Textual evidence
Notebooks
There are many passages in the Notebooks where we see the meaning of a word or sentence being explained by ostension. One conspicuous passage is an imagined situation is where someone tries to press Wittgenstein to give an account of what “The watch is lying in the table” means. Which situations count as the watch lying on the table and which don’t?
If someone were to drive me into a corner in this way in order to shew that I did not know what I meant, I should say: “I know what I mean, I mean just THIS”, pointing to the appropriate complex with my finger. And in this complex I do actually have the two objects in a relation.- all this really means is: The fact can SOMEHOW be portrayed by means of this form too (NB p. 70)
Here we know what we mean by the proposition but to explain the sense of the sentence we may have to resort to pointing to the fact in question. That is, we point to a situation where it is ‘true’ that the watch is lying on the table. Not too much should be read into the passage as ostension does not take the place of philosophical analysis. Understanding the sense of the sentence does not consist in a relation between a sentence and a fact, set up by ostension. Indeed, the fact can only ‘somehow’ be portrayed by pointing and doesn’t give a philosophical elucidation of what this consists in. However, for all practical purposes ostension serves to adequately explain what is meant by bringing us to understand the content of the proposition (whatever that consists in).
Returning to the view that, in our language, single words get their meaning from the information they help convey; we see that much the same applies. We can see this from his perplexity, in the Notebooks, as to how to account for the meaning of word like “knife”. We not only use the word meaningfully in propositions such as “the knife is in the kitchen” but also understand the specific contribution the meaning of ‘knife’ makes to it. This can be shown by our understanding that the above proposition differs from “the cat is in the kitchen”, by it being the knife and not the cat in that position. Now, it seems that the most unambiguous way to say what it is that ‘knife’ means is to gesture to a knife itself. That this is so, influenced how Wittgenstein thought an elucidation of the meaning should go. It led to his initial temptation to think of the object of acquaintance as the reference of the term:
When I say “’x’ has a reference” do I have the feeling: it is impossible that “x” should stand for, say, this knife or this letter? Not at all. On the contrary.// A complex just is a thing! (NB p.49)
This is a view he came to reject.[1] This is because “the knife is in the kitchen” may fail to be true, not only because the knife isn’t in the kitchen but because there is no knife. If the ‘knife’ refers to the knife, then in the second case the proposition would be nonsense. There would be nothing of which we were stating that it was in the kitchen! The Tractatus correctly says that such a proposition wouldn’t be nonsensical, but simply false (TLP 3.24).
Now whilst he didn’t think the knife was the reference of term, I think it significant that he was tempted. This is because “even if the name “N” vanishes on further analysis [because it doesn’t signify by itself], still it indicates a single common thing.” (NB p.60) It is something specific in the ostensible situation that “N” manages to pick out. Wittgenstein talks about the fact that any particular watch that we ostensively define may have different constituents but there is something the same in all instances. This fits well with the earlier suggestion that understanding a term involves a thought-process that picks the common element out. Of course, its ability to do so has nothing logically to do with any particular act of ostensive definition. We know that in the end, Wittgenstein thought a sign signifying a complex was defined (TLP 3.24) and it signified via the signs that served to define it (TLP 3.261). However, why should one take the meaning of ‘watch’ to be the sense of a sentence asserting that a watch exists, in the first place?
Philosophical Grammar
The key points that I have been making also find support in the Philosophical Grammar. This will help to illustrate that not only were these issues relevant to the Tractatus but the very ones that he began to believe led him into trouble. Wittgenstein says ““That’s him” (this picture represents him)- that contains the whole problem of representation... What is the connection between ‘N’ and N himself?” (PG p.102) The ingredients we have here are the following:
a) a single sign [‘N’]- used as a picture or representation of a state of affairs (i.e. a sign considered as a symbol and not just a set of marks )
b) the state of affairs [N]- that which is so pictured
c) a situation where someone:
i) can [purportedly] switch his attention between a) and b) above.
ii) understands that ‘N’ means N
iii) Considers the connection that allows this to be the case
It is with iii) that the philosophers’ elucidatory task begins. However, ‘the decisive step in the conjuring trick’ has already taken place. Why assume that the meaning of ‘N’ lies in the connection between the sign and a particular state of affairs in which it can be used? This arises from our being able to explain the meaning of ‘N’ by pointing at N itself. Where Wittgenstein italicises something (‘him’) it often means that it is (at least potentially) ostensible. It seems that our thought can reveal/ mentally point at the very state of affairs itself without our thought being determined by our prior use of the sign. The content of ‘what is thought about’ is then considered the meaning of ‘N’ and thus, its contribution to the sense of a sentence of which it is part.
The position outlined above, is the one that in Philosophical Grammar he comes to believe as a core problem. He asks “Doesn’t the misunderstanding consist in taking the meaning of the word “red” as being the sense of a sentence saying something that is red?” (PG p.135) In order to be used in a proposition, it must already have a meaning. This depends on the contexts in which it is used and its interconnections with other concepts. Later he asks, “can’t we represent it [red] in painting by painting something red?” (PG p.209) and answers, “No, that isn’t a representation in painting of the meaning of the word ‘red’ (there’s no such thing)”. The next line gives us a valuable cautionary note, “Still, it’s no accident that in order to define the meaning of the word “red” the natural thing is to point as a red object”. Part of explaining the meaning of red is in pointing to a red object but the meaning doesn’t consist in being a picture of a state of affairs.
[1] Suggesting he did think this would undermine my take on the Augustinian picture that purpose of ostension isn’t to correlate words with objects.
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