scholarly journals Language Implications for Peace or War: Exploring How the use of Language led to war between Umuaro and Okperi in Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God in the Light of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Language

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Greg Ekeh
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Good Choice ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
Peaceful Coexistence ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Igbo Culture

This paper explored the conflict between Umuaro and Okperi (Fictitious Igbo towns) in Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God (A novel written by Chinua Achebe in 1965, which is a picture of struggle and dialectics between Igbo culture/religion and imported European culture/religion) in the light of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language. The aim of the paper was to show how the use and understanding made of language can have implications for peace or war, between individuals or communities. The goal is to contribute to the promotion of peace through appropriate use and understanding of language. Philosophical method of analysis was applied in discussing Wittgenstein’s views on language as well as extracts from Arrow of God. The extracts hinged on the utterances among the elders of Umuaro, as well as between Umuaro’s emissaries led by Akukalia and the elders of Okperi, which eventually culminated in a war between Umuaro and Okperi. The findings of the study showed that use of words and languages can lead to peace or war, by their implications, understanding and context. The conclusion was that understanding and applying Wittgenstein’s view of language as a social practice through meaning as use, language-games, rule-following, grammar and form of life can help people, especially those in positions of authority, power and influence, to make good choice of words and languages in their speeches or utterances – words and languages that promote peace instead of war or any kind of violence. Mahatma Gandhi was an example of such leaders, and it was recommended that today’s leaders emulate him, for a peaceful coexistence, especially as the present society is apparently enveloped in political tensions and struggle for supremacy in various dimensions.

Schemaspiele

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Hans Lenk
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Modeling Processes ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Special Cases ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Active Formation

AbstractThe title of “Schema Games” is certainly insinuated by Wittgenstein’s later philosophy of “Language Games” as a social practice and “life forms” and “Gepflogenheiten” (usages), social practices, action forms and mores and institutions. However, in this article Wittgenstein’s conception is extended to forms of not only language usages and actions but also any form of modeling, structuring and scheme activation in cognition and action as well as subconscious, even neuro-physiologically activated networking and modeling processes. Schemes, schematization and scheme activations as well as reactivations are decisive for any stabilization of meanings, opinions, mental episodes as well as actions, social or individual. There is no cognition or action or thinking and speaking without the activation and reactivation of schemes on different levels.Wittgenstein’s approach of a pragmatic and social practice of language games and life forms based on common and repeated usages of special cases of scheme activations and processes of interpretative constructions (interpretative constructs) may also methodologically be analyzed on different levels, even subconscious ones, to grasp or to constitute cognitive and action-like activities. Active formation and usages play a fundamental and pragmatic role, not only according to Kant under his categories but after Wittgenstein and the present methodological approach in a more flexible way - somewhat like Wittgenstein’s “language games” approach. Not only socially based speech forms and actions as well as “life forms” are dependent on active pragmatic scheme interpretations, but also already many basic processes of representing, cognizing, acting, mustering and modeling, even on subconscious neuronal levels. Any cognition and action whatsoever is scheme-dependent, produced by scheme-interpretative activity on user-oriented and a socio-pragmatic, or even institutionalized basis. Not only do language games rely on scheme activations, but they are, methodologically speaking, special cases of these forms of activation. Thus, the parallelism between “language games” and life forms in Wittgenstein’s sense and “schema games” on the basis of methodological scheme-interpretationism seems to be well-founded.

scholarly journals Forms of Life

2015 ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hacker
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Philosophy Of Mathematics ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Transformation Rules ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Varied History

The phrase ‘Lebensform’ (form of life) had a long and varied history prior to Wittgenstein’s use of it on a mere three occasions in the Philosophical Investigations. It is not a pivotal concept in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. But it is a minor signpost of a major reorientation of philosophy, philosophy of language and logic, and philosophy of mathematics that Wittgenstein instigated. For Wittgenstein sought to replace the conception of a language as a meaning calculus (Frege, Russell, the Tractatus) by an anthropological or ethnological conception. A language is not a class of sentences that can be formed from a set of axioms (definitions), formation and transformation rules and the meanings of which is given by their truth-conditions, but an open-ended series of interlocking language-games constituting a form of life or way of living (a culture). Wittgenstein’s uses of ‘Lebensform’ and its cognates, both in the Investigations and in his Nachlass are severally analysed, and various exegetical misinterpretations are clarified.

Playing platformized language games: Social media logic and the mutation of participatory cultures in Chinese online fandom

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110594
Author(s):  
Yiyi Yin ◽  
Zhuoxiao Xie
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Media Logic

This study discusses the shifting dynamics of fan participatory cultures on social media platforms by introducing the concept of “platformized language games.” We conceive of a fan community as a “speech community” and propose that the language and discourses of fan participatory cultures are technological practices that only make sense in use and interactions as “games” on social media platform. Based on an ethnography of communication on fan communities on Weibo, we analyze the technological-communicative acts of fan speech communities, including the platformized setting, participants, topics, norms, and key purposes. We argue that the social media logic (programmability, connectivity, popularity, and datafication) articulates with fans’ language games, thus shifting the “form of life” of celebrity fans on social media. Empirically, fan participatory cultures continue to mutate in China, as fan communities create idiosyncratic platformized language games based on the selective appropriation of the social media logics of connectivity and data-driven metrics.

scholarly journals "Let us imagine...": Wittgenstein's Invitation to Philosophy

2015 ◽  
pp. 99-115
Author(s):  
Beth Savickey
Keyword(s):  
Language Game ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Constitutive Relationships ◽  
The Social ◽  
Power And Authority

Wendy Lee-Lampshire writes that Wittgenstein’s conception of language has something valuable to offer feminist attempts to construct epistemologies firmly rooted in the social, psychological and physical situations of language users (1999: 409).  However, she also argues that his own use of language exemplifies a form of life whose constitutive relationships are enmeshed in forms of power and authority. For example, she interprets the language game of the builders as one of slavery, and questions how we read and respond to it.  She asks: “Who are ‘we’ as Wittgenstein’s reader(s)?” This is an important question, and how we answer offers insight not only into our own philosophical practices, but also into Wittgenstein’s use of language games. With the words “Let us imagine...”, Wittgenstein invites readers to participate in creative, collaborative, and improvisational language games that alter not only the texts themselves, but our relationship with others.

scholarly journals Authority and Gender: Flipping the F-Switch

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne Tirrell
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Role Theory ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Inferential Role ◽  
Gender Status ◽  
Gender Attribution ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Individual

The very rules of our language games contain mechanisms of disregard. Philosophy of language tends to treat speakers as peers with equal discursive authority, but this is rare in real, lived speech situations. This paper explores the mechanisms of discursive inclusion and exclusion governing our speech practices, with a special focus on the role of gender attribution in undermining women’s authority as speakers. Taking seriously the metaphor of language games, we must ask who gets in the game and whose moves can score. To do this, I develop an eclectic analysis of language games using basic inferential role theory and the concept of a semantic index, and develop the distinction between positional authority and expertise authority, which often conflict for members of oppressed groups. Introducing the concepts of master switches and sub-switches that attach to the index and change scorekeeping practices, I argue that women’s gender status conflicts with our status as authoritative speakers because sex marking in semantics functions as a master switch—“the F-switch”—on the semantic index, which, once thrown, changes the very game. An advantage of using inferentialism for understanding disregard of women’s discursive authority is that it locates the problem in the sanctioned moves, in the deontic structure of norms and practices of scorekeeping, and not primarily in the individual intentions of particular people.

scholarly journals Structural (In)visibility: Possible Effects of Constructing a Controlled Vocabulary in a Niche Domain

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Audrey May Lorberfeld
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Controlled Vocabulary ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Future Evolution ◽  
Standard Construction ◽  
The Future

The paper explores the challenges and implications that arose during the construction of a controlled vocabulary in an emerging, non-structured domain. It discusses the difficulty of defining a domain with evolving and intersectional boundaries, and how Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language may aid designers in properly representing a domain’s hierarchy when multiple language games are present. It also discusses adaptation of standard construction procedures to maintain domain representation. The analysis focuses on the potential effects that constructing such a controlled vocabulary could cause in the future evolution of that domain.

scholarly journals Wittgenstein on ethics: Working through Lebensformen

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliet Floyd
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Working Through ◽  
Significant Step

In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein conveyed the idea that ethics cannot be located in an object or self-standing subject matter of propositional discourse, true or false. At the same time, he took his work to have an eminently ethical purpose, and his attitude was not that of the emotivist. The trajectory of this conception of the normativity of philosophy as it developed in his subsequent thought is traced. It is explained that and how the notion of a ‘form of life’ ( Lebensform) emerged only in his later thought, in 1937, earmarking a significant step forward in his philosophical method. We argue that the concept of Lebensform represents a way of domesticating logic itself, the very idea of a claim or reason, supplementing the idea of a ‘language game’, which it deepens. Lebensform is contrasted with the phenomenologists’ Lebenswelt through a reading of the notions of ‘I’, ‘world’ and ‘self’ as they were treated in the Tractatus, The Blue and Brown Books and Philosophical Investigations. Finally, the notion of Lebensform is shown to have replaced the notion of culture ( Kultur) in Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein’s spring 1937 ‘domestication’ of the nature of logic is shown to have been fully consonant with the idea that he was influenced by his reading Alan Turing’s 1936/1937 paper, ‘On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem’.

REMARKS ON WITTGENSTEIN’S PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHICAL METHOD AND CONTRADICTIONS

2008 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-40
Author(s):  
Kaj Børge Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Logic ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Cut Elimination ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Language Therapy ◽  
Alan Turing ◽  
Private Language Argument ◽  
Definition Of

This essay is a critical analysis of some themes in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. It is not primarily Wittgenstein-exegesis. Much more modestly, my purpose is to express my own thoughts about some questions which Wittgenstein has treated in his writings. It is the second in a series of two articles. The first article, “Remarks on Wittgenstein’s Philosophy: Private Language and Meaning", was published in Volume 42, 2007, of the present YEARBOOK. Section 1, “Philosophical Method”. Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy as language therapy is criticised. Instead philosophy is construed as foundational research. Wittgenstein’s statement that mathematical logic cannot contribute to progress in philosophy is repudiated. Several examples of ideas and results in mathematical logic which have led to the solution of philosophical problems are given. Section 2, “Contradictions: The Wittgenstein- Turing Debate”. In lectures on the foundations of mathematics given in 1939, Wittgenstein claimed that contradictions in mathematical theories are harmless. A debate ensued on this question between him and Alan Turing. In support of Turing's standpoint, I use the theorem on Taylor series, Church's Theorem, and Gentzen’s Cut-Elimination Theorem to show that Wittgenstein’s standpoint is untenable. For orientation, I also include here the abstract for the first article in the series, “Remarks on Wittgenstein’s Philosophy: Private Language and Meaning”. Section 1, “The Private Language Argument”. An independent argument is given for Wittgenstein’s thesis that there is no private language. I show that psychological terms in ordinary language, in contrast to an implication of Wittgenstein’s own private language argument, in their meanings do contain references to inner states, processes, and events. Section 2, “Meaning”. Wittgenstein’s definition of meaning as use in the language is criticised. Meaning is instead identified with something in the content of a conscious mind. Applications are given to some suggestions in the philosophy of language by Chomsky, Harman and Fodor, Grice, and Kripke.

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