Wittgenstein’s Language

232 Pages·1973·19.435 MB·

by  Timothy Binkley (auth.)

WITTGENSTEIN'S LANGUAGE
WITTGENSTEIN'S LANGUAGE
by
TIMOTHY BINKLEY
MAR TINUS NIJHOFF I THE HAGUE I 1973
FOR SUE
© 1973 by Martinus Nijhojf, The Hague, Netherlands
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st Edition 1973
All rights reserved, including the rights to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts theretif in a'!)' form
ISBN-13: 978-90-247-1541-1 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-010-2450-1
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-010-2450-1
CONTENTS
PREFACE VII
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS x
PARTI
PROLOGUE
I. PHILOSOPHY AND LANGUAGE 3
PART II
TRAVELLING ACROSS THE LANDSCAPE
REMINDERS 19
II. THE LANDSCAPE 20
III. THE SKETCH 32
IV. THE REMARK 47
V. 'You' AND 'I' 66
VI. GRAMMAR 78
VII. NATURAL HISTORY 94
VIII. THERAPY 112
PART III
REFLECTING ON THE ALBUM
IX. LOGIC AND LANGUAGE 133
X. UNDERSTANDING PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS 165
XI. THE AFRICAN DOCTOR 193
VI CONTENTS
PARTIV
EPILOGUE
XII. REFLECTIONS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE 205
Bibliograpjry 220
PREFACE
One of the first things to strike the reader of Wittgenstein's writings is
the unique power of his style. One immediately notices the intriguing
composition and arrangement of the paragraphs in Philosophical Investi
gations, or the stark assertiveness of the sentences in the Tractatus Logico
Philosophicus. A sense of the singular style being employed is unavoidable,
even before the reader understands anything of what is happening philos
ophically. Perhaps precisely for this reason it is too often assumed that
coming to understand either work has little or nothing to do with re
sponding to its form. The unusual style is a mere curiousity decorating the
vehicle of Wittgenstein's ideas. Form is assigned a purely incidental
import, there is a coincidence of this or that rhetorical flair with the yet
to be determined content of the thoughts. The remarkableness of the style
is perhaps registered in a tidy obiter dictum standing beside the more
arduous task of discovering the substance of the ideas being presented.
Wittgenstein's peculiar way of writing ably captures our interest, or at
least our attention, but it bears only minor philosophical import. Though
not unprecedented as a form of philosophical composition, it does not
conform to the currently acceptable conventions; hence Wittgenstein's
style is often thought to stand in the way of understanding his meaning.
Such assumptions can be harmless for certain types of writing; however
it does not appear as though Wittgenstein's is one of these. That is just to
say that a full understanding of his philosophy will have to take into
account how it is written: one cannot entirely separate a consideration
of the content of what he says from a consideration of the manner in
which he says it. In other words, what he says is not a message which can
be dissociated from its particular expression and translated intact into
other expressions. There is a reason for the peculiar style. It is not a
barrier to the philosophy since it is the philosophy, at least in part.
This book is an attempt to demonstrate how this is so for a work such
VIII PREFACE
as the Investigations. Although it might be called a study of Wittgen
stein's style, that can be misleading since sometimes to study just style is
already to isolate the respects in which form and content can be inde
pendently comprehended, thereby excluding from consideration the res
pects in which the two cannot adequately be understood except together.
If it is to be called a study of style, it might best be considered a study of
Wittgenstein's style of thinking.
This study of Wittgenstein's thought is not entirely without precedent.
Yet to some minds it will seem pelVerse. I therefore beg the reader's indul
gence and hope something of value is revealed once the general approach
is understood. Since this book is itself written in a somewhat unconven
tional form, it would be fitting to say something about how it should be
read. The first and last Chapters (Parts I and IV) are a foreword and an
afterword having to do with more general questions about style and
meaning. The body of the work appears in the middle two parts. In the
first of these (Part II), I have constructed a mosaic of thoughts about
Wittgenstein's writings which, I hope, conveys more fully something of
the character of the thinking going on than would a strict stylistic analysis
which distills from the text a set of devices or a catalogue of motifs. I have
tried to find a technique for illuminating certain facets of Wittgenstein's
writing which takes seriously the task of understanding it as a unity of
form and content. This requires a procedure which engages the reader
and confronts him as directly as possible with the text as it stands. The
result is something which is in some ways like a commentary, in others
not. It consists of a series of reflections on related portions of Wittgen
stein's writings in an attempt to exemplify ways of approaching them. It
does not pretend to hold up a completed result - an analysis of style - but
rather tries to present the activity of reading certain passages while attuned
to particular features of Wittgenstein's way of writing. No attempt is
made to derive something from the text, but rather to direct attention
more carefully toward it. This section of the book (Part II) thus selVes
as intermediary between the passages quoted and the reader, or perhaps
as narrator for the investigation going on. Because of the purposes for
which it is designed, it may have the appearance of being somewhat more
rough and unfinished than it should be; yet this is what is required if the
activity of trying to respond to the text with sensitivity is to be exhibited.
The second portion of the main body of the work (Part III) is a somewhat
more conventional discussion of what can be made of the ideas suggested
by Part II.
Although I must claim responsibility for its defects and insufficiencies,
PREFACE IX
this work owes much of any value it has to the influence of many others.
I am greatly indebted to my friend and teacher Louis Mackey for teach
ing me a good part of what I know about reading and thinking and for
being a constant source of provocative thought and inspiration. To O.K.
Bouwsma lowe any sensitivity to Wittgenstein displayed herein. This
book is better than it otherwise would have been without the careful
criticisms of Edward N. Lee and A. P. D. Mourelatos. These four persons
composed the committee for the Ph.D. dissertation with which this work
began. I would further like to thank my colleagues S. A. Binkley, Ann
Clark, Ralph Mcinerny, and Vaughn R. McKim for offering encourage
ment and numerous invaluable suggestions.
TIMOTHY BINKLEY
Washington D.C.
June, 1972
ACKNOWLEDGE MENTS
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following publishers for permission
to quote from copyrighted material:
To Basil Blackwell & Mott, Ltd., for permission to quote from the following
works of Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Blue and Brown Books, Edited with a
preface by Rush Rhees (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1st edition 1958, 2nd edition,
1969); Notebooks 1914-1916, Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von
Wright with an English translation by G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1961); On Certainty, Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H.
von Wright, Translated by Denis Paul and G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1969); Philosophical Investigations, Edited by G. E. M.
AnscombeandRush Rhees, Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1st edition 1953, 2nd edition 1958, 3rd edition 1967); Philoso
phische Bemerkungen, Edited by Rush Rhees (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1965); Philosophische Grammatik, Edited by Rush Rhees (Frankfurt: Suhr
kamp, 1969); Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Edited by G. H.
von Wright, Rush Rhees, and G. E. M. Anscombe, Translated by G. E. M.
Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1956); Zettel, Edited by G. E. M. Ans
combe and G. H. von Wright, Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1967).
To Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd. and Humanities Press, Inc. for permission
to quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Trans
lated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, New York: Humanities Press, 1961).
PARTl
PROLOGUE