Resume of Language Game in the Philosophical Inv

estigation
1. INTRODUCTION
Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigation is a reactionary philosophy against th
e nineteenth-century analytic philosophy. During this time, philosophers conside
red the task of philosophy to be the clarification of philosophical language, a
view that Wittgenstein himself had subscribed earlier. This view of the task of
philosophy brought a radical change in the ways of doing philosophy. This is a m
ove from the Hegelian method of system building where systems were constructed t
o cover and solve a whole range of universal problems to the method of analysis,
which involved the search for meaning of philosophical expressions and their us
age. It must be pointed out here that what these nineteenth-century philosopher
s tried to do was to remove all the ambiguities present in the scientific langua
ge or put differently, this new philosophical trend saw as the sole task of phil
osophy, analysis of scientific language. The idea behind this enterprise was not
just to rid it of ambiguities, impreciseness and meaninglessness, but also to d
iscover the causes of these problems
Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore, however, were the first thinkers to set the ana
lytic age rolling by their reactionary stand against the neo-Hegelian philosophy
led by F.H. Bradley and the rest, who had pushed the Hegelian philosophy to its
illogical height. The “Vienna Circle” took over from Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moor
e. With their strong empirical orientation rooted in David Hume’s empiricism, they
set out to lay down conditions under which a word or a statement will be consid
ered meaningful or meaningless. Moritz Schliick, Rudolf Carnap, Friedrich Waisma
nn, and the rest, were heirs to Hume’s empirical tradition that rejected metaphysi
cs, religion, and ethics, because for them, these were nothing but sophistries a
nd illusions masquerading as true knowledge. We can mention here that the reject
ion of metaphysics, religion, and ethics was grounded on the verification princi
ple as the standard for measuring the meaningfulness of a statement. Wittgenste
in sets out to counteract the above position in his Philosophical Investigation
by showing that the grounds for these claims were unfounded and that having star
ted on a wrong premise, they were bound to arrive at a wrong conclusion. From th
is perspective, we are going to make a summary of Wittgenstein’s language game as
it was presented in the Philosophical Investigation. In other to realize this ob
jective, we shall firstly answer the question “who is Wittgenstein”? Then we shall t
ake a look at the background of the Philosophical Investigation, after which we
shall make a summary of the language game, and finally we shall draw our conclus
ion.
2. WHO IS LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN?
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein an Austrian-English philosopher was born on Apr
il 26, 1889 in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy industrial family, well-situated in
intellectual and cultural Viennese circles, and was the youngest of the eight c
hildren. In 1908 he began his studies in aeronautical engineering at Manchester
University where his interest in the philosophy of pure mathematics led him to F
rege. Upon Frege s advice, in 1911 he went to Cambridge to study with Bertrand R
ussell.
During his years in Cambridge, from 1911 to 1913, Wittgenstein conducted several
conversations on philosophy and the foundations of logic with Russell, with who
m he had an emotional and intense relationship, as well as with Moore and Keynes
. He retreated to isolation in Norway, for months at a time, in order to ponder
these philosophical problems and to work out their solutions. In 1913 he returne
d to Austria and in 1914, at the start of World War I (1914-1918), joined the Au
strian army. He was taken captive in 1917 and spent the remaining months of the
war at a prison camp. It was during the war that he wrote the notes and drafts o
f his first important work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. After the war the bo
ok was published in German and translated into English.
In 1920 Wittgenstein, now divorced from philosophy gave away his part of his fam
ily s fortune and pursued several "professions" (gardener, teacher, architect, e
tc.) in and around Vienna. It was only in 1929 that he returned to Cambridge to
resume his philosophical vocation, after having been exposed to discussions on t
he philosophy of mathematics and science with members of the Vienna Circle. Duri
ng these first years in Cambridge his conception of philosophy and its problems
underwent dramatic changes that are recorded in several volumes of conversations
, lecture notes, and letters (e.g., Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, T
he Blue and Brown Books, Philosophical Grammar). Sometimes termed the ‘middle Witt
genstein’, this period heralds a rejection of dogmatic philosophy, including both
traditional works and the Tractatus itself.
In the 1930s and 1940s Wittgenstein conducted seminars — notorious for problems in
communication between teacher and students — at Cambridge, developing most of the
ideas that he intended to publish in his second book, Philosophical Investigati
ons. These included the turn from formal logic to ordinary language, novel refle
ctions on psychology and mathematics, and a general skepticism concerning philos
ophy s pretensions. In 1945 he prepared the final manuscript of the Philosophica
l Investigations, but, at the last minute, withdrew it from publication (and onl
y authorized its posthumous publication). For a few more years he continued his
philosophical work, but this is marked by a rich development of, rather than a t
urn away from, his second phase. He traveled during this period to the United St
ates and Ireland, and returned to Cambridge, where he was diagnosed with cancer.
His other works though published posthumously include: Remarks on the foundatio
ns of Mathematics (1956),Philosophische Bemerkungen (1964) Zettel (1967),and On
Certainty (1969). His last days were spent in the house of his friend and a phys
ician, Dr. Bevan who took him for he dreaded dying in the hospital. On April 29t
h, 1951, he died at the age of 62 from cancer of the prostrate.
3. THE BACKGROUND TO WITTGENSTEIN’S PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION
The Philosophical Investigations was published posthumously in 1953. It compris
es two parts. Part I, consisting of 693 numbered paragraphs, was ready for print
ing in 1946, but rescinded from the publisher by Wittgenstein. Part II was added
on by the editors, trustees of his Nachlass.
The background to Wittgenstein’s later conception could be traced to the ancient G
reek philosophers. Plato for instance, held that knowledge comes from concepts a
nd not from sense perception. Plato’s position is a rejection of Protagoras’ idea th
at man is the measure of all things that are. For Plato, things in themselves h
ave internal meaning apart from those proffered by man. The point here, accordin
g to Plato, is that the meaning of a thing is independent of man. Arguing from t
he point of Heraclitus’ changeable matter, Plato points out that the object of mea
ning, or real knowledge is not what is but is about to become. He maintained tha
t for a thing to communicate meaningful knowledge there is need for some imperso
nal standard of correctness from which the meaning of things can be deduced. Thi
s, according to him, is in the world of form.
During the modern era of philosophy, Rene Descartes, a rationalist, argu
es that meaningful knowledge comes through reason and not from sense perception.
Arguing further, Descartes maintains that “meaning” is based on the thinking “I”. Hence
, his idea cogito ergo sum-I think therefore, I am. Descartes’ position could be t
raced to Parmenides through Plato. The implication of this to Descartes is that
man is the ultimate determinant of what is true and meaningful. In other words,
meaningful and meaningless statements were reduced to what the reason can abstra
ct from reality perceived. In view of this, therefore, it can be said that Plato
and Descartes set the rationalist agenda in motion. Flowing from this perspecti
ve, Leibnitz on his part makes a distinction between truth of reason and truth o
f fact. For him, only truth of fact gives meaningful knowledge.
John Locke rejects the notion of innate ideas. For him, ideas are immedi
ate object of human knowledge and all meaningful ideas come through experience.
For Berkley, the meaning of a statement is the idea(s) that it conveyed. David
Hume, the father of empiricists, however, limits all meaningful knowledge to wha
t the senses experienced and thus regards mystical experience to be nothing othe
r than sophistry or illusory knowledge, because the knowledge is not gotten from
sense perception. In furtherance to his argument, Hume differentiates between r
elation of ideas’ and matters of fact. Kant made a division between analytic and s
ynthetic, a priori and a posteriori statements. For him, only synthetic and a po
steriori statements are meaningful. We can then point out here that it is this p
ositivistic philosophy, that gave birth to linguistic philosophy, which concerns
itself with the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of words, sentence and statem
ents. In view of this, we can then go on to discuss “the language game”.

4. RESUME OF THE LANGUAGE GAME IN THE PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION

In order to address the countless multiplicity of uses, their un- fixedness, an
d their being "part of an activity", Wittgenstein introduces the key concept of ‘l
anguage-game’. In the philosophical investigations, Wittgenstein shows the languag
e game as a means of communication between a builder A and an assistant B. A is
building with building-stones: there are blocks, pillars, slabs and beams. B has
to pass the stones, in the order in which A needs them. For this purpose they u
se 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 cal
l. He termed this system of communication between the builder and the assistant
- a primitive language. This kind of language says Ayer is exceptionally poor ev
en in the building trade in which it is used. The language game which could be
played in such a model of primitive language include; the mere mention of a wor
d which involves an appropriate response that is understandable between the buil
der and the assistant, When “brick” is uttered, the assistant fetches the brick for
the builder. This works perfectly well in that particular game which may not be
the same in our daily use of the word. For example, when the builder utters bric
k, the assistant knows that he is saying bring me brick. In our daily use of the
word brick, we may be trying to say something about it. The aforementioned exam
ple is an important aspect of language game; it is only in a particular situatio
n or context that words have a particular use. This is also to say that in a dif
ferent context, the word takes another use and thus, another meaning. Commenting
on this, Wittgenstein holds that we could imagine that the language game descri
bed above is the whole language of a builder and the assistant; even the whole o
f a tribe. The children are brought up to perform these actions, to use these wo
rds as they do so, and to react in this way to the words of the other
Consequently, language game examines a complex phenomenon called language. There
are many human language games just as there are many human languages in existen
ce, of which the Augustinian conception of it is just one. Human language is her
e likening to games that people play. The term “game” represents extensive spectra o
f activities that oftentimes do not share any similarity but differ widely and y
et, all these are called games.
Wittgenstein, however, never explicitly defines the “language game” rather he uses t
he notion of family resemblance to clarify what he means by language game and al
so to elucidate what he means when he equates meaning to use. By family resembla
nce, Wittgenstein shows that there is nothing common among the language games. N
o one distinctive property must be possessed by them all in order for each to qu
alify for recognition as a language game. He maintains that:
Instead of producing something common to all that we call language, I am sayi
ng that these phenomena have no one thing in common which makes us use the same
word for all, but that they are related to one another in many different ways. A
nd it is because of this relationship or these relationships, that we call them
language.
The idea of family resemblance stresses two important functions of the language
game. First it points out that the use of language is an activity. This is to s
ay that language is part and parcel of human social interactions and activities.
In other words, that language is used in our daily activities. Secondly, it dis
pelled such false notion that common to all language, there is something called
the language by which other languages are to be judged. For Wittgenstein, instea
d of searching for a common language, he suggests that we should note the simila
rities and differences present in human language, because “You will not see the th
ing that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series o
f them at that.” The statement is significant, because it brings to the fore the
understanding that no single property of a game is the game by which others will
be known. Instead what we find is complicated network of similarities, overlapp
ing and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarity, sometimes similarities of
details, and it is these similarities that Wittgenstein calls the family resemb
lance. In other words, family resemblance is anthology of all the similarities a
nd differences that exist within a given family. Arguing from the perspective of
kinds of numbers, he asked:
Why do we call something a “number”? Well, perhaps because it has a –direct- relations
hip with several things that have hitherto been called number and this scan be s
aid to give it an indirect relationship to other things call the same name.
Many argued that Wittgenstein is wrong in his conception of family resemblance,
yet they cannot prove where he erred especially with numbers. Wittgenstein did n
ot say that numbers could be defined, instead, what he is saying is that it is i
mpossible to say that this definition is the ultimate determinant of number. On
the other hand, the fact that the concept of number can be extended means that t
here is a categorical shift of the concept number, because in different contexts
of use, numbers takes on an added meaning. In sustaing this argument, one would
say that even though cardinal number can be defined by the rule that produces i
t, ordinary number is not subjected to this same rule and it is in this sense th
at Wittgenstein says family resemblance works.
Closely connected with this, is the thought that a concept is usable only when i
t conforms itself to a rule. Using the noun “Moses” as an example, Wittgenstein demo
nstrated that without a well defined rule it will be impossible to know “the which”,
“the what”, “the where”, “the how” about the “Moses” being spoken of here since the noun “
both overdetermined and underspecified. It is overdetermined because many ideas
or information fall under this definition, that is ‘there is a superabundance of
descriptive information that fall under the definition’. It is undetermined becaus
e none of its features can adequately describe “Moses”. Since no set of these charac
teristics has actually been specified as ‘state-of-the-art or authoritative,’ whatev
er definition offered changes their meaning from context to context making absol
ute definition impossible. Furthermore, some words are neither rule determined
nor do they have ultimate use and so an indefinite use is no use. The only way
out is to locate the usability of a word in its context of use
Consequently, language game examines a complex phenomenon called language. There
are many language games just as there are many human languages in existence, of
which the Augustinian conception of it is just one. Human language is here like
ning to games that people play. The term “game” represents extensive spectra of acti
vities that oftentimes do not share any similarity but differ widely and yet, al
l these are called games.
Wittgenstein asked, what is common to the following games for them to be called
game, like table tennis game, card game, chess game, and bridge game-, certainly
share no similarities. But we can say common to this game is the idea of winnin
g and losing but this cannot suffice as a justifiable explanation for all games
because there are games that we neither win or loss like the boy who tosses a ba
ll against a wall. The following are different kind of games:
Giving order and obeying them. Describing the appearance of an object, or givi
ng its measurement. Constructing an object from a description, (a drawing) .
Reporting an event. Speculating about an event. Forming and testing a hyp
othesis. Presenting the result of an experiment in tables or diagrams. Making up
a story; and reading it. Playing-acting. Singing catches. Guessing riddles. Mak
ing a joke; telling it. Solving a problem in practical arithmetic. Translating f
rom one language into another. Asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying
The multiplicity of use of human language leads Wittgenstein to say that languag
e can be compared to tools, where each tool is targeted at performing one or mor
e functions and yet none can claim to be performing the most important function.
And so, in our daily activities words are used in many ways, but to determine t
he meaning of these words will entail our taking a look at the form of life wher
e they are occurred. Thus, it is the form of life (actual living situation) that
word finds their meaning. According to Wittgenstein, Language games are:
Ways of using signs simpler than those in which we use the signs of our highly c
omplicated everyday language. Language games are the forms of language with whic
h a child begins to make use of word. The study of language game is the study of
 primitive forms of language or languages. If we want to study the problems of t
ruth and falsehood, of the agreement and disagreement of propositions with reali
ty, of the nature of assertion, assumption and question, we shall with great adv
antage look at primitive forms of language in which these forms of thinking appe
ar without the confusing background of highly complicated processes of thought.
When we look at such simple forms of language the mental mist which seems to ens
hroud our ordinary use of language disappears. We see activities, reactions, whi
ch are clear-cut and transparent. On the other hand we recognize in these simple
processes forms of language not separated by a break from our more complicated
ones. We see that we can build up the complicated forms from the primitive ones
by gradually adding new forms.
A simple language game is not for analyzing complex language, but rather it cons
ists of report and order. The overall purpose of language, however, is to bring
out the meaning of words and expressions. So, language portrays meaning as use o
r the explanation of the meaning of an expression. Thus the use of a word in a l
anguage is its meaning.
5. CONCLUSION
From the foregoing segment of this essay, we have discovered that according to W
ittgenstein, language game examines a complex phenomenon called language. There
are many human language games just as there are many human languages in existenc
e, of which the Augustinian conception of it is just one. Human language is here
likening to games that people play. The term “game” represents extensive spectra of
activities that oftentimes do not share any similarity but differ widely and ye
t, all these are called games. Hence language is a product of human society. In
other words, the meaningfulness of any language can only be discerned through th
e society. This is to say that every language is expressed, determined and condi
tioned by human society.
The implications of the language game as used by Wittgenstein are: Firstly, he
contextualized the meaning of words and statements. The problem with this way of
conceiving language is that it will make statements relative to the situation o
f use. To this end, what is true or false depends on who is speaking at it. Obvi
ously, to think in this way will lead to chaos among societies, and anarchy.
Secondly, the language game rescues ethical statements from the charge of meanin
glessness of the analytic philosophers. Wittgenstein said that each game is unde
rstood within the context of use, and so meaningful in that context. The games a
re governed, according to Wittgenstein, by rules and conditions, yet these are a
rbitrary rules.

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