Wittgenstein on the arbitrariness of grammar PDF
Preview Wittgenstein on the arbitrariness of grammar
(cid:1)Wittgenstein (cid:1)on the Arbitrariness of Grammar This page intentionally left blank WITTGENSTEIN (cid:1) ON THE ARBITRARINESS (cid:1) OF GRAMMAR Michael N. Forster Copyright (cid:1)2004 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Forster, Michael N. Wittgenstein on the arbitrariness of grammar/Michael N. Forster. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN0-691-11366-1 (cl.: alk. paper) 1. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889–1951. 2. Grammar, Comparative and general. I. Title. B3376.W564F672004 121(cid:2).68—dc22 2003055536 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Dante Typeface Printed on acid-free paper. (cid:1) www.pupress.princeton.edu Printed in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 (cid:1) (cid:1)For my daughter, Alya This page intentionally left blank (cid:1) Contents Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 PART ONE GRAMMAR, ARBITRARINESS, NON-ARBITRARINESS 1. Wittgenstein’s Conception of Grammar 7 2. The Sense in Which Grammar Is Arbitrary 21 3. The Sense in Which Grammar Is Non-Arbitrary 66 4. Some Modest Criticisms 82 PART TWO THE DIVERSITY THESIS 5. Alternative Grammars? The Case of Formal Logic 107 6. Alternative Grammars? The Limits of Language 129 7. Alternative Grammars? The Problem of Access 153 Appendix. The Philosophical Investigations 189 Notes 193 Index 241 This page intentionally left blank (cid:1) Acknowledgments My interest in Wittgenstein goes back many years, to the late 1970s when I was an undergraduate at Oxford University and the early 1980s when I was a graduate student at Princeton University. I have accordingly accumulated many intellectual debts in this area, only a few of which I can gratefully record here. At Oxford I was especially fortunate to learn about Witt- genstein from two people: Peter Hacker, whose writings on this subject have also been invaluable to me, and Ralph Walker. At Princeton I benefited from the teaching of Saul Kripke, whose written work on Wittgenstein has again been invalu- able to me. I have also benefited greatly from discussions of Wittgen- stein, begun when we were graduate students at Princeton and continued on and off since then, with Paul Boghossian, whose written work on this subject has also been a model for me, and Mark Johnston. I would also like to thank my many colleagues at the Uni- versity of Chicago, who have provided such an intellectually stimulating, supportive, and friendly environment over the years. I also owe thanks to audiences at several institutions who heard parts of this work delivered as talks and offered helpful feedback, including, in the United States, the University of Chicago, New York University, and Northwestern University, and overseas, the University of Athens, the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, and Peking University. I am also heavily indebted to several people who were of crucial help in the late stages of this project. I was extraordi- narily fortunate to have Paul Horwich and Gideon Rosen as
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