9
Meaning,
Understanding, and
Use
1
[W]e are so much accustomed to communication
through language, in conversation, that it looks to us as
if the whole point of communication lay in this: someone
else grasps the sense of my words—which is something
mental: he as it were takes it into his own mind. If he
then does something further with it as well, that is no
part of the immediate purpose of language. (PI: # 363)
2

This picture is reinforced by the fact that signs
are arbitrary and conventional.
If we replace ‘p’ by ‘t’ in ‘chap’ we end up with
another sign with a different meaning, but it is
arbitrary that we should employ one word
instead of the other to signify such and such.
‘chat’ in English has a different meaning than in
French. It seems that a sign’s meaning is given
by what goes on in the mind when it is read,
uttered or heard. For, by themselves sign are
death.
3

Hence:
Meaning and understanding seem to be mental
phenomena.
Understanding is conceived as the underlying
mental phenomenon of which the behaviour is a
symptom and our access to someone’s
understanding is only indirect, i.e. by inductive
or analogical inference, while she has direct
access to her understanding.
4
Understanding

Understanding as a state of the mind.
Notice, however, that we speak of being in a
state of excitement, depression, joy, etc. but we
do not speak of being in a state of loving,
fearing, hating, etc.
Do we speak of being in a state of meaning,
intending, minding?
Understanding is more linked to an activity
than to a state of the mind.
5

If understanding and meaning are mental
processes, experiences or states, then they
should be accessible to introspection, like
hearing, listening or suffering.
Cf. Descartes methodology.
What, though, is the specific quality or mental
experience or state which ‘understanding’ name?
6

On this approach ‘understanding’ is conceived,
like in the Augustinian picture, as a word naming
something.
Besides, if understanding is a state whose
manifestation is behaviour, then this state is
likely to be conceived as a physico-chemical
state of the brain (cf. Central State Materialist
position). It is the physical state that causes
behaviour.
7

Meaning and understanding are not
experiences.
For experiences are neither necessary nor
sufficient for understanding.
The criterion for understanding lie in
performances.
8

Understanding is an activity.
“Now I understand” is more a signal of
understanding which is judged to be correctly
employed by what the pupil goes on to do,
rather than a report of an introspective
experience.
9
Meaning is Use

Understanding is not a mental process or state.
It is more linked to an activity.
So, understanding is an ability
To understand a word it to be able to use it
correctly.
Meaning is use.
10
For any words to have meaning, or to be understood as
having certain meanings, it must be used in a certain
way, to do something or other. Sounds or marks do not
possess meaning at all on their own. Someone’s
meaning or understanding something by a certain word
on a certain occasion could then perhaps be explained
as the person’s engaging in a certain practice or
conforming to the way that word is used; without some
such practice the word would have no meaning at all.
(Stroud; Meaning, Understanding, and Practice, Oxford
UP, viii-ix)
11


There are some interconnected central notions
one should keep in mind when considerdeiring
Wittgenstein’s motto “meaning is used”.
Form of life
The non-linguistic context is essential to the
understanding linguistic activities.
12
To Imagine a language is to imagine a form of life
(PI, # 7)
What has to be accepted, the given, is—one could say—
form of life.
(PI II, 226)
13

Insofar as language has foundations, they are
provided not by metaphysical atoms, but by
patterns of communal activity.
The idea that form of life provides the
foundations of language has been elaborated in
opposite directions.
14
1. Transcendental reading
Grammar is an integral part of human practice.
So it is subject to change.
15
2. Naturalistic reading
Form of life is part of our human nature which
determines how we act and react.
But Wittgenstein’s naturalism is anthropological
rather than biological for the natural history is
the history of cultural, language-using
individuals.
16

Language game
There are many different games and there is a
family resemblance between them.
17

The notion of a game allows to highlight the
facts that games must be played, that there are
rules which must be followed, etc.
That one must engage in the game.
Our language games are embedded in our form
of life, the overall practice of a linguistic
community.
18

Like any other game, language games are
“played” in a setting.
Even if the setting is not involved in the
explanation of the meaning of a given
expression, is nevertheless relevant to that
expression having that meaning.
19

We learn games, how to play, etc.
The foundation of our learning is training.
Language games are not subject to justification;
they are rooted in our natural reactions and
activities.
20
Wittgenstein’s antireductionism

An ability is distinct from its vehicle.
E.g. whisky can intoxicate (ability) because of
the alcohol it contains (vehicle) but the alcohol is
not identical with the intoxicating power.
21
One can weight the alcohol but not the ability to
intoxicate.
So if an ability is distinct from its vehicle, it is
distinct from the structure of its vehicle which
may explain the ability.
22

Hence it is misguiding to think that we can
reduce power to the structure of its vehicle.
E.g.: sugar is soluble, but solubility (disposition)
is not a state of sugar.
The same for psychological dispositions: being
able to speak French, like being clever, charming,
etc., is not a state of a person.
23

We are not tempted to identify the horse-power
of a car with a state of its engine although the
car has this horse-power because of the state.
Why, though, are we so tempted to reduce
mental powers with the underlying neural
structure?
24

Moral
Wittgenstein reverses the traditional direction of
fit between meaning and understanding.
25
While the Augustinian picture deals with
understanding, explanation and communication
using the concept of meaning qua correlation
between words and objects, Wittgenstein
reverses the order of explanation.
Meaning is explained using the notion of
understanding, explaining and communications.
Meaning reduces to use.
26

Concepts
Concepts get their meaning, i.e. their use,
because they are embedded in a complex form
of life that is revealed (and is the background) in
the way speakers live and act.
27

Wittgenstein and Psychologism
Conventions play a central role in Wittgenstein’s
conception of language.
Cf. the notion of rules and rules following.
28

Conventions vs. Intentions
Grice, Lewis, Schiffer, … argue that the notion of
convention can be analyzed in terms of the
speaker’s intentions.
Thus linguistic conventions can be explained in
terms of the psychological notion of intention.
We would hence have a psychological theory of
meaning.
29

The Psychological Theory of
Communication
Communication resumes to the transmission of
what one has in the mind and understanding to
the grasping of what one has in the mind, i.e. to
grasp one’s mental representation.
The latter need not be, pace Frege, private.
30
Words in their primary or immediate signification, stand
for nothing but the ideas in the mind of him that uses
them ... nor can anyone apply them as marks,
immediately, to anything else but the ideas that he
himself hath. (Locke; 1690: III.ii.2)
...
The chief end of language in communication being to be
understood, words serve well for that end, neither in civil
nor philosophical discourse, when any word does not
excite in the hearer the same idea which it stands for in
the breast of the speaker. (Locke; 1690: III.ix.4)
31

The Institutional Theory of Communication
It rests on the Division of Linguistic Labour (see
Putnam 1975 “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’”).

“Meanings aren’t in the head”.
Mental representations do not determine what
words stand for (reference or extension).
Cf. twin-Earth thought experiment.
32
We could hardly use such words as ‘elm’ and ‘aluminum’
if no one possessed a way of recognizing elm trees and
aluminum metal; but not everyone to whom the
distinction is important has to be able to make the
distinction. ... Consider our community as a “factory”: in
this “factory” some people have the “job” of wearing
gold wedding rings, other people have the “job” of
selling gold wedding rings, still other people have the
“job” of telling whether or not something is really gold. ...
everyone to whom gold is important for any reason has
to acquire the word ‘gold’; but he does not have to
acquire the method of recognizing if something is or is
not gold. He can rely on a special subclass of speakers.
(Putnam 1975: 227-8)
33

Direct Reference
Cf. causal theory, social character of
meaning/reference, …
Reference depends on a social causal chain.
34

Language
It is conceived as the result of a social
interaction and cooperation.
[T]he harmony between thought and reality is to be
found in the grammar of the language. (Wittgenstein
Philosophical Grammar: 162)
35

Theory of meaning = theory of
understanding
(cf. Dummett)
A theory of meaning deals with the speaker’s
mastering the language, that is, with her
knowledge of the language.
36
This account can only be given in terms of the practical
ability which the speaker displays in using sentences of
the language; and, in general, the knowledge of which
that practical ability is taken as a manifestation may be,
and should be, regarded as only implicit knowledge.
(Dummett 1978: p.101)
37

Knowing-how vs. knowing-that
The knowledge involved in the mastery of a
language is a sort of implicit knowledge akin to a
practical ability, a kind of knowing-how.
38