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Transcript of Wittgenstein's Pragmatism
Wittgenstein's PragmatismAuthor(s): Robin HaackSource: American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1982), pp. 163-171Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of North American PhilosophicalPublicationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20013953Accessed: 01/04/2010 22:29
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American Philosophical Quarterly
Volume 19, Number 2, April 1982
V. WITTGENSTEIN'S PRAGMATISM ROBIN HAACK
So I am trying to say something that sounds like
pragmatism. Here I am being thwarted by a kind of
Weltanschauung.
(Wittgenstein, On Certainty. Section 422)
It will be seen...that pragmatism is not a
Weltanschauung but is rather a method of reflection
having for its purpose to render ideas clear.
(Peirce, Collected Papers, 5.13)
TT HOUGH Wittgenstein would never have -** described himself as a pragmatist, those
familiar with the work of Peirce, James, Dewey, Mead, Schiller and Ramsey can hardly fail to see
many pragmatist strands in his later work. And
linking Wittgenstein with the pragmatist tradition
gives a useful perspective from which to approach both the interpretation and the evaluation of his work.
So far as I know, there is no evidence that Witt?
genstein read Peirce, Dewey, or Mead. He did,
however, read James extensively. According to
Anscombe1, Wittgenstein read James'
Psychology: The Briefer Course, and according to
A. C. Jackson2 he also read James' Principles of
Psychology, which was, for some time, the only
philosophical work to be found on his
bookshelves. (The former work became known as
"Jimmy," to distinguish it from the sturdier paren? tal "James.") Drury recalls3 that Wittgenstein also
read and greatly admired The Varieties of
Religious Experience, sympathizing, no doubt, with its rejection of an essence of religion and its
suggestion that religious experiences share family resemblances. And Britton reports4 that Wittgen? stein was familiar with F. C. S. Schiller's Mind
paper, "The value of formal logic;"5 surprisingly,
Wittgenstein described this paper?in which
Schiller defends naturalistic views of meaning and
logical necessity?as philosophical "nonsense." (It
happens sometimes that initial disagreements
become, on perhaps subconscious reflection,
agreements.)
Wittgenstein also conversed with Russell and
Ramsey, both of whom were acquainted with
some of Peirce's work. In his last years Ramsey
was, as he remarked himself,6 moving in the direc?
tion of pragmatism; it is highly likely that Witt?
genstein came to know about Peirce's views on
meaning, his distinction between types and
tokens, his definition of belief as a habit of action
and his theory of inquiry from his discussions with
Ramsey.7
The concern of the present paper, however, is
not so much the known and likely direct influence
of the pragmatists, as the marked similarities be?
tween Wittgenstein's later works and some
characteristically pragmatist views.8 If anything of
generality can be said about Wittgenstein's later
philosophy, it is that it is naturalistic. The
pragmatists were also naturalists. There are strik?
ing similarities between what Wittgenstein says and what the pragmatists say about meaning, behaviour and justification. But there is also an
important difference: Witgenstein's naturalism is
descriptive, whereas the pragmatists' naturalism is
explanatory. To entertain a thoroughly ex?
travagant thought: we could, at least initially, view Wittgenstein's naturalism as standing to the
pragmatists' as Kepler's descriptive work on
planetory motion stands to Newton's explanatory
theory of gravitation. Section 1 characterizes naturalism and
distinguishes its descriptive and explanatory varieties. Section 2 compares Wittgenstein's and
163
164 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
the pragmatists' naturalism about meaning, trac?
ing first their agreement on the intimate connec?
tion between meaning and behavior and the
dependence of meaning on context and then the
contrast between the pragmatists' stress on the role
of meaning in inquiry with Wittgenstein's purely
descriptive account. This contrast is the basis for
the argument, in Section 3, that the difficulties in
Wittgenstein's naturalistic account of meaning derive precisely from its purely descriptive
character, and could be avoided by an explanatory naturalism such as pragmatism offers.
I. Naturalism.
The pragmatists are naturalists in much the
same way that Hume was. Hume's naturalism has
two main components. First, Hume attempted to
use the methods of the natural sciences in the
sciences of logic, morals, criticism and politics.
(More specifically, Hume tried to explain the
observed facts of human nature in terms of a small
number of associationist principles, in much the
same way as Newton explained the behavior of
bodies in terms of principles of motion and
gravitation.) Second, Hume held that the sciences of man must begin with descriptions of human
nature (natural beliefs, associations, propensities,
sympathies, passions, emotions, customs).9 The
pragmatists reiterate, and indeed extend, both of
these naturalistic themes. They contend that scien?
tific methods are the only reliable methods for
ascertaining the truth on any subject; and they also stress the importance of natural behavior
(which, unlike Hume, they try to give a biological and evolutionary base) and emphasize the propen?
sity to agreement as an indicator of truth or war?
ranted assertibility. The pragmatists are also
naturalists in a third sense, the sense used by
Quine when he characterizes naturalism as the
"abandonment of the goal of a first philosophy,"10 that is, as the rejection of the idea that philosophy
must supply the foundations of science.
Now Wittgenstein is a naturalist in the second
and third of these senses. He stresses the impor
tance of agreement in judgements and in
behavioral and linguistic conventions; he rejects the idea of philosophy as providing a foundation
for all the sciences, and he does not think of his
methods as "supra-scientific." But Wittgenstein is not a naturalist in the first sense, at least, not if the
goal of using scientific methods is explanation.
(Early on, he was tempted by the view of Hertz
and others that science itself is descriptive rather
than explanatory.) For Wittgenstein does not
think it is the proper business of philosophy to
propound general theses or explanatory theories.
It is no accident that O.K. Bouwsma, who was
strongly influenced by Wittgenstein, explicitly at?
tacks11 the pragmatists' view that scientific
methods are the only reliable methods for any in?
quiry. In what follows I shall be comparing and
contrasting Wittgenstein's with the pragmatists' naturalism with respect to their view about mean?
ing. Naturalism is also a pivotal notion around
which comparisons of other, related topics such as
mind and behavior, justification, and theory ver?
sus practice could also be made; but these are out?
side the scope of the present paper.
II. Meaning.
2.1 Meaning and behavior.
Both Wittgenstein and the pragmatists associate
meaning closely with behavior.
For Wittgenstein the meaning of an expression is constrained by its roles in language games; and
language games are linguistic activities. For
Peirce, the meaning of a concept is the conceivable
effects which the truth of sentences involving that
concept would have on our behavior; for James, the meaning of a sentence is the conceivable dif?
ferences it would make to our behavior to add
either that sentence or its negation to our stock of
beliefs. Wittgenstein's remark that at least for a
large number of cases the meaning of an expres? sion is its use in a language has close affinities with
Dewey's observation that "Meaning...is primarily a property of behavior."12
A distinction can be made here between relating
WITTGENSTEIN'S PRAGMATISM 165
meaning to particular behavior in particular con?
texts, and relating it to general types of behavior,
types which may be rule governed or institu?
tionalized. This distinction is associated with
another: that between regarding language basical?
ly in terms of speech episodes, and regarding it as
a system or structure. Dewey regards both aspects
as equally important. Hardwick sees, here, a dif?
ference between Dewey and Wittgenstein, who, he
holds, "is only interested in language considered as
speech activity."13 But this is not correct. Witt?
genstein thinks of rules for the use of expressions as general practices ?a linguistic rule cannot be
applied only once ?and stresses that there must be
agreement in judgments and behavior if language
is to serve as a means of communication. It is true,
of course, that Wittgenstein did not view language as an abstract system dissociated from linguistic
activity; for him, although a language is a set of
rules, the rules are general practices in the use of
the language. But Dewey didn't think of natural
languages as abstract systems of rules, either. Wit?
tgenstein and Dewey would agree that the syntax
and semantics of natural languages cannot be
understood in abstraction from the pragmatic
dimension, their use.
2.2 Meaning and context.
Another striking similarity is that both Witt?
genstein and Dewey emphasize that the context, verbal and non-verbal, of an expression can con?
tribute to its meaning. In Wittgenstein's work, this theme emerges in
his discussions of language games. A language
game is some activity involving the use of
language, and language games differ from one
another with respect to the amount and kind of
language which is used, and the purpose for which
it is used. If we look at Wittgenstein's examples of
language games:
Giving orders and obeying them
Describing the appearance of an object, or giv?
ing its measurements
Constructing an object from a description (a
drawing)
Reporting an event
Speculating about an event
Forming and testing a hypothesis
Presenting the results of an experiment in tables
and diagrams
Making up a story; and reading it
Play-acting
Singing catches
Guessing riddles
Making a joke and telling it
Solving a problem in practical arithmetic
Translating from one language into another
Asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying14
we can see that while some language games, e.g.
giving orders, use only a small fragment of a
language, others, e.g., translating from one
language to another, use a large fragment or even
the whole of a language. Because language games
differ in the breadth of language they encompass,
there is no general answer to the question of the
size of context which determines meaning.
Dewey also stresses the influence of context on
meaning. And what Dewey means by a
"context" ?"a body of beliefs and institutions and
practices allied to them"15 ?seems close to what
Wittgenstein means by a "form of life," the broad
range of activities against the background of
which linguistic behavior takes place. In both Dewey and Wittgenstein the thesis of
the dependence of meaning on context is intended to combat both narrowly atomistic, and com?
prehensively holistic, theories of meaning.
Wittgenstein's discussions of language games
emphasize the following contextualist themes:
(1) There are many different kinds of use of words
and sentences; and our language may change in
unforeseen ways, with new uses coming into being and old ones dropping out. What holds for one
language game need not hold for the language as a
whole.
(2)Essentialism ?in the form of the thesis that the
meaning of a predicate can be specified by condi?
tions which are, as a matter of logical necessity,
necessary and sufficient for its application ?is the
result of an illicit extrapolation from the language
game of logic and mathematics to language as a
166 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
whole.16 (Though actually Wittgenstein doubts
that the essentialist picture is correct even for logic and mathematics.)
(3) From the context supplied by a language game we can determine the characteristic use of an ex?
pression in that context ?its "logical grammar."
(E.g., in the slab-beam language game terms
which are usually descriptive have an imperative
use.) Philosophical perplexity arises when we fail
to notice that an expression which has a
characteristic use in one context may not have this
use when imported into another context. An ex?
ample would be thinking of time as something which flows, like a river. Philosophical
"problems" arise from linguistic misuses, and can
be dissolved by a description which returns the err?
ing expression to its "home" language game.
(4) The contextualist model is incompatible with
the idea that there is a single core concept, truth
conditions, for instance, in terms of which the
meaning of all the sentences of the language can
be explained. There is no one language-game,
assertion, for instance, in terms of which all other
language games can be understood.
(5) Wittgenstein does not reject the distinction be?
tween conceptual and empirical truth altogether. But Wittgenstein's conceptual truths are not
timelessly true, nor are they independent of em?
pirical truths. The conceptual truths are those
revision of which would radically change the
language game in which they figure. For example, in the language game of physics, if "F = ma" were
rejected in favour of a (nontrivial) alternative, this
would entail widespread changes in Newton's
theory, possibly transforming it out of all recogni? tion. Insofar as the notion of sense is bound up
with the notion of conceptual truth, Wittgenstein is relativizing sense to a context.
(6) If a group of people's language activities are
radically different from ours this may make it
hard for us to interpret their activities. There are
extreme cases where the language activities and the
beliefs associated with them are so different from
ours that communication may fail. (Wittgenstein does not maintain as a general thesis that people who differ in their language games or forms of life
can never communicate. To interpret him in this
way would be to ignore his strictures on
philosophers' "craving for generality.")
(7) For Wittgenstein the justification of the use of an expression is internal to a linguistic practice or
context. Wittgenstein says very little about exter?
nal justification, the justification of the practices themselves. (This will be a main theme of the
critical discussion in Section 3.) Dummett fears that the fourth of these contex?
tualist themes requires that one reject the notion
of sense altogether:
...Wittgenstein may be taken...as rejecting the
whole idea that there is any one key concept in
the theory of meaning: the meaning of each sentence is to be explained by a direct
characterization of all the different features of its use; there is no uniform means of deriving all
the other features from any one of them. Such an account would have no use for any distinc?
tion between sense and force; while it could ad?
mit some rough classification of sentences, or
particular utterances of sentences, according to
the kinds of linguistic act affected by means of
them, it could cheerfully regard the totality of
such types of linguistic act as unsurveyable ?as
Wittgenstein does ?and would not need to in?
voke the classification of linguistic acts in its ac?
counts of the meanings of particular sentences.17
The sense of an expression consists of those
aspects of its meaning which contribute to its truth
or falsity; its force, of those aspects which deter?
mine its characteristic use or function. But the
contextualist model can quite well accommodate
this distinction, in the case of some if not all kinds
of linguistic act. (It will not, however, take asser?
tive utterance types as the primary vehicle of sense
in all contexts.) Dummett is also mistaken in
thinking that the contextualist model will "not
need to invoke the classification of linguistic acts
in its account of the meanings of particular
sentences"; in fact, the contextualist stresses just such a classification in order to explain how an
understanding of the different kinds of linguistic act appropriate to certain contexts can contribute
WITTGENSTEIN'S PRAGMATISM 167
to the meanings of expressions used in those con?
texts.
Dummett also doubts that a contextualist
theory can "do justice to the way in which the
meanings of sentences are determined by the
meanings of the words which compose them."18
But this fear, too, is ill-founded. The productivity or constructivity of language can be manifested in
a range of contexts; often, all the restriction to a
particular context will do is to cut down the range of relevant vocabulary. Consider, e.g., the
language game of weather prediction: the
meteorologist will know the meaning of a stock of
expressions from climatology, geography,
physics, chemistry and mathematics, and from
these and some less esoteric lexical items, plus
grammatical rules, he can generate an indefinite
number of sentences germane to the language
game. For a language to be productive it is not
necessary for it to be wholly generated from a base
of a single lexical and/or grammatical type. And
in cases in which a language game is performed
predominantly with one type of grammatical con?
struction, e.g., imperatives, it is possible to con?
struct principles for generating new constructions
of that type using instructions in that mood.
Dummett suggests another interpretation which
represents Wittgenstein, not as rejecting the idea
that there is a single key concept in the theory of
meaning, but as taking that concept "not to
lie....on the side of the grounds for an utterance,
as do the concepts of truth, verification, confir?
mation, etc., but rather, on that of its cons??
quences."19 But I do not believe that Wittgenstein saw himself as propounding a consequentialist or
any other theory of meaning. He certainly never
held Dummett's absurd view that the construction
of a theory of meaning is a necessary prerequisite to progress in philosophy. True, he thought that
mistakes about meaning led to philosophical
perplexity; but it is one thing to appeal to
piecemeal judgements about meaning in order to
diagnose philosophical errors, and quite another
to hold that the whole of philosophy depends on
the theory of meaning.
Wittgenstein has also been criticized for not giv
ing a more precise characterization of a linguistic context or language game. He would have replied that language games just do not have a precise characterization, though there are, of course, various family resemblances among them. He
would stress that language games are delineated by means of the purposes of users of the language. And here we can see an important difference from
Dewey; for unlike Dewey, who gives pre-eminence to problem-solving activity,20 Wittgenstein does not give any particular activity a special place. 2.3 Meaning and Inquiry.
Although Dewey contends that "the topic of
meaning is certainly one of the most important in
contemporary philosophical discussion" the study
of meaning serves a subsidiary role in his
philosophy. It is important only insofar as it aids
the solving of particular problems and the
understanding of general features of scientific and
philosophical inquiry. We see this in a preliminary way from Dewey's discussion of meaning and essence. Essences, for Dewey, are not the timeless
references of expressions, but the "codified"
meanings of expressions as contrasted with their
"proximate" meanings, their use on particular oc?
casions; and they may change. This accords with
Wittgenstein's rejection of Platonic essences and
his recognition of meaning change when he speaks of "the fluctuation of scientific definitions" and
comments that "what today counts as an observed concomitant of a phenomenon will tomorrow be
used to define it."21
But from here the differences emerge. Reflec?
tive thought for Dewey is fundamentally con?
cerned with the resolution of problems. Problem
solving is analyzed in the following stages:
(a) Suggestion Initial doubts and possible solutions
(b) Problem The problem is articulated
(c) Hypothesis The choice of a means of resolution
(d) Reasoning Thinking about how to test the
hypothesis
(e) Testing If the tests are successful the prob?
lem is resolved.
An indeterminate situation or state of doubt has
been transformed into a determinate situation or
state of belief. If the tests are not successful, one
168 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
should return to stage (c) and choose another
hypothesis, or check the formulation of the prob?
lem, the reasoning, or the testing. The doubt-belief theory of inquiry, in both
Peirce and Dewey, has a biological and evolu?
tionary base. The irritation of doubt is distressing, and motivates persisting attempts to relieve it by
attaining settled opinion or belief. These se?
quences of feeling and activity are built into man's
biological constitution.
How are Dewey's views about meaning related
to his theory of inquiry? For Dewey, propositions are proposals, hypotheses about what would settle
inquiry or would be a means to its settlement.
They are the content of sentences intermediate in
inquiry. Propositions are distinguished from
judgments, which, like legal judgments, state the
verdict or the settled outcome of an inquiry. Ideas
are meanings which are either elements in proposi? tions (hypotheses, conjectures) or are these
hypotheses or conjectures themselves. Ideas are
genuine only if they are "tools with which to
search for material to solve a problem."22 If an in?
quiry terminates in a settled outcome or judgment a predicate initially conjectured to be true of a
subject is then affirmed of that subject. It is in this
way that meanings are changed and extended.
Wittgenstein has nothing like Dewey's theory of
inquiry. He does suggest that scientific discoveries
may yield new criteria for the application of, and
hence extensions of the meanings of, old terms;
Dewey's theory would supply a scheme of stages
leading to the discovery of new criteria. And Witt?
genstein does stress our natural psychological
reactions; Dewey's theory would supply a
biological basis for this psychological naturalism.
Rorty23 has noted the similarities between
Peirce's view that the meaning of a concept is the
sum of its possible effects upon conduct, and
Wittgenstein's dictum "Don't look for the mean?
ing, look for the use." But when he says that the
two views reciprocally support one another he ig? nores the differences I have been discussing. Peirce's theory of meaning, like Dewey's, is firmly
placed in the context of his theory of inquiry, which is closely allied with scientific method. This
alliance is particularly evident from Peirce's
association of the pragmatic maxim with abduc?
tion, the logic of scientific explanation. It is true
that there are passages in Peirce which sound
closer to Wittgenstein, e.g.:
I also want to say that after all pragmatism shows no real problems. It only shows that sup?
posed problems are not real problems.24
That it was Peirce's intention to use the pragmatic maxim to eradicate psuedo-problems is clear. But
it is clear that the maxim was also intended to pave the way for the solution of genuine problems by the scientific method. In the passage quoted Peirce
is guilty of overstatement, because another func?
tion of his pragmatic maxim is to clarify the mean?
ing of "intellectual" (theoretical) concepts. Witt?
genstein, by contrast, is not offering a theory of
meaning at all (he is in effect saying: forget mean?
ing, direct your attention to use); he has no theory of inquiry; and he does not favour the use of
scientific method in philosophy. Wittgenstein's remarks about meaning are not intended as ex?
planations in any substantial sense.
III. Critical Evaluation.
There are, I shall argue, two areas of difficulty in Wittgenstein's philosophy which can be seen to
arise because his naturalism is descriptive rather
than, like the pragmatists's, explanatory. 3.1 Meaning change and "leaving everything as it
is."
Wittgenstein's discussion of meaning change is
not easy to reconcile with his therapeutic view of
philosophy.
Wittgenstein holds:
(1) Philosophy leaves everything as it is. The
philosopher does not contribute to scientific in?
quiry and discover,
but also:
(2) (In a large class of cases) the meaning of a
word is its use in the language.
Now it seems to follow from (2) that:
WITTGENSTEIN'S PRAGMATISM 169
(3) Changes in the use of words (in behavior) lead to changes in meaning, and changes in
meaning lead to changes in use (in behavior).
So:
(4) Insofar as the philosopher is concerned with
meaning, and if he accepts (2), he should con?
cern himself with the changing use of terms in
the evolution of scientific theories.
And given that:
(5) Many changes of meaning are intimately related to substantial changes, that is, to
changes in what is regarded as fact, evidence, reasonable theory, etc., and conversely
it follows that:
(6) The changes of meaning with which the
philosopher should concern himself may not
'leave everything as it is'.
No such tension arises for the pragmatists, since
their naturalism rejects (1). But it may be suggested that there is no genuine
problem for Wittgenstein, either, since he would
not accept (5). Certainly there are passages that
suggest a rejection of (5):
Philosophy may in no way interfere with the ac?
tual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.
The problems are solved, not by giving new in?
formation, but by arranging what we have
always known.25
This suggests that rearrangements of what we
claim to know do not constitute or yield new facts
to know. But surely the presentation of a stock of
information can affect the meaning of the content
that is presented. And, anyway, I think that accep? tance of (5) is the dominant view in Wittgenstein's later work, in view of remarks like:
Nothing is commoner than for the meaning of
an expression to oscillate, for the phenomenon to be regarded sometimes as a symptom, sometimes as a criterion, of a state of affairs.26
His remarks about the close relation between
perception and interpretation also accord with (5). But the tension might still be avoided if Witt
genstein were interpreted as maintaining (5) but at
the same time holding that the philosopher's in?
terest in meaning is only to record the uses and
changes of use of expressions, not to contribute to
those changes. (Compare the contrast between
descriptive and revisionary metaphysics.) Does
Wittgenstein view the philosopher, as this strategy
requires, as a kind of lexicographer of science?
The cases he uses to illustrate his views are rarely drawn from the history of science; they are usually
imagined or artificial: e.g. the people who sell
wood by the area it occupies. A great deal of Witt?
genstein's speculative anthropology was intended
to supply contrasts with natural anthropology in
order to remind us of natural practices and con?
ventions; the main exception here is Wittgenstein's discussion of mathematics, but even many of his
mathematical cases are fictional. Wittgenstein's later philosophy can only be appreciated against the background of traditional philosophical doc?
trines such as essentialism, platonism, atomism,
monism, and dualism ? views also rejected by the
pragmatists. His discussion of (2) is largely related
to words such as "reference," "name," "image,"
"private," and "simple" which figure in the for?
mulation of traditional philosophical doctrines.
However, that Wittgenstein himself confined his
attention largely to philosophical and to
hypothetical or imagined cases in no way suggests that he would have disparaged the project of ex?
amining changes in the uses of terms due to scien?
tific discovery and institutional change. In fact
some of the best philosophers influenced by Witt?
genstein, such as Hanson and Feyerabend, have
devoted themselves to describing the uses and im?
plications of the uses of scientific terms.
But even if we read Wittgenstein as advocating that the philosophers only record, and not recom?
mend, changes of meaning, a tension remains. If
therapeutic diagnosis and analysis of some tradi?
tional philosophical problems is successful it
should help to dissolve them ?and so not leave
philosophy as it was. For the pragmatists, by con?
trast, no such difficulty arises. Dewey, for in?
stance, attempted to reconstruct philosophy so
that it would be more adept at solving the pro
170 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
blems of men. True, Dewey, like Wittgenstein, was also concerned to dissolve some traditional
philosophical problems, notably those stated in terms of what he called "untenable dualisms"; but his naturalistic outlook was incompatible with a
thorough-going therapeutic view of philosophy.27 3.2 The justification of linguistic practices.
Wittgenstein's view that justification takes place within the context of a language game raises pro? blems. Might there not be linguistic practices which, in terms of his own philosophy, Wittgen? stein would want to criticize? Perhaps a game in
which words were given meanings by being made to stand for various objects would constitute such a practice. Or couldn't someone invent a language game which is philosophical, but has as its goal to
explain the nature of the world? (Actually, such a
linguistic practice doesn't have to be invented.
Lots of philosophers already participate in it
already.) On the one hand, Wittgenstein suggests that it is the business of philosophers simply to
describe linguistic practices; on the other, that
traditional philosophical problems arise from
misuses of language. Yet from a purely descriptive
point of view, all uses of language would be on a
par.
Wittgenstein's view that the justification of a
linguistic practice is internal to it has affinities with Hume's internal justification of inductive
practices. For Hume, we justify one prediction over another not because we can supply a
demonstration of one rather than the other from
necessarily true premises, but because the
favoured prediction accords with a past regularity, and this regularity has established a habit or
custom. Goodman's justification for preferring
"green" to "grue" hypotheses is also internal in this
way.28 But internal justifications such as these are
not without their problems. As Goodman himself
notes, Hume ignores the fact that some predic? tions based on regularities are acceptable and
others are not. What bedevils Goodman's general view is that some practices which a great many
people adopt are bad, and are known by others to
be so, and should not figure in Goodman's at?
tempt to achieve an equilibrium between the in
ductive rules we accept and the inductive practices we deem valid. For example, the gambler's fallacy of doubling the bet is a widely followed practice, but it is not generally an expedient one as it ac?
cords with a false belief. In the case of other prac?
tices, such as the use of the null hypothesis test of
significance in psychological experimentation, ex?
perts disagree about their legitimacy. It is difficult
to share Davidson's and Harman's confidence in
their answer to the question, "How can a logic of
natural language be verified?", which is, "Primari?
ly by deciding whether the arguments it declares to
be valid are all and only the arguments we in?
tuitively, or on reflection, deem valid."29 We must
decide which practices should legitimately be
taken into account in Goodman's balancing exer?
cise; and this poses a threat to the tenability of
Goodman's reliance only on internal justifica? tions. Equally, it poses a threat to Wittgenstein's reliance only on internal justifications of linguistic
practices. External justifications of practices are
sometimes required, and sometimes compelling.
Wittgenstein fails to discuss the possibility of us?
ing one linguistic practice to justify or criticize
another.
The pragmatists, on the other hand, because
they never entertained the thought that justifica? tions are only internal to a practice, were never
saddled with these problems. Peirce, for example, held that logical practices are ultimately based
upon ethical practices, and that ethical practices are ultimately based on aesthetic practices, where
"aesthetics" means "the science of goals or aims."
For the pragmatists practice is constrained by
theory, and conversely, whereas for Wittgenstein
theory and explanation, and with them the means
to make external evaluation of practices, are re?
jected. I hope to have gone some way toward showing
the strengths and weaknesses of Wittgenstein's later philosophy by comparing and contrasting his
work with that of the pragmatist tradition.
Whatever the weaknesses of this tradition, the
shortcomings of Wittgenstein's philosophy are not
among them.
University of Warwick Received October 14, 1980
WITTGENSTEIN'S PRAGMATISM 171
NOTES
1. Personal communication.
2. Personal communication.
3. M. O'C. Drury, "A Symposium: Assessments of the Man and the Philosopher" in Fann, K. T. (ed.), Wittgenstein, The Man
and His Philosophy: An Anthology, (New York, 1967), p. 68.
4. Karl Britton, "Portrait of a Philosopher" in Fann, K. T., op. cit., p. 58.
5. F. C. S. Schiller, "The Value of Formal Logic," Mind, vol. 41, (1932), pp. 53-71.
6. F. P. Ramsey, The Foundations of Mathematics, (London, 1931), pp. 155, 186, 194-203.
7. It is also likely that Wittgenstein was familiar with Ogden and Richard's The Meaning of Meaning, which owes much to
Peirce's emphasis on meaning and context. For interesting conjectures about the relevant influences see Thayer, H. S., Meaning
and Action: A Critical History of Pragmatism, Indianapolis, New York, 1968, part 3, ch. 2.
8. Other philosophers have noted certain similarities. See e.g.: John Passmore, A Hundred Years of Philosophy, (London, 1957),
p. 428; Richard Rorty, "Pragmatism, Categories and Language," Philosophical Review, vol. 70, (1961), pp. 197-223; Charles
Hardwick, Language Learning in Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy, The Hague, 1972; Alan, Pasch, "Dewey and the Analytical
Philosophers," The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 59, (1959), pp. 814-826; Max Black, "Dewey's Philosophy of Lanugage," The
Journal of Philosophy, vol. 59, (1962), pp. 505-23; A. A. Mullin, Philosophical Comments on the Philosophies of Charles
Sanders Peirce and Ludwig Wittgenstein (Electrical Engineering Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, Urbana, 1961).
9. On the relation between these two strands of thought, cf. Kemp Smith, "The Naturalism of Hume," Mind, vol. 14, (1905), pp.
149-73, 335-47.
10. W. V. O. Quine, "The Pragmatists' Place in Empiricism," to appear in Proceedings of the South Carolina Colloquium, 1975.
11. O. K. Bouwsma, "Naturalism," The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 45, (1948), pp. 12-22.
12. John, Dewey, Experience and Nature (New York, 1958), p. 179.
13. Charles S. Hardwick, op. cit., p. 65.
14. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, (Oxford, 1958), pp. 11-12.
15. Dewey, John, "Context and Thought," in Bernstein, Richard J. (ed.) On Experience, Nature and Freedom, (Indianapolis and
New York, 1969), p. 106.
16. Cf. Dewey, John, "Context and Thought," op. cit., pp. 93-95.
17. M. A. E. Dummett, Frege: Philosophy of Language (London, 1973), p. 361.
18. Dummet, loc. cit.
19. Dummet, op. cit.
20. John Dewey, How We Think, Lexington, Massachusetts, (1933), especially part II; Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, New York,
1938, especially ch. 6. Cf. Larry Laudan, Progress and Its Problems, (London, 1977).
21. Ludwig Wittgenstein, op. cit., pp. 37-8.
22. John Dewey, Logic, The Theory of Inquiry, (New York, 1938), p. 349.
23. Richard Rorty, op. cit., p. 198.
24. C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers, ed. Hartshorne, C, Weiss, P., and Burks, A., (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1931-58), 8.259.
25. Wittgenstein, op. cit., p. 49.
26. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, (Oxford, 1967), p. 77.
27. Cf. Richard Rorty, "Dewey's Metaphysics," in Cahn, Steven M. (ed.), New Studies in the Philosophy of John Dewey,
Hanover, New Hampshire, 1977.
28. Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast, (3rd edition, Indianapolis, New York, Kansas City, 1972), p. 64.
29. David Davidson and Gilbert Harman, (eds.), The Logic of Grammar, Belmont, California, 1975), p. 3.