1 IN SEARCH FOR MEANING, BASIS, REALITY AND CORRECTNESS IN LANGUAGE Wilson Villones [What is the task of philosophy of language? This very basic question is to be answered quite obviously by remarking that its task is to study linguistic meanings. But this immediately raises more questions. First, what are these meanings and where they do come from? Second, as it seems hitherto that meaning is relative to the basis of philosophy in used, then should we give the priority on a philosophy based on logic or on a philosophy that is based on rhetoric? Third, if philosophy is based on logic or rhetoric, or on grammar in Wittgenstenian special sense, then another question that disturbs us here is that what is the relationship of grammar or language to reality? Lastly, in any attempt to understand how language is connected to reality, it is equally important to ask: How does the obvious fact that competent speakers of a language know, in some ordinary sense, the correct meaning of expressions uttered? In a grossly simplified term we can ask, where does this criterion of correctness comes from? From these questions, I outlined my ideas.] Philosophy of language is both fascinating and difficult. It is fascinating in the sense that it unveils to us philosophical issues that are deeply entrenched in the linguistic phenomena, issues that which without tincture of philosophy or phenomenology would just be taken for granted. Without regret, it is difficult in the sense that the philosophical controversies involved in linguistic phenomena cannot be resolved quite easily. With an earnest pursuit of knowledge and understanding, I like to think that the difficulty embedded in these issues is that which make philosophy of language more fascinating. I shall have the opportunity to dwell more on this later, but at this early juncture it might be wise to specify a certain point of focus just so that this paper could have some direction. My suggestion is that we take a particular foundational issue as our point of departure and I further suggest that this issue be: what is the task of philosophy of language? Since anyone about to venture forth on a new journey would be well advised to get a general idea of where he is going, to grasp the lay of the land, and to familiarize himself with the some of the principal landmarks, it seems to me that it is always crucial to have some provisional understanding regarding the nature of philosophy of language which we are trying to get acquainted with for quite some time already.
2 Basically, one obvious task of philosophy of language, as language being more explicative, is to explicate linguistic meanings. 1 In philosophy of language, the study of linguistic meaning is central. Both Derrida and Wittgenstein even put more interests to the problem of meaning than to the problems of knowledge. 2 But as the foundational issue begins to appear to me in high resolution, it immediately raises more issues. First, what are these meanings and where they do come from? At the beginning of the semester, we have established that the function of linguistic expressions is to convey information about the world. This implies that anything that conveys meaning is ipso facto a linguistic expression. Precisely, the role of the meaning of expressions is crucial. Yet, we cannot simply identify the meaning of a certain utterance because an utterance can always mean differently on different occasions. 3 It can imply things that it does not literally say, which more often comes in the philosophic-linguistic phenomenon of metaphor. We need therefore to distinguish literal meaning from metaphorical meanings. But there are many controversies that emanate about why and how can one grasp literal from metaphorical meanings, often effortlessly and without thoroughly thinking about it. It seems then that identifying and explicating the line that demarcates metaphorical meanings from literal one is more difficult than simply grasping the meaning of the utterance. Albeit the challenges of metaphors, the phenomenon seems to fascinate me even more. 1 Cf. MARTIN DAVIES, Foundational Issues in Philosophy of Language in Philosophy of Language, ed. by M. Devitt and R.Hanley, Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 2006, 1. 2 The problem of how one comes to know logical and metaphysical truths is ignored in both of them. Wittgenstein for instance wrote On Certainty: To be sure there is justification; but justification comes to an end. (192) By excluding and making epistemology peripheral, Wittgenstein and Derrida also set themselves apart from the hegemony of modern philosophy, from the logical positivists, from Russell as well as from Frege to name a few. 3 The wisdom of reiterating the idea that it is so important to know the significant differences that matters comes into mind.
3 Since it is an important question in the philosophy of language how one can grasp metaphorical meanings, it will make some use to our present purposes if we deconstruct and draw the line of demarcation of the phenomenon of metaphor. There are philosophers who tend to think that literal speech is the default and metaphorical utterances are occasional aberrations, made mainly by poets and poets manqué 4 while other philosophers according to Josef Stern characterized it as improper and deviant use of the literal. There are also others who deny the challenges posed by metaphors; Leibniz for instance asserts that there is only that ideal language that which contains only descriptions which can be deciphered as true or false, a matter of explaining truth conditions. But I am inclined to think in the complete opposite: virtually every sentence produced by any human being contains importantly metaphorical or other figurative elements. Rousseau might even argue in his Essai sur l origine des langues that that the first speech is entirely metaphorical and figurative and literal speech coming only later as degeneration. 5 However, I must maintain here that albeit a sentence used metaphorically might have a different truth-value from what it would have were it interpreted literally, the meaning of a metaphor often cannot be understood without knowing the literal meaning of its utterance. But the question that fascinates me even more is this: why is it that one can grasp literal from metaphorical meanings, often effortlessly and without thoroughly thinking about it? This is I think one of the questions that philosophy of language must answer. Metaphors do not belong to rules and structures of language. And so we may wonder why and how hearers grasp metaphorical meaning as if metaphors follow certain linguistic rules albeit we know that they really do break genuine linguistic rules. The postmodernist 4 WILLIAM G. LYCAN, Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction, 2 nd Edition, New York, Routledge, 2008, 176. 5 NEWTON GARVER, Derrida and Wittgenstein, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1994, 102.
4 Richard Rorty even asserts that metaphor belongs exclusively to the domain of use, a view that even Davidson would share. 6 Another consideration that must be address is that metaphors are not directly factual; one can construe here that they are rather descriptive in another realm. For one to be able to understand a metaphorical remark, one has to put the metaphor into a certain kind of context for metaphorical meaning is context dependent. It also goes beyond the syntaxes of a certain language for understanding its meaning involves extralinguistic presuppositions, skills and abilities such as the perception of similarity or salience. 7 Let us see an example that I have used in my previous paper entitled On Metaphors to illustrate this point. Think for instance the controversial line Nakatikim ka na ba ng katorse? I like to think that its makers have made to advertise the good quality of a fourteen-year-old-wine. However, we cannot deny the fact that it can mean something else, that which makes the statement metaphorical. As Josef Stern argued, understanding metaphors requires extra-linguistic skills. Asking again how and why people grasp metaphorical meaning as if metaphors follow certain linguistic rules albeit we know that they really do break genuine linguistic rules makes the whole thing more challenging. That is, how do hearers grasp that meaning, given that what they hear is only a sentence whose literal meaning is something different? To add a puzzle to the challenge, Garver might even add that someone speaking in metaphors does not tell us that he has switched from one context to another or from one dimension of language to another; what he says can make sense only if there are two dimensions involved. In the respect in which a metaphor signifies an intuitive perception, the words chosen really do not fit to the thing they describe. 8 6 Cf. RICHARD RORTY, Unfamiliar noises: Hesse and Davidson on metaphor in his Objectivity, Relativism and Truth, 1991, 71. 7 JOSEF STERN, Figurative Language in Philosophy of Language, ed. by M. Devitt and R.Hanley, Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 2006, 175. 8 N. GARVER, Derrida and Wittgenstein, 14. Italics mine.
5 Aside from the problem of metaphors, another consideration that must be brought into the surface that concerns meaning is the problem of ambiguity. The classic debate of Wittgenstein and Russell on the existence of the pink elephant comes into mind. It is whereby we can see clearly how important the meaning is in any linguistic structures. In the debate, Russell argued that one cannot deny something that which does not actually exist and as being consistent to the Principle of Acquaintance, he argued that what can be meaningfully talked about is that which we are acquainted with. In philosophy, it is no good to talk something that is not there, somehow explicit in Russell s principle of acquaintance wherein every proposition one understands must ultimately be composed of elements with which one is acquainted. On the other side, Wittgenstein argued to the contrary that one cannot deny something that is not there. There seems to be a big difference regarding to their concept of nothing and the meaning of nothing here seems to be ambiguous. This paves the way for us to ask, what then accounts for variation in meaning? Or in other words, criterion of meaningfulness comes from? This is also rather important questions that philosophy of language must confront in virtue of the fact that it also touches the salient points in the question on the relative basis of philosophy. I am then inclined to entertain the thought that philosophers of language can answer these questions by clarifying whether philosophy in general and philosophy of language in particular be based on logic or rhetoric. What can be meaningfully talked about seems relative to the basis of philosophy in used. Meaningfulness in a sense will depend on the basis of philosophy that we used as our metaphysics or philosophical framework from which the criterion of meaningfulness comes from. However, the clarification again builds more complex issues. And so the second foundational issue press in. Should we give the priority on a philosophy based on logic or on a philosophy that is based on rhetoric?
6 What makes the philosophies based on logic and rhetoric distinct from one another is the way they view the sense or meaning of expressions. And this is what I want to reiterate. As I have argued in my previous paper entitled Logic or Rhetoric: The Bedrock of Philosophy, in a philosophy based on logic, clarity is always prerequisite in any utterance, otherwise such expressions do not entirely make sense. We can perhaps pay attention to the background where this view is coming from. Problems in the philosophy based on logic are more often associated with the problem of mathematics from which clarity is first and foremost a requirement of equations. This is something not surprising since it is apparent in the traditions of the philosophers in the nineteenth to twentieth centuries who advocated this view. Think for instance of Russell and Whitehead from England, Husserl and Frege from Germany and Wittgenstein who straddled the gap that separates the continent from its most illustrious island. 9 In some or other way, the five of them gave the impetus to the view that language is basically and primarily logical and the essential features of language can be determined on the basis of the requirement of logic. It is not again very surprising since most of them are mathematicians and all of them are logicians. On this view, rhetoric can only distort the essential features of language. Such impetus does not only emphasize language as associated with logic but also strengthens the devaluation of rhetoric itself. But we see this thing turned upside down in a philosophy based on rhetoric. If in a philosophy based on logic emphasizes clarity and eradicates vagueness in the system, vagueness in a philosophy based on rhetoric is acceptable. It is in here that we can construe that vagueness is sometimes part of the message. Consequently, we cannot even construe that vague expressions are meaningless or if they have any meaning, such meaning are not truth functional. Otherwise that might be a wrong interpretation of vague expressions, as what a philosophy based on 9 N. GARVER, Derrida and Wittgenstein, 66.
7 rhetoric views. We cannot deny the fact that it is a fascinating linguistic phenomenon how come we understand vagueness. Chinul wrote it best: Though the finger point at the moon, the moon is not in the finger. Words express the truth but the truth is not in the words 10. Ultimately, Wittgenstein asserted, that Words have meaning only in the streams of life 11 in contrast to what Derrida is saying; there is more outside the text! This is I think a profound and an important insight. Another phenomenon so interesting here is that in a philosophy based on logic, as the name of its basis suggests, linguistic expressions have to conform to the logical rules; they have to be factual whereby one can easily deciphered as true or false - otherwise such expressions are meaningless. As such, an expression ipso facto has to be logical for that expression to be fully understood. As I have argued also in my previous paper, in a sense, in a philosophy based on logic, what makes sense is that which is valid in a logical structure, that which is always within the rules of logic. But the complete opposite can be seen perhaps in a philosophy based on rhetoric. Linguistic expressions do not have to be necessarily logical in structure. Expressions that do not follow the rules of logic are accepted in a philosophy based on rhetoric. Think for instance the discussion of metaphors which as implied by Aristotle defy linguistic rules, 12 not to mention that they also defy logical rules. These expressions are obviously not factual for they cannot be easily deciphered as truth functional or that which involve falsity. Such expressions are rather conditional and thereby depend on the context in which a certain utterance is delivered. 10 Cf. N. GARVER, Derrida and Wittgenstein, 61. 11 LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology: Preliminary Studies for Part II of Philosophical Investigations, 2 nd edition, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1982, 913. 12 Cf. N. GARVER, Derrida and Wittgenstein, 14.
8 If what makes sense is that which is valid in a logical structure, then it hereby follows that in philosophy based on logic, contradictions are always fatal. In the history of Western philosophy, it had been apparent that many philosophers adhere to this view. This is certainly true of Parmenides way of non-being (that it is not and not-being must be is a form of contradiction); Leibniz talked about it via his principle of non-contradiction and on the strength of which we judge to be false anything that involves contradiction, and as true and good whatever is opposed or contradictory to what is false 13 ; Kant will also echo the same thing naming contradictions as antinomies of reason whereby understanding them, reason literally stops. Think for instance how philosophers tried to be coherent in writing, avoiding contradictions of any sort in the history of Western philosophy: from Euclid s Elements to The Leviathan of Hobbes, Descartes Meditations, Spinoza s Ethics, the Principia Mathematica of Russell and Whitehead, even up to Husserl s Logical Investigations. In a sense, we can say that in a philosophy based on logic, contradictions are that which are to be understood in a negative sense. The occurrence of even a single contradiction that belongs to text, in this sense would be enough to topple the entire text. 14 However, we see a different view from a philosophy based on rhetoric. In here, contradictions are not that fatal and are not something that does not make sense. We cannot deny the fact that there are contradictory statements that are not meaningless. In a philosophy based on rhetoric, we are being taught that expressions that which are prima facie absurd can be meaningful only that we know when it is appropriate and when it is not. This is certainly true of rhetoric: despite the common misnomer that rhetoric is limited to literature and public speech, rhetoric has included in its purview a discussion of the proper use of contradictory statements, including 13 GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ, The Monadology, trans. by George Montgomery, Open Court, La Salle, IL, 1902, 31. Italics mine. 14 N. GARVER, Derrida and Wittgenstein, 114 115.
9 the logical absurdities that occur in metaphors. 15 We can construe here that contradictions are not always a bad thing. If viewed in the right manner, contradiction is not always a sign of intellectual incoherence, but rather of creativity and insight. 16 Far from conflict being prima facie undesirable, the true philosopher will see dialectical opposition in the right way. It is absolutely in these contradictions, in these dialectics, in these antinomies that we can see the progress of philosophical thought in general and the very beauty of philosophy itself. In the example given in class, the expression I cannot live with you but I cannot live without you cannot be simply said as something meaningless or nonsense. In a philosophy based on rhetoric, contradictions mean something and it is the role of philosophy to deconstruct these contradictions. It seems hitherto that meaningfulness in logic is different in meaningfulness in rhetoric. And so in order to establish a solid vantage point whereby we can resolve the subsidiary issues in the problem of meaning, it is always necessary to resolve the issue of the relative basis of philosophy. Wittgenstein who had been a central figure in our study even struggled with the same problem. As I have written in my another paper entitled On Logic, Grammar and Metaphysics, during his Tractarian period, Wittgenstein thinks logic is distinct from other disciplines, an absolute and independent discipline with its own a priori truthconditions, similar to what Russell and Frege hold. It is also during this period that he thinks that, ultimately, philosophy consists of logic and metaphysics; logic is its basis. 17 There is a long tradition in the Western philosophy wherein we find an increasing submission of philosophy to the sovereignty of logic. We can see the same thinking going back as far as Plato, if we look on logic as the science of the forms of speech. In modern philosophy, Hegel 15 N. GARVER, Derrida and Wittgenstein, 63. 16 HENRY D. AIKEN, The Age of Ideology, Houghton Mifflin Company, Chicago, 1956. 17 L. WITTGENSTEIN, Notebooks: 1914-1916, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1979.
10 shares the same view using logic as the foundation for his historical claims and to his dialectics. Since the development of history is a development of thought, and the essential process of thought is logic, it follows then the development of history is essentially logical process. Thus for Hegel, his theory of historical development cannot be fully understood without some reference to logic. 18 In contemporary philosophy, Russell asserts that logic is the essence of philosophy. 19 This is a decadent view that Wittgenstein in his later thinking would modify, saying that philosophy consists of grammar and metaphysics; grammar is its basis not logic. In the Philosophical Investigations wherein the ultimate forms of the Tractatus have been transcended and replaced; logical forms, according to the revised picture, do not exist in the abstract; they exist only in use, only in communication. 20 And, Words have meaning in the streams of life. 21 In a sense, logic has no such independence, its rules being implicit in basic language-games and its discipline contained already in grammar. True enough, it seems clear and distinct to me that we understand logical operations through the ordinary language that we use. Think for instance of the continous flow of the discourse or the so-called discourse continuity which shows distinctly that logic is embedded in the ordinary language that we used. Therefore, we are now justified to say that if we learn grammar, then we learn also logic since grammar already includes logic. And as a UP logic professor said: part of good grammar is good logic. 22 As its linguistic implication, we can say that logic is already embedded in grammar; grammar already includes logic! This is precisely 18 H. AIKEN, The Age of Ideology, 1956. 19 Cf. BERTRAND RUSSELL, Our Knowledge of the External World, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1914. 20 Cf. N. GARVER, Derrida and Wittgenstein, 151. 21 L. WITTGENSTEIN, Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology: Preliminary Studies for Part II of Philosophical Investigations, 913. 22 Professor Agapaoa uses the following example to further the explanation: Think of the arguments God is Love and love is blind, ergo God is blind. In logic, the wrong usage of the is of predication and the is of identity in premises is precisely a manifestation of bad grammar. These prima facie illogical statements in formal logic are paragons of bad grammar.
11 the core of the motto of what Wittgenstein explicated in the Philosophical Investigations, that philosophy consists of grammar and metaphysics, the former is its basis. In Wittgenstein, we see a very peculiar conception of grammar. Just think for instance when he wrote that the essence is expressed by grammar and that grammar tells what kind of object anything is. 23 We might say that the business of philosophy is to explain the essence, or if we want to be Platonic about it, the form of such things. This explanation can ipso facto be given only on the basis of grammar; and as Graver wrote it, philosophical grammar will be part of philosophy and will constitute the basis for the discussion of the forms and essences of things. 24 But the question that disturbs us here is that what is the relationship of language or grammar to reality? And so the third quite difficult but fascinating tissue emanates. According to Wittgenstein, grammar is that which is hooked on to metaphysics whose task is to specify the ultimate nature of reality and by which reality is to be made sense of. To make sense of or to explicate this reality, what we need is precisely grammar. It seems that what we really do in grammar is that we explicate since philosophy in its entirety is, in the language of Kant, explicative than implicative. Describing the structure of reality is basically the business of grammar or language, in general metaphysics utilizing grammar. In more grossly simplified terms, the idea here is that grammar or the principles of linguistic description provide a language for reality. It is in this sense that metaphysical remarks can be expressed, grammar being the conduit in which reality makes sense. It is consistent with the tool-theory of language that Wittgenstein is trying to communicate in his later way of thinking. Language is not only bounded by being something that pictures reality (picture- 23 L. WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Investigations, 2 nd edition, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1958, 371-373. 24 N. GARVER, Derrida and Wittgenstein, 154.
12 theory) but he now explicitly acknowledge the variety uses of language such as greetings, salutations, exclamations, commands, requests, pleas, questions, answers, explanations, jokes, curses, prayers, reports, descriptions, promises and so on. 25 And, as Wittgenstein himself would assert in Philosophical Investigations, the moment when language goes on a holiday is the start of having philosophical disputes. 26 By virtue of the fact that there are variety uses of language, a view that I want to share in Wittgenstein, what now seems problematic here is that why is it that we understand the meaning of a certain utterance, a certain gaze, a certain text quite differently? An example to further illustrate this point is the generic phenomenon of Shakespearean poems whose interpretation of meaning entirely depends on the reader. This results in relativism of meaning in language which puts correctness of meaning in question. But I have to argue that there is still correctness in interpretation of meaning even if relativism is true. If someone says I hate you, then precisely it can be interpreted relatively depending on the degree of relationship of the speaker and the interlocutor, on the context and its purpose. It still does justice to interpret it within the phenomenon of relativism. Moving from foundational to substantive issue, we note the fourth and last question that to me seems also something that philosophy of language must answer: How does the obvious fact that competent speakers of a language know, in some ordinary sense, the correct meaning of expression uttered? In a grossly simplified term we can ask, where does this criterion of correctness comes from? This is an important issue since understanding how one is able to grasp the correct meaning of an utterance is likely to be central to any attempt to understand how human language is connected to reality. True enough, this is another issue that makes philosophy of language difficult yet fascinating. 25 N. GARVER, Derrida and Wittgenstein, 150. 26 L. WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Investigations, 38.
13 In order to establish a more solid vantage point whereby we can resolve the subsidiary issues in the problem of meaning, it is always necessary to resolve the all-important issue of the criterion of correctness. But before proceeding, it will have some use to us I think to say something about what reading could mean and then proceed to where the meaning of an utterance arises from which we can see where the criterion of correctness arises as well. Garver noted that looking at the text is just as important as in our reading; certainly no one engaged in teaching others to philosophize can neglect teaching them to pay close attention to text. 27 As I have remarked in another paper of mine entitled On Rousseau, Logocentrism and Text, the later Wittgenstein in the Philosophical Investigations talks of reading as something that which can be associated with being guided or being led by the author to the meaning of the text. This would mean that if I am being guided to the meaning that the author wants me to get into, then precisely, I have to learn how to think in the manner more akin to that of the author. It is basically the central tenet in logocentrism that language has always have fixed definition and that always functions as rampart, scaffolding. As I have argued in the paper, we can see a linguistic dilemma in logocentrism here albeit it provides us with lens: is the meaning of an utterance tied and always fixed? If one wants to be very Platonic in questioning, is the meaning of language eternal and immutable? I like to think that an utterance is always multivalent (as Derrida seems to imply) and language itself is dynamic. As such, meaning of an utterance or gaze in a language can never be fixed. 28 Now, if text is moving in a lot of trajectories and whose multivalency results to relativity of meaning, then how can we get into the correct meaning of the text? Again, another question that confronts us here is where the criterion of correctness emanates? 27 N. GARVER, Derrida and Wittgenstein, 176. 28 This is precisely why Rousseau shows aversion with the literal meaning of text, claiming it as degeneration of the figurative meaning and thereby calling it as corruption of language. However, albeit the relativity of the meaning of text, I think it is not good not to say anything about where arises the meaning of text.
14 In the family of predications that Wittgenstein communicates in the Tractatus, as I have argued also on the paper, he says that in knowing X, consequently, one knows also the not-x; to say what X is is also to say what X is not. What strikes to be most important here is that one to know the significant differences since it is in these differences that the meaning of language arises. This is true with the logical absurdities of metaphor: metaphors are not always clear and they are descriptive in another realm which qualifies them to break linguistic rules, as Aristotle remarked. There are times that we really do understand the meaning of an utterance by contrasting it to something else. In responding to the latter question of to where the criterion of correctness emanates, we can say that the criterion of correctness comes from the public character of language. In a sense, this is antithetical to the notion of Cartesian solipsism wherein clarity and distinctness of ideas is being established by the self alone. This is also a critique of all notions of private language. Patterned from the view of Karl Popper, one can be epistemologically and linguistically justified if and when the meaning of the utterance that he/she knows is something known to and agreed upon by the general public, something that is shared and accessible to others, since correctness cannot be applied to yourself alone. It is in its social character of language that facilitate, if not guarantee the correct understanding of meaning. Here comes now the social character of language in general with which the criterion of correctness emanates. 29 Think for instance of a moment in which we are confronted with an utterance that says I hate you. It is unclear and rather multivalent; it has many trajectories and can always be interpreted in many ways and this shows precisely that the meaning of the utterance is 29 In philosophy of science, Popper gives importance to the public character (of science) and regarded it as that which is thought to facilitate, if not guarantee the development of true (or objective) theories. I see it wise to apply this social character to language from which to me seems where the criterion of correct understanding of expression can be guaranteed. See Popper s The Sociology of Knowledge. Similar view can also be seen in Helen Longino s Scientific Objectivity and the Logics of Science.
15 relative. It is also true that it would mean differently if it is uttered by a close friend and it would mean entirely different if it said by a partner. I think it is correct to say that we understand an utterance by a simple scrutiny with the social context in which it occurs; we understand the meaning of this text by looking in the manner in which it is used. As such, in understanding an utterance, we have to understand the context in which it occurs and the purpose in which it is used. This might bring us to a more complicated form of life which Wittgenstein talks about in the second part of Investigations. But we cannot deny that a simple scrutiny to the social context or purpose of an utterance is indicative of what it means understand it. It is not impossible that the criterion of correctness comes from the features looking to the context or purpose with other contexts or purposes that all occur with the public realm. In the streams of life, (which Wittgenstein is saying) there is a world of differences and system of differences. 30 Understanding how one can understand the meaning of an utterance ultimately depends in the distinctive features on context or purpose at issue within the public sphere. And now having come to the end of my brief and very incomplete review of the problems of philosophy of language, it will be worthwhile to consider, in conclusion, the value of these questions and why there are ought to be brought to the surface. 31 It is the more necessary to consider these questions, in view of the fact that to me, these are the questions that hitherto still seem problematic. The questions should not be considered for the sake of any definite answers, for no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves. Even I might not be able to answer them but I am fascinated by its very uncertainty. Albeit I am unable to explicate the true answer to these questions, understanding these why they are problematic still broadens our thoughts. After 30 N. GARVER, Derrida and Wittgenstein, 121. 31 Patterned from B. RUSSELL, The Problems of Philosophy, 1912, 74.
16 all, my intention is not to give adequate answers to these questions but rather only to put these questions in high resolution. It is indeed that sometimes it is better to have an inquiring mind than a well-informed intellect. Sometimes questions are better than the answers that is precisely what philosophy of language, and philosophy in general want us to recognize. And I believe that such attention to these questions is vital to success in philosophizing about language, and in my own work I pay as much of it as I am able.
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18 Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology: Preliminary Studies for Part II of Philosophical Investigations. 2nd edition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982.. Notebooks: 1914-1916. 2nd edition. Edited by G. von Wright and G. E. M. Anscombe. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979.. On Certainty. Edited by G. H. von Wright and G. E. M. Anscombe. Translated by Denis Paul and G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969.. Philosophical Investigations. 2nd edition. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and Rush Rhees. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958.. Tractatus Logicus-Philosophicus. The Edinburgh Press: Edinburgh Press, 1922.