1 - From referentialism to human action: the Augustinian theory of language

Summary

Words are deeds

– CV 46

In this way, I should like to say the words “Oh, let him come!” are charged with my desire. And words can be wrung from us, — like a cry. Words can be hard to say: such, for example, as are used to effect a renunciation, or to confess a weakness. (Words are also deeds.)

– PI 546

INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, I present an interpretation of the first twenty or so sections of the Philosophical Investigations. My presentation has three parts. First, I briefly compare and contrast Wittgenstein's philosophical intentions in the Investigations with his intentions in the earlier Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Second, against that first backdrop, I explicate Wittgenstein's famous thesis that meaning-is-use. Third and finally, against that second backdrop, I unpack Wittgenstein's opening argument for the meaning-is-use thesis. This opening argument is a philosophical roadmap for Wittgenstein's other arguments in support of the meaning-is-use thesis, in the pregnant sense that the basic concepts and strategies he later deploys are already etched into it and guide his further moves.

FROM THE TRACTATUS TO THE INVESTIGATIONS

Wittgenstein's Tractatus brings a definitive closure to Logical Atomism by pushing the reductive project of logical-decompositional analysis to its limits and beyond. The Tractatus clearly indicates or shows – even if it does not explicitly describe or say – the inadequacy of Logical Atomism and of the very idea of logical-decompositional analysis.