Volume II (2015)
I’m Not Playing Games:
Why Wittgenstein’s Language-Games Fail to Defeat the Unity of Language
Cam Smith
Stanford University
Abstract
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) has earned considerable notoriety for his potent challenges to what
long stood as the most common and unproblematic of philosophical intuitions. For example, in his
Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein famously attempts to undermine our likely assumption that, at
least in principle, some unified account of what the word ‘language’ means must be available.
Wittgenstein insists rather that, if we assume that there must be some unitary general account of what
language is, then we are hindering our discovery of what language actually is. Wittgenstein tries to rectify
this common apparent misunderstanding by using the unusual mechanics of an extremely basic language
(or what he calls a “language-game”) to illustrate that some languages inevitably will frustrate all
attempts to unveil a unified account of what language is. In this paper, I side with Rush Rhees, who
denies that Wittgenstein’s language-games are effective in defeating the common view that a single
unified account of language is unattainable. I outline three criticisms Rhees levels against Wittgenstein’s
use of the notion of language-games. I then explain why I think that Rhees’ overall objection to
Wittgenstein is correct.
The general concept of the meaning of a word surrounds the working of language with a
haze which makes clear vision impossible. It disperses the fog if we study the
phenomena of language in primitive kinds of use in which one can clearly survey the
purpose and functioning of the words.1
I.
Introduction
In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein famously uses a very primitive language, or what he calls
a “language-game,” 2 in his attempt to expose the daunting hidden problems facing any account of the
1
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker, & Joachim Schulte,
(Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 7.
2
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 8.
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meaning of the word ‘language.’ As the above-cited quote suggests, Wittgenstein believes that so long as
we assume that there must be some unified general account to give about what language is—or what the
meaning of a word amounts to—we are clouding our understanding in an impenetrable fog that hinders our
ability to see what language and meaning really are. Wittgenstein claims that this fog can be partly dispersed
by examining the mechanics of a very basic language, which he calls a “language-game.” He contends that
such language-games reveal why a unified account of language is unattainable, and thus pointless to seek.3
However, in “Wittgenstein’s Builders,”4 Rush Rhees denies that Wittgenstein uses his languagegames effectively to defeat the view that a single unified account of language is unattainable. Rhees does
not say that Wittgenstein’s faulty use of language games implies that a unified account of language is
attainable; he merely points out that Wittgenstein’s use of language-games fails to show that such an
account is unattainable. In this paper, I side with Rhees. I outline three criticisms that Rhees levels against
Wittgenstein’s use of language-games. I then explain why I believe that Rhees’ overall objection to
Wittgenstein is correct, even though I think that only two of Rhees’ three criticisms of Wittgenstein are
clearly successful. I conclude by pointing out that, if Rhees and I are correct, then it still may be profitable
to pursue a unified account of language.
II.
Outlining Wittgenstein’s Main Concern
In the Investigations, Wittgenstein is particularly concerned with illuminating the philosophical
difficulties of explaining what language is.5 He compares the task of defining the word ‘language’ with
the task of saying what ‘game’ means (which, presumably, is no easy task, given the myriad diverse
activities we call ‘games’).6 Wittgenstein points out that we naturally might gesture at the meaning of
‘game’ by describing examples of activities that we call ‘games,’ in the hopes of enabling our listener to
call to mind the concept of a game for herself. Yet, offering a bona fide definition of ‘game’ is likely to
seem beyond our reach. Each instance of a game will share common features with some of the other
instances, but we will be hard pressed to find any single feature that all games share in common.7
Wittgenstein suggests that this because there simply is no single unified definition of ‘game’ at all.
According to him, the word ‘game’ refers only to a set of activities with “family resemblances,”8 rather
than to a set of activities that all answer to some unified general description. “The various resemblances
3
See, for instance, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 6, 25, 43.
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol. 60 (1959 1960): 171-186.
4
See the opening paragraph of Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 171.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 37.
7
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 36-38.
8
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 36.
5
6
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between members of a family—build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, and so on and so
forth—overlap and criss-cross in the same way,” Wittgenstein explains. So, if Wittgenstein is right that
explaining ‘language’ is analogous to explaining ‘game,’ then the word ‘language’ indeed refers to a set
of things that are connected only by overlapping family resemblances, and are not connected by a
common explanatory thread that necessarily runs throughout every language.
Obviously, then, the force of Wittgenstein’s claim depends partly on the strength of the analogy
between explaining ‘language’ and explaining ‘game.’ To confirm the suitability of this analogy,
Wittgenstein calls to our attention the little training exercises that parents utilize in teaching their children
how to speak.9 Wittgenstein, I think fairly uncontroversially, calls these teaching exercises, “languagegames.”10 He also uses this term to refer to systems of communication nested within the various aspects
of life that seem to have a language use of their own (as where air traffic controllers use a particular lingo
with pilots, for example).11 Wittgenstein says, quite a bit more controversially, that these specialized little
systems of language use (these “language-games”) should be considered as complete languages in
themselves.12 This is no small claim, and as I will show presently, it is vital to Wittgenstein’s goal of
defeating unified accounts of meaning that his language-games be classifiable as complete, not
incomplete, languages.
Wittgenstein offers us a hypothetical language-game that he claims is classifiable as a “complete
language.” He has us conceive of an extremely primitive system of communication that is used by an
imaginary tribe of builders.13 This language consists only of a handful of words that relate to different
kinds of building stones, like ‘slab,’ ‘pillar,’ ‘beam,’ and ‘block.’14 Children in this tribe are taught how
to relate the words to the respective stones partly by ostention; that is, the elders speak each word aloud
as they point out a corresponding type of stone for the learning child. However, whenever this primitive
language is actually used as a language, these words always are used as calls (i.e. demands or orders),15
which are complete sentences in themselves. When a builder calls out to his assistant, “slab!” at a
particular point in the building process, the assistant thereby knows that he is to bring that type of stone
to the builder, or to wherever the builder gestures.
Wittgenstein is employing this conception of a language-game to illustrate a surprising way that
9
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 7-8.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 8.
11
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 8.
12
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 8, 11. See also Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 176.
13
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 6.
14
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 6. For ease of explanation, I am deliberately omitting
reference to the indexical words, ‘this,’ and ‘there,’ that Wittgenstein introduces two pages later.
15
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 11-12.
10
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words can have meaning, namely, by being used only as complete sentences (or calls), and never in any
other way. This is partly intended to reveal how we might easily overlook some of the mechanisms by
which a language might endow a word with its meaning(s). In the case of the builders language, the
building-stone words are not names for building stones (whereas this is virtually all they are in our
language, if they are not used elliptically).16 Rather, each of these words always and only means a whole
command in itself. In the builders language, the word, “slab” cannot mean what we call “slab” in our
language. In the builders language, “slab,” always means that you are to bring a slab.17 Thus, the builders
language appears to highlight a surprising way that a word can function to have meaning in a language.18
The builders language is part of Wittgenstein’s attempt to demonstrate the general parallel
between languages and games. It is for this reason that Wittgenstein explicitly (and perhaps
tendentiously) labels the builders language a ‘language-game.’ Wittgenstein seems to want us to think
that he has devised a scenario that could be described equally well by either the word ‘language’ or the
word ‘game.’ If these two words are equally suitable, then the explanations of both words indeed should
have important similarities. This would go a long way toward validating Wittgenstein’s claim that trying
to define ‘language’ is like trying to define ‘game’ (and that, hence, neither definition is possible).
III.
Rhees’ Inquiry: Does the Idea of Language-Games Achieve Wittgenstein’s Purpose?
Rhees correctly interprets Wittgenstein as employing language-games to illustrate that the words of one
language can get their respective meanings in that language by means of mechanisms that are completely
distinct from the mechanisms that operate in another language. If languages can give words their
meanings by such dissimilar mechanisms, then it will be difficult to explain what meaning itself is, if we
are not to settle for the merely disjunctive kind of explanation that leads to Wittgenstein’s notion of
family resemblances. This, in turn, makes it difficult to explain what language itself is without resorting
to the notion of family resemblances. Accordingly, Rhees’ analysis of Wittgenstein’s use of languagegames is concisely summarized in Rhees’ comment: “speaking is not one thing, and ‘having meaning’ is
not one thing either. This is perhaps the hardest thing to understand about language, and it is for this that
[Wittgenstein] refers to the language-games.”19 Rhees’ comment implies that, since meaning is central to
the mechanics of any language, Wittgenstein is providing the builders language thought experiment in
16
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 7-8.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 7.
18
Wittgenstein insightfully analogizes the way words function (and, thus, by extension, the way games are played)
with the way levers function on a locomotive. See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 10. Yet, if
there still may be a unified account to give about how levers function, then Wittgenstein’s lever analogy will not be
sufficient to defeat the unity of language either.
19
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 175.
17
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order to expose certain hidden difficulties involved in attempting any unified account of the meaning of
the word ‘language.’
According to Rhees, Wittgenstein is correct that defending a unified account of language is an
extremely daunting task. Rhees concedes to Wittgenstein that it is “so hard to clearly say what ‘a general
account of language’ would be.”20 However, in the opening paragraph of his article, Rhees immediately
calls into question the suitability of Wittgenstein’s analogy between languages and games. Rhees
complains that Wittgenstein “gives an analogy when he refers to the explanation of ‘game’, but it is never
more than an analogy, and at times we may feel unsure just how to take it.”21 Rhees simply does not
accept Wittgenstein’s employment of the analogy between, on the one side, the difficulty of explaining
what language is, and on the other side, the difficulty of explaining what games are.22 I will simply call
this the ‘language-game analogy.’ The remainder of Rhees’ article is devoted to revealing why the
language-game analogy is really a disanalogy.
IV.
Rhees’ Three Challenges to Wittgenstein’s Language-Game Analogy
To summarize where we are thus far, Rhees’ primary concern is not to argue against Wittgenstein’s view
that ‘language’ has no unified definition (he neither affirms nor denies this claim), but rather to
undermine the language-game analogy. As Rhees puts it, “If you did say that our trouble is in finding a
satisfactory account of the way the word ‘language’ is used, then I have tried to show that this trouble is
peculiar, and it cannot be dealt with in the way the trouble about the word ‘game’ might.”23 My paper, as I
said earlier, focuses on three criticisms Rhees deploys in his challenge to Wittgenstein’s language-game
analogy. All three challenges aim to show that a language-game, such as the builders language, should not
necessarily be classified as a language, or at least not as a complete language in itself. If Rhees’ challenge
is correct, then Wittgenstein’s builders language does not provide an example of a language that employs
an unusual mechanism for giving meanings to words, because Wittgenstein would be wrong that his
language-game is classifiable as a complete primitive language.24 This would mean that Wittgenstein has
mistakenly used the language-game analogy, which in turn would mean that explaining what ‘language’
means may not be as difficult as explaining what game’ means. If that is the case, then explaining
language may yet be an attainable aim.
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 172.
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 171.
22
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 171.
23
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 174.
24
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 6.
20
21
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Thus, the failure of the language-game analogy would provide us with at least a small reason for
more optimism about finding a single unified account of language, and of meaning. Personally, I would
rather not be denied this kind of optimism unnecessarily, even if explaining language is highly
problematic; I treasure the sappy ideal that someday we might actually know what we are doing when we
say something in a language, and when we mean something by what we say. Regardless of how sanguine
we may be about a unified account of language, the failure of the language-game analogy would reveal at
least that we need not view languages as being connected only by family resemblances, and this would
open doors to theories that unite languages under one explanation.
My examination of Rhees’ three criticisms of Wittgenstein begins with the one that Rhees refers
to as his “chief difficulty.”25 Rhees’ main objection to Wittgenstein’s use of the notion of language-games
runs roughly as follows:
It is a plain fact that we would not have language if conversation were not an integral part of
human association. Yet, Wittgenstein’s language-games do not allow for any distinction
between making sense to other people and behaving according to a set protocol for
employing the signals that are exchanged between people (in the way that conversation
presumably does). Therefore, language-games do not allow for conversation in the way they
must, if language-games are to be taken as complete languages in themselves. So, languagegames do not support Wittgenstein’s explanatory analogy between languages and games.26
In applying this criticism to Wittgenstein’s builders language specifically, Rhees says, “The trouble is to
imagine that they spoke the language only to give these special orders on this job and otherwise never
spoke at all. I do not think it would be speaking a language.”27 Rhees’ claim is simply that the builders
language, as given, should not be classified as a language at all. Rhees’ concern is that conversation could
not possibly have any part in the builders “language,” if that language were nothing more than a simple
one-way system of giving orders. Such a system really would have no need for the concept of making
sense. Either an order has been given, or it has not; either you are to retrieve a stone, or you are not to do
so. The builders “commands” need not have any more linguistic sense than a bolt of lightning or a clap of
thunder would have for a tribe who followed a particular routine in response to thunder or lightning. It is
of no great importance whether the signal to bring a slab comes from a conscious being who wished to
say something coherent—as is confirmed by Wittgenstein’s suggestion that to understand the meaning of
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 178.
This is my rephrasing of a paraphrase of Rhees provided by Prof. David Hills, in course materials provided for a
class devoted to Wittgenstein at Stanford University.
27
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 177.
25
26
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the call “slab!” it is sufficient that one merely react appropriately on the job.28 People of the tribe could
not use their “language” to tell each other anything about anything. There would be no way to describe
the steps of building process as a building process, for instance, or to describe anything else as anything
at all. Rhees worries that this makes the sentences of the builders language too similar to the sham
sentences that we construct when learning foreign languages. In such learning exercises, we do not really
tell anyone anything; we merely rehearse sentences, and their corresponding routine responses. Such
language-learning games are a pretend kind of speaking; they are empty of the content that is central to
speaking. In Rhees’ view, this distinction between genuine speech and pretense ensures that speaking is
not like a game.29 Rhees adds, “In fact it seems as though Wittgenstein has described a game with
building stones, and not the sort of thing people would do if they were actually building a house.”30 That
is, the builders language is just a game, not a language.
This criticism seems like a solid challenge to Wittgenstein, but whether it is successful will
depend ultimately upon whether conversation ordinarily amounts to something more than the
performance of routines—or what I called, “behaving according to a set protocol for employing the
signals that are exchanged between people.” Yet, it would be incredibly difficult to make a decisive
argument on that point either way. There is so very much that counts as conversation, although, it is
always possible that human conversation involves extremely obscure levels of routine behavior that go
wholly unnoticed, but could fully explain conversation nonetheless. It does seem possible to me that
conversing might completely reduce to routines of behavior, but it seems more likely that making sense in
conversation should amount to more than just behaving according to protocol or routines.
I think Rhees is at least correct that speaking necessarily involves making sense, and I do not
think making sense could reduce to a matter of routine, if only because original speech acts seem to go
beyond the scope of routines. Of course, there may be routines that govern how to perform original
speech acts, but they will not govern just which original speech acts to perform and when, because at any
point in a given conversation, one always has the option of changing the subject to any subject. This
allows for original speech acts to be performed at any time, which refutes the claim that original speech
acts might be wholly governed by routines. Rhees appears to be right that, in the builders language, there
would never be the question of whether a given vocalization was a noise that ‘made sense.’ Instead, we
would only expect questions about whether a given vocalization was in fact a recognizable word in the
language. If not, then the vocalization would not be part of the language at all. Just as we can imagine the
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 7. See also: Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 177.
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 178.
30
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 177-178.
28
29
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tribe having questions about whether a given noise was in fact a clap of thunder, but not about whether a
given clap of thunder “made sense,” we can imagine the tribe wondering whether a given vocalization
was recognizable as a cue to fetch a stone, but not whether something nonsensical had been said.
In language, we can form propositions about non-actual conditions (e.g. “I own 89 pink
unicorns”). These untrue propositions still make sense, insofar as they still successfully conjure up
sensible notions in the mind of the listener (there is not necessarily anything insensible about the notion of
a pink unicorn, even though the creature is mythical). This might be analogous to saying, “slab!” in the
builders language, when there were no more slabs left to fetch. Yet, language differs from the normative
routines of a game, insofar as we also can use language to ‘express’ nonsense (e.g. “I own 89 pink”). I
agree with Rhees that a game is not like this, because when a behavior accords with the rules of the game,
then precisely for this reason, it is a sensible part of the game to anyone versed in that game—while
behaviors that go beyond the scope of the rules of the game are not any part of the game per se. If in the
final quarter, a football player caught a pass and then suddenly made a call on his cell phone from
midfield, would we say that his behavior was part of the game of football? Surely not. So, although we
can construct nonsense from within any language, there is no way to construct something analogous to
nonsense from within a game (and even if ‘construct nonsense’ were a feature of some game itself, the
very meaning of that phrase would have to be imported from outside the game, in order to be sensible
within the game in question).
Considerations like these weigh in favor of seeing Rhees’ “chief difficulty” as a promising
argument against Wittgenstein’s language-game analogy, although I cannot say that Rhees’ chief
criticism is conclusive. Since it is not conclusive, it is not enough in itself to overturn Wittgenstein’s
language-games analogy. Hence, to show that the language-games analogy is really a disanalogy, I will
turn to Rhees’ other two criticisms. Rhees’ second criticism of Wittgenstein can be paraphrased in the
following way:
Someone who has never played any games at all, and lacks the concept of a game, still can be
taught what ‘game’ means (i.e. what a game is) if we describe various games to her. But we
couldn’t teach someone who has never spoken, and lacks the concept of speaking, what
‘speaking’ means (i.e. what speaking is) by describing various cases of speaking to her.31
The above criticism encapsulates the reasoning in Rhees’ claim, “If we consider ‘speaking’, especially,
there are certain ways in which the analogy with an explanation of ‘game’ is hard to use.” I believe that
31
This is my rephrasing of a paraphrase of Rhees given by Prof. David Hills, in course materials provided for a class
devoted to Wittgenstein at Stanford University. See: Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 172.
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this is, in fact, Rhees’ strongest challenge to Wittgenstein’s language-game analogy. To me, this
challenge is decisive, if only for one simple reason: an explanation of ‘game’ does not itself have to
instantiate what it explains, whereas an explanation of ‘language,’ because it is necessarily given in a
language, must instantiate exactly what it purports to explain. And this seems to impose a unique burden
on the explanation of ‘language,’ a burden that few (if any) other explanations would appear to have.
There is, perhaps one illuminating exception: the burden just mentioned is not unlike the
difficulty of explaining what ‘speaking the truth’ means. The true explanation of what ‘speaking the truth’
means must itself be an example of ‘speaking the truth.’ That is, the definition of ‘speaking the truth’
must instantiate true speech. But then, it seems that any explanation of ‘speaking the truth’ must already
presume to make us of the argued meaning of ‘speaking the truth.’ Thus, to claim that one is speaking the
truth about the meaning of ‘speaking the truth’ may involve difficulties akin to trying to use a hammer to
pound a nail into the handle of that very same hammer.
Similarly, any attempt to give a definition or explanation of language necessarily presumes that
the explanation will be given in a language.32 That is, the very act of explaining ‘language’ itself is always
undertaken by a speaker who assumes that his act of explanation is to be classified as an instance of what
it purports to explain. The mechanics of language, which are precisely what needs to be explained, are
simply assumed to function in a way that makes an explanation of language possible. Again, this calls to
mind the puzzling hammer analogy above, and makes it appear that the task of explaining language
carries with it a burden that is not shared by the task of explaining games. In explaining what ‘game’
means, it is not necessary to presume that one’s explanation is itself a game. As a result, Rhees’ claim that
explaining ‘language’ is not analogous to explaining ‘game’ appears decisive in this case.
This brings us to Rhees’ third and final criticism of Wittgenstein’s language-game analogy, which
may be summarized as:
Knowing what playing a game is means that you know what people are doing when they play
games. But in order to know what speaking is, it is not enough merely to know what people do
when they speak.33
Rhees’ point here is that to know what speaking is, one must already know how to understand speech, at
This is because the speaker must assume that she is attempting to give the explanation of ‘language’ through the
machinery of some language or other, at least if she is to have any hope of giving a correct explanation of
‘language’
33
This is my rephrasing of a paraphrase of Rhees provided by Prof. David Hills, in course materials provided for a
class devoted to Wittgenstein at Stanford University. See: Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,”172.
32
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least at a basic level. The vocalizations that people commonly make cannot count as ‘speaking’ to you
unless you know something more than merely that people produce these various sounds with their throats
because making these throat sounds satisfies some kind of goal of theirs (in the way that our actions in a
game aim at satisfying some kind of goal); you must understand that these sounds mean something, or
correspond to some idea, if the sounds are to count as speech in your view.
Yet, paralleling Rhees’ previous criticism, to discover that this term ‘speaking’ correctly applies
to various vocalizations would require that one already was familiar with some of the mechanics of
speech. Otherwise, it would not make sense to associate a vocalized sound (like the utterance, ‘apples’)
with something that should be taken as this sound’s referent (i.e. as taking the sound of the utterance,
‘apples’ as referring to those juicy red things that grow on certain trees). Without an understanding that
the sounds that are vocalized somehow correspond to something in the world, one could not know what
‘speaking’ is. But, to understand this feature of language is to know more than merely what people are
doing, or how they are behaving, when they speak. So, explanations of language always must provide an
extra dimension of explanation that explanations of game do not. Thus, Rhees’ third criticism of
Wittgenstein seems to be as decisive as his second. Explaining language is not like explaining games.
V.
Conclusion
I have now outlined three criticisms that Rhees levels against Wittgenstein’s use of the notion of
language-games, and I have explained why Rhees’ overall challenge appears correct. Although I
concluded that only two of Rhees’ three criticisms are clearly successful, the success of only one of
Rhees’ criticisms is sufficient to undermine Wittgenstein’s language-game analogy. It appears, then, that
Wittgenstein is wrong that trying to explain ‘language’ would be like trying to explain ‘game.’ Thus, for
the moment, Rhees has deflected Wittgenstein’s argument that languages, like games, are related only by
family resemblances. This, in turn, leaves open the possibility that we eventually may arrive at a unified
account of language and meaning. To my mind, this is cause for at least a modicum of relief. The world
just seems like a better place, if we can preserve some hope that we may someday be able to explain what
all our jabbering amounts to, and what it is doing for us when it means something.
33