## Philosophical Investigations [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]], in his later work, particularly in _Philosophical Investigations_, explores the relationship between meaning and use through what has become known as the **“meaning is use”** thesis. For Wittgenstein, the meaning of a word is not something that can be defined by a set of fixed characteristics or a precise, isolated definition. Instead, it is shaped by how the word is used in different contexts within [[Language]]. ### 1. **Meaning as Function within Language Games**: Wittgenstein argues that [[Language]] operates through a series of “[[Language]] games,” where words take on meaning through their use within these games. These “games” can include everyday activities such as giving orders, telling stories, making requests, and so on. `The meaning of a word is thus defined not by an abstract definition, but by the specific contexts in which it is employed`. The context in which the word is used, including the social, cultural, and practical aspects of its use, plays a crucial role in determining its meaning. ### 2. **Use Determines Meaning**: Rather than assuming that words have an essence or an inherent meaning independent of how they are used, Wittgenstein contends that the meaning of a word is inseparable from its use. For instance, the meaning of the word “game” cannot be adequately captured by a single definition; it encompasses various practices and activities, each with different rules, goals, and social contexts. What makes something a game is how it is used in language, and the same is true for all words. ### 3. **Critique of the Private Language Argument**: Wittgenstein also challenges the idea of a “private language,” which would be a language that could only be understood by a single individual. He argues that meaning arises from shared social practices and that the use of language depends on the communal understanding of terms. Without a common, public framework for language use, words would have no meaning. ### 4. **Family Resemblance**: Wittgenstein suggests that words do not have a single, fixed essence but instead have a “[[Family]] resemblance” to each other. For example, the concept of a “game” is related to many different activities, but no single characteristic defines all games. Instead, they share overlapping similarities that form a loose network, allowing us to understand their meaning through patterns of use. ### 5. **The Role of Context**: The meaning of a word is [[determined]] by its role in the broader context of social practices and interactions. The way a word is used in different situations can reveal different nuances of its meaning, and the meaning can shift based on the context in which it is applied. Wittgenstein emphasizes that meaning is not something static or fixed but is flexible and context-dependent. #### **Summary:** Wittgenstein’s idea that “meaning is use” emphasizes that words gain meaning through the way they are used in practice within social and cultural contexts. Rather than looking for a universal definition or essence of words, he suggests we understand words by observing how they function in different “language games.” This view shifts away from the idea that meaning is an abstract, inherent property of words, proposing instead that meaning is dynamic, contextual, and relational to how language is used in specific situations. ### Philosophical theories of meaning and truth Within in the fields of semantics, semiotics, and philosophy of language. Meaning arises from the relationship between signs and what they signify. #### Key theories of meaning: 1. **Psychological theories**: Focused on thought, intention, and understanding. 2. **Logical theories**: Involving intension, reference, and denotation. 3. **Message and communication**: Emphasising information transfer. 4. **Truth conditions**: Concerns how words align with reality. 5. **Usage-based theories**: Relating to the instructions for using symbols. 6. **Measurement and computation**: Regarding how meaning is structured in systems. **Theories of Truth:** The text also reviews five prominent theories of truth: • **Correspondence theory**: Truth is based on the correspondence between statements and reality. • **Coherence theory**: Truth depends on the consistency of a system of propositions. • **Constructivist theory**: Meaning is constructed through social processes and is historically and culturally contingent. • **Consensus theory**: Truth is what a community agrees upon. • **Pragmatic theory**: Truth is verified through practical results and continuous inquiry. Each of these theories reflects different ways of understanding the relationship between meaning and truth, with an emphasis on how social, logical, and practical factors influence our comprehension of both. --- The relationship between meaning, language, and belief is deeply dynamic and mutually influential. Here are some key perspectives drawn from your highlights: 1. **Belief Shapes Interpretation and Action**: Your beliefs—even those you aren't aware of—strongly affect what you want, how you act, and how you interpret the world around you. For example, Carol Dweck’s work in [[Psychology]] suggests that a [[Belief]] about your own changeability or fixedness can “lead to a host of thoughts and actions, taking you down an entirely different road” ([Dweck on belief and mindset](https://readwise.io/bookreview/44303973/?highlight=788938855)). Even simple changes in belief can have profound effects on outcomes and life trajectory ([belief and success](https://readwise.io/bookreview/44303973/?highlight=788938842)). 2. **Language as a Carrier of Belief and Meaning**: Language isn’t neutral—it carries embedded beliefs and shapes the way we construct meaning. [[Timothy Morton]] notes that some of our most basic concepts—even those we claim are secular—have a “monotheistic form, despite what we think we believe” ([concepts as legacy of belief](https://readwise.io/bookreview/48556886/?highlight=849281185)). The language we use can “sermonize, shame, and guilt,” reflecting historical and cultural belief systems ([monotheist language and guilt](https://readwise.io/bookreview/44304082/?highlight=791320537)). 3. **Meaning Emerges from Relations—Not Just Parts**: We often say “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” This is a belief with broad consequences, suggesting that meaning, consciousness, or systems (like Gaia or the mind) are emergent properties, not reducible to their linguistic or physical components ([belief in emergence](https://readwise.io/bookreview/44304082/?highlight=816465378)). 4. **Interpretation and the Hermeneutic Circle**: Meaning is shaped by a dynamic back-and-forth between beliefs, language, and the interpretation of experience. This is reflected in what philosophers call “the hermeneutic circle”—the idea that we interpret parts based on wholes and wholes based on parts, in an ongoing process ([confirmation bias and interpretation](https://readwise.io/bookreview/48556886/?highlight=849281197)). 5. **Meaning Is Never Exhausted**: Language and [[Art]] open up unconditional spaces for meaning; you don’t ever “exhaust the meaning of a poem or a painting or a piece of music.” Meaning has what Morton calls “unconditioned futurality”—it is open-ended, always generating new interpretations ([the endlessness of meaning](https://readwise.io/bookreview/44304082/?highlight=842206458)). 6. **Entanglement of Beliefs, Language, and Reality**: Things are “entangled with interpretations of things, yet different from them,” suggesting that our beliefs and language both filter and co-create what we take as meaningful reality ([entanglement of things and interpretations](https://readwise.io/bookreview/44304082/?highlight=819589824)). In summary, meaning is a product of the ongoing dance between language and belief—each shapes and reshapes the other, while both are deeply entangled with [[Culture]], [[History]], and the subjective act of interpretation. Reality is never merely what’s “out there,” but always partially constructed, filtered, and animated by the language and beliefs we bring to it ([correlationism and interpretation](https://readwise.io/bookreview/44304082/?highlight=796231508)). ### **Associated Theories and Commentaries** Some theories suggest that meaning equates to the truth conditions a statement involves, with emphasis on reference to real-world objects as central to meaning. #### **Logic and Language** The logical positivists claimed that a statement’s meaning arises from its verification conditions. ##### **[[Gottlob Frege]]** Frege, in “On Sense and Reference,” argued that names present two issues in meaning. If a name refers to a non-existent object (e.g., Pegasus), it would be meaningless. Similarly, if two names (e.g., Hesperus and Phosphorus) refer to the same object, substituting them in a sentence should not change its meaning, which creates a paradox. Thus, Frege proposed that the meaning of a name is its “sense,” not its referent, leading to a theory of mediated reference. This applies to other linguistic categories as well. ##### **Bertrand Russell** Russell, in _Principia Mathematica_, advanced formal logic and logical atomism, which sought to eliminate philosophical confusion caused by ordinary language. He rejected Frege’s sense-reference distinction and aimed to create a transparent formal language for philosophy. His student Wittgenstein’s _Tractatus_ furthered this approach. #### **Other Truth Theories of Meaning** The Vienna Circle, aligned with Russell and Frege, endorsed verificationism, claiming that meaning derives from conditions that could prove a statement true. Alfred Tarski’s semantic theory of truth linked meaning to recursive rules producing a set of sentences. Donald Davidson expanded on this in 1967, advocating for truth-conditional semantics, which suggests meaning equals a statement’s truth conditions, similarly to Tarski’s model. ##### **Saul Kripke** Kripke distinguished between sense and reference in modal logic, showing that a name’s reference is necessary, but its sense is contingent. He also elaborated on the difference between speaker’s meaning and semantic meaning, following Paul Grice and Keith Donnellan. ### **Critiques of Truth Theories** W.V.O. Quine challenged both verificationism and the concept of meaning in his essay “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” suggesting meaning is vague and dispensable. He proposed studying synonymy between signs rather than individual meanings. Tarski himself admitted that truth-conditional theories fall short in explaining the meaning of individual components of statements. Moreover, certain statements, like “Hello!”, lack truth conditions altogether. Deflationists argue that “truth” lacks significant explanatory power, viewing “It’s true that Tiny Tim is trouble” and “Tiny Tim is trouble” as equivalent. Formalism is also critiqued for failing to capture the richness of natural language, as formal systems (e.g., quantificational logic) struggle with expressions like definite descriptions. Lastly, modal logics, which explore necessity and possibility, have been seen as more adept at capturing the meaning of logical connectives like “if-then” than traditional truth-functional logic. ## **Usage and Meaning** In the 20th century, analytic philosophy focused on language analysis, leading to the development of new philosophical tools. ### **Ludwig Wittgenstein** Initially following an ideal language approach in _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_, but later shifted to focus on ordinary language in _Philosophical Investigations_. His view, often summarised as “the meaning of a word is its use in language,” emphasised how language conveys meaning through usage rather than abstract definitions, influencing later philosophers like P. F. Strawson and Jürgen Habermas. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy, particularly in his early and later works, offers profound insights into the nature of meaning, but it’s nuanced to say he concluded that there is “no inherent meaning.” Instead, he challenged how we think about meaning itself. Here’s an explanation of how he approached this: #### 1. Early Wittgenstein: The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus In his early work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), Wittgenstein explored the idea of meaning through the picture theory of language: ###### • Picture Theory: He argued that language works by mirroring the world. A proposition (a statement) is a “logical picture” of a possible state of affairs. Just as a painting represents a landscape, sentences represent reality. ###### • Limits of Language: The structure of language determines what can be meaningfully said. Anything outside this (e.g., metaphysics, ethics) is nonsensical—not because it’s unimportant but because language is inadequate to express it. ###### • Inherent Meaning?: While this model ties meaning to the correspondence between language and the world, Wittgenstein recognised that the ultimate foundation of this system could not itself be expressed within it. Hence, meaning becomes contingent on this unspoken framework. #### 2. Later Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations In his later work, Philosophical Investigations (1953), Wittgenstein rejected the rigid system of the Tractatus. His new view was that: • Meaning Is Use: Language derives its meaning from how it is used in specific contexts, not from a strict logical correspondence to reality. • Language Games: Words function as part of “language games,” governed by rules established within particular forms of life (shared cultural and social practices). For example, “playing chess” and “praying” involve vastly different uses of language. • No Inherent Meaning: This led Wittgenstein to suggest that meaning isn’t inherent or universal; it depends on context, purpose, and shared human activities. If a word’s meaning is rooted in its use, it cannot possess meaning independently of that use. #### 3. Existential Connections While Wittgenstein wasn’t an existentialist, there are interesting parallels and contrasts between his work and existentialist thought: ###### • Meaning in Context: Like existentialists, Wittgenstein rejected fixed, abstract sources of meaning. For existentialists like Sartre or Camus, meaning must be created by individuals in an absurd universe. For Wittgenstein, meaning emerges within specific life practices. ###### • Limits and the Unsayable: Both Wittgenstein and existentialists grapple with the ineffable. The Tractatus ends with the famous line: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” This resonates with existentialist themes of confronting the ineffable nature of existence. ###### • Critique of Absolutes: Existentialists criticise universal systems of meaning, akin to Wittgenstein’s later critique of the idea that language holds universal truths. #### 4. Conclusion Wittgenstein’s work fundamentally shifted the way we think about meaning: from something inherent or metaphysical to something practical, contextual, and rooted in human life. His picture theory in the Tractatus laid the groundwork for this exploration, but his later work expanded the critique of inherent meaning. While not directly tied to existentialism, his ideas about context and use share a conceptual kinship with existentialist concerns about finding meaning in a contingent world. ### **J. L. Austin**, building on Wittgenstein’s work, argued against relying on dictionary definitions, proposing instead that meaning comes from the use of words in context. He introduced the concept of speech acts, furthering the development of pragmatics. ##### **Peter Strawson** challenged the traditional view of reference, asserting that meaning arises from the use of statements rather than from their inherent properties, distinguishing between meaning and use, which led to the fields of semantics and pragmatics. ##### **Paul Grice** divided meaning into natural (cause-and-effect) and non-natural (intentional) meaning. His cooperative principle of conversation, with maxims like relevance and truthfulness, influenced the study of conversation and inference, leading to theories like Relevance theory and Universal pragmatics. ##### **[[Noam Chomsky]]** critiqued traditional theories of reference, arguing that human language is inherently vague and context-dependent. He proposed that the meaning of terms like “book” varies depending on context, supporting a view similar to Wittgenstein’s and Austin’s. ##### **Inferential Role Semantics**, developed by Michael Dummett, rejects truth-conditional semantics in favour of assertion conditions, connecting meaning to the inferences that language users can draw from utterances. This approach is linked to verificationist semantics. ##### **Critiques of Use Theories**: Jerry Fodor argued that use theories overlook the possibility of a “private language,” essential for understanding mental representations. Similarly, David Lewis applied game theory to language, viewing meaning as a social convention. ##### **Idea Theory of Meaning**, associated with [[John Locke]], posits that meanings are mental representations. Critics like Wittgenstein and Berkeley argued that this theory struggles to account for the variability of meaning, especially for abstract or non-lexical words. ##### **Prototypes and Conceptual Role Semantics**: Theories like those of Eleanor Rosch and George Lakoff suggest that lexical categories have central prototypes (e.g., a robin as a “bird”) and that meaning is shaped by these prototypical examples. [[Conceptual]] role semantics views meaning as determined by a term’s relationships within a system of concepts.