13 - The meaning of an expression and the circumstances of its use. Dispute with a behaviouristic conception

Summary

If the meaning of a linguistic sign cannot be understood in terms of the sign's standing for an object then the view which most readily suggests itself is that to understand a sign is to know in which circumstances it is to be used. At the end of the last lecture I tried to show that as regards the use of predicates at any rate this conception will not do; however I also raised the question of whether this conception might nevertheless be correct in the case of all independent utterances and hence in the case of whole assertoric sentences. Before we reject the thesis that the meaning of an expression consists in the circumstances of its use we must subject it to a more fundamental examination.

In §117 of his Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein writes: ‘If, for example, someone says that the sentence … has meaning for him, then he should ask himself in what particular circumstances this sentence is actually used.’ And as Wittgenstein says in another place the use is thereby connected with our other activities. By way of explanation he presents, at the beginning of the Investigations, some examples of ‘languages more primitive than our own’ (§2). An example, which is further elaborated in the following paragraphs, is described in §2: ‘Let us imagine a language … which is meant to serve for 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 him 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.’ Wittgenstein adds: ‘conceive this as a complete primitive language’. Somewhat later we read: ‘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” … I shall also call the whole, consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven, the “language-game”‘ (§7).