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18 18  >It is interesting to compare the multiplicity of the tools in language and of the ways they are used, the multiplicity of kinds of word and sentence, with what logicians have said about the structure of language (Including [L. Wittgenstein])."
19 19  >(LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Investigations )
20 20  
21 -== Theory: [[Language Games>>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_game_(philosophy)]] ==
22 -
23 -The "language-game" approach to theorizing language, popularized and named by Ludwig Wittgenstein, imagines language as a range of practices driven by [[shared social understandings>>doc:.Performativity.WebHome]]: we play "games" like telling jokes, asking and answering questions, saying "present" in turn at the beginning of a class, etc. A complexity of this form of theory is that it adamantly refuses to say decisively what the "games" in "language-games" are (refuses to presuppose some ontology in which to theorize).
24 -
25 -This perspective, where the meaning of language is determined by its use, and where no single way of using language (eg.[[ writing encyclopedia entries>>doc:Main.WebHome]]) is necessarily more important than all the others. This goes against the approach of much other work on linguistics and the philosophy of language at the time in England and the US, which imagined that assertions - making true or false factual statements - were the fundamental [[building-blocks>>doc:.Materiality - Language Kept Happening.WebHome]] of all language. In logic and philosophy, a second-order theory, loosely, is one that talks about other kinds of theory: for example "metaethics" discusses what kinds of ethical theories may be formulated, how they can be discussed, and what makes them "ethics," rather than debating what is good and what is bad. So the language-games approach fundamentally rejects the idea that there is a "second-order theory" for language: it is not "safe" to require the use of some variant of formal logic (even a fancy modern one like modal logic or kripke-semantics) to model the meaning of logic - this is a particularly striking claim from the older Wittgenstein because his own earlier work, as a logical positivist and as a student of Bertrand Russel's, involved trying to formulate such second order theories. There is also something necessarily self-undermining about any book making such a claim: on the one hand it's arguing that there is no second-order language; on the other hand, it's using a particular kind of language to make claims about what all of language is.
26 -
27 -Another important aspect of the "language game" approach is that[[ it theorizes by example>>doc:.Ordinary Language Philosophy - In These Common Words.WebHome]]: to say what language-games can do, Wittgenstein argues by producing various example language games. Perhaps even poets could make language-games, to show something about what language can be...
28 -
29 29  == Language Game: [[The Builders Language (a Cartridge) >>http://titleduntitled.name/facades/builderlang.html]] ==
30 30  
31 31  Wittgenstein's first example of a language game is implemented as a Pico-8 cartridge. Pico-8 is a fantasy console for making tiny games, with an 8x8 sprite editor, and room for 35 KB of content. The game puts you in the position of an assistant B, bringing building-stones to a builder A. The 'builders game' passage goes,
... ... @@ -35,3 +35,10 @@
35 35  >~-~-Conceive this as a complete primitive language.
36 36  
37 37  The finished version of the game will also include slabs and beams.
30 +
31 +(% class="wikigeneratedid" %)
32 +== Theory: [[Language Games>>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_game_(philosophy)]] ==
33 +
34 +The "language-game" approach to theorizing language, popularized and named by Ludwig Wittgenstein, imagines language as a range of practices driven by [[shared social understandings>>doc:.Performativity.WebHome]]: we play "games" like telling jokes, asking and answering questions, saying "present" in turn at the beginning of a class, etc. A complexity of this form of theory is that it adamantly refuses to say decisively what the "games" in "language-games" are (refuses to presuppose some ontology in which to theorize).
35 +
36 +This perspective, where the meaning of language is determined by its use, and where no single way of using language (eg.[[ writing encyclopedia entries>>doc:Main.WebHome]]) is necessarily more important than all the others. This goes against the approach of much other work on linguistics and the philosophy of language at the time in England and the US, which imagined that assertions - making true or false factual statements - were the fundamental [[building-blocks>>doc:.Materiality - Language Kept Happening.WebHome]] of all language. In logic and philosophy, a second-order theory, loosely, is one that talks about other kinds of theory: for example "metaethics" discusses what kinds of ethical theories may be formulated, how they can be discussed, and what makes them "ethics," rather than debating what is good and what is bad. So the language-games approach fundamentally rejects the idea that there is a "second-order theory" for language: it is not "safe" to require the use of some variant of formal logic (even a fancy modern one like modal logic or kripke-semantics) to model the meaning of logic - this is a particularly striking claim from the older Wittgenstein because his own earlier work, as a logical positivist and as a student of Bertrand Russel's, involved trying to formulate such second order theories. There is also something necessarily self-undermining about any book making such a claim: on the one hand it's arguing that there is no second-order language; on the other hand, it's using a particular kind of language to make claims about what all of language is.Another important aspect of the "language game" approach is that[[ it theorizes by example>>doc:.Ordinary Language Philosophy - In These Common Words.WebHome]]: to say what language-games can do, Wittgenstein argues by producing various example language games. Perhaps even poets could make language-games, to show something about what language can be...

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