The Practice of Following Rules

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilhelm Vossenkuhl
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Default Option ◽  
Actual Use ◽  
Theory Of Language

AbstractRule following has been estimated as a major issue in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. It seemed to be a key to understand his philosophy of language, and a criterion for the correct use of words. It was further valued as a notion, which conforms to standards required in a theory of language. In this essay I shall argue that these views are neither supported in the Philosophical Investigations nor in any other of Wittgenstein’s writings. In my view rule following serves as a default option to clarify that there are no definite standards of the correct use of words and in consequence, that the actual use of a language is not to be explained at all. Any approach to an explanation of the actual language use by means of rules appears to be nonsensical and beside the point. In order to recognize this view one has to take Wittgenstein’s proposition seriously and at face value that the use of a language is a practice. Providing that only the practice counts the famous “paradox” reappears in a new light.

scholarly journals Dennis Patterson on Wittgenstein

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-106
Author(s):  
V. V. Ogleznev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Legal Interpretation ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Special Approach ◽  
Legal Theorist

Dennis Patterson, modern American legal theorist, is one of the active supporters of the importance and significance of later Wittgenstein’s ideas for resolving legal philosophy problems, including legal indeterminacy problem. On the basis of Wittgenstein’s ideas about rule-following and acting in accordance with rule, he developed his own special approach to law and legal interpretation. Although there are some doubts and possible objections that he understood and interpreted «Philosophical Investigations» correctly, it should be recognized that Patterson made a full-scale (and sometimes very convincing) attempt to explicate Wittgenstein’s thoughts in a quite different context, namely, in the context of legal theory. His treatment of wittgensteinian philosophy of language continues to be interesting and sound, despite the criticisms that have been made against his approach. It is in fact very hard to find among modern legal philosophers or theorists someone who could interpret Wittgenstein in a more sophisticated way than Patterson has done

Möchte Chomsky erklären, was Wittgenstein beschreibt?

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-123
Author(s):  
Melanie Uth
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Complementary Distribution ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Theory Of Meaning ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
The One ◽  
Language Meaning

AbstractThis article examines the relation between the philosophy of language proposed by the later Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations, and his ambition to cure philosophy from the mapping of linguistic expressions to extra-linguistic entities, on the one hand, and Chomsky's statements regarding language, meaning, and thought, and regarding the sense and non-sense of different fields of linguistic research, on the other. After a brief descriptive comparison of both approaches, it is argued that Chomsky's criticism on Wittgenstein's theory of meaning (Chomsky 1974 – 1996), or on Wittgenstein's basic concepts such as e. g. rule-following (Chomsky 2000 onwards), respectively, is (a) unwarranted and (b) caused by a fundamental misconception. Moreover, it is argued that the hypothesis evoked by Grewendorf (1985: 126), according to which „Chomsky would like to explain what Wittgenstein describes“, is misleading since the objects of investigation of Chomsky and Wittgenstein are in complementary distribution one to the other.

Meaning and rule-following

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry C. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Foundations Of Mathematics ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Fundamental Issue ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Linguistic Practice ◽  
Competent Speaker ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Sceptical Conclusion

Wittgenstein’s discussion of rules and rule-following, and the recent responses to it, have been widely regarded as providing the deepest and most challenging issues surrounding the notions of meaning, understanding and intention – central notions in the philosophy of language and mind. The fundamental issue is what it is for words to have meaning, and for speakers to use words in accordance with their meanings. In Philosophical Investigations and Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Wittgenstein explores the idea that what could give a word its meaning is a rule for its use, and that to be a competent speaker is to use words in accordance with these rules. His discussion of the nature of rules and rule-following has been highly influential, although there is no general agreement about his conclusions and final position. The view that there is no objectivity to an individual’s attempt to follow a rule in isolation provides one strand of Wittgenstein’s argument against the possibility of a private language. To some commentators, Wittgenstein’s discussion only leads to the sceptical conclusion that there are no rules to be followed and so no facts about what words mean. Others have seen him as showing why certain models of what it takes for an individual to follow a rule are inadequate and must be replaced by an appeal to a communal linguistic practice.

Architectural Grammars and Their Changes

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilhelm Vossenkuhl
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Detailed Comparison ◽  
Time Span ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Architectural Styles ◽  
The Comparative Study

AbstractWittgenstein believed in the resemblance of language and architecture. His idea turns out to be indeed rewarding. The descriptive notion of ‘grammar’ as exposed in his Philosophical Investigations is prolific in a detailed comparison between language and architecture. The essay proposes self-expression as being an end in itself in language use and architecture respectively and uses it as a common denominator in the comparative study. Wittgenstein’s notions of rule-following and grammar turn out to be applicable to a number of outstanding architectural examples from Renaissance till nowadays. It even offers a clue to both the change of linguistic meaning and of architectural styles over the discussed time span.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1889–1951)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatum Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Complex Objects ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
The World ◽  
Complex Words

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher whose work, largely on the philosophy of language, had far-reaching implications for modernist intellectual history and for enduring scholarly debate. In Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung [Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus] (1921), the only book-length work published in his lifetime, Wittgenstein examined logic and ethics, as well as the nature of language and the boundaries of sense. The work earned him significant recognition, particularly among the group of scientists and logicians of the Vienna Circle. Wittgenstein’s early understanding of language was based on its relationship with—and more specifically, representation of—meaning and reality. According to the Tractatus, every word is the name of an object and that object is the word’s meaning. He held that complex words and meanings could be condensed to absolutely simple elements with definite meanings. These "simple names" represented similarly fixed and permanent "simple objects," and thus there was for Wittgenstein an eternal world of objects, a fixed substance beneath the changing surface appearances of the world. In his posthumously published Philosophische Untersuchungen [Philosophical Investigations] (1953), Wittgenstein appeared to repudiate many of his prior claims. He placed new emphasis on the context in which words are used, referring to different contexts of language-use as "language games" that render his previous notions of simple and complex objects relative.

scholarly journals Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Language: an Introduction

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 147-159
Author(s):  
Muhammad Ashaduzaman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Philosophical Study ◽  
Analytical Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Picture Theory ◽  
Logical Atomism ◽  
Theory Of Language

The reputation of Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the most influential philosophers of the nineteenth century is based on his studies of analytical philosophy, especially the philosophical study of logic, language, mathematics and metaphysics. His contribution to the philosophy of language is considerable. He stated his concepts and ideas in his two revolutionary books: 'Tractatus Logico Philosophicus' and 'Philosophical investigations' where he discussed the picture theory, notion of name, logical atomism, etc. among others. This article briefly describes the life of Wittgenstein, his work and his influence on our thinking. Key words: Picture theory of language; language game; Private; Public; Proposition; Metaphysics; NamesDOI: 10.3329/dujl.v2i4.6904Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics Vol.2(4) August 2009 pp.147-159

On Rule-Following

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie McGinn
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Normative Constraint

In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein raises difficulties for the idea that what comes before my mind when I hear, or suddenly understand, a word can impose any normative constraint on what I go on to do. The conclusion his reflections seem to force on us gives rise to a paradox: there is no such thing as going on to apply an expression in a way that accords with what is meant by it. The paradox can be seen as one horn of a dilemma, the other horn of which is Platonism about meaning. It is generally agreed that resolving the paradox means finding a middle course between the two horns of the dilemma. This chapter looks at three attempts to find the middle course: communitarianism, naturalized Platonism, and quietism. It then considers whether Charles Travis offers a way out of the dilemma which avoids the problems of the other views discussed.

scholarly journals “Die Maschine als Symbol ihrer Wirkungsweise”: Wittgenstein, Reuleaux and Kinematics

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sébastien Gandon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
General Science ◽  
Machine Model ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
The Future ◽  
Machine Configuration

In Philosophical Investigations 193–94, Wittgenstein draws a notorious analogy between the working of a machine and the application of a rule. According to the view of rule-following that Wittgenstein is criticizing, the future applications of a rule are completely determined by the rule itself, as the movements of the machine components are completely determined by the machine configuration. On what conception of the machine is such an analogy based? In this paper, I intend to show that Wittgenstein relied on quite a specific scientific tradition very active at the beginning of the twentieth century: the kinematic or the general science of machines. To explain the fundamental tenets of this line of research and its links with Wittgenstein, I focus on Franz Reuleaux (1829–1905), whose works were known to Wittgenstein.       The first payoff of this investigation is to help distance the functionalist framework from which this passage is often read: Wittgenstein’s machines are not (or not primarily) computers. The second payoff is to explain why Wittgenstein talks about machines at this place in his discussion on rule-following: it is not the machine model in itself that is criticized in PI 193–94, but the “philosophical” temptation to generalize from it.

REQUESTING SPEECH ACT OF UTTERANCES IN OCEAN’S ELEVEN BY STEVEN SODERBERGH: A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 410
Author(s):  
Nurul Hasanah ◽  
Japen Sarage
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
The Real ◽  
Syntactic Form ◽  
Pragmatic Analysis ◽  
Actual Use

The term sentence and utterance are made different in terms that the former refers to syntactic structure, while the latter points out the actual function of such a structure in real communication. The same things apply to the terms request and requesting. The first term suggests the structural characteristics of sentence asking people to do something while the second term indicates the real sentence causing people to do something. The first deals with formal grammar while the second deals with pragmatics the actual use of language in communication.This article attempts to see requesting in its possible different syntactic forms as parts of speech acts in Ocean’sEleven by Steven Soderbergh. A pragmatic approach is applied since it uses context as a part of linguistic analysis involving the speaker, addressee, time, location, and genre in the conversation. A syntactic form of a sentence only cannot represent the real meaning of intention.The analysis of speech act of the conversation in the film brings us to an understanding that pragmatics encourage us to comprehend different kinds of setting to achieve requesting as a part of language use. Pragmatics as a branch of linguistics reveals mutual understanding between the speaker and the hearer.

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