G. P. Baker

Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity

Acknowledgements. Preface. Abbreviations. Analytical Commentary. Part I: Two Fruits upon One Tree: Following a Rule. Part II: Rules and Grammar: Part III: Accord with a Rule: Part IV: Following Rules, Mastery of Techniques and Practices: Part V: Agreement in Definitions, Judgements and Forms of Life: Part VI: Grammar and Necessity: Index.

Malcolm on language and rules

In ‘Wittgenstein on Language and Rules’, Professor N. Malcolm took us to task for misinterpreting Wittgensteins arguments on the relationship between the concept of following a rule and the concept of community agreement on what counts as following a given rule. Not that we denied that there are any grammatical connections between these concepts. On the contrary, we emphasized that a rule and an act in accord with it make contact in language. Moreover we argued that agreement in judgments and in definitions is indeed necessary for a shared language. But we denied that the concept of a language is so tightly interwoven with the concept of a community of speakers (and hence with actual agreement) as to preclude its applicabilty to someone whose use of signs is not shared by others. Malcolm holds that ‘This is an unwitting reduction of Wittgensteins originality. That human agreement is necessary for “shared” language is not so striking a thought as that it is essential for language simpliciter .’ Though less striking, we believe that it has the merit of being a true thought. We shall once more try to show both that it is correct, and that it is a correct account of Wittgensteins arguments.

Quotation-marks in Philosophical Investigations Part I

Abstract The data from PI are surveyed and classified. It is shown that there is a systematic contrast between the use of single and double quotation-marks; also that single quotes are regularly used to mean ‘in a certain sense’ or ‘in a special sense’. These points, though hitherto neglected, bear on the interpretation of many of W∗s most well-known remarks. New interpretations are worked out for four of them: §§101, 122, 202, and 580. Suggestions are made for further research.

Wittgenstein on Metaphysical/Everyday Use

Wittgenstein remarked ‘What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use’ (PI§116). On this basis, his ‘later philosophy’ is generally regarded as a version of ‘ordinary language philosophy’. He is taken to criticize philosophers for making (‘metaphysical’) statements which deviate in different ways from the everyday use of some of their component expressions. I marshal textual evidence for another reading of this remark, and show that he used ‘metaphysical’ in a traditional way, namely, to describe philosophical attempts to delineate the essence of things by establishing necessities and impossibilities. On his conception, ‘everyday’ simply means ‘non-metaphysical’ (in this precise sense). Comparisons of philosophical utterances with non-philosophical uses of words are meant to call attention to this crucial distinction.

Functions In Begriffsschrift

In Begriffsschrift Frege presented modern logic for the first time: a complete axiomatization of the predicate calculus with identity. By his own avowal, this achievement is grounded in the analysis of judgments into function and argument (Frege 1879, vii),1 which he called an extension of the concept of a function in analysis (Frege 1879, §10). Our concern here is with recent attempts to clarify his conception of a function in this seminal work. Later, in Grundgesetze, he developed an extended version of his logic which includes set-theory. This too, he claimed, is based on function/argument analysis (Frege 1893, 3, §§1–3; Frege 1979, 184). Here, in his mature system, he explained exactly how he had extended the mathematical concept of a function (Frege 1891, 12–3). This turns on extending the range of the values of first-level functions to include the two truth-values (the True and the False) and the range of their arguments from numbers to objects in general (concrete, abstract, and psychological). Here concepts and relations are defined as species of functions, namely functions whose values are always truth-values (Frege 1893, §3). At this stage, functions are sharply distinguished from function-names: in particular, a concept is conceived as the reference (Bedeutung) of a concept-word just as an object (e.g., a number) is the reference of a proper name (a numeral). Frege argued that it is a serious mistake to identify a function with an expression (Frege 1893, §1; cf. Frege 1904, 662–3). The text of Begriffsschrift seems to raise the question of whether this later conception of a function (in logic) differs fundamentally, or only in detail, from the initial conception. In recent years a consensus has developed that the two are radically different. It is claimed2 that Frege originally identified a (logical) function with a linguistic expression (part of a declarative sentence formulating a judgment), and the expression ‘linguistic function’ has been coined to designate his early conception of a function.3 Allegedly this conception alone informs the logical analysis of Begriffsschrift. What is thereby excluded is the possibility that

Friedrich Waismann: A Vision of Philosophy

Waismanns Wittgenstein-influenced ‘How I see Philosophy’ presents a radical vision of philosophy. But its two most general themes—its stress on freedom and vision , and its emphasis on describing the grammar of our language—seem hard to reconcile. This paper elaborates four interrelated themes: 1) Waismann offers his conception of philosophy, not a delineation of the nature of philosophy. 2) His method is radically therapeutic. 3) He offers a diagnosis of the source of philosophical problems: unconscious analogies or conceptions. 4) He advocates a particular form of therapy : offering alternative analogies or conceptions to individuals. Against this background the apparent paradox can be dissolved.

The Meditations and the logic of testimony

The exposition of ‘methodological doubt’ in the First Meditation (M1) is one of the most famous pieces of philosophical prose. Two of its central elements – using dreams to cast doubt on the reliability of sense perception and introducing the fiction of an evil demon – are among the most familiar ideas associated with Descartes. The whole argument has been subjected to repeated scrutiny in the finest detail for more than 350 years. Nonetheless, in our view, its overall structure is now misunderstood. And lack of clarity about what is going on in M1 entails lack of clarity about the whole of the Meditations . A prominent reason for the invisibility to today’s readers of the patterns exhibited in M1 is ignorance of that part of logic then known as the logic of testimony. Descartes’s utilization of this framework is clearly discernable in ¶3, where the faculty of sensory perception is compared to a witness who has been known to lie (to deliver false testimony), and where Descartes cites a well-known principle of the logic of testimony: ‘it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once’. But the remainder of M1 can illuminatingly be seen – indeed, we think, ought to be seen – as structured around further principles of the logic of testimony. In fact the whole of the Meditations can be seen in this light. As a first approximation, Descartes, exploiting the logic of testimony, aims to demonstrate that one witness, the intellect or the faculty of pure reason, is more reliable than another witness, the faculty of sensory perception, and hence it is contrary to good sense to prefer the testimony of the latter to that of the former.