Wittgenstein as a Philosopher of Technology: Tool Use, Forms of Life, Technique, and a Transcendental Argument

Reviewed by: Language and Learning: Philosophy of Language in the Hellenistic Age Laura Grams Dorothea Frede and Brad Inwood , editors. Language and Learning: Philosophy of Language in the Hellenistic Age. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xi + 353. Cloth, $90.00. This collection of papers on Hellenistic philosophy of language resulted from the ninth Symposium Hellenisticum, held in Hamburg in July 2001. It makes an important contribution to the secondary literature on this topic and will be valuable to anyone who studies Hellenistic philosophy. Because some chapters discuss broader issues in the philosophy of language or connect Hellenistic ideas about language to other periods, readers interested in the philosophy of language or ancient philosophy in general should also find this volume worthwhile. Although Frede and Inwood observe that the philosophy of language had not developed into a fully independent area of study during the Hellenistic period, a set of common concerns eventually emerged around such issues as the origins of language or the relations between language and thought. Discussions of these problems became the basis of later philosophical investigation in the Middle Ages and beyond. The ancients studied language in connection with a range of philosophical problems in epistemology, physics, and logic, and did not sever their inquiry from questions of linguistics and grammar. The papers in this collection likewise illuminate the relationship between theories of language and other philosophical issues. The first four chapters examine Stoic and Epicurean ideas about the origins of language, making clear that the question first raised in Plato's Cratylus of whether language is natural or conventional is far more nuanced than a simple dichotomy. James Allen argues that the Stoics' naturalism depends on understanding the origins of language in relation to the development of human rationality. Names satisfy a natural standard of correctness insofar as they result from the successful exercise of reason; thus, the imposition or thesis of names in early human history does not imply a conventional origin. A. A. Long makes the case for an even stronger connection between Stoic naturalism and the Cratylus, as he argues that the Stoics developed each of three distinct naturalist theses (formal, etymological, and phonetic) presented in that dialogue. He concludes with a detailed analysis of the Stoic theory of semantics he finds in chapter 5 of Augustine's De dialectica. These accounts of the Stoics are balanced by two chapters on Epicurean theory. Alexander Verlinsky outlines Epicurus' evolutionist view of the origin of language. In the first stage, words arise as spontaneous utterances which are already articulated and naturally related to their objects, while ambiguities are resolved in the second stage. Catherine Atherton focuses on Lucretius' account, raising challenges for the naturalist view that may also stir the interest of more recent proponents. She argues that the superior capacity for articulation possessed by humans does not adequately account for the emergence of intentional communication, which arises not from uncontrolled vocalizations but from a deliberate attempt to convey meaning. The remainder of the volume addresses various aspects of the use of language. Ineke Sluiter examines the Cynics' rhetoric and concludes that the expression of Cynicism within a certain social context ultimately undermines its anti-conventional message. Charles Brittain explores the use of language as it connects thought to reality. He explains how the development of definitions of concept terms allowed a theory of common sense concerning the relation between concepts and reality to emerge, though he argues that the common sense theory did not arise until Cicero had modified the Stoic view of common conceptions. David Blank examines arguments between the analogist and anomalist views of inflection-derivation (flexion) found in Book 8 of Varro's De lingua latina. He argues persuasively that Crates of Mallos was neither the source of this book nor an anomalist, but had been presented as one of a competing pair of analogy theorists by Varro's empiricist source. Chapters 8 and 9 focus on logical implications of the use of language. Susanne Bobzien argues that the Stoics resolved fallacies of ambiguity, not by examining the intentions of the speaker, but by appealing to the context for clarification. Because the ambiguous term will [End Page 153] have...

Wittgenstein puts forward two different theories of language in his philosophical career. This paper discusses the transformation from early Wittgenstein's theory to later Wittgensteins theory, and analyzes and evaluates the latter. Early Wittgenstein still adopted the western traditional philosophys mode of thinking , based his theory on ontology and languages image theory, and constructed an ideal artificial language to describe facts in the form of proposition. However, such theories and mode of thinking faced many difficulties and challenges, and the necessity and rationality of constructing an ideal language are questioned. Later Wittgenstein realized the countless ways in which language is used in daily life, and believed that each use of language in life should be regarded as a "language game". Given that, the proposition discussed in the earlier theory is just one of the countless "language games". Therefore, Wittgensteins early theory seems to oversimplify the use of language. Later Wittgenstein believed that in order to explore the meaning of language, we should not search for the essence from a metaphysical perspective, but should search for the form of human life and the daily use of language. This is the core of notion meaning is usage . The endless debate of philosophers for thousands of years, therefore, results from the fact that philosophers have been trapped in the dilemma of language and have vainly tried to overcome the upper limit of their mind. Later Wittgenstein thus classify the use of language into misuse and normal use, and reminded human to always reflect on their use of language. Although his theory seems to disobey the traditional mode of thinking of Western philosophy, it should be regarded as a great and valuable idea.

In this paper the distinctive characteristics of the Italian philosophy of language (IPL) are delineated. It is not only Italian philosophers who have constructed such a philosophical tradition. The Italian philosophy of language has a long history (a tradition which probably began with Dante); it is based on a very broad and comprehensive concept regarding the nature of human language. In respect to other traditions of philosophy of language (mainly Anglo-American analytic philosophy, hermeneutics and semiotics, and critical theory), the Italian tradition considers language to be at the same time a natural and a social phenomenon. From this point of view, the basic theoretical source of IPL is an 'anthropological stance'. But it is worth stressing that in the IPL, the conception of human biology includes ideas from anthropology, sociology, psychology (and perhaps psychoanalysis as well). Therefore when an IPL philosopher speaks of 'language' s/he refers to this broad and stratified field of phenomena. Exactly in this sense, IPL connects itself to the very peculiar Italian political and intellectual history. Following Wittgenstein, the IPL slogan could be this one: to study a language means to study a form of life, that is, at the same time a biological entity (a life) and a sociohistorical one (a form).

This essay examines the importance of some aspects of Wittgenstein's post-Tractatus work in the realm of discussions on the nature of logic. The first part considers a relationship between certain conceptions of language and certain positions on the nature of logical laws and logical pluralism. Supposing the rejection of mentalism in the field of meaning leads to a rejection of psychologism, it presents some alternatives different from psychologism, based on non mentalistic theories of meaning. One is the Platonistic Fregean approach to language and logic, the other is Carnap's formalist view on both topics. The second part concentrates on Wittgenstein's non mentalistic and non Platonistic proposals about language and his defense of the logical pluralism proposed by psychologists. It compares two periods on Wittgenstein's work after Tractatus -the periods of ‘calculus conception’ and ‘languange games conception’- and it shows how characteristic notions of Wittgenstein's later conception of language, like ‘use’, ‘language games’, and ‘forms of life’, work on the characterization of logic and specially on the kind of logical pluralism that the author seems to defend in his last period. In doing so, this essay offers an approach to some of the author's considerations about contradictions and the possibility of the existence of a calculus that includes them. This approach emphasizes on the idea of applicability (or use of a linguistic expression) introduced by the author in some of his last works, and in some examples of functional contradictions that can help to understand and complement that idea.

Meaning and use is one of the most notable accounts of Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Philosophy of language. This idea paves a way to consider the form of life in determining and understanding the meaning of a words or language. In ordinary use of language, the meaning of a word is to be understood by knowing its use (see Hartnack 1962, 69). Thus, the meaning of a word is its use in the language-game. Social Media has become indispensable in quotidian existence of every individual in 21st century particular for the post-millennial generation. This occurrence generated to the fact that social media has become the form of life of them. A form of life that yielded new meaning to some words due the agreement of the linguistic community within the language-game. This work is dedicated to explain the misunderstanding occurrences between the past generation and post-millennial generation especially when using words in social media and their attitudes. Likewise, this paper will explicate the meaning-use phenomenon on language in the social media platforms that everyone is conventionally encountering at.

This chapter compares six different possible approaches to the philosophy of engineering. One of these, somewhat less well developed than others, is the linguistic approach to the philosophy of engineering. The possibility of a linguistic philosophy of engineering is considered in some detail in order to advance a case for this approach. The conclusion, however, argues for a pluralistic pursuit of the philosophy of engineering, although one that includes linguistic philosophy. What follows is philosophically incomplete. One feature of this incompleteness is that the coauthors do not fully agree about what should be included – or even what is included. This chapter is thus a provisional presentation of what has emerged from an extended discussion that often has the character of a disagreement. In addition, the chapter is methodologically naive, accepting as given certain meta-philosophical distinctions that are in fact controversial – and failing to include all that might be considered. In the current context of the relative underdevelopment of the philosophy of engineering we nevertheless hope that our effort may encourage others to consider a greater range of possibilities than might initially be imagined. To anticipate our conclusion, we want to argue for the pursuit of pluralism in the philosophy of engineering – as a way to transform engineering itself. The goal is not just to understand engineering but to change it. But in order to advance such a thesis it will be necessary to indicate more about the kind of pluralism we have in mind.

本文旨在探究在阿甘本的著作中，詩學藝術如何作為生命－形式（form-of-life）之典範（paradigm），指引生命的「恆餘」對抗主權「暴力」的可能。本文分成六部分：頭兩部分先說明阿甘本著作中，「生命」與「餘」之間的兩種不同關連，勾勒其所謂生命－形式、典範等概念，並解釋生命－形式如何也是某種「典範生命」（paradigmatic life），因此可以成為某種生命恆餘。再來，則回顧阿甘本對亞里斯多德（Aristotle）與但丁（Dante Alighieri）的閱讀，以釐清西方思想中能力（potentiality）與作為（activity）兩者與生命政治問題的關係，並藉此提出某種得以呈現、保存餘力的生命－形式運作。第四部分回到阿甘本對於現代性美學與語言能力的討論，說明詩學對於生命－形式實踐的重要性。接著，本文聚焦詩學經驗如何對生命產生質變，發展出某種詩學公共生命，抗衡主權的暴力機制。最後，本文將略談阿甘本論述中烏托邦傾向的問題，說明其政治構想其實是種「非－非烏托邦」（non-non-utopian）。

This paper studies the concept of form of life as central to ordinary language philosophy (as understood in Wittgenstein’s, Austin’s and Stanley Cavell’s work): philosophy of our language as spoken; pronounced by a human voice within a form of life. Such an approach to Wittgenstein’s later philosophy shifts the question of the common use of language – central to Wittgenstein’s Investigations – to the definition of the subject as voice, and to the reinvention of subjectivity in language. The voice is both a subjective and common expression: it is what makes it possible for my individual voice, or claim, to become shared and for our forms of life to be intertwined with a lifeform.

The theoretical gap with the action actually performed is one of the fundamental problems of anthropology and the theory of action. To understand it, it is worth turning to the antitheoretical and anti-formalist pathos of the "late" Wittgenstein, which opposes all attempts to describe action and language (understood as activity) in terms of rules and abstract structures. A critical analysis of the assumptions of intellectualism borrowed from simple common sense (for example, about following a rule) allows us to show that the logical analysis of action and language deals not with a real language, but with an artificially created abstraction. The article attempts to show the positive significance of this criticism. The main conclusion of the study is that a thinker is able to adequately understand action and language if he also makes his own scientific attitude to them the subject of his analysis. Only in this way can we hope to transform Wittgenstein's antitheoretical pathos into the basis of a constructive study of action and language. The tools of scientific analysis are often much more rigorous and logical than its subject. Wittgenstein's analysis of language games and the life form behind them is an attempt to avoid such too strict and too logical methods and constructions in anthropology, philosophy of action and philosophy of language. The novelty of the research lies in the application of Wittgenstein's ideas to clarify the weaknesses and difficulties faced by the humanities (linguistics, anthropology) in the XX century and today, as well as to find a way out of these difficulties. The relevance of the work is connected with the great interest of modern logicians and philosophers in Wittgenstein's work, with the urgent need to identify new ways of developing philosophical anthropology.

Introduction This study aimed to operationalize language dominance based on relative language proficiency across vocabulary and morphosyntax and to classify children into dominant and balanced groups. These language dominance classifications were compared with those based on relative language experience, which is characterized by two child-external factors: relative language exposure and use in Farsi. This study further explored child-internal and -external factors contributing to mixed language dominance, defined as a divergence in dominance classification across linguistic domains. Methods Thirty-two Farsi-German bilingual children (age range: 3.10–8.9 years, mean = 6.9 years, SD = 16.8), who speak Farsi as their heritage language (HL) in Germany, participated in the study. All children were tested on vocabulary and morphosyntax in both Farsi and German using the LITMUS-Crosslinguistic Lexical Tasks (CLTs) and Sentence Repetition Tasks (SRTs). Children's relative language experience was documented based on parental ratings. Results The findings indicated that the 0.5 SD-based classification is a reliable method for identifying language dominance. In contrast, relative language experience in the HL only partially predicted Farsi-dominant status when compared to German-dominant and balanced children across domains. Mixed dominance was observed in 45% of the children and was influenced by relative language use in the HL and length of exposure (LoE) to German. Discussion Overall, this study highlighted that using a 0.5 SD threshold provides a more consistent approach to determining relative language proficiency and that mixed dominance is a characteristic feature of bilingualism. Recognizing this feature and its contributing factors may help reduce the risk of misdiagnosing developmental language disorder (DLD) in bilingual children.

i. It is often, and sometimes accurately, said that first thoughts are best thoughts. In this paper I shall urge that the first thoughts of Peter Hacker' and (especially) Gordon Baker2 on the interpretation of Wittgenstein are indeed best thoughts, to be preferred to some of their more recent thoughts.3 I do not expect the argument here to be very original. Rather I shall try to use the tools provided by Baker and Hacker to attack their own more recent work. My chosen ground will be the notion of a criterion. I shall urge that this notion only makes sense within a certain view of meaning and understanding; and thus it cannot be given a use which is not '. . . arcane or theory-laden' (B & H (II), p. 7). To some extent, my target is a straw one, for Baker and Hacker admit that they have '. . . drawn a blank cheque upon volume 2 . . .' (B & H (II), p. 7) in their discussion both of 'criterion' and of 'grammar'. But enough of their view is apparent; and more could be drawn out although it is not strictly necessary to do so. It should be noted that, in a certain important way, I am not seeking to defend a traditional interpretation of Wittgenstein. Baker and Hacker rightly offer an interpretation quite different from those standardly given. But this is only because their early work failed to establish itself as the way to read Wittgenstein-at least, failed to do so for most Wittgenstein scholars. Baker and Hacker have taught me, through their early work, to have little sympathy for some views ascribed to Wittgenstein, and have provided a powerful way of interpreting his work in a unified, coherent fashion: namely, in terms of an articulation of a non-standard picture of meaning and understanding. I merely wish to argue that they must continue in that vein, and not take it back in their (justified) impatience with 'philosophical semantics'. But I.will not here seek to argue that Wittgenstein could not be interpreted in their new vein, merely that he should not. It is common ground to both parties that Wittgenstein's work is of central philosophical importance. So I shall content myself with arguing that the new interpretation renders Wittgenstein's work incoherent; a conclusion which I hope Baker and Hacker cannot accept.

This is a new English translation of “De l’ordinaire au quotidien,” originally published in French in 2023. In paragraph 116 of Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein seems to outline the fundamental goal of his philosophy: “What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.” The everyday use to which Wittgenstein constantly refers is far from self-evident: it is just as elusive and indeterminate as our forms of life. The project of Philosophical Investigations is not to replace disqualified logic with the study of use, finding therein a new foundation or new convictions, even purely practical ones. The study of everyday language use presents new problems, arduous in a different way from those of logical analysis, as J. L. Austin and the Oxford School later showed—the same school that, in coining the term Ordinary language philosophy, formalized the Ordinary rather than the Everyday as a central concept. The present article considers several reasons for returning to the concept of the Everyday, Wittgenstein’s point of departure, in the philosophy of language.

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophical writing is characterized by two main books, both acknowledged as major philosophical breakthroughs of the twentieth century: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922), and Philosophical Investigations (published posthumously in 1953). Between these two texts, there is a shift in Wittgenstein’s thought on the structure and use of language, which is made evident by his decision to forego the idea of ‘pictorial form’ in favor of ‘life form.’ This transition, which allowed for a new understanding of the relation between the ethical and aesthetic aspects of Wittgenstein’s thought, greatly influenced Paul Engelmann’s understanding of architectural space. Following Wittgenstein’s writing, Engelmann claims that the concepts of ‘the beautiful’ and ‘the good’ are closely related, resulting in a distinct connection between what is beautiful and the concept of ‘form of life.’ In light of the influence that Wittgenstein’s writing had on Engelmann’s architecture, this paper examines the relation between architecture and language as ‘form of life,’ a connection which is suggested in Engelmann’s lecture ‘How to Build in the Kibbutz?’ in which Engelmann uses the term ‘form of life’ in reference to Wittgenstein’s writing on language.

“How may I help you?” Politeness in computer-mediated and face-to-face library reference transactions

Today, when we are surrounded by intelligent digital devices – computers, tablets and mobile phones, we expect communication with these devices in a natural language. Moreover, such communication needs to be in our native language. We also expect that language technologies will not only assist us in everyday tasks, but also will help to overcome problems caused by language barriers. This keynote will focus on language resources and tools that facilitate use of languages of three Baltic countries – Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian -in digital means (computers, tablets, mobile phones), allow to minimize language barriers, facilitate social inclusion, and support more natural human-computer interaction, thus making digital services more “human”. Current situation, technological challenges and most important achievements in language technologies that help to narrow technological gap, facilitates use of natural language for interaction between computer and human, and minimize threat of digital extinction will be presented.