XII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2020

Ludwig Wittgensteinwas an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. During his lifetime he published just one slim book (the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1921), one article ("Some Remarks on Logical Form", 1929), one book review and a children's dictionary. His voluminous manuscripts were edited and published posthumously. Philosophical Investigations appeared as a book in 1953, and has since come to be recognised as one of the most important works of philosophy in the 20th century.

Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell were pivotal figures in analytic philosophy's "linguistic turn" and the key figures in the philosophy of language. These writers were followed by Wittgenstein ( in his «Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus»), the Vienna Circle as well as the logical positivists. Bertrand Russell was Wittgenstein’s teacher.

Wittgenstein’s philosophy is often divided into an early period, exemplified by the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and a later period, articulated in the Philosophical Investigations. "Early Wittgenstein" was concerned with the logical relationship between propositions and the world and he believed that by providing an account of the logic underlying this relationship, he had solved all philosophical problems.

"Late Wittgenstein", however, rejected many of the assumptions of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, arguing that the meaning of words is best understood as their use within a given, so called, language-game.

What is Wittgenstein contribution to the linguistics? We should pay attention to one of his best concepts – «language-game».

A language-game is a philosophical concept, referring to simple examples of language use and the actions into which the language is woven. Wittgenstein argued that a word or even a sentence has meaning only as a result of the “rule” of the “game” being played. Depending on the context, for example, the utterance “Water!” could be an order, the answer to a question, or some other form of communication. Another way Wittgenstein puts the point is that the word "water" has no meaning apart from its use within a language-game. One might use the word as an order to have someone else bring you a glass of water. But it can also be used to warn someone that the water has been poisoned. One might even use the word as code by members of a secret society. The central component of language games is that they are uses of language, and language is used in multifarious ways. For example, in one language-game, a word might be used to stand for (or refer to) an object, but in another the same word might be used for giving orders, or for asking questions, and so on. The famous example is the meaning of the word "game". We speak of various kinds of games: board games, betting games, sports, "war games". 

Of course, any phraseological units are also the parts of a language-game. According to the use theory of meaning, the words are not defined by reference to the objects they designate, nor by the mental representations one might associate with them, but by how they are used. Wittgenstein's use theory of meaning contrasts with Gottlob Frege's notions of sense and reference. We know that idioms and phrasal verbs, and other types of phrasemes do not refer to a certain thing in the «real world of objects» and only refer to a situation in which the use of idiom is appropriate.

Wittgenstein does not limit the application of his concept of language games to word-meaning. He also applies it to sentence-meaning. For example, the sentence "Moses did not exist" (§79) can mean various things. Wittgenstein argues that independently of use the sentence does not yet 'say' anything. It is 'meaningless' in the sense of not being significant for a particular purpose. It only acquires significance if we fix it within some context of use. Thus, it fails to say anything because the sentence as such does not yet determine some particular use. The sentence is only meaningful when it is used to say something. For instance, it can be used so as to say that no person or historical figure fits the set of descriptions attributed to the person that goes by the name of "Moses". But it can also mean that the leader of the Israelites was not called Moses. Or that there cannot have been anyone who accomplished all that the Bible relates of Moses, etc. What the sentence means thus depends on its context of use.

So, this concept helps us to explain a lot of linguistic points of controversy such the meaning of a single word (or an idiom, as we can see) and the role of a language context in people’s communication. However, we should take into consideration, that Wittgenstein’s theory has its’ weak sides and is heavy criticized by some linguists and scientists because of its’ emphasis on elementary parts and restricted view on the subject.

References:

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein

2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_language

3) https://www.iep.utm.edu/frege/

4) https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bertrand-Russell

5) https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-010-1391-8_4

6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus