Wittgenstein:
(Emphasis in bold is inserted by Shawver to
enhance commentary.) |
Shawver commentary: |
| 76. If someone were to draw a sharp
boundary I could not acknowledge it as the one that I too always wanted to
draw, or had drawn in my mind. For I did not want to draw one at all. His
concept can then be said to be not the same as mine, but akin to it. The
kinship is that of two pictures, one of which consists of colour patches
with vague contours, and the other of patches similarly shaped and
distributed, but with clear contours. The kinship is just as undeniable as
the difference. |
Consider again the concept of a schematic leaf
In sketching such a schema, one creates something that was not
initially there. I do not picture such a schematic leaf in my mind
each time identify a leaf, and if I were to do so, the one that I pictured
might not be exactly like yours. Still, if we were each to create
such a schematic leaf, representing all leaves, our creativity would be
constrained by our similar understanding of what counted as a leaf. |
77. And if we carry this comparison still further
it is clear that the degree to which the sharp picture can resemble the
blurred one depends on the latter's degree of vagueness. For
imagine
having to sketch a sharply defined picture
'corresponding' to a blurred one. |
 Here
is a schematic leaf. Is that the one you would have drawn? How
similar to a real leaf must this leaf be in order to be a schematic
leaf? Will the point on the right side be enough to make it serve
for a maple leaf? Or should it be more pointed? And if it were
more pointed, would it it also work for a smooth-sided leaf ?
How would you sketch a sharply defined picture corresponding to this
blurred one? |
| In the latter there is a blurred red rectangle: for it you put
down a sharply defined one. Of course-several such sharply defined
rectangles can be drawn to correspond to the indefinite one.-But if the
colours in the original merge without a hint of any outline won't it
become a hopeless task to draw a sharp picture corresponding to the
blurred one? Won't you then have to say: "Here I might just as well draw a
circle or heart as a rectangle, for all the colours merge. Anything-and
nothing-is right." And this is the position you are in if you look for
definitions corresponding to our concepts in aesthetics or
ethics. |
And here is a blurred rectangle. suppose your task is to draw a
definite one that corresponds with this indefinite one. And, if you
imagined it even more blurred? At some point wouldn't the task
become hopeless? |
| In such a difficulty always ask yourself: How did we learn the
meaning of this word ("good" for instance)? From what sort of examples? in
what language-games? Then it will be easier for you to see that the word
must have a family of meanings. |
The situation is similar when we try to envision the
essential features of a game, or of any other concept. To think in
terms of essences, we must visualize a blurred concept, and yet, when we
try to apply such a concept to a case before us, we will have the same
kind of difficulties we have with the schematic leaf or rectangle. |
78. Compare knowing and saying:
how many feet high
Mont Blancis-
how the word "game" is used-
how a clarinet
sounds.
If you are surprised that one can know something and not be able to say
it, you are perhaps thinking of a case like the first. Certainly not of
one like the third. |
If one knows how high a mountain is, then one would
surely know how to say it. But isn't it possible to know how a
clarinet sounds, or how coffee smells, without being able to say what one
knows? And, isn't the case of knowing what a game is rather like the
case of knowing how a clarinet sounds? It is easy to know such
things without know how to say what one knows. |
| 79. Consider this example. If one says "Moses did not
exist", this may mean various things. It may mean: the Israelites did not
have a single leader when they withdrew from Egypt or: their leader was
not called Moses or, there cannot have been anyone who accomplished all
that the Bible relates of Moses -- or: etc. etc.-- |
The sentence "Moses did not exist" has blurred
boundaries much like the blurred boundaries of a schematic leaf or a
blurred rectangle. Just as a number of different leaf shapes could
have been taken from the blurred schema, so a number of different meanings
might be drafted onto the statement "Moses did not exist." |
We may say, following Russell: the name "Moses" can be defined by
means of various descriptions. For example, as "the man who led the
Israelites through the wilderness", "the man who lived at that time and
place and was then called 'Moses' ", "the man who as a child was taken out
of the Nile by Pharaoh's daughter" and so on. And according as we assume
one definition or another the proposition "Moses did not exist" acquires a
different sense, and so does every other proposition about Moses.-And if
we are told "N did not exist", we do ask:
"What do you mean? Do
you want to say ...... or ...... etc.?" |
Even the name "Moses" is not as clearly defined as we
are apt to presume. What if someone not-named Moses was still a
person who had done all that Moses is repored to have done. Would
that be the same as Moses? Or what if he had done some of the
ghings, but not all? How much different from the story of Moses
could the historical man have been in order to justify the statement
"Moses did not exist?"
|
But when I make a statement about Moses,-- am I always ready to
substitute some one of these descriptions for "Moses"? I shall perhaps say
-- By "Moses" I understand the man who did what the
Bible
relates of Moses, or at any rate a good deal of it. But how much? Have I
decided how much must be proved false for me to give up my proposition as
false? Has the name "Moses" got a fixed
and unequivocal use for
me in all possible cases? -- |
But if I were to make a statement about Moses, all of
these considerations are not in my mind. I haven't decided
beforehand which features of the story of Moses are essential in order for
us to say that Moses lived. But, perhaps you want to say that most
of it must be true in order to say that Moses existed. But how
much? |
Is it not the case that I have, so to speak, a whole series of
props in readiness, and am ready to lean on one if another should be taken
from under me
and vice versa? |
Suppose there were 40 stories of Moses. If
stories 4 through 32 were false, would this be different than if stories
1-28 were false? Are there any essential stories? Or can I
fall back on any? |
| Consider another case. When I say "N is dead", then something
like the following may hold for the meaning of the name "N": I believe
that a human being has lived, whom I (1) have seen in such-and-such
places, who (2) looked like this (pictures), (3) has done such-and-such
things, and (4) bore the name "N" in social life. --Asked what I
understand by "N", I should enumerate all or some of these points, and
different ones on different occasions. So my definition of "N" would
perhaps be "the man of whom all this is true".-But if some point now
proves false? --Shall I be prepared to declare the proposition "N is dead"
false-even if it is only something which strikes me as incidental
that has turned out false? But where are the bounds of the incidental?--
If I had given a definition of the name in such a case, I should now be
ready to alter it. |
Although it may seem to us when we speak that our
language is unambiguous, even the phrases that at first seem without
ambiguiuty are, on reflection, very equivocal, that is, subject to
interpretation -- much like the blurred leaf that was to serve as a
schematic leaf. Is "N" dead? For "N" to be dead, "N" must have
lived, but how will we decide that the person I am referring to is a
specific person? If someone lived who had some of the features I
imagined for "N" but not all, was that "N?"
|
| And this can be expressed like this: I use the name "N" without a
fixed meaning. (But that detracts as little from its usefulness, as it
detracts from that of a table that it stands on four legs instead of three
and so sometimes wobbles.) |
So, we are driven to notice that words do not have
fixed meanings. At first glance you may think this would reduce
their usefulness to us. But it is not so. |
Should it be said that I am using a word whose meaning I don't know,
and so am talking nonsense? - -Say what
you choose, so long as it does not prevent you from seeing the facts. (And
when you see them there is a good deal that you will not say.)
|
When we notice that language is never unambiguous,
that is much like the blurred leaf, we might ask "can I use a word
[dorrectly] whose meaning I do not know?" There is a sense in which
our understanding of the term is limited. Shall we count this as a
case of not-knowing?
The problem is that we can see what is known and what is
not-known. Our confusion comes not from not-knowing what the facts
are, but rather from the fact that the rule that would determine how we
should speak is not definitive enough to tell us how to answer.
It is the same as if I were to ask: "Is it cold outside?" (since you
were standing outdoors) and you might know it was 62° Fahrenheit (imagine
having a thermometer), and yet not know whether to count this as "cold"
because the word "cold" does not have such well defined boundaries.
Still, your understanding of the temperature would limit how you
answered the question (truthfully). |
(The fluctuation of scientific definitions: what to-day counts as a
observed concomitant of a phenomenon will to-morrow be used to define
it.)
|
Scientific definitions reduce this ambiguity
somewha. What counts as water in the vernacular is different from
what counts as H20. In he creation of the
concept of H20 there has been the systemtic exclusion
of seawater, or dishwater, from the concept. Still, if there are a
few molecules that are not "H20" shall we still
consider the vial to contain H20? Even here,
there is ambiguity that tends to escape us. |
80. I say "There is a chair". What if
I go up to it, meaning to fetch it, and it suddenly disappears from
sight.? --"So it wasn't a chair, but some kind of illusion". --But in a
few moments we see it
again and are able to touch it and so on.
--"So the chair was there after all and its disappearance was some kind of
illusion". --But suppose that after a time it disappears again-or seems to
disappear. What are we to say now? Have you rules ready for such
cases ---rules saying whether one may use the word "chair" to
include this kind of thing? But do we miss them when we use the word
"chair"; and are we to say that we do not really attach any meaning to
this word, because we are not equipped with rules for every possible
application of it? |
The rules that determine the right way to use language
in any given language game are never defined with absolute
precision. We all comfortably call the objects we sit on chairs, but
we have no rules to label them if they stop behaving as chairs.
Language is simply not that precise. There are blurred boundaries
that we fail to see and that often do not bother us.
|
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