Even better:Language games are human interactions. — Banno

How does truth fit into this? Are there no longer sentences with truth values that depend on states of affairs?

If I state, "The Milky Way Galaxy has exactly 12,532 stars.", is that sentence not true or false depending on how many stars there are in our galaxy?

(The actual number being in the hundred billions)

Witti discarded ostensive definition? Not quite. He pointed out that to understand an ostensive definition is already to understand the language game of Ostension; and rightly concluded that ostension cannot be the whole of language leaning.

Human interaction can include their interactions with slabs, apples and stars.

OK. I didn't say he discarded ostensive definition all together. But we agree that showing most definitely does not account for all of language learning.

I think it's true that "language game" as used by W signifies that language has meaning in the context of human interaction. Your upgrades to my sentence changed its meaning. You changed it into an assertion of your version of Witt's thesis. And yet doing that does not at all "dissipate" my question.

Reference is not important; or better, all there is to reference is the use of a word or phrase in a speech act. — Banno

There are situations where reference is not important. Few humans who have ever lived would say that reference always is unimportant. All there is to reference is the use of a word?

cabunctious

Nope.

The question in the OP assumes a referential theory of meaning that the Investigations rejected before language games were intorduced. — Banno

I think I can say that's a bald assertion since I wrote the OP. It's simply asking if "language game" should be thought of as a pawn in a language game.

..a more clear way of expressing the rule I think you are referring to is that metaphors must be 'apt'. rather than 'true'. — unenlightened

At least they ought to be apt, but some metaphors are less apt than others. I think they can be metaphorically false even.

For example, a rose is thorny, beautiful and fragile, and so is love; hence a rose seems apt as a metaphor for love, or at least a certain kind of love. But other kinds of love are neither thorny nor fragile, but smooth, big, strong, or burning, in which case solid rocks, burning flames, or fire might be more apt as metaphors.

This reassignment of words relative to what the metaphor refers to is, I think, ultimately set by the features of the kind of love that one refers to. In this way the reassignment of words can be more or less apt, or metaphorically false. For example, it might be metaphorically false, or at least misleading, to use a thorny, fragile, old-fashioned rose as the means to refer to a burning modern love.

cabunctious — Mongrel

Then it falls to you to show what the more is, beyond mere use.

Human interaction can include their interactions with slabs, apples and stars. — Banno

So the interaction is what makes statements about slabs, apples and stars true?

But truth is only relevant in langauge games where truth is at stake: in Witty's example, "slab!", is neither true nor untrue: it is - in the game he has in mind anyway - a demand or an appeal (for a slab). "Slab!" is not 'about' the slab, it is a call to a certain kind of action. Of course, one can speak 'about' the slab, in a language-game in which truth is at stake, but - and this is the crucial point - this does not make it any less a language-game. Truth is a practice - it is what we say that is true or false.

It's common knowledge that words refer. The burden is on you to show that we're all deluded.

He pointed out that to understand an ostensive definition is already to understand the language game of Ostension; and rightly concluded that ostension cannot be the whole of language leaning. — Banno

Is there a step missing in that?

Certainly the first part seems sensible, but the second part doesn't follow from the first if human understanding of the Ostension Game is innate, rather than learned. Did Witt argue that it was not innate?

BTW, I agree that not all words refer. IMHO some do and some don't. I don't think either of the words in Charlie Brown's 'Good Grief' refers.

People who deny scrutability of reference are going to be deflationary about truth. They won't worry about truthmakers.

Easy. To what does "Hello" refer?

It's a greeting. Nobody thinks it refers. Was it not your view that we can redefine reference as simply using a word?

Good; so you agree with me that not all words refer. That's a start.

I think I've said that twice in this thread already.

If not all words refer, then meaning cannot be the very same thing as reference. Yes?

Unless not all words have meaning...


Which way would you go?

Indeed Socrates, it is just as you say.

When I'm reading something about ancient Sumeria, I lean toward meaning holism. Political stuff..I think postmodern. When I say "Don't touch the tail pipe", it seems to me that "tail pipe" has a very distinct reference. Why shouldn't I?

When I say "Don't touch the tail pipe", it seems to me that "tail pipe" has a very distinct reference. Why shouldn't I? — Mongrel

You should; that would be using words well.

We do use words. Sometimes we use words to refer to things.

Sometimes we use words to refer to things. — Mongrel

Indeed, the right answer. Now, notice that this is different to saying that words refer?

Consider, if you like, what the word "peter" refers to.

Depends on the context. Although people seem to find dictionaries useful.

Dictionaries tell you how to use words; a useful thing.

Depends on the context. — Mongrel

Depends on the use. Peter and I had a quiet chat about the other Peter.

So one pays attention to context of utterance in order to identify the reference of an uttered word. I never doubted that.

I came across an interpretation of Witt that says language games are instrumental in creating the structures that allow innate linguistic ability to manifest as speech and writing.

I never doubted that. — Mongrel

It would surprise me if we did not mostly agree.

Cool.

The funny thing is, I can't offhand remember LW making any comments that suggest he thought of philosophizing itself as a language-game. Anybody think of one?

We get the opposite here & there-- there's the bit about how philosophers take words out of the language-game where they have their usual home, I think there's one about an engine spinning without being connected to anything, the bit about language on holiday. When he talks of philosophy and language-games in the same breath it's usually to suggest philosophers have been breaking the rules.

People do somehow come away with the impression that he says all language use is part of some language-game, but does he?

Early to late, there's that concern with being misled by the surface forms of language, and thus philosophers (who else?) can end up doing something we might as well call "misusing" language. It seems like a whole different deal from language-games. Almost a perversion of the idea of a language-game.

(I'll say this too: I think at some point he stopped being puzzled by how language works--of course it works!--and saw the real puzzle as how it could possibly go wrong. I'm not sure he really figures that out...I could be way off though.)

I'm probably forgetting something--maybe someone else can chime in.

The problem I see is that the philosophical position is apart from ordinary life. I think the idea is to step back and reflect, and then return to hustle and bustle with deeper insight.

So perhaps that's the problem with trying to make language games into a theory of meaning. It only addresses the active language user. Sometimes we're passive... doing nothing except being.

I don't think Witt was trying to make it into a full blown theory though. Do you?

Not only not trying to build a theory, but believed building a theory was wrong-headed and doomed to failure. (We're talking about "later" here.) There's some space left for therapeutic philosophy, but it makes you wonder what his attitude toward science must be, and I don't know much about that.

To clarify: I think the answer to your original question is actually "no": LW's talk of language-games is not part of a language-game. In fact, I don't think he attached any particular importance to the really general remarks people try to cobble into a theory (language-games, forms of life, etc.). Those are just hints, analogies, pictures, all obiter dicta. The important bit -- to him -- is showing case-by-case what philosophers have ignored, overlooked, misused, perverted, misunderstood about the words they use.

So perhaps that's the problem with trying to make language games into a theory of meaning. It only addresses the active language user. Sometimes we're passive... doing nothing except being. — Mongrel

There's a recent-ish paper by PMS Hacker in which he argues that the language-game approach is anthropology, ethnology - it's trying to understand what on earth we're doing in following rules of some kind or other to communicate in some kind of way.

(He argues that any approach based on truth conditions is dead and should be put to sleep, he calls it the 'calculus' approach)

You mentioned Chomsky earlier but surely Chomsky still believes there is, as it were, a Book Of Rules written into us. Witt is much more agnostic than that, in the ways Srap describes.

The notion of innate knowledge has a long history. Chomsky's view is in line with Leibniz's: it's capacity that is innate, not specific rules or bits of knowledge.

Don't really know what Witt thought. Soames says he may have been thinking of instinctive ability or potential manifest by social conditioning... something like that.