Brown Book: Difference between revisions

Suppose a man described a game of chess, without mentioning the existence and operations of the pawns. His description of the game as a natural phenomenon will be incomplete. On the other hand we may say that he has completely described a simpler game. In this sense we can say that Augustine's description of learning the language was correct for a simpler language than ours. Imagine this language: –

{{parBB|1}} Its function is the communication between a builder A & his man B. B has to reach A building stones. There are cubes, bricks, slabs, beams, columns. The language consists of the words “cube”, “brick”, “slab”, “column”. A calls out one of these words, upon which B brings a stone of a certain shape. Let us imagine a society in which this is the only system of language. The child learns this language from the grown-ups by being trained to its use. I am using the word “trained” in a way strictly analogous to that in which we talk of an animal being trained to do certain things. It is done by means of example, reward, punishment, and such like. Part of this training is that we point to a building stone, direct the attention of the child towards it, & pronounce a word. I will call this procedure ''demonstrative'' teaching of words. In the actual {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,2}} use of this language, one man calls out the words as orders, the other acts according to them. But learning and teaching this language will contain this procedure: The child just “names” things, that is, he pronounces the words of the language when the teacher points to the things. In fact, there will be a still simpler exercise: The child repeats words which the teacher pronounces.

(Note: Objection: The word “brick” in language 1) has not the meaning which it has in ''our'' language. ‒ ‒ This is true if it means that in our language there are usages of the word “brick!” different from our usages of this word in language 1). But don't we sometimes use the word “brick!” in just this way? Or should we say that when we use it, it is an elliptical sentence, a shorthand for “Bring me a brick”? Is it right to say that if ''we'' say “brick!” we ''mean'' “Bring me a brick”? Why should I translate the expression “brick!” into the expression, “Bring me a brick”? And if they are synonymous, why shouldn't I say: If he says “brick!” he means “brick!” … ? Or: Why shouldn't he be able to mean just “brick!” if he is able to mean “Bring me a brick”, unless you wish to assert that while he says aloud “brick!” he as a matter of fact always says in his mind, to himself, “Bring me a brick”? But what reason could we have to assert this? Suppose someone asked: If a man gives the order, “Bring me a brick”, must he mean it as four words, or can't he mean it as one composite word synonymous with the one word “brick!”? One is tempted to answer: He ''means'' all four words if in his language he uses that sentence in contrast with other {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,3}} sentences in which these words are used, such as, for instance, “Take these two bricks away”. But what if I asked, “But how is his sentence contrasted with these others? Must he have thought them simultaneously, or shortly before or after, or is it sufficient that he should have one time learnt them, etc.?” When we have asked ourselves this question, it appears that it is irrelevant which of these alternatives is the case. And we are inclined to say that all that is really relevant is that these contrasts should exist in the system of language which he is using, and that they need not in any sense be present in his mind when he utters his sentence. Now compare this conclusion with our original question. When we asked it, we seemed to ask a question about the state of mind of the man who says the sentence, whereas the idea of meaning which we arrived at in the end was not that of a state of mind. We think of the meaning of signs sometimes as states of mind of the man using them, sometimes as the role which these signs are playing in a system of language.The connection between these two ideas is that the mental experiences which accompany the use of a sign undoubtedly are caused by our usage of the sign in a particular system of language. William James speaks of specific feelings accompanying the use of such words as “&”, “if”, “or”. And there is no doubt that at least certain gestures are often connected with such words, as a collecting gesture with “and”, & a dismissing gesture with “not”. And there obviously are visual and muscular sensations connected with these gestures. On the other hand it is clear enough that these sensations do not accompany every use of the word “not”, and “&”. If in some language the word “but” meant what “not” means in English, it is clear that we should not compare the meanings of these two {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,4}} words by comparing the sensations which they produce. Ask yourself what means we have of finding out the feelings which they produce in different people and on different occasions. Ask yourself: “When I said, ‘Give me an apple ''&'' a pear, ''&'' leave the room’, had I the same feeling when I pronounced the two words ‘&’?” But we do not deny that the people who use the word “but” as “not” is used in English will broadly speaking have similar sensations accompanying the word “but” as the English have when they use “not”. And the word “but” in the two languages will on the whole be accompanied by different sets of experiences.)

What have the demonstrative explanations of the numerals in common with those of the words “slab”, “column”, etc. except a gesture and pronouncing the words? The way such a gesture is used in the two cases is different. This difference is blurred if one says, “In one case we point to a shape, in the other we point to a number”. The difference becomes obvious and clear only when we contemplate a ''complete'' example (i.e., the example of a language completely worked out in detail).)

(Remark: This difference does not lie, however, in the act of pointing and pronouncing the word or in any mental act (meaning)﹖ accompanying it, but in the role which the demonstration (pointing & pronouncing) plays in the whole training and in the use which is made of it in the practice of communication by means of this language. One might think that the difference could be described by saying that in the different cases we point to different kinds of objects. But suppose I point with {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,6}} my hand to a blue jersey. How does pointing to its colour differ from pointing to its shape? ‒ ‒ We are inclined to say the difference is that we ''mean'' something different in the two cases. And “meaning” here is to be some sort of process taking place while we point. What particularly tempts us to this view is that a man on being asked whether he pointed to the colour or the shape is, at least in most cases, able to answer this & to be certain that his answer is correct. If on the other hand, we look for two such characteristic mental acts as meaning the colour and meaning the shape, etc., we aren't able to find any, or at least none which must always accompany pointing to colour, pointing to shape, respectively. We have only a ''rough'' idea of what it means to concentrate one's attention on the colour as opposed to the shape, or vice versa. The difference one might say does not lie in the act of demonstration, but rather in the surrounding of that act in the use of the language.)

(Remark: It has been suggested that such words as “there”, {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,7}} “here”, “now”, “this” are the “''real proper names''” as opposed to what in ordinary life we call proper names, & in the view I am referring to, can only be called so crudely. There is a widespread tendency to regard what in ordinary life is called a proper name only as a rough approximation of what ideally could be called so. Compare Russell's idea of the “individual”. He talks of individuals as the ultimate constituents of reality, but says that it is difficult to say which things are individuals. The idea is that further analysis has to reveal this. We, on the other hand, introduced the idea of a proper name in a language in which it was applied to what in ordinary life we call “objects”, “things” (“building stones”).

Systems of communication as for instance 1), 2), 3), 4), 5) we shall call “language-games”. They are more or less akin to what in ordinary language we call games. Children are taught their native language by means of such games, and here they even have the entertaining character of games. We are not, {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,8}} however, regarding the language-games which we describe as incomplete parts of a language, but as languages complete in themselves, as complete systems of human communication. To keep this point of view in mind, it very often is useful to imagine such a simple language to be the entire system of communication of a tribe in a primitive state of society. Think of primitive arithmetics of such tribes.

(Remark: Our use of expressions like “names of numbers”, “names of colours”, “names of materials”, “names of nations” may spring from two different sources. a) One is that we might imagine the functions of proper names, numerals, words for colours, {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,9}} etc. to be much more alike than they actually are. If we do so we are tempted to think that the function of every word is more or less like the function of a proper name of a person, or such generic names as “table”, “chair”, “door”, etc. The b) second source is this, that if we see how fundamentally different the functions of such words as “table”, “chair”, etc. are from those of proper names, and how different from either the functions of, say, the names of colours, we see no reason why we shouldn't speak of names of numbers or names of directions either, not by way of saying some such thing as “numbers and directions are just different forms of objects”, but rather by way of stressing the analogy which lies in the lack of analogy between the functions of the words “chair” & “Jack” on the one hand, & “east” and “Jack” on the other hand.)

Reflections such as the preceding will shew us the infinite variety of the functions of words in propositions, and it is curious to compare what we see in our examples with the simple & rigid rules which logicians give for the construction of propositions. If we group words together according to the similarity of their functions, thus distinguishing parts of speech, {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,11}} it is easy to see that many different ways of classification can be adopted. We could indeed easily imagine a reason for not classing the word “one” together with “two”, “three”, etc., as follows:

It is natural for us to call gestures, as those employed in 4), or pictures as in 7), elements or instruments of language. (We talk sometimes of a language of gestures.) The pictures in 7) & other instruments of language which have a similar function I shall call patterns. (This explanation, as others which we have given, is vague, and meant to be vague.) We may say that words and patterns have different kinds of functions. When we make use of a pattern we compare something with it, e.g., {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,12}} a chair with the picture of a chair. We did not compare a slab with the word “slab”. In introducing the distinction, “word, pattern”, the idea was not to set up a final logical duality. We have only singled out two characteristic kinds of instruments from the variety of instruments in our language. We shall call “one”, “two”, “three”, etc. words. If instead of these signs we used “-”, “--”, “---”, “----”, we might call these patterns. Suppose in a language the numerals were “one”, “one one”, “one one one”, etc., should we call “one” a word or a pattern? The same element may in one place be used as word & in another as pattern. A circle might be the name for an ellipse, or on the other hand a pattern with which the ellipse is to be compared by a particular method of projection. Consider also these two systems of expression: