1) The word "five" has a meaning because it has a use within a sentence, such as "I want five apples". Even before I use the sentence "I want five apples" in the world, the word "five" has a meaning because it has a use within a sentence.
2) The word "five" has a meaning because the sentence it is within has a use in the world. For example, my saying "I want five apples", the shopkeeper hearing me, who then starts to count out five apples. If the shopkeeper doesn't hear me, and doesn't count out five apples, then as the sentence has no use in the world, the word "five" has no meaning.
Which reading is correct. Or is there another reading? — RussellA
In short, because all use - including the use of a word in a sentence - is a use in the world. — Luke
The example of the shopkeeper and the apples is in response to the picture of language as words naming objects. — Fooloso4
1) As with Augustine, the word "slab" gets its meaning from referring to a slab in the world.
2) The word "slab" doesn't get its meaning from referring to a slab in the world, but instead gets its meaning from being read in context within the other words used in the text.
I can understand 1), in that language is grounded within the world, but I cannot understand 2), where language becomes self-referential without any possibility of being grounded in the world .
I agree with Wittgenstein that not all words refer to objects in the world, but I am unclear as to his position. Does he believe that no word gets its meaning from referring to an object in the world ? — RussellA
These [Augustine's] words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language. It is this: the words in language name objects — sentences are combinations of such names. —– In this picture of language we find the roots of the following idea: Every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands.
Augustine does not mention any difference between kinds of word. Someone who describes the learning of language in this way is, I believe, thinking primarily of nouns like “table”, “chair”, “bread”, and of people’s names, and only secondarily of the names of certain actions and properties; and of the remaining kinds of word as something that will take care of itself. — Wittgenstein, PI 1
As you say, Wittgenstein is responding to Augustine. — RussellA
1) As with Augustine, the word "slab" gets its meaning from referring to a slab in the world.
2) The word "slab" doesn't get its meaning from referring to a slab in the world, but instead gets its meaning from being read in context within the other words used in the text. — RussellA
Does he believe that no word gets its meaning from referring to an object in the world ? — RussellA
He does not deny that some words refer to objects. What he rejects is that EVERY word functions in this way. — Fooloso4
However, Wittgenstein does not deny that some words do name objects, or can refer to things in the world. — Luke
He does not deny that some words refer to objects. What he rejects is that EVERY word functions in this way — Fooloso4
After a bit of pondering, I will stick my neck on the line and say that, at the core of Philosophical Investigations, with its language games, family resemblances and Forms of Life, no word names an object in the world...
We know when the child understands the meaning of the word "table", when we ask the child to point to a "table" and they successfully point to a table rather than to an apple or the ceiling. They know how to use the word. — RussellA
The concept "table" only exists in the mind and not the world. What exists in the world are particular examples, particular instantiations, of our concept of the word "table". — RussellA
In the sentence "bring me a table", the word "table" is not referring to either my or your concept of "table", because, as with the beetle, it has dropped out of consideration in the language game. — RussellA
In the sentence "bring me a table", the word "table" is not referring to either my or your concept of "table", because, as with the beetle, it has dropped out of consideration in the language game. — RussellA
The word "table" in the sentence "bring me a table" is not referring to a table in the world, to an object in the world, but is referring to the many examples of things in the world experienced over decades and multiple locations as having a family resemblance and been named "table" by a community, of which the thing in front of me is just one particular example. — RussellA
How does a child learn a new word, such as "table". They are shown many examples of things, similar in some way, but all different, and as Wittgenstein says, having family resemblances. Each particular thing is a token of a general type.
We know when the child understands the meaning of the word "table", when we ask the child to point to a "table" ... — RussellA
They know how to use the word. — RussellA
The concept "table" only exists in the mind and not the world. What exists in the world are particular examples, particular instantiations, of our concept of the word "table". — RussellA
The word "table" in the sentence "bring me a table" is not referring to a table in the world ... — RussellA
Mustn't the child point to a table, i.e. "an object in the world", in order to "successfully point to a table rather than to an apple or the ceiling"? — Luke
No one goes around pointing to various things in the child's world and naming them — Fooloso4
Pointing to objects is not how we use words. We know she understands the word 'table' not because she points to it but because when we tell her the toy is on the table she knows were to look. — Fooloso4
For the child what exists are not examples or instantiations of concepts. What exists are the things she encounters and uses, the things she learns to call 'table' and 'chair'. She does not begin at the level of concepts. — Fooloso4
If things in the child's world are not named, how does the child learn the names of things. — RussellA
The child must already know what a table is if the child knows the toy is on top of it. — RussellA
Every table in the world is different in some way. — RussellA
What is an object? The SEP article Object discusses the nature of objects. Is it really the case that the child is pointing at a table as an object, or is the child pointing at a set of atoms that have a momentary location in time and space, and have taken the form of one particular example of the general concept "table". To say that the child is looking at an object is to say that what exists in the mind of the child as a concept also happens to ontologically exist in the world.
Hawthorne and Cortens (1995) speak for the nihilist thus: “the concept of an object has no place in a perspicuous characterization of reality” (p. 143). They suggest three theories on which there are no objects. The first that there are just stuffs everywhere, but no objects. The second that there is just one big mass of stuff.[14] The third is that there just isn’t anything at all. This last option is what Hawthorne and Cortens defend. They do so using what they (following Strawson) call a “feature-placing language”. They model a potential nihilist program on sentences like “it is raining”, “it is snowing now”, and “it is cold here”. Such sentences do not quantify over anything and have no logical subject (‘it’ functions as a dummy pronoun), and so do not ontologically commit one to anything. The nihilist may then paraphrase sentences that apparently require objects (such as “there is a computer here”) with those that do not (such as “it is computering here”). In short, the nihilist turns every putative noun into an adverb, making judicious use of spatial, temporal, and numerical adverbs too. — RussellA
Witty's Tractatus where he just starts with the assumption about objects, as if the ontological work of positing this view doesn't even need to be explained. — schopenhauer1
The objects and names discussed in the PI are not the simple objects and names of the Tractatus. — Fooloso4
Risible — Banno
From Wikipedia Direct Reference Theory, the PI opposed Referentialism — RussellA
When one says "the child points at a table", this is a figure of speech for "the child points at an example of its concept of "table"" — RussellA
We know when the child understands the meaning of the word "table", when we ask the child to point to a "table" and they successfully point to a table rather than to an apple or the ceiling. They know how to use the word. — RussellA
He gets defenders. — schopenhauer1
This is how he learns what a table is - it is what the toy is on — Fooloso4
The either/or expressed by moving from "meaning as representation to a view which looks to use as the crux of the investigation", assumes that the challenge W is making to treating words as pointing to essences should be replaced by a competing explanation of essence. — Paine
The PI is opposed to Referentialism, whereby words refer to objects in the world. To be an object existing in the world in space and time it must have some kind of essence. — RussellA
The PI is opposed to Referentialism, whereby words refer to objects in the world. To be an object existing in the world in space and time it must have some kind of essence. — RussellA
Referentialism says that pointing out an object in the world is the only use a word can have. Wittgenstein says that words can also have other uses. As we pointed out to you earlier, Wittgenstein does not deny that words can be used to refer to objects. What he rejects is that words are only used to refer to objects. — Luke
This implies that it is impossible for the child to be wrong; that the child must always point to a table, no matter what they point to, as long as it aligns with the child’s concept of “table”. — Luke
But from a single example, the child cannot know what "table" is referring to. — RussellA
Only by experiencing many examples will the child be able to discover a family resemblance in the examples and narrow down the meaning of "table" to what we know as the concept "table". — RussellA
Does the "object" also include mental objects such as fear, anger, pain, joy and hope ...etc? Or does it just mean material objects in the external world? — Corvus
This is why the Logical Positivists liked Referentialism, in that it aimed at creating a "perfectly descriptive language purified from ambiguities and confusions" (Wikipedia, Direct Reference Theory). — RussellA
Right, but then where did the internal states "go"? "What" were they for them? Why didn't they care? — schopenhauer1
Logical Positivism stated in the 1920's. Their central thesis was the verification principle, whereby only statements verifiable through direct observation or logical proof are meaningful in terms of conveying truth value, information or factual content (Wikipedia Logical Positivism).
It is probably not surprising that the movement came to an end in the 1960's, though they had a good run. — RussellA
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