The aim of ordinary propositions

3.2.3 3.2.3

3.2.3 TTThe aim of ordinary propositionThe aim of ordinary propositionhe aim of ordinary propositionssss he aim of ordinary proposition

So far we have discussed two main problems for the method of verification and its implications. One problem is that the strict method of verification cannot be carried out in the case of propositions about the past. A further problem is that the rigidity of this method turns out to be at odds more generally with the variety of functions or roles that ordinary propositions can have. These discussions have strengthened the doubt about whether phenomenological language is a viable approach to clarifying language in its diversity. The discussion so far leaves room for an attempt at salvaging this method of analysis at least for a particular case,

111

namely, for propositions which have been taken to simply account for the content of experience.

Wittgenstein’s continuing reflections on the notion of hypothesis also constituted a questioning of this attempt at salvaging phenomenological language. What is doubtful in the end is not only whether the method of verification can be carried out in any particular case of language use. It remains equally doubtful whether, in the process of the elimination of the hypothetical element of ordinary language, phenomenological language manages to do full justice to the sense of ordinary propositions, or as Wittgenstein puts it, to their value or aim.

Wittgenstein’s conception of hypothesis develops in two interrelated directions. On the one hand, it informs the idea of verification as means of clarification and the need for the construction of a phenomenological language. On the other hand, it starts by accounting for the allegedly misleading workings of presentations through ordinary language but becomes the background against which Wittgenstein reflects on what is essential to presentations.

At one point Wittgenstein writes the following concerning the hypothetical character of presentations in general:

Now it appears however that the presentation in general loses its value when one leaves the hypothetical element in it to fall apart, because then the proposition does not point to the future anymore but is, as it were, self-satisfied and thus valueless.162

This reflection questions both the view on ordinary language inherited from “Some Remarks on Logical Form” and the privileged status given to phenomenological language. The view developed in subsequent manuscripts from the 1929 paper was that the hypothetical character of ordinary language was precisely what made it unable to account accurately for experience. The hypothetical element was to be removed in order that the sense of ordinary propositions become transparent and their relation to reality become clear. But

112

this approach turns out to not be able to achieve its clarificatory goal. An analysis by phenomenological language would lose sight of a significant aspect of ordinary propositions. While analyzing them into descriptive accounts of the content of experience, phenomenological language would lose sight of ordinary propositions pointing to the future. A proposition analyzed in this way, however, now turns out to become inert. Wittgenstein reflects further on the way in which ordinary propositions point to the future in terms of their aim or the expectations they raise:

The sense of a proposition is its aim [Zweck].

If I say to someone “There is a chair here”, then I want to evoke to him certain expectations and ways of acting.163

The expectations that an ordinary proposition raises are indicative of the aim of its use. In this light, an ordinary proposition like “There is a chair here” cannot be taken anymore to be merely a descriptive account of the content of experience in a particular situation. Its analysis by phenomenological language is thus not able to fully capture the sense of such a proposition, insofar as the use of the proposition evokes expectations and instils a way of acting upon a situation. So the method of verification turns out to be too rigid a method of analysis not only when it comes to propositions about the past, but even for propositions in the present.

The reflection feeds a further worry. The worry is whether this means of analysis of ordinary propositions does not result in its turn in inert statements. While the aim of ordinary propositions is recognized as an essential aspect of their sense, the question of the very importance of phenomenological language becomes pressing:

But of what importance [Wichtigkeit] can then this description of the present phenomenon be? It seems as if the occupation with this question

113

was directly childish and I got myself into a dead-end. And yet it is a meaningful dead-end, for it attracts everything to go in there, as if it was there to look for the ultimate solution of the philosophical problem.164

This diagnosis of the importance of the search for a phenomenological language is rather discouraging. If this search was meaningful at all, it would have in the end merely the broad meaning of a lesson to be learned or of an approach to be avoided. The motivation for the search is a misleading hope that a phenomenological language could serve as a universal method of clarification. As if the goal of shedding light on the workings of any description or presentation and of dissolving any philosophical confusion could be reached at once by way of an ultimate solution. But the search for such an ultimate means of analysis is recognized as leading to a dead-end. The idea of phenomenological language leads to a dead-end not simply because Wittgenstein would lose interest in pursuing its method. According to the final section of this chapter, Wittgenstein’s search for a phenomenological language ultimately comes to a dead-end, as he becomes critical of the very project of providing an immediate description of immediate experience.

3.3 3.3 3.3

3.3 The critique of the immediate description of immediate experienceThe critique of the immediate description of immediate experienceThe critique of the immediate description of immediate experienceThe critique of the immediate description of immediate experience

The present section starts by exposing the background of one of Wittgenstein’s most powerful critiques of phenomenological language. This background amounts to the distinction between two notions of time, namely physical time and memory time (subsection 3.3.1). Then I will discuss Wittgenstein’s concern that phenomenological language can ultimately be a hypothesis-free description only if it does not unfold by way of signs in physical time. But such an immediate description would in the end amount to an inarticulate expression (subsection 3.3.2). This critique of the notion of immediate description will be followed by a critique of the way in which the field of description is delimited for