Auto-SummaryThis forum post summarizes a discussion on Wittgenstein's views on language and perception. The author emphasizes that Wittgenstein challenges the common understanding of language as being based on ostension (pointing to objects). The post explains how Wittgenstein's philosophical investigation deconstructs this idea, particularly focusing on Augustine's description of how language learning occurs through bodily movements and expressions. The author argues that Wittgenstein questions whether language fundamentally affects perception or if we inadvertently follow certain paths of meaning in language use. He suggests that philosophy should dissolve problems, even if it's challenging to navigate a modern world heavily reliant on conceptual language. The post concludes by highlighting the importance of distinguishing language games from perceivings and experiences, advocating for a therapeutic approach to questioning conceptualism in our understanding of the world.
Quote: "Do not mistake the finger pointed at the moon" - Chinese Proverb
It seems to me that we commonly understand our language (both its origins and practices) to be based on the way we perceive, and by extention of that, how we know things.
Wittgenstein called this ostension (for reference), basically the way point to things in language. The first part of his Philosophical Investigation, is in deconstructing the idea that language in its origins, and practical use, is in ostension.
He quotes Augustine as demonstrating this picture of language:
Quote: When they (my elders) named some object, and accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that the thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it out. Their intention was shewn by their bodily movements, as it were the natural language of all peoples: the expression of the face, the play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of the body, and the tone of voice which expresses our state of mind in seeking, having, rejecting, or avoiding something. Thus, as I heard words repeatedly used in their proper places in various sentences, I gradually learnt to understand what objects they signified; and after I had trained my mouth to form these signs, I used them to express my own desires."
Wittgenstein comments:
Quote: These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language. It is this: the individual 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 speak of there being any difference betweenkinds of word. If you describe the learning of language in this way you are, 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.
Now think of the following use of language: I send someone shopping. I give him a slip marked "five red apples". He takes the slip to the shopkeeper, who opens the drawer marked "apples"; then he looks up the word "red" in a table and finds a colour sample opposite it; then he says the series of cardinal numbers — I assume that he knows them by heart — up to the word "five" and for each number he takes an apple of the same colour as the sample out of the drawer. It is in this and similar ways that one operates with words.
"But how does he know where and how he is to look up the word 'red' and what he is to do with the word 'five'?" - Well, I assume that he acts as I have described. Explanations come to an end somewhere. "But what is the meaning of the word 'five'?" — No such thing was in question here, only how the word "five" is used.
I do not think Wittgenstein is being ironic when he assumes we think "explanations come to an end at some point" and that language is in "use", or on the other hand that he is just embracing the idea. As he continues, it becomes clear that his intent is to question this common picture of language.
He goes on to describe his method as philosophical therapy. So I guess; no room for pretense. If you do not have these problems, he doesn't assume that you have to follow an extensive construction and deconstruction of conceptuality, for instance, of ostension.
He is not proving a point, but emphasizing and loosening up presupposed paths of meaning we do not essentially, but somewhat accidentally follow through language, as the pathologies of over-conceptualization. Maybe one must encompass the problem, emphasize and practically become its symptoms and let them come to the surface and work out to some extent what the problem is. Of course it is better to not have the problem or a prejudiced mindset in the first place, but that is moot. From very early on Wittgenstein had taken an approach of dissolving philosophical problems however it works.
I think this can be important and maybe suggestive. Take ostension for example. To me it is clear that we rely on language, almost as much as and as effectively as perception in relation to the world. A picture of language can be that it is something like an instance of perception (pointing relation to a given object). Just as much, we can become conditioned to think that perception, is something that should be like language, and it should inform a concept, or a linguistic object, in a certain paradigm. That is the real philosophical question... How much does language affect perception? How much is perception conditioned for you?
It is said by many, in preference, that philosophy is analytic; in an analysis of conceptual language. We look for conceptual analyses that implicitly inform our world, and we tend to try to look to the world as vessel for a concept or notion. The concept can be inflated in this. But to put it practically, how else can we navigate a modern scientific world?
Assume that science is said to be empirical, in a classical sense, and that would indicate it is based on perceptions and experiences. That is at any rate the main standard of the scientific practice, what we effectively assume, and the logic we evaluate the world according to. We interrogate perceptions and experiences of the world, whether they are encouched in language or not. We begin with the senses. We effectively assume that the paradigms we address in science are in sense experience, while their bases are actually or at least on some basis, in their theories, in perception.
We may find that modern science is to a great extent not just about confirming or falsifying an isolated perception, but understanding and dealing with projected conceptual paradigms through this same game too. For instance, when we question perceptions and experiences on an empirical basis, it seems to me we look to consider conceptual constructs, more than the case of literally falsifying hallucinations or delusions, the sorts of contents classically seated in perception. We look to theoretical language, and the framework in science in or in relation to our empirical basis.
To me it is difficult to understand the extent we/I should here look to language, and conceptual paradigms, as carrying our sense experiences, so far as we live in such a world. In what cases are the concepts and paradigms conceptually invented, and contrived, rather than discovered in relation to the world? Do we take this even as a question? Maybe not necessarily. Maybe an explanation of the world comes to a certain end, and we dwell in the use of concepts and language to a great degree here too?
I do not think we have much choice but to be able to learn to grapple with anxiety analysis (weird Freudian slip in my spell-check), and become literate in technical and conceptual language, however this world justifies its conceptual paradigms. My thought is it is just possible to distinguish our perceivings, and experiences from conceptuality. I do not think it is possible to understand the situation of a modern world, so I am not going to pick up any ethical question too much anyway. I think in a more personal way, it is just important to to stay in touch with the world, and so I end up in this "therapeutic" space, as Wittgenstein put it - questioning my conceptualism, and to some extent gesturing to some philosophy.
I believe it is possible to distinguish the "games" we play in language, from necessarily being perceivings, and in a similar way we can distinguish our experiences and perceivings from being conditioned by theoretical/linguistic concepts in this pattern. A philosophical approach of analysis, ἀνάλυσις, could indeed be "an unloosening".
Edited by Kurt (01/31/17 02:59 AM)
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