The meaning of a word is its use in the language”
Traditional theories of meaning in the history of philosophy were intent on pointing to something exterior to the proposition which endows it with sense.
This ‘something’ could generally be located either in an objective space, or inside the mind as mental representation
When we think of tools in a toolbox, we do not fail to see their variety; but the “functions of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects”
Thus, the builders’ language-game (PI 2), in which a builder and his assistant use exactly four terms (block, pillar, slab, beam), is utilized to illustrate that part of the Augustinian picture of language which might be correct but which is, nevertheless, strictly limited. ‘Regular’ language-games, such as the astonishing list provided in PI 23 (which includes, e.g., reporting an event, speculating about an event, forming and testing a hypothesis, making up a story, reading it, play-acting, singing catches, guessing riddles, making a joke, translating, asking, thanking, and so on), bring out the openness of our possibilities in using language and in describing it.
Indeed, “Essence is expressed in grammar … Grammar tells what kind of object anything is.
Wittgenstein sees (Theology as grammar)” (PI 371, 373).
Traditional theories of meaning in the history of philosophy were intent on pointing to something exterior to the proposition which endows it with sense.
This ‘something’ could generally be located either in an objective space, or inside the mind as mental representation
When we think of tools in a toolbox, we do not fail to see their variety; but the “functions of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects”
Thus, the builders’ language-game (PI 2), in which a builder and his assistant use exactly four terms (block, pillar, slab, beam), is utilized to illustrate that part of the Augustinian picture of language which might be correct but which is, nevertheless, strictly limited. ‘Regular’ language-games, such as the astonishing list provided in PI 23 (which includes, e.g., reporting an event, speculating about an event, forming and testing a hypothesis, making up a story, reading it, play-acting, singing catches, guessing riddles, making a joke, translating, asking, thanking, and so on), bring out the openness of our possibilities in using language and in describing it.
Indeed, “Essence is expressed in grammar … Grammar tells what kind of object anything is.
Wittgenstein sees (Theology as grammar)” (PI 371, 373).
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