The role of imagination, rule‐operations, and atmosphere in Wittgenstein's language‐games

Abstract

Wittgenstein argues that understanding a language consists of mastery of techniques for playing language‐games rather than some sort of mental state or episode such as mental imagery, rule invocation, or atmosphere investing our experience of words. His elimination of the three mentalistic alternatives presupposes the peculiar distinction, or its virtual lack, between speaker and listener presupposed by his positive claim, instead of establishing the latter. This paper vindicates the episodic nature of certain types of understanding, and gives each of his three alternatives a suitably qualified role therein, by drawing the distinctions in a less biassed way.