The signs, the whole signs and nothing but the signs, so help me Wittgenstein

Now it seems that it is just common-sense that words have meaning, or at least words are used in such a way that they do. We are not simply uttering sounds, writing marks on paper or rearranging napkins and sugar pots (e.g. when talking about the offside rule in football). It is not enough that I vocalise ‘red’ but that this word has a particular extension, refers to particular objects, is this-or-that idea, has ‘a sense’, or ‘has’ a use. It is not that red is vocalised that is of interest, but that “‘red’ means red”. It is not the words qua sign but the meaning behind the sign.

This, according to Wittgenstein, is a philosophical confusion. To say that we simply do this, or that is not enough, lead us to expound philosophical nonsense. There is no need to look behind the words as “nothing is hidden”. Commentators on Wittgenstein will find nothing new in what I have said so far. Everyone knows that in PI the ‘bearer of a name’ is not its meaning, nor is a particular idea, or sensation, or a sense that surrounds the word like a halo etc. However, this may lead people to conclude that if the meaning is not hidden, then it is on the surface. Rather than being obscure and difficult to grasp hold of, it is simple to see what meaning is. Instead of a substantive notion of what makes something mean red, it is enough to note that “‘red’ means red”.

I think this is a mistake. In a previous post, I have castigated certain commentators for not giving any indication about what they mean by meaning being on the surface. They just seem to repeat the negative critique of particular (substantive) conceptions of a word having a meaning; sometimes with the proviso that no such substantive account may be given. However, as I said there, that whilst I agree on the whole, I have felt no therapeutic effect of this. [My agreement includes denying that ‘meaning is use’ as a substantive notion of meaning:- I will come onto this in a different post]. The reason I feel is this: saying that meaning is on the surface obscures the fact that SIGNS ARE ENOUGH and that there is nothing that we are per se doing other than SIMPLY UTTERING SOUNDS (etc.)

Consider the following:

If I give someone an order, it is for me quite enough to give him signs. And I would never say: this is only words, and I must get behind the words. Equally, when I have asked someone something and he gives me an answer (that is a sign) I am satisfied- that was what I expected- and I don’t object: That’s a mere answer.

Now this at first seems simply absurd for the very reasons I talked about in the first paragraph. Malcolm’s gloss is as follows: “What worries us philosophically is the feeling that the language cannot be enough. You utter some words; I utter some words. Surely there must be more to conversation than just that! Something must be added to words, namely meaning.” But it doesn’t just seem absurd for that reason, but also because it doesn’t seem to square with Wittgenstein’s approach to meaning or what he is up to in PI. a) He wants to see where a word is ‘idling’ (and thus some words don’t idle) b) He wants to distinguish sense from nonsense (thus there is something for words to ‘have a sense’ rather than just being a word or string of words). Etcetera.

Yet the view that signs are enough is that of Wittgenstein. This is not to ignore the two points listed above (or many other related points). However, those questions (questions about meaning) only make sense, or appear to make sense, from a particular perspective. However, this is not a perspective that has much relevance to how we use words in our life. Most of the time when we are conversing, we are simply exchanging signs and not exchanging ‘meanings’. Wittgenstein addresses his opponents: “You say: the point isn’t the word, but its meaning, and you think of the meaning as a thing of the same kind as the word, though also different from the word” Yet there is nothing of this type; there is no word-like thing- only the word. The point may not be the word but that is all one can discover. It is not that the ‘meaning’ is the word, or is on the surface of the word, or just obvious that “red” means red. NO- there is only the sign and no meaning. Of course, there are other things going on in the world (and this is important to remember) apart from using signs: you will see people eating, walking, pulling faces, getting hurt etc etc. The sign is employed in the midst of this life. However, one thing you will not in the world is meaning and this is something W insists on early and late.

Wittgenstein does say: “What interests us in the sign, the meaning which matters for us is what is embodied in the grammar of the sign.” However, the ‘us’ refers to philosophers/ those engaged in a philosophical investigation about meaning and not the ordinary-folk! In such an investigation “We are not interested in any empirical facts about language considered as empirical facts… [but] considered as a game”. That is the point of a linguistic investigations is not about simply what is there, but about a particular way of examining what is there. This particular way is what must be given when a philosopher asks what the meaning, when not in context that the word is usually used (i.e. philosophy seminar). A consideration of the ‘rules of the game’ (looking at words in this way) are not necessary in the flux and flow of life, where words are used without confusion. Words are enough. However, even in a philosophical context it is necessary to get the facts straight- they might not be considered as empirical facts- but nonetheless, the facts are as they are. In this respect: “We are talking about the spatial and temporal phenomenon of language, not about some non-spatial, non-temporal phantasm”. Here there is no phantasmic meaning- only concrete words. Words that are as much a part of our natural history as walking, talking and eating.

The discomfort we experienced in relation to Wittgenstein’s builders (here and here) was that there was no opportunity to express “How d’ya mean?” There was no opportunity to take a particular perspective on the language whereby they could consider its meaning. That is true- there would be no concept of meaning in that situation (at least, they would not have a concept of meaning). Yet that is not a problem as for them- orders are given and the orders are carried out. They expected signs and that is what they got. Our question as philosophers was: given our concept of meaning, did they mean what they said? In order to motivate an affirmative response it wasn’t enough to point to the signs but crucially, we didn’t have to point to meanings either. Instead, we looked at non-linguistic features like looks of puzzlement or a confident smirk in ‘knowing how to go on’. This helps us understand why we would say that something has meaning. Consider the following:

"Is meaning then really only the use of the word? Isn’t it the way this use meshes with our life?”…”So isn’t it something else that constitutes understanding- the feeling “in one’s own breast”, the living experience of the expressions?- They must mesh with my own life.”

“familiarity lies in the fact that I immediately grasp a particular rhythm of the picture and stay with it, feel at home with it, so to speak” .

In other words, signs must have a certain physiogonomy for us. Our use of the words is bound up with images, feelings, dispositions, processes, and states of physical arousal. Certain signs have no sense if they are just signs- they do not mean anything. These psychological connections help us ‘connect up’ the words with reality; with the other elements of our life in which signs are employed. They determine the method of projection. Yet, as we are aware from PI these cannot be ‘meanings’. They are not things that words refer to or accompany them or form part of their content. They are not things like the word but different at the same time. As I said in the previous posts, these are non-linguistic and these contingent, empirical things are not part of meaning. They do however form the background against which words ‘make sense’ in our lives.

Given this non-linguistic background the signs do what they are intended to do. There is no room in our temporal and spatial phenomenon of language there is no space for ‘meanings’ and there is no need for such a perspective to be formed. The builders are fine with their signs. “We regard understanding as the essential thing, and signs as something inessential.- But in that case, why have the signs at all?”

All (emprically-speaking) we are doing is uttering sounds, or writing marks and this isn't a source for worry. Of course, the qualification 'empirically speaking' turns into one of those theses which everyone will agree with. Maybe however it should serve as a reminder of what one already knows. Where does meaning reside? Nowhere. Not even on the surface of the signs.