Cavell would not be my got-to for this stuff. There are others who had more direct contact with Wittgenstein. That's not to say that what he says is wrong, so much as that the emphasis may be skewed. In particular, it seems to me that the essay follows Kripke into rule-scepticism, which I think absent from Wittgenstein. — Banno

I do think Cavell is a good example of the method Wittgenstein uses, and explains it well, so I had hoped those parts would be helpful to Russell. I take Cavell as appropriately reading Wittgenstein, focusing on the effects of the desire for certainty and Wittgenstein’s final insights about the limits of knowledge (and rules), which differentiates him from Kripke, who takes rules as fundamental, though flawed.

Sure, why not. Yours was also a valiant attempt to drag the thread on to something more compelling than @RussellA's misreadings. Happy to continue on in that vein. I'm reasonably familiar with Kripke, but not so much with Cavell.

It will be interesting to see what @Sam26 has to say.

Wittgenstein reifies as a primal desire of humankind is in fact the product of historically changing social-discursive forms of life. — Joshs

I would characterize Wittgenstein’s insight of our desire for certainty as a temptation based on the human condition (that we are separate and we want knowledge to bridge that gap). Our situation to each other would only change if we someday can read minds or no longer have ongoing relationships (which we may be approaching). The desire for certainty is as ancient as Socrates’ desire for knowledge, spawned from the desire for control, the fear of chaos (and death), and the mistrust of others, so again, I find it unlikely those responses will go away (though they may wax and wain/be overcome and succumbed to).

Yes Wittgenstein is critiquing philosophies gripped by the desire for certainty (including the author of the Tractatus) but he wouldn’t claim that our ordinary language is “a stable, ahistorical background.” It is only a window into our lives (a method) to put the skeptic’s claims into context—not as a skeptical solution, which he goes to great pains (not hard enough it appears) to avoid. The only controversy he is avoiding is the skeptical/anti-skeptical one, the relativist/foundationalist dichotomy, which is to realize our ordinary criteria are sufficient to allow us to bridge the gap between us together.

Well I don’t want to high-jack the thread. I looked at a Cavell essay on Kripke here in a post on rules.

But I’ll entertain any thoughts on Cavell’s assessment of how to read Wittgenstein more profitably. I always find people take him to be explaining language or offering it as a solution to skepticism, when it is simply a window to see that each thing works differently, not to justify claims about how we play games or follow rules or dream of our own world, but as examples to see why we insist on a requirement (certain knowledge) that they fail to meet.

But I’ll entertain any thoughts on Cavell’s assessment of how to read Wittgenstein more profitably. I always find people take him to be explaining language or offering it as a solution to skepticism, when it is simply a window to see that each thing works differently, not to justify claims about how we play games or follow rules or dream of our own world, but as examples to see why we insist on a requirement (certain knowledge) that they fail to meet. — Antony Nickles

I'm not sure what you mean by "explaining language", but I don't see why it cannot be both. That is, Wittgenstein does provide "a window to see that each thing works differently" and/or a reflection on "why [traditional philosophers] insist on a requirement (certain knowledge) that they fail to meet" as you say, but he also does this via looking at how language actually works. From the Augustinian picture of language to language-games to (linguistic) meaning-is-use, to rule-following (particularly in mathematics and language), to the private language argument and beyond, Wittgenstein is forever banging on about language and grammar. I think it would be difficult to argue that his focus is not on language. After all, language is the vehicle of philosophy, and Wittgenstein's philosophical investigation gets it importance from "destroying [..,] only houses of cards, and [...] clearing up the ground of language on which they stood."

You embrace a more conservative, realist-oriented reading — Joshs

Yes, Wittgenstein's proposition that the meaning of words in a language is in their use refers to their use in a world, not just their use in the language itself.

From the SEP article on Realism, there are two general aspects to Realism. First, that objects and their properties exist in the world, such as tables and squareness, Second, that such objects and properties are independent of any observer. For Realism, a world exists that is independent of any language used to describe it. For the Realist, there is a world external to the mind. However, within Realism there are different opinions as to how we perceive this world. For the Indirect Realist, we perceive a picture of a table. For the Direct Realist, we directly perceive the table.

As Hutchinson and Read write "For a word to be is for a word to be used. Language does not exist external to its use by us in the world", which is supporting the Realist position, in that they are saying that language can only exist as use in the world. If there was no world, there would be no use for language

As Joseph Rouse writes "Practices should instead be understood as comprising performances that are mutually interactive in partially shared circumstances", again supporting the Realist position, in that as the rules of language can only function in shared circumstances, which is by its nature external to the users of such a rule based language. External to the users of the language is a world .

PI 6 makes this point. Wittgenstein writes that a teacher points to an object and utters a word, such as "slab", thereby establishing an association between a word and a thing. In the mind of a child, the next time the child hears the word "slab", it may imagine a picture of a slab. But Wittgenstein is making the point that the purpose of language is not to evoke images, although this may be useful, the purpose of language is to cause someone to act in a certain way. He describes in PI 2 that in a primitive language, A calls out "slab" and B brings a slab.

What is not explained in PI 6, is how someone can learn a concept, such as the word "slab" from a single picture of a particular slab. However this does not negate the fact that Wittgenstein is specifically associating words in language with things in the world. He is not associating words in language with other words in language.

PI 6 is founded on the assumption that there is a world of objects and things, and builds on the idea that within this world, words in the language game get their meaning from how they are used in the world.

It is true that there are some words in language that don't refer to the world but do refer to other words in the same language. For example the word "unicorn" describes neither something existing in the world nor is described by its definition "a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead", but rather replaces the words "a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead".

It is possible to imagine a coherent language game where none of its words referred to objects or things in a world, and was totally self-referential. Within such a language game, its propositions would be objective and its truth criteria unambiguous. In Donald Davidson's words, such truth would would be "relative to a scheme". However, what would guarantee the rationality of the scheme as a whole? There would be an uncountable number of such possible language games: the language game of the non-religious atheist, the language game of the non-believer atheist, the language game of the agnostic atheist, the language game of the catholic Christian , the language game of the protestant Christian, the language game of the Eastern Orthodox Christian, etc, etc. A language game with no link to objects and things in a world would be arbitrary and meaningless.

Only the existence of a world would give a meaning to a language game, where the meaning of a word is its use in language, and the meaning of a language is its use in a world.
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 the language

It will be interesting to see what Sam26 has to say. — Banno

I just don't have the motivation to give much of a response. I haven't read many of the responses given in the recent pages. I've read yours and Luke's, and there maybe be some disagreements, but that's to be expected when parsing Wittgenstein. If I do any writing in the future it will probably be on On Certainty.

If I haven't read what you wrote it's not necessarily because I disagree, but rather that I just haven't set aside the time to do so. Hopefully I'll get more motivated in the coming weeks, and do some more writing on W's final notes.

Thanks for chiming in Banno.

You might re-visit this. The remainder of the section is a rejection of that suggestion. — Banno

Words which have a use in the language game don't name the thing in the box.
PI 293 - But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language?—If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all.

The meaning of a word is its use in the language game.
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 the language

Wittgenstein writes that sentences such as "my pain is the same as his pain" make sense.
PI 253: "In so far as it makes sense to say that my pain is the same as his, it is also possible for us both to have the same pain.

There is the sentence "my X is the same as his X" and I want to find the meaning of X. I am told that the meaning of X is its use in language. If that is true, as I know how the word X has been used within the sentence, I should be able to find its meaning.

What does X mean?

I'm not sure what you mean by "explaining language"…he also does this via looking at how language actually works. — Luke

Fair point. But, as you say, he is looking and all I am saying is let’s not loose track of the reason he is looking, and it’s not to be an English teacher (though I do see the irony based on his tone sometimes). We might say he is looking at how language works in the sense of when it is achieving something, but more at why (and when) it doesn’t, which is more akin to why Socrates never seems to quite come up with the answer he wants. Wittgenstein is critiquing traditional philosophy and doing philosophy; addressing traditional philosophical problems. He is not solving the skeptical problem but is investigating language as a means (method) of seeing, for example, that “essence” is what essentially matters to us and “meaning” is really the ways in which things are meaningful, including that the type of sciencified knowledge we want is not our only relation to the world and others.

…Wittgenstein's philosophical investigation gets it importance from "destroying [..,] only houses of cards, and [...] clearing up the ground of language on which they stood." — Luke

It is the house of cards and its destruction that is important—clearing language of the idea that it has a foundation, certainty: meaning or rules or mental occurrences, etc.

I believe @Banno was referring to the Cavell essay I attached, but it is about reading the PI anyway.

I’ve taken a run at On Certainty a few times and I’ve found that he was attempting to look at the ordinary ways certainty works, having taken apart the philosophical desire for certainty as a foundational solution to skepticism, much as he took apart the desire for “essences” but showed that our ordinary criteria satisfy that yearning in expressing what we find essential about something, its importance, and so retaining the aspiration of Socrates and Kant without succumbing (as they did) to the need for knowledge to replace our role in the world.

I hope, as well, to find the time and motivation to review the work and your posts and learn more (or something else), but I also keep putting off Zettel too.

I would characterize Wittgenstein’s insight of our desire for certainty as a temptation based on the human condition (that we are separate and we want knowledge to bridge that gap).
The desire for certainty is as ancient as Socrates’ desire for knowledge, spawned from the desire for control, the fear of chaos (and death), and the mistrust of others, so again, I find it unlikely those responses will go away (though they may wax and wain/be overcome and succumbed to) — Antony Nickles

I am just pointing out that concepts like certainty and knowledge, as products of discursively formed social practices, differ in their meaning from era to era and culture to culture. Foucault performed an archeological analysis of such notions over the past millennium in the West to demonstrate that the very sense , value and use of terms like certainty and knowledge changed significantly from the Classical to the Modern period, across all modes of culture. So claiming that the desire for certainty is ancient is like saying that the desire for Romantic love is ancient, which is to confuse what is universal and transparent with what is culturally and historically contingent.

If there is any motive which transcends the locality of cultural eras, I suggest it is the need for intelligibility. We have always striven to make sense of each other and our world, and we do this by constructing through joint action shared systems of intelligibility. At a number of points in the course of cultural history, certain senses of the concept ( or family of concepts) of certainty were co-constructed. It was a means to an end; the means was the use of the term certainty and the end was the aim of making the world intelligible.

I think Wittgenstein’s focus on the desire for certainty resonates best in the context of the still-dominant influence of Enlightenment tropes of Truth. In poststructuralist and other postmodern forms of discourse, the idea of certainty is no longer considered useful. This is not due to a repression of the desire for it, but because the concept has lost its intelligibility.

I agree wholeheartedly that “certainty” and “knowledge” are specific here, apart from the various senses they have in ordinary use. But both are the product of the desire philosophy has always had for, as he puts it, “crystalline purity”, as old as at least Plato, with the creation of his Forms to stand for the wish for a knowledge apart from the human—e.g., the inherent risk of incommensurability in the moral realm—a fixture beyond the limitation of our human condition (our separateness, the contingency of the future at times on us alone).

In poststructuralist and other postmodern forms of discourse, the idea of certainty is no longer considered useful. This is not due to a repression of the desire for it, but because the concept has lost its intelligibility. — Joshs

And I disagree that this obsession has left us. The war between skepticism and attempts to “solve” it is sphinx-like in its incarnations. The whack-a-mole that once was metaphysics continues with the wish for science to resolve our feeling of lacking sufficient knowledge, and in the modern theoretical convolutions to explain away the truth that there is no fact (or theory) that ensures our understanding each other or continuing on together. To claim the dragon dead (or unintelligible) is to miss the point that as humans we clamor not to err, to be good, to ensure that the future is in our vision and control, that intelligibility is only a matter of process rather than our fickle will.

If there is any motive which transcends the locality of cultural eras, I suggest it is the need for intelligibility. — Joshs

But yet we want to maintain our inherent uniqueness; that you can’t know “This!” (#253); that my experience is still paramount to communication and the failure is intellectually explainable. That our communicating with each other is just “constructing, through joint action, shared systems of intelligibility” and not an ongoing responsibility to be responsive to each other and our moral claims on each other, or, all too often, to fail or refuse to make ourselves intelligible.

Words which have a use in the language game don't name the thing in the box.
PI 293 - But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language?—If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all. — RussellA

Your conclusion does not quite follow. "it would not be used as the name of a thing" – you conclude that the thing in the box doesn't have a name, when the conclusion ought be that there is no thing in the box to be named.

Again, pain is not a thing! You repeatedly read the text as if it were.

...the Cavell essay... — Antony Nickles

Yep. Something for @Sam26 to consider later.

But yet we want to maintain our inherent uniqueness, that you can’t know “This!” (#253), that my experience is still paramount to communication and the failure is intellectually explainable. That our intelligibility to each other is just “constructing, through joint action, shared systems of intelligibility” and not an ongoing responsibility to be responsive to each other and our moral claims on each other, or, all to often, to fail or refuse to make ourselves intelligible. — Antony Nickles

I thought you might be amused by the similarity between your last sentence and this by Karen Barad:

What if we were to recognize that responsibility is “the essential, primary and fundamental mode" of objectivity as well as subjectivity? Ethics is therefore not about right response to a radically exterior/ ized other, but about responsibility and accountability for the lively relationalities of becoming of which we are a part.”

…and this by Shaun Gallagher:

“ As the enactivist approach makes clear, a participant in interaction with another person is called to respond if the interaction is to continue. My response to the other, in the primary instance, just is my engaging in interaction with her—by responding positively or negatively with action to her action.…according to Levinas, the face-to-face relation primarily registers in an ethical order: the other, in her alterity, is such that she makes an ethical demand on me, to which I am obligated to respond…the failure to enact that transcendence [recognizing the alterity of the other], as when we simply objectify or reify the other person, is also a possibility of relational contingency.”

Barad and Gallagher both utilize Wittgenstein in their work, and are being more faithful to him than I am when I question their (and his) notions of relational responsibility. But just to be clear, the radically social constructionist position Im arguing from doesn’t see shared systems of intelligibility as grounded in autonomous selves. On the contrary, the self is derived concept , a social construction. Since responsivity is a given of relational being, the challenge isn’t how to become responsive to each other, morally or otherwise. The issue is how to enrich and enlarge the system of relational intelligibility that defines us as ‘selves’ within a tradition, so that we can make sense of and embrace alien traditions.

As Ken Gergen writes:

“... groups whose actions are coordinated around given constructions of reality risk their traditions by exposing them to the ravages of the outliers. That is, from their perspective, efforts must be made to protect the boundaries of understanding, to prevent the signifiers from escaping into the free-standing environment where meaning is decried or dissipated. In this sense, unfair or exclusionary practices are not frequently so from the standpoint of the actors. Rather, they may seem altogether fair, just and essential to sustain valued ideals against the infidels at the gates.

What if we were to recognize that responsibility is “the essential, primary and fundamental mode" of objectivity as well as subjectivity? Ethics is therefore not about right response to a radically exterior/ ized other, but about responsibility and accountability for the lively relationalities of becoming of which we are a part.” Barard — Joshs

These are all very interesting. I would agree that yes without “responsibility and accountability” the moral realm is not inhabitable (that refusing to acknowledge the other is a “conviction”. P. 223). But I’m worried Barad might be seeing the other as “radically exterior” before we find out if they are such, and jumping to “becoming” together without knowing how we would—unless we are coming from who we are while simply finding our “way about” (#123) as a culture or community (or friends), which may very well mean extending our understanding, our judgments, or even our lives.

Since responsivity is a given of relational being, the challenge isn’t how to become responsive to each other, morally or otherwise. The issue is how to enrich and enlarge the system of relational intelligibility that defines us as ‘selves’ within a tradition, so that we can make sense of and embrace alien traditions. — Joshs

It is a “given” that our obligation (to their claim on us as other) characterizes us either in responding or not. However, even if we end up disagreeing, that qualifies as a moral answer. Even with the effort to explicate our criteria on an issue or action, and develop what we find important in the context, we may very well still come to a point where we find we are not in agreement on how to continue together, but at least the process allows us to part on terms we better understand, having learned the others’ interests and desires, as it were, rationally, i.e., being morally rational. So, while I support our ability to be intelligible to the other—and more, the importance of working towards intelligibility of and on the others’ terms (especially in doing philosophy)—I don’t believe a moral solution ends with either a global sameness or the rejection of the others’ legitimacy to define their selves without us, even against us.

the radically social constructionist position I’m arguing from doesn’t see shared systems of intelligibility as grounded in autonomous selves. On the contrary, the self is derived concept, a social construction. — Joshs

While I see Wittgenstein as defining the self differently than an inherent, given thing (e.g., as the self only existed, for Descartes, when we are clear and distinct), I wouldn’t think we go so far as to politicize the terms of the self (requiring the other to be intelligible to us or be “ungrounded”, say, irrational). Though I can see how Marx would agree that the self only has public means for its production (“construction”), he took that to show the importance of not allowing a generic capital (culture) to separate us from our interests, our work, or, as some would say, our “subjectivity”, or what Emerson would call our moral “partiality”, which I read as what I take personally.

Your conclusion does not quite follow. "it would not be used as the name of a thing" – you conclude that the thing in the box doesn't have a name, when the conclusion ought be that there is no thing in the box to be named.Again, pain is not a thing! You repeatedly read the text as if it were. — Banno

Pain is not a thing
Perhaps I am missing what you are saying, but I don't understand when you say that the correct conclusion is that there is no thing in the box to be named, whether a beetle or a pain.

PI 293:Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can 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.

PI 304 "Not at all. It is not a something., but not a nothing either!"

Are you saying that Wittgenstein should be treated as a zombie having no conscious experiences, no inner sensations of pain, no beetles in his box?

The circularity of "meaning is use"
You didn't explain how to overcome the problem of circularity with "meaning is use", where the meaning of a particular word is determined by its relationship with the other words within a holistic whole. Yet the same is true of every other word, in that their meaning has also been determined by their relationship with the other words within a holistic whole.

If within a language, every part is relative to every other part, it becomes impossible to establish any meaning at all.

My belief is that the meaning of language is fixed by reference to the world, ie Realism. But if you disagree, then what does fix the meaning of language?

Perhaps I am missing what you are saying — RussellA

Indeed, you are. One can't explain aspect perception to someone who only sees the duck.

...the meaning of a particular word is determined by its relationship with the other words within a holistic whole. — RussellA

No. Forget about "the meaning of a particular word" and instead look to how it is used. There is a way of understanding a word that is not found in setting out synonyms, but which is seen in it's being used.

There is a way of understanding a word that is not found in setting out synonyms, but which is seen in it's being used. — Banno

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2020.0320

I think that article has interesting insights into shared meaning. As a species, language it seems, originated from shared intentionality. Language only works if the speaker and audience agree, and thus they have to both be keyed in on the intention of the person. Intention to what though? This is where it ties into Witty perhaps. The intention is how the word is used. Definitional accounts would be too far removed, as far as I see it, from how symbols get their reference. Use, however, is relevant right "at hand" (literally for early symbols which were probably gestural).

If Terrence Deacon is correct, words/gestures are at first icons whereby the symbol has an aspect of what it represents directly (a hammer motion for hammer or hammering, let's say). To me, that seems to indicate "use" origins of word meanings comes first. Humans are cued for human action and intention.

I would like to emphasize that if it was found that this theory was truly off, then Wittgenstein would be less likely to be correct. I think it depends on best theories based on various techniques used by anthropologists and psychologists to make inferential claims.

It could be the case that it is found that a better theory fits based on evidence gained from studying human and great ape similarities and differences, historical artifacts, and developmental psychology.

Searle posited something quite similar, which I had a go at expounding.

Yes cool stuff. I didn't read all of it, but it seems like he is only focusing on institutional facts as distinct from other facts. Does he think that facts about computers having keyboards or this chess piece made of wood work differently, or does he have an all-encompassing theory of language meaning?

The problem I see is that then you have various theories competing that may not be empirical but "just so" stories.. "Well institutional facts work this way" but claims about states of affairs about the world are that way.. and so on.

"Well institutional facts work this way" — schopenhauer1

Yep. What's salient here is the communal nature of certain intentions.

This relates to 's recent thread.

I won't go into Searle here, too much of a digression, except to say that he is a hard realist.

Yep. What's salient here is the communal nature of certain intentions. — Banno

:up:

I won't go into Searle here, too much of a digression, except to say that he is a hard realist. — Banno

Yes, if I remember, he denies being a property dualist but it being somewhat unconvincing. And here is the proof:

Here is where the inadequacy of the traditional terminology comes out most obviously.
The property dualist wants to say that consciousness is a mental and therefore not physical
feature of the brain. I want to say consciousness is a mental and therefore biological and
therefore physical feature of the brain. But because the traditional vocabulary was designed to
contrast the mental and the physical, I cannot say what I want to say in the traditional
vocabulary without sounding like I am saying something inconsistent. Similarly when the
identity theorists said that consciousness is nothing but a neurobiological process, they meant
that consciousness as qualitative, subjective, irreducibly phenomenological (airy fairy, touchy
feely, etc.) does not even exist, that only third person neurobiological processes exist. I want
also to say that consciousness is nothing but a neurobiological process, and by that I mean
that precisely because consciousness is qualitative, subjective, irreducibly phenomenological
(airy fairy, touchy feely, etc.) it has to be a neurobiological process; because, so far, we have
not found any system that can cause and realize conscious states except brain systems. Maybe
someday we will be able to create conscious artifacts, in which case subjective states of
consciousness will be “physical” features of those artifacts.
(4) Because irreducible consciousness is not something over and above its neural base,
the problems about epiphenomenalism and the causal closure of the physical simply do not
arise for me. Of course, the universe is causally closed, and we can call it “physical” if we like;
but that cannot mean “physical” as opposed to “mental;” because, equally obviously, the
mental is part of the causal structure of the universe in the same way that the solidity of pistons
is part of the causal structure of the universe; even though the solidity is entirely accounted for
5
by molecular behavior, and consciousness is entirely accounted for by neuronal behavior. The
problems about epiphenomenalism and the causal closure of the physical can only arise if one
uses the traditional terminology and take its implications seriously. I am trying to get us to
abandon that terminology.
But if consciousness has no causal powers in addition to its neurobiological base, then
does that not imply epiphenomenalism ? No. Compare: the solidity of the piston has no causal
powers in addition to its molecular base, but this does not show that solidity is epiphenomenal
(Try making a piston out of butter or water). The question rather is: Why would anyone
suppose that causal reducibility implies epiphenomenalism, since the real world is full of
causally efficacious higher level features entirely caused by lower level micro phenomena? In
this case the answer is: because they think that consciousness is something distinct from,
something “over and above” its neuronal base. The typical property dualist thinks that the
brain "gives rise to" consciousness, and this gives us a picture of consciousness as given off
from the brain as a pot of boiling water gives off steam. In the epiphenomenalist version of
property dualism, the consciousness given off has no causal powers of its own , though it is
caused by the brain. In the full blooded version consciousness has a kind of life of its own,
capable of interfering with the material world. — Why I Am Not a Property Dualist By John R. Searle

Renaming the process as physical doesn't solve anything, except make a semantic definitional change. But it's a change that makes no difference to the substance of the argument. The point is what is it that makes physical things also mental things? The question isn't whether it's biological or not. That gets us nowhere really.

I would agree with him that consciousness can be considered physical or neurobiological exclusively, but it's just begging the question and making some semantic rearrangement that doesn't say much about the issue.

Well, if you want to continue discussing Searle, I suggest starting a new thread.

Well, if you want to continue discussing Searle, I suggest starting a new thread. — Banno

Well he still might be relevant here.. This seems more like the discussion we are having about intention. That is to say, our brains are primed for the implicit intention of a statement:

In his debate with Jacques Derrida, Searle argued against Derrida's purported view that a statement can be disjoined from the original intentionality of its author, for example when no longer connected to the original author, while still being able to produce meaning. Searle maintained that even if one was to see a written statement with no knowledge of authorship it would still be impossible to escape the question of intentionality, because "a meaningful sentence is just a standing possibility of the (intentional) speech act". For Searle, ascribing intentionality to a statement was a basic requirement for attributing it any meaning at all. — Wiki on John Searle

That seems to accord with Witty, of "use" (how it is used). Although intention is more internal (what is the mind of the other person), and Witty seems to keep things at context with other words within a community. So perhaps it is just different levels of the same phenomena of shared-ness? But if so, this brings in more about internal states versus communal context which @RussellA may be interested in.

In his debate with Jacques Derrida, Searle argued against Derrida's purported view that a statement can be disjoined from the original intentionality of its author, for example when no longer connected to the original author, while still being able to produce meaning. — schopenhauer1

Words have a use in the language game, and the language game has a use in the world.

Wittgenstein asks questions, but avoids trying to answer them
There are two parts to my understanding of language: i) words have a use in the language game and ii) the language game has a use in the world. Wittgenstein deals with the first part, but ignores the second. Wittgenstein is like a mountaineer who buys all the ropes, crampons, thermal weatherproof clothes and tents but then never goes to the mountain, justifying himself by saying that the actual climbing of the mountain is a meaningless pursuit. He asks endless questions without trying to draw these together into a comprehensive answer. In fact, he seems proud that he makes no attempt at theorising. Perhaps it is no surprise there is so much misunderstanding surrounding his works

As Stanley Cavell in his article The Later Wittgenstein concludes:
Both (Freud and Wittgenstein) thought of their negative soundings as revolutionary extensions of our knowledge, and both were obsessed by the idea, or fact, that they would be misunderstood -partly, doubtless, because they knew the taste of self-knowledge, that it is bitter. It will be time to blame them for taking misunderstanding by their disciples as personal betrayal when we know that the ignorance of oneself is a refusal to know.

Wittgenstein tackles the first part
As Mark Olssen describes in Wittgenstein and Foucault: The Limits and possibilities of constructivism, Wittgenstein does have a position of Relativism, an Anti-Realism, and even a Linguistic Idealism, where language is the ultimate reality. He explains events not in terms of the individual, but rather in the social constructivist terms of social, historical and cultural "forms of life".

Wittgenstein hints at the second part
Kristof Nyiri points out in Wittgenstein as a common sense Realist that Wittgenstein cannot, at the end of the day, rely on language as a justification for his actions, but rather, does what he does because of the reality of the world in which he exists. When obeying rules, as Wittgenstein writes, sometimes there can be no rational justification expressible in language, it is just what is done in the world. Such is a position of philosophical realism, where people learn about, handle and refer to physical objects within a physical world.
PI 217 If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."

Single words have no use, only sentences
A single word such as "slab" has no use, in that If I walked into a room and said "slab" people would look at me with bemusement. Only sentences can have a use, such as "Bring me a slab" or "slab!". Sentences have a meaning when they have a use, and they have a use when they result in an action, such as someone bringing me a slab or people moving out of the way of a falling slab.

Language only has a use when it changes facts in the world
Language only has a use when it changes facts in the world, such as someone bringing me a slab. When it has a use, it means something. If I say "bring me a slab", for language to have any use at all, this means that I want a slab rather than an apple. Therefore, the word "slab" must be able to differentiate between a slab in the world and an apple in the world, meaning that the word "slab" must be able to refer to a slab rather than an apple. The meaning of of the word "slab" must be able to correlate with one particular object in the world. In other words, the word "slab" must name the object slab in the world, a position of Realism. This is Realism regardless of whether the realism of that of the Direct Realist, who perceives the slab in the world, or the Indirect Realist, who perceives a picture of the slab in the world

The meaning of a text and the intentionality of the author
Derrida proposes that a sentence such as "bring me a slab" can still have meaning even if disjoined from the original intentionality of its author, the author's intention when originating the sentence. But this raises the question, does the text of a ChatGPT have meaning if the ChatGPT zombie machine had no conscious intentionality when preparing the text. One could argue that that part of the text which has been directly copied from other authors, who did have a conscious intentionality, does have meaning. However, the act of combining these parts together using rule-based algorithms cannot of itself give meaning to the whole.

As it seems that readers do find meaning in ChatGPT texts, one can only conclude that it is possible for texts disjoined from the original author to have meaning, as Derrida proposed. The meaning has come not from the writer of the text but from the reader.

That words have a use in the language game is necessary but not sufficient
Wittgenstein's meaning is use suffers from the problem of circularity. From the SEP article Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein argues that the meaning of a word is based on how the word is understood within the language game, ie, the use theory of meaning, in that words are not defined by reference to the objects they designate.
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 the language.

He proposes that the meaning of a word does not come from the thing that it is naming, in that the meaning of the word "slab" does not come from a slab in the world. He suggests that we don't need a prior definition of a word in order to be able to successfully use it within the language game of the society within which we are living, but rather, the word is defined through use from "forms of life".

It seems that in the expression "meaning is use", the word "use" refers to use in the language game and not use in the world. It is here that the problem problem of circularity arises. If the meaning of a particular word is determined by its relationship with the other words within a holistic whole, yet the same is true of every other word, in that their meaning has also been determined by their relationship with the other words within a holistic whole. Within a language, if every part is relative to every other part, nothing is fixed, everything is arbitrary, and it becomes impossible to establish any meaning at all.

Conclusion
If meaning as use means use in language, then this is unworkable because of the circularity problem. If meaning as use means use in the world, then this is workable, as the only use of language is to change facts in the world. Language gets its meaning from being able to change facts in the world.

Wittgenstein asks questions, but avoids trying to answer them
There are two parts to my understanding of language: i) words have a use in the language game and ii) the language game has a use in the world. Wittgenstein deals with the first part, but ignores the second. Wittgenstein is like a mountaineer who buys all the ropes, crampons, thermal weatherproof clothes and tents but then never goes to the mountain, justifying himself by saying that the actual climbing of the mountain is a meaningless pursuit. He asks endless questions without trying to draw these together into a comprehensive answer. In fact, he seems proud that he makes no attempt at theorising. Perhaps it is no surprise there is so much misunderstanding surrounding his works — RussellA

Yes! I agree! This is what I'm trying to say too. He starts at the midground and then thinks that is enough to justify his statements without background. He does it in BOTH Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations. I think this is a form of disrespect for the philosophical audience who is trying to read in good faith, and its an odd form of trolling to the reader in general. He is not above and beyond reproach because he doesn't justify his ideas to a comprehensive conclusion. It just means he is incomplete. Some people take this as some sort of advantage, it seems. Odd that if any modern academic just "uttered stuff" they would get away without justification to a larger picture, the historical arguments, background considerations, etc.

Wittgenstein tackles the first part
As Mark Olssen describes in Wittgenstein and Foucault: The Limits and possibilities of constructivism, Wittgenstein does have a position of Relativism, an Anti-Realism, and even a Linguistic Idealism, where language is the ultimate reality. He explains events not in terms of the individual, but rather in the social constructivist terms of social, historical and cultural "forms of life". — RussellA

:up:

Wittgenstein hints at the second part
Kristof Nyiri points out in Wittgenstein as a common sense Realist that Wittgenstein cannot, at the end of the day, rely on language as a justification for his actions, but rather, does what he does because of the reality of the world in which he exists. When obeying rules, as Wittgenstein writes, sometimes there can be no rational justification expressible in language, it is just what is done in the world. Such is a position of philosophical realism, where people learn about, handle and refer to physical objects within a physical world.
PI 217 If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."

Single words have no use, only sentences
A single word such as "slab" has no use, in that If I walked into a room and said "slab" people would look at me with bemusement. Only sentences can have a use, such as "Bring me a slab" or "slab!". Sentences have a meaning when they have a use, and they have a use when they result in an action, such as someone bringing me a slab or people moving out of the way of a falling slab.

Language only has a use when it changes facts in the world
Language only has a use when it changes facts in the world, such as someone bringing me a slab. When it has a use, it means something. If I say "bring me a slab", for language to have any use at all, this means that I want a slab rather than an apple. Therefore, the word "slab" must be able to differentiate between a slab in the world and an apple in the world, meaning that the word "slab" must be able to refer to a slab rather than an apple. The meaning of of the word "slab" must be able to correlate with one particular object in the world. In other words, the word "slab" must name the object slab in the world, a position of Realism. This is Realism regardless of whether the realism of that of the Direct Realist, who perceives the slab in the world, or the Indirect Realist, who perceives a picture of the slab in the world — RussellA

Sure, but what is considered "real" here? Objects only or abstracted entities (like "justice" or "compassion")? These don't exist "in the world" except as notion in people's internal cognitive understanding.

The meaning of a text and the intentionality of the author
Derrida proposes that a sentence such as "bring me a slab" can still have meaning even if disjoined from the original intentionality of its author, the author's intention when originating the sentence. But this raises the question, does the text of a ChatGPT have meaning if the ChatGPT zombie machine had no conscious intentionality when preparing the text. One could argue that that part of the text which has been directly copied from other authors, who did have a conscious intentionality, does have meaning. However, the act of combining these parts together using rule-based algorithms cannot of itself give meaning to the whole.

As it seems that readers do find meaning in ChatGPT texts, one can only conclude that it is possible for texts disjoined from the original author to have meaning, as Derrida proposed. The meaning has come not from the writer of the text but from the reader.

Interesting idea, but ChatGPT is a simulation of someone with real intent. It's algorithms are such that to model itself as if it had intent, perhaps. It seems to have the intent to provide helpful information, for example.

We make requests as if it had the intentions for this, and it produces those results as if it did. In this case, the intent is fixed (always help you out or answer your requests in a helpful way). Remember though, we just need it to be the case, for it to be operationally "ready" to look at the intent of the statements and expressions being made. And conversely, we may be evolutionarily primed to see intent behind the answers in ChatGPT.

One can also make the case that ChatGPT is an extension of one's own intent. That is to say, it's intention is based on what you are looking for. It's modeling your own intention, that is. It is a blank slate, waiting for the intention to be defined.

That words have a use in the language game is necessary but not sufficient
Wittgenstein's meaning is use suffers from the problem of circularity. From the SEP article Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein argues that the meaning of a word is based on how the word is understood within the language game, ie, the use theory of meaning, in that words are not defined by reference to the objects they designate.
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 the language.

He proposes that the meaning of a word does not come from the thing that it is naming, in that the meaning of the word "slab" does not come from a slab in the world. He suggests that we don't need a prior definition of a word in order to be able to successfully use it within the language game of the society within which we are living, but rather, the word is defined through use from "forms of life".

It seems that in the expression "meaning is use", the word "use" refers to use in the language game and not use in the world. It is here that the problem problem of circularity arises. If the meaning of a particular word is determined by its relationship with the other words within a holistic whole, yet the same is true of every other word, in that their meaning has also been determined by their relationship with the other words within a holistic whole. Within a language, if every part is relative to every other part, nothing is fixed, everything is arbitrary, and it becomes impossible to establish any meaning at all.

Conclusion
If meaning as use means use in language, then this is unworkable because of the circularity problem. If meaning as use means use in the world, then this is workable, as the only use of language is to change facts in the world. Language gets its meaning from being able to change facts in the world.

I see the circularity too. I think that the article I posited from Tomasello et al, can elucidate more on how "intentionality" and its evolution into a communal "intentionality" can help solve this. I'd have to follow up with a much more in depth response from the article though. In the meantime, if you can, can you take al look at it? It provides some ideas of how intentionality can be the source of meaning in language. He actually sets the theory of "culture" but I think it works in language too.

As an aside I don't think Wittgenstein or Tomasello have a great theory for "self-talk". Much of our talk is just our own conversation with our self. If I make statement, "That is a rock" to myself, silently in my mind, and have no intention other than what I am seeing, and it's not done to remember something, but as some sort of habit when I see something, what intention is behind that? What use is that? There doesn't seem to be much intent or use in that kind of statement. So then does it not have meaning? It does though. That indeed is a rock. There is a correspondence there. Not sure if @Banno has an answer for that.

There are two parts to my understanding of language: i) words have a use in the language game and ii) the language game has a use in the world. Wittgenstein deals with the first part, but ignores the second. — RussellA

He does not ignore the fact that a language game has a use in the world. The language game develops out of and is understood within the context of a form of life, which includes particular activities, such as building.

He proposes that the meaning of a word does not come from the thing that it is naming, in that the meaning of the word "slab" does not come from a slab in the world. — RussellA

Of course it comes from a slab in the world! The builder does not order him to bring a slab that does not exist. The assistant must know what kind of object he is to bring.

For this purpose they make use of a language consisting of the words “block”, “pillar”, “slab”,
“beam”. A calls them out; B brings the stone which he has learnt to bring at such-and-such a call. —– Conceive of this as a complete primitive language.

(2)

What makes it a complete language is that it does not consist simply in objects named but what is done with those objects. In other words, its use in the world.

Wittgenstein deals with the first part, but ignores the second. — RussellA

What twaddle. Wittgenstein explicitly asks his readers to look at how words are actually used. Suggesting he does not look at how "the language game has a use in the world" is the most extreme example of your misreading so far. That follows you here shows how little he has understood. As happens so often, the fly is so happy in the bottle it will go out of its way to remain there.