Explanation of Consequences via Movements within Language

Presentation at "VIII Conferência da Sociedade Brasileira de Filosofia Analítica (SBFA, 2024)", Olinda, 22-26 Jul 2024

1. Ruy J.G.B. de Queiroz (CIn, UFPE)
Explanation of Consequences
via Movements within Language 
VIII Conferência da SBFA
Olinda, 22-26 Jul 2024

2. New Implications from Wittgenstein’s Nachlass
•Follow-up to:
•de Q., R. J. G. B.. "From Tractatus to Later Writings and Back – New Implications from
Wittgenstein’s Nachlass" SATS, vol. 24, no. 2, 2023, pp. 167-203. https://doi.org/10.1515/sats-2022-0016
•“Using Wittgenstein’s Nachlass (as we had not done previously) and examining those passages
quoted here from his unpublished works, strongly corroborate and augment the main thrust of our
continuing research on the significance of Wittgenstein’s suggestion that meaning is specified by
explaining the immediate consequences of a term or statement. Examining these new findings in
the Nachlass, we have sought to connect Wittgenstein’s account of ’meaning as use’, specified by the
’calculus’ involved in specifying or using terms (or statements), with the pragmatist approaches to
meaning as revealed in Peirce’s writings on the interaction between the Interpreter and the Utterer
which seem to bear on the “game”/“dialogue” approaches to meaning (Lorenzen, Hintikka,
Fraïssé).”

3. Common thread?
•In order to make sense of what we claim constitutes a common thread of Wittgenstein’s view
on the connections between meaning, use and consequences, going from the Tractatus to
later writings and back, and take this as the basis for a proposal for a formal counterpart of
a ‘meaning-as-use’ (dialogical/game-theoretical) semantics of the language of predicate
logic, we shall need to bring in the key excerpts from Wittgenstein oeuvre (including the
Nachlass) and from those formal semanticists who defend a different interpretation of the
connections between proofs and meaning. The aim is to consider the so-called rules of
proof reduction as a formal counterpart to the explanation of the (immediate)
consequences of a proposition. This contrasts markedly to a different perspective from the
verificationist theories of meaning as put forward by Gentzen, Dummett, Prawitz, Martin-
Löf and many others, suggesting an approach which has a ‘pragmatist’ slant to the
semantics of predicate logic.

5. The Wittgenstein Nachlass in Interactive Dynamic Presentation (IDP) (2016-)
•Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2016-): Interactive Dynamic Presentation (IDP) of Ludwig
Wittgenstein's philosophical Nachlass [http://wittgensteinonline.no/]. Edited by the
Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen under the direction of Alois
Pichler. Bergen: Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen.
Bibliographic Citation

6. Open Access to transcriptions of the Wittgenstein Nachlass (2016-)
•“On his death in 1951, the Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein left behind a
significant volume of some 20,000 pages written between 1913 and 1951. This Nachlass
contains Wittgenstein's unpublished philosophical notebooks, manuscripts, typescripts
and dictations. At the time of Wittgenstein's death this body of work was largely
unknown. In his will Wittgenstein appointed three literary heirs - Rush Rhees, Elizabeth
Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright - to publish from the Nachlass as they thought
fit.”
•“This leads to fascinating questions about the content of Wittgenstein's philosophy and
how its perception was affected by the literary heirs' editorial work in bringing the
content to a wider public through publications such as Philosophical
Investigations (1953) or Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956).”

7. Movement within language
•“"I'm coming to ...." These are not just words. Certainly not: when I read them, apart from seeing ||
perceiving the words, various other things go on: I feel joy, for example, imagine something & the
like. - But I do not merely mean that the sentence should be accompanied by various more or less
insignificant phenomena; I mean that the sentence has a definite meaning & that I grasp. But what
is this particular meaning? Well, that this particular person I know goes there & there etc.? Yes, &
when you state the meaning you move around in the grammar of the sentence. You then see
the transformations of the sentence as preformed & that's what they are, if they are laid down in a
grammar are laid down in a grammar. (You regard the sentence as || like a move of a given game).
•According to the words "I grasp the meaning" or "I think the thought of this sentence" you assume
a process which, in contrast to the mere punctuation mark, contains these consequences.”
•Ms-145 [so-called C1],85 (1933)

8. Movement within language
•“If I want to explain || describe the process of intention, I feel above all that it can best do what it is supposed
to do if it contains an extremely faithful picture || an extremely faithful shadow of what it intends. But
furthermore that even that is not enough because the image, whatever it is, can be interpreted in different
ways. ... as one now looks at this image alone it is suddenly dead & it is as if something had been taken from it
that had previously animated it (when one had still intended with it) And this is true in so far as it was alive to
us in the stream of calculating || thinking || € thought & action & as a link of a chain. And what seems to bring
it back to life for us is again a transition from it to other images etc. an application in a system. And in this
respect it is correct to say that the intention is not a phenomenon, as an intention, if something is
thereby expressed in an exact system of expression. is not a phenomenon any more than a meaningful
sentence is a move in a game. In this respect, a chess move is also not a phenomenon because the
chess game itself cannot be present in it. A sentence is only something in a language & also an
intention is only something in a language. 'Everything comes to fruition in language’. ”
•Ms-145 [so-called C1],85 (1933)

9. Transformation within language
•“It is of course a great truth that the system of using words gives them their
meaning, i.e. the sentence its sense. Or the purpose of the sentence || the
meaning of language lies in the transformations of the expression according
to the rules. Thinking is an activity) [Like the meaning of the game in the
transformations of the game positions]. ”
•Ms-146 [so-called C2],34r (1933-34?)

10. naming is a preparation for the use
•“It is interesting to compare the variety of the instruments of our language and of their
applications || the ways they are applied || their various uses – the variety of the parts of
speech and of the kinds of || kinds of words & of sentences – with what logicians have said
about the structure of our language. ( And the author of the Tractatus Logico-
philosophicus as well || Including the author of Tract. Log.-phil .€)”
•“This is connected with the view that the || fact that we think that the learning of the language
consists in naming objects; namely || viz. human beings, forms || shapes, colours, pains ||
 aches, moods, numbers, etc..– As we have said, – naming is something like affixing a
nameplate to || putting || fastening a label to a thing. One may call this || And this one might
call the || a preparation for the use of a word. But for what is it a preparation?”
•Ts-226,16 (1938-39?)

11. explanations of consequences via `movements within language'
•We consider several passages from Wittgenstein's published as well as unpublished
writings (esp. Bergen Project Nachlass) to build a whole picture of a formal
counterpart to `meaning is use' on the basis of the idea that explanations of
consequences via `movements within language' ought to be taken as a central
aspect to Wittgenstein's shift from `interpretation of symbols' to `use of symbols'
which underpins his `meaning is use' paradigm.
•As in the Investigations “every interpretation hangs in the air together with what it
interprets, and cannot give it any support. Interpretations by themselves do not
determine meaning”, as well as in a remark from his transitional period (1929-30):

12. “What is the connection between sign and world?”
•“Perhaps one should say that the expression “interpretation of symbols” is misleading and
one should instead say “the use of symbols”. For "interpretation" sounds as if one would now
assign the colour red to the word "red" (when it is not there at all) and so on. And the question
arises again: What is the connection between sign and world? Could I search for something if the
space in which I am searching for it was not there?
• Where does the sign link up with the world?
• Looking for something is certainly an expression of expectation. I.e.: How one searches
somehow expresses what one expects.
• So the idea would be that what expectation has in common with reality is that it refers to
another point in the same space. (Space understood in a general way).”
•Ts 208,136r, [based on MSS 105, 106, 107 and the first half of Ms-108] (WL),

13. “one cannot move out of language”
•“Underlying all my considerations (the feeling) is the realisation that thought has an inner
connection with the world & not an outer one. That one means what one says. But does this not
only mean that one cannot move out of language in language, or out of thought in thought?
•Can the connection between "thinking that p is the case" & the event of p can be expressed in any
other way than in the internal relation of just these || those expressions? (I don't think so.)
•In the word "something || that & that mean" lies the whole problem decided || closed.
•One feels the vicariousness of the thought.
•"I thought you would come to me". This sentence must show everything that one wants to show in
more exact sentence
•Everything is played out in language.”
Ms-108,194 [MS 108 IV. Philosophische Bemerkungen (1930)]

14. “An interpretation is always just one…”
•“Eine Interpretation ist immer nur eine im Gegensatz zu einer andern. Sie hängt sich
an das Zeichen & reiht es in ein weiteres System ein.”
•“An interpretation is always just one in contrast to another. It attaches itself to the
sign and incorporates it into another system.”
•Ms-110,288 (1930-31)

15. Movement within language
•“Wenn ich sage jedes Bild braucht noch eine Interpretation, so heißt Interpretation
die Übersetzung in ein weiteres Bild oder in die Tat.”
•“When I say every picture needs an interpretation, interpretation means translation
into another picture or into action.”
•Ms-153a-14v (1931)

16. not only in words, but also in actions
•“Does it follow that there is a chair there from the sensory impressions I receive? - How can a
sentence follow from sensory impressions? - Does it follow from the sentences that describe the
sensory impressions? No. - But do I not conclude from the impressions that there is a chair there? - I
do not draw a conclusion! - But sometimes I do. For example, I see a photograph and say "So there
must have been an armchair there", or "From what I see there, I conclude that there is an armchair
there". That is an inference, but not a logical one. A conclusion is the transition to an assertion;
thus also to the behaviour corresponding to the assertion. 'I draw the consequences' not
only in words, but also in actions. (⇒631)
•289 But was I authorised to draw these consequences? What is called an authorisation here? - How
is the word 'authorisation' used? Describe language games! The importance of justification will also
be clear from them.”
•Ts-230a [Bemerkungen II],77 (1945-46)

17. Movement within language
•“Whether the word “number” in the ostensive definition of two is necessary || is necessary in the
ostensive definition of “two” depends on || upon whether he understands this word differently from
the way I wish him to || takes this word in a different sense from the one I wish || misunderstands my
definition if I leave out the word. And that || this will depend on the circumstances under which the
definition is given and on the person to whom I give it.”
•“And how he “understands” the explanation appears in how || will appear in the way he makes use of
the word explained.
•One might say then: The ostensive definition explains the use – the meaning – of the word if it is
already clear in general what kind of role the word is to play in the language. Thus if I know
that someone wants to explain a colour word to me, then the explanation “That's || This
is called ‘sepia’” will help me to get an understanding of || make me understand the word.”
•Ts-226,20 (1938-39?)

18. Movement within language
•“Like when a word expression evokes a certain image in us, but is then used for something that is
opposite to the image in the normal sense. We will then look again and again from the word
expression to the image & then again from the word expression to the actual application & say:
‘but it means that! - But it means the other!
• ‘So the expression of pain really stands alone; ‥‥?’ - Why should I not say these words, ‘it || the
expression of pain stands alone’? What consequence do they have? They have no consequence.
• Your || my play remains || moves entirely in language.
• I say the word ‘pain’ to myself & imagine the pain; & say to myself: ‘there we have what the word
“pain” denotes’. Certainly, I do that. But what else? - What have I done with it? What was it good
for? (I have made out the deed of gift to myself; but what now?)”
•Ms-121,17r (XVII, Philosophische Bemerkungen) (1938-39?)

19. justification of an assertion
•“And how does he know that he understands the word? i.e. under what circumstances will he be
able to say it? Sometimes after some kind of test, sometimes without one. But will he not then
perhaps have to say later, "I was mistaken, I did not understand it after all", - if it turns out that
he cannot apply it? In this case, can he defend himself & say that he understood the word when
he said it, but then the meaning slipped his mind? Now what can he cite as a criterion to prove
that he understood the word at the time? - He says something like: "I saw the colour in front of
me at the time, but now I can't remember it". Now if this implies that he understood the word,
then he understood it then. - Or he says: "I can only say that I have used the word a hundred
times before", or "that I had just used it before; & when || while I said I understood it, I thought
of this case || the incident". What is understood as the justification of an assertion
constitutes the meaning of the assertion.”
•Ms-140,37r [so-called Grosses Format] (1933? and 1936)

20. “complex of objects”
•““How can one think what is not the case? If I think that King's College is on fire when it is not on fire, the fact of
its being on fire does not exist. Then how can I think it?
•How can we hang a thief who doesn't exist?” Our answer could be put in this form: “I can't hang him when he
doesn't exist; but I can look for him when he doesn't exist”.
•     We are here misled by the substantives “object of thought” and “fact”, and by the different meanings of the word
“exist”.
•     Talking of the fact as a “complex of objects” springs from this confusion (cf. Tractatus Logico-philosophicus).
Supposing we asked: “How can one imagine what does not exist?” The answer seems to be: “If we do, we imagine
non-existent combinations of existing elements”. A centaur doesn't exist, but a man's head and torso and arms and
a horse's legs do exist. “But can't we imagine an object utterly different from any one which exists?” – – We should
be inclined to answer: “No; the elements, individuals, must exist. If redness, roundness and sweetness did not exist,
we could not imagine them”.”
•Ts-309,50 (1933-34)

21. a preface to the prewar version of the PI
•“For various reasons what I publish here will coincide with what others are writing to-day. If my
remarks do not bear a stamp which marks them as mine, – I will lay no further claim to them.
•     Since, about ten years ago, I again started to work at philosophy I have had to recognise
grave mistakes in what I once set down in my book “Tractatus Logico-philosophicus”.
What helped me to recognise these mistakes was – in a measure which I can hardly now
estimate – the forceful criticism which my ideas received from F.P. Ramsey; with whom I went
over them in innumerable discussions during the last two years of his life.– Even more,
however, I owe to the criticism which Mr P. Sraffa, Lecturer in Economics at this University, has
incessantly offered on my views. To this stimulus I owe the most fruitful of the thoughts I here
communicate.”
•Ts-247,3r (August 1938)

22. interpretation: one expression of a rule is substituted for another
•“This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of
action can be brought into accord with the rule. The answer was: if every course of action can be
brought into accord with the rule, then it can also be brought into conflict with it. And so there would
be neither accord nor conflict here.
•That there is a misunderstanding here is shown by the mere fact that in this chain of reasoning we
place one interpretation behind another, as if each one contented us at least for a moment, until we
thought of yet another lying behind it. For what we thereby show is that there is a way of grasping a
rule which is not an interpretation, but which, from case to case of application, is exhibited in what we
call “following the rule” and “going against it”.
•That’s why there is an inclination to say: every action according to a rule is an interpretation. But one
should speak of interpretation only when one expression of a rule is substituted for another.”
•PI, 201

23. description
•“It is interesting to compare the variety of the instruments of our language and of their
applications || the ways they are applied || their various uses – the variety of the parts of
speech and of the kinds of || kinds of words & of sentences – with what logicians have said
about the structure of our language. (And the author of the Tractatus Logico-
philosophicus as well || Including the author of Tract. Log.-phil. €)
•If we don't see that there is a multitude of language games, we are inclined to ask: “What is
a question?” Is it the statement that I don't know so and so, or is it the statement that I
wish the other person would tell me …? Or is it the description of my mental state of
uncertainty? – And is the cry “help!” a description of that sort || a description? || such a
description?”
•Ts-226,16 [English translation of part of the Investigations prewar version]

24. Every interpretation hangs in the air
•198. “But how can a rule teach me what I have to do at this point? After all, whatever
I do can, on some interpretation, be made compatible with the rule.” - No, that’s not
what one should say. Rather, this: every interpretation hangs in the air together with
what it interprets, and cannot give it any support. Interpretations by themselves do
not determine meaning.
•Philosophical Investigations

25. Interpretation vs explanation
•“What I really want to say is: There is no such thing as grammar and interpretation
of the signs. Rather, so far as there can be talk of an interpretation, that is, of an
explanation of the signs, the grammar itself must provide it.
•Because I only had to ask: Should the interpretation be done by propositions? And
how should these sentences relate to the language they create?”
•Ms-109,129 (Wittgenstein Nachlass Ms-109: V, Bemerkungen (WL)) (between 11 August
1930 and 3 February 1931)

26. meaning vs explanation
•“We call it "explaining the meaning of the word" when we translate it into another language,
but also when we make a gesture instead of it, or when we point to a bearer of the name;
etc.... The expression "explaining the meaning" is used in so many different ways.
•When one says: the meaning of a word is that which explains the explanation of the
meaning, we think of this explanation as the paradigm of a step in a calculation. One
imagines that it could be added to the sign to be explained and even replace the sign with it.
• If the explanation is thus repeated with the sign (or instead of the sign), it is clear that it is
not as a medicine that works once and for all (as an inoculation, so to speak) but as part of
our ongoing calculation. || of our ongoing calculation.”
•Ms-156a,27r (not earlier than June 1932 and not later than late autumn 1933)

27. meaning vs explanation
•“"The meaning of a sign is given by its effect (the associations it triggers, etc.)."
•One would like to use memory & association to explain the mechanism of meaning.
•But we feel that it cannot matter to us || an explanation of a mechanism. For this explanation is again a
description of phenomena by the || in language. It says, for instance, || : when the word 'red' is heard, the
imagination jumps out red. (A blackboard by the push of a button.) Now, if this occurs, - what next? We
want to hear || just the explanation of a calculus, not of a mechanism. And the explanation of the
mechanism sets itself up outside the calculus. It has nothing to do with what we are interested in. It is itself
a description in language & one that does not interfere with the calculus that is to be explained to us, for
instance. While we need an explanation that is a part of that calculus.
• When I say that the symbol is that which produces this effect, the question is precisely how I can speak
of this effect when it is not there at all. And how I know that it is the one I meant when it occurs || comes.
•Ts-213,39v (Big Typescript, 1933)

28. meaning, use, explanation
•“I want to explain: the place of a word in grammar is its meaning.
•But I can also say: the meaning of a word is what the explanation of the meaning explains.
•("That which weighs 1 cm³ of water has been called '1 gram'." - "Yes, what does it weigh?")
•The explanation of the meaning explains the use of the word.
• The use of the word in the language is its meaning.
•Grammar describes the use of words in language.
•It therefore relates to language in a similar way to the description of a game, like the rules of the
game relate to the game.”
•Ms-140,15r [so-called Grosses Format] (1933? and 1936)

29. meaning vs explanation
•“Our point of view could be briefly stated in such a way that for us the meaning of
a word lies in the explanation given for it, or: in the way in which this meaning,
how the use of the word was learnt, apart from what effect this learning of
these explanations may later have had. We merely give a description of the forms
of the key-beards quite apart from this & disregard whether they were of the right
material to open the lock & what effects they may have had in their locks.”
•Ms-145,62 [the so-called C1] (1933)

30. meaning vs systematic use
•“Language, that's what languages are. Even those that I invent by analogy with existing ones.
Languages are systems.
• A sentence is a sentence of a language. But I call sentences members of languages.
• But let us pay attention to the use of the word "German language", otherwise it is easy to ask:
what is the German language? All the sentences that have ever been spoken? All words????
•But let's pay attention to the use of the word "German language", otherwise it's easy to ask: what
is the German language? All the sentences that have ever been spoken? All words???? And what
does it mean to say: "the system of use ... gives the words their meaning"? Of course, this can
only be an explanation of the use of the word 'meaning'. It probably means: I answer the
question about the meaning of a word with an explanation of its systematic use.”
•Ms-146,34r [the so-called C2] (1933)

31. meaning of “meaning”
•“In contrast to our explanation of the word “meaning” is constituted by the rules of
use || the “meaning” of a word is constituted by the rules of use || is constituted by
the rules of use of the word; the normal use of the word “meaning” is characterized
by this || it characterizes the normal use of the word “meaning” || it is characteristic
of the normal use of the word “meaning” that the meaning of the word, if not always
|| in all then at least in many cases, can occur to us || is something that can occur to
us || can occur to us. || it characterizes the normal use of the word “meaning” that
we talk about the meaning occurring to us. || when we use the word.”
•Ms-147, 11r (1934)

32. meaning of “meaning”
•“And if we said that, the use of the word "meaning" would in a sense lose all humour
for us. But notice I can of course then neither say "is" has different meanings in the
sentences ... nor does it have the same meaning in them. But I can say: The meaning
of "is" is explained in such a way that one can set the sign ε with these rules & the
sign = with those. The objection to this is: "But that doesn't explain a meaning!" By
meaning one would like to say I mean a homogeneous use.”
•Ms-147, 11v (1934)

33. no essentially private meaning
•““What does the word mean to me?” “What does it mean to him?” When we play
with each other, we play the same game. I know of no essentially private meaning.”
•Ms-147, 18v (1934)

34. meaning vs purpose
•“Here you can see the approach to the pragmatist concept of true and false. The sentence is
true as long as it proves to be useful. Every proposition we utter in ordinary life seems to have
the character of a hypothesis. The hypothesis is a logical construct. I.e. a particular symbol to
which certain rules of representation apply. Speaking of sense data & immediate experience,
has the sense that we seek a non-hypothetical representation.
•But now it seems that the representation loses its value at all if one drops the hypothetical
element in it, because then the proposition no longer points to the future but is quasi self-
satisfied & therefore worthless. The experience says, as it were, "it's also nice elsewhere & I'm
here anyway". And with the perspective of expectation, we look to the future. There is no point
in talking about sentences that have no value as instruments.
•The meaning of a sentence is its purpose.”
(Ms-107,248, Ms-107: III, Philosophische Betrachtungen, Sept 1929 to 5 Jan 1930)

35. Are you not a pragmatist?
•“But how, if religion teaches that the soul can exist when the body has decayed? Do I understand
what it teaches? Of course I understand it: - - I can imagine many things.
•(People have also painted pictures of these things. And why should such a picture only be an
imperfect reproduction of the expressed thought? Why should it not do the same service as the
sentence? || , like what we say?)
• And it's the purpose that counts.
• But are you not a pragmatist? No. For I do not say that the proposition is true which is
useful.
• The use, i.e., utility, gives the sentence its particular meaning, the language game gives it.
• And inasmuch as a rule is often given in such a way that it proves useful, & mathematical
propositions are related to rules by their nature, usefulness is reflected in mathematical truths”
(Ms-131,69-71)

36. MS 131
•“MS 131 is a casebound volume measuring 233 x 181 mm. Wittgenstein has included
dates between 10 August and 9 September 1946 in the text. The binding is red
buckram quarter-bound with red leather. There is a label affixed to the front cover
reading ‘Sheet 4 48’. Internally, there is a flyleaf at each end 130 leaves measuring 225
x 175 mm, ruled with 23 lines per page and a vertical red line 28 mm from the left of
the page. The volume is paginated pp 1-100, 110, 120-224 by Wittgenstein and foliated
ff. 1-103 by another hand. The text is in German with substantial coded remarks,
written with pen in blue/black ink with some pencil used for annotation.”
(1946)