Back to school

[This is a bit rough and repetitive. I'll tidy it up. Please add thoughts]

“Any explanation has its foundation in training. (Educators ought to remember this).” (RPP II)

A

Why is it important for Wittgenstein to start the PI with a learning situation? I think that it is quite simply this: it is where there is the biggest gap between the intentional and contingent; between meaning and use; between grammar and the connection between words and the world. More specifically, it is where there is the largest gap that is also a linguistically normative situation (where ‘meaning’ is in play).

In the learning situation, the focus of our attention is the child: how do they use words in a particular way? How do they have to use the words to mean what we do by our words? In that way, by focusing on their use in simple situations, we will get a clearer focus on our use of the words. However, whilst they are the focus of our attention, it is the parents who are the guardians of meaning. It is they and their actions in which meaning is grounded, their use of words that give rise to the rules by which a word is meant correctly, and they who create a normatively structured situation. The children’s behaviour isn’t essentially normative; neither does it hook onto linguistically salient features of reality. Instead, it is just primitive behaviour that is, in itself, of psychological interest only.

“Am I doing child psychology? – I am making a connection between the concept of teaching and the concept of meaning.” (RRP II 337). In focusing on how a child learns a word, we are not looking at their psychological reactions for the purpose of studying psychological reactions. Instead, it is a conceptual investigation as to what our words mean; and a word’s meaning does not vary if on two occasions of use there is a psychological difference. Yet, it is certain psychological reactions to objects or situations that underpin our ability to mean this or that. It is these psychological phenomena (that cause the child to utter a word on a particular occasion), which are shaped by teaching and training. In considering childhood learning: a) the meaning is held constant as it is independent of the child’s use and only in relation to this is the child’s use relevant b) the connection between word and reality is purely psychological and it is only through these connections that a word can be meant in the relevant way.

B

We can look at the importance of the learning situation from a discussion of Wittgenstein’s in Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology II. In discussing the meaning of “I dread it”, he talks about a child who first uses the word ‘dread’ having heard it from adults. When would we say he meant it? What would be the circumstances? How would we recognise it in his face? He then comments (171), “I chose the case of a child because what is happening in him is stranger to us than it would be with an adult. What do I know- I’m inclined to say- about a background for the words “I dread…”? Does the child suddenly let me look into him?” The answer to the last question is obviously a resounding ‘no’. In a situation where the people in question already have the concept of ‘meaning’, we are tempted to talk about some inner process that is the condition for using the term ‘dread’. But in the case of a child, where we don’t know what goes on inside of him, we are forced to look at external conditions and surface phenomena for the background for the use of the word.

Note that in talking about the child, the external conditions, when the word is uttered etc, I am talking about the background of meaning and not meaning itself. It is still the adults who judge “He meant it” from their perspective as fully-fledged language-users. From the point of view of what is going on in the situation, the child’s use of the word is empirical and contingent. Nothing of a different order happened to what would have happened if he had uttered the word whilst smiling and stroking the dog. In fact, it is the very point that there is nothing a child is doing that is comparable to ‘understanding a meaning’ or ‘following a rule’. It is simply that there is a rule (as held by the parents) that child is following, and that the child’s actions are in accordance with the meaning of ‘dread’ (as given by the adults evaluation of the child’s actions).

C

The difference between ‘a rule being followed’ and ‘following a rule’ and between ‘a word being meant’ and ‘meaning a word’ is almost imperceptible in adult life. That is because we are both the people whose words are ‘meant’ in the everyday flow of life and those judging what others mean a word as we do. The difficulty then is trebly hard for philosophers who not only do both of these but also have to get a perspicuous representation of what it is to mean that word. However, even in the learning situation, itself it seems that I am guilty of sophistry. After all, the moment the adult says of the child “He meant it” we are (it would appear) saying he is doing something different from before when he merely contingently used the word here or there.

Appearances aside, reflecting on the learning situation should help us see that the child’s use of the word is no different to others, other than that it is the one that will be reinforced by the adults. In a different context Wittgenstein says, “I can teach him to continue a series (basic series) without using any expression of the ‘law of a series’; rather I am forming a substratum for the meaning of algebraic rules, or what is like them.” (RPP II 403). In the same way, in teaching a child to follow a rule, there is no ‘rule for the word’ that is given. Instead, they are taught and trained to mean this or that. This teaching and training forms the substratum out of which the rules for a word can be described.

In adults, although it is harder to see, a similar situation exists to that with the child. Our everyday use of words is entirely ‘normal’ and no more miraculous than walking. As I said in a previous post, we are simply operating with signs. The use of particular signs in particular situations could be explained purely psychologically. Of course, we are not per se ‘interested’ in what we happen to do, but whether we meant a word ‘correctly’. This stands ‘outside’ our actions and we are judged, corrected or even trained in response to them. However, ‘meaning’ does not exist apart from our use of words which act as its substratum. Meaning doesn’t literally ‘stand outside’ use in the way it stands outside the child. It is just that particular uses are held constant or particular uses are the ones that people hold to be ‘correct’. When our words can be judged to be ‘meant correctly’, we are not doing anything different to using them ‘incorrectly’, other than one is judged to be ‘correct’ and the other not.

D

It may have seemed odd that I started by saying that the learning situation separates meaning from use, and grammar from the connection between word and thing. Yet I think is important to separate these things, and this is part of what Wittgenstein is trying to show us but cannot articulate. He can’t articulate it as in practice, meaning and use are so closely intertwined that, from the point of view of the rules of meaning, the use ceases to be contingent. The ‘meaning’ constrains which use is the correct one. However, this means that use itself is ‘ontologically’ prior to meaning, such that one use rather than another can be judged as correct. Equally, the only way we can talk about the ‘connection’ between word and reality is by laying out its grammar. However, while the grammar tells us which connection we have, the connection itself is psychological. We respond to reality because certain we are ‘caused’ to in particular situations. This psychological connection constitutes the method of projection by which words are ‘related’ to reality in the way the grammar says it is.

In other words, the ‘constraint’ is non-contingent but the ‘constrained’ is. Use, by itself, is unconstrained and is only turned into the ‘use in language’ in a normatively structured situation. Surely then, in considering meaning we should only be concerned with existent normative situations where ‘use’ is ‘use in language’. Quite so. BUT…. If we have a false picture of meaning it is probably because forget that the substratum of meaning is empirical and is only because we are trained to use a word one way rather than another that they can be considered normative at all. In training certain pre-existent psychological connections between signs and reality are reinforced whilst others aren’t. And as with the Augustinian picture, meaning is built on a view of what the method of projection must be: that of responding to presented objects with names. Once we recognise that the methods of projection involved in meaning are built upon pre-existing psychological connections, we will see the hidden and mistaken psychological picture hidden at the base of the Augustinian picture. Many different types of connections underlie our ability to mean different words.

Looking at the learning situation allows us to look at the non-normative in a way that is relevant to what is normative.