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Accord, agreement and consistence (only in parts)
In Philosophical Investigations, the term agreement is addressed in various places and connected to the issue of language and the world, grammar, counting, and private language argument.
Wittgenstein reduces the question of ‘agreement’ to grammar and expands it to the subject of consequence, and puts the focus on the subject with other themes.
Thus, we also find the idea of agreement in literal use in language, as in the example of the twins or the beetle in the box.
Wittgenstein uses a kind of internal monologue in Philosophical Investigations, because sometimes an idea is thought about in passages to be then discarded again, and this type of philosophy is reminiscent of Plato’s dialogues—
In particular, sentences § 134, § 139, §186, §201, § 224, § 234, § 241, § 242, § 271, § 352, §386, § 416, § 429, § 442, § 465, § 492, § 538, § 594, § 607 are studied in addition to § 135, § 136, § 138, and § 189.
As examples of thematic agreement, sentences § 253 and § 283 are specified.
In addition, the aspect of seeing from Philosophical Investigations in xi is addressed: various aspects of one and the same image.
1 Language and the world—‘This is how things are’
§ 134 ends with the convoluted sentence:
“To say that it agrees (or does not agree) with reality would be obviously nonsense, and so it illustrates the fact that one feature of our concept of a proposition is sounding like one. “
The best way to proceed here is to look at the entire paragraph as well as the following sentences to include the whole context. What is meant here is a specific or a general sentence, which Wittgenstein gives as an example: ‘This is how things are’
Preceding this, § 134 can be referred to where the sentence ‘This is how things are’ is meant, and this sentence complies with the rules of grammar with a subject and an object. The question is how this sentence is applied in our everyday language because from this, we have the sentence. However, it is more like a sentence pattern, a variable. In this respect, Wittgenstein brings reality to the concept of nonsense regarding agreement. The sentence cannot make any agreement with reality.
In the following paragraph, Wittgenstein makes a connection with the term ‘game’ from a phrase of a sentence, and thus comes close to his language-game concept, which he states at the beginning of PI that language must be understood in the context of activities.
§135: “But haven´t we got a concept of what a proposition is, of what we understand by ‘proposition’?” – Indeed, we do; just as we also have a concept of what we understand by “game”.
In the following paragraph, § 136, the topic is addressed again in the first part of the paragraph and expanded to the concept of truth.
§ 136 “At bottom, giving “This is how things are” as the general form of propositions is the same as giving the explanation: a proposition is the same as giving explanations: a proposition is whatever can be true or false. For instead of “This is how things are”, I could just as well have said “Such- and such is true”. (Or again, “Such-and-such is false”.) But
`p` is true = p
`p` is false = not-p.”
Wittgenstein now states that the concept of truth for a sentence is indispensable. The concept of truth cannot be applied to a general, formal sentence; it is more for a sentence from real language and he establishes over several lines that
§ 136 what fits the concept `true`, or what the concept `true´ fits, is a proposition. So it is as if we had a concept of true and false, which we could use to ascertain what is, and what is not, a proposition. What engages with the concept of truth (as with a cog-wheel) is a proposition.
In the second part of paragraph 136, the example of a game is given, which is also often mentioned in PI. On the one hand, this is similar to the language game concept, and on the other hand, it could be an interesting example of the theme of private language argument.
Using the analogy of chess, which can be found repeatedly in PI, Wittgenstein produces the relationship to the language game and gives an example of the theme of consequence and private language argument.
Ludwig Wittgenstein expands the concept of a sentence in such a way that just as the grammar of a sentence must agree to make it a valid sentence, it should also be part of the language game, and the language game can also be that ‘true’ and ‘false’ are part of the game.
§ 136 And what a proposition is, is in one sense determined by the rules of sentence formation (in English, for example), and in another sense by the use of the sign in the language-game. And the use of the words “true” and “false” only of what we call a proposition. And what a proposition is, is in one sense determined by the rules of sentence formation (in English, for example), and in another sense by the use of the sign in the language-game.
The objective of chess is to put the King in checkmate. A nonsensical game would be a game played with personal rules, for example, if one could put a pawn in check, i.e. the person who loses a pawn, loses the game. Similar to the above example, Wittgenstein formulated this as follows: Putting the King into check is part of the game for us, a game where a pawn is put into check would not be right.
This can be taken as a conclusive example of, or better against, private language. You can imagine that private language is like a chess game where pawns can be put in check, and this makes no sense.
These thoughts lead on to Wittgenstein’s theory of language use. And here he proves himself as a theorist of ordinary language, a usage theory of language, and his language game concept.
2 § 138/139 meaning as a use and a cube
It is best to read sentences § 138 and § 139 together, and then § 138 is easier to understand, when you also think about the subject of private speech or recall the paradox of $201. The problem of imagining, when you understand a word but misuse it, is also addressed.
In § 138, Wittgenstein makes preliminary observations on meaning as a practice; that the meaning of a word comes from the use of the word.
§ 138 But can´t the meaning of a word that I understand fit the sense of a sentence that I understand? Or the meaning of one word fit the meaning of another? – Of course, if the meaning of the use we make of the word, it makes no sense to speak of such fitting.
And in § 139, he summarizes the point:
§ 139 When someone says the word “cube” to me, for example, I know what it means. But can the whole use of the word come before my mind when I understand it in this way?
Yes; but on the other hand, isn´t the meaning of the word also determined by this use? And can these ways of determining meaning conflict? Can what we grasp at a stroke agree with use, fit or fail to fit it?
§ 186 is in the environment of rules and the private language issue, as many sentences can be considered in relation to the topic of a private speech. The sentences before the famous paragraph 201 deal with this issue. § 186 is dedicated to numbers and following commands, which can be considered as a kind of consequence. The term ‘intuition’ is also used here and then rejected; following a rule or calculation does not necessarily require intuition (see § 189, the term ‘training’).
§ 186 “What you are saying, then, comes to this: a new insight – intuition – is needed at every step to carry out the order ´+n`correctly.” – To carry out correctly! How is it decided what the right step to take at any particular point? – “The right step is the one that is in accordance with the order – as it was meant.” –
So when you gave the order “+2”, you meant that he was to write 1002 after 1000 – and did you then also mean that he should write 1868 after 1866, and 100036 after 100034, and so on – an infinite number of such sentences? – “No; what I meant was, that he should write the next but one number after every number that he wrote; and from this, stage by stage all those sentences follow.” – But this is just what is in question: what at any stage, does follow from that sentence. Or, again, what at any stage we are to call “being in accordance” with it (and with how you then meant it – whatever your meaning it may have consisted in).
The topic of intuition and that this should not be intuition is explained at length in §189:
§ 189 We may perhaps mention that people are brought by their education (training) so to use the formula y=x2, that all they work out the same number for y when they substitute the same number for x.
§ 201 deals with the major theme, that of rules and private language.
§201 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.
Because rules are adapted to the language and rules define the language, a paradox is created. The language determines the rules; the rules determine the language. This refers, for example, back to § 139, since the use theory has been explained.
§139 Yes, but on the other hand, isn´t the meaning of the word also determined by this use?
§201 refers to § 202, because talking privately is a language as the references that are only known to me are contradicted, which will be much discussed in the discussion of Wittgenstein. Recall here, for example, Saul Kripke (rule following), Hans Sluga (skepticism, Pyrrhonism), Donald Davidson (communication and late writings), Esfeld (reception of Kripke) and others.
§ 224 explicitly states that the terms agreement and rules are related to each other by presenting the terms as cousins:
§224 The word “accord” and the word “rule” are related to one another; they are cousins. If I teach anyone the use of the one word, he learns the use of the other with it.
In § 234, calculations are again discussed as shown in the preceding paragraphs, here §186, 189. The rules of calculation are correlated to the rules of grammar.
§234 Wouldn´t it be possible for us, however, to calculate as we actually do (all agreeing, and so on), and still at every step to have a feeling of being guided by the rules as by spell, astonished perhaps at the fact that we agreed? Perhaps giving thanks to the Deity for this agreement.)
Imagine a few experienced mathematicians who can all solve difficult problems equally well—language is exactly the same, and speech and language is a part of the life for people and their way of life. Meaning as a use can be found again here. As in the following paragraphs, § 241 and § 242.
§241 “So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?” – What is true or false is what human beings say; and it is in their language that human beings agree. This is agreement not in opinions, but rather in form of life.
It is hard to imagine a society that does not communicate in its own language and form grammatically correct sentences – here in lies the agreement. This does not mean the same opinions of people that, for example, the common man on the street discusses with someone, but the agreement in the language, the grammar, phonetics, pragmatics in the manner that creates communication.
The idea from § 241 is extended to communicative aspects. Not only are the rules of grammar important, but the further judgments as well. Beyond linguistic agreement, a communicative element is required, and you may recall Donald Davidson, who stated in Truth and Interpretation that we approximately need the same beliefs for communication.
§242 It is not only agreement in definitions, but also (odd as it may sound) agreement in judgments that is required for communication by means of language.
The subject of pain is introduced at the beginning of PI with other commonly used words (§ 26) and the labeling of words, and in due course, PI gains momentum and connects to other complex subjects such as the pain of others and privacy. In § 271, the term pain is associated with sensory data and a student who labels many things as ‘pain’, even those that have nothing to do with pain. The idea of a private language is destructed here, those who write down their sensory data but call various things ‘pain’, blurs the words and creates no or an impossible private language. Pain is clear in principle.
§271
“Imagine a person who could not remember what the word `pain´ meant – so that he constantly called different things by that name – but nevertheless used it in accordance with the usual symptoms and presuppositions of pain” – in short, he uses it as we all do. Here I´d like to say: a wheel that can be turned through nothing else moves with it is no part of the mechanism.”
Wittgenstein again addresses the idea of a private language with the term agreement in § 492, to find a purpose due to natural laws. All thoughts, against which he in turn finds arguments.
The term agreement comes up again in the comprehensive paragraph § 352, which deals with the law of the excluded middle. This involves, in particular, whether something agrees with reality or not.
Either something happens or it does not.
§ 352 And the problem is now supposed by to be: does reality accord the picture or not?
In Wittgenstein’s typical way, thoughts are also scrutinized again. For example, how often do people have dissenting opinions and still stick to them? Similarly, you can also calculate in your mind, imagine a color, depict something in the imagination that is in agreement with reality, or recognize a person based on a drawing. In particular, recognizing a person from a drawing in turn represents evidence that this idea or image is inter-subjectively verifiable, and thus can be added at any other time to the regulations of the community.
§ 386 ...” And further: you don´t always rely on agreement with other people; for you often report that you have seen something no one else.”...
You could respond here that someone else could have seen it. Or there could be like someone who is similar to you and has observed similar things.
People are also in agreement that they have consciousness, i.e. we see, hear, feel, etc. (§ 416)
The term ‘agreement’ is also equated with harmony—the harmony or agreement of thought and reality (§ 492).
Less harmonious, but also applied to the term agreement, is agreement with expectation and the arrival of the expectation, for example in the form of a shot (§ 442), an expectation is likewise met (§ 465)
In the context of numbers and training, there is a remarkable explanation of how we use grammar. An adjective in French agrees with the noun in gender and number.
§ 538
There is a related case (through perhaps it will not seem so) when, for example, we Germans are surprised that in French the predicative adjective agrees with the substantive in gender, and when we explain it to ourselves by saying: they mean “der Mensch ist ein guter”.
§ 594 deals with proper pronunciation—and is a reminder of the thoughts about pragmatics—if you imagine someone says a sentence in a friendly or unfriendly way—and how this is understood, this is where the agreement is.
‘Well, if we all agree about that, won't it be true?’ (§ 594)
The observations on the term agreement connect with § 607 and deal with time and the internal clock—can a person accurately guess the time? From our own experience, we know that sometimes we can; however, we can only correctly and accurately know the time if we make certain by checking a technical watch.
You have an idea of the time and try to make this idea of the time agree with your internal clock.
But isn´t the hunch accompanied by a feeling of conviction; and doesn´t that mean that it now accords with an inner clock.” (§ 607)
3 Summarizing the consideration now
The observations on the term agreement can be summarized as follows. The observations start with a sentence of variables ‘This is how things are’ from § 134 and asks for meaning and agreement with the reality of such a sentence, which is just a variable. Wittgenstein also speaks of the ability of a human to understand a word ‘all at once’, e.g. ‘cube’ and whether this is an image. (§ 139) In particular, addresses the question of agreement and language with numbers and grammar. §186, for example, states the idea of number sequence and is in the area of rules and private language argument. (§ 201) Questions about calculating can also be found in § 234 and § 386. Moreover, Wittgenstein further discusses the idea of calculating and counting other paragraphs, not individually named here. Grammatical observations can be found in § 538. This then leads on to observations on language that the agreement of the people on language constitutes what language and speaking is: § 241, § 242, § 594, § 429.
§201 as well as § 224, § 271, and §4 92 deal with observations on the private language argument and the issue of private speech.
§271 also addresses the issue of pain.
Thoughts on consciousness can be found in § 416 and § 386.
The theme of expectation and arrival will be explained on the basis of a shot/bang: §442 and anticipation/event § 465.
Furthermore, § 352 names the excluded third and § 607 ends with the inner clock.
The term ‘agreement’ is also found in other texts by Wittgenstein, for example, in On Certainty. This expands on the sense connection discussed, but does not result in much.
Agreement can also be found in individual passages in the examples of the Siamese twins (§ 253) and the beetle in the box (§ 293).
In connection with the subject of pain, the (exaggerated) example of Siamese twins is discussed. This shows a very human thought of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. The pain of someone that only the affected person can really feel is inter-subjectively understood. Privacy can be found in pain—only the affected person has a toothache and only he can feel this pain. All people, however, feel pain and may experience this. This is where empathy can be seen. Also consider that mass panic can break out—the individual sense of a person can be found in others again and transferred to them. The subject of pain is also found in many sentences, e.g. in § 293 in connection with the beetle example, in § 311, as you can perhaps only imagine pain privately, § 244 the pain-behavior of a child that is taught by adults, § 302 the pain of others, § 311, 312 toothache, and § 257, when a child invents a word for toothache.
§ 253 begins with ‘Others cannot feel my pain’. This is about the criterion of the identity of a feeling.
A person can feel the same pain; imagine two people after having their appendixes removed:
§ 253 In so far as it makes sense to say that my pain is the same as his, it is also possible for us both to have the same pain.
It is identical in the sense that it is not a homologous site when speaking of a pain in Siamese twins, for example.
§ 253 And it would also be conceivable that two people feel pain in the same – not just the corresponding – place. That might be the case with Siamese twins, for instance.)
The idea with the beetle in the box is also connected to the subject of pain. How can people generalize their own pain or what happens if they do not? Does everyone have a beetle in a box or not?
§ 293 If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word “pain” means – must I not say that of other people, too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly?
Imagine a situation where everyone claims only they know what pain is and everyone has a beetle in a box, but would only look in their own box; no one can look in another's box. The thought experiment is put into the context of a private discussion.
If no one can see in the other people's box, if what is in the box can even change, or the box can be empty, then it falls out of the language game. Whatever it may be, it is not part of communication.
§ 293 No one can ever look into anyone else´s box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing.
This fact shows ex negativo how language constitutes itself—people speak of a beetle in a box and they describe such a beetle. Only when people have the ‘same’ beetle in a box they can talk about it.
Thus, the conclusion is that people have to generalize their own case, because otherwise a private type of behavior would result from which no progress could be made, and this also generally corresponds to our life experience.
4 Wittgenstein’s correlation to Greek philosophy
A reference to Greek philosophy and Plato’s dialogues is given above. This is astounding because Wittgenstein is more known for philosophizing without reference to philosophical tradition, and he breaks new ground with Frege and Russell. If he follows in anyone’s footsteps, then Schopenhauer is usually named (see Sluga 2011, Wittgenstein). Influences from Greek philosophy can, however, be asserted which Hans Sluga proves in Wittgenstein and Pyrrhonism with skepticism and David G. Stern notes in Wittgenstein’s critique of referential theories of meaning and the paradox of ostension: Philosophical Investigations §§26–48 that Wittgenstein read Plato while writing Philosophical Investigations.
I would like to present this in brief to then return to Philosophical Investigations on the subject of agreement in the aspect of seeing for the conclusion.
Sluga begins his comprehensive essay on pyrrhonian skepticism by naming skeptical elements in Wittgenstein. The way in which Wittgenstein wrote should be regarded as skeptical, according to Sluga. The private language argument is also a skeptical topic. This theory is now supported by verbal evidence that Wittgenstein took observations from Mauthner, who had in turn taken them from Sextus Empiricus. One aspect of this is that Wittgenstein wanted to go beyond language so that people were not bewitched by language.
It was also Mauthner’s position that language is a bad tool for philosophy.
‘At the center of his thinking and, indeed, his book stands the conviction that language is an ultimately unsatisfactory tool for philosophical thought.’ (Sluga 2004, p 103)
Mauthner made contributions to critique language in the first pages of his book in that the ladder steps must be broken while you climb the ladder, a metaphor that Sextus Empiricus had already used. Mach took this metaphor, and Mauthner in turn took it from Mach. Wittgenstein then used what he had taken from Mauthner in his work Tractatus, which almost made the metaphor famous.
Several points are made clear here—first, there is a reference to ancient philosophy, second, Wittgenstein’s philosophy has skeptical elements, and furthermore, the use of language is not simply accepted as self-evident, but is tested for consistency, and language is characterized critically with regard to philosophy, which Wittgenstein also makes explicit several times in his work. For example, in § 38, which states that philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday.
Stern also sees the reference to ancient philosophy. He presented a statement by Wittgenstein that Wittgenstein had read Plato while he was completing Philosophical Investigations, and found similar problems with Plato. In his essay, Stern also addresses the question of a dialogue, or different voices and their position in Philosophical Investigations.
‘Consequently, Wittgenstein’s dialogues explore a much wider variety of arguments and argumentative strategies, than the very limited ranches and positions of approaches usually discussed in the expository literature. Like Plato’s dialogues, they are simultaneously literal and philosophical, and the readers’ initial impression that the speakers and positions under discussion can be identified without much trouble should not be taken as face value.’ (Stern)
And that Ludwig Wittgenstein read Plato is described as follows:
‘In 1944, when Wittgenstein was putting the first part of the philosophical investigation into its final form, he told a friend, that he was reading Plato’s Theaetetus and that “Plato in his dialogues is occupied with the same problems I´m writing about”.’ (Stern)
The essay by Stern is much broader than these two quotations can convey. And he also discusses the subject in his book Philosophical Investigations: An introduction. However, Sluga and Stern show that the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein also has references to ancient philosophy or Wittgenstein was at least well read in it.
5 Aspect of seeing
I would like to now return to Philosophical Investigations and in the last section conclude with the subject of agreement based on a few examples, namely the aspect of seeing that Wittgenstein addresses in Part XI.
Knowledge is nothing more than perception, Plato says in Theitetos—understood like this, we can approach the subject of agreement in xi more closely.
Wittgenstein uses the example of the rabbit-duck head here. If I look at the rabbit-duck head by Jastrow - do I see a rabbit or a duck? You can also ask if my observations agree with a rabbit or a duck?
125 I see two pictures, with the duck-rabbit surrounded by rabbits in one, by ducks in the other. I don´t notice that they are the same. Does it follow from this that I see something different in the two cases? – It gives us a reason for using this expression here.
This is known as aspect seeing. Under one aspect, you see a rabbit, under another a duck. Illuminating the aspect is half a visual experience, half a thought, according to § 140.
Do I recognize someone I have not seen in years?
144 Now, when I recognize my acquaintance in a crowd, perhaps after looking in his direction for quite a while – is this a special sort of seeing? Is it a case of both seeing and thinking? Or a fusion of the two – as I would almost like to say?
The question is: why does one want to say this?
Here, Wittgenstein shows himself as a modern thinker, who classifies these observations in the philosophy of psychology.
References
Davidson, Donald, 1990. Wahrheit und Interpretation, Frankfurt, suhrkamp
Kripke, Saul, 2006. Wittgenstein. Über Regeln und Privatsprache, suhrkamp
Sluga, Hans, 2004. ‘Wittgenstein and Pyrrhonism’ in Pyrrhonian Skepticism, ed. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Oxford
Sluga, Hans, 2001. Wittgenstein, Wiley Blackwell
Stern, David, 2004. Philosophical Investigations: An introduction, Cambridge University Press
Stern, David, 2009. ‘Wittgenstein’s critique of referential theories of meaning and the paradox of ostension: Philosophical Investigations §§26-48’ in: In Wittgenstein’s Enduring Arguments, edited by Edoardo Zamuner and D. K. Levy, pp. 179–208, Routledge
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, translated by Anscombe, Hacker, Schulte, 2009 Wiley Blackwell
copyright by Bettina Müller 2017
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