the context principal in the later wittgenstein_the philosophical quarterly-1994-morris-294-310

8/13/2019 The Context Principal in the Later Wittgenstein_The Philosophical Quarterly-1994-Morris-294-310

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Th ePhilosophical QuarterlyVol. 44, Mo. 176ISSN 0031-8094

T H E ' C O N T E X T P R I N C I P L E ' I N T H E L A T E RW I T T G E N S T E I N

B Y K A T H ERI N E J . M O R RI S

Wittgenstein mentions the so-cal led 'Context Principle ' - the idea that'only in the context of a proposit ion has a word a meaning' - on severaloccasions in his later writings.1 I want to argue that a part icular way ofunders tanding these remarks , that expressed by Baker and Hacker intheir highly influential commentary on the PhilosophicalInvestigations,'1 is amisunderstanding. I focus on B&H, however, only because theirs is oneof the few commentaries to deal at length with the Context Principle inthe later Wittgenstein. The key features of their interpretat ion to whichI shall be drawing at tention play a role not only in their discussions, butalso in those of a great many Wittgenstein commentators, on a greatmany philosophical topics.Their in terpretat ion res ts on a par t icular way of t reat ing cer tain prom inen t re cu rre nt tex tual features of these rem ark s (see 1 below). T he sefeatures are found throughout Wittgenstein 's later wri t ings, and this wayof t reat ing them is a lmost universal amongst Wit tgenstein commentators. One such textual device is his use of questions: these are almostinvariably treated as rhetorical , or even are artful ly pruned unti l theylook like assertions. For instance, Wittgenstein's question 'Are we to saythat we do not real ly at tach any meaning to [the word "chair"] . . . ? ' (PI80) is reported by Peacocke as 'Wittgensteinsays thatit is w ro ng to thinkthat we do not real ly "at tac h an y m ean ing to [ the word 'c ha i r ' ]" ' .Whether or not this quest ion is meant as rhetorical , which would of

1 In Philosophical Investigations, tr. G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958), 49(hereafter PI)a nd PhilosophicalRemarks, ed. Rush Rhees, tr . Raymond Hargreaves and RogerWhite (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975), 12, 14 (pp. 58-9) (hereafter PR). It also occurs in theunpublished 'Big Typescript', p. 1 (hereafter BT); and G.E. Moore refers to it on p. 261 of'Wittgenstein's Lectures in 19 30 -33 ' in hisP hilosophicalPapers(London: George Allen & Un win,1959) (hereafter 'M oo re' or 'the M oo re notes').* G.P. Baker and P.M .S. Hacker, Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning (Oxford: BasilBlackwell, 1980); hereafter 'B & H'. Th eir discussion of wh at they call the 'co ntextu al dictu m'occurs on pp. 258-83.C The Editors of 7fePUIosopUcalQ uartirbi, 1994. Published by Blackwell Publisher, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.

July 1994

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TH E 'CON TEX T PRINCIPLE' IN TH E LATER WITTGENSTEIN 29 5course require argument, it is still a question, not an assertion.3 A secondrecurrent textual feature is his use of apparently modal qualificat ionsl ike 'Here we mightsay .. . ' or 'H er e is one possibility';these a re almo stuniversally simply ignored (e.g., PI 244, 'Here is one possibility: wordsare connected with the primit ive, the natural , expressions of thesensation and used in their place' , is reported by Budd as ' [Accordingto Wittgenstein] the verbal expression of pain replaces the primit ive,non-l inguist ic behaviour in which pain is manifested'4) . On the rareoccasions when they are not ignored, they are treated non-modally (e.g. ,Hallet t t reats the preamble 'Here is one possibi l i ty ' as introducing acounter-example to a general izat ion 5) . Indeed, B&H try to do both atonce: they sometimes ignore them and sometimes in effect t reat themno n-m od ally (see 11 below).

I w an t to pro pos e a different tr ea tm en t of W ittgenstein's questions a ndqualifications, at least in the passages under inspection here. I shall claimthat the apparently modal expressions like 'Here we might say .. . ' are,here at least, really to be taken as modal expressions. Moreover, here atleast, his questions are not rhetorical but are meant in the modal spiritof his qualifications: i .e., wh en he says, e.g., 'C an one u nd ers tan d any thingother than a sentence?' (see infra), this may be taken as equivalent to 'Wemight say: one cann ot und ersta nd a nythin g other tha n a sentence' . W hatthese 'modal ' operators govern, I shal l claim, isconceptions of certain keyconcepts: they introduce new possibilities of ways of seeing concepts (e.g.,'word' , 's ign' , 'name' , 'sentence' , 'proposit ion' , etc.) .6 (See 111 below.)

It is crucial to distinguish these 'modal ' operators (what might be cal led'outer modals ') from those which occur within the expression of suchconceptions (the ' inner modals ') , e.g. , the 'cannot ' in 'one cannotunder s tand anything other than a sen tence ' . M any co m m entators only perceivethe ' inner modals ' , not the 'outer ' ones; and they view these as expressions of ' the bounds of sense', i .e., the limits of intelligible discourse,how we must speak if we a re to av oid ta lkin g non se ns e. Bu t if, as Isuggest, the 'o ute r mo da ls ' really are to be taken m odally, then the ' inne rm oda ls ' are go ing to look entirely different . Foc using on these seeminglyinnocuous textual features could have wide-ranging effects on one's viewof W ittgenstein 's overal l aims a nd m eth od s. (See IV.)

3 Christopher Peacocke, p. 74 ofhis 'Reply [to Gordon Baker]: Rule-Following: the Natureof Wittgenstein's Argu me nts', in Steven H . Ho ltzm an a nd C hristop her M . Leich (eds),Wittgenstein: toFollowa Rule(Lond on: Ro utledg e 1981); italics ad ded .4 Malcolm Budd, p. 56 of Wittgenstein's Philosophy ofPsychology (London: Routledge, 1989).5 Garth Hallett, p. 3 (p. 322 ofA Companion to Wittgenstein's 'PhilosophicalInvestigations'(Ithaca:Cornell UP, 1977).6The German w ord 'Satz' is sometimes translated as 'sentence', sometimes as 'proposition'.Except where die context calls for a distinction, I use 'sentence' and 'proposition' interchangeably in this essay.C The Editors of Thi teksophkal Qfartafy 1994.



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29 6 K A T H E RI N E J . MO RR I SI. WITTGENSTEIN'S USE OF QUESTIONS AND QUALIFICATIONS

I begin this section by quoting the passages in which reference to theContext Principle is made. (B&H (p. 265) cite all but one of these, viz.,PR p. 58.)

PI 49b: Here we might say - though this easily leads to all kinds ofphilosophical superst i t ion - tha t a s ign 'R ' or 'B ' , etc. , m ay be som etimesa word and sometimes a proposit ion. But whether i t ' is a word or aproposit ion' depends on the si tuat ion in which i t is ut tered or wri t ten.. . . [In a certain situation] the word 'R', for instance, is not a description;it names an element - but i t would be queer to make that a reason forsaying that an element can onlybe nam ed For nam ing and descr ibingdo not s tand on the same level: naming is a preparat ion for descript ion.Naming is so far not a move in the language-game . . . . We may say:nothing has so far bee n do ne , w hen a thing has be en n am ed . It has noteven got a nam e except in the languag e-gam e. This was what Fregemeant too, when he said that a word had meaning only as part of asentence.

PR p. 58: If we say 'A word only has a meaning in the context of aproposit ion' , then that means that i t 's only in a proposit ion that i t funct ions as a word, and this is no more something that can be said thanthat an armchair only serves i ts purpose when i t is in space. Or perhapsbetter: that a cogwheel only functions as such when engaged with othercogs.

PR p. 59: 'A word only has a meaning in the context of a proposit ion' :that is l ike saying only in use is a rod a lever. Only the application makesit into a lever.BT p . 1: C an on e understandanything othe r than a sentence? O r:doesn' t one first understand a sentence? Thus: can one understand something otherwise than as asentence?What is important here is that in a certain sense, there is no suchthing as half a sentence.That is, what goes for words, goes also for half sentences, that theyonly have a sense/reference in the context of a sentence.7M oore p . 26 1: O n the s ta tem ent 'W ords , except in proposi t ions , haveno meaning' he said that this ' is true or false, as you understand it ' ; and7Th e awkward expression 'sense /referenc e' ('Sinn/Bedeutung') is presumably to be explainedby the fact that at this time Wittgenstein thought of words as having Bedeutung but no Sinn,sentences as having Sinn but no Bedeutung. This, first of all, left it unclear whether 'half asentence' was to be said to have a Sinnor aBedeutung; but secondly, assuming die former, hewanted to talk simultaneously about the Context Principle's application to words and tohalf-sentences.

C T h e Ed i t ors o f Tht P hilosophical Quarterly 1994 .



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TH E 'CON TEX T PRINCIPLE' IN TH E LATER WITTGENSTEIN 29 7immediately went on to add that , in what he cal led ' language-games' ,s ingle words 'have meanings by themselves ' , and that they may havemeaning by themselves even in our ordinary language ' i f we haveprovided one' . In this connection he said . . . that he had made a mistake(I think he meant in the Tractatus) in supposing that a proposit ion mustbe complex. He said that the truth was that we can replace a proposit ionby a simple sign, but that the simple sign must be 'part of a system'. . . .answers which might be given to the quest ion 'What is a proposit ion?'- a quest ion which he said we do not understand clearly.I want to call attention to two quite striking recurrent aspects of thesepassages which play no explici t role whatsoever in B&H's account, viz.,Wittgenstein 's use of apparently modal qualificat ions and his use ofquest ions. We see these in a number of places.

(i) PI 49 reads: 'Here we might say ... that a s ign "R " o r "B ", etc. ,may be sometimes a word and sometimes a proposit ion' ( i tal ics added).B&H report this passage as saying that 'a s ign such as "R" maysometimes be a word, sometimes a sentence' (p. 255); that is , the phrase'we might say' is entirely ignored.(ii) A ga in , in PI 49, Wittgenstein says 'Wemay say:nothing has so farbeen done, when a thing has been named. It has not even gota nam eexcept in the language-game' (first i talics added). B&H report the passageas saying that 'Nothing has been done by giving a thing a name except inso far as thisprepares the sign for possible moves in the language-game' (p.256). The preamble 'We may say' is ignored.(iii) M uc h of the passag e qu ote d from BTp. 1 consists of qu estio ns:'Can one understandany thing o ther th an a sentence? O r: does n' t one first

unders tand a sentence? Thus: can one unders tand something otherwiset hanas a sentence?' B&H report this as: 'It is only with sentences that weactually sayanything. U nd ers ta nd ing a sentence is knowing what i tsays,and understanding begins with the whole sentence' (p. 280). 8 Is itclearthat Wittgenstein 's quest ions are rhetorical? A further example from BTp . 1 is this: 'in acertain sense,the re is no such thin g as half a sen ten ce'(italics added). B&H simply report this as 'There are no half propositions. . . . Half a proposit ion does not s tand to a proposit ion as half a breadroll to a whole one, but as "half a knight 's move" to a knight 's move'(p . 280), suppressing the phrase ' in a certain sense' . (The analogy comesfrom Philosophical Grammar, where Wittgenstein says 'it could besaid:"In

8 To be fair, B&H do not here refer us to BTp. 1 but to PG p. 44; but there we find this:' "To understand a sentence"can mean "to know what the sentence signifies"; i.e., to be ableto answer the question "what does this sentence say?" ' (italics added).C T h e Ed i t ors o f Tht P hilosophical Quarterly 1994 .



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298 K A T H E RI N E J . MO RRI Schess there are no half knight 's moves" ' , i tal ics added: 9 B&H ignore theitalicized phrase.)(iv) O n BT p . 1, the scope of ' in a ce rtain sens e' m igh t be wideenough to include the nextsenten ce: if so, the p assage w ould assert tha tit is only 'in a certain sense' that a half sentence or a word has a meaning only in the context of a sentence. Since ' in a certain sense' is ignoredby B&H, so too are quest ions about i ts scope.Are these qualifications mere stylistic quirks (although highly characteristic of Wittgenstein)? Most commentators, including B&H much of thetime, treat them as such, and hence simply ignore them. (Likewise, hisquestions are generally read as rhetorical, and his penchant for such questions as the manifestation of a personality quirk.) But it ought to strike usprima facie as a bizarre method of procedure for philosophers not even toconsider the possibility that what appear to be modal qualifiers really aremeant as such, especially when reading Wittgenstein. Can we really suppose that he (of all people) was so cavalier with apparently modal terms?

II. WITTGENSTEIN DEMODALIZEDB&H sometimes ignore the apparently modal qualificat ions and somet imes implici t ly pay at tention to them but t reat them as non-modal . Bothstrands of thought lead to difficulties. (So does combining them.)One important s t rand in thei r in terpretat ion actual ly hangs on thei rignoring these qualificat ions. For example, Wittgenstein 's al leged refutat ion of 'semantic atomism' (supposedly one of the principal targets ofhis remarks on the Context Principle) crucial ly depends on the variousdicta being read without the qualifiers. B&H see the passage in PI whichfollows 'Here we might say . . . ' as expressing a grammatical t ruth aboutthe use of the word 'sign': i .e., we use the word 'sign' in such a way thatone and the same sign is sometimes a word, sometimes a proposit ion.T h u s , since the sign 'R' , which is sometimes the name of an element,is also some times a prop osit ion w hich describes an e lem ent, the sem anticatomist 's claim that elements are indescribable is wrong and indeed nonsensical: i t involves a misdescription of the grammar of the word 'sign'.It is clearly vital for this reading to ignore the preamble: what wouldbecome of Wittgenstein 's refutat ion if he prefaced his coupde grace with'Here we mightsay ...'?There is , however, a prima facie difficulty in seeing Wittgenstein'sstrategy in these terms. Most of these dicta - what B&H wish to describe

9PhilosophicalGrammar, ed. Rush Rhees, tr. Anthony Kenny (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974),p. 39[PG].O The Editors of The Philosophical Qmrlnly 1994 .



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THE 'CONTEXT PRINCIPLE' IN THE LATER WITTGENSTEIN 29 9as 'grammatical t ruths ' about the use of words l ike 'name' , 'word' ,'proposit ion' and so on - appear to be open to straightforward andobvious object ions. There seem to be perfect ly ordinary and acceptableuses of these words that violate these al leged grammatical t ruths. We aretold that 'Something hasn ' t even got a nam e except in the lang uage -game'; but might I not give you a t ie decorated with your name; and isit not your name even though i t is not occurring in any language-game?(Have Imisusedthe wo rd ' na m e ' in thus describing the tie?) 'Th er e is nosuch thing as half a sentence'; but do we not, for example, frequentlyreply to 'wh'-quest ions with half sentences? 'We can' t understand anything other than a sentence' ; but do we not understand the word'Fire '?Worse yet , in the Moore notes, Wittgenstein himself appears to be ci t ingobject ions to the principle that a word has meaning only in the contextof a sentence: ' in what he cal led "language-games" single words "havemeanings by themselves", and . . . they may have meaning by themselveseven in our ordinary language "if we have provided one" ' .

There would appear to be two moves open to B&H by way of responseto this difficulty. (A third would be to appeal to the ambiguityof suchwords as 'word' and 'sentence' . But the claim that these words areambiguous is implausible, and this appeal would in any case be unhelpful to their cause.) The first move is to insist that the uses of theexpressions 'word', 'name', and so on cited in the objections are misuses.The t ie is not real ly decorated with your name,it is deco rate d with apattern that happens to be congruent with your name; 'Fire ' is not real lya word, but a proposit ion the sign for which can in other contexts be aword; and so on. But this response will , inevitably, ring of dogmatism:where on e ar th d o these judg em ents of wha t really counts as a name ora word come from? The oddity of this at t i tude on the part of those whopurport s imply to be report ing the facts of ordinary usage could not bem ore striking. ( 'O rd ina ry lan gu ag e is in or de r as it is - exce pt w he n itisn't '?)

The second response is to accept these uses as perfectly legitimate andfelicitous, but atypical. This response, i t could be said, in effect belatedlyacknowledges the 'mights ' : i t reads 'We mightsay that you ca n' t un der stand anything other than a sentence' as saying something l ike 'Youcould be forgiven for thinking that one can only understand sentences,since typically this is true'. (Note how unnatural this reading is, if madeexplici t . ) This second strand, indeed, appears to be B&H's dominantresponse. According to B&H, Wittgenstein takes these object ions onboard and acknowledges 'exceptions ' to the Context Principle (p. 280;indeed, on their view, one of Wittgensteins's criticisms of Frege was thathe adhered dogmatical ly to the Context Principle without noticing suchC T heEditorso f The Ptolosophiad Qtmtarfy 1994.



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30 0 KATHERINE J. MORRISobvious exceptions ) . Thus they claim that 'A sentence is , ingeneral, theminimal unit by which a move is made in the language-game' (p. 280,i tal ics added); 'Since the sentence is the fundamental unit of speech, usinga word correctly is typically using it in (or as) a sentence' (p. 282, finali talics adde d); W ittgenstein 's 'no n-F reg ea n interp reta t ion of the dic tummakes it possible to budget for the many meaningful extra-sentential usesof words .... Yet, on the whole, such uses of words are not independent oftheir use in sentences' (p. 282, italics added); and so on. (In practice,the 'soft ' versions of the dicta sit side by side with the 'hard' versions inB&H's discussion with no apparent recognit ion of tension: 'A sentenceis, in general , the minimal unit by which a move is made in thelanguage-game. I t i s onlywith senten ces th at we actually say anything '(p. 280, first i talics added), and so on. This cannot be a satisfactoryposition in which to end up.)

This second response has the meri t of avoiding the dogmatism of thefirst; but it creates serious difficulties of its own.1. T h e first difficulty con cern s B& H's (non-m odal) tre at m en t of the'outer modals' as if they meant ' typically'. What justifies their use of

words like ' typically' or ' in general ' or 'on the whole'? Are thesestatistical notions (so that Wittgenstein is in the business of armchairempirical l inguist ics)? Or do they mean something l ike 'paradigm-atically' or 'centrally '? But the n how w ould on e justify the claim tha tone thing rather than another real ly was 'central ' or 'paradigmatic '?Such a claim has the ring of (another form of) dogmatism.2. Secondly, their non-m odal t reatm ent of the 'outer m oda ls ' undermines their own treatment of Wittgenstein's ' inner modals' , which was

essential to their understanding of his alleged refutation of semanticatomism. It was, for example, supposed to be a grammatical truthabout the use of the word 'sign' that we use the word 'sign' in sucha way that one and the same sign is sometimes a word, sometimes aproposit ion. We must( ' inner m oda l '), on pa in of talking nonsens e, usethe word 'sign' in this way. But we are now told that the word 'sign'is only typically used in this way, that there are exceptions. Whatbecomes of the claim that this was a rule of grammar, the violationof which yielded nonsense? (And wh at beco m es of W ittgenstein's claim(in PR p. 58) that the Context Principle is not 'something that can besaid', i.e., that it is a tautology comparable to 'a cogwheel only functions as such when engaged with other cogs'?)

3. Th irdly and pe rh ap s less obviously, i t requires tha t W ittgenstein 'sinterlocutors' ' inner m oda ls ' be t reated non-m odal ly , when they are

The Editors of Th hilosophicalQfmkrfy 1994.



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THE 'CONTEXT PRINCIPLE' IN THE LATER WITTGENSTEIN 30 1often clearly intended as metaphysical claims. In the passage from theMoore notes quoted above, Wittgenstein identified his mistake in theTractatesas being the idea that 'a p roposi t ion m ust be comp lex ' . A ccording to B&H (p. 267), PI 49 showed that 'a non-complex symbol maybe . . . sometimes used as a descript ion' , hence that al though the claimin the Tractatusis typically tru e, th ere ar e ex cep tions to it (i .e., 'on e-word sentences ') : that is why Wittgenstein later cal led i t a 'mistake' . Butthis readingdemandsa non-m odal t rea tme nt o f the Tractatus' word 'must ' .'Must ' must s imply express a universal general izat ion, to which i t makessense to talk about discovering exceptions. But this cannot be right. Inthe Tractatus,W it tgenstein had a concep t ion of proposi t ions acco rdingto which they mustbe com plex, wh ere 'm us t ' is clearly a mo da l te rm ,meant as an expression of essence, of something metaphysical : nothingwas to be counted as a proposit ion unless i t was complex. On this conception, the expression 'one-word sentence' is , in a certain sense, self-contradictory (i .e. , al though a sentence can contain just one word(depending of course on what you count as a word), i t must,in orde r tobe a sentence, contain other symbols besides), and i t would thus bequest ion-begging to say that they const i tuteexceptionsto his(a priori) claimtha t prop osit ions m ust be com plex (This also brings out w hat is pecu liarin Hallet t 's characterizat ion (p. 50) of the later Wittgenstein 's s trategyfor combat ing 'a priorireq uire m ents ' as consis ting in providing counterexamples.) Do B&H want to say that Wittgenstein begs the quest ionagainst his interlocutors, including his earlier self?

IE. WITTGENSTEIN REMODALIZEDA quite different picture of Wittgenstein 's s trategy emerges if we takeseriously the idea that Wittgenstein 's qualifiers and quest ions are playingan i mpor t an t modalrole here : that they are n ot a m ere m atte r of s tyle,but are part of the content of what he cal ls ' the descript ion of the useof our words ' . A straightforward reading of 'Here we might say' , etc. ,would be: 'Here is one possible way of looking at things ' , i .e. , one possible 'conception' of one of the concepts that play a key role in this area,e.g. , 'name' , 's ign' , 'word' , 'proposit ion' , 'complexity ' and so on.10 And

,0It is undoubtedly important that these concepts are among those for which Wittgensteinat one time used the term 'meta-logical'; this point cannot be pursued here. S. Stephen Hilmy'sThe Later Wittgenstein(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), ch. 2, has the merit of drawing attentionto the term 'meta-logical'; he seems, however, to see it as primarily limited to psychologicalconcepts.O The Editor* of The lnbsophudQpmttrt 1994.



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30 2 KATHERINE J. MORRIShis (allegedly rhetorical) questions could be read in the same spirit: thusthe series of questions in BT 1 can be seen as presenting onepossibleconception of the concept of a proposition. (Note that the suggestion is notthat the words 'name' , 's ign' , etc. are ambiguous - except perhaps in thesense in which an 'ambiguous picture' is said to be so. The 'facts of ordinaryusage' form different patterns, depending on how one looks at them.)

(i) 'We mightsay .. . tha t a s ign " R " o r " B ", etc. , m ay be som etimesa word and somet imes a proposi t ion. ' Might we also say somethingdifferent? Perhaps this: that what looks like the same sign may in fact bedifferent signs; i .e., one might refuse to say that the very samesign ca nbe ei ther a word or a proposit ion." (Cf. Waismann,1 2 expressing the viewhe finds in the Tractatus:we mig ht be te m pte d to think th at th e verysame sign, e.g. , 'Restaurant ' , is sometimes a word, sometimes a proposition; but this is wrong: the sign which is the equivalent of the proposition'This is a restaurant ' is acomplex consist ing of the wordplus thesituation.)If we adopt the first way of talking, it appears to invite questions like' W h a t makes a sign into a word or a proposit ion?' or even 'What do youhave to addto a sign in orde r to m ake i t into a wo rd (or a p ropo sit ion)?' .If we look at the concept of a sign differently if, instead of saying thatone and the same s ign can be somet imes a word, somet imes a proposi tion, we adopt different criteria of identity for signs and refuse to saythat the very same sign can be ei the r a w ord o r a prop osit ion - thequestions simply will not arise."

On this reading, then, Wittgenstein is al luding to al ternative conceptions of the concept of a sign:on one co nce ption , one a nd the sam e signcan be ei ther a word or a proposit ion; on the other, we have a differentsign in these two cases. But these conceptions are themselves specifiedby reference to the concepts of a wordand a proposition. These conceptscan l ikewise be seen in contrast ing ways. Someone who, for instance,held that a word could sometimes bea proposi t ion w ould be presup posing a different conception of the concept of a wordfrom that presupp osedby ei ther of the conceptions of a s ign here del ineated. (Cora Diamondemploys this conception of the concept of a word in her account ofWit tgenstein and Frege 's concept ion of nonsense: 'words ' are what onesees or hears, but the same word may be a different 'Logical Element ' ,as she puts it (or indeed may not be a 'Logical Element' at all), in

" Wittgensteinhimself in the Tractatus,sometimes employs two words, 'sign' and 'symbol',for these two possible conceptions of the word 'sign' (3.32 ff.).12F. Waismann,The PrinciplesofLinguistic Philosophy(London: Macmillan, 1965), p. 317." Cf. his treatment of the question 'How do I know the position of my limbs?'. This isdiscussed in my 'Wittgenstein on Knowledge of Posture',PhilosophicalInvestigations, 15 (1992),pp. 30-50.C The Editor of Ti l kUoxpUal Qfmttrty 1994.



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THE 'CONTEX T PRINCIPLE' IN THE LATER WITTGENSTEIN 303different sentences, and what 'Logical Element ' a word is , i f any, is thusnot ascertainable simply by, say, looking harder at the word.)14(ii) 'We maysay:nothinghas so far been d on e, w hen a thing has bee nnamed. I t has not even got a nam e except in the langua ge-ga m e. 'Consider the first part first . If only saying something counts as doingsomething in the language-game, then naming something does notqualify as doing something. (The descript ion of a game of chess doesnot start with an account of putting the pieces in the initial positions.)But Wittgenstein is not insist ing that naming nevercou nts as doin gsomething; hence 'we maysay' . W he th er or no t we say that 'no thin g hasbeen done ' i s h ighly context -relat ive. ( 'What happened in the seminarlast week?' 'Nothing. ' ) And in some contexts in t roducing a name ordefining a word might well be a crucial part of what somebody is saidto have done (perhaps even ' the decisive movement in the conjuring-trick', PI 308).

Consider , then, the second par t : we maysay tha t a thin g 'ha s not evengot a nam e except in the langu age- gam e' . T ha t i s, we might give afunctional characterizat ion of the concept of a name: to cal l a mark ora sound a name is to characterize i ts use in the language-game, i .e. , insaying things. This makes sense only against the background of thepossibility of making certain kinds of uses of it (e.g., referring tosomething), i .e. , in the context of an established pract ice. A mark orsound is a name only if i t occupies a certain posi t ion in the techniqueof using the language (iV51). On this conception, names are to be dist inguished from, e.g. , t rademarks, logos, s ignatures, chalk marks (used,e.g., to keep different objects distinct or to trace identity over time), etc.,and the principles for differentiat ing them turn on whether these markshave the appropriate roles in saying something. But again, we need notthink of names in this way. We may say that na m es oc cur in paint ing sor t ie designs, or as t rademarks, logos, and so on, hence that a mark orsound can be a name outside a language-game. (And of course whatcounts as a ' language-game' may also be highly variable ) The adoptionof this lat ter way of looking at the concept of a name, however, canappear to demand the answers to a number of quest ions: e .g . , 'How doesa name refer to a th ing? ' , 'What makes a mark or a sound in to a name?' ,'How could we so much as get the ideath at a design o n m y tie couldrefer to me?',an d so on. If we do say that so m ething 'has no t evengota name except in the language-game' such quest ions do not ar ise .

4Cora Diamond, 'W hat Nonsense Might Be', pp . 95-114 ofThe RealisticSpirit(Cambridge,Mass.:MIT/Bradford, 1991). This article presents 'alternative conceptions' oftheconcept ofnonsense, which themselves are intertwined with alternative conceptions of(inter alia) theconcept of a sentence.C The Editois of 7fe hilosophicalQ/aterl/ 1994.



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3 4 KATHERINE J . MORRIS(iii) BTp. 1 reflects on the conc ept of a sente nce . 'C an o neunderstand

anything other than a sentence? . . . In a certain sense, there is no suchthing as half a sentence. ' We mightsay that we ca n ' t und ers ta nd any thingother than a sentence, that ' I t is only with sentences that we actuallysayan ythin g' (B&H, p . 280), cf. D um m ett : 'we can no t say an yth ing bym ean s of a sequence of wo rds that s tops short of be ing a senten ce -cannot . . . do what Wittgenstein cal led "make a move in the language-game" - except where the context suppl ies a supplementat ion of thewords spoken that amounts to a sentence embodying them' .1 5 Likewise,on this conception ( ' in a certain sense') ' there is no such thing as half asentence ' .

But we neednot say this . (T hus , paceD um m et t , th i s cann ot wi thou tqualificat ion be cal led a ' t ruism'.) There are ways of conceiving ofsentences such that there is such a thing as half a sentence, e.g., the ideathat a sentence must have a certain syntact ic structure (e.g. , contain botha subject and a predicate: see PI 134). (There are, needless to say, anumber of possible conceptions of syntax,wh ich l ikewise would nee d tobe brought out in the open and explored if object ions were raised.) Withsentences thus understood (and note that a certain conception of a wordis thereby implied as well) , there is absolutely no problem about talkingabout 'half a sentence' : half a sentence would be a string of words that ,e.g. , consisted only of a subject with no predicate. To think of sentencesin this way, however, disconnects the concept of a sentence from theconcepts of saying and understanding. (It is here, of course, thatphilosophers want to carve a niche for a dist inct ion between a sentenceand a proposit ion.) As a result , difficult philosophical quest ions appearon the agenda: 'How do we unders tand sentences? ' , 'How can a sentencebe used to say something?' ( 'How', as some would want to put i t , 'cana sentence express a proposition?'), and so on. (Ts it not astonishing thatby hearing certain sounds issuing from the mouth of a person, or bylooking at a few black marks on a piece of paper, I can become awareof the fact that a volcano on a distant is land has erupted, or that MrSo-and-so has been elected President of the Republic of So-and-so?" 6)

If, however, we dolook at the co nc ept of a senten ce per th e BT p. 1conception, wherein the issue of whether something is to be counted asa sentence or proposit ion is l inked to the quest ion of whether i t is usedto communicate something (whether i t makes sense to speak of understanding what is said), then there is no such thing as half a sentence.

5Michael Dummett,Frege:PhilosophyofLanguage(2nd edn: London: Duckworth, 1981),p . 3.16Schlick, quoted in W aismann, op.cit.,p. 304.O The Editors of TheFUktophadQfmUrt 1994.



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THE 'CONTEXT PRINCIPLE' IN THE LATER WITTGENSTEIN 30 5On this picture, 'Fire ' may well count as a sentence (something may besaid with i t) , wh erea s i t wou ld no t have c oun ted as a sentence o n theprevious conception, s ince i t lacks the relevant s tructural art iculat ion. Ifon e thinks of senten ces in this way , such philoso phica l quest ions as 'H owcan sentences be used to sayan yth ing ?' do not arise.

It is w ort h no ting he re tha t these different co nce ption s of a se ntencetie up in interesting ways with different conceptions of complexity. (It isclear from PI47 that the co nce pt of com plexity is , l ike the other s un de rdiscussion here, one that Wittgenstein takes to be viewable in variousways.) The Tractatuscon cep tion of com plexity did not re quire tha t thesentence be visibly composed of mult iple const i tuents , i .e. , that i t appearto be art iculated, but rather that the system of signs to which i t belongs,and relat ive to which i ts sense must be explained, must contain thepossibi l i ty of saying other contrast ing things, viz., of saying the samething about other things and of saying different things about the samething. This conception of complexity l inks very t ightly to a conceptionof aproposition according to which that concept is connected with theconcepts of saying and unders tanding. And, of course, these conceptsare themselves capable of being seen in various ways. E.g. , on oneconcept ion of ' saying ' , someone who ut ters a random s t r ing of wordshas saidsom ething; on ano the r (a conce pt ion w hich, perh aps , connectswith the possibility of reporting what was said in indirect speech) he hasnot . But on another conception of complexity, complexity is a matterof syntactic articulation (e.g., composition of subject and predicate);compare Russel l 's claim that 'sometimes you get a proposit ion expressedby a single wo rd ', b ut ' if i t is expre ssed fully it is b ou nd to con tain severalwords ' .17 (Even here, however, one need not suppose that complexityneeds to be visible - e.g., ambulo.1 ) Someone with this conception ofcomplexity might well also say 'Proposit ions must be complex' ; theconception of a proposit ion he would have in mind would be thatdescribed above, according to which for something to count as aproposit ion, i t must have a certain syntact ic art iculat ion, and which wecontrasted with the BTp. 1 con cep tion l inking the con cep t of a prop osit ion wi th the concepts of saying and unders tanding. Thus there are atleast two quite different pictures that might underl ie someone's saying'Proposi t ions must be complex ' .

(iv) T his finally bring s us to the Co nte xt Principle itself. In a certainsense, a word has meaning only in the context of a sentence; this

" Bertrand Russell,The Philosophyof LogicalAtomism(La Salle, DL: Open Court, 1985), p. 52.18Cf. Tractatus4.032, discussed in Waismann,op. at.,pp. 319-20.C The Editors of Thi UbsopUud Qparterfy 1994.



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3 6 KATHERINE J. MORRISembodies par t icular concept ions both of words and of sentences . Wemight (al though we need not) have a conception of a sentence which isindependent of the concept of syntact ic art iculat ion (e.g. , we mightexplain a sentence as anything by the use of which we can say something, and th is might include one-word sentences , d iagrams, drawings ,gestures, concrete signals and so on).19 If we do, the Context Principleamounts to a st ipulat ion about what counts as using something as aword, or as something's functioning as a word, or as a word's having ameaning. (We can thus see why i t is misleading to say (as B&H do) thatthe later Wittgenstein 's uses of the Context Principle 'budget for 'exceptions to the principle, viz., meaningful extra-sentential uses ofwords (as labels on bottles, addresses on letters, t i t les of books, etc.).Given the conception sketched, this claim is s imply quest ion-begging:on that conception, nothing counts as a meaningful extra-sentential useof a word. For instance, a label on a bott le says thatthe b ott le con tainscyanide; a s ign reading 'Honey ' by a farmhouse says thatho ne y is soldthere . These a re no t extra-sentential uses of w ords , on the app rop riateconception of a sentence.)

Rundle objects to the concept ion of a word embodied in the ContextPrinciple on the grounds that ' i t is clearly wrong to say that a word hasa meaning only in a sentence. I have not wri t ten down a meaninglessmark if I wri te "t iger" and nothing else. '20 Th is object ion m anifests amisunders tanding of the purpose of Wit tgenstein 's remarks . Suppose wecompare, as Wit tgenstein does in PR p . 59, 'A word only has a meaningin the context of a proposition' to 'Only in use is a rod a lever' (or to'A block of wood is a chess-piece only in the context of a game', 'Apiece of cardboard is a p laying card only in the context of a game' , 'Apiece of metal is a cogwheel only in the context of a gear-train ' , etc.) ,a comparison that is made more explici t by saying 'A mark or sound isa word only in the context of a sentence'. Thus put, i t looks as if i t isopen to obvious object ions. Surely we can prop up a book on fourpawns, build toy houses out of playing cards, discover a detached cogwheel in a drawer ful l of clock-parts , employ a screwdriver to spreadpaint , etc. And we would not say that the pieces of wood had ceased tobe pawns when we propped the book on them, that the ace of hear tswas not a part of the house of cards, etc. Likewise, i t will be said, surely

9Cf. Waismann,op.cit.,p . 94: 'Th e word "language" will be used here as a term applyingto everything that serves the end of expression and communication.... we extend this conceptto cover not only verbal languages but also gesture language, picture language ... and muchelse.It follows from the convention that all communication takes place by means of language.'MBede Rundle,Wittgenstein and Contemporary PhilosophyofLanguage (Oxford: Basil Blackwe1990), p. 126.C The Editors ofTki mbsopUcal Qvarlerfy 1994.



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3 8 KATHERINE J . MO RRISbe counted as games. He might express that s t ipulat ion by saying 'Agame must have at leas t two players ' . The 'must ' ( ' inner modal ' ) in'What you unders tand mustbe a sen ten ce' , etc . , is to be seen as pa ral lelto this.

If we take this analogy seriously, we can see that Wittgenstein 's conceptions of the concepts of a word, a sentence, etc. , do not lead to thedifficulties described in 11. B&H treat the ' inner modals ' as express ionsof ' th e bo und s of sense ' and thus descr ibe W it tgenstein 's 'd icta ' as 'gram mat ical t ru ths ' about the use of words l ike 'name' , 'word ' , 'proposi t ion 'an d so on; thus und ers tood , these claims ap pe are d to be ope n to obviousobject ions, i .e. , there were perfecdy ordinary uses of these words thatviolated these al leged grammat ical t ru ths . B&H have ei ther (dogmatical ly) to over-ride these perfecdy ordinary expressions as 'misuses ' ,or to t reat the 'outer modals ' non-modally, as i f they meant ' typical ly ' .This leads to a different form of dogmatism: i t requires us to ignoreWit tgenstein 's own ' inner modals ' (a move which cannot be reconci ledwith seeing the ' inner modals ' as expressing ' the bounds of sense') , andit quest ion-beggingly requires us to see his interlocutors ' ' inner modals 'as non-modal , as i f they were simply expressions of purported generalizations to which it makes sense to try to find exceptions. If, however,we see Wittgenstein 's conceptions as 's t ipulat ions ' and thus see his ' innermoda l s 'perthe sugge sted an alog y, this cycle of difficulties do es no t ev enget launched. The ordinary-language 'except ions ' to h is s t ipulat ions nolonger look like exceptions, any more than the fact that we ordinari ly cal lpat ience a game is an exception to the community leader 's s t ipulat ionthat a game must have at least two players.

But wh at is W ittgenstein try ing to acco m plish in pressin g this analogy?The first point is that his al ternative conceptions are ones on which thephilosophical quest ions which have been occupying his interlocutors donot arise or lose their interest . Note that this view of Wittgenstein 'sat t i tude towards his interlocutors ' philosophical quest ions differs substantially from B&H's view: they persistently see Wittgenstein as tryingto provide answers to them. 'What do you have to add to a sign to makeit into a word?' Answer: 'The context of ut terance' (p. 255). (Cf. 'Whatgives life to signs?' (e.g., PI 339). B&H claim that according toWittgenstein, 'what gives them l ife is not the accompanying processes ofunders tanding, th inking, and meaning, but the usewe m ake of them inthe stream of human l ife ' .22)

11 G.P. Baker and P.M.S. Hacker, Wittgenstein: Rules,Grammar an dNecessity (Oxford: BasilBlackwell, 1985), p. 362.C The Editors ofThtPtebxpticid Qfarkrty 1994.



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THE 'CONTEXT PRINCIPLE' IN THE LATER WITTGENSTEIN 309B&H caution us, in part icular, against answering this quest ion byreference to a 'mental act concurrent with [the sign's] ut terance' ; oursaying that one and the same s ign can be somet imes a word, somet imesa proposit ion can easi ly lead to the 'superst i t ious ' bel ief in such magicalmental acts, but we can set our faces firmly against this superstition.Note that their suggest ion wil l appear straightforwardly quest ion-begging to the un con verted : why is any less 'magic' required for ' the contextof utterance' to transform a 'mere sign' into a word than for a 'mental act 'to do so? (Cf. Simon Blackburn's response to an allegedly Wittgensteiniananswer to a philosophical quest ion about rule-fol lowing: 'Wittgensteinm ust have felt tha t publici ty, the fact that oth ers do just th e sam e, was

the magic ingredient turning the wooden picture into the ful l one. I t ismost obscure to me that it fills this role.'23)T h e seco nd po int follows from this: if W ittgenstein co uld pers ua de hisinterlocutors to see the ' inner modals ' of their own conceptions, e.g. , 'Aword mustoc cur in the contex t of a prop osit ion in ord er to have a m ea ning' , as analogous to those of the community leader 's s t ipulat ions, theywould see their own philosophical quest ions differently. These quest ionswould be seen as arising only on a part icular way of looking at the

relevant concepts. I t is crucial to see, al though there is not space hereto discuss this, that these conceptions or ways of looking at theseconcepts are themselvesmotivated,ju st as the co m m unity lea der 's s t ipulation is; the re m ay be m or e tha n on e con ce ptio n th at ca n be justified (cf.' "But th is i sn ' t seeing. "Bu t this is seeing " - It m us t be possible togive both remarks a conceptual just if icat ion' , PI II p. 203). Thus theclaim is not that the interlocutors ' quest ions are unimportant , or s tupid,or that they are easy to answer. It is only that they are not questionsthat mustbe asked.Focusing on these seemingly innocuous textual features might give apart icular cas t to Wit tgenstein 's over-ci ted ' therapy ' metaphor . Crudelyput , the more usual view, which ignores the 'outer modals ' and sees the' inner modals ' as expressing ' the bounds of sense' , sees the 'disease' asoffering wrong (nonsensical) answers to philosophical questions, and seesthe 'cure ' as tel l ing us what the right answers are. On the present view,the 'disease' is thecompulsion to try to answer o ur philosophical quest ions,and the 'cure ' is seeing that we canlook at ou r con ce pts differently, in

MP. 183 of 'Reply [to Jo hn McDowell]: Rule-Following and Moral Realism', in Holtzmanand Leich, op.cit.Cora Diamond's criticism of the 'communal agreement' answer to thequestion 'What do I really mean by: he is always to go on in that way?' (pp. 67f. of 'Realismand the Realistic Spirit', pp. 39-72 ofThe Realistic Spirit) is broadly parallel to my criticismhere of B&H.O Th e Ed i t ors o f The PhUasaphtudQuritriy , 19 94.



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the context principal in the later wittgenstein_the philosophical quarterly-1994-morris-294-310

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