Wittgenstein: Language-games and Foundations

Do language-games need some kind of foundation?

         

 In his treatise On Certainty, Ludwig Wittgenstein is addressing the general question, “What does this mean: the truth of a proposition is certain” (193)?  In particular, he is responding to a conversation between the skeptic and the realist.  The skeptic asserts that one cannot be certain (i.e. cannot show grounds for certainty) of the existence of external objects, the world, etc. The realist on the other hand, attempts to provide grounds for the certainty of external objects, the world, etc.  Hence Wittgenstein writes, “If Moore says he knows the earth existed etc., most of us will grant him that it has existed all that time, and also believe him when he says he is convinced of it.  But has he also got the right ground for his conviction?  For if not, then after all he doesn’t know” (Russell).

            However, Wittgenstein is not interested in supporting the position of either the realist or the skeptic.  “The propositions which one comes back to again and again as if bewitched-these I should like to expunge from philosophical language (31).  Thus we expunge the sentences that don’t get us any further” (33).  For Wittgenstein, the conversation between the skeptic and the realist is the result of a misuse of language.

            “Giving grounds, however, justifying the evidence, comes to an end;- but the end is not certain propositions’ striking us immediately as true, i.e., it is not a seeing on our part; it is our acting, which lies at the bottom of the language game” (204).  Here, Wittgenstein gives a glimpse at the difference between his approach to certainty and that of the philosophical skeptic and realist.  Wittgenstein argues that “knowing” is not best understood as analogous to “seeing.”  “Seeing” has commonly been understood as the best analogy to what it means to know.  Knowing a proposition with certainty is analogous to “seeing” it clearly.  However, for Wittgenstein to understand what it means to know something is to understand the use of the word “know.”

            The understanding of words is determined by ordinary use.  “It is queer: if I say, without any special occasion, ‘I know’-for example, ‘I know that I am now sitting in a chair’, this statement seems to me unjustified and presumptuous.  But if I make the statement where there is some need for it, then, although I am not a jot more certain of its truth, it seems to me to be perfectly justified and everyday” (553).  “In its language-game it is not presumptuous.  There, it has no higher position than, simply, the human language-game.  For there it has its restricted application” (554).

            The use of the term “know” makes sense only in ordinary use.  “I would like to reserve the expression “I know” for the cases in which it is used in normal linguistic exchange” (260).  Once it is taken out of the context of ordinary use of the term lacks sense.  For Wittgenstein, Moore (and his opponents) uses the term “know” out of the context of ordinary use.  That being the case, Moore’s statements about what he knows are lacking in sense.  In fact, it would take very special circumstances for Moore’s use of the term “know” to make sense.  “I could imagine Moore being captured by a wild tribe, and their expressing the suspicion that he has come from somewhere between the earth and the moon.  Moore tells them that he knows etc. but he can’t give them the grounds for his certainty, because they have fantastic ideas of human ability to fly and know nothing about physics.  This would be an occasion for making the statement” (264).  

            Not only is Moore misusing language in his attempt to establish the grounds of his certainty that he has hands, but he is mistaken in his understanding of the nature of grounds themselves.  Wittgenstein states, “Something must be taught us as a foundation” (449).  The very grounds that Moore wants to appeal to are not indubitable, but taught.  Again, grounds are not that which strikes us as immediately true, but that which we have been taught, and that which the rest our language-game depends.  “To say of man, in Moore’s sense, that he knows something; that what he says is therefore unconditionally the truth, seems wrong to me.-It is the truth only inasmuch as it is an unmoving foundation of his language game” (403).

            The foundations of language-games are “laid” by instruction.  “The child learns by believing the adult.  Doubt comes after belief” (160).  “A pupil and a teacher.  The pupil will not let anything be explained to him, for he continually interrupts with doubts, for instance as to the existence of things, the meaning of words, etc.  The teacher says ‘Stop interrupting me and do as I tell you.  So far your doubts don’t make sense at all’” (310).  “He has not learned the game we are trying to teach him” (315).

             “Children do not learn that books exist, that armchairs exist, etc. etc.,- they learn to fetch books, sit in armchairs, etc. etc.” (476). Again, “When a child learns language it learns at the same time what is to be investigated and what not.  When it learns that here is a cupboard in the room, it isn’t taught to doubt whether what it sees later on is still a cupboard or only a stage set” (472).  Notice that the foundation is laid without direct reference to the foundation.  In Wittgenstein’s account, the foundation is that a cupboard exists.  The child is not taught that the cupboard exists.  The child is taught to call this particular object a cupboard, to fetch cups out of this object which is called a cupboard, etc.  It is simply assumed that the cupboard exists.

            If one were to accept Moore’s position, then the education of the child would look quite different.  Before teaching the child about cupboards, the child would first have to be taught ways in which to establish the certainty of external objects.  Of course, one would still have to assume the existence of the external object in order to establish certainty.  For instance, the teacher would have to assert something like, “Let us take that cupboard over there, for instance, in order to establish its external existence we must first…”  In this case the teacher assumes the cupboard exists “over there” in order to show the pupil that in fact its external existence can be established.  Hence, Wittgenstein asks, “Doesn’t one need grounds for doubt” (122)?

            “What I hold fast to is not one proposition but a nest of propositions” (225).  “I have arrived at the rock bottom of my convictions.  And one might say that these foundation walls are carried by the whole house” (248).  “At the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded” (253).  “The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our believing” (166).  For Wittgenstein, foundations or grounds are not indubitable or certain.  In some sense, that which functions as a ground is simply assumed for the sake of proceeding with the language-game.

            Take for instance the command, “Pick up that slab.”  In this case, certain things are assumed without seeking to establish the certainty of the assumptions.  For instance, it is assumed that the one who will pick up the slab in fact has hands.  It is also assumed that the slab exists.  In this ordinary use, the assumptions are allowed for in light of the use of the terms.  The assumptions are grounded by the “whole house”, i.e. the language game in which “Pick up that slab” has sense. 

            Of course, the assumption that hands and slabs exist is not explicitly established as an assumption.  In short, the language-game, in which “Pick up that slab” has sense, does not need to establish particular assumptions in order to proceed.  Nonetheless, if these assumptions do not entail, then the whole language-game falls to the ground (i.e. ceases to be a language-game with sense).

            “What can I rely on” (508)?  “I really want to say that a language-game is only possible if one trusts something (I did not say ‘can trust something’)” (509).  “When I ask ‘Do I know or do I only believe that I am called…?’ it is no use to look within myself.  But I could say: not only do I never have the slightest doubt that I am called that, but there is no judgment I could be certain of if I started doubting about that” (490).  Wittgenstein seems to be pointing out the absolute necessity of assuming certain things in order to proceed with a language-game.  If I am uncertain of my own name, I cannot be certain of anything.  Again, my certainty is not established by argument, experience, or memory.  I simply am certain that I am called such and such.

            In light of what has been discussed so far, some conclusions can be drawn.  First, the skeptic and the realist are misusing the term “know.”  The statement, “I know I have hands”, as employed by Moore, is a misuse of language.  This is true even if the statement occurs in the context of a philosophical discussion.  “I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again ‘I know that that’s a tree’, pointing to a tree that is near us.  Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: ‘This fellow isn’t insane.  We are only doing philosophy’” (467).

            Second, the only proper use of the word “know” occurs in ordinary use.  Hence, in a situation in which someone asserts that I am wrong concerning slabs I have asked him to retrieve, “I know that there are slabs over there which you can fetch for me” is a use of “know” that has sense.

            Third, foundations are taught to the individual.  Wittgenstein argues that children are taught what to call things. Generally these names are taught in relation to use.  So, a child is taught to sit in chairs.  Children are not taught to question the chair’s existence (at least not at first).  This being the case, the foundations of language-games are assumptions that allow the language-game to proceed.  The existence of the chair must be and is assumed in order to learn that one sits in chairs.

            Finally, the foundations of language-games are immovable.  The fact that I have hands is not up for debate.  If it is possible that I am wrong or mistaken about having hands, then I must question the very words I trusted in order to come to the conclusion that I was mistaken about having hands.  The foundations of language-games are not indubitably true.  Nonetheless, they are necessary and immovable if I am to continue in the language game.

            One might ask if there are immovable foundations of language-games which are universal to all language-games.  That is, are there foundations that all language-games must assume?  Or, are all foundations specific to particular language-games and not others?  Wittgenstein asks, “Why doesn’t Moore produce as one of the things that he knows, for example, that in such-and-such a part of England there is a village called so-and-so?  In other words: why doesn’t he mention a fact that is known to him and not every one of us” (462)?  Again, “The truths which Moore says he knows, are such as, roughly speaking, all of us know, if he knows them” (100).  It seems that some foundations are assumed for any and all language games.

            Moore’s assertion that he knows he has hands has no sense because it is part of the foundation of all language-games.  Wittgenstein goes to great lengths to show that in ordinary use, Moore’s particular use has no sense.  “There is something universal here; not just something personal” (440).  The fact that Moore has hands is not a personal certainty for Moore.  Everyone with hands cannot doubt the existence of those hands and proceed with the language-game.  Such doubts cut out the possibility of proceeding.  As Wittgenstein points out, if someone doubts the existence of his own hands, then that individual cannot trust the very words that helped bring about that particular doubt.  Certain things are universally assumed by the very nature of a language-game.

            “We might speak of fundamental principles of human enquiry” (670).  If one combines Wittgenstein’s notion of “ordinary use” and “human language-game” (554), then it can be shown that certain foundations, grounds, or assumptions entail for every ordinary human language-game.  Moreover, the same foundations, etc. entail for every ordinary human language-game (i.e. universal foundations).  Take the existence of the world as an example.  It seems to be Wittgenstein’s’ argument that one must assume the world exists in every ordinary human language-game.  If this is not the case, what would a language-game be that did not assume, for instance, that the world exists?  The only possibility that comes to mind would be the language-game of the skeptic.  However, the skeptic’s language game is not in line with ordinary usage.

            Of course, it would not be necessary to attempt to delineate all of the particular foundational assumptions entailed by every ordinary human language-game.  The foundations of ordinary human language-games are not declared prior to the use of the language-game.  As Wittgenstein points out, foundations are laid in the instruction of the use of the language-game.  And this does not even occur in an explicit way.  Again, the child is taught to sit in chairs, not that chairs exist. 

            The point of showing that some foundations entail for any language-game concerns the possible insularity of knowledge in relation to language-games.  If, in fact, some foundations are universal, then it can be said (as Wittgenstein clearly does) that there are things everyone knows regardless of the particular language-game being employed.  In other words, some knowledge is not relative to particular language-games (though some knowledge may be relative to all language-games, i.e., makes language-games possible). Of course, this is not to say that these foundations can be shown to be certain.  If that were the case, then Moore is correct in his approach.  Nonetheless, some foundations are necessary if any language-game is to proceed.

For the text see here