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7
электронный научный журнал «apriori. ^рия: гуманитарные науки»
www.apriori-journal.ru
№ 6 2015
УДК 101.3
MEANING AND USE François-Igor Pris
candidate of philosophical sciences candidate of physical and mathematical sciences TU Dortmund University, Dortmund (Germany)
author@apriori-journal.ru
Abstract. Wittgenstein's notions of use, meaning and understanding are compared with the corresponding Heidegger's ones. It is concluded that Heidegger's metaphysics makes explicit some of the implicit presuppositions of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. Wittgenstein's notion of a language game is theorized as both natural and normative practice.
Key words: use; meaning; understanding; language game; concept; Dasein; sign; tool; aspect; seeing-as; family resemblance.
СМЫСЛ И УПОТРЕБЛЕНИЕ Прись Игорь Евгеньевич
канд. философских наук канд. физико-математических наук Технический университет Дортмунда, Дортмунд (Германия)
Аннотация. Виттгенштайновские понятия употребления, смысла и понимания сравниваются с соответствующими понятиями Хайдеггера. Устанавливается, что метафизика Хайдеггера делает эксплицитными некоторые имплицитные предпосылки философии позднего Виттген-штайна. Виттгенштайновское понятие языковой игры теоретизируется как естественная нормативная практика.
Ключевые слова: употребление; смысл; понимание; языковая игра; концепт; Дазайн; знак; инструмент; аспект; видеть-как; семейное сходство.
In § 43 of Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein writes: «Die Bedeutung eines Wortes ist sein Gebrauch in der Sprache» (the meaning of a word is its use in the language)1. In particular, that is true for the meaning of the very word 'meaning'.
But what is 'use'? And how to understand 'is'? Shouldn't one understand Wittgenstein's words in the sense that the meaning of a word is associated with its use? Is it possible to introduce the ontology of the uses which ground the meanings?
These questions can be formulated in different terms. According to our reading of Wittgenstein, the terms 'use' and 'language game' are synonymous. For example, a word is used within a language game. A language game is a use of a rule governing it. And a word, or a corresponding concept, is an example of the rule.
A sign is another example of the rule. There is no sign in itself; a sign is inseparable from its established uses. A sign which is being used is a symbol in which the sign is «dissolved», becomes implicit.
A theorization of Wittgenstein's philosophy in terms of natural normative practices - language games and forms of life (that is, sets of language games) - brings it closer to Heidegger's normative pragmatism2. (Both Wittgenstein and Heidegger are also naturalists3.) In particular, for Heidegger, too, the notion of use plays a fundamental role.
However, Jocelyn Benoist contests that the analogy between Wittgenstein's notion of use and Heidegger's one is a deep one4. In this paper, we are returning to this question. We are also trying to understand whether theorization of Wittgenstein's notion of use is possible at all.
1 Wittgenstein, PU, PI.
2 See, for example, Brandom (2002).
3 See, for example, Rouse (2002).
4 Benoist (2010).
If the meaning of a word is its use, then to understand the former is to understand the latter. In a sense, we understand the meaning of a word, if we use it or are able to use it.
Wittgenstein makes a distinction between two meanings of the notion of use and, hence, the notions of meaning and understanding. On the one hand, one can talk about the lexical ambiguity, that is, the uses of different (but similar) concepts; on the other hand, about different uses of one and the same concept.
For example, a word can be ambiguous or its uses can differ significantly (they can be uses of different concepts). Such uses correspond to different meanings of an isolated word or meanings of different concepts.
For example, in § 282 of Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein writes5:
«Ja; wir sagen von Leblosem, es habe Schmerzen: im Spiel mit Puppen z.B. Aber diese Verwendung des Schmerzbegriffs ist eine sekundäre». (We do indeed say of an inanimate thing that it is in pain: when playing with dolls for example. But this use of the concept of pain is a secondary one.)
This «secondary» use of the concept of pain is so different from its usual use that one can even talk about two different concepts of 'pain'.
An isolated word with a fixed meaning, or a corresponding concept, can be used in different contexts. In this way what comes to light are various aspects of its meaning, or meaning-uses.
Wittgenstein, for example, says6:
«Ich identifiziere meine Empfindung freilich nicht durch Kriterien, sondern ich gebrauche den gleichen Ausdruck». (What I do is not, of course, to identify my sensation by criteria: but to repeat an expression.)
And we do repeat (use) an expression in different contexts.
5 See W, PU, PI.
6 W, PU, PI, 290.
Heidegger's work, too, contains two meanings of the notion of use and, respectively, the notions of understanding and meaning (and "Sinn ist ein Existenzial des Daseins" (meaning is an existential of Da-sein))7.
On the one hand, for Heidegger, to understand something is to be able to do something:
«Wir gebrauchen zuweilen in ontischer Rede den Ausdruck ,etwas verstehen' in der Bedeutung von ,einer Sacher verstehen können', ,ihr gewachsen sein', ,etwas können'». (Speaking ontically, we sometimes use the expression «to understand something» to mean «being able to handle a thing», «being up to it», «being able to do something»)8.
This kind of understanding corresponds to the capacity to use a rule/concept (that is, mutatis mutandis, to Wittgenstein's notion of use in the first sense).
Also according to Heidegger9,
«Der Begriff des Sinnes umfaßt das formale Gerüst dessen, was notwendig zu dem gehört, was verstehende Auslegung artikuliert» (the concept of meaning includes the formal framework of what necessarily belongs to what interpretation that understands articulates).
We interpret this «formal framework» as conceptual meaning. This is the meaning of an isolated word (or phrase) or the meaning of a corresponding concept/rule. The full meaning is pragmatic; it is the meaning-use.
On the other hand10,
«Das im Verstehen als Existenzial Gekonnte ist kein Was, sondern das Sein als Existieren». (In understanding as an existential, the thing we are able to do is not a what, but being as existing.)
Heidegger also writes11:
7 Heidegger (2006, SZ, p. 151) ; Heidegger (1996, BT, p. 142).
8 Heidegger (2006, § 31, p. 143) ; Heidegger (1996, BT, p. 134).
9 Heidegger (1967, SZ, p. 151); Heidegger (1996, BT, p. 142).
10 See Heidegger (2006, SZ, § 31, p. 143); Heidegger (1996, BT, § 31, p. 134).
11 Heidegger (2006, § 31, p. 144); Heidegger (1996, p. 135).
«Verstehen ist das existenziale Sein des eigenen Seinkönnens des Daseins selbst, so zwar, daß dieses Sein an ihm selbst das Woran des mit ihm selbst Seins erschließt». (Understanding is the existential being of the own-most potentiality of being of Da-sein in such a way that this being discloses in itself what its very being is about.)
This kind of understanding (and, respectively, meaning) corresponds to the understanding of the use of a rule (Wittgenstein's notion of use in the second sense)12.
So, one can agree with Benoist that, in a sense, for Heidegger as well as for Wittgenstein meaning is use13.
The difference between the two philosophers is that unlike Wittgenstein who therapeutically analyses the notion of meaning in terms of use, Heidegger considers the use as a metaphysical condition of the possibility of meaning as such.
Wittgenstein talks more about the use of language, Heidegger about the use of the world (for him, the primary meaning is the «meaning» of the uses of the world), for example, uses of a hammer or a doorknob. Of course, material practice is different from purely symbolic or linguistic practice. However, the latter can be mixed with the former (there are a lot of examples of Wittgenstein's language games, which contain properly linguistic elements as well as those of the world. Look, for instance, at the example of buying five red apples (§ 1) or the example of building blocks (§ 2) at the very beginning of Philosophical Investigations) or indirectly connected with it. And for both philosophers, there is an intimate connection between the language which is
12
There is an obvious connection between the two notions of use. A rule as a use (of a super-rule) is merely a more general use. That is why, in essence, the two notions of use, and, respectively, the notions of meaning and understanding, are one and the same notion.
13 Benoist (2010).
correctly used and the world14. This diminishes the differences between them15.
Within Jocelyn Benoist's Wittgensteinian contextualist approach16 the existence (or the possibility) of an intimate connection between the language and the world is expressed by means of the condition of adequacy which17
«(...) means that the concept, or whatever represents what is given might find its perfect match in the given, that the gap that there seems to be between the concepts and the individuals that serve as their examples in the traditional conception might be closed, and that real pieces of givenness might really correspond to the characters included in the representation». In his turn, Heidegger writes18:
«Aussage ist kein freischwebendes Verhalten, das von sich aus primär Seiendes überhaupt erschließen könnte, sondern hält sich schon immer auf der Basis des In-der-Welt-seins» (the statement is not an unattached kind of behavior which could of itself primarily disclose beings in general, but always already maintains itself on the basis of being-in-the-world).
Is it possible to establish a more close connection between Wittgenstein and Heidegger? Could one say that Heidegger makes explicit the implicit metaphysical presuppositions of Wittgenstein's philosophy?
3
Both philosophers, Wittgenstein and Heidegger, use the metaphor of a tool/instrument, which is more than simply a metaphor.
As we understand Wittgenstein, his notion of the tool/instrument, taken in a very broad sense, can be compared with the notion of the rule (also taken
14
One can use a hammer in one way or another; and one can speak of its uses. In the former case, one deals directly with the world; in the latter - with the language. But for both Wittgenstein and Heidegger, the epistemological gap between the language and the world is dissolved through a correct use of the language. 1 Notice that Heidegger (like Wittgenstein) also talks about the use of signs which play for him the role of tools (see, for example, § 17 of Being and Time. See also § 4 below. About Wittgenstein's and Heidegger's notions of tool see § 3 below). Wittgenstein, in his turn, considers not only the linguistic, but also the material signs, such, for example, as the road signs (this is also one of Heidegger's examples).
16 Benoist (2010/2011, 2011, 2012).
17 Benoist (2012, p. 412).
18 See Heidegger (2006, SZ, p. 156); Heidegger (1996, BT, p. 146).
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in a very broad sense). The «use» is the use of the «tool»/»instrument», or the rule. That is, the use is a language game. The rule «ist ein Werkzeug des Spieles selbst» (is an instrument of the game itself)19.
In the spirit of his anti-theoretical style, Wittgenstein himself does not introduce the ontology of the uses. He does not pose explicitly a question about the nature of the uses/language games. But is it possible to do this in principle? Isn't Heidegger's Dasein a kind of ontologization of the notion of use, or language game?20
If one takes an instrument in the usual sense of this word, for example, a hammer - example analysed by both philosophers, - it is clear how to understand its uses. It is also clear how to understand its non-standard uses (a hammer can be used to drive nails, but also as an arm).
Wittgenstein analyses the use of a hammer with the help of his notion of family resemblance (see our interpretation below). Herewith, he sees an analogy between the use of a hammer and the use of a word (this analogy, we should notice, transforms into an identity, if one passes from the use of a hammer to an adequate linguistic description of its use).
«Do we use a hammer in two different ways when we hit a nail with it and, on the other hand, drive a peg into a hole? And do we use it in two different ways or in the same way when we drive this peg into this hole and, on the other hand, another peg into another hole? Or should we only call it different uses when in one case we drive something into something and in the other, say, we smash something? Or is this all using the hammer in one way and is it to be called a different way only when we use the hammer as a paper weight? - In which cases are we to say that a word is used in two different ways and in which that it is used in one way? To say that a word is used in two (or more) different ways does in itself not yet give us any idea
19 W, PU, PI, § 54.
20 A „form of life" as a set of interconnected language games can be considered as a language game of a higher order. Hence the question under consideration is also whether Heidegger's Dasein corresponds to Wittgenstein's form of life. For example, John Haugeland writes: "Dasein is neither people nor their being, but rather a way of life shared by the members of some community" (Haugeland 2005, p. 423).
about its use. It only specifies a way of looking at this usage by providing a schema for its description with two (or more) subdivisions. It is all right to say: 'I do two things with this hammer; I drive a nail into this board and one into that board'. But I could also have said: 'I am doing only one thing with this hammer; I am driving a nail into this board and one into that board'»21.
We interpret these words of Wittgenstein in terms of family resemblances of the first and the second orders (this is our distinction). A family resemblance of the first order is a resemblance between the uses of one and the same concept, rule, or «tool»/«instmment» (in a broad sense). This is what in § 2 we called the uses in the second sense. A family resemblance of the second order is a resemblance between the uses of a super-concept. That is, this is a resemblance between the concepts or the uses of a concept and its generalization (this resemblance is more distant than that of the first order). This is what above we called the uses in the first sense.
A family resemblance can be violated in the sense that the corresponding concept can be «cut» into two sub-concepts.
The very choice of a concept (point of view, classification) depends on the context (perspective). However the context of a use (of a concept or a super-concept) is not separated from the use, but is an integral part of it. That is why the uses, or language games, and the family resemblances are not «substantial». They have a normative dimension. The uses (of a rule) can be either correct (justifiable) or not.
To come back to Wittgenstein's example with a hammer, the resemblance between driving a nail and driving another nail is less distant than that between driving a nail and driving a peg, although in some context any resemblance can be violated (and vice versa, in some context the uses which do not resemble each other can be considered as resembling each other).
Heidegger analyses the use of a hammer with the help of his notion of Dasein. The use of a hammer is (the use of) Dasein.
21 Wittgenstein 1958, The Blue Book, p. 58.
Herewith, a tool can be used more or less reflexively, or more or less automatically, however, never purely mechanically, but always consciously. Dasein is the limit case of the automatic use of the tool, when the subject is aware neither of herself nor of the instrument; in this case, consciousness is a purely instinctive experience (or instinctive phenomenality) of the use of the instrument. «(...) Je weniger das Hammerding nur begafft wird, je zugreifender es gebraucht wird (...)» ((...) the less we just stare at the thing called hammer, the more actively we use it (...))22.
Heidegger opposes the use to the «theoretical contemplation». At the same time, for him, the use of the tool/instrument (or things) is not «blind»; it has its own «way of seeing» (Sichtart).
Analogously, we think, Wittgenstein's use of a rule (language game) can be more or less reflexive. The «instinctive» language game (Wittgenstein's «blind» following of a rule) has its own phenomenology, its own way of seeing. One can say about it what Wittgenstein says about sensation: «Sie ist kein Etwas, aber auch nicht ein Nichts» (it is not a something, but not a nothing either!)23.
4
If some things are tools/instruments (in the usual sense of the word), others are not. However, all things can be named «tools» in a broad sense, that is, in the sense that all of them can be used in one way or another.
For Heidegger, the notion of Zeug is a kind of a universal notion of the tool. For Wittgenstein, the rule is not separable from its uses. Likewise, for Heidegger (and for Wittgenstein), the instrument is not separable from its uses. Only in use the tool becomes what it is.
«Ein Zeug ,ist„ strenggenommen nie. Zum Sein von Zeug gehört je immer ein Zeugganzes, darin es dieses Zeug sein kann, das es ist. Zeug ist
22 Heidegger (2006, SZ, § 15, p. 69); Heidegger (BT, 1996, p. 65).
23 W, PU, PI, § 304.
wesenhaft 'etwas, um zu...' . (...) In der Struktur 'Um-zu' liegt eine Verweisung von etwas auf etwas» (strictly speaking, there «is» no such thing as a useful thing. There always belongs to the being of a useful thing a totality of useful things in which this useful thing can be what it is. A useful thing is essentially «something in order to...». (...) The structure of "in order to" contains a reference of something to something»24.
A sign is an example of a tool in a broad sense (see footnote 15 above). A sign which is being used (not isolated), that is, a symbol, shows something and, in this way, refers to what it shows.
Unlike Wittgenstein, Heidegger tries to reveal a general metaphysical structure of referring of the tool/instrument to its use (of the sign to what it shows), which indicates the material localization (foundation) of meaning.
In particular, for him25,
«(...) das Zeichensein für... kann selbst zu einer universalen Beziehungsart formalisiert werden, so daß die Zeichenstruktur selbst einen ontolo-gischen Leitfaden abgibt für eine» Charakteristik «alles Seienden überhaupt» ((...) being-a-sign-for something can itself be formalized to a universal kind of relation so that the sign structure itself gives an ontological guideline for «cha-racterizing» any being whatsoever).
This is what Benoist takes as constituting the principal difference between Wittgenstein's approach and Heidegger's one.
Of course, Wittgenstein did not and would not put the question about the metaphysical foundation of meaning (or understanding) as such. By contrast, Heidegger puts one and, in his own manner, solves this question. However, it seems to me, that the relation between the two philosophers is closer than Benoist assumes it to be.
For example, the claim that all uses (language games) have something in common only apparently contradicts Wittgenstein's philosophy.
24 See Heidegger (2006, SZ, p. 68) ; Heidegger (1996, BT, p. 64).
25 See Heidegger (2006, SZ, p. 77); Heidegger (1996, BT, p. 72).
In particular, one can agree with Jason Bridges, that all games have something in common26. What they all have in common is that all of them are games. We would say that what is common to all of them is not a common (let us say, explicit) property, but a common (in general implicit) rule «game» (Wittgenstein's rule, associated with the word «game»).
Analogously, what all language games have in common is that all of them are normative practices, governed by rules. In this sense, one can talk about the metaphysical foundation of meaning and understanding.
Heidegger's «ontological guideline» is Wittgenstein's rule in use.
5
Opposing Wittgenstein's and Heidegger's approaches, Benoist focuses on Wittgenstein's therapeutic (that is, conceptual) analysis. The latter, however, does not exhaust Wittgenstein's later philosophy. Numerous Wittgenstein's examples, his analysis of the notion of language game and rule-following problem allow us to get an idea of the nature and the structure of the language games (uses) - natural normative practices, - which are both natural and normative (spontaneous) and play the role of the primary data.
The characteristics of the language game remind those of Heidegger's Dasein (see also Robert Brandom's analytical interpretation of Dasein)27. Dasein's essence lies in its existence. The essence of a language game is that it is a use of a rule. For both existentia takes priority over essentia. Both Dasein and language game are mine (die Jemeinigkeit of Dasein). In ordinary life both have the character of averageness (Durchschnittlichkeit). (Heidegger 2006, § 9.) For Heidegger only Dasein can be meaningful or meaningless. For Wittgenstein, meaning is use/language game (the meaninglessness, or the non-sense, is the incorrect application/use of a rule or the absence of any rule at all). And so on.
26 Bridges (2010).
27 Brandom (2002).
For Wittgenstein, a rule or a language game can be projected into new contexts. This gives birth to new language games, or uses, and, respectively, new (genuine) meanings corresponding to new (genuine) existences (beings). A language game has certain real (so, not, for example, simply logical) possibilities of projection into new contexts, of its development and generalization.
For Heidegger, potential possibilities of Dasein, in which it is disclosed, belong to its being. And the things in the world are discovered and understood in accordance with these possibilities and together with the disclosing of the being of Dasein. And when the things are being understood we say that they have meaning.
For Wittgenstein, the meaning is the use (the language game. This is the pragmatic meaning-use) or its rule (the rule of the language game. This is the semantic meaning)28. For Heidegger29, «Sinn ist ein Existenzial des Daseins, nicht eine Eigenschaft, die am Seienden haftet», hinter «ihm liegt oder als» Zwischenreich «irgendwo schwebt». (Meaning is an existential of Da-sein, not a property which is attached to beings, which lies 'behind' them or floats somewhere as a 'realm between'.)
In § 32 Heidegger explains his understanding of the concept of 'meaning' as follows30:
«Verstanden aber ist, streng genommen, nicht der Sinn, sondern das Seiende, bzw. das Sein. Sinn ist das, worin sich Verständlichkeit von etwas hält. Was im verstehenden Erschließen artikulierbar ist, nennen wir Sinn. Der Begriff des Sinnes umfaßt das formale Gerüst dessen, was notwendig zu dem gehört, was verstehende Auslegung artikuliert. Sinn ist das durch Vorhabe, Vorsicht und Vorgriff strukturierte Woraufhin des Entwurfs, aus dem her etwas als etwas verständlich wird» (but strictly speaking, what is understood is not the meaning, but beings, or being. Meaning is that wherein the
28 We do not agree with Benoist that for Wittgenstein the slogan „meaning is use" is only about the use of some words, whereas for Heidegger it is universal.
29 Heidegger 2006, SZ, p.151) ; Heidegger 1996, BT, p. 142).
30 Heidegger (2006, SZ, p. 151) ; Heidegger (1996, BT, p. 142).
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intelligibility of something maintains itself. What can be articulated in disclosure that understands we call meaning. The concept of meaning includes the formal framework of what necessarily belongs to what interpretation that understands articulates. Meaning, structured by fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception, is the upon which of the project in terms of which something becomes intelligible as something).
And what necessarily belongs to what interpretation/explicitation articulates is the rule. This is the meaning in the sense of the meaning of the rule (the semantic meaning). All that what interpretation/explicitation articulates is the meaning in the sense of the use of the rule (the pragmatic meaning).
For both philosophers the reflexive dimension in a broad sense (in particular, the reflection properly speaking, or «interpretation» of the text) is secondary. What is primary is the understanding (and, for Heidegger, the Dasein itself is the understanding of the world by means of its discovering). Interpretation/reflection is explicitation of what is implicit, and not the condition of understanding (that is, it is not pre-determined. Hence, despite its objectivity, it cannot be unique). It is understanding, too, just more explicit.
«Die Ausbildung des Verstehens nennen wir Auslegung. (...) In der Auslegung wird das Verstehen nicht etwas anderes, sondern es selbst». (We shall call the development of understanding interpretation (...). In interpretation understanding does not become something different but rather itself)31.
The difference between explicit and implicit plays a fundamental role for Heidegger as well as for Wittgenstein32.
For Wittgenstein, a new language game is born as a new («spontaneous», «instinctive», or «blind») use of a rule (in part II of PI Wittgenstein says
31 Heidegger (2006, SZ, p. 148); Heidegger (1996, BT, p. 139).
32 Again Wittgenstein mainly talks about the language; Heidegger - about the world. For Heidegger, the explicitation/interpretation itself is a practical use of the world. Some examples of the explicitation/interpretation, or the uses of the world, are „Zubereiten, Zurechtlegen, Instandsetzen, Verbessern, Ergänzen" (preparing, arranging, setting right, improving, rounding out) (Heidegger 2006, SZ, pp. 148-149; Heidegger 1996, BT, p. 139).
that a «new» (spontaneous, «specific») is always a language game)33. However, this „blindness" is not the one which presence in (practical) use of the instrument is rejected by Heidegger; on the contrary, it is the specific way of practical seeing he talks about. For Heidegger the most fundamental Dasein is instinctive.
6
For Wittgenstein, «seeing-as» is a use of a rule; that is, a language game. This is not a specific way of seeing, but an aspect of an image playing the role of a rule (or a super-rule). This rule is implicit in the language game «seeing-as», and it can be used in a different way.
A given image can have different aspects in the sense that in different contexts it can be seen differently. If this is the case, the move from one context to another is accompanied with an aspect change: one is seeing a thing as another one, and vice versa. Herewith, the image as such, being neutral to the choice of a context, plays the role of an explicit rule (or super-rule).
If this image is considered without any connection with its possible uses, it becomes meaningless. A de-contextualized abstract image does not contain an algorithm for its possible future uses.
«The man who says 'surely, these are two different usages' has already decided to use a two-way schema, and what he said expressed this decision»34.
Meaning is use. We interpret Wittgenstein's slogan in a very broad sense admitting, for example, the existence of phenomenal concepts (respectively, phenomenal meaning as (phenomenal) use). In particular, one can talk not only about the propositional meaning of seeing-as («as» is completely explicit) as the corresponding use, but also about the phenomenal meaning of see-ing-as («as» is completely or partially implicit) as the corresponding (phenomenal) use.
33 As we understand Wittgenstein, an authentic reflexive language game is also spontaneous.
34 Wittgenstein 1958, The blue book.
Conversely, use is meaning. However, if we pay attention to the details of a use, it begins to separate from the meaning-use, and the identity «mean-ing / use is use / meaning», initially signifying the dependence of the meaning on the context, its variability (it is impossible to understand the meaning in separation from the use, and vice versa), begins to transform into an equivalence between 'meaning' and 'use'.
An explicit rule/concept or a more or less detailed «synoptic description»35 is the result of an explicitation/interpretation of an instinctive perceptive experience of seeing-as. The explicitation/interpretation transforms the latter into the experience of seeing an object. In another sense, an «interpretation» is another «seeing-as» (that is, «seeing-differently») - another aspect/use of the implicit rule36. The move from one aspect of the rule to another is what is called seeing one thing as another. The as is a family resemblance. It is due to the fact that all aspects/uses of a rule are governed by the same rule.
The description of the language game seeing-as in the rule/uses terms can be considered as a description of its «structure» (in Wittgenstein's philosophy, it is implicit, not explicit). It is analogous to Heidegger's description of the structure of «seeing-as».
«Das» Als «macht die Struktur der Ausdrucklichkeit eines Verstandenen aus; es konstituiert die Auslegung» (the «as» constitutes the structure of the
07
explicitness of what is understood; it constitutes the interpretation)37.
35
It seems to us that Wittgenstein's notion of a synoptic description (vision) corresponds to Heidegger's notion of circumspection (Umsicht). „Die Umsicht entdeckt, das bedeutet, die schon verstandene 'Welt' wird ausgelegt. Das Zuhandene kommt ausdrücklich in die verstehende Sicht" (circumspection discovers, that is, the world which has already been understood is interpreted. What is at hand comes explicitly before sight that understands) (Heidegger 2006, SZ, p. 149; Heidegger 1996, BT, p. 139).
36 It is in this sense that one can interpret Heidegger's "interpretation"/"explicitation" as the development (or projection) of understanding (see the very beginning of § 32 of Sein und Zeit).
For Heidegger, „Das Dasein entwirft als Verstehen sein Sein auf Möglichkeiten. Dieses verstehende Sein zu Möglichkeiten ist selbst durch den Rückschlag dieser als erschlossener in das Dasein ein Seinkönnen" (as understanding Dasein projects its being upon possibilities. This being toward possibilities that understands is itself a potentiality for being because of the way these disclosed possibilities come back to Dasein) (Heidegger 1967, SZ, p. 148; Heidegger 1996, BT, p. 139). (Let us compare this with Wittgenstein's riverbed metaphor which illustrates the notions of the rule and the use of the rule. The rule itself (like the riverbed) changes slowly because its new uses have an effect on it.)
37 Heidegger (2006, SZ, p. 149); Heidegger (1996, BT, p. 140).
Here is what Heidegger writes about the phenomenal experience of
op
seeing-as
«Daß im schlichten Hinsehen die Ausdrücklichkeit eines Aussagens fehlen kann, berechtigt nicht dazu, diesem schlichten Sehen jede artikulierende Auslegung, mithin die Als-struktur abzusprechen. Das schlichte Sehen der nächsten Dinge im Zutun-haben mit... trägt die Auslegungsstruktur so ursprünglich in sich, daß gerade ein gleichsam als-freies Erfassen von etwas einer gewissen Umstellung bedarf. Das Nur-noch-vor-sich-Haben von etwas liegt vor im reinen Anstarren als Nicht-mehr-verstehen. Dieses als-freie Erfassen ist eine Privation des schlicht verstehen den Sehens, nicht ursprünglicher als dieses, sondern abgeleitet aus ihm. Die ontische Unausgesprochenheit des 'als' darf nicht dazu verführen, es als apriorische existenziale Verfassung des Verstehens zu übersehen» (the fact that the ex-plicitness of a statement can be lacking in simple looking, does not justify us in denying every articulate interpretation, and thus the as-structure, to this simple seeing. The simple seeing of things nearest to us in our having to do with ... contains the structure of interpretation so primordially that a grasping of something which is, so to speak, free of the as requires a kind of reorientation. When we just stare at something, our just-having-it-before-us lies before us as a failure to understand it any more. This grasping which is free of the as is a privation of simple seeing, which understands; it is not more primordial than the latter, but derived from it. The ontic inexplicitness of the 'as' must not mislead us into overlooking it as the a priori existential constitution of understanding).
The primary understanding is grasping of an implicit rule, or an instinctive use of the rule. An interpretation is grasping of an explicitation of a use of the rule or another use of the rule. Hence, the «as»-structure. Herewith, the purely phenomenal (visual) experience precedes the linguistically expressed one, containing the «as» explicitly.
38 Heidegger (2006, SZ, p. 149); Heidegger (1996, BT, p. 140).
16
So, our claim is that the analogy between Wittgenstein and Heidegger, in particular, concerning the notion of use, is not superficial. Heidegger makes explicit Wittgenstein's implicit metaphysics. Wittgenstein's pragmatism can be theorized.
It seems that the latter claim is confirmed, for example, by the works of Robert Brandom39. In particular, his analytical pragmatism40 is inspired by the ideas of the later Wittgenstein (although, we think, Brandom's interpretation of Wittgenstein is not always correct41).
39 Brandom (2008, 2009, 2011).
40 Brandom (2008).
41 We share, to some degree, John McDowell's critique of Brandom's interpretation of Wittgenstein (see, for example, McDowell 2002).
Список использованных источников
1. Benoist J. Le mythe de l'usage // Les Etudes philosophiques 3. 2010. № 4. P. 417-432.
2. Benoist J. Concepts. Paris: Les éditions CERF, 2010/2011.
3. Benoist J. Eléments de philosophie réaliste. Paris: Vrin, 2011.
4. Benoist J. Making Ontology Sensitive // Cont. Philos. Rev. (Published online. 04 August 2012). 2012. 45. P. 411-424.
5. Brandom R. Tales of the Mighty Dead. Cambridge: Harvard, 2002.
6. Brandom R. Between Saying and Doing. Oxford UP, 2008.
7. Brandom R. Reason in Philosophy. Animating Ideas. Harvard UP, 2009.
8. Brandom R. Perspectives on Pragmatism. Harvard UP, 2011.
9. Bridges J. Wittgenstein's contextualism // Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. A Critical Guide / ed. by Arif Ahmed. Cambridge UP, 2010.
10. Haugeland J. Reading Brandom Reading Heidegger // Euro. J. of Philosophy. 2005. 13:3. P. 421-428.
11. Heidegger M. Sein und Zeit. Max Niemeyer, Tübingen (SZ), 1967.
12. Heidegger M. Sein und Zeit. Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen (SZ), 2006.
13. Heidegger M. (first edition 1962). Being and Time / tr. by John Macquar-rie, Edward Robinsom. Blackwell (BT), 2001.
14. Heidegger M. Being and Time / tr. By Joan Stambaugh. State University of New York Press (BT), 1996.
15. McDowell J. How not to read Philosophical Investigations: Brandom's Wittgenstein // Wittgenstein and the Future of Philosophy: A Reassessment after 50 Years / eds. R. Haller, K. Puhl. Vienna: Holder, Pichler, Tempsky, 2002. P. 245-256.
16. Rouse J. How Scientific Practices Matter. Chicago: Chicago, 2002.
17. Rouse J. (ed.) John Heugeland, Dasein Disclosed: John Haugeland's Heidegger. Harvard University Press, 2013.
18. Wittgenstein L. Philosophische Untersuchungen. (W, PU), 1953.
19. Wittgenstein L. Philosophical Investigations / tr. by G.E.M. Anscombe. Basil Blackwell (W, PI), 1953/2001.
20. Wittgenstein L. The Blue and Brown Books. Blackwell, 1958.
