Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 1 Wittgenstein's critique of philosophy
- 2 Pictures, logic, and the limits of sense in Wittgenstein's Tractatus
- 3 Fitting versus tracking
- 4 Philosophy as grammar
- 5 A philosophy of mathematics between two camps
- 6 Necessity and normativity
- 7 Wittgenstein, mathematics, and ethics
- 8 Notes and afterthoughts on the opening of Wittgenstein's Investigations
- 9 Mind, meaning, and practice
- 10 “Whose house is that?” Wittgenstein on the self
- 11 The question of linguistic idealism revisited
- 12 Forms of life
- 13 Certainties of a world-picture
- 14 The availability of Wittgenstein's philosophy
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Fitting versus tracking
Wittgenstein on representation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 1 Wittgenstein's critique of philosophy
- 2 Pictures, logic, and the limits of sense in Wittgenstein's Tractatus
- 3 Fitting versus tracking
- 4 Philosophy as grammar
- 5 A philosophy of mathematics between two camps
- 6 Necessity and normativity
- 7 Wittgenstein, mathematics, and ethics
- 8 Notes and afterthoughts on the opening of Wittgenstein's Investigations
- 9 Mind, meaning, and practice
- 10 “Whose house is that?” Wittgenstein on the self
- 11 The question of linguistic idealism revisited
- 12 Forms of life
- 13 Certainties of a world-picture
- 14 The availability of Wittgenstein's philosophy
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
THE PROBLEM OF REPRESENTATION
How is it possible for signs to point? How is it possible for signs to point to what is not there? These questions are extremely general ones about intentionality, the property of “aboutness” or “ofness” whereby one part of the world (a sign such as the words “the stoplight” or “The stoplight is red”) represents some other part of the world (e.g., an object such as a particular traffic signal or a state of affairs such as the traffic signal's being red).
How is it possible for signs to point? The obvious fact that signs point to something other than themselves is puzzling because it is difficult to see how to avoid a threatened regress of interpretations: an ordinary sign, for example, the linguistic sign “plus” or “Playful,” can be interpreted in various possible ways. Linguistic signs, after all, are arbitrary. The linguistic sign “Playful,” as uttered by me on a particular occasion, may be interpreted by my hearer as the name of a particular gray cat or as an attribution of the quality of playfulness to the creature in front of me or even (nonstandardly) as a sign for the color gray. Once we notice this, we feel the need to find something that will single out just one of the possible alternative interpretations in order for signs to succeed in pointing to something beyond themselves.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein , pp. 100 - 138Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
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