Colleen Keating

Box 399

Philosophy / Meek

Spring 2003

 

Wittgenstein on Form(s) of Life and Language Games

Introduction

Donald K. Barry, representing a relativist epistemological approach to Wittgenstein, argues for the existence of multiple forms of life, against Newton Garver’s argument for a unitary form of life which is comprised of human existence itself.  I will survey both arguments, discussing what I believe to be flaws in both approaches, and concluding that while Barry’s reading of Wittgenstein is, on the whole, the better one, he (like Garver) makes some unnecessary assumptions about the nature of language in order to bolster his theory.  Both men take a similar approach in clarifying the relationship between form of life (Lebensform) and language-game (Sprachspiel).  The literature regarding these two terms is vast, and as Barry points out, usually follows a standard format, that of citing the five instances of Lebensform in the Philosophical Investigations.[1]  I will follow this practice, discussing the interpretations of both Garver and Barry following each citation.

            Before beginning, it is useful to cite the conclusions of both men and to discuss briefly their implications.  Newton Garver is committed to a form of life as “containing the possible events and alterations that could occur in that life, with the consequence that differences in form of life would not be superficial or contingent differences but essential and unbridgeable ones.”[2]  In his understanding, the forms of life to which Wittgenstein refers are either imaginary ones (as in PI §19) or “those of natural history: bovine, piscine, canine, reptilian, human, feline, leonine, etc.”[3] Garver argues that what is basic to our form of life is being able to speak.[4]  This human form of life relates to language-games as one to many.[5]  That is, within humanity, there are multiple language-games, each of which necessarily presupposes the speaker being human.  Because of our shared form of life, humanity, “no language-game can be shown to be absolutely alien to a person, even though some are in fact alien to each of us.”[6]

            It is this—the possibility of arguing for relativism based on Wittgenstein’s form of life—that Barry says is necessary.  Rather than a one to many relationship between form of life and language-games, he interprets Wittgenstein as describing something akin to a one to one relationship, albeit not one of identity.  Because he understands Wittgenstein as exploring an indefinite number of forms of life which determine language-games (i.e. words in use), he can assert that “perhaps there are parts of the language (language-games) which are different enough from each other that a reasonable threshold of ‘affinity’ is not reached.”[7]  This is not sufficient to prove relativism, a fact which Barry notes several times, but it is sufficient to attempt an argument for it using Wittgenstein.  The stakes are high.  While one could argue from Wittgenstein to an epistemological relativism even if Garver is correct, Barry recognizes that “without at least the possibility of multiple forms of life the notion is of no use to relativism.  If there is only one form of life then the idea of using it as the context in which different, perhaps conflicting forms of knowledge and truth are grounded obviously falls flat.”[8]

 

It is easy to imagine a language consisting only of orders and reports in a battle. –Or a language consisting only of questions and expressions for answering yes and no.  And innumerable others.—And to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.  §19[9]

 

            As Garver (and others) have tried to do what Wittgenstein wants us to do, that is, imagine this language, they run into difficulty.  It is hard to imagine because its speakers’ activities would be so limited as to not be recognizable as human.  Garver understands Wittgenstein’s point, therefore, to be that “a language cannot be conceived just in terms of words and syntax but only as used.”[10]  What we are running up against, he says, is a conflict between the form of life we normally imagine when we think of speakers, that is, humanity, and some unknown form of life which is not human.

            Additionally, Garver uses what he considers an “elementary logical point” to refute the assumption that the natural plural of “to imagine a language is to imagine a form of life” must be “to imagine languages is to imagine forms of life.”  He says that this “goes beyond what is in the text or entailed by it.”[11]  Logically, he is correct.  Without knowing the nature of what we are making plural and the nature of their relationship, we cannot assert that making one term plural necessarily causes the other to be plural.  Grammatically, however, as Barry points out, the plural reading of languages and forms of life is more natural.[12]

            While Barry does concede that it is possible to answer statement 18, “it is not easy to imagine such languages, not really,” he suggests this would mean “Wittgenstein was expressing himself rather badly—a legitimate but nevertheless hazardous conclusion.”[13]  His alternative reading is that “it is ‘easy to imagine’ innumerable limited languages because they are not supposed to be whole languages but sub-languages whose distinctive feature is that they are (somehow) intimately connected with form or forms of life.”[14]  This connects form of life and language-game together in a way that makes the former a “gloss on language-games.”[15]

            In one sense, the passage immediately preceding §19 supports Barry’s interpretation.  Wittgenstein answers the concern that these languages consist only of orders, telling the reader, “do not be troubled.”  He says in §18, “if you want to say that this shews them to be incomplete, ask yourself whether our language is complete;—whether it was so before the symbolism of chemistry and the notation of the infinitesimal calculus were incorporated in it.”  Wittgenstein is aware that these languages are not “whole” languages, at least not in one sense.  Still, the problem is deeper than this.  Throughout the Philosophical Investigations, he probes our sense of what “whole” and “incomplete.”  In this particular instance, he follows his question by comparing calculus and chemistry to suburbs of the ancient city of language.  And, he prompts, “how many houses or streets does it take before a town begins to be a town?”  In §47-49, as he considers a language-game made up of colored squares, he rejects the philosophical question, “is the visual image of this tree composite, and what are its component parts?” by answering, “that depends on what you understand by ‘composite.’”  He goes on to extend this rejection to the ‘component parts’ of the colored square language-game. 

With these illustrations in mind, Barry’s explanation that the language of the builders is a sub-language appears too simple.  The relationship between “whole” language and its “parts” is more subtle in Wittgenstein.  As well, there are no textual clues that would lend themselves to this reading of the passage.  Contra Garver, however, he is right in seeing an intimate connection between different forms of life and language-games, for reasons we will now examine.

Here the term ‘language-game’ is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life. §23

 

            This passage, containing Wittgenstein’s famous list of language-games, is very similar to the first.  Neither author spends much time expanding their argument here.  In fact Garver merely asserts, as he does with §19, that the so-called “natural plural” is really not natural, according to the rules of logic.  However, his reading again runs into grammatical difficulties.  Barry points out that “form of life” is in apposition to “activity.”[16]  Form of life is connected to the activity from which language-games come, or for which they are created.  Going back to §18, we can see that this coheres with Wittgenstein’s picture of language as an ancient city with suburbs appearing as new forms of life—such as, perhaps, would require chemistry and infinitesimal calculus—arise.

            A picture like this, in which forms of life determine language-games, is exactly opposed to what Garver would suggest.  He views language-games as determining the form of life, by the very fact that they all are carried out by speaking people.  Yes, he agrees, a language cannot be imagined except “as integrated into the activities of some sort of living being.”[17]  But his expanding of Wittgenstein’s point in §19 proceeds as follows:

1.      I cannot conceive of language just as syntax, but only as part of activity.

2.      I cannot understand the activity without understanding the life of the speaker.

3.      I cannot understand the life of the speaker without understanding his general form of life.

4.      All speakers have the same form of life because they are human.

5.      The capacity to use language determines the form of life.

6.      Therefore language-games presuppose one form of life, that is, being human.[18]

Within his argument he assumes what he is trying to prove—that there is one general form of life and it consists of being human.  His motivation, as we saw earlier and will now see more clearly, is to guard Wittgenstein from relativist interpretation.  His method, however, is suspect.

So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?—It is what human beings say that is true and false; and they agree in the language they use.  That is not agreement in opinions but in form of life. §241

 

            This passage, in which Wittgenstein discusses the fact that agreement can “only take place within language, against the background of agreement over the application of concepts”, is one which Barry concedes might, “on the face of it”, seem to support Garver’s thesis that the form of life is humanity.[19]  With the emphasis upon human beings and their actions in life, it could be construed as supporting a “natural” form of life.  In fact, this is what Garver argues—that this passage has in view “characteristically human activities” which are common to all of humanity, regardless of cultural difference.[20] 

            At this point in the discussion, what is at stake becomes even more apparent.  The impossibility of agreement about truth and falsity, of justification, is the crux of relativistic arguments.  Citing Wittgenstein §217, relativists argue that within different forms of life, once our spade is turned, and we have reached the end of justifications regarding the rules we follow, we merely say, “This is simply what I do.”[21]  Garver and others respond that this bedrock lies within the realm of common humanity—whether biological or sociological, or some indefinable combination.  If, however, there are forms of life, because we could potentially reach the end of justifications for our behavior and our language, it is impossible to posit any “universal truth(s)” to which all human beings can agree.

            As truth and falsity are functions of language, part of a language-game related to a form of life, Barry can infer that “the sorts of things that may be true or false are only those things which may be expressed in language.”[22]  It is no use to talk about something being true or false when we cannot articulate it with language—these categories would not apply in that instance.  Further, because of the connection between language-game and form of life (which Garver himself asserts, though in a reverse causal relationship), the assertion of truth or falsity is connected intimately to the speaker’s form of life.[23]

Can only those hope who can talk?  Only those who have mastered the use of a language.  That is to say, the phenomena of hope are modes of this complicated form of life.  (If a concept refers to the character of human handwriting, it has no application to beings that do not write).  p148  (See 583)

 

            Here, Wittgenstein is connecting human activity, i.e. hoping, to the use of language.  Garver takes the sentence “Only those who have mastered the use of a language” to support his thesis that language-speaking, as an essential human trait, is the form of life to which Wittgenstein refers.  He believes this passage is the clearest discussion of the relationship between form of life and language, and that it is impossible for Wittgenstein to have written this way if he assumed multiple forms of life.  What makes this single form of life “complicated”, according to Garver, is the possibility for many “modes” of use.[24]  The grammatical possibilities arising out of human existence reveal what its “essence” is.  Garver refers to §371 and Wittgenstein’s famous statement, “Essence is expressed by grammar.”  Going back to the first passage, §19, Garver argues that Wittgenstein’s “indefensible” remark about the facility of imagining the language of only orders and reports is made even more impossible when we take the “hoping” statement into consideration.  In attempting to imagine the language of the builders, we are left without the ability to imagine the possibilities of their form of life, constricted as it is to an inhuman definition.

            Barry, while he agrees that Garver’s interpretation of the relationship between hope and form(s) of life is the most natural one, disagrees that the reference to “a language” is to the human capacity to speak.[25]  After all, as we discussed earlier, the term “language” in Wittgenstein can refer not only to German, French, and languages that we normally think of, but to “fragments” of language such as calculus and chemistry.  Garver’s assumption, then, may not be warranted.  If Wittgenstein is thinking of a narrower understanding of language, then he “ would be saying that hope is a part of the form of life correlated with particular language groups which happen to include hoping among their conceptual resources.”[26]  This argument, while at first look, is counter-intuitive (what language group does not have the concept of “hope”?), coheres with Wittgenstein’s parenthetical comment.  Without the cultural/behavioral framework for writing, the concept of handwriting makes no sense.  Similarly, it is implied, with hoping.  The question is whether the framework of hoping is, as well, cultural/behavioral, as Wittgenstein appears to be arguing.

            A comparison with the natural world is helpful here, as the passage above follows this remark:

One can imagine an animal angry, frightened, unhappy, happy, startled.  But hopeful?  And why not?

            A dog believes his master is at the door.  But can he also believe his master will come the day after tomorrow?—And what can he not do here?—How do I do it?—How am I supposed to answer this?

 

Garver’s explanation of the sequence is that Wittgenstein is emphasizing the “characteristics which distinguish dogs from humans”, that is, “bits of natural history.”[27]  As we saw earlier, Garver characterizes humanity by their ability to use language.  Barry, on the other hand, agrees with the argument of Nicolas Gier, who denies that form of life is based on “language per se” but on “social and cultural biases” which animals, whether they could speak or not, do not share with humans.[28]  For support, Gier recalls

§250, in which Wittgenstein remarks that dogs cannot simulate pain because the “surroundings which are necessary for this behavior to be real simulation are missing.”[29]  Especially in light of the preceding comment that “lying is a language-game that needs to be learned like any other one”, this statement does seem to imply that dogs do not have the cultural framework (or form of life?) for a deceptive language-game to make sense.

            It is not doubt true that you could not calculate with certain sorts of paper and ink, if that is, they were subjected to certain queer changes—but still the fact that they changed could in turn only be got from memory and comparison with other means of calculation.  And how are these tested in their turn?

            What has to be accepted, the given, is—so one could say—forms of life.  p192

 

            This passage departs from the others, connecting the Lebensformen (here, the instance is plural) with “the given.”  Because of the plural form, this citation is problematic for Garver.  Recognizing this, he remarks that, because Wittgenstein is using the subjunctive and the phrase “one could say”, he is presenting the idea “tentatively rather than with conviction.”[30]  In support of the assertion that Wittgenstein’s use of the plural is tentative, he points out that the context in which the term appears parallels that of §239-41, published and revised two years earlier.  Because the later citation was not revised for publication, he argues “it is reasonable to conjecture that he finally found the singular form somehow preferable.”  Therefore, he concludes, it “is not a key passage for understanding the meaning of Lebensform in the Investigations.”[31]  The only other interpretation of the passage which Garver gives is that it “is full of problems” because it “presupposes that we already know what a Lebensform is, which we do not.”[32]  Garver attempts no further comment on the passage, which is disappointing; Barry is correct that his argument is “particularly unconvincing.”[33]

            Barry argues that the term “the given” refers to the basic forms of judgment which we cannot usefully doubt (because to in order to doubt one form we must rely on something else which may not be reliable, either).  He would paraphrase the sentence as “there are certain forms which may not usefully be doubted in our lives, let us call them forms of life.”[34]  He concedes that this does not answer whether these basic judgments are individual forms of life, or part of a “totality which is the form of life.”[35]  This passage, then, which is so problematic for Garver, could in the end support his position, if the rest of his argumentation were valid.

Summary and Conclusion

            At the end of his chapter on form of life, Barry concludes:

It was found that it is reasonable to speak of multiple human forms of life which have their own basic or ‘bedrock’ levels of justification.  In response to the objection that this would exclude any meaningful commerce between forms of life it was argued that such an argument assumes that a form of life is a kind of closed subjectivity and that there is no reason to suppose that this is the case.  If form of life is the bedrock of justification then justification dries up where it will, not just where human ‘subjectivity’ (whatever that may be) becomes universal.[36]

           

            Barry’s interpretation of Wittgenstein, as we have seen, pays close attention to the connection between form of life and language game, ultimately concluding that forms of life are defined by language games, as the expression of those games within human culture and behavior.  In contrast, Garver understands the singular, but complicated, form of life to be a presupposition for the resultant various language games of human behavior, which is language-driven.  He concludes:

...Wittgenstein’s use of the term is deliberately and inextricably vague; for the present purposes the vagueness is an asset rather than a liability.  Nor does it matter if forms of behavior are sometimes called ‘forms of life’…It does not even matter if…the idea of “form of life” is more to be scorned than praised.  The principal point is that, whatever exactly a “form of life” may be, and acknowledging that alternative forms of life may be imagined, a good reading of the texts results from the assumption that there is, as a very general fact of natural history, a single form of life common to all humankind.[37]

 

            On the whole, Barry’s reading of Wittgenstein does greater justice to the entirety of his picture of language.  In the sections surrounding §241, Wittgenstein discusses rule-following, which is the basis for communication within language-games.  He says that rules are “part of the framework on which the working of our language is based” (§240).  On Garver’s understanding, this rule-making framework is part of the working of human language; Barry, in contrast, would understand rule-making as part of different cultures.  In §639, Wittgenstein makes the suggestive statement, “One would like to say that an opinion develops.  But there is a mistake in this too.”  This remark comes within a discussion of intention and the justifiability of interpreting intention from certain antecedents.  Wittgenstein is evaluating the language-game of predicting human behavior (§632) based on antecedents which, although we may be able to identify, we cannot entirely justify our connections.  He emphasizes the “training” (§630) which is required for this language-game and its variants.  So what is the mistake in the statement that an opinion develops?  Applying Barry’s understanding of Wittgenstein works best here—because we agree in language, in forms of life, opinions as entities in themselves do not develop, but culturally trained behaviors do, resulting in the justification for these opinions.  In §486, Wittgenstein, after describing how he infers the reality of a chair from sense impressions, asks, “Was I justified in drawing these consequences?  What is called a justification here?—How is the word “justification” used?  Describe language games.  From these you will also be able to see the importance of being justified” (§486).  It seems correct to say with Barry, then, that justification at its bedrock level is found within the activity of language in human life.

            However, other sections of Wittgenstein seem to support Garver’s description of forms of life.  In particular, §492 connects language with the laws of nature: “To invent language could mean to invent an instrument for a particular purpose on the basis of the laws of nature (or consistently with them)…”  Barry’s interpretation also can find support here as the statement continues, “…but it also has the other sense, analogous to that in which we speak of the invention of a game.”  Wittgenstein, in yet another suggestive remark, concludes “Here I am stating something about the grammar of the word ‘language’, by connecting it with the grammar of the word ‘invent.’”

            While Garver may be overstating the connection between human nature and forms of life in Wittgenstein, Barry’s earlier assertion that “language” to Wittgenstein should not necessarily be understood as human languages, but as pieces of language, seems like a misreading in light of §494: “I want to say: It is primarily the apparatus of our ordinary language, of our word-language, that we call language; and then other things by analogy or comparability with this.”  Barry’s reading of forms of life and their connection with language-games, while more nuanced than Garver’s assumption of natural history as the human form of life, is too atomistic, unnecessarily dividing human language into incommunicable segments with their own bedrock justification.  If, as he says, it is at the level of form of life where justification “dries up”,[38] then it is essential, as both Barry and Garver affirm within their arguments, to uncover how broad forms of life are and how or if communication can take place between them.  This is beyond the scope of this paper, but recognizing that a multiplicity of forms of life does not require relativism (as proponents of relativism concede) is a first step. 

               

Bibliography

 

Barry, Donald K.  Forms of Life and Following Rules: A Wittgensteinian Defence of Relativism.  Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996.

 

Garver, Newton.  This Complicated Form of Life: Essays on Wittgenstein.  Chicago: Open Court, 1994.

 

Wittgenstein, Ludwig.  Philosophical Investigations.  Transl. G.E.M. Anscombe.  Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.