§199: "To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (uses, institutions)."

§337: "An intention is embodied in its situation, in human customs and institutions."

§380: "I could not apply any rules to a private transition from what is seen to words. Here the rules really would hang in the air; for the institution of their use is lacking."

Philosophical Investigations, §199.
 

I. Introductory: Life, Experience & Style.

Some phrases which occur in the Philosophical Investigations, although they belong unequivocally to ordinary language, act on our minds in an extraordinary fashion. They resemble those pieces of wire which, when dipped into a supersaturated solution of some salt, precipitate the solution into crystalline form; thus bringing that crystalline form before us.

(a) Viewing, but not a Point of View.

Almost all the quotations in this paper are from the Investigations and have this effect. They are not chosen to justify, or give authority to, a thesis, but rather to operate as a list of reminders, in order to indicate a view. This is not to recommend a particular point of view, but rather, simply, to view that which, when it is looked at carefully, is seen clearly before us. That is, it is not the point of view that is illuminating, but the act of viewing (which we sometimes call "looking"). This act involves both the viewer (and his position) and that which is being looked at in this process of viewing.⁽¹⁾

(b) The Grounds of our Viewing.

"If one tried to debate theses in philosophy, it would never be possible to debate them, because everybody would agree to them."⁽²⁾

Such theses, presumably, would be examples of the ground of our beliefs, or the pointing out of "fact which is fused into the foundations of our language game". The salient characteristic of such a foundation is that it is non-propositional,

"not reasonable (or unreasonable). It is -- there. Like our life."⁽³⁾

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On the face of it, Wittgenstein appeals to life as given, in much the same way as so many earlier philosophers have appealed to experience. Indeed, one might characterise much of the Western tradition by calling it "Philosophy of Experience". The problem for Wittgenstein is that experience, if it is to be regarded as given, suggests the passivity of the subject in the face of that which is being experienced, and philosophy, for him, is concerned with looking actively, not adopting a (static) point of view upon which objective experience impinges.

For Wittgenstein, life - and therefore a fortiori, experience - is not a matter of the given. Rather it is a matter of establishing customs, the central instance of which being that of instituting language. In this process, the subject, for the first time in modern philosophy, loses its centrality, and, as suggested above, is shown as part of the process of viewing -- which itself is part of life.

The act of instituting a custom is not an experience, it is a part of our active life. We might say that it has to do with facts (what is given by experience), and that it also has to do with theory (that theory in accordance with which we act -- since, after all, we do not act randomly). But this would be to fall into the passive mode of speaking. Rather should we paraphrase, and say:

The act of instituting a custom is an intervention into the world. It expresses the theory which we bring to the world, the theory which informs the institution as a whole, according to which our actions are not random, but form a pattern of significance.

(c) Philosophy of Life is a Method.

For most people, the phrase "Philosophy of Life" has quite the wrong resonances, although, if we could think away these resonances, and were to remind ourselves continually about the fundamental peculiarities of Wittgenstein's method, it might be quite a good characterisation of what he is doing.⁽⁴⁾

The peculiarities of Wittgenstein's method arise logically from the way he sees philosophy to be. After his return to Cambridge in 1929, he progressively abandons the very idea of a purely objective point of view from which we can view the world, and gradually develops the view summarised above, that the experiencing subject is, in every sense, an active participant in this world. Indeed, that is what, for Wittgenstein, is meant by experience. And this is most particularly the case in that most human of activities, the use of language.⁽⁵⁾

(d) Language as a Creative Activity.

One of the most fundamental questions in philosophy is: What are we talking about? Answers to this vary considerably, but it is generally agreed that, in order to do this talking, we use language. Without language, such a question could not be asked.⁽⁶⁾

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In one sense, this statement is obvious, indeed trivial: If we only communicated in grunts, we could not produce the required phonemes to ask the question. But, more strictly, we might say:"would not produce ..." That is, a biological inability to produce words would be irrelevant here. What counts is our being limited to grunting as communication, for whatever reason. And this leads us to a more important sense in which the statement is far from trivial: If we were only such creatures as might communicate by grunting, the question, for us, could not, or rather, would not, even be raised.

The syntax of this expression may seem strange, but it is significant. Inadequacy of the organs of vocalisation is contingent, part of the world, occurring in space and time. "Being creatures such that etc." introduces the notion of an absolute limit on the thinking which might (sc. would) go on in such circumstances, and therefore requires the timeless syntax which is associated with the logical present (see §4 below).

That is, the nature of our language is intimately bound up with our nature as thinking beings. It does not follow from this that the structure of our language is a given within which we are compelled to do whatever thinking it allows us. On the contrary, since it is part of our nature to create in response to our needs, our language has to be itself creative, in the sense that it enables us to think in certain ways, rather than determines what the end results of those ways will be.

The need being discussed here is creative need, in which the problems to which we respond are created by ourselves in the same way as we create language. In fact, these problems are part of this created language. Artistic creation is a special case in point. Our need is not given, for language is a social creation and the problems it puts to us, to which the philosopher feels the need to respond, are similarly our creation.

In the case of primitive men, words and concepts may be coined⁽⁷⁾ in order to refer to the physical conditions of their life, such as hunting, weather, landscape and so on, all of which are given by nature. Even in such a case, the institution of the concepts to describe these is not given. This institution is a creative act of the same general type as any more advanced use of language.

The problem of how language can be extended, or, even, how it can be creative, has worried many modern philosophers. On the present analysis, that worry becomes very important, for creative language cannot be set aside as some kind of "deviant use". Creativity is central to the institution of language, and any theory of language must give an account of it accordingly.⁽⁸⁾

(e) Analysis leads to the Wrong Kind of Theory.

The traditional method of providing a theory in philosophy is that of analysis. It might be useful to examine parts of language, particularly those parts which are commonly called grammar and syntax. But there are limitations to a method which analyses an object into more theoretically primitive parts

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in order to provide a theoretical explanation. For on what is this explanation grounded? What is the logical basis of the theory which we have recourse to as explanation?

If we aim at a recursive theory of language, we risk opening up the potential either for an infinite regress or for arbitrariness. In the first case, we are committed to an infinite regress of higher and higher level theories; in the second case, what explanation can we give for choosing one ultimate resting point for our explanation rather than another?

In the case of language, it is out of the question to stop at "reality" as ultimate, for the notion of reality itself requires definition. Physical reality, the basis for Empiricism in its many forms, is no foundation for a theory of language, for where is the physical substructure of language? And even if we could give a physicalist account of language, we would not have eliminated the need for some kind of theory. For even physical reality depends on some theory if we are to talk about it. Physical objects indeed exist independently of us, but the language in which we talk about them is not itself a physical object. The question "What are we talking about?" is not that simple.

The above considerations lead to a cul de sac, for they involve the wrong kind of theory. It will become clearer during the following argument just what kind of theory is needed here, and §7 will explain how this kind of theory is distinct from the kind used by, for example, Davidson.

Let us now examine the institution of language itself, in order to throw some practical light on these theoretical remarks.

II. When was Language Instituted?

The word "Institution" itself suggests that we are referring to a thing that has been instituted -- presumably at some time in the past.⁽⁹⁾ We might therefore feel that it is legitimate to ask the simple, historical, question: When did this Institution take place? Indeed, the grammar of the word "Institution" suggests that an act of instituting did, in fact and in time, take place, and therefore that it makes sense to ask where and when this happened.

(a) Linguistic Grammar

Nevertheless, this question shows an illuminating misunderstanding of grammar. It is true that linguistic grammar - the ordinary grammar of the spoken language⁽¹⁰⁾ - allows us to ask the question.

But to accept the linguistic grammar of the word as guide to our thoughts, is to show that we have the wrong idea of what kind of thing this institution is. We can talk about it as a phenomenon, occurring in time (and presumably also in space), but we miss a great deal more. It is not that linguistic grammar is misleading, rather, we might say, it does not lead us very far.

Barry Stroud, writing about the closely related subject of Conventionalism, draws an interesting parallel with the Enlightenment notion of the Social Contract:

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"But it is too much to ask the conventionalist to prove that there actually was a time at which we explicitly decided to adopt the linguistic habits which we now have, just as it is too much to ask for historical evidence concerning the date, location and the personnel of the original social contract among men. The fiction of the social contract is a way of characterising the apparent obligations of the individual to his state, and it can be a true and illuminating description of that relation even if no such contract was ever drawn up." ⁽¹¹⁾

Now exactly how can a fiction be true and illuminating? Stroud does not suggest that such institutions as language and the social contract are analogies, metaphors or other figures of speech. They are, he says, descriptions, and as such, presumably, they are factual. But is this enough?

It is worth examining Stroud's own example in order to see more clearly what kind of descriptions these are. This will help us to see where language is leading us in such cases.

(b) On The Very Idea of a Social Contract.

In Book One of The Social Contract, J.J.Rousseau describes the aims and causes which encouraged men to join together in societies. He certainly adopts a narrative style, contrasting the state of men before the Contract with that in which they live after adopting it. It is very easy to think that Rousseau is considering a historical event in these chapters.

But, on reflection, one can see that Rousseau is equivocal, even evasive, on this point. Not only are there no dates mentioned, but there is no clear time scale of any kind. The nearest he gets to referring to anything which might be thought of as a historical event, is in the following passage:

"Indeed, if there were no prior convention, where, unless the election were unanimous, would be the obligation on the minority to submit to the choice of the majority? How have a hundred men who wish for a master the right to vote on behalf of ten who do not? The law of majority voting is itself something established by convention, and presupposes unanimity, on one occasion at least."⁽¹²⁾

Even here, however, a literal historical interpretation is impossible to sustain. First and foremost, such an interpretation reduces Rousseau's argument to incoherence. If a hundred men have no right to bind a minority of ten against their expressed will, how can the original electors, however unanimous,

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possess the right to bind subsequent generations? Indeed, Rousseau showed himself perfectly aware of this problem in Chapter 8, "The Civil State", though is clearly not much worried by it.

Why is he not worried by an interpretation which threatens his argument with incoherence? The reason must be, that he is not himself entertaining such an interpretation. In this work, Rousseau is, as well as a political philosopher, a political propagandist. Just as most people understand talk of objects easier to understand than talk of abstractions (even to the extent of modelling language on the way we talk of physical objects), so does a narrative of events affect most of us more vividly than does a timeless generalisation. And the propagandist aims to be understood⁽¹³⁾. As a philosopher, Rousseau also aimed at being understood, if not so readily. A writer of such stature does not just simply offer ideas as a stallholder at a market offers goods. (To call a philosopher a "merchant of ideas" is so dismissive as to amount to abuse.) Rousseau is doing more than propagating political ideas in this work, he is instituting a language.

And he is furnishing us with quite a good example of what instituting a language is.

The social contract is a myth (and a very powerful one). In creating this myth, Rousseau was not intending that future historians should research into the "historical evidence concerning the date, location and personnel of the original social contract among men." Such a misunderstanding would be equal to that of geographers who theorised concerning the precise location of Atlantis, or of zoologists who looked for non-black crows.

(c) Institution and Myth.

Creating a myth is one way of creating an institution, in which the new concepts are "embedded", thus providing "the institution of their use".⁽¹⁴⁾ Thus, Rousseau is concerned with extending the language of political discourse by the creation of concepts, such as the state of nature, the social contract, the general will, and freedom.

It is secondary, that these terms had been used by previous writers, just as it is not entirely Rousseau's fault that his key terms have been preserved as ready made clichés for his successors. Certainly, the polemical tone of The Social Contract lends itself to repetition as polemic, just as the re-using of concepts from previous writers suggests their status as common intellectual property. But the text of Rousseau's myth - his condensed narrative exposition - remains available to be read, and understood.And the vividness of this narrative presents us with a cogent overview⁽¹⁵⁾ of the field of discourse.

This overview is not only good propaganda, but it is also good philosophy: The meaning of these key concepts is made clear by their use within the narrative. This is particularly so in the case of that much overused concept, that of "freedom". Indeed, its use has been so over-extended that we may feel that it is not a concept at all, but just a word, always to be fenced in with inverted commas. It is a considerable achievement on Rousseau's part that, after facing the difficulties and limitations inherent

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in such over-extension, the word emerges as referring to a definite concept. This is a clear instance of creativity in language.

Myth is only one method by which desired uses may be instituted.⁽¹⁶⁾ It is important to recognise this: No single method is fundamental to language, but any one may be foundational, as the use of myth is in this particular field.

Outside this field, the myth (or whatever method of instituting language has been used) may be recognised as just that -- a fiction or a fancy. For example, Rousseau is ambivalent concerning the historical truth of his myth, and in his second chapter "The First Societies" he adduces no historical instances, concluding at least partly with his tongue in his cheek:

"I have said nothing of King Adam, or Emperor Noah, father of the three monarchs who shared out the universe,like the children of Saturn....I trust to getting due thanks for my moderation; for, being a direct descendant of one of these princes, perhaps of the eldest branch, how do I know that a verification of titles might not leave me the legitimate king of the human race?"

In A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, however, he is more direct and adopts a serious tone, as befits an academic discourse "on a subject proposed by the University of Dijon":

"Let us begin, then, by laying all facts aside, as they do not affect the question. The investigations we may enter into, in treating this subject, must not be considered as historical truths, but only as mere conditional and hypothetical reasonings, rather calculated to explain the nature of things, than to ascertain their actual origin; just like the hypotheses which our physicists daily form respecting the formation of the world."⁽¹⁷⁾

What has been said about the notion of the social contract and related institutions, holds good, for example, for political institutions in the same way. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are obviously similar to the social contract (though derived not from Rousseau, but from L'Esprit des Lois of Montesquieu). The whole tone of these documents is that of eternal truths, which are held to be self-evident. That is their charm, and their power. Nobody reading them will find them less forceful for not being based on historical truth, though a pragmatist,while respecting such idealism, might question the universal application of it.⁽¹⁸⁾

An institution might have been established for a particular purpose at a particular time, but still not be treated historically. We may be well aware of the date and purpose of the founding of a university, but not judge that relevant to its function in the present, and in our own life. It is characteristic of institutions that, although they appear as historically established entities, persisting through time and place, we are overwhelmingly concerned with their present significance. Even a

historical study, insofar as it is not mere antiquarianism, is a comparison of significances in several presents, in order to enrich our contemporary understanding.

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(d) Summary.

(i) A great deal has been made of style, literary (and linguistic) presentation, myth, narrative and other fictions in the above argument. All these fictions are procedures for instituting use, and hence significance. Where the institution is one of language, the word normally used is meaning. These instances of institution are analogues for the institution of meaning.

These fictions are not the foundations of language in general, but are instituted by their creators as foundational to the particular field of discourse in which the use of key terms is embedded.

(ii) The procedure of institution may not be reflected on by everybody. The majority may prefer its fictions, and may resent those who look behind them, for this looking is taken to imply doubt. This is a profound error, for philosophy does not change anything, it leaves everything as it is. The meaning of these fictions is constituted in their use, without which the field of discourse would collapse unsubstantially, like a pack of cards.

(iii) Perhaps the use of "Institution" which has been made in these pages goes a long way beyond what Wittgenstein intended. Be that as it may, (and many of the examples adduced do not come from the Investigations) it remains a fair procedure to investigate what has been shown so vividly by Wittgenstein's insights. That is, what we notice from reading the Investigations is not so much what Wittgenstein says as what he shows. And what he shows now lies open before us -- to investigate in our turn.

Here it is crucial to emphasise: The notion of "Institution" is not being used as a figure of speech, or as an analogy; rather it should be considered as an analogue.

(iv) An analogue is to be understood as: The same process, but operating in a different medium (technically, one wave may be said to be the analogue of another if it is mathematically identical but proceeding through a different medium)

That is, "Institution" is the name of a process which is identified by a particular type of reflection on some very significant areas of our experience. Myth and style as methods of presenting the significance of phenomena (even if the phenomena do not, or did not, exist in fact) are instances of such a process. The process remains the same, whatever the medium in which it proceeds.⁽¹⁹⁾

It is tempting, and possibly helpful, to say that the same process of institution lies behind the manifestation of it in each different medium. This formulation may help us if we can give an account of the two unanalyzed concepts which it contains: "the same" and "lies behind".

It is less tempting, because more obscure, to put this in Wittgenstein's own terms: Analogues share the same grammar.

(v) The institution of language itself is perhaps the most important of these instances, being central to our life as human beings, and to this we now turn.

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III. Philosophical Grammar.

"Essence is expressed by grammar."

"Grammar tells what kind of object anything is."

Philosophical Investigations, §§371 & 373.

The misunderstanding at the outset should now be clear.We have not been so much examining the grammar of the word "Institution", as we have been concerned with the essential nature - the philosophical grammar - of Institution (all institutions).⁽²⁰⁾

It is obvious that these two concerns relate together, but it is still not obvious how they do so. The notion of philosophical grammar, which was being explored in the discussion of the extended examples in the previous section, can now be brought out generally, so as to be more obvious to us.

"The problems arising through a misinterpretation of our forms of language have the character of depth. They are deep disquietudes; their roots are as deep in us as the forms of our language and their significance is as great as the importance of our language. ... Let us ask ourselves: why do we feel a grammatical joke to be so deep? (And that is what the depth of philosophy is.)"⁽²¹⁾

(a) Facing the Problem.

The essential nature of a thing is a matter of philosophical, not linguistic, grammar; though the two may, contingently, coincide.

But the idea remains problematic. Surely, grammar can only be the grammar of a language. This is its essence, indeed, its grammar ! But we are not maintaining that Philosophy is a language like those others in our list. If it were, what could the distinction be, between philosophical and linguistic grammar?

A first reaction to this problem might be to avoid the word "grammar" in this context, on the ground that it is misleading. For we wish to avoid the implication that Philosophy is a language like English or Czech, only ideal and fundamental -- as it were, truly philosophical.

Unfortunately, by avoiding the word "grammar" we avoid the problem which interests us.⁽²²⁾

So we might choose to say that philosophical grammar is part of linguistic grammar - that part which philosophers are interested in, but which belongs to the language as a whole, and does not belong peculiarly to philosophy. This avoids the problem of the priority between two separate languages, but leaves us wondering whether the distinction is significant, if the basis for the two types of grammar is the same.

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This question can be answered by reminding ourselves of Wittgenstein's appeal to active life over passive experience. There may well be a significant part of language which is consistent with the Augustinian account, which is essentially of language as a map of the passive experiences of things, which are taken to be physical objects.But, as most of us have come to accept without further argument, that is a seriously incomplete account.

In the first place, there are many instances of language use which depend largely or even entirely on human concepts and agency, such as the examples already discussed. Whatever the part which convention originally played in the choosing of one phoneme rather than another to stand for freedom, that is irrelevant to Rousseau's discussion of what freedom is. Even if the choosing of that phoneme were not lost in the mists of historical time, the conventional act (arbitrary choice) is as irrelevant as the mythical contract of transforming that freedom under the social contract. In such cases, what we call a thing (once we have agreed on the phoneme or whatever we, or someone, or no-one did, if anything) is crucial, logically crucial, to what it is. In this sense, language is continuously, timelessly, creative. That is its essence.

(b) Conventionalism.

But could there be other, logically more primitive cases, in which what something is called may be conventional, or even arbitrary? Are we still stuck with two separate notions of language? What of straightforward empirical cases, such as Natural Kinds, in which what they are called is applied to them, conventionally, like a label?

In the early sections of the Investigations, Wittgenstein seems to be accepting such conventionalism, at least as a partial account:

"§15.--It will often prove useful in philosophy to say to ourselves: naming something is like attaching a label to a thing.

§26.--Naming is something like attaching a label to a thing. One can say that this is preparatory to the use of a word. But what is it a preparation for?

§43. For a large class of cases--though not for all--in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.

And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer."

But he undermines any labelling theory of meaning in the following paragraphs (§§44-47) during which he shows how there are no "simples" to which such labels could be applied.⁽²³⁾ For it is part of the grammar of the word "simple" that it means "not composite". To put it differently: That is part of the language game which is its original home.⁽²⁴⁾ Similarly, the question "But what are the simple constituent parts of which reality is composed?" (§47) is rhetorical, in a peculiarly Wittgensteinian

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way. Philosophers, like most other people, have tended to assume, as a matter of common sense, the position that things can be analyzed into smaller parts, until indivisible atoms are reached, and that this is the foundation of reality. But if we so much as question this position, so as to focus on what lies open before us, we can see at once that the question is meaningless, since the position provides no possible criteria for giving an answer. Again, there is something wrong with the grammar here!

The quotations above are unusually full of qualifications, as though Wittgenstein were feeling his way from one view of language to another. We know that this was not so, as a matter of historical fact, so perhaps he is guiding the reader from persistent and accepted assumptions⁽²⁵⁾ towards a view of language as it is which is more difficult to grasp.⁽²⁶⁾

The accepted account has been referred to above as partial. The grammar of the word "partial" itself is interesting, because it allows Wittgenstein to make use of an ambiguity here. Is the accepted account adequate, but only over a part of language, or is it only a partly adequate account (over the whole of language or maybe over just a part of it)? It seems that in the passage being examined, Wittgenstein is taking the reader along with him by replacing the first interpretation by the second. Certainly, such a view is required by the present argument concerning the nature of language: It is important to avoid the notion of two or more different languages e.g.the linguistic and the philosophical.

Indeed, there are two reasons which suggest that the accepted view is only partially adequate, even over that part of language over which it seemed to work. In the first place, where in the world are we to find "simples" to which we can fix a logically proper label? Secondly, we can and do discuss reality without making so much as a gesture towards analysis into simples. In fact, our activity in so many cases is exactly the opposite; it involves synthesis. Rousseau's creative discourse instituting the use of terms such as freedom and the social contract is a case in point. And can we justifiably claim that such cases are merely peripheral? Surely, they are a tremendously important part of human activity, even if the majority of the human race is not so philosophically inclined as to engage in creative language, preferring to take it for granted and accept it as it is.

IV. Creative Need.

§107. "The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement). The conflict becomes intolerable; the requirement is now in danger of becoming empty.-- We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!

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§108. "But what becomes of logic now? Its rigour seems to be giving way here.-- But in that case does not logic altogether disappear? -- For how can it lose its rigour? Of course not by our bargaining any of its rigour out of it.-- The preconceived idea of crystalline purity can only be removed by turning out whole examination round. (One might say: the axis of reference of our examination must be rotated, but about the fixed point of our real need.)"

Philosophical Investigations §108.

(a) Creativity and Description.

"Necessity is the mother of Invention". Frequently we find in our life: We need to create some particular way of talking, even though it is not ready to hand in the conventional syntax. Indeed, that is precisely why we have to create it for ourselves.

Probably all of language was originally the creative response to this need. Which is to say (put into the logical present) that we should look on this creative response to need as the basis for language.

We do not have to confirm the "probably" of the above paragraph, since, like Rousseau, we are not concerned with historical facts. Whether the account of language's origin is (or should we say "was"?⁽²⁷⁾) true as a historical fact, it is a true description of the origin of language as, and how, it is. It is true in the same way as the description of the origin of a graph, it is true timelessly.

"It was true that our considerations could not be scientific ones ... And we may not advance any kind of theory. There must not be anything hypothetical in our considerations. We must do away with all explanation, and description alone must take its place. And this description gets its light, that is to say its purpose, from the philosophical problems. These are, of course, not empirical problems; they are solved rather, by looking into the workings of our language, and that in such a way as to make us recognise those workings: in despite of an urge to misunderstand them ..."⁽²⁸⁾

Language is a practice; that is, it occurs within the world. But we create by using it in response to our need, which need is our experience of the world. Therefore, our language is a detachment from the world, a judgement which we pass on it.⁽²⁹⁾

It is as though we were at once both swimmers in the current yet also observers on the bank of the river of time.
 
 

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(b) The Creativity of Using Language.

At the end of §3 it was admitted that most language users are not reflective on the practice of language use. It is not given to most of us to realise, with M. Jourdain, the true extent of our accomplishment. It is true, and important here, that Moli?re was satirising his Bourgeois Gentilhomme, for boasting of his cleverness of having spoken prose for years without knowing it. M.Jourdain was no more aware as a man for having had this revelation, for in point of fact he revealed his total unawareness of the point of language. So self-absorbed was he in his own fancied powers that (like the majority of speakers, to whom he so ridiculously felt himself to be superior) he was still taking language for granted.

"The majority of speakers take language for granted."

But what is being taken for granted here? What thing is being accepted?

That thing which is taken for granted and accepted must have some prior existence, and there is only one such thing which can answer the What? question here: That thing is language itself.⁽³⁰⁾ And language owes its existence to being created.

That is, even if most of the human race do not participate in any individual acts of creation, they all use the created artifact - the Institution of Language.

But it will not do to talk of language as something that can be found, picked up and made use of, like a collection of tools⁽³¹⁾, or as it were an object given to us by nature. This is not what we mean by use. Using language at all involves the user in creative activity, whether or not that user ever engaged in the creative act of establishing the institution of a word for the first time. For using the word at all contributes to establishing the institution of its use!

How could it be otherwise?

(c) Creation out of Time.

Creation does not itself exist in time⁽³²⁾. It is conceptually separate from the collection of individual acts of creation. The later take place in space and time, and may be a matter of an individual's psychology, but this is not what concerns us here.

Therefore, "The moment of creation" is something of an oxymoron, and is a most misleading phrase if taken literally. For example, one of the most dramatic moments in all music⁽³³⁾ (an art that proceeds in time) must be the trombone entry which announces the Last Judgement (an event that sums up the whole of time into one moment) in the Missa Solemnis of Beethoven. The sounding of one note, by one instrument, at one instant in any performance⁽³⁴⁾, expressing the whole of time, surely that is a "creative moment"?

But this is an extreme case, more extreme than philosophy will afford, which vividly shows us exactly the opposite state of affairs. Far from existing in time, the art of music uses time as one of its parameters, along with timbre, volume, weight, harmony, expressiveness and so on. The contrast

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between our experience of music (which takes place in time, just as our experience of anything else), and of the timelessness of what we experience, is precisely what awes us, as our closest approach to experiencing eternity.⁽³⁵⁾

To summarise: We distinguish between

(i) our experiencing in time,

and

(ii) that which we experience, which is not contained in that time frame.

This distinction shows that creative use is far from peripheral to language, it is central to its working.

V. Language not only a Phenomenon -- Two Senses of "Actual".

The discussion of Philosophical Grammar suggests a further point which needs further elaboration: The essential intensionality of language, which distinguishes it from phenomena in the world.

(a) Language is not purely a phenomenon, i.e. an event in the World. An actual language (studied by the philologist) might be a phenomenon in this sense. Such languages (those which are structured by linguistic grammar) exist in space and time. They actually occur, or have done so in the past. They have a history.

Language in the timeless sense, structured by philosophical grammar, constitutes what we are calling linguistic theory. This theory is our actual use. It is not constituted by a collection of actual cases which have occurred in historical time, but these cases are instances of it.

Wittgenstein, from the Tractatus onwards, insisted that language is not a phenomenon (in the scientific sense). Yet, in Philosophical Investigations §108, he seems to be insisting just as strongly on the opposite:

"We are talking about the spatial and temporal phenomenon of language, not about some non-spatial, non-temporal phantasm.

[Note in margin: Only it is possible to be interested in a phenomenon in a variety of ways]. But we talk about it as we do about the pieces in chess when we are stating the rules of the game, not describing their physical properties."

Here, Wittgenstein is making a further important point which stands beside, and illuminates, but does not contradict, the one put forward in the present argument. Language (insofar as it is worth talking about) is actual, in that we actually use it. For him (and for us) there is simply no other language to talk about. Nor do we possess another language in which we can talk about our own language. We are not talking about some ideal, perfectly logical language, nor about any other abstraction lying behind our practice of using language. We are talking about our practice itself.

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But a practice is not a phenomenon, however actual it may be. It's individual instances are indeed casual events, but practice is more than a collection of individual cases. Such cases would lack meaning if they took place in total isolation from each other. This Institution, the practice of language, is of its essence meaningful -- that is its point. It is not casual. It is not a phenomenon in the spatio/temporal world. It is not "that kind of object".

(b) Language extends beyond the scope of casual utterances by an individual. The very notion of linguistic practice itself suggests this. Consider this example:

"Is what we call 'obeying a rule' something that it would be possible for only one man to do, and to do only once in his life? -- This is of course a note on the grammar of the expression `to obey a rule'.

It is not possible that there should have been only one occasion on which a report was made, an order given or understood; and so on. -- To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (uses, institutions).

To understand a sentence means to understand a language. To understand a language means to be master of a technique."⁽³⁶⁾

Perhaps there is a sense in which an individual might obey a rule only once. That would be an individual case, which would not amount to being a rule. But the person might be obeying a general rule of some kind -- only, the rule would not be his rule. Nevertheless, a rule it would still be, if there existed a practice of which it formed part. We would only be able to say that it was not part of this person's practice if, on relevant occasions, he disobeyed the rule. Even so, we would have to be sure that his disobedience was the result of ignorance or misunderstanding. If it was the result of deviant use, even of his own, we would accept the possibility of creativity, possibly in a restricted context. This possibility is examined very deeply by Davidson in A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs.⁽³⁷⁾

(c) This qualification cannot be made of Wittgenstein's other examples, where he is talking about institutions, in the same way as in this paper, as part of theory, not as cases of individual speaker's utterance. These are not cases which concern Davidson, who is very much concerned with speaker's meaning. As Hacking points out in reply to A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs,⁽³⁸⁾ Davidson is a duettist: he is concerned with conversations between two individuals. Dummett, in his comments on Davidson and Hacking, points out that, since Davidson's hearer never talks back, it is rather a monologue than a conversation, and that Davidson runs at least the risk of solipsism.

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The answer to such solipsism is use of language, as described in this section. This is not a theory of a particular speaker's utterance, for this would tie it down to space and time. Language is beyond the individual speaker who uses it, or contributes to it (for otherwise, what is being used, and what is being contributed to?). In this sense, language is not a "phantasm", but is indeed a phenomenon.

On this, Dummett, in his reply to Davidson, is in full agreement with Wittgenstein:

"We must distinguish between three things: a language; a theory of meaning for that language; and a second order theory. A language is an existing pattern of communicative speech: it is not a theory, but a phenomenon."⁽³⁹⁾

(d) To investigate the differences between Davidson and Dummett over the nature of language would take us far away from the present argument. There are so many points of detail to be discussed, not only in the Truth and Interpretation volume, but also in more recent work, that it is only possible to develop the one theory, of Language as an Institution, and note certain of the more obvious points of contact, and of difference, with a view to further work. If the ideas being developed here contribute to the wider discussion, then that will be satisfaction enough for the moment.⁽⁴⁰⁾

VI. The Logical Present.

Since language does not exist in Space and Time, we use appropriate means of talking about it. Language is an Institution. It is instituted timelessly and spacelessly, in the logical present.

The philologist attempts to trace the when and the where and the how of language's historical origins. On the other hand, the philosopher does not investigate the historical basis of language, but is concerned with its logical basis. This is expressed in the logical present.

This question which the philosopher asks might be called: The question why? But, if the question be put like this, it is essential to distinguish between reasons and causes. The logical concern is with reasons, the historical concern was with causes.⁽⁴¹⁾

We might speak of the universality of language, or some such phrase, but it is more illuminating to make the distinction between the logical (as it were, universal) and the casual (pertaining to particular cases). This is important in philosophy, which is almost entirely transacted in the logical present.

English, in common with most languages, possesses no specific grammatical form for this tense and mood, but can express it as a result of our philosophical need: e.g. "X follows from Y", "X equals Y", "X is consistent with Y", "X is constitutive of Y".⁽⁴²⁾

It is interesting to notice that Italian, while being well provided with tenses, most frequently uses the present in everyday speech. The intended tense is made clear by the sense (and remember with what

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eloquence of gesture Italians speak). They need the future as much as anybody else, but prefer to create it in their own way. This is the opposite tendency to that of philosophers who reflect their thoughts by inventing a linguistic grammar, as we saw above in the English use of the Logical Present.

The Logical past & future are more rare than the present, but can be used in order to express what is logically prior, and what logically follows. All this is in accordance with ordinary grammatical usage, but extended in accordance with philosophical need, as we see in these following quotations from the Investigations:

§384: "You learned the concept 'pain' when you learned language."

and, strangely, in a footnote to p.53. Here he is becoming concerned with the notions of understanding and knowledge, not as psychological phenomena, but as philosophical terms, and uses the appropriate tense:

"Must I know whether I understand a word? Don't I also sometimes imagine myself to understand a word ... and then realise that I did not understand it? ("I thought I knew what 'relative' and 'absolute' motion meant, but I see that I don't know.")"

VII. What is Theory?

(a) Logic and Facts in Physics.

Physics aims to replace accounts of individual cases by logical accounts. Mathematics is the strongest tool here.

e.g. Galileo generalises from "In each case I have fired a cannon, the ball has described a particular path" to "A cannon ball in flight describes a parabola". Every word in the first sentence is particular, and is replaced by a logical, or mathematical, word in the second. This is the generation of physical theory.

Physical Theory is distinct from a Theory of Physics, which, if there were such a thing, would be a second order theory, or meta-language, of Physics. That is: Physical Theory, in the sense introduced here, is not about Physics -- it is Physics. For Physics itself is a language, the language in which we discuss the physical world, either as physicists or as what Quine calls "lay physicists".⁽⁴³⁾
 
 

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(b) Meta-Language.

The purpose of a Meta-language is to help us dodge some of the worst consequences of the weaknesses in our understanding of the object language. Some of these weaknesses are excusable enough. A child frequently needs to be told about a concept as a preliminary stage in learning to understand it.⁽⁴⁴⁾ The Theory of a new subject helps us find our way around that subject.⁽⁴⁵⁾

As we attain mastery of the technique of our language, the need for meta-language disappears.

Then we can throw away the grammar book, and begin to use language actively.

(c) The Practice of Theory (Theoretical Activity).

Theory, in our sense, is not a meta-language. Theory of language is the practice of language itself.

(i) One of the most important uses which we have for this practice, is to conceive theory (as in the case of Science referred to above). That is, we are enabled (or rather, we enable ourselves) to talk in theoretical terms, which are terms not defined purely by reference to a discrete physical object (realism) nor to our ideas of such objects (idealism).

(ii) Practice is theory in action. Practice expresses theory - we use the same words for both. Without active theory, language would be dead -- an extensional set of objects which are not used.

(iii) Therefore, it does not follow from the fact that language is theoretical in this sense that language use (which includes understanding another's utterance) involves theory in any other sense. Most simply, the act of using language does not involve a separable act of assenting to the way in which language should be used, even on this one occasion. Even if we use language (as we do) on a multitude of occasions, no act of theorising is involved as to how we should use language.

Such an act is indeed contingently possible, but that must not mislead us to believe that it is a necessary part of using language

(iv) There is indeed a normative aspect to language use, and a very strong one, but it is not expressed by the word "should", nor by any other which derives its force from a separable theory or meta-language. The normative force derives from our committing our communication to language used in that one particular way (and in coherent ways in future, even if these are not specifiable in advance). That is, our theory is expressed simply by being committed to practice.

The normative use is expressed by the word "would", which has the force of being consistent with our normal practice.
 
 

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(d) Ontology and Science.

We have argued above against the idea that the physical world can act as the given for language. This point can be made more forceful by considering how scientific language (the language of physical theory) is an equal part, not foundational, of our language as a whole. The point of taking Quine's example of rabbits is not that this is an argument against Quine, but that, if Quine had considered language like we are here, the problems over gavagais would not have arisen.

(i) If we point out a rabbit, we are not involving ourselves in theoretical considerations⁽⁴⁶⁾ about the language we are using in practice. It is true that, in this case, we are making certain ontological claims about rabbits,⁽⁴⁷⁾ but only as part of the grammar of the word "rabbit" -- a word which is part of our practice.⁽⁴⁸⁾ There is no other claim being made beyond that, unless we are also doing some kind of theoretical metaphysics (which we may indeed be doing on some occasions, but which, on the whole, we are not engaged in⁽⁴⁹⁾).

We may be interested in making distinctions between "undetached rabbit part" and "time-slice of rabbit experience" and so forth, and we may do a bit of conscious theorising to introduce these distinctions to our language. But, at the time of their introduction, these are essentially unusual distinctions i.e. distinctions outside the practice of our language use. We do not need to theorise⁽⁵⁰⁾. We might just set about using language in this way in order to talk clearly about undetached rabbit parts, time-slices of rabbit experience etc., thus establishing new distinctions in our practice. This is the way in which we respond to our need.

We can see that we have added these distinctions to our language, for we can drop the inverted commas, as, in the last paragraph, we actually managed to do, without ambiguity.

(ii) The rabbit slice example is admittedly artificial,⁽⁵¹⁾ but we could easily find a more realistic one -- that is, one that revealed more of our actual practice.

Suppose that one got to know somebody, as a friend, for say six months, then did not see her for a few years. At the end of that time, the acquaintance is renewed, but there is an uneasiness. The friend has changed, yet original memories, as is usual, have remained fresh. Which version of the person, or rather, which person (since persons are integral and do not have versions like do narratives) do we respond to? It would be strange, but strangely necessary, to create the idea that the previous acquaintance was only a time slice of that person, and, although framed within a definite period of six months, is not to be considered as an integral image.

In fact, such situations do not occur regularly enough to warrant a special word or phrase. However, if they were to occur, it is to be hoped that a more elegant (or at least, less objectionably crude) term might be invented.

(iii) This has nothing to do with Ontology, for Ontology is, itself, a particular language game, or rather a collection of such games. Therefore, to discuss it is to engage in an activity already within our practice. Ontology does not determine our practice, except in special cases such as Physics,

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and some parts of Common Sense; and even in such cases, it only does so because we are considering objects, "things that are". Quine⁽⁵²⁾ is right about these special cases, but not in the general conclusions which he draws from them.⁽⁵³⁾

(e) Community and Usage.

Of course the linguistic community determines linguistic usage, but only in a trivial sense of "determines". The linguistic community is as much determined by its linguistic usage as the other way round. What we have here is not any kind of causal relationship, but another example of that timeless, logical, relationship which has been the study of this chapter. That is, we are not describing a social theory of language, in which social organisation determines language. The social organisation which we are discussing consists in linguistic practices, which is the same as to say that the practical bases of language are, by their nature, social practices.

This point may be further brought out by a quotation from Avrum Stroll:

"It is the community that supports both the total set of practices, and pari passu, this or that particular practice. The relationship in this case is presuppositional; the community makes that set of practices possible. If it didn't exist they wouldn't either. On the other hand, there is an important logical relationship in the opposite direction. These practices are essential to the existence of the community: we can think of them as necessary conditions. Everything we call a human community must have such practices. We would find it incomprehensible if something were defined as a human community that lacked such practices as inquiring, asserting, judging, doubting.

"So if they were eliminated or were absent, the community as we know it would disappear. It would be like removing the king and queen and calling the resulting game chess."⁽⁵⁴⁾

Stroll's argument can be sharpened:

(i) The practices of "inquiring, asserting," etc. are characteristics of the community which Stroll has been discussing. Other communities may lack these characteristics, but possess other ones which are equally essential. Ipso facto, they would be other communities.

(ii) The chess image, surely, would be more accurate if we were in the middle of a game of chess and suddenly the squares disappeared. The pieces would be the same, the moves would be the same, in our heads (i.e. intentionally) at any rate. But, without the squares, we would be unable to make these moves. Imagine the frustration -- like knowing what you want to say but being tongue-tied! Our intentions would be the same (or even more insistent), but the intension of the game would have disappeared along with the squares. Whether we would still be attempting to play chess in these circumstances is debatable, for, in an important sense, the game would have ceased to exist except in our heads. We could remember, of course, and do our best, but what if the squares

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had never existed? Or, which comes to the same thing, what if a new rule, that we were to play the game without squares, were forced upon us? The game of chess, as we remembered it, would have become unplayable -- even, we might say, unthinkable.⁽⁵⁵⁾

(iii) The phrase "the community as we know it" is unclear; better to say: "This particular community characterised by (informed by) these particular practices would disappear."

But it would disappear, not into the ground, or the sea, but into a puff of logic. It just would be a different community. Whether it would be a community at all is a sociological question with which we are not, as philosophers, concerned. The community which we are discussing is a linguistic, not a sociological, entity.

The aim of sharpening these arguments is to bring out two points. In the first place, these changes are not contingent - they cannot be got round. They are logical and therefore timeless; which is why remembering makes no relevant difference in (ii). Secondly, the essence of the game, or the community, or language itself, lies in its intensionality. If that changes, the game changes. We might play a modified form of chess, without the king and queen. Perhaps someone would come along and say "That is not chess", or, more likely, aware of the anti-realist situation we were in, "You can't call that chess", and we disagreed, calling him a pedant, maintaining that we were having great fun etc. Even so, there is always a point, depending on the part the game was playing in our life, at which we will no longer call it chess. For example, we might still call it chess if we were passing the time, or experimenting, but definitely not if we were playing in a tournament. The point here is, that although lines might be drawn in many different places, and, even, we might refrain from drawing a line at all, once drawn, the line has a logical force.⁽⁵⁶⁾ This is why we must be careful about making distinctions unless they fulfil a genuine need.

And this is why we talk of theory here. We can act and engage in our practice without consulting theory prior to acting. But we need to consider theory when questions arise in our life.

(f) Language not based on the Intention of its Creators.

It follows from this, that individual, or collective, intention is not the basis of language.

"An intention is embedded in its situation, in human customs and institutions."

Investigations, §337 (also §498).

Whatever the history of the emergence of language (or of particular languages), whatever purposes, or intentions, the original user had (or has) in mind for his creation, it is the intensionality of language itself upon which all else logically rests. It is not personal.

It has already been argued above that creation is a timeless concept, thus the intentions which the original user had are not carried through into the creation itself. What does remain in the creation, however, is its own intensionality, which is also timeless.

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We can make a historical narrative out of it, as Rousseau did in The Social Contract. We can dream about the original instituter of language, who had (let us say) noble intentions in mind when planning his new language, and also when actually creating it, and when he saw "what he had done, and that it was good".

Even when, naively, we try to tell creation as a story, as here, it is the eternal moment that shines through -- hence that parenthetical reference above to the creation story in Genesis.

NOTES

1. The viewer and viewed correspond to the traditional "subject" and "object" respectively, with the crucial difference that, in the present formulation, they must be seen as essentially parts of the process of viewing.

2. Philosophical Investigation, $128

3. On Certainty (§558).

4. The question "What is Wittgenstein doing?" was asked very suggestively, and entertainingly, by O.K.Bouwsma in his paper A Difference Between Ryle and Wittgenstein, published, with Ryle's reply, in Rice University Studies 58, no. 3 (Summer 1972). Many of the thoughts set down here owe their origin to that paper.

5. Typically, this view of life is shown, not explained, in the opening sections of the Investigations. Without a thesis, even a theoretical remark or so much as a word of explanation, the reader is plunged immediately in medias res, to experience for himself the confusions attending the attempt to consider language as an object - i.e. As logically separate from the subject which uses it. This can be seen as a stylistic device by which the author challenges the reader in order to gain his attention at the outset. Wittgenstein frequently uses such stylistic devices in order to show the reader what cannot be said, as is the case here. The challenge (which is natural under the circumstances) is also part of what he is trying to get across -- he is trying to get the reader to catch his breath, and look.

If he requires a literary device to achieve this effect, since the smooth deployment of arguments would produce the wrong effect, then what else should he do? He is, after all, a creative writer, and it is natural enough that he often makes his points (and often his most profound points) by stylistic devices. A careful reading of the Preface to the Investigations shows us just how much importance he attached to this aspect of his work -- the aspect which faces the reader.

6. The common sense answer to this question has been given most clearly, and thoroughly, by Quine: On What There Is.

7. The analogy between language and money which is introduced in the Investigations might well be developed. The whole matter of language might be illustrated by parallels with economics. Certainly, the common use, which is innocent of philosophy, of words such as "coin" and "currency", to say nothing of concepts such as "debasement" and "inflation" suggests that there is more than an

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analogy here. Rather, language and money are analogues -- they share the same grammar (For this see below, §2 (d) _(iv)).

Certainly both money and language can be called institutions. Indeed, that is what they are.

8. In A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs, (published in Truth and Interpretation, E.Lepore ed., Blackwell 1986. pp.443-446), Davidson considers various forms of malapropism as "deviant" use, reaching the conclusion that, whatever kind of use, however deviant, all that matters for meaning to be communicated is that speaker and interpreter share an occasional theory concerning that particular speech transaction. Dummett, in his criticism in the same volume (p.463), suggests that, although Davidson claims to be examining deviant cases of a language that we already possess, in fact he is tackling the much more ambitious question of standard versus non-standard use in our first language (what in the present paper is being called simply: "language".

To be fair, Davidson still denies this, and he should know. But in a way, Dummett's point still stands: the issue of deviant, or non-standard use raises questions about the nature of language, not just about occasional utterances within it. That is: What is it, that occasional utterances are utterances within ? The dispute between the two philosophers is essentially that Dummett feels this question keenly, while Davidson does not.

This is precisely the issue raised here. There is no such use as "deviant" use. Either it works in the language, thus extending it, in which case we will call it "creative use", or it does not work in the language, and it is therefore not use at all.

True, this is a resolution to employ the term in a particular way, so that we will have to say that the language is weakened, or degenerates, rather than talk about "weak" or "degenerate" uses. but this fits well with the relationship between use, institution and language which is being worked out here. Furthermore, this resolution is very much called for, since the word "use" is being made to work very hard.

9. The original Latin verbal noun, from which English words ending in "-tion" are derived, has exactly the same force. The verbal noun is a form of the past participle, which is always passive, implying a present object, the result of an activity which is in the past, and not the subject of a present activity. The present participle is active, but a completely distinct form.

10. That is to say: The grammar of Latin, German, Czech, English or any other language -- we will say "linguistic" for brevity.

11. Barry Stroud on Conventionalism and Translation in Words & Objections, edd. Davidson & Hintikka; Riedel, Dordrecht 1969, p.88.

12. The Social Contract, end of Chapter 5, "That we must always go back to a First Convention". The italics are mine. It is interesting that Rousseau's ambition was to write a comprehensive treatise to be entitled Political Institutions. His existing works are derived from drafts prepared for this.

All quotations are taken from the translation by G.D.H.Cole, Š J.M.Dent & Sons, 1973.

13. This sentence is itself an example of such a timeless generalisation. We might have said: "As a propagandist, Rousseau aimed to be understood". This would then have been an instance of the generalisation.

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But it is only such an instance by sharing the concept of propagandist. That concept is, within this field of discourse, both timeless and spaceless too. It refers to any propagandist at any time or place, existing, as concepts do, in the logical present.

(It is to be expected, since we are examining how language works, that we will find examples everywhere, even, as here, in anticipation of the development of our main argument!)

14. Cf. Investigations, §§337 & 380, quoted at the head of this paper.

15. Cf. Preface to the Investigations.

16. A parallel case is Wittgenstein's discussion of primitive language in the opening sections of the Investigations. Surely, nobody has ever considered it relevant whether any human beings have talked like his builders -- it is inconceivable that they would not have stumbled, even by accident, on some other communication (Wittgenstein is aware of this: his builders might be finding out about jokes, for example, as in §42.)

Similarly, Augustine's account of language learning is at least as good as any that Wittgenstein has to offer (Wittgenstein is not all that good at talking to and about children. Perhaps he did not have much experience). But Wittgenstein was not hazarding theories in Developmental Psychology, he was trying to sketch out a philosophical basis of language which would be adequate for all its forms, not only for robotic builders and idealised children.

17. Op. Cit., pp.50-51.

18. Physical universality was not intended by the founding fathers, nor, in all probability, conceived of. Notoriously, slaves and women were excluded from this equality, as were the inhabitants of unhappier (and older) countries. But the theory, having been instituted, could, and has been, extended.

19. The notion of language game is another such analogue, as is the notion of foundation as used in On Certainty. Family resemblance, on the other hand, along with the tool chest and the idling machine, is an analogy. Analogies, unlike analogues, run out after a certain point, because they are different kinds of thing (do not share the same grammar).

20. Notice that we have dropped the quotation marks. We are now concerned with what an institution, any institution, is, not with what it is called.

21. Investigations §111.

22. This would mean the same: We would avoid the problem by avoiding talking about grammar.

23. Apart form indexicals (§45); but indexicals are definitely not labels in the required sense, a point which will be very relevant to the discussion of speaker-determined meaning below.

24. Wittgenstein has not introduced these key terms (game, home, grammar) at this stage in his Investigations, though they have appeared regularly from the Philosophical Remarks onwards. They are introduced here because they both fit in with and illuminate his argument It is irrelevant whether their suppression at this early stage was a conscious device on Wittgenstein's part, so that their introduction later would be the more welcome and intellectually satisfying. Whether they were

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part of his intentions or not, they are already part of the intension of his argument. Here, Wittgenstein's style of presentation more than hints at an important distinction (to be discussed below).

25. These assumptions are not only those of Augustine, but also those of Russell and of Wittgenstein himself in the Tractatus (Cf. Investigations §46); They constitute what we will call the accepted view of language, and cluster round the assumed necessity of finding an object to which a word refers if it is to possess meaning.

26. After all, this is the method which Wittgenstein himself maintained he was adopting! The importance of his method, particularly the way in which it contrasts the superior charm of a theory to the discomfort of seeing things as they are, requires separate study.

27. Truth, as a logical concept, is timeless, thus its use produces paradoxes about tenses occasionally.

28. Investigations, §109. Notice how the first sentence is in the logical past tense, turning into the logical present with the recognition that all these considerations are indeed, theoretical.

29. Cf. Investigations, §242:

"If language is to be a means of communication there must be an agreement not only in definition but also (queer as this may sound) in judgements. This seems to abolish logic, but does not do so."

30. Note that the terms "exist" and "thing" are being used metaphysically here; no implication of physical existence (or thingness) is intended, in any sense whatsoever. If we consider the grammar of both words carefully, can we not see that they have no application to physical questions?

Even to attempt an answer to this question will involve us deeply in a central (perhaps the central) topic of philosophical logic since Russell's Theory of Descriptions (1903), and cannot be undertaken here.

31. Wittgenstein's very illuminating analogy breaks down before it takes us as far as this.

32. Again, the word "exist" is being used metaphysically here. In this case, it is merely a question of syntactical clarity, which need not lead to philosophical confusion if we remind ourselves that notions such as "exist in time" are metaphysical, and make no claims within a physicalist ontology.

33. Music is well known as an art that proceeds in time. The question here is: What does this amount to ? Is there not a clear distinction between music, which is eternal, and our experience of it, which is not ?

34. The distinction between the music, which does not exist in time, and the individual case of a performance of it, is a vivid example of the distinction between the logical and the casual which has been developed here.

35. It is clear that the psychological, i.e. actual, moment of inspiration is not in question here. Beethoven was the most painstaking of composers, and there still exist no less than seventeen full orchestral sketches for these two bars and the phrase that leads up to them. This makes no difference whatsoever to our awe at the spontaneous inspiration of this stroke.

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It might be said that there must have been a moment when the composer first thought of the effect he wanted to produce. It is extremely interesting that nobody had to read Wittgenstein's Lectures on Aesthetics to understand the weakness of this point.

For what effect was this? What can we say it was, except that it was (or rather, is) the effect that he eventually, after much sketching, did produce ?

But surely Beethoven heard it in some way, at some particular time, and only then decided to write it down.

But perhaps he wrote it down first, or played it on the piano, or heard a full rehearsal, or possibly never liked it anyway. There remain all kinds of historical possibilities, none of them verifiable now. How can these be identical to what we now have actually experienced ? It is rather a matter, at some time or other, of recognising the effect as the right one, even though he had never heard it, nor anything like it, before.

36. Philosophical Investigations §199.

37. In E.Lepore ed., Op. cit.

38. Ian Hacking: The Parody of Conversation, in E.Lepore ed., Op.cit., p. 458.

39. Michael Dummett: Comments on Davidson and Hacking, in E.Lepore ed., Op. Cit., p. 467.

40. Particularly in The Philosophy of Michael Dummett, edd. Brian McGuinness and Gianluigi Oliveri, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994. In his reply to Davidson on The Social Aspect of Language, Dummett makes some very strong points concerning the importance of having a notion of correctness in language in practice. Might it be that these points underlie his criticisms of Davidson over the last decade ? For example:

"All today's languages are products of the co-operative efforts of many generations, to which their speakers, of all social classes, have contributed: they are as subtle instruments of expression as they are because those speakers have cherished them. By destroying that love and respect, the doctrine that it does not matter how you express your meaning, as long as you convey it, serves to destroy the language's immune system; that is why it must be combatted. Greatly as I admire Davidson's work as a philosopher, I regret finding myself on the opposite side of this conflict."

41. Unlike "when" and "where", the question "why" overlaps both. "How" does so too, in the usage: "I don't see how this could have been so", and the more borderline: "I don't understand how it happened" -- a more than contingent disbelief is hinted at in such cases.

Belief is not relevant, except insofar as it indicates where to look for the justification of certain types of belief -- those types which are justified by being of a certain kind. This is the question which pre-occupies the pages of On Certainty. There is no space to enter that discussion here.

It is interesting, as a matter of comparative linguistic grammar, that the German "wenn" also overlaps between reasons and causes, since it does not involve a temporal reference. A consideration of this case suggests (what is implied by the whole of this argument) that, although there are many linguistic grammars, thus enabling the subject of comparative grammar to exist, there is only one

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philosophical grammar -- the grammar of the whole of our thinking, since any, and every thought, in whatever language, belongs to it.

42. Did English not possess these forms before? It possesses (indeed, it must possess) them now, because we have started to use them. Indeed it can be said that English always had that potential, that the logical present was (always has been) latent, and so on.

But this way of speaking is grammatically confused, as it shows in its hesitation over tenses and moods. This includes the use of such words as "always" and "potential", which have no place in logical grammar, since they imply a temporal reference which is excluded here.

On the other hand, the word "must" is relevant, though trivial: if a term is used, it is ipso facto part of the language (i.e. the rest of the language which we are using).

43. It is an intriguing question how far specialist language affects ordinary language in the case of Physics. This question is raised by the view of language being developed here, but is too extensive to be pursued in this context.

44. The important point is: That it is a preliminary stage. Indication of salient points, explanation of causes, detailing of uses etc. do not constitute understanding. However much help is offered, the child has to understand for itself. This is a requirement dictated by the grammar of "understand" - which is to say: The nature (or essence) of understanding. Or more simply: What understanding is.

45. Compare the idea of words as signposts Investigations §198:

"I have further indicated that a person goes by a sign-post only insofar as there exists a regular use for signposts, a custom."

46. Considerations, we should say, are always theoretical. Practical considerations are either in fact theoretical, or they are in fact our practice.

The fact that we might pause to consider our practice (for one reason or another) is no reason to confuse practice with theory. Our practice is what it is, no matter what might have gone on in our heads contingent to the establishing of it as our practice.

That is: Theory as something we carry in our heads to explain (or justify) our practice is irrelevant to language as a practice.

This is a special case of the point made in the previous section: "Theory of some language", as a separate realm of discourse from that language, is emphatically not the kind of theory required or suggested here.

47. E.g. that there are such things as rabbits, and that we are talking about such things.

48. Cf. On Certainty, §410:

"Our knowledge forms part of an enormous system. And only within this system has a particular bit the value we give it."

49. Cf. On Certainty, §467:

"I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that that's a tree', pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: 'This fellow isn't insane. We are only doing philosophy.'"

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50. Whether we might do so (if we in fact do) consciously or not is irrelevant here.

51. As Quine himself admits.

52. W.v.O.Quine, On What There Is, 1948; published in From a Logical Point of View.

53. This is an instance of science being a special case within language, not foundational to it, for ontological reasons or any other.

54. Avrum Stroll, Moore & Wittgenstein on Certainty; Oxford University Press, 1994, pp. 170-171.

55. Cf. Investigations §337: "If the technique of the game of chess did not exist, I could not intend to play a game of chess."

56. Notice that the community changes its (logical) identity when its intensionality changes. The joke of the club changing its identity whenever a new member joins is a paradox based on the confusion of the club's intension with its extension. Of course, if a Communist club admitted even one Fascist, not only its extension would change (a trivial point), but its intensionality, its whole identity, would come into question.

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