Module 11 : LATER WITTGENSTEIN

Presentation - 34

 

Now a question arises: what is the role of 'language-game' that helps to understand the speaker's utterances? Wittgenstein responds to this query in the light of his analysis of the game of chess.

Chess analogy

Wittgenstein states that a game of chess is not about the chess pieces but it is about the meaning of a chess piece which is associated by sum of the rules that determines its possible movements. In a similar way, a sentence of a language has a specific meaning by virtue of its contribution of constituent word meaning, their usage and the rules that govern the sentence. On his view, the chess analogy can usefully illuminate the features of logical syntax of a language. If language is conceived as a logico-syntactical calculus, then chess analogy can bring to the light the following features.

  1. Like the rules of chess the rules of language have no foundations and cannot be justified by reference to reality. Its rules are autonomous; nothing dictates them.
  2. Its rules are arbitrary and could be different; change the rules and you change the game.
  3. The logical syntax of a word determines its place in grammar and in this sense is akin to the rules determining the possible moves of a chess piece.
  4. All that is lacking is the assignment of meaning, i.e., a method of application. It is the method of application that differentiates language (and applied mathematics) from chess (and pure mathematics). (Backer and Hacker, 1983, pp.48-49).

Again, by comparing language-game with chess, he says that 2

  1. The outward similarity of words is comparable to that of chess pieces, and is no less misleading (Philosophical Grammar, 59).
  2. The combinatorial possibilities of words are comparable to the possible configuration of chess pieces.
  3. The use of a word in an utterance is like the use of chess piece in a move.
  4. The meaning of a word is (up to a point) analogous to the powers of a chess piece.
  5. Just as a chess piece has significance only in the context of a move in a game so a word has a meaning only in the context of a sentence and a sentence has meaning only in a language.
  6. Understanding a word is not a mental state, event, or process, but an ability to use it in certain ways for certain purposes, just as knowing how to play chess is knowing how to move the pieces in conformity with the rules of chess in pursuit of the goal of winning – in both cases a technique is mastered (MS.166, Vol. II, 28F).
2  The following points have borrowed from Baker & Hacker, 1983, p.49.