I would appreciate if you could explain how rules can determine use but not meaning. — Luke

Use comes first. Rules are established by use. The rules maintain that use, that is, they determine the common use, how you or I will use that word according to its established use. The rule is the standard, but it is the use not the subsequent rules of use that determine meaning.

A mistake in and of comprehension. An inbility to understand something has to do with one's understanding - education, brain capacity - not 'meaning'. — StreetlightX

What is not comprehended or understand is the meaning.

One comprehends the meaning mistakenly; not: one comprehends the 'improper meaning'. — StreetlightX

I would say that one does not comprehend the meaning mistakenly, I would say one does not comprehend the meaning. It does not mean what she thought it did. One has attributed to it the wrong or improper meaning.

Mistake qualifies comprehension, not meaning. — StreetlightX

Comprehension of what if not the meaning?

The fault is with 'us', not meaning. — StreetlightX

Meaning is not something that exists independent of us. If something means something it means something to us. Without 'us' there is no meaning.

but in some cases it is predicated in part on intention.
— Fooloso4

Not for Witty, it isn't. — StreetlightX

How would you explain 125:

It throws light on our concept of meaning something. For in those cases things turn out otherwise than we had meant, foreseen. That is just what we say when, for example, a contradiction appears: "I didn't mean it like that." — PI

without intention? How do we make sense of not meaning it like that if there is no intended meaning?

The mistake is not - never is - with 'meaning'. — StreetlightX

When I do not understand you then what is the mistake with?

.. your inability to understand a meaning, and nothing about meaning — StreetlightX

Not understanding a meaning has nothing to do with meaning? I do not understand what you mean.

Your inference is not correct. The rules for use is not the same as the actual use. There will other opportunities to look at what W. says about the rules. I think I will leave it here for now.

Perhaps I have not understood your meaning properly. Perhaps it was not what you intended to say.

Dear Mrs Malaprop,

I am writing to you to let you know that I like your example of wrong usage and right meaning.

If I say" apple" but mean the orange coloured citrus fruit — Isaac

Yes, as Alice was told: say what you mean or mean what you say. If you do not use words as they are commonly used that means you will have a hard time conveying your meaning. It does not mean that words mean whatever you intent them to.

In this second example the failure to escape the plane is irrelevant to the meaning of the instructions. If the flight attendant had been consistently saying "pull", then the meaning of the word "pull" would remain completely unaffected by even the most fervent desire that you push. — Isaac

Correct usage and correct understanding of that usage is not here a theoretical matter. But the example is not about the flight attendant's intention but about what those instructions mean to a passenger. He either gets the meaning right or wrong. The meaning is determined by whether he is to push or pull, greatly increasing his chances of escaping or not.

You can't claim that the thing you intended is what the word 'means' else words have meanings inside individual minds — Isaac

But that is not what I claim. It is not a question of mind or the problem of a private language. When I say something I mean something by what I say. Don't you?

Meaning is in no way predicated on intention in Witty, and this includes when it doesn't conform to intention. — StreetlightX

Meaning is not predicated on any one thing, but in some cases it is predicated in part on intention.

In a previous post you said:

There either 'is' meaning or there is not: either what is said has some significance that can be cottoned on to, or there is not. 'Improper meaning' is not a thing. — StreetlightX

Who or what determines the meaning? What is said may mean different things to difference people. If I am the speaker and you take what I said in the wrong way then what you thought what I said meant was an improper meaning, it was not without meaning.

If you are given safety instructions on how to exit the plane and you thought the instructions meant pull in the window rather than push out the window, then that was not the proper meaning, which means, that was not what you were supposed to do.

what was the purpose of your first comment? — Be Kind

The one about the term having different meanings? There were different schools of hedonism and I think these philosophers had some very interesting and to today's ears surprisingly sober things to say. Even those who like Plato and Aristotle spoke out against hedonism embraced a form of hedonism, that is to say, they recognized the value of pleasure and the variety of pleasures.

With Christianity, specifically Paul and Augustine, anything that had to do with the body was sin and so hedonism came to mean something morally suspect.

Some today think of hedonism as being enslaved by pleasure, but, in fact, the philosophy of hedonism is about just the opposite.

What is the current agreement on what hedonism is right now? — Be Kind

There is no current agreement.
There was no agreement then.
I am aware that when someone speaks of hedonism he might mean something different than someone else who uses the term. If I were to defend a form of hedonism it would not be a defense of the indiscriminate pursuit of pleasure.

Ah, I missed this. Still alot of catching up to do! — StreetlightX

I have decided not to push ahead for that reason.

There either 'is' meaning or there is not: either what is said has some significance that can be cottoned on to, or there is not. 'Improper meaning' is not a thing. — StreetlightX

Improper meaning would not be the absence of meaning but a meaning that was not what was meant:

125. This entanglement in our rules is what we want to understand: that is, to survey.
It throws light on our concept of meaning something. For in those cases, things turn out otherwise than we had meant, foreseen. That is just what we say when, for example, a contradiction appears: “That’s not the way I meant it.”

It can be physical or emotional or intellectual pain and troubles, a lack of tranquility or equanimity.

Whether or not you live a hedonistic life has to do with how you live. Someone who for medical reasons does not feel pain or lacks emotion does not thereby live a hedonistic life.

This is why my question was accompanied by the paraphrase of §199 — Luke

I will hold off saying more about §199 for now.

Perhaps if you take "the practice" to mean the application, exercise, action or rehearsal, but not if you take "the practice" to mean the method, way, procedure or convention. Which did you intend when you stated "It is the practice that governs the language"? I had assumed it was the latter, given our discussion of rule following. — Luke

I mean the activity. To practice is to do. In this case, to play.

What is at issue is your claim:

Therefore, rules or grammar determine proper and improper meaning. — Luke

It is my contention that it in not the rules that determine meaning, it is the practice or activity, that is, how words are actually used that does.

It is the practice that governs the language.
— Fooloso4

Therefore, the practice is the rule?
— Luke — Fooloso4

The practice is not the rule, the rule is part of the practice, part of what we do, part of how the language game is played. In chess the rules put constraints on what moves are possible, but do not determine what moves will be made. In the same way, in language games the rules do not determine what will be said. But unlike the rules of chess, the rules of a language game are not fixed. Words can be used in new ways, the constraint on usage is looser. If the usage is novel then it cannot by determined by the rules for previous usage. Rules that cover the novel usage come after the fact.

The term hedonism has no single meaning. What many today think of as hedonism is not what the early proponents of hedonism such as Aristippus of Cyrene (a student of Socrates) and Epicurus would have considered hedonism. The reason is that if an activity in the pursuit of pleasure leads to pain then it fails to accomplish the goal of a life of pleasure, for such a life strives to avoid pain. The hedonist is not a slave to pleasure, for this brings pain.

From page 34 of this discussion:

What he means by the pneumatic conception of thinking? Pneuma means breath, and by extension, soul, life, spirit (spirit is Latin for breath). In other words, the pneumatic conception of thinking is one that presupposes some condition that makes thought possible in the way that breath or soul makes life possible. In the Tractatus Wittgenstein though that logic was this condition. Invoking Kant, he called it "transcendental" (it differed significantly from Kant's conception but that is another story).

In 108 he says:

The preconception of crystalline purity can only be removed by turning our whole inquiry around. (One might say: the inquiry must be turned around, but on the pivot of our real need).

This too reminds us of Kant, the Copernican Revolution. Rather than the turn to transcendental conditions, however,he turns to language in practice, language in its role in a form of life.

And we may not advance any kind of theory.There must not be anything hypothetical
in our considerations. All explanation must disappear, and description alone must take its place.

He draws our attention to what we say and do with language. If we attend to how language is actually used rather than trying to discover something yet unknown about it, something still hidden from us, then we can untangle the tangles philosophy has become entangled in through the bewitchment of language. To be clear, it is not language that causes the entanglement but the misguided activity of philosophy generated by a misuse of language.[/quote]

What is the practice supposed to be here? — Luke

The question of practice comes from my comment:

It is the practice that governs the language. — Luke

My example of following was intended to get at the distinction between following along and following a rule. There may have been no practice of following along and it is not clear whether what they are doing is part of a practice. It may have simply been what they all did on that one occasion.

To play a game of chess is to follow a set of rules. — Luke

Let's play. I have white and go first. d2-d4 (King's pawn advanced two spaces). What does the rules tell you about what move you must make?

The set of rules, or the practice, constrains the possible moves, determining what move is allowed and what isn't. — Luke

Right, but knowing what moves are allowed and not allowed do not determine which of the many possible moves are made when one plays the game.

The rules or the practice of playing chess does not involve the millions of permutations that the game can be played out. — Luke

The practice of playing chess means playing chess. This is not the same thing as the rules of chess. The rules in accord with which one plays chess is not to play chess.

What does this example have to do with a custom? — Luke

She thought that this was part of her family's Jewish customs. If she had not asked it may indeed have become a custom. Imaginative explanations would be invented to explain the meaning. But there was no rule that the end must be cut off, and thus no meaning in her following along and doing what her mother did.

An insightful, succinct, overview. One could write a book on several different things he touched on.

I have not read this work but I have read both editors and can strongly recommend them:

http://the-eye.eu/public/WorldTracker.org/Sociology/Philosophy%20-%20The%20Cambridge%20Companion%20Series/The%20Cambridge%20Companion%20to%20Wittgenstein.pdf

I really can't say. I do not know the author or anything other than the title of the book and one positive review.

If you like to collect books that's one thing, but if your interest is in reading then there are, in my opinion, better sources, some of them free.

You are so nice! :) — Pussycat

You set the adversarial tone several months ago.

You should have been a teacher or something similar, if you are not already, that is. — Pussycat

Kongzi (Confucius) said:

I will not enlighten a heart that is not already struggling to understand, nor will I provide the proper words to a tongue that is not already struggling to speak. If I hold up one corner of a problem and the student cannot come back to me with the other three, I will not attempt to instruct him again. (Analects 7.8)

You have been struggling to find where my interpretation goes wrong and/or where Wittgenstein's does, but the only things that you have pointed to is where you have gone wrong.

Socrates spoke differently to different people depending on their needs.

Lin Chi hit them with his stick ... out of kindness.

You seem to be unaware of the extent of my patience, even after it has been pointed out by another member.

I don't think it is just my assumption. — Pussycat

Wittgenstein rejects that assumption. If you reach the end of the Tractatus and still hold to that assumption then you have not understood the text.

So there, you agree that they lack form or logical form? — Pussycat

If you have read what I have been saying with due care and attention that is not a question you would ask. I made this point explicit when I discussed the relevant passages. It is not a question of form but of logical form. They do not lack the form that governs sentence structure, that is, they are, in the ordinary sense, grammatically correct. They are not, however, based on names for objects in the world.

So are propositions of logic indeed propositions, or something else? Do they have the same form as elementary propositions? — Pussycat

6.1
The propositions of logic are tautologies.

6.11
The propositions of logic therefore say nothing. (They are the analytical propositions.)

6.12
The fact that the propositions of logic are tautologies shows the formal—logical— properties of language, of the world.

6.121
The propositions of logic demonstrate the logical properties of propositions by combining them so as to form propositions that say nothing.

6.124
The propositions of logic describe the scaffolding of the world, or rather they represent it. They have no ‘subject-matter’. They presuppose that names have meaning and elementary propositions sense; and that is their connexion with the world. It is clear that something about the world must be indicated by the fact that certain combinations of symbols—whose essence involves the possession of a determinate character—are tautologies. This contains the decisive point. — Tractatus

Yes, this is the conclusion, but we start our investigation assuming there are. — Pussycat

That may be your assumption but it is not an assumption that informs any part of the Tractatus.

Why can you not say that ethical propositions are not propositions because they lack form? — Pussycat

It is not simply lacking form but lacking logical form, which means they do not say anything about what is the case.

What about logical propositions such as the modus ponens? Does it represent a state of affairs? — Pussycat

6.1264 Every proposition of logic is a modus ponens presented in signs. (And the modus ponens can not be expressed by a proposition.)

It is the practice that governs the language.
— Fooloso4

Therefore, the practice is the rule? — Luke

Suppose I ask: "What are they doing?" and you answer "Following the rule". "What is the rule?" "What they are doing".

When we do as others do it might be said that we are following a rule, but we are simply following along.
— Fooloso4

What's the difference? — Luke

If I see a group of people walking and decide to follow them what rule am I following? Is the rule: 'follow these people'? You point to 199, but it asks:

Is what we call “following a rule” something that it would be possible for only one person, only once in a lifetime, to do?

And his answer is that it is not possible.

Are they following a rule by going wherever it is that they are going? Am I also following this rule even though I do not know where they are going? What if they are just wandering about. Is the rule to wander? How does one know in which direction to wander? Is there a rule for wandering?

Paraphrasing §199: To follow a rule...is a custom (usage, institution). — Luke

But this is not what it says. He does not say simply to follow a rule is a custom but:

To follow a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess are customs (usages, institutions).

To play a game of chess is not follow a rule or set of rules. There is no rule that says I must move this piece rather than that. The game is played in accord with the rules.

To follow a rule may be a custom but a custom is not simply following a rule. Here's a quick story to illustrate, something I heard on the radio. A cookbook author was talking about her mother's recipe for brisket. Following what her mother always did, before putting the roast in the pan she would cut off a piece at the end. After doing it this way for years one day she asked her mother why she did it that way. Her mother answered: "Because otherwise it would not fit in the pan". The daughter was not following a rule that one must cut off the end. If her mother had a larger pan or a smaller brisket she would not have had to cut off the end. But the daughter thought she was following a rule by doing what her mother always did.

Also, much of what's been said had me turning back to §50, which also deals with the issue of representation, even employing the same vocabulary of 'mode of representation' (from the discussion of the meter rule and samples) — StreetlightX

Wittgenstein often circles back in this way. There is so much going on that it is easy to forget the connections.

More on the theme of a surveyable representation:

Our language can be regarded as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, of houses with extensions from various periods, and all this surrounded by a multitude of new suburbs with straight and regular streets and uniform houses. — PI 18

In factual propositions, facts can be represented — Pussycat

All propositions are factual propositions.

In ethical propositions, nothing can be represented. — Pussycat

There are no ethical propositions. Once again:

6.42
Hence also there can be no ethical propositions.

There are three kinds of propositions in the Tractatus: elementary, logical and ethical. — Pussycat

There is only one kind of proposition. Elementary propositions are logical propositions.

They do not have the same form, in fact I think that ethical propositions are formless. — Pussycat

All propositions have the same form - logical form. It is not that ethical propositions are formless, it is that statements about ethics are not propositions.

6.53
The right method of philosophy would be this: To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions.

What he refers to as 'propositions' here are not strictly speaking propositions at all. They are senseless statements. Statements that do not represent any state of affairs.

But later on, Wittgenstein was forced to abandon elementary propositions, I guess this had an impact on the ethical as well. — Pussycat

He abandoned them because he abandoned the idea of simple objects and thus the connection of names that are elementary propositions. It has nothing to do with ethics.

They are alike in that neither can be represented, yet you want to keep talking about them.

But we cannot make a picture of the pictorial form itself, and thus we cannot talk about it in the same way, or maybe at all, as we do with what this form represents, which was a common error made by philosophers. — Pussycat

Extend this to the whole realm of the ethical and maybe then you will catch on and the misguided questioning will end.

I did not mean to suggest otherwise, to the bolded statement. — fdrake

And I did not mean to imply that you did. It is a common misconception though, so I wanted to address it.

I also used it as an opportunity to continue the development of the theme of a surveyable representation.

I am showing my pupils details of an immense landscape which they cannot possibly know their way around. — Culture and Value 7

So, at any point in the text he might be talking about something very specific but it is the landscape he wants us to see.

I think 'we predicate of the thing what lies in the method of representing it' is fleshing out how we 'find' the ideal in language in the sense of 101: — fdrake

I agree, but as with much of Wittgenstein, this is one aspect of a larger issue. Note, for example:

78. Compare knowing and saying:
how many metres high Mont Blanc is a
how the word “game” is used a
how a clarinet sounds.
Someone who is surprised that one can know something and not be able to say it is perhaps thinking of a case like the first. Certainly not of one like the third.

It seems problematic to say that one knows something but cannot say it when thinking of the first example, but not the third.

Going back a bit further:

66. Compare chess with noughts and crosses.

Note how frequently in the passages between 66 and 78 (and elsewhere as well) he not only says "compare" but makes comparisons. It is this method of comparison that is of central importance. There is a clear connection with questions of language, but if one is looking for an übersichtlichen Darstellung, a representative overview or surveyable representation or perspicuous representation, then limiting the comparison to linguistic matters foreshortens one view. The Tractarian distinction between seeing and saying is still at work here, although it functions differently.

In tractarian terms, their form is the same, but their content is different. — Pussycat

The form of all propositions is the same. The form of all relations between objects is the same. Just because we say things about both houses and cows does not mean that houses and cows are the same.

Whereas, in your reading of the Tractatus, this mystical/ethical/religious experience is attributed to ethics. — Pussycat

As you quote, Copleston's:

... hypotheses is that there is actually some objective cause of that experience.

This is at odds with Wittgenstein. There is no objective cause of that experience, no state of affairs, no facts that cause such an experience. The ethical, according to W. has nothing to do with what happens in the world. He denies the possibility of ethical propositions (6.42). And yet Copleston speaks as if what he says represents facts of the world. You treat Wittgenstein as if he were saying the same thing that Copleston is, as if he were talking about some facts that must be the objective cause of ethical/aesthetic/religious experience.

Wittgenstein warns against the rabbit hole that Copleston goes down when he treats such questions as if they were propositional, as it they refer to some objective cause that he hypothesizes must exist that he can attribute them to. You do the same when you talk about the mystical/ethical/religious experience as if they are attributed to ethics.

Whether God is that transcendent/objective object or otherwise, he (Copleston) certainly attributes religious/mystical experience to God, one way or another. Whereas, in your reading of the Tractatus, this mystical/ethical/religious experience is attributed to ethics. But then again, you seem to link ethics to God as in the sermon above, so essentially, these two different views are the same. — Pussycat

And if black and white are both colors then black and white are the same.

And here I have to say that Wittgenstein was motivated by personal issues or perhaps even perceived shortcomings. — Wallows

I would say more generally that Wittgenstein was motivated to think. This includes but is not limited to problem solving.

Working in philosophy -- like work in architecture in many respects -- is really more a working on oneself. On one's interpretation. On one's way of seeing things. (And what one expects of them.) — Culture and Value

The solving of philosophical puzzles is related to the larger issue of how one sees things. The puzzlement stands in one's way. But the elimination of the problems is not the elimination of philosophy, although it might mean the elimination of philosophy as it has been practiced by some.

I take the cognitive dissonance to be fundamental to the pursuit of philosophy. Philosophy can be truly dangerous if one is unable to be comfortable with that dissonance.
— Fooloso4

Yes, please expand on this. — Wallows

Socrates was accused of being a torpedo fish, numbing his interlocutors. What he was doing, however, was simply demonstrating to them that they did not know what they professed or assumed to know. This was not the end but rather the beginning of philosophical inquiry. Not having solid ground to stand on, however, can cause vertigo as one stares into the abyss. This uncertainty can be incapacitating for some, as they come to question everything and cannot feel certain about anything. Or they may latch on to something that promises to be the answer.

The comparison is [edited] a mode of representation - we see the thing in relation to what we are comparing it to. But this is not "the perception of a highly general state of affairs". What we see is the thing as it stands in relation to whatever it is we have compared it with. If we did not make the comparison we would not see it in that way.

It is not a question of whether it is right or wrong to do this. Such a comparison can be misleading but it could also lead to some insight. It is exactly what Wittgenstein does with his multiple examples.

Yet, people seem to get lost in his philosophy, instead of focusing on the primary theme of his philosophy; being, the resolution of philosophical problems into senseless or nonsensical problems. — Wallows

If that was the theme of his philosophy then why did he continue? Did he fail to resolve the problems for himself? Was his primary theme to help others solve the problems he had solved for himself? If this were the case then why his extensive private notebooks? Some of these notes were work on books he never published, but others were his way of thinking with his pen.

I really do think with my pen, because my head often knows nothing about what my hand is writing. — Culture and Value

people seem to get lost in his philosophy — Wallows

When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there. — Culture and Value

To anyone who has majored or is thinking about majoring in philosophy in some institution, isn't Wittgenstein a sort of cognitive dissonance or bittersweet inducing experience? — Wallows

I was attracted to the interpretive challenge, becoming totally engrossed in trying to think along with him, making connections. I take the cognitive dissonance to be fundamental to the pursuit of philosophy. Philosophy can be truly dangerous if one is unable to be comfortable with that dissonance.

I take seriously the following from a draft for the preface to Philosophical Remarks:

If you have a room which you do not want certain people to get into, put a lock on
it for which they do not have the key. But there is no point in talking to them about it,
unless of course you want them to admire the room from outside!

The honorable thing to do is to put a lock on the door which will be noticed only
by those who can open it, not by the rest. — Culture and Value

There are locked doors, rooms we are prevented from entering in Wittgenstein's writings. The first step is not to find the key but to find the lock.

Well for one I very much doubt that all the above are things that one knows. — Pussycat

If they are not part of your experience then they are not things you know via experience.

So you agree that it was your own sermon? — Pussycat

You can call it my own sermon if you like, but they are all things that Wittgenstein says, all things that were referenced. As to why you think calling it a sermon serves any purpose, I will leave to you. And as to why you drag Copleston into this I will also leave to you.

... relating happiness to God or some divine providence, but this is not to be taken literally — Pussycat

It is not a proposition. It tells us nothing about anything in the world.

Just as Copleston says that the objective/transcendent object and cause of religious/mystical experience is God — Pussycat

Wittgenstein would not agree. He does not regard God as an object, objective/transcendent or otherwise.

But, philosophers are motivated by claiming to know the 'truth' ... — Wallows

Not the skeptical ones, which include Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein ...

Basically, if a philosopher has not persuaded some average Joe of the merit of his or her philosophy to society or the welfare of an individual, then hasn't he or she failed at being a philosopher? — Wallows

Basically, philosophers have never written for Joe.

Today we prize free speech, but for most of history the philosopher has had to have kept hidden.

Here are some quotes from philosophers in their writings about keeping something hidden in their writings. Click on the appendix.

https://www.press.uchicago.edu/sites/melzer/index.html

My question is that, why is there is a profound discrepancy between the philosopher's conception of what constitutes 'happiness' and what society at large thinks it equates to? — Wallows

Because the framing of the questions where done by philosophers and the solutions led to the philosopher.

Grammar is structural, form without content.
— Fooloso4

This is not Wittgenstein's idea of grammar. — Luke

You are right, but you cited unenlightened saying: "grammar is extracted by pedants from pre-existing communication. It starts as description and becomes prescription - we convene, and from there comes convention." He is not referring to Wittgenstein's idea of grammar and I was responding to this.

The article describes grammar as a:

… network of rules which determine what linguistic move is allowed as making sense, and what isn’t.

Rules and actions are not the same. It is not some network of rules but what we say and do that determines usage. It is not so much a network of rules but a network of beliefs and practices. The difference between the Tractatus and the PI is that in the Tractatus the structure is transcendental, but in the PI the rules are arbitrary, part of a form of life.

When he says that:

“Essence is expressed in grammar … Grammar tells what kind of object anything is. (Theology as grammar)” (PI 371, 373).

He does not mean that there are rules that tell us what kind of thing something must be, what God or soul is or how we must use the terms, but rather that an overview of the way in which the terms are used indicates what is meant by the terms in this or that language game. Seeing how the terms are used requires an overview of the literature, prayers, practices, etc.

If Wittgenstein shows that "rules can and do play different roles in language", then clearly there are "rules...in language". These rules must govern the language, given that is the purpose of rules. — Luke

Consider the builder's language. How does "slab" come to mean "bring me a slab"? The rule is established in practice. It is the practice that governs the language. When we do as others do it might be said that we are following a rule, but we are simply following along. Suppose we learn what to do by following someone whose actions include a tic. It is not hard to imagine a generation that thinks copying the tic is part of the rules for what to do, and it becomes so.

What is his idea of grammar?

That might be the case when someone who is unfamiliar with the larger activity comes across the rule, an anthropologist, for example, studying a tribe.
— Fooloso4

What sort of rule might this be? — Luke

Any of the innumerable things the anthropologist observes the people doing that she does not understand the reason for or purpose of. Why does everyone turn in a counterclockwise circle three times before entering?

If the meaning of a word is found in its (proper?) use, and if the rules determine proper use, then understanding the rules should lead to proper use/meaning...? — Luke

"Drive the nail with a screwdriver" is grammatically correct, but the grammar does not tell us what a nail or screwdriver or drive means. Correct grammatical usage is not the same as the use of the words nail, screwdriver, and drive. Correct grammatical usage does not tell us that hammers are used to drive nails. Grammar is structural, form without content. Without content there can be no meaning.

I would also like to repeat unenlightened's insight which (I think) assists my claim, by blurring the distinction between the rules/grammar and "the larger activity" in which they find their home:

grammar is extracted by pedants from pre-existing communication. It starts as description and becomes prescription - we convene, and from there comes convention.
— unenlightened — Luke

I do not see how this blurs the distinction. When we learn to speak we do not learn grammatical rules explicitly. And this may be sufficient. We do what others around us do, put words in the same order as others do, and are corrected when we don't. The grammatical convention already exists as part of the "pre-existing communication". Prescriptively, the study of grammar standardizes different conventions.