlying formations should be replaced by explicit rules. According to the first assertion, formations are, indeed, disguised or potential institutions; according to the second, formations should be either reformed or abandonned in order to be substituted for institutions. The first suggestion is patently false; the second Forms of Life and Language Games, (Eds. Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ, Margit GAFFAL), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2011, 175-186.

176

Forms of Life and Language Games

one, says Hayek, is ill-advised and even dangerous as a program. The truth is that our explicit rules are definitely to be understood in connection with a background made of an indefinite number of unformulated rules and there is no other way for them to be conceived. 2. There is, of course, nothing objectionable in the distinction between explicit and unarticulated / implicit rules as such. One can even smell a wittgensteinian flavour in the idea that, basically, rules are not products of reason. Indeed, reasoning, infering etc. (both activities that the layman is prone to consider as typical rational ones and right in doing so) are guided by rules which cannot, in turn, be ultimately formed by thought or established through reasoning. At the outset, our mastery of rules cannot be otherwise than implicit and frequently remains implicit in the long run. This means (1) that we are often unable to offer an interpretation of a rule (just as we might prove unable to give a definition of a word although we may have the capability to use it correctly), and that we are even sometimes in difficulty when asked to formulate the rule by which we are guided (2) that where our understanding of a particular rule proves reflective and reasoned, this understanding remains rooted in the implicit mastery of an indefinite number of other rules. This is not say that some rules are in principle unexpressible but rather to suggest that the reflective work that some words and rules deserve in certain contexts, in turn requires rules to be managed and so cannot be otherwise than dependant on an unreflective and more primitive relation to rules. The idea that there is necessarily a background of implicit rules is, as such, a point of agreement between the two vienneses.1 And, as we will see in a few moments, the most striking opposition between Wittgenstein’s thoughts on rules and 1

See Hayek’s paper entitled “The confusion of language in political thought” in Friedrich A. Hayek, New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and History of Ideas, London, Routledge, 1978, chap. 6, p. 82: “... it seems probable that no system of articulated rules can exist or be fully understood without a background of unarticulated rules”. Here the background of uninterpreted and even unformulated rules is opposed to the explicit rules. This use of the term “background” must be distinguished from the idea of a “non intentional background” one can find in John R. Searle’s recent work (see for instance: The construction of social reality, London, Penguin Books, 1996, chap. 6) and also from the idea of a prepropositional realist Weltbild one can find in Über Gewißheit.

Wittgenstein and Hayek on Rules and Lines of Conduct

177

Hayek’s comes from the fact that they differ widely in their interpretation of this very notion of unformulated rules. 3. Before dealing directly with that point, we need to mention another of Hayek’s favorite themes, the opposition, in one’s action, between being governed by the grasp of a causal relation, on the one hand, and being governed by rules, on the other hand. This distinction encapsulses the epistemic dimension of his criticism of constructivism, while his attack on the idea that the social order could (or should) be governed in toto by explicitely established rules proves to be the main thread of his offensive against the pratical side of the constructivist creed. The idea that the understanding of causal relations are most important to action comes under common sense: everyone knows that a knowledge of the cause is needed in order to anticipate the effect and to adjust consequently one’s behavior. Hayek doesn’t denies this but insists that what he calls the “complex order of modern society” cannot be explained on the sole basis of a perception of the relations between cause and effect and that, therefore, this so-called “complex order” cannot be explained on the basis of planification either. His point is that when our behavior is governed by rules (most of them being, to resume, implicit), everything happens as if those rules (whose main character is their adaptation to the environment) were providing us with informations about this environment, although they don’t assert anything about it. In other words, as the result of a progressive selection, they prove responsive to the environment and so cannot be described as blind to its features, although they cannot be understood as stating something about it. The idea that rules don’t assert anything may be thought of as a grammatical reminder about the concept of rule: the rules being normative, they don’t describe any fact or state of things and eventually don’t assert anything. But here, the spring of the argumentation is not conceptual but evolutionnist: the rules are not the result of a deliberate choice determinated by definite goals, but of a process of selection; they are not identical to the social order, but their selection has, as a result, the establishment of a more efficient superior order.2 Efficient means here that 2

One must keep in mind that, according to Darwin, the expression natural selection should not be taken literally. No one has objections, he adds, against the chemists

178

Forms of Life and Language Games

the prevalence of such a social order among a group of agents allows it to expend at other groups’ expense. Because it has “selected” those rules (in other words: because it has eliminated many other rules or set of rules), the group, taken as a whole, gains an advantage in comparison with other groups. The phrase “as a whole” is here important: it expresses a holist ingredient in Hayek’s theorical perspective. It may sound strange to use the adjective holist when speaking of Hayek, who has been seen for decades as a major figure of what is called methodological individualism but, obviously, a basically individualist perspective may very well include a holist moment. Here, this moment is one and the same thing as the recognition of the fact that the rules responsible for the social order gain durability not because they best serve the interest of individuals but because they best guarantee the efficiency of all the group members. Obviously, not all regularities in individual conduct can bring about a perennial social order. As Hayek notices, if a person was to kill every other person she meets, this would be a perfect example of regular demeanour, but it’s easy to see that a such a line of conduct would not contribute to the establishment of a stable social order. Hayek offers no clear criterium distinguishing between rules and regularities and it’s striking to see that when he mentions the behavior of the recurrent killer he describes it as an individual regularity of conduct: as we have seen, it fails to succeed at being a collective rule of conduct, so we apparently can deduce from this assertion that it is the capacity to generate a viable collective order which qualifies a regularity as a rule. This is, for sure, an attractive idea, but it ignores the fact that an agent is, in principle, able to declare which rule he follows: being collective is not enough for a regularity to be upgraded and become a rule. Just like someone doesn’t necessarily knows currently, but is able to know, which intention he has, someone doesn’t necessarily knows currently, but is able to know which rule he follows.3 No such first person authority exists for behavioral

speaking of elective affinities between various elements. Those two expressions are metaphorical. When Hayek speaks of a selection of the rules, he doesn’t take the expression at face value either and doesn’t think of an intentional or deliberate process. See: Charles Darwin, The origin of species (1859), New-York, Random House, 1872, p. 63. 3 See: L. Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen, Werkausgabe, Band 1, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1984, § 247: “Nur du kannst wissen, ob du die Absicht hattest.” Also see: L. Wittgenstein, Bemerkungen über die Philosophie der Psychologie 1,

Wittgenstein and Hayek on Rules and Lines of Conduct

179

regularities: if a behavioral pattern is nothing more than a regularity, the agent, like anybody else, has to grasp it through the observation of his own way of reacting. And this observation brings us to the most sensitive point of Hayek’s argumentation, visible from the fact that he wavers between two ways of putting things: he alternately denies the agent a knowledge of the unarticulated rules and, in other passages, ascribes him an implicit knowledge of such rules. 4. In a paper entitled ‘Rules, perception and intelligibility’,4 Hayek suggests to define an intentional conduct as a conduct oriented by a rule we are familiar with but that we don’t need to know explicitly. This seems to suggest that, nevertheless, the agent of such an intentional conduct has some kind of knowledge ot the rule, only not an explicit one. A rule may be implicit for opposing reasons: it may be implicit because, though not unexpressible, it has never been made explicit; it may has become implicit in the sense of being too familiar at the upshot to be noticed (a situation easy to illustrate on the basis of everyday life’s observation). Anyway, there is something weird in the idea that an intentional conduct should always be a ruled conduct. The correct view seems to be that (1) there is a logical relation between forming an intention and expressing one’s intention (2) an intentional action is typically underpinned by reasons; obviously not all reasons are rules but, in certain contexts, rules may be offered as reasons.5 If, however, Hayek sticks to the idea that having an intentional conduct consists in being oriented by a rule, this is because the kind of entities he thinks of under the labels rule or abstract rule have no straightforward relation with what is commonly called acting for a reason. Among other things, it’s clear that, for him, the relation between following a rule and being able to give the rule is a contingent one and this explains, at least partly, the hesitations one can detect in his formulations when he comes to the subject of a possible knowledge of rules: the mind being defined recurrently by Hayek as a “system of rules”, the working of those Werkausgabe, Band 7, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1984, § 712: “Ich verhalte mich zu meinen Handlungen, nicht beobachtend”. 4 See Friedrich A. Hayek, Studies in philosophy, politics and economics, London, Routledge, 1967, chap. 3. 5 See Anthony Kenny, The metaphysics of mind, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 39.

180

Forms of Life and Language Games

rules as action guides appears to be completely independant from their capacity to be made explicit. This is also the reason why he doesn’t -as he should- attach the utmost importance to the distinction established by Wittgenstein between acting in accordance with a rule and applying a rule. In another paper, he mentions Ryle’s celebrated distinction between knowing how and knowing that and adds that: “... there has been an increasing stress on mental factors which govern all our acting and thinking without being known to us, and which can only be described as abstract rules guiding us without our knowledge.”6

In fact, the reduction of know how to a set of abstract rules is problematic. If it is of the description of a know how that Hayek thinks that it should take the form of a series of abstract rules, such a suggestion should be looked at as appropriate or inappropriate, according to the context. Anyway, all description beeing selective, one cannot deduce from the previous suggestion that a know how is in toto an application of abstract rules. As Wittgenstein once remarked, no set of rules is enough to define a practice: comes a moment where the pratice “speaks for itself”.7 In addition to this point, one has to determine, at a more radical level, if the abstract rules mentionned are only the form taken by the description or if they contribute to the course of action by itself (more on this later). Anyway, by saying that a know how is governed by such rules, we are on the verge of confusion. The main point here is that if it’s clearly normal to think of most common practices as underlied by rules, this feature doesn’t extend automatically to our whole range of know-how. The walker who succeeds in going from home to his office in town is familiar with the route: he avoids bumping into other pedestrians and bypasses automobiles, but it would be deceitful to suggest that the main feature of such an achievement consists in beeing rule-governed. To be more specific: we cannot imagine an agent moving towards his workplace without also supposing that this agent masters furthermore a indefinite number of rules (linguistic rules, social rules etc.); but from this we cannot deduce that his capacity to get to the right place in town is intrisically rule-structured. As Wittgenstein says, our exercizing of many capacities is instinctive. There is nothing instinctive in the act of reading a city map or, a fortiori, in the act of drawing one, because those activities imply the mastery of conventions. 6

See “The primacy of the abstract” in New Studies, op. cit., chap. 3, p. 38-39. See: L. Wittgenstein, Über Gewißheit, § 139, Werkausgabe, Band 8, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1984: “... die Praxis muss für sich selbst sprechen.” 7

Wittgenstein and Hayek on Rules and Lines of Conduct

181

But finding one’s way on a familiar route, on the contrary, is largely instinctive. 5. When Wittgenstein uses the adjective instinctive, he has in mind reactions that do not require thought or reasoning.8 Reacting (1) to one’s pain or to the spectacle of some other person’s pain, reacting (2) to a cause (as when one kicks the stone one has stumbled against) are instinctive behaviors. Even in our spontaneous understanding (3) of words and orders, a instinctive element remains: we react in accordance with a simple order without the help of thought. Norman Malcolm labels instinctive in a derivative sense the capacities evoked in 3 and instinctive in a primitive sense those described in 1-2. One could object that, either primitive or derived, those reactions doesn’t seem to involve much know how: of course, a certain amount of know how is needed to fulfill a complicated order, but it seems weird to see a know how in the instinctive reaction to simple orders such as “Chut up!” or “Close the door!”. This is true, but one must also notice that many of those so-called instinctive reactions are too general to be simply mechanic. As Kurt Koffka remarks, a child whose finger has been burned by a flame doesn’t simply learn to remove his finger: he learns to avoid flames, and this is a general attitude. This general attitude can be seen as a primitive know how. It differs only in degree of complexity from the capacity to move appropriately in a town. Koffka, when describing such a new attitude, favors the expression new configuration, most probably in order to suggest that the kid doesn’t acquire simply a new inclination: a cognitive element is also involved as soon as he reacts to a general form.9 As one can see, although not intentional in the sense of beeing underlied by reasons, such a primitive attitude is oriented, regular an general. However, it would be foolish to describe it as rule-governed. This is also true of many actions being stricto 8

See Norman Malcolm, “The relation of language to instinctive behavior” in Investigating Psychology, John Hyman (ed.), London, Routledge, 1991, pp. 27-47. 9 Cf. Kurt Koffka, The Growth of Mind (1924), New Brunswick, Transaction Inc, 1980, p. 302. See Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Résumés de Cours 1949-1952, Grenoble, Cynara, 1988, p. 179 for an interesting comment. Hayek himself admits very well that the perception of general forms is a very important feature of cognitive life. In his paper “Rules, Perception and Intelligibility”, he insists that grasping rules, regularities or structures in other people’s behavior is a characteristic example of Gestalt perception.

182

Forms of Life and Language Games

sensu intentional (= for which it is relevant to look fo reasons) but however more similar to the journey in town that to the lecture of the city map.10 6. It’s clear that the equation improperly established by Hayek between intentional action on the one hand, and rule-governed action on the other hand is a significant element in a broader set of unclarities. Very often, in his writings, expressions such as rule-governed conduct, organized conduct, conduct in accordance with a pattern seems almost interchangeable. The word pattern as such raises a problem because it can denote either (1) a constructed model to which a way of acting conforms, or (2) a pattern that one can detect, through observation, in action.11 A theorist is free to build a model in order to explain an agent’s conduct and this model may prove to be a useful device in order to represent, among other things, the kind of pattern mentionned in (2). Handling such a model is very much like following a rule and this is precisely what Wittgenstein underlines in a famous passage of the Philosophische Untersuchungen.12 But, from this close similarity, one is not allowed to deduce that the conduct endowed with a pattern (sense 2) is a rule-governed conduct (even if its observer’s conduct is). A pattern in the second sense is what an art critic, for instance, will try to identify in a series of works of art: in the course of doing so, he will not speculate on the artist’s mental states. Even if such a use of the term pattern can be counted, in contexts where the agent’s awovals are not what we look for in the first place, as a sort of intentional explanation, in most of cases, the adjective intentional apply to explanations in which, at least ideally, the agent’s avowals remains the touchstone. In other passages, Hayek suggests that “unconscious rules” should be understood as habits or customs. The fact is, as Wittgenstein noticed, that following a rule can be described as a custom (Gepflogenheit), but it’s unclear to describe the rule as such as a custom.13 Understanding a rule is a 10

See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bemerkungen über die Philosophie der Psychologie 1, §656. 11 See J. A. Passmore classical paper “Intentions” in Aristotelian Society Supplement, vol. XXVI, 1952. 12 See L. Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen, §82. 13 See L. Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen, §199. Wittgenstein also refers in this paragraph to rule-following as a Gebrauch or an Institution.

Wittgenstein and Hayek on Rules and Lines of Conduct

183

capacity and a capacity is supposed to be exercized, but it’s a conceptual confusion to mistake capacities for habits and to mistake the exercise of a capacity for a habit either, although the application of a rule may well become customary.14 There are also several conceptual unclarities in connection with the idea of rules being “unconscious”, but we won’t examine them directly here.15 7. In a passage from “The primacy of the abstract”, Hayek turns upside down the familiar idea that we are unconscious of many ongoing things in our minds. Those things, says he, are not subconscious, but “superconscious” in the sense of governing the conscious processes without being visible in those very same processes (by the way, some of his assertions about the conscious events being the results of cognitive processes we cannot become aware of makes the reader irresistibly think of some of Piaget’s statements about what he called “operations” or “mental operations”).16 Hayek’s point of departure is however perfectly sound: he insists that we (and many animals as well) react in the same way to different forms having only in common abstract features. This is true, for instance, of musical perception: we discern the same pattern in vastly different executions of the same piece of music, played with very different instruments and with a 14

In his book: Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984, p. 19, Anthony Giddens notices that “As a rule R gets up at 6. 00 every day” is a rule in a “fairly weak sense” because, among other things, “no underlying precept” does exist and “no sanction to back up that precept”. He adds that “a routine practice is not as such a rule”. 15 See L. Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen, §149. Wittgenstein’s main point in this passage is the idea that most conceptual confusion involving the attribute unconscious follow from the propension to see the unconscious states as conscious states minus consciousness. Accordingly, there is a confusion in seeing the so-called “unconscious rules” through the prism of conscious rules. 16 See Jean Piaget Le structuralisme, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1968, p. 18 (English translation: Structuralism, New-York, Harper & Row, 1971, p. 28). Piaget uses the expression abstraction réfléchissante (= reflecting abstraction) to denote an abstraction which doesn’t consist in isolating objects’ features but in abstracting features of the subject’s own actions on objects. This so-called reflecting abstraction is involved in the genesis of mathematics, Piaget says. Hayek maintains that new abstraction is not reached either purposely or as the result of a conscious process but is always the discovery ot something already guiding the working of mind. There is a similarity between the two ideas.

184

Forms of Life and Language Games

different tempo. This thesis is backed up by a large amount of observational evidences but should not be mistaken for two other thesis, also supported by Hayek: (1) the idea that such a capacity involves the perception of rules in others’ actions (2) the idea that there are abstract rules governing such a capacity. It’s clear, on the one hand, that our capacity to perceive patterns and regularities in the course of action we attend to is a much wider capacity than the one involved in rule detection; as said before, not all regularities or patterns are to be understood with a reference to an underlying rule and, in many cases, the rules we “recognize” are, in reality, the way we model others’ sequences of actions. On the other hand, our own capacity to see rules is not always to be explained by rules. When we grasp, for instance, a rule in an arrangement of attributes, the fact that our grasp is about a rule does not allow us to think of it in turn as rule-governed. Hayek, however, maintains a strong correlation between the two ideas and says repeatedly in his paper “Rules, perception and intelligibility” that a knowledge whose object is a rule is a “knowledge by affinity”, the cognition of rules being governed by rules akin to those who come to be known. Those superconscious rules are, at the upshot of an additionnal process of abstraction, objects of discovery rather than objects of awovals. The awoval model underlies many of Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule-following and psychological concepts. If this model is correct in its main lines, (1) the relation between the agent’s action and the rule offered to justify it is internal or logical (= not contingent) and (2) the relation between following the rule and expressing the rule is also internal (although, as previously said, many hindrances may render this expression difficult). What is suggested by these two points is that the agent’s relation to the rules he follows is basically not a cognitive one: he is not a privileged witness of his own rule-following and his “knowledge” here is one and the same thing as his being able to come to declare (melden) the rules. According to discovery model, on the contrary, the relation between the agent and the very rules guiding his action is both cognitive and contingent. The external nature of this relation has an impact on the way the determination of the agent’s behavior by the rules is understood: infinitives like determine, guide, govern loose here there logical scope and acquire a causal meaning. Accordingly, and contrary to certain apparences, a step is made here out the frame of intentional explanation: to borrow an expression used by Stuart Shanker in a sightly different context, the rules

Wittgenstein and Hayek on Rules and Lines of Conduct

185

appear in the context of the discovery model as “mental pilotes” of actions, and this sounds as if one was entering a kind of mythology.17 8.

Conclusion

I think possible to settle down a less mental mythology-loaded version of Hayek’s remarks but another paper -most probably much longer than this one- would be needed in order to display it. But even after having done so, an additional problem would remain. Even if the idea that a social order emerges from a complicated combination of individual actions is accepted, a difference remains between such a particular social order and the idea of a social order as such, just like a difference does exist between the institution of a stable state of language and the institution (or formation, in Hayek’s terms) of the language as such. It’s possible to modelize the equilibrium that defines a state of language as the combination of numerous acts of language, some of them perpetuating existing linguistic trends, some others aiming at secession or innovation, but is impossible to account for the institution of language as such in terms of an order emerging from linguistic acts because such a notion (as well as notions such as meaning, concept, rule etc.) logically presuppose the existence of a social setting, in other words, presuppose the very existence of what they aim at explaining. As Peter Winch18 remarks, if a journey through time was possible, we would perhaps observe a prehistoric human community with sophisticated communication means, but we would perhaps hesitate to conclude that language is established among those men. But we can also imagine than observing their descendants several centuries later, we would not have any hesitation to attribute them the mastery of language. Winch’s idea is that it would be absurd to ask when exactly language has started and who was the first starter (on the contrary, to ask when exactly X rays where discovered and by whom is a perfectly sound question). The only relevant answer here is to say that the community has gradually undergone a change from a non-linguistic stage to a linguistic one. What Winch pinpoints here is the border beyond which the individualistic scheme of explanation ceases to be relevant. Similarly, it’s not enough to criticize constructivism and to underline that a social order cannot be planified. One must also 17

See Stuart Shanker “The enduring relevance of Wittgenstein’s remarks on intentions” in Investigating Psychology, pp. 67-94. 18 See: Peter Winch, The idea of a social science and its relation to philosophy, London, Routledge, 1958, chap.1, §9.

186

Forms of Life and Language Games

acknowledge that as soon as the challenge is to explain the formation of social order in general, the concept of rule has to be ruled out. If not, this means that one has devised a deceitful synonym, as one can see from the fact that Hayek speaks of some rules as “innates”, an assertion which contradicts the fact that, in most of its uses, the word rule refers to entities made up of conventions. University of Strasbourg

Wittgenstein’s Debt to Sraffa Nuno VENTURINHA In the Preface to the published version of ‘Philosophical Investigations’, dated “January 1945”, Wittgenstein acknowledges the “criticism” that Sraffa “unceasingly applied to [his] thoughts” and actually writes that “[i]t is to this stimulus that [he] owe[s] the most fruitful ideas of this book”.1 It is worth mentioning that the drafts for the Preface to the early version of the Investigations, prepared in 1938, also contain this acknowledgment,2 and as a matter of fact Wittgenstein already mentions Sraffa in his 1931 list of influences.3 As pointed out by Alois Pichler in a note on this list in his revised edition of ‘Culture and Value’, “Wittgenstein first wrote ‘Frege, Russell, Spengler, Sraffa’ and added the other names later”.4 This clearly shows that Sraffa exerted a lasting influence on Wittgenstein. However, apart from the various versions of the Preface in which the abovementioned acknowledgment occurs, Sraffa’s name is rarely found in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. Indeed, there are only three relevant remarks, which date from 1932, 1937 and 1940.5 No surprise then that in his book on the figures listed by Wittgenstein in 1931 and the role they played, Allan Janik has left out Sraffa, stating that “the exact nature of Sraffa’s influence upon Wittgenstein remains a mystery and a matter for speculation until today”.6 Brian McGuinness’ new edition of the Wittgenstein correspondence brought to light not only letters but also conversation notes that help to clarify Sraffa’s place in the development of Wittgenstein’s ideas.7 However, none of these documents make explicit the “stimulus” Wittgenstein talks about and that Norman Malcolm, for example, also recalls. In his memoir we read: 1

Wittgenstein, 2009, 4. Cf. Wittgenstein, 2000, MS 159, 40r-40v, MS 117, 114-115, 119-120 and 125-126, TS 225, III, and Wittgenstein, 2010, 188. 3 Cf. Wittgenstein, 1998, 16e. 4 Ibid., 101e, note 8. 5 Cf. Wittgenstein, 2000, MS 113, 25r-25v, MS 157b, 5v, and MS 117, 172, respectively. 6 Janik, 2006, 224. See also 11. 7 See Wittgenstein, 2008. 2

Forms of Life and Language Games, (Eds. Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ, Margit GAFFAL), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2011, 187-195.

188

Forms of Life and Language Games

“It was above all Sraffa’s acute and forceful criticism that compelled Wittgenstein to abandon his earlier views and set out upon new roads. He said that his discussions with Sraffa made him feel like a tree from which all branches had been cut. That this tree could become green again was due to its own vitality.”8

In a recent paper, Franco Lo Piparo argues that Sraffa’s influence on Wittgenstein can only be fully accessed if we take into consideration another figure: Antonio Gramsci.9 Lo Piparo builds on Amartya Sen’s insightful suggestion that “it may be important to reexamine Sraffa’s interactions with Wittgenstein […] in the light of Sraffa’s relationship with Antonio Gramsci, the Marxist theorist, who had a strong influence on Sraffa”.10 Sen, in turn, is following John B. Davis, who had first focused on that triad.11 Lo Piparo’s extensive study of Gramsci’s ‘Prison Notebooks’ and of the correspondence between Sraffa and Gramsci’s sister-in-law, who transcribed his letters for Sraffa while he was in prison, illuminates significantly the impact Sraffa may have had on Wittgenstein. There are many aspects in Gramsci’s thought that are truly reminiscent of issues characteristic of the later Wittgenstein. Be that as it may, Wittgenstein’s debt to Sraffa continues to be a matter of speculation. In what follows, I shall add a new piece to the puzzle. My starting point is an unpublished document that is among the Sraffa papers at Trinity College Library, Cambridge. It consists of a series of notes on Wittgenstein’s ‘Blue Book’, dictated in 1933-34, written by Sraffa on the back of diary sheets dated “October 1941”. Included in this folder is a letter from Sraffa to G. H. von Wright dated 27 August 1958, which reads: “On comparing my copy of the Blue Book with the recently published edition I find that it contains a number of small corrections in Wittgenstein’s handwriting which have not been taken into account in the printed version. I suppose that he made these corrections when he gave

8

Malcolm, 2001, 14-15. See Lo Piparo, 2010. 10 Sen, 2003, 1241. 11 See Davis, 2002. 9

Wittgenstein’s Debt to Sraffa

189

me the book which was shortly after the death of Skinner, to whom it had originally belonged.”12

According to the 1960 “Note on the Second Impression” of ‘The Blue and Brown Books. Preliminary Studies for the “Philosophical Investigations”’, first published by Rush Rhees in 1958, “[t]here are a few alterations, taken from a text of the Blue Book in the possession of Mr. P. Sraffa”, but “[w]ith the exception of changes on pp. 1 and 17 they make no difference in the sense, being mostly improvements in punctuation and grammar”.13 This means that if Sraffa’s notes played any role, it must be found in what Wittgenstein wrote after October 1941 – the month of Francis Skinner’s death. Let us then look at the notes. Among Sraffa’s comments, we find the following: “[…] 2) Cause. Is it, historically, true? 3) Remedy. Does it in fact cure? […] 2-3 bis) When you describe the cause of these puzzles and prescribe the remedy you act as a scientist (like Freud). Have you found out whether these puzzles have in fact arisen out of this attitude to language (II, 13 [41]), have you made sure that they did not exist before anyone took that attitude etc? And also, is it a fact that the disease is cured by your prescription? (Sraffa/I21/2)14 cont. Even if this is so, you have only based it on your assertion, you have not given the evidence (Cp. the mass of actual examples produced by Freud). You say “it is no use” answering the solipsist with common sense (p. 70 [98]), and you prescribe a “cure”. Now, as a matter of fact, have no solipsists been “cured” by common sense? […] (Sraffa/I21/3)15 p. 9 [37] end of § 2 “in order to break the spell” (but why should we want to?) […] (Sraffa/I21/4r)”16

12

This part of the letter is quoted in Sen, 2003, 1243, note 8. It corresponds to Sraffa/I21/1. 13 Wittgenstein, 1960. 14 Sraffa’s (or Skinner’s) copy of the ‘Blue Book’ differs from the one published in the Bergen Electronic Edition. I use square brackets to indicate the page numbers in the latter. The published version is to be found in Wittgenstein, 1960, 26. 15 Cp. ibid., 58. 16 Cp. ibid., 23.

190

Forms of Life and Language Games

It is strange that Sraffa had commented on the ‘Blue Book’ so late and even more that these comments might have been important for Wittgenstein, whose thought was in continuous evolution. But it is noteworthy that, for example, in MS 165, which von Wright tentatively dates to “1941-44”,17 Wittgenstein takes up the issue of solipsism such as is presented in the ‘Blue Book’.18 Here Wittgenstein was of the opinion that the solipsist could always resist common sense even if the language-game at stake involved a clear contradiction in terms of action. According to the author of the ‘Blue Book’, “[o]ne can defend common sense against the attacks of philosophers only by solving their puzzles, i.e., by curing them of the temptation to attack common sense, not by restating the views of common sense”.19 The way Wittgenstein exposes the question in MS 165 is exactly the same. He does not seem to accept Sraffa’s suggestion that common sense can make the solipsist see that there is no point in it. The reason for that is simple. If a philosopher gets “cured” of solipsism by common sense, he or she must have first realized that there was an incompatibility between his or her language-games and the practice associated to them. Imagine someone who says that other selves do not exist. It is impossible to refute this assumption by pointing to this or that person. The solipsist would maintain that they only exist within his or her projection of reality. We may insist and say that we are also seeing these people, but again this will be a piece of information within the solipsist’s projection. What makes a difference is how he or she accommodates such a view when it comes to act. Does the solipsist really believe that he or she is the only being in the world in everyday life? Of course not, but this is not enough to repudiate solipsism. It could be an ingredient of this solipsistic form of life that other selves take part in it. As Wittgenstein points out in the ‘Blue Book’, there is no disagreement in solipsism “about any question of fact”.20 The result would be a compromise between what common sense teaches and a metaphysical position – the kind of compromise we find throughout the Western philosophical tradition. This is what Wittgenstein wants to eliminate and that is why he insists we must solve “these puzzles”. Wittgenstein’s second discussion of solipsism in MS 165

17

Cf. von Wright, 1993, 488. See Wittgenstein, 2000, MS 165, 101-103 and 150-152, in comparison with Wittgenstein, 1960, esp. 48-49, 57-61, 63-65 and 71. 19 Wittgenstein, 1960, 58-59. 20 Cf. ibid., 59. 18

Wittgenstein’s Debt to Sraffa

191

illuminates this and works like a reply to Sraffa. Here is the most relevant part of it, which I quote in the original: “Der Unsinn gegen den ich kämpfe ist der halbe Solipsismus, der immer sagt die Empfindung kenne ich intim daher, daß ich sie habe und nun verallgemeinerte ich auf diese Kenntnis hin. meinen diesen Fall. Den Begriff “Schmerzen” hast Du mit der Sprache gelernt. Wie nötig die Arbeit der Philosophie ist zeigt James’ Psychologie. Die Psychologie, sagt er, sei eine Wissenschaft hinspricht aber beinahe keine wissenschaftlichen Fragen. Seine Bewegungen sind lauter /so viele/ Versuche sich vom Spinnennetz der Metaphysik, zu befreien in dem er gefangen ist, zu befreien. He cannot yet walk, or fly at all he only wiggles. Nicht, daß das nicht interessant ist,. eEs ist nur nicht Wiss eine wissenschaftliche Tätigkeit.”21

The “nonsense” of “semi-solipsism” is far from that of the “metaphysical subject” in the Tractatus, that is to say, it is not something that can be encapsulated in a “mystical feeling”.22 It corresponds instead to manoeuvres made in language which the very praxis of language rules out. The purpose of philosophy is then psychotherapeutic in a certain way. Philosophical therapy helps to recognize that, for instance, it is not false but nonsensical to believe that only I know my pain when I am going to see a doctor. Certainly no one can tell exactly what my experience is, but it belongs to the use of “to know” that others can realize what is happening to me. The fact is that “to know” is used in many different ways, each involving different degrees of belief. I know that the main gate of Whewell’s Court is opposite the Great Gate of Trinity College because I have seen it. But I could know that from books or because someone has told me. Now, if I were asked “are you sure?”, my response would vary in accordance with the possible sources of my knowledge. In the first case, I 21

Wittgenstein, 2000, MS 165, 150-151. I have added to the Normalized transcription offered by the Bergen Electronic Edition some features of the Diplomatic transcription, namely deleted text, indication of insertions and wavy underlining, here represented by a dotted line. The first two remarks were crossed out by Wittgenstein. They were however retrieved, with some changes, in MS 124, 283-284, in entries that must be later than 3 July 1944, a date we find on page 205. It may be conjectured that MS 165 thus dates from 1944, but it is also possible that Wittgenstein simply came back to it at that time. The second of the crossed out remarks will actually reappear in MS 129, 114-115, and TS 227a/b, 220, §384 (Wittgenstein, 2009, §384), as well as TS 228, 75, §259, and TS 230, 101, § 366. 22 Cf. Wittgenstein, 1933, 5.633, 5.641 and 6.45. See in addition Venturinha, 2011.

192

Forms of Life and Language Games

could for example have forgotten the exact location of Whewell’s Court. In the second, even trusting the authors of the books I had consulted, I could have mixed up names or places in my mind, and it could be that the entrance to Whewell’s Court was opposite the Main Gate of St John’s College or just next door to Trinity’s Great Gate. The same holds true for the third case, but I could also have been cheated by the person who gave me that information. If I now were to say that only I know my pain, what could these words mean? What degree of belief should be assigned to them? They could make some sense if I were an outstanding doctor who had discovered a new pathology. But they do not make sense if I mean literally that the others cannot know my pain. To be sure, what would it be like to know exactly someone else’s pains? Do we have a clear picture of that? This is excluded by our form of life and language can only mistakenly suggest such a possibility. When we notice the multifaceted character of knowing something, the structure accompanying it, we understand the confusion involved in a sentence like “Only I know my pain”. This cannot be resolved by common sense, as Sraffa believed, because it is not a factual but a metaphysical matter, with the role of philosophy being just one of clarification. However, Sraffa’s comments seem to have been acute in regard to another question. The last comment quoted from his notes comes from a sentence in which Wittgenstein claims that “[w]e shall […] try to construct new notations, in order to break the spell of those which we are accustomed to”.23 Later in the text he affirms: “[…] we sometimes wish for a notation which stresses a difference more strongly, makes it more obvious, than ordinary language does, or one which in a particular case uses more closely similar forms of expression than our ordinary language. Our mental cramp is loosened when we are shown the notations which fulfil these needs.”24

Interestingly enough, with the exception of §§ 403 and 562, the term “notation” is not employed in the Investigations. As a matter of fact, § 403 states: “If I were to reserve the word “pain” solely for what I had previously called “my pain”, and others “L.W.’s pain”, I’d do other people no injustice, so long as a notation were provided in which the loss of the word “pain” in other contexts were somehow made good. […] 23 24

Wittgenstein, 1960, 23. Ibid., 59.

Wittgenstein’s Debt to Sraffa

193

But what would I gain from this new mode of representation? Nothing. But then the solipsist does not want any practical advantage when he advances his view either!”25

This is a puzzling remark. As David Stern recently noted, “[t]here is no defence of the controversial claim that reforming our language in this way would do other people no injustice and no discussion of what kind of ‘notation’ would be needed to provide for the loss of the word ‘pain’”. He goes on: “Indeed, the very nature of the new notation is left unspecified.”26 Sraffa’s comments are also vague, but the reason why Wittgenstein does not specify this alternative notation seems to be his realization that we should not want “to break the spell of those which we are accustomed to”, as claimed in the “Blue Book”. On his way to the Investigations he realizes that what we need is to look at our ordinary language-games and understand how language is used. The fundamental question of the “Blue Book”, “What is the meaning of a word?”, which for Wittgenstein should be answered in connection with the question about the “explanation of the meaning of a word”,27 gives room in the Investigations to a much more flexible conception of grammar. Wittgenstein takes issue, for example, with “words ‘without meaning’” and what interests him is not their explanation but the effect they produce.28 Sraffa did certainly play a decisive role in this new approach through his “anthropological way” of considering philosophical matters, which Sen emphasizes.29 Although Sen himself tries to de-mystify Sraffa’s famous Neapolitan gesture,30 von Wright’s version of the episode is telling. According to this version, which differs from Malcolm’s, “the question at issue […] was whether every proposition must have a ‘grammar’, and Sraffa asked Wittgenstein what the ‘grammar’ of that gesture was”.31 This is something Wittgenstein will only come to grips with late in his work.32 25

Wittgenstein, 2009, §403. This remark can be found in MS 116, 154-155, thus dating, according to von Wright (1993, p. 494) “from the academic year 1937-38”. It was then incorporated in TS 227a/b, 228-229, §403, as well as TS 228, 33, §122, and TS 230, 84, §315. 26 Stern, 2010, 185. 27 Cf. Wittgenstein, 1960, 1. 28 See Wittgenstein, 2009, §§13 and 282. 29 Cf. Sen, 2003, 1242, 1245-1247 and 1252, as well as Sen, 2009, 120-121. 30 Cf. Sen, 2003, 1242, and Sen, 2009, 120-121, note. 31 Malcolm, 2001, 58, note 3. 32 This paper is a contribution to the research project “Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: Re-Evaluating a Project”, funded by the Portuguese Foundation for

194

Forms of Life and Language Games

References Davis, J. B., 2002, Gramsci, Sraffa, Wittgenstein: philosophical linkages, European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 9, 384-401. Janik, A., 2006, Assembling Reminders. Studies in the Genesis of Wittgenstein’s Concept of Philosophy. Santérus Academic Press Sweden, Stockholm. Lo Piparo, F., 2010, Gramsci and Wittgenstein: an intriguing connection. In: A. Capone (ed.), Perspectives on Language Use and Pragmatics. A Volume in Memory of Sorin Stati. Lincom Europa Academic Publications, Munich, 285-319. Malcolm, N., 2001, Ludwig Wittgenstein. A Memoir. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Sen, A., 2003, Sraffa, Wittgenstein, and Gramsci, Journal of Economic Literature, 41, 1240-1255. Sen, A., 2009, The Idea of Justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Stern, D., 2010, Another Strand in the Private Language Argument. In: A. Ahmed (ed.), Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. A Critical Guide. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 178-196. Venturinha, N., 2011, Wittgenstein Reads Nietzsche: The Roots of Tractarian Solipsism. In: E. Ramharter (ed.), Unsocial Sociabilities. Wittgenstein’s Sources, Parerga, Berlin, 59-74. von Wright, G. H., 1993, The Wittgenstein Papers. In: J. C. Klagge and A. Nordmann (eds.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951. Hackett, Indianapolis, 480-506. Wittgenstein, L., 1933, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. C. K. Ogden. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.

Science and Technology. I thank Professor Pierangelo Garegnani, literary executor of the Sraffa papers, for permission to quote from item I21. I also wish to thank Thomas Wallgren from the von Wright and Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Helsinki, where I first found a photocopy of the document in 2009, and Jonathan Smith from Trinity College Library, Cambridge, where I consulted the original in 2010.

Wittgenstein’s Debt to Sraffa

195

Wittgenstein, L., 1960, The Blue and Brown Books. Preliminary Studies for the “Philosophical Investigations”, ed. R. Rhees. Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 1998, Culture and Value. A Selection from the Posthumous Remains, ed. G. H. von Wright in collaboration with H. Nyman, rev. ed. A. Pichler, trans. P. Winch. Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 2000, Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. The Bergen Electronic Edition, ed. Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 2008, Wittgenstein in Cambridge. Letters and Documents 1911-1951, ed. B. McGuinness. Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 2009, Philosophical Investigations, ed. P. M. S. Hacker and J. Schulte, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker and J. Schulte. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 2010, Wittgenstein’s 1938 Preface, ed. N. Venturinha. In: N. Venturinha (ed.), Wittgenstein After His Nachlass. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 182-188. New University of Lisbon

Art as Institution and Expression Jakub MÁCHA Introduction The aim of my paper is not to investigate the concepts of language-game and form of life, but rather to use these concepts and their peculiar interrelationship in order to elucidate two key features of Wittgenstein’s aesthetics. There are two important uses of the concept of language-game. In one meaning, language-games are objects of comparison that serve for investigating the mechanisms and relations within language.1 In another, Wittgenstein uses the notion of a “language-game” also as a part of language which is made up of primitive language-games.2 In this sense, the language-game constitutes a part of our overall activity which Wittgenstein calls the form of life.3 There is a certain ambiguity between these two uses of language-game. Either our language consists of particular languagegames, or language-games are fictive theoretical constructs that are invented by philosophers or linguists so that language can be better understood. Our exegesis is complicated by the fact that the concept of the form of life is as ambiguous as it is indeterminate. In his conversations on aesthetics, Wittgenstein maintains that aesthetic judgments can be understood only within a context that he terms culture. My claim is that this context can be understood as a languagegame and that the ambiguity of the concept of language-game — resulting also in the ambiguity of the language-game “culture” — plays an important role in Wittgenstein’s aesthetics. In particular, depending on which conceptions of the language-game are emphasized, one could interpret Wittgenstein’s aesthetics as institutional or expressive.

1

Wittgenstein, PI, §130. Wittgenstein, PI, §7. 3 Wittgenstein sometimes uses the expression “in a language-game” simply as “in a context” leaving unspecified whether the context is an object of comparison or our form of life. Wittgenstein, PI, §23. 2

Forms of Life and Language Games, (Eds. Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ, Margit GAFFAL), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2011, 197-208.

198

1.

Forms of Life and Language Games

Language-games – simplified models and actual praxis

The notion of a language-game is, beyond doubt, central to Wittgenstein’s late philosophy. However, he uses “language-game” in at least two senses which Wittgenstein scholars have distinguished and labeled so far. Baker and Hacker speak of “invented” and “natural” language-games,4 Glock distinguishes between “fictional language-games” on the one hand, and “teaching practices”, “linguistic activities” and “language as game” on the other hand.5 Invented or fictional language-games, like the game from § 2 of the Investigations, serve as objects of comparison.6 They are not fragments of our language, but theoretical constructs that have been invented for various purposes, especially to model (possibly false) philosophical theories or features of our language. Natural or actual language-games such as, for example, greeting, guessing riddles,7 or – heading towards our subject – describing an artwork or reciting a poem, are parts of our actual language. Moreover, they are embedded in our form of life. This is to understand that our language emerges from a pre-linguistic activity8 like, for example, natural reactions and is part of our overall activity, of our life. From this general setting, I want to focus on two points. First, invented language-games are supposed to model, inter alia, real speech praxis. In short, invented language-games can model actual languagegames. If such invented language-games are simplified models of real language-games, then between the model and the thing that is modeled there lies a structural relation. In other words, if an object should model something, then it should share a common form with the modeled thing. There has to be structural isomorphism between these two objects.9 Second, actual language-games are rooted in non- or pre-linguistic activities. In the course of learning a language, a child is gradually capable of using language by its increasing ability to substitute its primitive expressions of pain by sentences like “I am in pain”. Therefore, Wittgenstein can say “our language-game is an extension of primitive 4

Baker and Hacker, 1983, pp. 54-56. Glock, 1996, pp. 194-97. 6 Wittgenstein, PI, §130. 7 See Wittgenstein, PI, §23 for an extensive list. 8 Wittgenstein, PI, §7. 9 Max Black calls such models analog: “The analogue model shares with its original […] the same structure or pattern of relationships.” Black, 1962, p. 223. 5

Art as Institution and Expression

199

behaviour. (For our language-game is behaviour.)”10 A primitive languagegame will eventually be substituted by a complex game that is grammatical and rule-governed. 2.

Culture as an institution

The point of departure for this section will be Wittgenstein’s critique of Tolstoy: “There is much that could be learned from Tolstoy’s false theorizing that the work of art conveys ‘a feeling’. — And you really might call it, if not the expression of a feeling, an expression of feeling, or a felt expression. And you might say too that people who understand it to that extent ‘resonate’ with it, respond to it. You might say: The work of art does not seek to convey something else, just itself. […]”11

We can derive some traits of Wittgenstein’s aesthetics from these considerations. First, a work of art does not represent a feeling; it is, however, an expression of a feeling. This expressive trait will be discussed in the next section. Second, what counts are aesthetic reactions to the work of art. When speaking of identity or sameness, then it is a matter of the identity of these reactions to the work of art, not of the identity of inner states. To put it differently: The fact that people understand a work of art becomes apparent when they respond to it in a particular manner. In this sense, one could say that they respond correctly. The concept of aesthetic correctness is indeed central to Wittgenstein’s aesthetics. A work of art is correct or right as long as it follows common aesthetic rules (concerning e.g. harmony, composition, or ideal proportions). The aesthetic reaction is not limited to predicates like “nice” or “pretty” which Wittgenstein regards rather as interjections.12 Such simple aesthetic judgments, which are used by children or, say, by less educated people, are replaced by complex judgments which need a context (that is provided just by an education). Wittgenstein calls the context for aesthetic 10

Wittgenstein, Z, §545. There are various interpretations of the notion “form of life” and so its sketchy specification could be helpful. For the purposes of this paper, I understand “form of life” rather in the sense of our (human) shared biological constitution that affects concept-formation. For general arguments for this reading see Garver, 1994, chap. 15; more specific considerations of the reading that I have in mind are to be found in ter Hark, 2004. 11 Wittgenstein, C&V, 67. 12 Wittgenstein, L&C, I.9.

200

Forms of Life and Language Games

judgments “culture”. I want to see culture as one of language-games, although the only explicit evidence for this claim is less reliable:13 “What belongs to a language game is a whole culture.” This suggestion is justified by the fact that Wittgenstein uses the notion of a language-game as a context.14 For additional evidence, we can focus on Wittgenstein’s remarks from the Zettel, which deal with music.15 In § 164, Wittgenstein explores how the phrase “expressive playing” can be explained. For such an explanation one needs to be educated in a particular culture. I take the § 175 as Wittgenstein’s denial that themes (or more generally works of art) have intrinsic aesthetic features—that a theme “makes an impression on me which is connected with things in its surroundings—e.g. with our language and its intonations; and hence with the whole field of our language-games.” Thus, on the basis of these remarks, I think it is sufficiently justified and indeed fruitful to speak of culture as of a language-game. After all, the label “culture” as such is not important; we would lose nothing by simply talking of a language-game with aesthetic expressions. To produce a correct aesthetic reaction to a work of art presupposes an acquaintance with an (actual) culture. Wittgenstein uses the term “culture” very loosely here. I shall examine how an aesthetic judgment is involved in it. One can understand culture as a network of connections.16 A work of art fits (passt zusammen) into this network due to its correctness. An aesthetic judgment is supposed to express this fit.17 Let us now consider the expressions “to fit” and “to hang together”, which are at first very indeterminate, for everything hangs somehow together or fits to anything else. But Wittgenstein expends a great deal of effort in clarifying these kinds of relations. In ‘Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief’ he draws a distinction 13

Wittgenstein, L&C, I.26. See footnote 3. 15 Wittgenstein, Z, §§157-175. 16 “Culture” might be on a list of expressions that Wittgenstein borrowed from Spengler. Indeed, Wittgenstein sometimes uses the expression “culture” in Spengler’s sense, i.e. as opposed to “civilization”. (See Ms 109, 204n.; Ms 110, 12n.; Ms 136, 18b; Ms 183, 46; Ts 211, 157.) I want to put an emphasis on the fact that in Wittgenstein’s conversations on aesthetics, the expression “culture” is used in a slightly different (although related) sense as a context for aesthetic judgments that can also take place within Spengler’s civilization. 17 Wittgenstein, RPP II, §501. 14

Art as Institution and Expression

201

between cause and motive (or reason, or ground): “There is a ‘Why?’ to aesthetic discomfort not a ‘cause’ to it.”18 There are various languagegames with the expression “cause”. In the game that Wittgenstein is focusing on, “cause” means tracing a mechanism. Hence, he understands “cause” in the sense of mechanical causality and maintains that “an aesthetic explanation is not causal explanation.”19 If one sought a causal explanation, then the human mind would have to be conceived as a mechanism (or “super-mechanism”), because here, in this language-game, the concept of cause has its place only within a mechanism. This may be possible, but would still not explain aesthetic reactions. Such a physical explanation describes only accompanying phenomena20 and reduces aesthetics to psychology. We have to go in pursuit of a motive, which means that we have to carry out a grammatical investigation that should result in the discovery of a grammatical relation21 between the work of art and an aesthetic reaction to it. Two phenomena can be causally connected or grammatically related (independently of any causal connection), which means they fit together.22 I want to argue that the difference between causality and fitting is the same as the difference between an external and an internal relation. The concept of fitting is to be found in Wittgenstein’s writings from 1930s onwards. In the ‘Big Typescript’23, he employs the verb “to fit” (passen) meaning that an object fits into a mould (Höhlform). It is this way of fitting that is meant in the Tractatus when a sentence fits or reaches reality. Fitting in this sense would be an external relation, for its relata are distinct external objects.24 Later, however, Wittgenstein proposes another way of fitting that is internal to language (later to a language-game) and that he dubs belonging (gehören). The idea behind it is the following: If an object fits into a mould, then a description of the object (or of its respective

18

Wittgenstein, L&C, II.19, see Wittgenstein, III.16 and Wittgenstein, LS, §908. Wittgenstein, L&C, II.38. 20 Wittgenstein, “concomitance”, L&C, II.31. 21 Wittgenstein, Z, §437. 22 Wittgenstein, LS, §75. 23 Wittgenstein, Ts 213, 203n. 24 It is an accidental fact that a cylinder fits into a mould. If we heated the cylinder, it would cease to fit into the mould. See Wittgenstein, Ms 119, 50. 19

202

Forms of Life and Language Games

parts) and of its mould must be the same. There is, therefore, an internal relation between their shapes.25 Wittgenstein is, nevertheless, not rigorous in drawing this conceptual distinction and also uses the expression “to fit” in the sense of “to belong”, i.e. internally.26 Two objects can fit together because one has tested that they (accidentally) can or they can fit together because of their falling under a common description (or because their descriptions are interchangeable). The former fitting is external, the latter is internal. The difference between external and internal is not a matter of the grammatical form of a sentence but of its justification. Thus, speaking of an internal relation between two objects might be slightly improper and should be taken as speaking of an internal relation between concepts under which these objects fall.27 In his later remarks on the philosophy of psychology, the expression “to fit” is intended as a substitute for the concept of psychological association.28 Psychological association should be understood causally (and thus as externally), fitting, by contrast, should be understood formally (and thus as internally). Wittgenstein shows that two phenomena can fit together 25

This difference between fitting and belonging is employed later in the Philosophical Investigations in §136. 26 Cf., e.g., the following quotations from Wittgenstein, Ms 138, 23a: “Eine Form des Gedankenerratens: Einer stellt ein Jigsaw puzzle zusammen, der Andre kann ihn nicht sehen, aber er sagt von Zeit zu Zeit: “Jetzt kann er etwas nicht finden”, “Jetzt denkt er ‘wo habe ich nur ein solches Stück gesehen?’”, “Jetzt ist er sehr befriedigt”, “Jetzt denkt er ‘jetzt weiß ich [wo es hingehört!’”| wie es paßt!’”], “Jetzt denkt er ‘Es paßt nicht recht’ — [...].” Here Wittgenstein uses the verbs “hingehören” (to belong) and “passen” (to fit) interchangeably as two variants of the text. Another variant of this remark is to be found in Wittgenstein, PI, II, 223: “I am putting a jig-saw puzzle together; the other person cannot see me but from time to time guesses my thoughts and utters them. He says, for instance, ‘Now where is this bit?’ — ‘Now I know how it fits!’ — ‘I have no idea what goes in here’ — […].” However, the German original of the last sentence reads: “Ich habe keine Ahnung, was hierher gehört.” Wittgenstein, Ms 141, 96. 27 Wittgenstein expresses this point in his conversations with Waismann (Wittgenstein 1984, 54) or much later in the very first paragraph of his Remarks on Color. If one says that rod A is longer than rod B, she may mean either an external relation between these rods or an internal relation between their lengths. The case with the cylinder and its mould is analogous; one could mean either an external relation between these objects or an internal relation between their shapes. 28 Wittgenstein, RPP I, §337 or Wittgenstein, LS, §76.

Art as Institution and Expression

203

in numerous examples. The name Schubert fits to Schubert’s works,29 Beethoven’s face fits to his Ninth symphony,30 the word “Goethe” fits to its atmosphere and to the color yellow,31 my long familiar furniture fits into my room,32 a spot fits into its surroundings.33 Now, the gist of these examples is that these connections are not psychological associations, despite the fact that psychological associations and other causal connections might occur here as well.34 Joachim Schulte likens this to the situation in which several individual pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fit together and form a whole.35 If two things fit together and, hence, are internally connected, then they make up a whole.36 Now back to the investigation of aesthetic reactions to a work of art. They, the work of art and any reaction to it, must fit together; there must be an internal relation between them. Such a reaction need not be a verbal one; it can be a gesture or even another work of art. One could find a fitting musical accompaniment to a poem, or a fitting dance figure to a melody.37 Now one might ask how a correct aesthetic reaction to a work of art can be identified (or become known). This would be the same as asking how to find a missing part to a whole phenomenon. The answer lies in, or can be deduced from Wittgenstein’s account of aspect-seeing. The phrase “to see something as something other” (or to hear) is used in art frequently, e.g. “You have to hear these bars as an introduction.”38 Such aspect-seeing, or eventually the possibility of a change of aspect is, says Wittgenstein, essential in aesthetics.39 The phrases “see as” and “fit together” are closely related. If something is seen as another thing, then both things fit together.40 A phenomenon is, however, not seen as another all the time. The aspect has to dawn and in such dawning of an aspect one perceives an 29

Wittgenstein, PI, 215. Wittgenstein, RPP I, §338. 31 Wittgenstein, Ms 131, 149. 32 Wittgenstein, RPP I, §339. 33 Wittgenstein, PI, §216. 34 Wittgenstein, LS, §76. 35 Schulte, 1990, p. 84. 36 Wittgenstein, RPP I, §341. 37 Cf. Wittgenstein, Ms 137, 20b where a gesture and a dance figure are taken as simple explanations of a musical phrase. 38 Wittgenstein, Z, §209. 39 Wittgenstein, LS, §634. 40 Viz. Wittgenstein, LS, §654: ““If I see it this way, it fits this, but not that.” The seeing “this way” is a variation of aspect-seeing. 30

204

Forms of Life and Language Games

internal relation.41 Hence, the correctness of an aesthetic reaction must be affirmed in the dawning of the aspect and in the related astonishment (Staunen).42 An aesthetic reaction expresses an aspect of a work of art. In aspect-seeing, the thing seen is going to be organized: “In the aspect I notice a trait of the organization.”43 To organize a phenomenon means seeing that its parts fit in a particular way, i.e. correctly together. Now we have to distinguish the following: Parts of a work of art fit together (what I want to call immanent fitting). This fitting is the basis of the (what I call transcendent) fitting together of the work of art and a reaction to it. An aesthetic reaction is correct insofar as it expresses an aspect of the work of art.44 An aesthetic judgment reveals an internal relation between the work of art and other objects,45 which is, as noted, to understand that they share a common form. But what are these other objects? I want to suggest that they are other works of art. This enables us to regard complex aesthetic reactions as works of art. The fact that there is an internal relation between two objects – two works of art – implies that they are, or could be, parts of a whole. They are a total work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk), one might say. There are many kinds of aesthetic reaction to a work of art and so it can be internally related to a variety of phenomena. These reactions can be very simple (“It’s nice!”) or significantly complex. A reaction can reveal, for example, a deep affinity between two artists, e.g. between Brahms and Keller.46 41

Wittgenstein, PI, II, 212 or Wittgenstein, LS, §506. In Wittgenstein, PI, II, p. 211, he maintains that “what I perceive in the dawning of an aspect is not a property of the object, but an internal relation between it and other objects.”(italics mine) Here, there is asserted an internal relation between objects. As noted before, this relation should be taken as an internal relation between properties of these objects. 42 See Wittgenstein, PI, II, p. 199, where the German expression “Staunen” is translated as “surprise”. 43 Wittgenstein, LS, §515. 44 The importance of aspect-seeing and of internal relations in Wittgenstein’s aesthetic is emphasized by Majetschak, 2007, 60nn. 45 Wittgenstein, PI, II, 212. 46 It is not obvious (at least for me, not being familiar with Keller’s works) what Wittgenstein could have in mind by saying this. In Ms 183, 59 he writes that the same principles of good and right (of their times) are embodied in works of these artists. Hence, due to these principles, there is an internal relation between these works. There is an extensive commentary on their affinity in L&C. “I often found that certain themes of Brahms were extremely Kellerian.” Wittgenstein, L&C, p. 32. This could simply mean that they lived at the same time or in the same culture of the time. Such a relation is external. Nevertheless, there might be something hidden in this utterance. It

Art as Institution and Expression

205

More precisely, a network of such connections is what Wittgenstein calls a culture. It is the total or ultimate work of art. The sole culture in toto prescribes rules for itself. An object becomes a work of art insofar as it expresses (or is used for an expression of) an aspect of the culture. This is not to understand that every work of art has to meet all the rules of the convention, but that these rules have an impact on aesthetic reactions to a work of art, especially to an object’s being taken as a work of art at all.47 If we take culture as praxis with and the sum of all works of art, then the internal relations within the culture are all that matters. In this sense, Wittgenstein’s aesthetics is institutional. 3.

Art as an expression of a genius

The remark quoted above that a work of art is a “felt expression” indicates that a strict institutional view of art might be insufficient. Great works of art emerge from intense feeling and evoke intense feeling, although these feelings are neither communicated, nor necessarily identical. Such an intuition must be satisfied in every theory of art. The institutional interpretation needs a reference to the inner self at two points. The first concerns aspect-seeing. An aesthetic reaction to a work of art expresses a new aspect of it. This change of aspect has a subjective side which Wittgenstein identifies with astonishment. Astonishment is a feeling that is expressed in a work of art. Similarly, laughter is an expression of joy; a frown is an expression of sadness.48 The question is, however, to what extent the same or similar reactions (say facial expressions) imply the same or similar feelings. Primitive expressions of pain or joy, for example, are grounded in our form of life. For Wittgenstein, it does not hold that the same feelings imply the same expressions; rather, it is the other way around, the same expressions are the reason that one can speak of the same feelings. Therefore, the fact that people respond to a work of art in the same way is the reason for the same feelings (because they share a common form of life).

might express a similarity between works of the artists that is difficult to describe. Wittgenstein likens this to a similarity between two faces that is not obvious at first but can be found soon. Such a relation would be internal. 47 Cf. Wittgenstein, L&C, I.16. 48 Cf. Wittgenstein, L&C, I.10.

206

Forms of Life and Language Games

Now to the second point which will be more fruitful. Provided that the work of art forms an aspect of an actual culture, how, then, can it be explained that the culture can undergo a change? What is the source of cultural dynamics? Wittgenstein admits that there are works of art that cannot be judged according to their correctness. He calls such works of art tremendous.49 Impressionist paintings were first judged disparagingly, because they did not follow the academic rules of the time. However, such negative attitudes endured for less than a generation, and impressionist works became the canon of subsequent art movements. A work of art is called tremendous because it occupies and forms a tremendous part of the culture. Although such works of art express aspects of the culture, they contribute to the culture in a different way. My suggestion is that tremendous works of art enrich the culture with new rules. An artist who has the talent to enforce new rules is—in the Kantian sense—a genius.50 “Genius is the talent in which the character expresses itself,”51 says Wittgenstein. This reference to character is the crucial point that goes beyond the institutional conception of art.52 The enrichment of a culture with new rules does not happen at once. New rules are, at first, only implicitly incorporated in the works of genial artists, and it takes some time before they are recognized and thus become a part of the culture. After this happens, another language-game “culture” is played, for every language-game is defined by its rules. Conclusion Culture is embedded in our form of life.53 Each child eventually manages to integrate its primitive expressions of pain into complex language-games. Nevertheless, one needs to have a talent to master the complex languagegame of culture and to transpose his feelings into this extraordinary language-game. To express common feelings in our language, we need not introduce new rules. By contrast, it can happen that the prevailing culture cannot satisfy the artist’s demands, which is precisely why new rules are introduced. 49

Wittgenstein, I.23. Wittgenstein, Ms 162b, 22. 51 Wittgenstein, Ms 136, 59a. 52 This idea is embodied in Özlem, 2010. 53 In the context of the Brown book, the expressions “culture” and “form of life” are very close. See Glock, 1996, p. 125. 50

Art as Institution and Expression

207

However, every artist needs to address the usual rules of the culture. She may indeed violate some of these. If she violated all rules of the culture, we would have no reason to regard her products as works of art. She must express through her art aspects of culture. This means that between the work of art and the culture there must exist an internal relation, an integral connection. In this sense, a work of art should be understood as a model of culture. The work of art stands in two main relationships — in a vertical relationship to our form of life and in a horizontal relationship to other works of art within the language-game “culture”.54 If the horizontal relationship is accentuated, Wittgenstein’s conception of art is institutional; if we emphasize, on the other hand, the vertical relationship, one can understand art rather as expressive.55 References Baker, G. P. and P. M. S. Hacker, 1983: Wittgenstein: Meaning and Understanding. Blackwell, Oxford. Black, M., 1962: Modells and Metaphors. Cornell University Press, Ithaca. Garver, N., 1994: This Complicated Form of Life: Essays on Wittgenstein. Open Court, Chicago and La Salle, Illinois. Glock, H.-J., 1996: A Wittgenstein dictionary. Blackwell, London. Majetschak, S., 2007: Kunst und Kennerschaft. Wittgenstein-Studien, 15, pp. 49-68. Özlem, F., 2010: Wittgenstein on Art and Creative Imagination. In: R. Heinrich et al. (eds.) Papers of the 33. International Wittgenstein Symposium. ALWS, Kirchberg am Wechsel, pp. 245-246.

54

Instead of two relationships, we can speak of two tendencies or movements in the history of art. Art movements that preferred the horizontal relation to the culture are called “academism”, “classicism” and the like. Romantic, revolutionary, or avantgarde art movements rather strived for an expression of feelings. One can see this point more clearly if we consider extreme examples of these tendencies. It is sometimes said that works of academic art are without feeling and that expressive works of art are destructive or rude. 55 I am grateful to the participants of the symposium Language Games and Forms of Life for a stimulating discussion and especially to Peter Hacker for critical remarks on an earlier draft of this paper. Supported by the project GACR P401/11/P174.

208

Forms of Life and Language Games

Schulte, J., 1990: Ästhetisch richtig. In: Chor und Gesetz. Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp, pp. 73-88. ter Hark, M. 2004: ‘Patterns of Life’: A Third Wittgenstein Concept. In: D. Moyal-Sharrock: The Third Wittgenstein. Aldershot, Ashgate, pp. 125-143. Wittgenstein, L., 1967: Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief. University of California Press, Berkeley. (L&C) Wittgenstein, L., 1984: Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis. In: Werkausgabe, Bd. 3. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. Wittgenstein, L., 1998: The Collected Works of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 2000: Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. The Bergen Electronic Edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford. (Ms, Ts) Masaryk University