Wittgenstein on metaphysical/everyday use

Philosophical Quarterly

Volumn 52, Issue 208, 2002, Pages 289-302

  Baker, Gordon ^a  

^a ST JOHN S COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 60949247459     PISSN: 00318094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9213.00269     Document Type: Article

References (17)

1. In all quotations, italics mark original emphases, whereas bold type marks added emphases. English translations of unpublished remarks are my own. All references to Wittgenstein's published works use standard abbreviations. Most other abbreviations are listed here. Section numbers refer to Philosophical Investigations if not otherwise specified. PLP: F. Waismann, The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy, ed. R. Harré (London: Macmillan, 1965; 2nd edn London: Macmillan, 1995)
2. Wittgenstein's unpublished work: BT: the 'Big Typescript' (TS 213): 1933, vi pp. table of contents, 768 pp. All other references to unpublished material follow the von Wright catalogue: G.H. von Wright, Wittgenstein (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982), pp. 35ff
3. This contrast is drawn by Waismann, 'How I See Philosophy', repr. in his How I See Philosophy, ed. R. Harré (London: Macmillan, 1968), pp. 1-38, at pp. 18, 20-1, 29
4. H.-J. Glock, A Wittgenstein Dictionary (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), pp. 261-2: ' ... it is constitutive of metaphysical theories and questions that their employment of terms is at odds with their explanations and that they use deviant rules along with ordinary ones'
5. 'The therapy for the illusions generated by this "metaphysical use of words" is to examine, with unbiased vision, the ordinary use of these words. It will then be evident that we have been misusing them': G.P. Baker and P.M.S. Hacker, Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980, henceforth 'B&H'), p. 526
6. So unequal are these two words that Wittgenstein's philosophy can be described simply as 'bringing words back to their everyday use', and §116(b) can be cited in the form 'to bring words back ... to their everyday use': O. Hanfling, Philosophy and Ordinary Language (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 38, 40
7. On this view, Wittgenstein's remarks describing the uses of words are defective to the extent that they leave room for disagreement. E.g., it might be disputed whether the grocer's response to the paper slip 'Five red apples' constitutes an everyday use of our language (§1); whether the analysis given of the concept of 'game' (§66) is actually correct: B. Rundle, Wittgenstein and Contemporary Philosophy of Language (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), pp. 45-54, 64-6
8. or whether the assertion that there are countless kinds of sentences is not a grotesque exaggeration: M. Dummett, Truth and Other Enigmas (London: Duckworth, 1978), pp. 437-58
9. See Hacker, Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990) on the concept of thinking (pp. 311 and 324, but cf. 306n.)
10. and A. Kenny, The Metaphysics of Mind (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989) on most topics
11. G.E.M. Anscombe, 'The First Person', in S. Guttenplan (ed.), Mind and Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 45-65
12. Malcolm, 'Whether "I" is a Referring Expression', in Wittgensteinian Themes: Essays 1978-1989 (Cornell UP, 1995), pp. 16-26
13. Kenny, 'The First Person', in The Legacy of Wittgenstein (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), pp. 77-87
14. Malcolm, 'Wittgenstein: the Relation of Language to Instinctive Behaviour', in Wittgensteinian Themes, pp. 66-86
15. Baker and Hacker, Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), pp. 56-7, 271-2
16. This seems to be the basis of Russell's criticism of the ideas of the later work of Wittgenstein. See his Collected Papers (London: Routledge, 1997), vol. XI, pp. 601 and 615
17. 'Everything essential about thought is summed up in saying that the thought that p is the case is not the fact that p is the case. That the thought is another fact.'