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Philosophical Investigations 28:2 April 2005 ISSN 0190-0536
From Metaphysics and Philosophical Theses to Grammar: Wittgensteins Turn

Oskari Kuusela, University of Helsinki
According to Wittgenstein, The greatest danger that threatens the mind in philosophising comes from the metaphysical tendency that takes over it and completely topples the grammatical.1 Clearly, he wishes to draw a distinction between his approach and metaphysical philosophy. But how exactly is this distinction to be understood? In Philosophical Investigations2 108 Wittgenstein talks about turning our whole examination around. These words, I suggest, characterise what constitutes a decisive methodological shift in his philosophy. This shift, Wittgensteins turn, marks a difference between his later philosophy and metaphysical philosophy, as well as explains the sense in which there are no theses, doctrines or theories in his later philosophy. The turn may also be characterised as a passage from Wittgensteins early philosophy to his later philosophy, a passage from metaphysics to philosophy as conceptual investigation or from metaphysics to grammar. A central motivation behind the turn is to avoid dogmatism in philosophy. I will begin by discussing the Tractatus 3 attempt to disengage itself from metaphysical philosophy and its relapse to metaphysics. I will then proceed, through a study of Wittgensteins later characterisations of metaphysical philosophy and his analysis of the Tractatus mistake to an examination of the notion of conceptual investigation as the description of language use. Having discussed the problem of
1. Wittgenstein, L., Ms120, p. 136v in Wittgensteins Nachlass, The Bergen Electronic Edition, Oxford University Press 2000. Henceforth references to Wittgensteins Nachlass are by manuscript/typescript number (Ms . . . or Ts . . .). In case no translation has been published the translation is mine. 2. Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations, Second Edition, Anscombe, G. E. M. and Rhees, R. (eds.), Blackwell, 1997. Henceforth PI. 3. Wittgenstein, L., Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Translated by Ogden, C. K., Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951, cf. 3.325. Henceforth TLP.
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dogmatism in connection with such descriptions, I will examine the notion of Wittgensteins turn rst at a more general level, and then specically with regard to the question of the role of rules in philosophical clarication.
1. The Concept of Metaphysics and the Metaphysical Involvements of the Tractatus What are we to understand by metaphysics or metaphysical philosophy? In this section I will discuss a particular characteristic of metaphysical philosophy and how it manifests itself in connection with the Tractatus programme for philosophy as clarication. But although I take this characteristic to be central to metaphysics, my discussion of it is not meant to constitute a denition of the concept of metaphysics that is valid for every possible case in which we classify something as an instance of metaphysical philosophy or a metaphysical thesis. I leave it open whether there would be also other grounds for characterising something as an instance of metaphysical philosophy. (My characterisation could be taken as a denition to be used as an object of comparison in a sense to be explained later.) Metaphysical philosophy can be characterised as the pursuit of knowledge or the understanding of necessary truths or principles that govern what there is or rather, what there could be. (Metaphysics is not just an inventory of empirically, contingently existing things.) Thus, metaphysical philosophy puts forward theses, doctrines or theories about the essence or nature of its objects of investigation that are intended to capture the necessary characteristics of these objects in contrast to what is accidental to them. Being necessary such characteristics, apparently, are present in all the objects that fall under the relevant concept. Hence, metaphysical theses are also general. This generality is not that of an empirical generalisation but an even greater, complete generality that is connected with the notion of necessity. (There are several possibilities where such governing principles might be sought from, for instance, the world (as in realism), the mind (as in idealism) or language.) As for the Tractatus, it might be understood as an attempt to move away from statements concerning essences (philosophical or metaphysical theses). Instead, what is necessary and essential is thought to
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come to view in the analysis of our expressions with the help of a logically perspicuous notation, a concept script, which the Tractatus seeks to introduce. Clarifying the logic of our expressions and the conceptual relations, this notation should bring to the fore what is necessary and possible, hereby also excluding any statements concerning the necessary and the possible. Thus, it would make clear the logical distinction between the elucidation of what is essential and factual statements. Any attempt to make a statement about the essential would be revealed as nonsensical by logical analysis (translation in the concept-script). (Cf. TLP 4.124.124, 6.54) The motivation for Wittgensteins attempt to clarify the distinction between the factual (contingent) and the essential seems evident. He is of the opinion that there is a pervasive unclarity about this distinction in philosophy. Or as he says, the purpose is to dissolve the confusion, very widely spread among philosophers, between internal relations and (proper) external relations (TLP 4.122). (In a letter to Russell in 1919 Wittgenstein characterises the distinction between factual statements (what a proposition says) and the elucidation of the essential (what a proposition shows) as the cardinal problem of philosophy.4) The distinction between factual statements and a concern with the essential, as Wittgenstein draws it, implies a fundamental methodological shift in the methodology of philosophy. The suggestion that philosophys concern with the essential (or the possible and the necessary) is not a matter of making statements about anything (or stating truths) suggests a fundamental difference between philosophy and the sciences. Philosophy is not, as it were, a super-science that reaches an even higher level of generality than the sciences with its statements about essences. Rather, philosophy is not engaged in theoretical assertion at all. Its task consists solely of the clear expression of what is said. (Cf. TLP 4.111) Nevertheless, even if the Tractatus distinction between concern with truths and concern with essences seems to make obsolete the notion of necessary truth central to metaphysics, drawing this distinction in the manner that the Tractatus seeks to do it seems not enough to constitute a departure from metaphysical philosophy. Here it is crucial how exactly philosophys task of clarication of the
4. Wittgenstein, L., Letters to Russell, Keynes and Moore, von Wright, G. H. (ed.), Basil Blackwell, 1974, p. 71.
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essential is understood. This is where the Tractatus failure lies, and can be explained as follows. To put forward a particular notation or a calculus and to suggest that it can be used for the purpose of clarifying logical relations is not yet to present a thesis about anything. However, in claiming a completely general applicability for its programme of philosophy as logical analysis or in maintaining that the problems of philosophy have been solved in essentials when its method is introduced (TLP Preface) the Tractatus nevertheless appears to commit itself to a particular metaphysics of language.That is, insofar as it maintains that there is only one complete analysis of a proposition that terminates in simple names, that every proposition can be analysed and all logical confusions claried in this way, it thereby commits itself to a general thesis about the essence of propositions. Namely, that they are all analysable according to the model of propositions as concatenations of simple names that the Tractatus puts forward. Here it is important that analysis according to this model is supposed to leave no logical remainder, i.e. distinctions that would not be captured and could therefore cause confusion. In this sense the Tractatus model for propositions and their analysis is supposed to capture perfectly every possible proposition. One might therefore say that the Tractatus has a metaphysics of language built into its methodology of logical analysis. Analysis in the Tractatus operates with a particular notion of the general form of proposition, assuming as its modus operandi that every proposition has this form, i.e. is presentation or a picture of a state of affairs (cf. TLP 4.5, 5.471). This means then also that even if all formulations of the Tractatus theory of language are nonsense (as it says, cf. TLP 6.54), insofar as the purpose of the book is to communicate a general programme for philosophy as logical analysis, the metaphysics of language is inevitably there too. It is embodied in the activity of clarication as the form of this activity5. Consequently, although the Tractatus can be understood as an attempt to jettison metaphysical doctrines in philosophy, it seems not entirely successful in its attempt. Even though metaphysics seemingly disappears as a body of statements it nds a new refuge in method5. Diamond, C. Criss-cross Philosophy. In Fischer E. and Ammereller E. eds. Wittgenstein at Work. Method in the Philosophical Investigations, Routledge, 2004, pp. 208ff. makes a similar/the same point. Cf. also Diamond, C., The Realistic Spirit, The MIT Press, 1991, p. 19.
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ology. That is, although the Tractatus may appear at rst sight to have discovered how to avoid putting forward metaphysical theses as a special kind of necessary and general truths about philosophys objects of investigation, ultimately its philosophical programme still involves an implicit commitment to such necessary and general truths about the nature of language. Thus, the Tractatus conception of clarication is not free from theoretical presuppositions and of philosophical doctrines. There is a metaphysical residue contained in its notion of philosophy as clarication. But let us now turn to Wittgensteins later philosophy in order to see how it might be understood to solve this problem with the Tractatus.
2. Metaphysical and Conceptual Investigation: the Problem of Metaphysics In his later philosophy Wittgenstein continues to identify the problem with metaphysics as an unclarity about the status of philosophical statements and, accordingly, about the kind of investigation a philosophical investigation is. In this respect, he preserves the Tractatus insight of a fundamental difference between philosophy and the sciences (cf. PI 109). Thus, whereas metaphysics is understood as an investigation of necessary and general truths pertaining to philosophys objects of investigation (a factual or super-factual investigation), according to Wittgenstein, philosophy is a conceptual investigation. He writes:
Philosophical investigations: conceptual investigations. The essential thing about metaphysics: that the difference between factual and conceptual investigation is not clear to it. A metaphysical question is always in appearance a factual one, although the problem is a conceptual one. (Ms134, 153)6
But how are we to understand Wittgensteins distinction between metaphysics and conceptual investigation? Let us rst look at how he characterises metaphysics. According to Wittgenstein, rather than
6. Also in Wittgenstein, L. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Blackwell 1980, 949. Henceforth RPPi. Cf. Wittgenstein, L., Preliminary Studies for the Philosophical Investigations Generally Known as the Blue and Brown Books. Basil Blackwell, 1958, p. 18, 35. Henceforth BB.
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describing necessary features of our objects of investigation, the musts and cans of metaphysical statements indicate rules for the use of expressions. Even though the metaphysician thinks he is putting forward a necessary truth concerning the nature of things, he is better understood as putting forward a rule for the use of language, disguised as a factual statement. As Wittgenstein says, summing up a discussion in the Blue Book: What we did in these discussions was what we always do when we meet the word can in a metaphysical proposition. We show that this proposition hides a grammatical rule. (BB, 55; cf. 56, 57)7 And: The man who says only my pains are real [. . .] objects to using the word in the particular way in which it is commonly used. On the other hand he is not aware that he is objecting to a convention. (BB, 57; cf. also Ms148 32r; cf. BB, 59, 60) Thus, although it might appear that the metaphysician has made a discovery about pain he is in effect making a suggestion concerning language use as his rule, incidentally, deviates from the common use of pain. This contrast between factual statements and expressions of a rule can be elucidated further with the help of what Wittgenstein says about the notion of a priori propositions. (He treats such statements as examples of metaphysical statements (PI 251; Ms114, 1228) Wittgenstein writes:
The avowal of adherence to a form of expression, if it is formulated in the guise of a proposition dealing with objects (instead of signs) must be a priori. For its opposite will really be unthinkable, inasmuch as there corresponds to it a form of thought, a form of expression that we have excluded. (Ts220 91)9
Here Wittgenstein is again concerned with statements that express a linguistic commitment (an avowal of adherence to a form of expression) disguised as propositions about objects. This conation of two kinds of statement results, according to him, in what looks like a statement about objects, but with which no experience can conict.
7. Cf. Ambrose, A. (ed.), Wittgensteins Lectures, Cambridge 193235, Basil Blackwell, 1979, p. 22. Henceforth AWL. 8. Also in Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Grammar, Rhees, R. (ed.), Basil Blackwell, 1974, p. 129, 130. Henceforth PG. 9. Also in Wittgenstein, L., Zettel, Anscombe, G. E. M. and von Wright, G. H. (eds.), Basil Blackwell, 1967, 442. Henceforth Z. Cf. Ms157a, 65r, 65v; Ms157b, 3v.
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For as the possibility of things being otherwise is excluded, the statement is clearly not a contingent empirical statement. Consequently, one may feel tempted to conclude that the statement is a priori, a necessary truth concerning an object. Yet again, rather than being due to a necessity in (our or the objects) nature, Wittgenstein suggests, the exclusion of the possibility of thinking that things might be otherwise is due to a form of expression that the speaker has adopted and which excludes other possibilities from consideration. The apparent a priori statement does not state a truth about anything but expresses adherence to a form of expression and thought, to a rule of language. One might therefore sum up the metaphysicians confusion, according to Wittgenstein, by saying that the metaphysician projects a way of using language on reality, as exemplied in the case of the alleged a priori proposition. Being projected onto reality, a necessity characteristic of this way of using language appears as a necessary feature of reality. It seems that things are necessarily how the philosopher states them to be. Nevertheless, according to Wittgenstein, the metaphysician is merely caught up in an illusion, mistaking the reection of his own concepts on reality for a truth about reality. Or as he says:The order of things the idea of the form(s) of imagination/phenomena, that is, of the a priori is a grammatical illusion itself. (Ms157b, 1v) But given this outline of Wittgensteins conception of (the problem with) metaphysics, how should we understand the notion of conceptual investigation and its difference from metaphysics? Certainly, conceptual investigation cannot be merely a matter of turning to investigate language instead of reality. The distinction between metaphysics and conceptual investigation is not simply a claim about the proper object of philosophical investigation. Notably, the object of investigation in the Tractatus too is language, but this is not enough to disengage it from metaphysics. Rather, as an object of investigation language is on the same level as any other part of reality, and as liable a target of metaphysical projections as anything else. Accordingly, the Tractatus logic is Wittgensteins primary example in his later writings of the confusion of metaphysics. Here it is instructive to look more closely at Wittgensteins remarks on his fall back to a metaphysical use of words in the Tractatus and try to apprehend the different aspects of this fall, as he describes it.
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3. Wittgensteins Analysis of the Tractatus Relapse to Metaphysics Wittgenstein writes in the 1937 typescript of the PI:
Every proposition says: This is how things stand. Here we have the kind of form that can mislead us. (Misled me.) [. . .] This is the kind of proposition that one repeats to oneself countless times. One thinks that one is tracing the outline of the things nature over and over again, and one is merely tracing round the frame through which we look at it. [. . .] Again and again we trace out the form of expression and think we have depicted the thing. Due to an optical illusion we appear to see within the thing what is marked on our spectacles. [. . .] Only when this illusion has been removed can we simply see language as it is. The expression of this confusion is the metaphysical use of our words. For now we predicate of the thing what lies in our mode of presenting it. Impressed by the possibility of a comparison, we think we are perceiving a state of affairs of the highest generality. (Ts220 110; cf. Ms142 125; PI 104, 114)
What Wittgenstein describes here is an example of a philosopher projecting his form of expression or mode of presentation onto the object of investigation, and mistaking the characteristics of his mode of presentation for characteristics of this object. In the Tractatus a particular conception of propositions is turned into a metaphysical thesis of what propositions must be. Let us look at this more closely. For Wittgensteins above characterisation to apply to the Tractatus one does not need to maintain that it intends to present a thesis about propositions, or seeks to do so explicitly. Instead one may assume (as explained in section 1) that in the Tractatus the formula Every proposition says: This is how things stand (the general propositional form) is put forward as the general scheme for the analysis of propositions. Although to propose such a scheme is not yet to make a claim about propositions, combined with the claim that this scheme is applicable to all propositions we seem in effect to end up with an implicit thesis about propositions. The following characterisation that Wittgenstein provides of his early philosophy also suggests that he did not think he was putting forward a theory. This was just what actually happened:
We have a theory [. . .] of the proposition; language, but it does not seem to us a theory. For it is characteristic of such a theory
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that it looks at a special, clearly intuitive case and says: That shows how things are in every case.This case is the exemplar of all cases. Of course! It has to be like that we say, and are satised. We have arrived at a form of expression that strikes us as obvious. We have arrived at a form of expression that enlightens us. [. . .] (Ts220 93/Ms142 105; modied from translation in Z 444)
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Thus, as Wittgenstein says, although there is a theory of propositions, it is not recognised as one. Rather, it is as if we had caught a glimpse of something: as if we were directly perceiving the essence of propositions. Or as he says in the rst quotation: having found an illuminating way of conceiving his object of investigation, impressed by a possibility of comparison, the philosopher thinks he is perceiving a state of affairs of the highest generality. It is indeed crucial with regard to this mistake that we are not aware that we are employing a mode of presentation rather than simply perceiving something. It completely escapes our attention that we have adopted a particular mode of presenting propositions or a particular conception of propositions, and therefore also our putting forward a theory of the essence of propositions. We are making a claim that this particular conception of propositions is valid for all propositions, but fail to notice that any such claim is involved. (Cf. Ms142, 88; Ms157a, 57v; PI 103) More specically, Wittgenstein seems to think that we lose sight of our mode of presentation the fact that our enlightening example is functioning as such a mode of presentation for propositions because of a particular problematic notion of concepts that we assume. This is the notion that cases falling under a concept are characterised by a common feature that unites them under the concept. Due to this notion of concepts the Tractatus comparison between propositions and pictures is not recognised as a comparison. As Wittgenstein says: I had used a comparison; but through the grammatical illusion that a certain one thing, something common to all its objects corresponds to a concept it did not seem like a comparison. (Ts220 92) Rather, on the background of this notion of (the unity of) concepts it appears that we may, indeed, take the enlightening example to reveal to us what all the cases are. It is not merely a particular case that other cases might be compared with (and could be used as a mode of presentation in this sense), but brings to view the common essence. The point is put as follows in the continuation of the quotation from Ts220 93 above:
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The tendency to generalize the case seems to have a strict justication in logic: here one seems completely justied in inferring: If one proposition is a picture, then any proposition must be a picture, for they must all be of the same nature. For we are under the illusion that what is sublime, essential about our investigation consists in grasping one comprehensive essence. (Ts220 93/Ms142 106/Z 444; cf. PI 97)
Importantly, as Wittgenstein says, the above confusion about concepts is at the same time a confusion about logical investigation or philosophy: that the essence of philosophy lies in its grasping this unifying comprehensive essence. We think that the task of philosophy is to provide us with a once and for all determination of the concept. In this sense the problem of metaphysics can be traced back, to a remarkable extent, to this particular problematic notion of the unity of concepts. Now we are also in a position to see how this confusion forms the background for the Tractatus programme for philosophy and causes it to collapse, even if Wittgenstein manages to avoid the problem of putting forward a (paradoxically) nonsensical doctrine of the essence of propositions or language. (The idea of interpretations that attribute to the Tractatus a nonsensical theory is problematised for instance by Diamond10. I will not discuss this here.) Let us therefore assume that the Tractatus simply intends to introduce a programme for philosophy as clarication, and that it does not seek to do this with the help of a nonsensical theory. Rather, it seeks to introduce its programme on the basis of our practical grasp of the distinction between sense and nonsense: by elucidating or drawing more clearly the distinction between sense and nonsense that we already recognise. This it seeks to accomplish by examining certain examples of language use, in particular, by revealing certain philosophical statements that appeared to make sense to be nonsense.11 Nevertheless, even if the Tractatus is granted an exemption from the problems arising with the notion of a nonsensical theory, it is
10. Diamond, C., The Realistic Spirit, The MIT Press, 1991, Ch.6. 11. Cf. Conant, J., The Method of the Tractatus, in Reck, E. G. (ed.), From Frege to Wittgenstein, Perspectives on Early Analytic Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2002, Diamond 1991, ibid. and McGinn, M., Saying and Showing and the Continuity of Wittgensteins Thought, Harvard Review of Philosophy IX, 2001 for interpretations along these lines.
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still not enough to release it from the ultimate problem. The problem is that there still remains a gap between whatever might be brought to our view in the case of the particular examples which the Tractatus uses to introduce its programme, and the claim that this programme is applicable to all propositions. For observations concerning particular cases cannot guarantee this kind of general applicability for the programme. Hence, they cannot justify a claim about the completely general applicability of the Tractatus method of clarication. We get this justication only on the assumption that all propositions are the same by their nature and that there is a common essence that comes to view in the Tractatus examples. But this assumption is precisely what Wittgenstein now problematises, and consequently the justication of the Tractatus programme for clarication. To approach the problem with the Tractatus from another angle, it could also be explained as follows. There seems nothing wrong as such with the characterisation of propositions as pictures. It might be perfectly ne, for certain particular purposes, to characterise propositions as pictures of states of affairs to dene or explain the meaning of proposition in this way. (Cf. AWL, 108) Nevertheless, this possibility is eclipsed when the conception of propositions as pictures is not recognised as a particular way of conceiving propositions or a mode of presenting propositions, but turned into a thesis about their essence. For conceived as if it were a truth about the philosophers object of investigation, this characterisation must be claimed to be valid for every possible case in which we talk about propositions. Otherwise it seems reduced to a mere empirical claim concerning some propositions and loses its necessity. Thus, conceiving of his statement as if it were a statement of a truth or a fact about his object of investigation the philosopher is, so to say, driven by the dynamics of his situation to claim that it must hold for all the cases. What is a dening feature of his mode of presentation is now claimed to be a necessary feature of his object of investigation. Consequently, the projection of the philosophers mode of presenting on his object of investigation leads the philosopher to dogmatism. Even though his characterisation might be an illuminating way of characterising some cases in which we talk about propositions, due to being (mis)understood as a truth he is now forced to claim dogmatically that the characterisation must hold for all propositions. Wittgenstein writes about this:
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[. . .] now everything which holds of the model will be asserted of the object of the examination; & asserted: it must always be. . . . This is the origin of a kind of dogmatism. One forgets the role of the prototype in the examination: it is as it were the unit of measurement with which we measure the object of examination. Dogmatism however claims that the length of every measured object must be a whole number of the units of measurement. (Ms115, 56, 57; cf. Ms142 122; Ts220 107)
This quotation introduces terms (model, prototype) that will be discussed in more detail in section 5. (I will return to the quotation there.) Nevertheless, one may say that the conception of propositions as pictures is an example of the kind of model referred to here. The problem of dogmatism then arises when it is claimed that every proposition must t the model of propositions as pictures, that anything to count as a proposition must be a picture of a state of affairs. Now we come to impose a dogma on phenomena, i.e. propositions as our object of investigation. This dogma, of course, is not justied by our having examined all propositions and found out that they t our model, nor are we in a position to examine all propositions and justify it this way. Rather, we simply claim that they must t the model. But now we run the risk that the model turned into a dogma comes to stand in the way of our attempts to understand the phenomena: to grasp them in their manifoldness. Or as Wittgenstein notes in the quotation from Ts220 110 above, only when the illusion created by the projection has been removed can we simply see language how it is (cf. PI 93). The assumption of a common essence and the projection of the philosophers mode of presentation on his object of investigation is also the basis of what Wittgenstein calls the sublimation of logic, i.e. the idea that philosophy or logic is not concerned with signs in an ordinary sense, but with something more abstract and pure that lies behind the ordinary signs. (Cf. PI 89) For our ordinary signs do not seem to satisfy the Tractatus idea of what they must be. Not every proposition seems to be a presentation of a state of affairs.Yet, if this is their essence, then apparently there must be a deeper level at which they can be revealed to be such presentations. (In this way, it is possible to hold on to a philosophical thesis on the face of counterexamples by maintaining that it concerns something behind mere appearances, that philosophy reveals what is really real in contrast
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to apparently real.) (Cf. PI 101, 102; Ms157a, 53r, v) Wittgenstein writes about the sublimation of logic:
When we believe that we must nd that order, the ideal in actual language, we are easily led to speak of the real sign, to look for the real sign, so to say, behind what is called that in customary language use. For we aspire after something more pure than the sign in the sense of a written or printed word etc.We are in search for a sublime essence. (Ms142, 88; cf. 107; PI 105)
Thus, in the Tractatus Wittgenstein was led to think that there are clear and precise rules, or an ideal of crystalline logic behind the ordinary signs which governs the use of our expressions. For insofar as every proposition is to be understood as a true/false presentation of a state of affairs, it seems that propositions must have a precise sense or otherwise do not have a denite truth-value. The idea of propositions as presentations of states of affairs therefore makes us look for ideal pure rules and the real signs which this conception of language seems to require. This way logics aspiration for exactness and clarity gets then turned into a thesis about the underlying clear and precise rules of language. The clarity and exactness that logic is looking for is, as it were, reied and turned into (a thesis about) a hidden structure of language that must be found below the surface of language. (Cf. Ms142 107; Ts220 94; cf. section 6 for further discussion of this point.) But given these problems with the Tractatus, the question is now: if not simply a turn to the investigation of language, what is the way out of metaphysics to conceptual investigation? Here we come to what Wittgenstein characterises as a turn around. He explains the idea of this turn in connection with the Tractatus idea that language must have clear and precise rules, the ideal of crystalline purity of logic. According to Wittgenstein, The prejudice of crystalline purity can only be removed by turning our whole examination around. (PI 108; Ts220 95) Wittgenstein clearly conceives the turn as a way of avoiding the problem of the projection of the (Tractatus) logical calculus on language and its being turned into a thesis about the (hidden) structure of language. But how exactly are we to understand this idea of turning the examination around? I will approach this issue by discussing next Wittgensteins later conception of conceptual investiga Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
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tion as the description of language. The purpose of this is to get a clearer grasp of the problem before discussing the solution.
4. Conceptual Investigation and the Problem of Dogmatism As is well known,Wittgenstein characterises the task of philosophy as that of description of language use with the purpose of (dis)solving philosophical problems (PI 109, 124). Accordingly, we may say that (the task of) conceptual investigation is the description of language use. More specically, Wittgenstein says: Grammar describes the use of words in language. So it has a similar relation to the language as the description of a game, the rules of a game, have to the game. (Ms140, 15r/PG, 60; cf. PI 496) Apparently, grammar in this quotation means grammatical rules (rules for the use of language), as Wittgensteins comparison between grammar and the rules of a game indicates. But what exactly does he mean by the description of language, and what is the role of rules of grammar in such descriptions? Looking more closely at the notions of statement of a rule and factual statement respectively, it is not immediately obvious in what sense a rule could be said to be a description of anything. For instance, I may dene a unit of measurement, let us call it unit, by picking up a stick from the ground and saying:this is one unit long. By doing this I am stating a rule that determines what it is to be one unit long, and dening this particular stick as a standard of the length of one unit. However, it is important to note that with this denition I am not giving a correct/incorrect description or making a true/false statement about anything, for instance, the length of the stick. Had I picked up another stick with a different length and dened it as unit, I would not have made a mistake or said something false, but merely dened unit differently.Thus, the logical role of the denition is not that of a statement about this particular stick. Rather, my denition determines the meaning of unit by reference to this stick. (Cf. e.g. Ms113, 22rff., Ts211, 569ff., Ts213, 240ff. and Ms115, 57ff. for discussions of the notions of rule and factual statement.) What might confuse us here is that exactly the same sentence this is one unit long can also function as a description of or a statement about the length of a stick. Nevertheless, we must not be misled by the form of the sentence but attend to its use. Put forward as a description of the length of a particular stick, the sentence is a con Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
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tingent, true/false statement. Accordingly, unlike in the rst case I might turn out to have made a mistake about the length of the stick, that the stick was not one unit long after all and I misrepresented its length. Importantly, the possibility of mistake seems to arise because (unlike in the rst case) something is now represented or described with the help of the sentence, and there is something it is true or false about. Here it is also important to note that the roles of a statement of a fact and statement of a rule are exclusive. Of course one may measure a rod that is normally used for measuring (and might therefore be called a measuring rod for historical reasons). But in this case the rod is not functioning as the means and standard of measurement. Its logical role is that of an object of measurement. In particular, that something should take up the two roles simultaneously is as impossible as using a ruler to measure itself. The means of measurement must be (logically even if not historically) independent of the object of measurement. (In this sense it would also seem misleading to say that my denition of unit states a necessary truth about the length of the stick that I use in the denition.The denition does not state a truth about anything. Hence, although one might perhaps say that it is true by denition that the standard stick for unit is one unit long, it is crucial to keep in mind how such truths by denition differ from true statements concerning objects. (Cf. PI 50)) But if a statement of a rule does not describe anything in the sense of not being a statement about any object, how can one describe language use with rules? Now we can see the point of Wittgensteins reference to games in the quotation from Ms140. As he notes (elsewhere), the word description is not only used in cases where there is an object of description (such as a house or tree) that is given independently of the description (and the description is true/false of).We talk about description also in connection with geometrical constructions or designs, for instance. Accordingly, one may say that by dening rules for a calculus I describe a system for the use of signs. Similarly, by stating rules for a game I describe a game and likewise one might talk of my denition of unit as a description of a unit of measurement. (Ms113, 28v/Ts211, 576/Ts213, 245r) Correspondingly, what distinguishes chess from draughts, for instance, are its rules and the rules are descriptive of these games in this sense (cf. Ms140, 13). Statements of a rule, it seems, are to be understood as descriptive of language in the same sense.
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Nevertheless, insofar as conceptual investigation (or philosophy as clarication) is a concern with (someones) actual language use, a problem remains. As Wittgenstein also remarks, description in the sense just explained does not inform us about actual language use. He says of such descriptions, contrasting them with descriptions of trees and houses: But by this is not meant a sentence that says that such a game will actually be played somewhere or such a notation actually used; rather the description stands for the words used here such a game and such a notation. (Ms113, 28v/Ts211, 576/Ts213, 245r; cf. Ms115, 59) Thus, although there is a sense in which we may say that, for instance, rules for a game are descriptive of that game, they only describe it, as it were, as a possible game. Similarly, although a rule that I state might describe a use for a word, this as such does not yet tell us anything about whether and how this word is used in any language that is actually spoken. It is just an articulation of a use, so to say, without any stand on actual language use. Thus we are back to the distinction between statements of a rule and of fact, as explained above. The logical role of a statement of a rule is not that of a factual statement and that is why a statement of a rule as such cannot be understood as a statement concerning actual language use. Accordingly, it is crucial to see that even if the rules that one states for the use of a word would coincide perfectly with its actual use, they will not be descriptive of it (qua actual use). The logical roles of statements of a rule and of a fact are not brought any closer to each other by such coincidences. Here the fact that one and the same sentence may take alternatively either role may again create confusion. Wavering between the two uses without noticing it may create the impression that a sentence is both a statement of a rule and a description of actual use. But a sentence cannot take both roles at once, and we must watch out for such illusions created by insufcient attention to the use of our expressions. (Accordingly, Wittgenstein talks about the danger of being misled by the double-meaning of description in the case of the two kinds of descriptions. (Ms113, 28v)12) Now the question is then: insofar as statements of a rule as such are not descriptive of actual language, what kind of claim is the
12. The quotation reads more fully: Das was hier irrezufhren scheint ist ein Doppelsinn des Wortes Beschreibung wenn man einmal von der Beschreibung eines wirklichen Hauses oder Baumes etc. spricht, einmal von der Beschreibung einer Gestalt, Konstruktion etc., einer Notation, eines Spiels. (Ms113, 28v)
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philosopher making when he says that the rules he states are descriptive of actual language, or that they are rules of actual language? It seems that the philosophers statement has two elements: i) a rule for the use of language and ii) a statement that the actual use accords with or is governed by this rule. Importantly, the second element can be understood in more than one way. Firstly, the philosopher might be understood as making an empirical statement about language: that it is used according to such and such rules. Here the rule takes essentially the role of a hypothesis about language use. Accordingly, however, such statements cannot be understood as statements about the logical relations of words or about the possibilities of language use. Exception to the hypothesised rule does not necessarily mean that someone broke a rule, and consequently perhaps said something that makes no sense. The exception may just as well indicate that the hypothesis needs to be corrected. Consequently, insofar as conceptual investigation is a concern with the possibilities of language use it seems that it cannot be an empirical investigation in this sense. It is also clear that this is not what Wittgenstein understands by description of language. According to him at least: There must not be anything hypothetical in our considerations. (PI 109; cf. Ms152, 93ff.) Secondly, the philosopher might state that language is used according to such and such rules, asserting that this is how language must be used if one does not wish to deviate from the way it is actually used. Thus, he is not making merely an empirical claim but a statement about the possible ways of using the language that he is concerned with. He says, for example, that one must use a word in such and such a way in order for it to function as an expression of a certain concept. The necessity of using language in this particular way is expressed in the form of a rule stated by him. This might then be apprehended as bringing to view the bounds of sense. Breaking the rule means talking nonsense or using an expression in a sense different from the normal. Cf. for instance Hacker, P. M. S., Insight and Illusion, Revised edition, Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 151 for an interpretation of this kind. But although this rids us of the problem with empirical descriptions, it seems to bring us back to a situation that is analogous in an important sense to the Tractatus (as I will shortly explain). Of course, there are important differences too. Unlike the Tractatus which might be characterised as putting forward a thesis about every possible lan Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
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guage (every possible proposition is assumed to be analysable according to its model of analysis), the philosopher is now concerned with a particular language or languages. His statement is also not taken to reveal the hidden essence of language or to report an unprecedented discovery. Rather, it expresses a rule for some actual language(s) that the philosopher is concerned with. However, crucially the problem of dogmatism our imposing our conceptions on language use as claims about what it must be seems to arise again. The above differences are not enough to release us from this problem. Thus, even if the philosophers statement is now restricted to a particular language it is still a statement about what (this particular) language must be. To say that a word must be used in such and such a way in order to express a particular concept is still to make a statement about how that word must be used. (The philosophers claim about necessity that the word must be used in this particular way is conditional to one wanting to use a word to express a particular concept. Nevertheless, this does not change the fact that the philosopher is making a statement about what the use of that word necessarily is as an expression of the relevant concept.) Accordingly, the danger that in stating his rule the philosopher overlooks some other ways of using the word as an expression of the concept in question seems as great as ever. He seems to be still in danger of making unjustied and exaggerated claims about language in a way comparable to the claim (about propositions) that the Tractatus ended up making. The danger of dogmatism is not jettisoned. As an example, compare the Tractatus rule for propositions with the rule the meaning of a word is its use in language (cf. PI 43; Ms140, 15r/PG, 60). For instance, Baker and Hacker seem to understand this as a statement according to which rule-governed use is a necessary condition of word-meaning: only cases in which a word has a rule-governed use (or its use is parasitic on such uses) count as instances of meaningful use of words.13 But if this is how we are to understand Wittgensteins statement about meaning, there is a perfect analogy between the Tractatus statement about propositions and this statement. Where the conception
13. See for instance Baker, G. P. & Hacker P. M. S., Wittgenstein, Understanding and Meaning, An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations. Basil Blackwell, 1980, pp. 250, 251 and Baker G. P. & Hacker P. M. S., Wittgenstein, Rules, Grammar and Necessity. An analytical commentary on the Philosophical Investigations,Volume 2. Basil Blackwell, 1985, pp. 36, 37.
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of propositions as pictures states a necessary (but not sufcient) condition for what it is to be a proposition, the latter makes a parallel claim about word-meaning. Accordingly, it seems unclear how we would be in a better position to avoid dogmatism with the latter statement in contrast to the former statement. Here Hackers suggestion that we could say of the rules stated by the philosopher that [. . .] their aptness is guaranteed by the fact that they are elicited from the person whose bewilderment is in question14, for instance, offers no solution. For being a competent speaker I know how to use language. Nevertheless, to be able to use a word and to be able to describe its use are clearly two different things. It is certainly possible to mistake for a correct denition of a concept something which is not. Or as Wittgenstein says: One learns the word think, i.e. its use, under certain circumstances, which, however, one does not learn to describe. (Z 114; cf. 111) For instance, the ability to teach the use of a word does not require the ability to describe it, according to him. (Z 115; cf. also 121/RPPi 556; Ms132, 198ff.) Similarly, ones ability to use language in no way guarantees ones ability to describe its uses or one not being dogmatic in such descriptions. This suggests that to characterise conceptual investigation as a turn to the description of language use (with the help of rules) as such is not yet enough to solve the problem of dogmatism. The following sections are an attempt to explain what I think is the answer that Wittgenstein offers to the problem of dogmatism and what his shift away from philosophical theses consists in. His solution articulates a third way of apprehending the second element (cf. above) of the philosophers statement. I will rst discuss the notion of the turn more generally and then specically with regard to the role of rules in philosophical clarication.
5. Wittgensteins Turn Many commentators agree that a methodological shift occurs in Wittgensteins philosophy in the early 1930s (around 193032). This is manifested, for example, by his adoption of the language-game method, the examination of language with the help of primitive
14. Hacker, 1986, p. 161.
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forms of language in which the uses of these expressions are readily surveyable (BB, 17; cf. PI 5).15 Accordingly, Wittgenstein himself contrasts his new thoughts with his old way of thinking (Denkweise) in the Preface to the PI, indicating that a methodological shift has taken place along the way from the Tractatus to the PI (cf. Ms131, 48, 49).What exactly this shift amounts to, however, is less clear. Also it is unclear how the shift that seems to occur in the early 1930s relates to what Wittgenstein in PI 108 calls turning our whole examination around. For Wittgenstein only comes to talk about a turn in these terms in the late 1930s (around 193637). This much is evident, however. Wittgensteins discussion of the turn in 193637, particularly in his notebooks Mss157a/b, is a discussion of the proper role of the ideal of crystalline purity of logic, which the Tractatus projected on language claiming that such clear and precise rules must be found in language. (Cf. Ms157a, 49r, 51r, 55v, 58r, 59r, 65v66v, 68r) Thus, one may say that the discussion of the turn in the late 1930s is essentially a discussion of how to avoid dogmatism, prejudices and metaphysical projections in philosophy. But does it have any connection with the methodological shift in the early 1930s? A number of earlier remarks also address the theme of dogmatism and projections, suggesting a certain kind of methodological shift as a solution to these problems. Furthermore, because the shift articulated in both the earlier and later remarks seems the same indeed, the relevant remarks appear to form a continuous string of attempts to formulate the idea of this shift (cf. below) we seem able to identify this shift as Wittgensteins turn. The discussion of turning the examination around in 193637 can now be understood as a discussion of the idea of the methodological shift that in fact occurred already in the early 1930s. Accordingly, this discussion con15. Baker and Hacker, 1980. pp. 9395, 451, Hilmy, S. S., The Later Wittgenstein, The Emergence of a New Philosophical Method, Basil Blackwell, 1987, pp. 86, 8991, Kienzler, W., Wittgensteins Wende zu seiner Sptphilosophie 19301932, Suhrkamp, 1997, pp. 13, 28, 29, date Wittgensteins turn to 193032. Diamond (2004, 209ff.) suggests that in the so-called Big Typescript (Ts 213 from 1932) Wittgenstein continued to think in terms of Big Questions, implying that a crucial shift took place only later. Pichler A., Wittgensteins Philosophische Untersuchungen, Vom Buch zum Album, Rodopi, 2004, p. 132ff., suggests that the methodological shift that constitutes Wittgensteins answer to the problem of dogmatism takes place only in 1936. Cf. also Schulte, J. Wittgenstein, An Introduction, State University of New York Press, 1992, pp. 11, 97, for a similar suggestion.
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cerning the turn may be taken to concern not only problems with the Tractatus view of language and philosophy, but is an attempt to articulate the central idea of this methodological shift. Although Wittgenstein explains the idea of the turn in connection with the Tractatus, it is meant to have general methodological signicance: to articulate a turn away from metaphysical projections. One might say that Wittgenstein uses the Tractatus confusion as an example of metaphysical philosophy, to exemplify the kind of methodological shift that is required for overcoming metaphysics. But let us now look more closely at what Wittgenstein says about the problem of metaphysical projections and dogmatism. Consider the following remark from a notebook/diary in 1937:
Ask yourself, when you are inclined to make general metaphysical statements (always): Which cases am I really thinking of ? What kind of a case, which image do I have in mind? Something in us opposes this question, for we seem thereby to endanger the ideal: although we only do this to position it in the place it belongs. For it is supposed to be the picture which we compare reality with, through which we present how things are. Not a picture with which we falsify reality. (Ms183, 163, 164)
The immediate context of this remark is a discussion of the notion of ideal name which stands for an indestructible element of reality, and a related conception of change as rearrangement of such indestructible elements. Such an ideal name Wittgenstein characterises as a picture, a form of presentation which we incline towards (Ms183, 162; cf. PI 59). Not taking the ideal name as a picture or a form of presentation which we compare reality with and with the help of which we present how things are however, we try to nd the ideal in reality, i.e. in language as our object of investigation. But as it does not t the concrete cases, we are drawn to an ethereal region of sublime logic, where we talk about the real sign and the rules that there must be. (Ms183, 164) What Wittgenstein describes here is an example of the metaphysical projection.We project a form of presentation that we employ, i.e. a certain conception of what being a name amounts to, on our object of investigation.Thus we come to make dogmatic metaphysical claims about what the object of investigation must be. We claim that there must be such ideal names in language, and that every name must be analysable into such ideal names. But how is the question Which cases am I really thinking of? meant to help us?
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The mistake that we are dealing with is characterised by Wittgenstein (in 1934) as that of confusing a prototype a case which we use as an exemplar or a model for presenting an object of investigation with the object of investigation itself. What should be merely an exemplary case, a model used to bring to view certain characteristics of the object of investigation is turned into something that we claim the objects of investigation must correspond to. Wittgenstein writes about this:
We have to be told the object of comparison // model, the object from which a way of conceiving things is derived, so that the examination does not become unjust. For now everything which holds of the model will be asserted of the object of the examination; & asserted: it must always be. . . . This is the origin of a kind of dogmatism. One forgets the role of the prototype in the examination: it is as it were the unit of measurement with which we measure the object of examination. (Ms115, 56, 57)
The question which cases am I really thinking of ? is meant to counteract this switch from a prototype to the object of investigation. It therefore plays a crucial role. For one may say that avoiding dogmatic metaphysical projections is all about keeping a prototype in its proper place: as a mode of presentation, a model or picture which we use to present our object of investigation. The question which cases . . . ? is meant to achieve this end by functioning as an instrument for depriving the metaphysical statements of their charm. One brings a statement down to earth from the heights of metaphysical generalities by reminding oneself of its actual origins, i.e. of the cases that one really was thinking about and which inspired the statement. As Wittgenstein also says: We are released thus from the enchantment of the ideal [. . .], by recognising it as a picture & giving its origin. How did you come to this ideal; which material did you form it of? Which concrete idea was its real prototype? We must ask this, otherwise we will not be able to get rid of its misleading aspect. (Ms142 122; Ts220 107, Ts238 141) (This remark is repeated in various forms in the Nachlass; cf. Ms116, 220; Ms120, 43v, 44r; Ms157b, 13r.) Wittgensteins solution to the problem of dogmatism, however, is not simply a descent from general metaphysical theses to empirical statements concerning particular cases. Rather, it is a move away from any theses concerning the objects of investigation. He explains this in an earlier (1931) version of the remark just quoted from Ms115:
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[. . .] We have to be told the object of comparison, the object from which this way of conceiving things is derived, so that prejudices do not constantly slip into discussion. Because then we shall willy nilly ascribe what is true of the prototype of the comparison to the object to which we are applying the examination as well; & we claim it must always be . . . This comes about because we want to give the prototypes characteristics a foothold in the examination. But since we confuse prototype & object we nd ourselves dogmatically conferring on the object properties which only the prototype necessarily possesses. On the other hand we think the examination will lack the generality we want to give it if it really holds of the one case. But the prototype must be presented for what it is; as characterizing the whole examination and determining its form. In this way it stands at the head & is generally valid by virtue of determining the form of examination, not by virtue of a claim that everything which is true only of it holds for all the objects to which the approach is applied. (Ms111, 119; also in Ms211, 72; Ms212, 745; Ms213, 259r.)16
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One might say that the problem that Wittgenstein is trying to deal with by means of the turn is how to avoid the danger of dogmatism characteristic of general metaphysical statements while not giving up the generality of philosophical statements altogether. His solution is to understand philosophical statements as articulations of ways of conceiving the objects of investigation, i.e. as articulations of pictures, prototypes, models or modes of presentation, not as claims concerning the objects of investigation. In this capacity philosophical statements also retain their generality without being reduced to mere empirical statements: the generality of a claricatory model is its general applicability to whatever it is used to (re)present. Accordingly, examples are to be used not as a source material for general theses or theories, but as something with the help of which we characterise our objects of investigation.The examples now function, as Wittgenstein says above, as prototypes or objects of comparison, something that we compare the cases with. However, we are not to claim that the prototype is an ideal to which everything must conform. This idea of how to avoid dogmatism is then nally summarised by Wittgenstein in the 1936 manuscript of the PI as follows:
16. Modied from translation in Wittgenstein, L., Culture and Value. Revised Edition. von Wright, G. H. in collaboration with Nyman, H. (ed.), rev. ed. by Pichler, A., Blackwell, 1998, p. 21ff.
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For we can avoid the injustice or emptiness of our statements only by presenting the model as what it is, as an object of comparisonas, so to speak, a measuring rod; & not as a preconceived idea to which reality must correspond. (I am thinking of Spenglers mode of examination.) Here namely lies a certain dogmatism which our philosophy can easily fall into. (Ms142 122)
This is a highly interesting remark.17 In Ms142, as well as Ts220 (the pre-war versions of the PI), it is the second to last paragraph of the remark, the beginning of which was quoted above, where Wittgenstein talks about how we can be released from the enchantment of the ideal. It also occurs in slightly different formulations elsewhere in the Nachlass (Ms157b, 15v, 16r; Ts238/9 144) and nally in the PI (131). In the PI, however, Wittgenstein has edited out the surrounding remarks concerning the role of the ideal and our misconceptions about it. Now the remark is apparently used to characterise the role of simple language-games. Also, in Ms157b in accordance with its place in Ms142 and Ts220 the remark is drafted as a remark concerning the role of the ideal. How are these changes to be explained? Insofar as we apprehend the discussion about the proper role of the ideal of crystalline rules of language and hence about turning the examination around as a discussion about how to avoid metaphysical projections and dogmatism in philosophy, there seems to be no difculty. For presumably Wittgensteins method of using simple language-games for the purposes of clarication is meant to be in accordance with the aim of avoiding dogmatism. But in this case the
17. Whereas it should be clear enough in what sense dogmatic claims are unjust, what Wittgenstein means by their emptiness requires explanation. Metaphysical claims may be said to be empty in the sense that as their complete generality excludes all contrasts, it becomes unclear what these claims are actually supposed to say. For instance, if all language use is said to be perfectly exact, there is no longer any room for vagueness. But if vagueness is made to disappear this way, what is exactness now supposed to be contrasted with? There is nothing to contrast it with. Rather, as the need for exactness is turned into a requirement which language must conform to, the term exact is now being used, as Wittgenstein says, [. . .] in a typically metaphysical way, namely without an antithesis; whereas in their correct and everyday use vagueness is opposed to clearness, [. . .] (BB: 46). (Cf. Baker, Gordon, Wittgenstein on Metaphysical/Everyday Use, The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 208 (pp. 289302), p. 296, for the interpretation of the term emptiness.) Importantly, the Tractatus notion of proposition too seems to suffer from this emptiness. Apparently, according to the Tractatus, a real proposition is what the analysis tells us is one. However, at the level of analysed propositions there is no longer anything to contrast the real propositions with, i.e. no pseudo-propositions.
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remark could very well be presented at one time as one concerning the proper role of the ideal, and at another time as concerning the role of language-games. In both cases the problem is the same, i.e. that of projecting our statements and models on our object of investigation as claims about what it must be. Accordingly, in both cases the cure is also the same. We are to take our model (the ideal or the language-game) as an object of comparison that we use to characterise the object of investigation, but not to use it as a basis for a claim about what the object must be. (This multiple-purpose reading of the remark seems a very natural way of reading the remark together with the surrounding ones in Ts238, a 1942/1943 revision of Ts220 (covering roughly the philosophy section of the PI). Here the remark occurs between remarks concerning the role of the ideal and the role of language games.Ts238 constitutes, so to say, an intermediate link between the pre-war drafts of the PI and the nal version (Ts227).) Very interestingly, the remark also bears a connection of origin with the remarks quoted from Ms111 (Tss211213) and Ms115 above that I used to explain the idea of Wittgensteins turn.This connection comes to view in the fact that in all these remarks up till the 1942/1943 revisions of the PI (Ts238 and Ts239), Wittgenstein connects his idea of how to avoid dogmatism with dogmatism in Spengler. (Although I have edited out the discussion of Spengler from the quotations from Ms111 and Ms115 above.) Also, up till Ts220 (the 1937 version of the PI) the relevant remarks continue (verbatim) with remarks concerning units of measurement originally drafted in the context of the quotation from Ms115. (There is no doubt that the quotation from Ms111 is an earlier version of this remark from Ms115.) Most importantly, however, in all cases (from Ms111 to Ts239, except Ms157b) the relevant remarks occur together with a remark, originally drafted in Ms111 which emphasises the importance of not conceiving of our calculi in philosophy as really applicable to ideal cases which we do not yet have. That, for instance, the Tractatus concept-script is really applicable to ideal signs discovered behind the signs that we actually use. According to this remark, it is mistaken to think that there is an ideal application of this kind for our calculi. Rather, insofar as a calculus has application at all it is the application to actual, concrete cases whether or not the calculus can capture the use of the expressions in all respects. Such concrete cases
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are also to be recognised as the prototype for and the origin of the calculus. (Ms111, 118; Ms115, 55, 56; Ms142 122; Ts220 107; Ts238/9 142) Thus, the remarks about prototypes and objects of comparison (from Ms111, Ms115 and Ms142 quoted above and their equivalents in the typescripts) may be understood as attempts to generalise this remark about the role of calculi in philosophy, and to put forward a more general methodological statement about how to avoid dogmatism. In the PI this generality might, at rst sight, seem to be reduced, as 131, apparently, only concerns the role of languagegames.This, however, is not necessarily so. Rather, what Wittgenstein says about the role of language-games might now be understood as a model for philosophical statements in general. Moreover, the idea that this remark now concerns only the role of language-games depends heavily on considerations of its context in the PI. The remark itself simply talks about our assertions in philosophy. And although it is preceded by a remark about the role of languagegames, it is followed by remarks on rules. Whatever exactly the relation between the remarks about objects of comparison and the remark concerning the role of calculi might be, these observations concerning the origin of PI 131 make clear that the above remarks concerning the problem of dogmatism form a continuous string of attempts to articulate the idea of a methodological shift in philosophy. This methodological shift then is what one might call Wittgensteins turn. Accordingly, we can now also date the emergence of its central idea to 1931 when Ms111 is written. The 193637 remarks on turning the examination around, for their part, are further attempts to give a clear formulation to the basic idea of this methodological shift, to deepen and sharpen the understanding of this shift. There is also other evidence that seems to support this interpretation of the 193637 discussion of the turn. Thus, while discussing the turn in 1937 Wittgenstein says that he is looking for a quick passage, with one step from his old mode of examination (Betrachtungsweise) to his new mode, in contrast to diverse, step by step passages (Ms157a, 54r).18 Such diverse passages are presumably
18. The remark reads more fully: Ich suche auer den diversen schrittweisen // langsamen // bergngen von der alten zur neuen Betrachtungsweise einen schnellen, mit in einem Schritt. (Ms157a: 54r)
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clarications of the Tractatus and other earlier confusions in minute detail. In contrast to these diverse passages Wittgenstein now tries to nd a quick passage, i.e. a general articulation of certain crucial difference(s) between his old and new mode of examination that allows one to move from one to the other in just one step. This quick passage is then captured in the metaphor of turning the examination around. To sum up now the idea of Wittgensteins turn: it can be characterised as a shift from the ideal as a Vorurteil (preconception) to which the object of investigation must correspond to the ideal as a Vorbild (model, object of comparison) that is used as an instrument of presenting the object of investigation. It is a movement away from theses or theories about what the objects of investigation must be to philosophical statements as the articulation of models or ways of conceiving the objects of investigation. Put in another way, the turn is the recognition that in philosophy too we employ modes of presentation when we discuss things or concepts. The idea that our examples allow us to directly contemplate the essences of things or concepts, as in the Tractatus, is merely an illusion and a projection of the mode of presentation on the object of investigation. One way of making the turn consists of the recognition that some actual cases serve as an Urbild (prototype) for the ideal, and the ideal as a projection of the properties of the prototype on the objects of investigation. (Cf. Ts220 93; Ms157b, 10r, 10v) With the turn the ideal is then brought back to its role as an illuminating example to be used as an object of comparison. However, we do not have to assume or require that some actual cases always serve as the basis for a model. It is also possible to use purely ctional cases as models, and characterise concepts with the help of such models.This is, then, the role of ctional language-games in Wittgenstein.19
19. A similar account of the idea of Wittgensteins turn is given by Stephen Hilmy 1987, Ch.3, although he approaches the issue from a slightly different angle, as a question concerning the emergence of the method of using hypothetical (constructed) language-games as heuristic a method of clarication (cf. 1987: 69ff.). However, there is also a misleading aspect to Hilmys characterisation of objects of comparison and models in philosophy as heuristic devices. For being a mode of presenting the object of investigation such a model is not merely a heuristic device, something we could dispense with if we really knew how to go about investigating our object of investigation, as is the case with heuristic devices. Thus, although talk about heuristic devices captures well the idea that the models are not to be projected onto the object of investigation as claims about what they necessarily are, it fails to capture the role of the models as modes of presenting the objects of investigation.
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Philosophical Investigations 6. The Turn and the Role of Rules
Along with the above interpretation of Wittgensteins turn we also arrive at a conception of the role of rules in conceptual or grammatical investigation that solves the problem of dogmatism which threatens conceptual investigation as the description of language use. By taking rules as articulations of models to be used as objects of comparison, we can understand rules as descriptions of actual language use and yet avoid the problem of having to make claims about how language must be used (in the sense explained in section 4). But let us look at what Wittgenstein says about rules in connection with the idea of the turn and return to this question later. Wittgenstein writes about the turn in the PI:
We see that what we call sentence and language has not the formal unity that I imagined, but is the family of structures more or less related to one another. But what becomes of logic now? Its rigour seems to be giving way here. But in that case doesnt 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 our whole examination round. (One might say: the axis of reference of our examination must be rotated, but about the xed point of our real need.) (PI 108)
Here we enter a rather complicated dialectical situation. There is a discussion about whether rigour could be bargained out of logic. But due to the ambiguity of the word logic does Wittgenstein mean logic as a discipline or the logic of language? there is some doubt as to what exactly the problem is. Baker and Hacker assume in their discussion that rigour would be bargained out of the logic of language, i.e. language.20 Thus, the problem discussed in the above paragraph would be whether language loses its rigour when we recognise it as not having the formal unity imagined in the Tractatus, i.e. that we cannot say that every proposition is a presentation of a state of affairs with a denite truth-value. This seems a possible interpretation, although it is perhaps odd that Wittgenstein should return to this issue of the unity of concepts
20. Baker & Hacker 1980, p. 516. Cf. Fogelin, R. J., Wittgensteins Critique of Philosophy, in Sluga, H. & Stern, D. G. (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, Cambridge University Press, 1996 for a similar interpretation.
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having already discussed it thoroughly in PI 6588. However, insofar as this is the problem, Baker and Hacker are right to observe that the logic of language [. . .] cannot lose its rigour as a result of philosophical transactions; [. . .] All that is lost are our preconceived ideas about what rigour we are inclined to demand of it.21 Thus, in Baker and Hackers view nothing important is bargained out of the rigour of language, only the crystalline logic is thrown out of the picture as a misconceived demand concerning the rigour of language. Oddly enough, however, in the 1936 and 1937 versions of the PI Wittgenstein suggests that rather than eliminating the crystalline purity, with the turn [. . .] this purity gains another position. (Ts220 95; cf. Ms142 102) Consider also these two formulations of the idea of the turn from Wittgensteins notebooks of this time:
The complete crystal clarity of logic: it should be a crystal, nothing amorphous in it. (Where from this ideal?) For the knowledge of the amorphous does not interest us here (that is correct). And we also have to do with the crystal systems. I.e. we have to do with exactness. For a greater exactness removes certain misunderstandings. But there are also misunderstandings that easily come about by striving for a greater exactness. But it is not that we could have something bargained out of this crystal clarity! The preconception that lies in it can only be removed by rotating our whole examination; and thereby placing the preconception in another position. (Ms157a, 66v67v) It looks as if the logic would lose the essential in it; its rigour. As if it had been bargained out of it. But it only plays now another role. It has turned from a preconception concerning reality into a form of presentation. Where has the crystalline clarity come to? It has become a form of presentation and nothing but that. (Ms157b, 5r)
In accordance with Ms142 and Ts220 Wittgenstein says that the purity is now given another position and another role. Even more oddly for Baker and Hacker Wittgenstein states that he still has to do with crystal systems, is not interested in the knowledge of the amorphous (i.e. non-crystal like), and that nothing could be bargained out of crystal clarity. All of this seems to t badly Baker and Hackers idea of throwing away the crystal clarity as a misconception about language. Accordingly, it suggests that what is at stake in Wittgensteins discussion is the rigour of logic as a discipline rather than the
21. Baker & Hacker 1980, p. 516.
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rigour of language. (Note also that after the paragraph quoted from PI 108 Wittgenstein continues by talking about the philosophy of logic.) Let us examine this interpretation. Given that language does not have a formal unity, one might be concerned about the implications of this to logic as a discipline. The problem of the bargain now is whether logic as a discipline is losing rigour, when we acknowledge that language does not have a formal unity. This interpretation nds immediate conrmation from elsewhere. For what appears to be the same question as that above concerning logic is formulated in Ms114 (from 1932/1933) as a question concerning philosophy. Wittgenstein asks: But if the general concept of language dissolves in this way, doesnt philosophy dissolve as well? [. . .] (Ms114, 104/PG, 115) This parallel suggests that Wittgensteins concern above is the faith of the discipline of logic, or as one might well say, of philosophy as logic or grammatical investigation. (Similarly, also in Ms152 (from 1936) Wittgenstein discusses the faith of the discipline of logic, the prospect that logic disappears if there is no exactness and clarity in language, an inner, sublime structure which logic is concerned with. For consequently, it seems, logic becomes an empirical science concerned with actual language use. (Ms152, 93, 94)) Now the bargaining situation looks as follows. The idea of the crystalline clarity of logic is that of rigour and exactness.This is what logic as a discipline aims at. Rigour and exactness, i.e. clarity constitutes its essence. But it also seems that if there is to be logic as a discipline in this sense, language must somehow live up to its standards. For if our concepts are not precise, then it seems false to present them as such in logic. However, as Wittgenstein is led to observe, language does not quite live up to this demand of exactness. We are unable to keep up the claim that there is a precise concept of the essence of proposition, and that our expressions are always analysable into exact ones. But if this is so, it is a justied request that we acknowledge that language is not exact in this sense. And now we have ended up in a very difcult bargaining situation. There is something that looks like a justied request to lower our claim as to how exact or rigorous language is. But if we grant this request and accept the bid, we have thereby destroyed logic as a rigorous discipline striving for clarity! (Nothing can be bargained out of the exactness of logic because it thereby loses what is essential to it.)
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In order to break out of this difculty, we have to demolish the whole context of the bargain. This is, then, the point of Wittgensteins turn. For the bargaining situation is created by the idea that logic involves theses about language use, i.e. that the exactness of logic as a discipline involves a claim about the exactness of language. Here we come to Wittgensteins idea about the new position of crystalline clarity. Whereas the Tractatus claims that there must be such clear and precise rules in language, in Wittgensteins new approach no claim is made about there being such precise rules in language. The rules are no longer conceived as a characteristic of the object of investigation. Rather, with the turn they are understood as a form of presentation (cf. above quotation from Ms157b). Philosophy uses clear and precise rules as a form of presentation with the help of which the use of our expressions is described and language use claried. Accordingly, as soon as we recognise that the rules and calculi used in logic function as a form of presentation, but do not constitute a claim about language, we are released from the bargain. For to employ a form of presentation is not yet to make any claim about the object presented. (It is a very different thing to say that language can, for certain purposes, be presented with the help of exact rules and to say that it is really used according to such rules.) Hence, merely by using exact rules as a form of presentation we are not committed to any claims about the exactness or inexactness of language. In this way the idea of rigour is not bargained out of logic but given another position through rearrangement and by recognising the ideal of the order as a part of the mode of presentation (Ms157b, 2v, 3r).22 Consequently, there is also no question whether language can live up to the standards of exactness of logic. That there is no exact general denition of a concept does not mean that we could not use an exact characterisation of it, i.e. to adopt an exact denition of it for the purposes of a discussion of a certain philosophical problem. The fact that the denition does not capture the use of the expression in every respect is not a defect, insofar the point is to dissolve a particular philosophical problem or problems. For this
22. The remark reads more fully: Denn, wie kann die Logik ihre Strenge verlieren?! Natrlich nicht dadurch da man etwas von ihr abhandelt sondern nur durch eine Umgruppierung in der die Idee der Strenge einen andern Platz erhlt. So nmlich, indem das Ideal der Ordnung als ein Teil der Darstellungsart erkanntwird. (Ms157b: 2v, 3r)
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purpose it is enough just to focus on certain particular aspects of the concept that are relevant to the problem. Or as Wittgenstein also says, concluding a discussion of ambiguity in our concepts, and having remarked that even though we cannot say that language users must be following exact rules we may compare language to calculi in logic: Our investigation does not try to nd the real, exact meaning of words; though we do often give words exact meanings in the course of our investigation. (Ms115, 46/Z 467) Here it is crucial to notice that this seems really the only way to get rid of the crystalline purity as a prejudice. For if we simply deny the exactness of language, the prejudice will keep on hounding us from its grave as the idea that logic as a discipline has no rigour. We will be stuck with the claim that language is not exact and therefore logic cannot be exact either, for example, cannot provide us with exact characterisations of our concepts. In this sense one might also say that the turn is necessary for the shift away from metaphysics. We do not simply want to replace a thesis about the exactness of language with a thesis about its inexactness! In this sense the realisation that the Tractatus projected a form of presentation on language is only the rst half of Wittgensteins turn. Having reached this point, there is still a problem about the rigour of logic. This problem is not solved merely by saying that language is not what the Tractatus took it to be. We must move away from the idea that logic assumes or involves any claims concerning language: that the rigour of the discipline of logic depends on any theses about the nature of language.
7. Rules as Objects of Comparison To get clearer about the role of exact rules, let us look at what Wittgenstein says about the turn and the role of rules and calculi. According to Wittgenstein, in order to avoid dogmatism we are to take the ideal of crystalline purity of logic, the clear and precise rules, as an object of comparison, not as a claim about what language must be like. As he writes:
For we can avoid injusticeor emptiness, in our assertions only by presenting the ideal in our examination as what it is, namely an object of comparisonas, so to speak, measuring-rod& not as a preconception, which everything must conform to. For here lies
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the dogmatism into which we fall so easily in doing philosophy. (Ms157b, 15v, 16r)
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Thus, having been rotated to its right place, the ideal of crystalline logic becomes an object of comparison. We are not to put the exact rules forward dogmatically as something which our object of investigation or, as Wittgenstein says, everything must conform to. (Apparently everything is to be understood in the sense of everything that the ideal model concerns, for instance, in the case of an exact denition of a concept, all cases that fall under the concept.) Rather, such rules are a form or a mode of presentation.We use them to characterise language use, to clarify conceptual relations, to point out similarities and differences between concepts, and so forth. A rule is here analogous to a measuring rod or a unit of measurement, which we use to present our object of investigation. But we are not to confer the properties of our mode of presentation onto the object of investigation, that is, to confuse the possibility of presenting it in a particular way with an ultimate truth about its nature. Put in another way, a denition is good insofar as many of the cases of the use of a word t the denition. But we fall into dogmatism if we require that the denition must hold of all the relevant cases of the use of the word. If we then demand that the articial calculi and exact rules must correspond completely to actual language use in order to be useful tools of clarication, we have not moved away from dogmatism, and dogmatic requirements. We are failing to follow Wittgensteins turn, for our practice of clarication still involves claims about language use. We are still demanding that language must be this in order to be presented thus, for example, must be a calculus in order to be presented fruitfully as such. This means that we have not accepted the idea that the rule is our mode of presentation rather than a characteristic of the object of description. For the choice of mode of description (for example, a unit of measurement) is a practical matter. We choose an appropriate unit of measurement for a particular task. It is confused to claim at an abstract level, independently of the task of clarifying some particular unclarities, that a particular unit is an appropriate one or not. Consequently, if we do accept the idea of the rule as a mode of presentation, then all general objections against using articial calculi in clarication disappear. (We may well object to using a particular rule to characterise a concept in a particular case, but this is a different matter.)
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Hence, following Wittgenstein in his turn we may very well use exact rules in philosophical clarication as objects of comparison, to conceive language as being used according to such rules. In this way we may draw attention to certain features of the use of our expressions without committing ourselves thereby to any claim about these rules really capturing the use of these expressions in all respects. ( Just as we do not need to claim that our objects of measurement perfectly t our scale of measurement, or must t it, in order to be measurable by it.) This idea of clarication with rules is manifest in the following characterisation that Wittgenstein gives of his approach in 1934:
If we look at the actual use of a word, what we see is something constantly uctuating. In our investigations we set over against this uctuation something more xed, just as one paints a stationary picture of a constantly altering landscape. When we study language we envisage it as a game with xed rules. We compare it with, and measure it against, a game of that kind. If for our purposes we wish to regulate the use of a word by denite rules, then alongside its uctuating use we set up a different one by codifying a characteristic aspect of the rst one in rules. Thus it could be said that the use of the word good (in an ethical sense) is a combination of a very large number of interrelated games, each of them, as it were a facet of the use.What makes up a single concept here is precisely the connection, the relationship between the facets. (Ms140, 33; cf. PG, 77)
As Wittgenstein says, in conceptual investigation no claim is made that language is really used according to the rules that it is compared with or envisaged as being used according to. Rather, talk about rules is understood as a particular point of view (Gesichtspunkt) that might be adopted. Here the rules are an instrument (like a stationary picture of an altering landscape might be taken to be) that is used to bring to view some aspects of the actual language use. Or as he says in an earlier manuscript: I would like to call the rule an instrument. To clarify grammar means to produce it in the form of a game with rules. (Ms113, 24r/Ts211, 571) Again, however, this is not to say that language is a calculus or a game governed by rules. Rather, grammar may be produced in the form of such a game or calculus for the purposes of clarication. Or as the quotation from Ms140 says, language may be envisaged as such a game. (For similar statements, see Ms111, 67, Ms112, 94v; Ms140, 18, 24,Ts211, 40) These purposes are clearly
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stated, for example, in the following quotation from the previous page in Ms140 that gives yet another characterisation of this procedure of clarication (cf. also AWL, 48). Wittgenstein writes:
[. . .] if we wish to draw sharp boundaries in the use of a word, in order to clear up philosophical paradoxes, then alongside the actual picture of the use, in which as it were different colours ow into one another without sharp boundaries, we may put another picture, which is in certain ways like the rst one but is built up of colours with clear boundaries between them. (Ms140, 32/PG, 76)
This characterisation is signicant in the sense that a modied version of it also occurs in the PI 76, 77. This shows that this idea of clarication with the help of rules as objects of comparison is not just a transient phase in Wittgensteins thinking (in the early/mid 1930s), but an important characteristic of his later methodology. Thus, similarly to Ms140, in the PI Wittgenstein compares a sharply dened concept with a colour patch with sharp contours, and talks about using such sharp contoured patches to characterise colour patches with blurred contours23. Here a striking image is used to counteract the idea that the task of denitions should (always) be that of providing us with something, which we might call the denition of the concept:
But if the colours in the original merge without a hint of any outline wont it become a hopeless task to draw a sharp picture corresponding to the blurred one? Wont you then have to say: Here I might just as well draw a circle or heart as a rectangle, for all the colours merge. Anythingand nothingis right. And this is the position you are in if you look for denitions corresponding to our concepts in aesthetics or ethics. (PI 77)
23. The colour patch comparison occurs also in Ts213, 68v, where drawing sharp pictures of blurred reality is stated to be the task of logic. In Ms113, 45v, 46r and Ts211, 594 the comparison is used to characterise the role of simple language-games. Wittgenstein seems to use this comparison for the rst time for this purpose in Ms111, 83, where he raises the question of presenting vague language use in a calculus. This, he says, is similar to talking about contours of colours in the case of a picture consisting of blurred colour patches.This may again be taken to lend support the view of dating Wittgensteins turn in 1931. A slightly different but related characterisation is given in the 193435 lectures: Suppose I draw a curve, and ten oscullating circles which come near to describing the curve.This is the way I can describe the use of the word can. I shall give you a number of usages regulated by rules which will oscullate the actual use. There is no exact description. (AWL, 95)
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However, it would not be correct to draw the conclusion from this that, according to Wittgenstein, strict denitions are worth nothing in cases like this. As he says in the quotation from Ms140 above, xed rules, i.e. sharp denitions, for example, may be used to capture characteristic aspects of a concept, or in the case of a word such as good (in an ethical sense), certain facets of the use. For instance, such denitions may be used to draw distinctions, which are important from the point of view of the particular philosophical questions that we are discussing. For it may be crucial to see a difference of kind between two classes of cases, even if it would be acknowledged that in reality these classes have no denite border but merge with each other. Accordingly, such sharp denitions may be indispensable for the purposes of clarication. They allow us to present blurred linguistic uses in a clear fashion.24 Signicantly, the above also suggests that it would be a misunderstanding to think that in Wittgensteins view a family-resemblance concept may never be characterised with the help of a sharp denition. For both in Ms140 and in the PI, when Wittgenstein discusses the role of denitions, his examples are concepts that he takes to be family-resemblance concepts.Yet clearly he accepts the possibility of characterising these concepts with the help of sharp denitions, albeit he does not think that any one such denition can capture appropriately the concept as a whole. Whether or not a sharp denition is appropriate depends on the particular purposes of the discussion. (It would be dogmatic to claim that a sharp denition is never appropriate. Similarly, however, it is dogmatic to maintain that a sharp denition must always be given.) An example of the procedure of clarifying the use of words assisted by a sharply dened concept, without claiming that this concept is an accurate denition of the actual concept, is found in Wittgensteins discussion of the concept of reading in the PI. Here reading is dened as activity of rendering out loud what is written or printed; and also of writing from dictation, writing out some24. The distinction between rules of language (logical propositions) and factual (empirical) propositions might be taken as an example. Although the boundary between these two kind of propositions is not sharp, as Wittgenstein notes (cf. Wittgenstein, L., On Certainty, Anscombe, G. E. M. and von Wright G. H. (eds.), Blackwell, 1993, 318ff.), an exact denition or characterisation of this distinction that overlooks this blurredness can nevertheless be helpful for particular claricatory purposes. (My characterisation of the distinction between rules and factual statements in section 4. is idealised in the relevant respect.)
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thing printed, playing from a score, and so on (PI 156). This concept of reading Wittgenstein uses then to make certain points about reading and about rule following more generally. Again, that he takes reading to be a family-resemblance concept is not considered a problem (PI 162). 8. Conclusion: Rules, Dogmatism and the Metaphysical Projection I have argued that the role of rules in conceptual investigation is to articulate models to be used as objects of comparison. This conception seems also able to solve the problem of dogmatism as it threatens philosophy as the description of language use with rules. Put forward as an object of comparison the rule used by the philosopher to characterise actual language use does not constitute a claim or a thesis that actual language use must be what the philosophers rule states it to be. Wittgenstein characterises his procedure in the BB also as follows:
[. . .] in general we dont use language according to strict rules [. . .]. We, in our discussions on the other hand, constantly compare language with a calculus proceeding according to exact rules. This is a very one-sided way of looking at language. For not only do we not think of the rules of usageof denitions, etc.while using language, but when we are asked to give such rules, in most cases we arent able to do so. [. . .] Why then do we in philosophizing constantly compare our use of words with one following exact rules? The answer is that the puzzles which we try to remove always spring from just this attitude towards language. (BB, 25, 26)
Far from assuming that language is used according to precise rules, Wittgensteins reason for tabulating rules for language lies elsewhere. The reason is the philosophers attitude towards language, their keenness on giving denitions of concepts and constantly running into trouble as a result. Or as he says: The man who is philosophically puzzled sees a law in the way a word is used, and, trying to apply this law consistently, comes up against cases where it leads to paradoxical results. (BB, 27; cf. 28; PI 125) A way of responding to such problems is to give other rules instead of the philosophers original rules that may be just as acceptable. In this way one may counteract the idea that one must think about a matter in a particular way, and consequently resolve philosophical problems that arise from thinking about it in this way. (Cf.
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AWL, 48; Ms140, 24/PG, 68; Ts220 99) Or as Wittgenstein says about the problem of our not being able to dene knowledge, as a consequence of which: It appears we dont know what it means, and that therefore, perhaps, we have no right to use it. His response is: We should reply: There is no one exact usage of the word knowledge; but we can make up several such usages, which will more or less agree with the ways the word is actually used. (BB, 27) The point, it seems, is not to deny that the philosophers denition has any value. Rather, it is to move away from the situation in which we look for the right denition that is supposed to be the answer to all our problems about the concept. Put in another way, the conclusion from our expressions not being governed by any clear and precise rules is not that [. . .] there is no list of rules for our language, and the whole exercise of setting up one is nonsense but rather that [. . .] we must refrain from setting up dogmas. (Ms111, 87/Ts211, 51; cf. Ts213, 249vff.)25 That is, we must not put forward our rules as claims about language and thereby expose ourselves to the danger of making exaggerated and misleading claims that will create philosophical problems instead of solving them. Crucially, however,Wittgensteins view that the philosophers rules should be understood only as objects of comparison does not imply that, according to him, it is impossible for us to reach an adequate understanding of the actual uses of language. (And that we therefore have to be satised with something less: mere comparisons, lacking proper theses or other adequate accounts.) Rather than making a claim about what we can or cannot do he is addressing a source of philosophical problems. As stated in the quotation from Ms183 in the beginning of section 5, the ideal (or any model for that matter) is supposed to be something [. . .] with the help of which we present how things are. Not a picture with which we falsify reality. In contrast, put forward as theses about what language must be the philosophers rules seem to become just such falsifying pictures.What should only be an
25. More fully, Wittgenstein says: Ich mache mich doch anheischig das Regelverzeichnis unserer Sprache aufzustellen: Was soll ich nun in einem Fall wie dem des Begriffes Panze tun? Soll ich sagen, da es fr diesen & diesen Fall keine Regel aufgestellt ist? Gewi, wenn es sich so verhlt. Soll ich aber also sagen es gibt kein Regelverzeichnis unserer Sprache & das ganze Unternehmen eins aufzustellen ist Unsinn? Aber es ist ja klar da es nicht Uns unsinnig ist, denn wir stellen es ja mit Erfolg Regeln auf; & wir mssen uns nur enthalten Dogmen aufzustellen. (Ms111, 86, 87)
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object of comparison is now dogmatically projected onto language, where it takes the form of a truth about language or its rules, a grammatical truth about language. Thus, the philosopher seems to have again succumbed to the illusion of a perception of a state of affairs of the highest generality, as the Tractatus with its theory of propositions (cf. PI 104). What is an illuminating characterisation of language use is transformed to a claim about what it must be. Wittgenstein, hence, is not claiming that we are, so to say, necessarily prevented by a veil of our modes of presentation from seeing how language really is. Rather, the point is that we must not prevent ourselves from seeing how language really functions by setting up dogmas and making dogmatic claims about language (cf. PI 93). To refrain from putting rules forward as theses about language but to use them as objects of comparison would then seem to be what the shift from metaphysics to conceptual investigation consist in, according to Wittgenstein. An essential element of this investigation is the awareness that the investigation itself involves the use of language and modes of presentation, i.e. that our clarications have a grammar of their own too. Crucially, the grammar of our claricatory statements (pictures and models, for instance, rules) is not to be projected onto language as if it were a truth about it. Here the distinction between philosophy as a conceptual and factual investigation is again lost from view. Finally, although Wittgensteins point about the role of rules may seem radical, there is also a sense in which he is simply building on something already accepted by many philosophers. Their own attempts to give denitions show that they are happy to talk about concepts and language use in terms of rules.Wittgenstein then might be taken to suggesting only a slight methodological correction with his shift to the use of rules as objects of comparison.26 Department of Philosophy P .O. Box 9, 00014 University of Helsinki Finland oskari.kuusela@helsinki.
26. I wish to thank Gisela Bengtsson, Bill Child, James Conant, Logi Gunnarsson, Peter Hacker, Lars Hertzberg, Stephen Mulhall and Thomas Wallgren for comments on different versions of this paper. Thanks are due also to the participants in the research seminars at the departments of philosophy in bo Akademi, Finland, and the University of Uppsala, Sweden in May 2003.

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Philosophical Investigations 28:2 April 2005 ISSN 0190-0536

From Metaphysics and Philosophical Theses to Grammar: Wittgensteins Turn

Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005

Philosophical Investigations 6. The Turn and the Role of Rules

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