I wont say I will see you tomorrow

Wittgenstein in Wicklow

PHILOSOPHY & LANGUAGE

Reading Event 18 May, 2013
Town Hall, Main Street, Bray, Co. Wicklow

PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS 1-12

Ludwig Wittgenstein

ART AFTER PHILOSOPHY (1969)

Joseph Kosuth

PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS
By
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Translated by
G. E. M. ANSCOMBE

EDITORS NOTE
WHAT appears as Part I of this volume was complete by
1945. Part II was written between 1946 and 1949.
If Wittgenstein had published his work himself, he
would have suppressed a good deal of what is in the
last thirty pages or so of Part I and worked what is in
Part II, with further material, into its place.
We have had to decide between variant readings for
words and phrases throughout the manuscript.
The choice never affected the sense.
The passages printed beneath a line at the foot of some
pages are written on slips which Wittgenstein had cut
from other writings and inserted at these pages, without
any further indication of where they were to come in.
Words standing between double brackets are Wittgensteins references to remarks either in this work or in
other writings of his which we hope will appear later.
We are responsible for placing the final fragment of Part
n in its present position.
G. E. M. ANSCOMBE
R. RHEES
G. H. VON WRIGHT

I wont say I will see you tomorrow

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PREFACE

This stung my vanity and I had difficulty in quieting it.

Four* years ago I had occasion to re-read my first book
(the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus} and to explain its
ideas to someone. It suddenly seemed to me that I should
publish those old thoughts and the new ones together:
that the latter could be seen in the right light only by
contrast with and against the background of my old way
of thinking.1

THE thoughts which I publish in what follows are the

precipitate of philosophical investigations which have
occupied me for the last sixteen years. They concern
many subjects: the concepts of meaning, of understanding, of a proposition, of logic, the foundations of
mathematics, states of consciousness, and other things.
I have written down all these thoughts as remarks, short
paragraphs, of which there is sometimes a fairly long
chain about the same subject, while I sometimes
make a sudden change, jumping from one topic to
another.It was my intention at first to bring all this
together in a book whose form I pictured differently
at different times. But the essential thing was that the
thoughts should proceed from one subject to another
in a natural order and without breaks.

For since beginning to occupy myself with philosophy

again, sixteen years ago, I have been forced to recognize
grave mistakes in what I wrote in that first book. I was
helped to realize these mistakesto a degree which I
myself am hardly able to estimateby the criticism
which my ideas encountered from Frank Ramsey, with
whom I discussed them in innumerable conversations
during the last two years of his life. Even more than
to thisalways certain and forciblecriticism I am
indebted to that which a teacher of this university,
Mr. P. Sraffa, for many years unceasingly practised on
my thoughts. I am indebted to this stimulus for the most
consequential ideas of this book.

After several unsuccessful attempts to weld my results

together into such a whole, I realized that I should never
succeed. The best that I could write would never be
more than philosophical remarks; my thoughts were
soon crippled if I tried to force them on in any single
direction against their natural inclination.And this
was, of course, connected with the very nature of the
investigation. For this compels us to travel over a wide
field of thought criss-cross in every direction.
The philosophical remarks in this book are, as it were, a
number of sketches of landscapes which were made in
the course of these long and involved journey ings.

For more than one reason what I publish here will have
points of contact with what other people are writing today.If my remarks do not bear a stamp which marks
them as mine,I do not wish to lay any further claim to
them as my property.
I make them public with doubtful feelings. It is not
impossible that it should fall to the lot of this work, in
its poverty and in the darkness of this time, to bring light
into one brain or anotherbut, of course, it is not likely.

The same or almost the same points were always being

approached afresh from different directions, and new
sketches made. Very many of these were badly drawn
or uncharacteristic, marked by all the defects of a weak
draughtsman. And when theyvwere rejected a number of
tolerable ones were left, which now had to be arranged
and sometimes cut down, so that if you looked at them
you could get a picture of the landscape. Thus this book
is really only an album. Up to a short time ago I had
really given up the idea of publishing my work in my
lifetime. It used, indeed, to be revived from time to
time: mainly because I was obliged to learn that my results (which I had communicated in lectures, typescripts
and discussions), variously misunderstood, more or less
mangled or watered down, were in circulation.

I should not like my writing to spare other people the

trouble of thinking. But, if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own. I should have liked to produce a good book. This has not come about, but the time
is past in which I could improve it.
CAMBRIDGE,
January 1945.
* But cf. G. H. von Wtight, The Wittgenstein Papers, The Philosophical
Review 78,
1969. It seems that Wittgenstein should have said two yeats.

1 It was hoped to catty out this plan in a purely Getman edition of the present work.

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I wont say I will see you tomorrow

PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS
By
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Translated by
G. E. M. ANSCOMBE

i. Cum ipsi (majores homines) appellabant rem aliquam, et cum secundum earn vocem corpus ad aliquid
movebant, videbam, et tenebam hoc ab eis vocari rem
illam, quod sonabant, cum earn vellent ostendere. Hoc
autem eos veile ex motu corporis aperiebatur: tamquam
verbis naturalibus omnium gentium, quae fiunt vultu et
nutu oculorum, ceterorumque membrorum actu, et sonitu
vocis indicante affectionem animi in petendis, habendis,
rejiciendis, fugiendisve rebus. Ita verba in variis sententiis locis suis posita, et crebro audita, quarum rerum
signa essent, paulatim colligebam, measque jam voluntates, edomito in eis signis ore, per haec enuntiabam.
(Augustine, Confessions, I. 8.) l

When they (my elders) named some object, and accordingly

moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that the
thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant
to point it out. Their intention was shewn by their bodily
movements, as it were the natural language of all peoples:
the expression of the face, the play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of the body, and the tone of voice which
expresses our state of mind in seeking, having, rejecting, or
avoiding something. Thus, as I heard words repeatedly used in
their proper places in various sentences, I gradually learnt to
understand what objects they signified; and after I had trained
my mouth to form these signs, I used them to express my own
desires.
1

These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language. It is this: the
individual words in language name objectssentences
are combinations of such names.In this picture of
language we find the roots of the following idea: Every
word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the
word. It is the object for which the word stands.
Augustine does not speak of there being any difference
between kinds of word. If you describe the learning of
language in this way you are, I believe, thinking primarily of nouns like table, chair, bread, and of
peoples names, and only secondarily of the names of
certain actions and properties; and of the remaining
kinds of word as something that will take care of itself.
Now think of the following use of language: I send
someone shopping. I give him a slip marked five red
apples. He takes the slip to the shopkeeper, who opens
the drawer marked apples; then he looks up the word
red in a table and finds a colour sample opposite it;
then he says the series of cardinal numbersI assume
that he knows them by heartup to the word five and
for each number he takes an apple of the same colour as
the sample out of the drawer.It is in this and similar
ways that one operates with words.But how does
he know where and how he is to look up the word red
and what he is to do with the word five?Well, I
assume that he acts as I have described. Explanations
come to an end somewhere.But what is the meaning
of the word five?No such thing was in question
here, only how the word five is used.

I wont say I will see you tomorrow

2. That philosophical concept of meaning has its place in

a primitive idea of the way language functions. But one
can also say that it is the idea of a language more primitive than ours. Let us imagine a language for which the
description given by Augustine is right. The language is
meant to serve for communication between a builder A
and an assistant B. A is building with buildingstones:
there are blocks, pillars, slabs and beams. B has to pass
the stones, and that in the order in which A needs them.
For this purpose they use a language consisting of the
words block, pillar, slab, beam. A calls them
out;B brings the stone which he has learnt to bring
at such-and-such a call.Conceive this as a complete
primitive language.

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PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS

3. Augustine, we might say, does describe a system of

communication; only not everything that we call language is this system. And one has to say this in many
cases where the question arises Is this an appropriate
description or not? The answer is: Yes, it is appropriate, but only for this narrowly circumscribed region, not
for the whole of what you were claiming to describe.
It is as if someone were to say: A game consists in
moving objects about on a surface according to certain
rules . . .and we replied: You seem to be thinking of
board games, but there are others. You can make your
definition correct by expressly restricting it to those
games.

(I do not want to call this ostensive definition, because

the child cannot as yet ask what the name is. I will call
it ostensive teaching of words.I say that it will
form an important part of the training, because it is so
with human beings; not because it could not be imagined
otherwise.) This ostensive teaching of words can be said
to establish an association between the word and the
thing. But what does this mean? Well, it may mean various things; but one very likely thinks first of all that a
picture of the object comes before the childs mind when
it hears the word. But now, if this does happenis it the
purpose of the word?Yes, it may be the purpose.I
can imagine such a use of words (of series of sounds).
(Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard
of the imagination.) But in the language of 2 it is not
the purpose of the words to evoke images. (It may, of
course, be discovered that that helps to attain the actual
purpose.)
But if the ostensive teaching has this effect,am I to
say that it effects an understanding of the word? Dont
you understand the call Slab! if you act upon it in
such-and-such a way?Doubtless the ostensive teaching helped to bring this about; but only together with
a particular training. With different training the same
ostensive teaching of these words would have effected
a quite different understanding.
I set the brake up by connecting up rod and lever.
Yes, given the whole of the rest of the mechanism. Only
in conjunction with that is it a brake-lever, and separated
from its support it is not even a lever; it may be anything, or nothing.

4. Imagine a script in which the letters were used to

stand for sounds, and also as signs of emphasis and
punctuation. (A script can be conceived as a language
for describing sound-patterns.) Now imagine someone
interpreting that script as if there were simply a correspondence of letters to sounds and as if the letters had
not also completely different functions. Augustines
conception of language is like such an over-simple
conception of the script.
5. If we look at the example in i, we may perhaps get
an inkling how much this general notion of the meaning
of a word surrounds the working of language with a haze
which makes clear vision impossible.
It disperses the fog to study the phenomena of language
in primitive kinds of application in which one can
command a clear view of the aim and functioning of the
words. A child uses such primitive forms of language
when it learns to talk. Here the teaching of language is
not explanation, but training.

7. In the practice of the use of language (2) one party

calls out the words, the other acts on them. In instruction in the language the following process will occur:
the learner names the objects; that is, he utters the word
when the teacher points to the stone.And there
will be this still simpler exercise: the pupil repeats the
words after the teacherboth of these being processes
resembling language.
We can also think of the whole process of using words
in (2) as one of those games by means of which
children learn their native language. I will call these
games language-games and will sometimes speak of
a primitive language as a language-game. And the
processes of naming the stones and of repeating words
after someone might also be called language-games.
Think of much of the use of words in games like ring-aring-a-roses.

6. We could imagine that the language of 2 was the

whole language of A and B; even the whole language
of a tribe. The children are brought up to perform these
actions, to use these words as they do so, and to react in
this way to the words of others.
An important part of the training will consist in the
teachers pointing to the objects, directing the childs
attention to them, and at the same time uttering a word;
for instance, the word slab as he points to that shape.

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I wont say I will see you tomorrow

PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS

we in fact call a blockbut the kind of referring this

is, that is to say the use of these words for the rest, is
already known. Equally one can say that the signs a,
b, etc. signify numbers; when for example this removes the mistaken idea that a, b, c, play the part
actually played in language by block, slab, pillar.
And one can also say that c means this number and not
that one; when for example this serves to explain that the
letters are to be used in the order a, b, c, d, etc. and not
in the order a, b, d, c.
But assimilating the descriptions of the uses of words in
this way cannot make the uses themselves any more like
one another. For, as we see, they are absolutely unlike.

I shall also call the whole, consisting of language and the

actions into which it is woven, the language-game.
8. Let us now look at an expansion of language (2).
Besides the four words block, pillar, etc., let it
contain a series of words used as the shopkeeper in (i)
used the numerals (it can be the series of letters of the
alphabet); further, let there be two words, which may as
well be
there and this (because this roughly indicates their
purpose), that are used in connexion with a pointing
gesture; and finally a number of colour samples.
A gives an order like: dslabthere.
At the same time he shews the assistant a colour sample,
and when he says there he points to a place on the
building site. From the stock of slabs B takes one for
each letter of the alphabet up to d, of the same colour
as the sample, and brings them to the place indicated by
A.On other occasions A gives the order thisthere.
At this he points to a building stone. And so on.

11. Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer,

pliers, a saw, a screw-driver, a rule, a glue-pot, glue,
nails and screws.The functions of words are as diverse
as the functions of these objects. (And in both cases
there are similarities.)
Of course, what confuses us is the uniform appearance
of words when we hear them spoken or meet them in
script and print. For their application is not presented to
us so clearly. Especially when we are doing philosophy 1

9. When a child learns this language, it has to learn the

series, of numerals a, b, c, . . . by heart. And it has to
learn their use.Will this training include ostensive
teaching of the words?Well, people will, for example,
point to slabs and count: a, b, c slabs.
Something more like the ostensive teaching of the words
block, pillar, etc. would be the ostensive teaching
of numerals that serve not to count but to refer to groups
of objects that can be taken in at a glance. Children do
learn the use of the first five or six cardinal numerals in
this way.
Are there and this also taught ostensively?Imagine how one might perhaps teach their use. One will
point to places and thingsbut in this case the pointing
occurs in the use of the words too and not
merely in learning the use.

12. It is like looking into the cabin of a locomotive.

We see handles all looking more or less alike. (Naturally,
since they are all supposed to be handled.) But one is the
handle of a crank which can be moved continuously
(it regulates the opening of a valve); another is the
handle of a switch, which has only two effective
positions, it is either off or on; a third is the handle of
a brake-lever, the harder one pulls on it, the harder it
brakes; a fourth, the handle of a pump: it has an effect
only so long as it is moved to and fro.

10. Now what do the words of this language signify?

What is supposed to shew what they signify, if not the
kind of use they have?
And we have already described that. So we are asking
for the expression This word signifies this to be made
a part of the description. In other words the description
ought to take the form: The word . . . .signifies . . . ..
Of course, one can reduce the description of the use of
the word slab to the statement that this word signifies
this object. This will be done when, for example, it is
merely a matter of removing the mistaken idea that the
word slab refers to the shape of building-stone that

I wont say I will see you tomorrow

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I wont say I will see you tomorrow

Wittgenstein in Wicklow

PHILOSOPHY & LANGUAGE

Reading Event 18 May, 2013
Mermaid Arts Centre

Upcoming events
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I wont say I will see you tomorrow