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1 - Attending to the Actual Sayings of Things

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2022

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Summary

The famous saying: ‘Don't ask for the meaning, ask for the use’, might have been and I hope was a piece of advice to philosophers, and not to lexicographers or translators. It advised philosophers, I hope, when wrestling with some aporia, to switch their attention from the troublegiving words in their dormancy as language-pieces or dictionary-items to their utilisation in the actual sayings of things; from their general promises when on the shelf to their particular performances when at work; from their permanent purchasing-power when in the bank to the concrete marketing done yesterday morning with them; in short, from these words quâ units of a Language to live sentences in which they are being actively employed.

– Gilbert Ryle

If the connection between ‘our words’ and ‘what we mean’ is a necessary one, this necessity is not established by universals, propositions, or rules, but by the form of life which makes certain stretches of syntactic utterance assertions.

– Stanley Cavell

I am told: ‘You understand this expression, don't you? Well then – I’m using it with the meaning you’re familiar with.’ As if the meaning were an aura the word brings along with it and retains in every kind of use.

If, for example, someone says that the sentence ‘This is here’ (saying which he points to an object in front of him) makes sense to him, then he should ask himself in what special circumstances this sentence is actually used. There it does make sense.

– Ludwig Wittgenstein

Uses of ‘Use’

In the huge literature commenting on, or taking its inspiration from, the philosophy of Wittgenstein, the notions of ‘meaning as use’ and ‘use theory of meaning’ have been understood in a number of different ways. However, little attention has been paid to this variety. In fact, the word ‘use’ itself has rarely been the focus of discussion – the word is rarely found in the index of books dealing with Wittgenstein and language. A rough division among invocations of ‘use’ is into those concerned with conformity (usage) and those concerned with the role (point, function) of words or of things said. When use is spoken of, what is in question may be words, or types of statement, or a particular uttering of a statement. Sometimes, the interest in use is descriptive, sometimes prescriptive.

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Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2022

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