First, P2 is not Wittgenstein’s view. — Sam26

P2 was intended to be Wittgenstein’s view, but I can reword:
P2 Language is a set of words having meanings, where the meaning of a word is its use in language
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P1 isn’t a premise in any Wittgensteinian argument, — Sam26

From PI 43

For a large class of cases - though not for all - in which we employ the word “meaning” it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.

I would have thought that P1 “The meaning of a word is its use in the language” is quite central to Wittgenstein’s argument.
=======================
Wittgenstein's view seems to be:

P1 The meaning of a word is its use in language
P2 Language is a set of words having meanings, where the meaning of a word is its use in language
C1 The meaning of a word is its use in a set of words having meanings, where the meaning of a word is its use in language

This still seems a fallacious circular argument.

We say a word has meaning insofar as it can be learned, applied, explained, corrected, and understood. — Sam26

There is a problem here with language, similar to Cargo Cult Thinking, where a person might mimic the usage of a word without understanding the underlying concept.

I can learn that a quark is “any of a class of six fundamental fermions” without it having any meaning to me.
An AI when asked can apply the expression “a quark is any of a class of six fundamental fermions” without knowing what it means’
I can explain that “a quark is any of a class of six fundamental fermions” without knowing what it means.
I can correct someone when they say that “a quark is any of a class of two fundamental fermions” without knowing what it means.
I can understand that “a quark is any of a class of six fundamental fermions” without knowing what it means.

It is a more general epistemological problem. How do we know what “quark” means?

If Frank and Russell are treating meaning as an inner object or a foundation that must be supplied first, then yes, that’s the confusion. — Sam26

If someone says to you “niletee ubamba”, how do you know If you are meant to act, and if you know you are meant to act, how do you act?

Because I know that “niletee ubamba” means “bring me a slab", I know exactly what to do, take them a slab.

But what exactly is the mechanism for you knowing what to do if the meaning of the utterance “niletee ubamba” is irrelevant?

(Edit) If you don't know what "niletee ubamba" means, then how do you know what to do?

Tool 10 is the therapeutic move. Witt isn’t trying to solve philosophical problems by crreating new theories. He treats many problems as conceptual knots produced by misleading pictures, words pulled out of their everyday use (ordinary use), or sliding between language games. The solution is often to dissolve the knot, not by refuting someone, but by showing what’s wrong with how we’re framing our question.

That’s why he uses reminders and ordinary examples. The aim is a clearer view of our concepts, an overview that lets the pressure disappear. The classic image is the fly-bottle, philosophy traps us in a bottle made out of our own language, and the job is to show the way out, not to smash the bottle with a theory.

Example: “How do I know other people have minds? I only see bodies.”

Witt’s therapy is to show the misleading picture that's creating the problem, viz., that mind is something hidden and knowledge must be an inference to some unseen object. In ordinary life we don’t treat “he’s in pain” as a hypothesis about an internal object. We learn and use words within our linguistic practices, what counts as pain and pretending, etc. Once you understand, then the demand for a proof stops looking necessary, the problem dissolves rather than being solved by a theory.

Wittgenstein's view seems to be:

P1 The meaning of a word is its use in language
P2 Language is a set of words having meanings, where the meaning of a word is its use in language
C1 The meaning of a word is its use in a set of words having meanings, where the meaning of a word is its use in language

This still seems a fallacious circular argument. — RussellA

I'm not surer why you're forcing Witt into a theory-shaped proof, then calling it circular. PI 43 isn’t an axiom, it’s a reminder, and he hedges it, “for a large class of cases, though not for all.” That’s not how premises are written.

The problem is the picture behind your P2. “Language is a set of words with meanings” treats meanings as already attached to words and then collected into language. Witt’s move is the reverse, language is a practice, a way of using signs in activities with teaching, correction, and going on, and in that practice, we speak of words/concepts as having meanings, often just their use.

So, the “circularity” only appears after you impose the wrong frame. And even if you call it circular, it’s not a fallacy unless it’s being offered as a proof.

The problem is the picture behind your P2. “Language is a set of words with meanings” treats meanings as already attached to words and then collected into language. Witt’s move is the reverse, language is a practice, a way of using signs in activities with teaching, correction, and going on, and in that practice, we speak of words/concepts as having meanings, often just their use. — Sam26

If some says to you “niletee ubamba", how do you use that statement, act on that statement, if you don’t know what it means?

Can you give a practical example of how you use the utterance “niletee ubamba” without knowing what it means?

I would have thought that P1 “The meaning of a word is its use in the language” is quite central to Wittgenstein’s argument. — RussellA

I think you ought to consider that "use" has two principal meanings, one referring to the universal, the other the particular. So in the "use" of a tool like a hammer for example, there might be a universal rule, "a hammer is used for pounding nails", but this does not describe the particular instance of use, where it may be the case that "the hammer was used to crush a walnut". Wittgenstein recognizes these two very different and often conflicting aspects of meaning, what is given by the universal rule of "a practice", and what is given by the particular circumstances of practise. The former involves a sort of inductive reasoning, and the latter isn't necessarily consistent.

I think you ought to consider that "use" has two principal meanings, one referring to the universal, the other the particular. — Metaphysician Undercover

I see what you mean.

There is the universal aspect, in that the function (meaning) of a word is to be used in a language game and there is the particular aspect, in that the meaning of a word is its use in the language game.

Suppose someone says to you “niletee ubamba".

There is the universal aspect, in that the function (meaning) of the expression is to be used in a language game. I assume there is agreement about this.

The problem is the particular aspect. The problem is, how can you respond to an utterance if you don’t know what the utterance means. You must know what the utterance means before being able to respond to it.

The language game would not work if we did not know what utterances meant prior to being able to respond to them.

If Wittgenstein really believed that meaning is use (as opposed to the weaker thesis that apparent usage can partially explicate meaning in many cases), then Witty would have no reason for writing anything or for criticising anyone.

For if meaning is identified with usage, then the philosophy of language loses its normative status, because the use of every expression must be seen as self-justifying with respect to the immediate context that precipitated the use of the expression.

Wittgenstein therapeutic conception of philosophy does at times hint towards acceptance of this trivialist corollary, and yet Witty was a highly strung individual who never practiced such descriptivism.

(Lewis Carroll had already examined this idea as the character Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass; when a self-satisfied Humpty speaks apparent gibberish, the person who needs therapy is Alice, not Humpty).

Thus the mainstream interpretation of Wittgenstein is contradictory. On the one hand, it insists that "Private language arguments" prove the necessity of inter-subjective truth-criteria for speaking intelligibly, and yet on the other it insists that meaning is use. These two hypotheses are in direct opposition to one another.

Thus the mainstream interpretation of Wittgenstein is contradictory. On the one hand, it insists that "Private language arguments" prove the necessity of inter-subjective truth-criteria for speaking intelligibly, and yet on the other it insists that meaning is use. These two hypotheses are in direct opposition to one another. — sime

What specific philosophical traditions (it would be helpful if you could name some names) are you drawing from in arriving at these conclusions? I’m asking because your critique targets entire schools of philosophy which intersect Wittgenstein.

If some says to you “niletee ubamba", how do you use that statement, act on that statement, if you don’t know what it means?

Can you give a practical example of how you use the utterance “niletee ubamba” without knowing what it means? — RussellA

If I don’t know what “niletee ubamba” means, then I can't use it as a meaningful sentence. I treat it as a sound that, “this person is trying to do something with me,” so I to try to figure out what's going on. “Sorry, I don’t understand,” plus pointing, guessing from context, or asking for translation. If they’re holding out an empty cup, I might offer water and watch for their response. That’s not “using the sentence with its meaning,” it’s using the situation to learn what it’s doing.

This is exactly how meaning comes in, the way children learn words. A child doesn’t first grasp a private definition of milk and then apply it. They’re trained into a practice, you say milk while handing it to them, they reach, you correct (“no, that’s water”), you repeat. Over time they learn what counts as the right move, what counts as a mistake, and how to go on in other contexts. “Niletee ubamba” would be learned the same way. Your objection assumes you need meaning first and then use, but the actual learning process runs the other way, you enter the use through training, and that’s what we later call “knowing the meaning.”

If Wittgenstein really believed that meaning is use (as opposed to the weaker thesis that apparent usage can partially explicate meaning in many cases), then Witty would have no reason for writing anything or for criticising anyone.

For if meaning is identified with usage, then the philosophy of language loses its normative status, because the use of every expression must be seen as self-justifying with respect to the immediate context that precipitated the use of the expression.

Wittgenstein therapeutic conception of philosophy does at times hint towards acceptance of this trivialist corollary, and yet Witty was a highly strung individual who never practiced such descriptivism.

(Lewis Carroll had already examined this idea as the character Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass; when a self-satisfied Humpty speaks apparent gibberish, the person who needs therapy is Alice, not Humpty).

Thus the mainstream interpretation of Wittgenstein is contradictory. On the one hand, it insists that "Private language arguments" prove the necessity of inter-subjective truth-criteria for speaking intelligibly, and yet on the other it insists that meaning is use. These two hypotheses are in direct opposition to one another. — sime

This confuses “meaning is use” with “anything goes.” Witt isn’t saying every utterance is self-justifying. For him, use includes the entire practice, viz., training, correction, agreement in judgment, what counts as a mistake, etc. That’s why he can criticize, he’s pointing out slips between language games and pictures that distort our ordinary criteria.

The “trivialist corollary” doesn’t follow. Norms aren’t abolished, they’re located where they actually live, inside the practice. And there’s no contradiction with his private language point. If meaning is use, then a purely private “I’ll mean whatever I like” move can’t secure correctness, because it destroys the difference between right and wrong. The two ideas fit together, so meaning is stabilized by shareable ways of going on, where misunderstanding and correction get their sense.

I find that many disagreements with Witt are just misunderstandings of what he's saying or doing.

Your objection assumes you need meaning first and then use, but the actual learning process runs the other way, you enter the use through training, and that’s what we later call “knowing the meaning.” — Sam26

That is true, there needs to be a learning process in order to learn what an utterance means.

On the first day, the builder says “niletee ubamba” to the assistant. The assistant does not know what this utterance means, it is only a sound. The builder then physically brings a slab and again says “niletree ubamba”. The assistant guesses that the builder wants him to bring a slab, and so the assistant brings a slab to the builder.

The next day, when the assistant hears the builder say “niletree ubamba”, the assistant already knows what it means, and immediately brings a slab to the builder.

Once the assistant knows that the utterance “niletree ubamba” means bring a slab, the assistant knows that the utterance is being used to bring a slab.

We learn the meaning of an utterance by comparing the utterance to observed behaviours, and once we have learnt the meaning of the utterance, as you rightly say, we are “knowing the meaning”.

Once the assistant knows the meaning of the utterance “niletree ubamba”, rather than just being a sound, this ensures that language now has a use.

The problem is the particular aspect. The problem is, how can you respond to an utterance if you don’t know what the utterance means. You must know what the utterance means before being able to respond to it.

The language game would not work if we did not know what utterances meant prior to being able to respond to them. — RussellA

When you know that the water in this tub is 36° Celsius, then that knowledge has no influence at all on the temperature.

When you know the word "beetle" means [beetle] (square bracket for the private meaning that - according to Wittgenstein - drops out - if I'm not mistaken), then you use the word "beetle" to mean {beetle} (squiggly brackets for a token in a language game). The meaning of [beetle] is what's in your head. The meaning of {beetle} is what's in every language-game participant's heads, all mashed together. It's an abstraction. Everyone who uses "beetle" has [beetle] in their head and contributes to {beetle}. So how do we deal with this?

There are those what-if-my-red-is-your-green questions. These frame meaning in terms of similarity: my [beetle] = your [beetle]. "Language is use" by-passes that. {Beetle} is not some avarage of everybody's [beetle]. {Beetle} is an assumption based on successful reciprocity in interaction. It's about my [beetle] and your [beetle] being compatible, rather than similar. We can go on, each of us, thinking [beetle] as long we don't run into trouble.

So, yes, the meaning of "beetle" preceeds you, and you learn it, and then you know it, and based on that knowledge you use it. But from the perspective of someone still learning you're part of what sets that meaning. And even for yourself, maybe, you re-assure yourself that all is right and you can go on with your usuage "like that". You're not learning some unshakable fact about the world, you're smack-dab in the middle of "use". A lot of overlapping learning-knowing-using, but no direct comparisons between private meanings - just the more or less successful completion of a language game.

@Sam26 can tell me if I made a mistake here. I'm hardly an expert on Wittgenstein. But that's how I always saw it.

P.S.: I originally used "cat", but then I thought square brackets look kinda like a box, so why not - to honour Wittgenstein - "beetle"?

With regard to philosophical therapy Wittgenstein says:

The real discovery is the one that enables me to break off philosophizing when I want to. The one that gives philosophy 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.

(PI 133d)

It might seem as though Wittgenstein is saying that the solution to philosophical problems is to not philosophize. That is, of course, not a satisfactory solution. In fact, his concern is just the opposite. The problem occurs when philosophy itself is called into question. When the activity turns on itself and comes to be seen as pointless. When the whole enterprise seems to become meaningless.

At 309 Wittgenstein asks:

What is your aim in philosophy?

And answers:

To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.

Wittgenstein does not ask what the aim of philosophy is but rather what the interlocutor's aim is. The interlocutor could be anyone engaged in philosophy, including both the reader and Wittgenstein himself.

This exchange follows 308:

How does the philosophical problem about mental processes and states and about behaviourism arise? —– The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of processes and states, and leave their nature undecided.

The paragraph ends:

And now it looks as if we had denied mental processes. And naturally we don’t want to deny them.

He does not deny that there are mental processes but does not attempt to explain them. He regards such explanations to be the purview of science not philosophy. Rather than being tormented by the problem of mental states the philosopher should simply accept them as given.

Work on philosophy -- like work in architecture in many respects -- is really more work on oneself. On one's own conception. On how one sees things. (And what one expects of them.)
(CV, 24)

Work on oneself, on one's own conception, on how one sees things and expects of them may require escaping grammatical tangles but such necessary work is preliminary.

We might ask what one does when he or she has escaped the fly-bottle.

A lot of what you wrote is strong, especially the way you deal with the misreading of PI 133. When Wittgenstein talks about “breaking off philosophizing,” he isn’t urging silence or saying stop philosophizing. He’s describing relief from a philosophical compulsion, the kind that keeps a hold on us because a particular picture has taken root. In that sense, “peace” is clarity, not quitting.

Where I would disagree, is, saying a philosopher should “simply accept mental processes as given,” it risks making Wittgenstein sound like he’s handing the topic to science. He isn’t denying mental life, but he also isn’t just leaving it untouched. His move is grammatical, he shows how the problem arises from the way we talk, the expectations we bring to words like process, state, inner, etc. The work is not to replace philosophy with science, but to untangle the conceptual knot so we stop demanding the wrong explanation.

I’d also be careful with the word “preliminary.” The work on oneself, on one’s conception, on how one sees things, isn’t merely stage one before the “real” philosophy begins. For Wittgenstein that reorientation is often the philosophical achievement. The therapy is not a preface; it is the result in many cases.

And lastly, the question “what do we do after escaping the fly-bottle?” can reintroduce the picture Wittgenstein was trying to dissolve, as if there must be a single goal once the therapy is achieved. There isn’t. Once the knot is dissolved, sometimes you return to ordinary inquiry, and sometimes you keep doing philosophy, but without the demand for a hidden foundation. The point is that the trouble was local, and so is the therapy.

Where I would disagree, is, saying a philosopher should “simply accept mental processes as given,” it risks making Wittgenstein sound like he’s handing the topic to science. He isn’t denying mental life, but he also isn’t just leaving it untouched. His move is grammatical, he shows how the problem arises from the way we talk, the expectations we bring to words like process, state, inner, etc. The work is not to replace philosophy with science, but to untangle the conceptual knot so we stop demanding the wrong explanation. — Sam26

It is not clear to me what problem you are referring to. I wonder what Wittgenstein would say about cognitive science,

He says, for example:

Just for once, don’t think of understanding as a ‘mental process’ at all! For that is the way of talking which confuses you. Instead, ask yourself: in what sort of case, in what kind of circumstances, do we say “Now I know how to go on”? I mean, if the formula has occurred to me. -
In the sense in which there are processes (including mental processes) which are characteristic of understanding, understanding is not a mental process.

(PI 154)

He does not deny that there are mental processes involved in understanding, but he does not address those processes. He takes them as given. It seems to me that he sidesteps the question of what those processes are by making a grammatical distinction and denying that understanding is a mental process. While it may be that when I say I understand something I don't mean and I'm referring to a mental process, but cognitive scientists do attempt to address the process. And in doing so may help us to understand what it means to understand.

For if meaning is identified with usage, then the philosophy of language loses its normative status, because the use of every expression must be seen as self-justifying with respect to the immediate context that precipitated the use of the expression. — sime

True. If you really believe meaning is use, you wouldn't complain that other people don't understand that. You'd just try to read the use in their utterances.

True. If you really believe meaning is use, you wouldn't complain that other people don't understand that. You'd just try to read the use in their utterances. — frank

If meaning is use, then it is regardless of whether you believe it. Thinking meaning is use wouldn't change how you obtain meaning or change how you act.

If meaning is use, then it is regardless of whether you believe it. Thinking meaning is use wouldn't change how you obtain meaning or change how you act. — Hanover

I'm picking up what you're laying down, there.

Maybe now is a good time too look at how Wittgenstein separates his enterprise from Psychology in the Blue Book:

Frege ridiculed the formalist conception of mathematics by saying that the formalists confused the unimportant thing, the sign, with the important, the meaning. Surely, one wishes to say, mathematics does not treat of dashes on a bit of paper. Frege’s idea could be expressed thus: the propositions of mathematics, if they were just complexes of dashes, would be dead and utterly uninteresting, whereas they obviously have a kind of life. And the same, of course, could be said of any proposition: Without a sense, or without the thought, a proposition would be an utterly dead and trivial thing. And further it seems clear that no adding of inorganic signs can make the proposition live. And the conclusion which one draws from this is that what must be added to the dead signs in order to make a live proposition is something immaterial with properties different from all mere signs.

But if we had to name anything which is the life of the sign, we should have to say that it was its use. — Wittgenstein, Blue Book, page 8 (in the linked edition)

Supposing we tried to construct a mind-model as a result of psychological investigations, a model which, as we should say, would explain the action of the mind. This model would be part of a psychological theory in the way in which a mechanical model of the ether can be part of a theory of electricity. (Such a model, by the way, is always part of the symbolism of a theory. Its advantage may be that it is seen at a glance and easily held in the mind. It has been said that a model, in a sense, dresses up the pure theory; that the naked theory is sentences or equations. This must be examined more closely later on.)

We may find that such a mind-model would have to be very complicated and intricate in order to explain the observed mental activities; and on this ground we might call the mind a queer kind of medium. But this aspect of the mind does not interest us. The problems which it may set are psychological problems, and the method of their solution is that of natural science.

Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us. And when we are worried about the nature of thinking, the puzzlement which we wrongly interpret to be one about the nature of a medium is a puzzlement caused by the mystifying use of our language. This kind of mistake recurs again and again in philosophy, e.g. when we are puzzled about the nature of time; when time seems to us a queer thing. We are most strongly tempted to think that here are things hidden, something we can see from the outside but which we can’t look into. And yet nothing of the sort is the case. It is not new facts about time which we want to know. All the facts that concern us lie open before us. But it is the use of the substantive “time” which mystifies us. If we look into the grammar of that word, we shall feel that it is no less astounding that man should have conceived of a deity of time than it would be to conceive of a deity of negation or disjunction — ibid. page 10

He does not deny that there are mental processes but does not attempt to explain them. He regards such explanations to be the purview of science not philosophy. Rather than being tormented by the problem of mental states the philosopher should simply accept them as given. — Fooloso4

Probably the most over looked conclusion of PI, PI 307 “‘Are you not really a behaviorist in disguise? Aren’t you at bottom really saying that everything except human behavior is a fiction?’-If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction.”

Not that philosophers should simply accept them as given, but that there are limits on what we can express in language, and once one accepts these limits these philosophical problems should not arise.

there are limits on what we can express in language, — Richard B

That's very true. I occasionally find myself thinking about scenes from Charlie Kaufman movies, my mind will just revolve around them endlessly.

Today I was thinking about the scene in Synecdoche where the main character is talking to his adult daughter. She has blood poisoning from a tattoo, and she can only speak German. She's lost the ability to speak English for some reason. She demands that the main character ask for forgiveness, and after trying and failing you understand for what, he does ask. Then she cries and tells him she can't forgive him in return.

It's all dreamlike, and the feelings associated with it are a blend of grief and confusion. It's like we're watching the main character dive into the realm of femininity where he can't get things to add up, and he reaches, but fails to grasp.

This is a truth that wouldn't be created by trying to say it straight out, but Kaufman does it in his own genius way.

Probably the most over looked conclusion of PI, PI 307 “‘Are you not really a behaviorist in disguise? Aren’t you at bottom really saying that everything except human behavior is a fiction?’-If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction. — Richard B

What do you take to be the conclusion? The question of whether he is a behaviorist is not answered. He does not affirm or deny that everything except human behavior is a fiction. He says on

[This was accidentally posted before completing it. When I attempted to continue working on it all that I wrote was deleted and I could not retrieve it. For now I will say only that we do not know what Wittgenstein meant by the term behaviorism, what he may have affirmed or denied regarding the term.]

There is the universal aspect, in that the function (meaning) of a word is to be used in a language game and there is the particular aspect, in that the meaning of a word is its use in the language game. — RussellA

What I had in mind was more like the difference between the dictionary definition of a word, and what the word actually means in any particular set of circumstances (context). So the dictionary definition states how the word is commonly used, in a general way, with a universal statement. But in any particular instance of usage, the context adds something, so that the use of the word is not exactly like what is described by the dictionary.

This indicates two very distinct interpretations of "meaning is use". One is to interpret that the meaning of the word is the universal, inductive conclusion of how the word is generally used, as outlined by a dictionary. The other is to interpret that the meaning is specific to each instance of use, and somewhat unique according to the peculiarities of the circumstances. The latter is the way that words are actually used. The former is very weak inductive reasoning.