John Shotter, Lancaster, Feb 2001

Some useful quotations from WITTGENSTEIN

AI don=t believe I have ever invented a line of thinking. I have always taken one over from someone else. I have simply straightaway seized on it with enthusiasm for my work of clarification. That is how Boltzman, Hertz, Schopenhauer, Frege, Russell, Kraus, Loos, Weininger, Spengler, Sraffra have influenced me@ (CV, 1980, p.19).

AOur language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses@ (PI, 1953, no.18).

ALife=s infinite variations are essential to our life. And so too even to the habitual character of life@ (Wittgenstein, 1980a, p.73).

AThe way to solve the problem you see in life, is to live in a way that will make what is problematic disappear. The fact that life is problematic shows that the shape of your life does not fit into life=s mold. So you must change the way you live and, once your life does fit into the mold, what is problematic will disappear@ (1980, p.27).

APeople say again and again that philosophy doesn=t really progress, that we are still occupied with the same philosophical problems as were the Greeks. But the people who say this don=t understand why this has to be so. It is because our language has remained the same and keeps seducing us into asking questions. As long as there continues to be a verb >to be= that looks as if it functions in the same way as >to eat= and >to drink=, as long as we still have the adjectives >identical=, >false=, >possible=, as long as we continue to talk of a river of time, of an expanse of space, etc. etc., people will still keep stumbling over the same puzzling difficulties and find themselves staring at something which no explanation seems capable of clearing up.

And what=s more, this satisfies a longing for the transcendent, because in so far as people think they can see the Alimits of human understanding,@ they believe of course that they can see beyond these@ (CV, 1980, p.15).

AThere are so many means of extirpating and eradicating, and nevertheless so little evil has been extirpated... that one clearly sees that people invent a lot of things but not the right one. And yet we live in an era of progress, don=t we? I s=pose progress is like a newly discovered land; a flourishing colonial system on the coast, the interior still wilderness, steppe, and prairie. It is in the nature of all progress that looks much greater than it really is@ (From Johann Nestroy=s Der Schutzling (The Protege), act 4, scene 10. Wittgenstein uses the last italicized line as the motto for PI).

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Wittgenstein=s (1953) remarks about his own efforts to order the results of his investigations into an ordered whole:

AAfter several unsuccessful efforts to weld my results into such a whole, I realized that I should never succeed. The best that I could write would never be more than philosophical remarks; my thoughts were soon crippled if I tried to force them on in any single direction against their natural inclination. - And this was, of course, connected with the very nature of the investigation. For this compels us to travel over a wide filed of thought criss-cross in very direction. - The philosophical remarks in this book are, as it were, a number of sketches of landscapes which were made in the course of these long and involved journeyings@ (p.v).

Where, he wanted to put Aa number of tolerable ones@ into an arrangement such, Athat if you looked at them you could get a picture of the landscape. Thus this book is really only an album@ (p.v).

The view of language he is attacking

AThese words [of Augustine=s], it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language. It is this: individual words in a 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@ (1953, no.1).

AAnd now, I think, we can say: Augustine describes the learning of human language as if the child came into a strange country and did not understand the language of the country; that is, as if it already had a language, only not this one. Or again: as if the child could already think, only not yet speak. And >think= would here mean something like >talk to itself@ (no.32).

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His more >practical= stance toward language

A(If I had to say what is the main mistake made by philosophers, including Moore, I would say that it is when language is looked at, what is looked at is a form of words and not the use made of the form of words)@ (1966, p.2, emphasis js).

AOnly in the stream of thought and life do words have meaning,@ (1981, no.173).

AWords have meaning only in the stream of life@ (1990, no.913).

AOur talk gets its meaning from the rest of our proceedings@ (1969, no.229).

AFor 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@ (1953, no.43).

AThink of words as instruments characterized by their use@ (1965, p.67).

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What are its uses?

ABut how many kinds of sentence are there? Say assertion, question, and command? - There are countless kinds: countless different kinds of use of what we call >symbols=, >words=, sentences=. And this multiplicity is not something fixed, given once for all; but new types of language, new language-games, as we may say, come into existence, and others become obsolete and get forgotten@ (1953, no.23).

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The importance of our embedding in our surroundings

AWe are concentrating... on the occasions on which [words] are said - on the enormously complicated situation in which [an expression] has a place, in which the expression itself has an almost negligible place@ (Wittgenstein, 1966, p.2).

AWhat does behavior include here? Only the play of facial expression and the gestures? Or also the surrounding, so to speak, the occasion of this expression?...@ A... the word 'behavior' as I am using it, is altogether misleading, for it includes in its meaning the external circumstances@ (I, 1980, no.314).

ADoesn=t the [musical] theme point to anything outside itself? Yes, it does! But that means: - it makes an impression on me which is connected with things in its surroundings - e.g., with our language and its intonations; and hence with the whole field of our language-games@ (Wittgenstein, 1981, no.175).

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The background, acknowledgments, forms of life, and >at homeness=

AThe relations between these concepts form a landscape which language presents us with in countless fragments; piecing them together to too hard for me. I can make only a very imperfect job of it@ (CV, 1980, p.78).

AWhat happens is not that this symbol cannot be further interpreted, but: I do no interpreting. I do not interpret, because I feel at home in the present picture. When I interpret, I step from one level of thought to another@ (1981, no.234).

APerhaps what is inexpressible (what I find mysterious and am not able to express) is the background against which whatever I could express has its meaning@ (C&V, p.16).

AI am showing my pupils details of an immense landscape which they cannot possibly know their way around@ (CV, 1980,p.56).

AWhen you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there@ (CV, 1980, p.65).

AMy life consists in my being content to accept many things@ (1969, no.344).

AKnowledge in the end is based on acknowledgment@ (1969, no.378).

AYou must bear in mind that the language-game is so to say something unpredictable. I mean: it is not based on grounds. It is not reasonable (or unreasonable). It is there - like our life@ (1969, no.559).

AHow could human behavior be described? Surely only by sketching the actions of a variety of huamns, as they are all mixed up together. What determines our judgment, our concepts and reactions, is not what one man is doing now, an individual action, but the whole hurly-burly of human actions, the background against which we see an action@ (Z. no.567)... (cf also 1980, II, no.629).

ASeeing life as a weave, this pattern (pretense, say) is not always complete and is varied in a multiplicity of ways. But we, in our conceptual world, keep on seeing the same, recurring with variations. That is how our concepts take it. For concepts are not for use on a single occasion@ (Z, no. 568).

AAnd one pattern in a weave is interwoven with many others@ (Z, no.569).

ACan one learn this knowledge? Yes, some can. Not, however, by taking a course in it, but through >experience=. - Can someone else be a man=s teacher in this? Certainly. From time to time he gives him the right tip.- This is what >learning= and >teaching= are like here.- What one acquires here is not a technique; one learns correct judgements. There are also rules, but they do not form a system, and only experienced people can apply them right. Unlike calculating rules. What is most difficult here is to put this indefiniteness, correctly and unfalsified, into words@ (Wittgenstein, PI, p.227).

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How can we be so >bewitched= by language? Why was it so hard for Wittgenstein to bring himself to this new - more practical, everyday, less academic view of language?

AOne thinks one is tracing the outline of the thing=s nature over and over again, and one is merely tracing around the frame through which we look at it@ (1953, no.114).

AThat way of speaking is what prevents us from seeing the facts without prejudice ... That is how it can come about that the means of representation produces something imaginary. So let us not think we must find a specific mental process, because the verb >to understand= is there and because one says: Understanding is an activity of the mind.@ (1981, no.446).

AThe problems arising through a misinterpretation of our forms of language have the character of depth. They are deep disquietudes; their roots go as deep in us as the forms of our language. - Let us ask ourselves: why do we feel a grammatical joke to be deep? [e.g.: AJust look along the road, and tell me if you can see either of them?@ AI see nobody on the road,@ said Alice. AI only wish I had such eyes,@ the King remarked in a fretful tone. ATo be able to see Nobody! And at that distance too! Why, its as much as I can do to see real people by this light.@] (1953, no.111).

AHow does the philosophical problem about mental processes and states and about behaviorism arise? - the first step is the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of processes and states and leave their nature undecided. Sometime perhaps we shall know more about them - we think. But that is just what commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter... (The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one that we thought quite innocent)@ (no.308).

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Our task is not to explain anything, but to leave everything as it is - for we want to know >what= we are talking of when we are talking of language. Our task is simply to notice what has not been noticed before - for:

ANothing is hidden@ (1953, no.435)

AWe must do away with all explanation, and description alone must take its place. [For] these are, of course, not empirical problems; they are solved, rather, by looking into the workings of our language, and that in such a way as to make us recognize those workings: in spite of an urge to misunderstand them@ (1953, no.109).

AThe problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have always known@ (1953, no.109). APhilosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it. For it cannot give it any foundation either. It leaves everything as it is@ (1953, no.124).

AIt is the business of philosophy, not to resolve a contradiction by means of a mathematical or logico-mathematical discovery, but to make it possible for us to get a clear view of the state of mathematics that troubles us: the state of affairs before the contradiction is resolved... The fundamental fact here is that we lay down rules, a technique, for a game, and then when we follow the rules, things do not turn out as we had assumed. That we are therefore as it were entangled in our own rules.

This entanglement in our own rules is what we what to understand (i.e.. Get a clear view of).

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: AI didn=t mean it like that.@

The civil status of a contradiction, or its status in civil life: there is the philosophical problem@ (PI, no.125).

AThe great difficulty here is not to represent the matter as if there is something one couldn't do. As if there really were an object [a mental state or process, a social structure or set of rules or norms, an oppressive State apparatus], from which I derive its description, but I were unable to show it to anyone. B And the best that I can propose is that we should yield to the temptation to use this picture, but then investigate how the application of the picture goes@ (PI, no.374, my additions).

ADisquiet in philosophy might be said to arise from looking at philosophy wrongly, seeing it wrong, namely as if it were divided into (infinite) longitudinal strips instead of into (finite) cross strips. This inversion of our conception produces the greatest difficulty. So we try as it were to grasp the unlimited strips and complain that it cannot be done piecemeal. To be sure it cannot, if by a piece one means an infinite longitudinal strip. But it may well be done, if one means a cross-strip. - But in that case we never get to the end of our work! - Of course not, for it has no end. (We want to replace wild conjectures and explanations by the quiet weighing of linguistic facts) (1981, no.447).

A... it is, rather, of the essence of our investigation that we do not seek to learn anything new by it. We want to understand something that is already in plain view. For this is what we seem in some sense not to understand@ (1953, no.89).

When philosophers use a word - 'knowledge', 'being', 'object', 'I', 'proposition', 'name' - and try to grasp the essence of the thing,@ he comments, Aone must ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language-game which is its original home? - What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use@ (1953, no.116).

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So, what can we do? We can give reminders - for they can draw our attention to something that would otherwise pass us by unnoticed.

A... we shall constantly be giving prominence to distinctions which our ordinary forms of language easily make us overlook@ (1953, no.132).

ASomething that we know when no one asks us, but no longer know when we are supposed to give an account of it [cf. Augustine - on >time=], is something we need to remind ourselves of@ (1953, no.89).

AI wanted to put that picture before him, and his acceptance of the picture consists in his now being inclined to regard a given case differently: that is, to compare it with this rather than that set of pictures. I have changed his way of looking at things@ (1953, no.144).

AWe feel as if we had to penetrate phenomena: our investigation, however, is not directed towards phenomena, but, as one might say, towards the >possibilities= of phenomena. We remind ourselves, that is to say, of the kind of statement that we make about phenomena@ (1953, no.90, my italics).

ABut >knowing= it only means being able to describe it@ (1953, p.185)

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His use of language-games

AAnd to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life@ (1953, no.19).

AHere the term >language-game= is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or a form of life@ (1953, no.23).

AOur clear and simple language-games are not preparatory studies for a future regularization of language - as it were first approximations, ignoring friction and air resistance. The language-games are rather set up as objects of comparison which are meant to throw light on the facts of our language by way not only of similarities, but also of dissimilarities@ (no.130).

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The beginnings of new >language-games= in reactions, in responses

AThe child understands the gestures you use in teaching him. If he did not, he could understand nothing@ (1966, np2).

AI want to regard man here as an animal; as a primitive being to which one grants instinct but not ratiocination. As a creature in a primitive state. Any logic good enough for a primitive means of communication needs no apology from us. Language did not emerge from some kind of ratiocination@ (1969, no.475).

AThe origin and primitive form of the language game is a reaction; only from this can more complicated forms develop. Language - I want to say - is a refinement, >in the beginning was the deed=[Goethe]@ (1980, p.31).

AThe primitive reaction may have been a glance or a gesture, but it may also have been a word (1953, pp.217-218).

AOur attitude to what is alive and to what is dead, is not the same. All our reactions are different@ (no.284).

A... it is not that before you can understand it you need to be specially trained in abstruse matters, but the contrast between understanding the subject and what most people want to see. Because of this the very things which are most obvious may become the hardest of all to understand. What has to be overcome is a difficulty having to do with the will, rather than with the intellect@ (CV, 1980, p.17)... the will to avoid >theories= and to seek >descriptions=, the will to >heroize= the present (Foucault)

AAnimals come when their name is called. Just like human beings (CV, 1980, p.67)

AThe primitive reaction may have been a glance or a gesture, but it may also have been a word,@ he suggested (1953, p.218).

ABut what is the word >primitive= meant to say here? Presumably that this sort of behavior is pre-linguistic: that a language-game is based on it, that it is the prototype of a way of thinking and not the result of thought@ (Z, no.541).

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His project in >philosophy=

AIt is only by thinking even more crazily than philosophers do that you can solve their problems@ (CV, 1980, p.75).

AWorking in philosophy - like work in architecture in many respects - is really more a working on oneself... On one=s way of seeing things. (And what one expects of them.) (CV, 1980, p.16).

ANothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself@ (CV, 1980, p.34)

AHow hard I find it to see what is right in front of my eyes@ (CV, 1980, p.39)

AThe aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something B because it is always before one=s eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck him. - And this means; we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful@ (1953, no.129).

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Rules in practice

AThe proposition seems set over against us as a judge and we feel answerable to it. - It seems to demand that reality be compared with it@ (Wittgenstein, 1978, p.132).

A... obeying a rule is a practice. And to think one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule... otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be the same thing as obeying it@ (1953, no.202).

A>But how can a rule show me what I have to do at this point? Whatever I do is, on some interpretation, in accord with the rule= - That is not what we ought to say, but rather: any interpretation still hangs in the air along with what it interprets, and cannot give it any support. Interpretations by themselves do not determine meaning@ (1953, no.198).

AWhat this shows is that there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is exhibited in what we call >obeying the rule= and >going against it= in actual cases@ (no.201).

ADon=t always think that you read of what you say from facts; that you portray these in words according to rules. For even so you would have to apply the rule in the particular case without guidance@ (no.292).

A...just where one says >But don=t you see...?= the rule is no use, it is what is explained, not what does the explaining@ (1981, no.302).

AI obey the rule blindly@ (1953, no.219).

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The >practical= nature of our problems

AA philosophical problem has the form: >I don=t know my way about=@ (1953, no.123).

AActually I should like to say that... the words you utter or what you think as you utter them are not what matters, so much as the difference they make at various points in your life... Practice gives words their significance@ (Wittgenstein, 1980, p.85).

AMy life shows that I know or am certain that there is a chair over there, or a door, and so on - I tell a friend e.g. >Take that chair over there=, >Shut the door=, etc. etc.@ (1969, no.7).

AIf there is anything >behind the utterance of the formula= it is particular circumstances, which justify me in saying I can go on - when the formula occurs to me... Try not to think of understanding as a >mental process= at all. But ask yourself: in what sort of case, in what kind of circumstances, do we say, >Now I can go on=, when, that is, the formula has occurred to me?@ (1953, no.154).

AWe now have a theory, a >dynamic theory= of the proposition; of language, but it does not present itself to us a s a theory. For it is the characteristic thing about such a theory that it looks at a specual clearly intuitive case and says: >That shows how things are in every case; this case is the exemplar of all cases.= - >Of course! It has to be like that= we say, and are satisfied. We have arrived at a form of expression that strikes us as obvious. But it is as if we had now seen something lying beneath the surface.

The tendency to generalize the case seems to have a strict justification in logic: here one seems completely justified in inferring: >If one proposition is a picture, then any proposition must be a picture, for they must all be of the same nature=. For we are under the illusion that what is sublime, what is essential, about our investigation consists in its grasping one comprehensive essence@ (Z, no.444).

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To arrive at the place where you are already

AIn might say: if the place I want to get to could be reached by way of a ladder, I would give up trying to get there. For the place I really have to get to is the place I must be at now.

Anything that I might reach by climbing a ladder does not interest me@ (CV, 1980, p.7).

AIf you want to go down deep you need not travel far; indeed, you don=t have to leave your most immediate surroundings@ (CV, 1980, p.50).

APhilosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it. For it cannot give it any foundation either. It leaves everything as it is...@ (1953, no.124)

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The >saying=/=showing= distinction: the way in which the >grammar= of the situation >shapes=