This book is a series of remarks related in complex ways, and you often won’t find a connected exposition in linear order. You will sometimes find Wittgenstein describing a series of examples and then commenting on them; but there is no regularity in this, and you will almost never find him introducing a topic and then expanding on it.

It is always worth asking why he puts a remark at a particular place (since this book is the result of repeatedly rearranging pre-existing remarks), but such questions can be very difficult to answer and you will often have to read on without having the sense of how it all hangs together that you expect to get from an ordinary exposition. Many remarks will contain a sort of dialogue (often marked by dashes), but it won’t be easy to count, keep track of, or identify speakers. Try thinking of such a dialogue simply as one Wittgenstein carries on with himself.

The sections in this assignment concern issues relevant to the picture of language and understanding found in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Those in the first part, §§1-38, are addressed to a primitive picture of language which could motivate the more sophisticated view offered in the Tractatus. Since that work was a response to views held by Russell at the time Wittgenstein studied with him, many of these remarks are relevant to Russell’s views also. But, at the same time, these remarks introduce ideas (such as “language games” and the varieties of use of language) that are not merely critical but come as close as any to expressing the positive side of Wittgenstein’s mature view of language.

Wittgenstein’s remarks often all point in slightly different directions. Although you should read all of them, we won’t be able to sort out what each contributes. Below I’ve suggested some sub-groupings of remarks with somewhat similar topics as a sort of orientation. Within these groupings I call your attention to particular remarks, but our class discussion need not be limited to the ones I’ve pointed out. Remember that you have a standing assignment to come with a list of remarks that seem to you important or otherwise interesting or are puzzling.

• §§1-7. Augustine’s picture. Concentrate on the picture of language presented in the quote from Augustine, contrasting it with the uses of language described in the shopping example later in §1 and comparing it with the builders’ language of §2. The idea of language games introduced in §7 is important—think about why this term is used and what purpose is served by the discussion of language games. (The ideas of ostensive definition and ostensive teaching introduced in §6 will be referred to later.)

• §§8-17. Varieties of words. Notice the variety of words in the extension of the builders’ language in §8, consider the difficulties of applying a single concept of signification to all of them, and notice the analogous difficulty in §11 and §14. Notice also the “straightforward” application of the idea in §15. This is one example of a frequent contrast between homely applications of concepts and philosophically ambitious ones; another example of such a contrast is the application of the concept of naming to the first builders’ language and in Augustine’s picture.

• §§18-25. Varieties of use. The chief idea in the earlier sections of this group is that language has a variety of uses, all with equal status: a language consisting solely of single-word commands is not incomplete and, when statements appear along with commands, they are not more fundamental. Think about the variety catalogued in §23 and try to extend the list; it is characteristic of Wittgenstein to emphasize the importance of a varied diet of examples. (The idea of a “form of life” mentioned in §19 will reappear in some important places.)

• §§26-38. Naming. These remarks contain a compressed example of Wittgenstein’s typical analysis of philosophical error. Naming is labeling in preparation for use (§26), so ostensive definition presupposes a wider context of use (§31); Augustine presents a child as already having such a context, just as an adult foreigner would (§32). It may seem that what is required for an ostensive definition to succeed is a psychological act or experience (§33, beginning) but there is no single experience that serves (§35), and the experience as such is not what is essential (§33, end). We invoke the mental where the physical seems insufficient (§36) but that is because we try to attribute to an act or event things that are due to the context of use in which it occurs (§37). Real mental acts or events satisfy us no more than physical ones, so we are led to regard naming as occult (§38).

The remaining remarks in this assignment (§§39-64) address one aspect of the Tractatus and Russell’s views more directly—specifically, the sort of analysis into logical atoms that was the goal of both. We won’t be able to do more than discuss a few remarks from this part of the book. Some possibilities are suggested below but you may note others.

• §§39-45. Name, meaning, and bearer. We are led (like Russell) to regard “this” as the only genuine proper name because we have the idea that a name must signify something simple and thus indestructible so that meaningfulness won’t depend on contingent facts (§39) and the term “this” is never without a bearer (§45). But we can describe the use and so see the meaningfulness of a name without a bearer (§41, §42). Notice the (near) definition of “meaning” in §43 and think about its connection with language games—if this is what meaning is, how do you explain the meaning of a word to someone?

• §§46-58. Simples, samples, and indestructibility. Think of the quotation from Plato in §46 especially in connection with Russell’s idea that ordinary proper names are disguised descriptions compounded of constituents with which we are acquainted. Then watch Wittgenstein set this philosophical picture against ordinary ideas of the simple and composite, of naming and description, and of samples. (The discussion of rules in §§53-54 may seem like something of a digression here, but it points to issues that will become important later.)

• §§59-64. Complexes and the primacy of analysis. The pictures of language in Plato’s Theaetetus, in Russell, and in the Tractatus are based on our ordinary ideas of parts and wholes (§59), but our ordinary talk of parts doesn’t lie behind or explain our ordinary talk of wholes (§63).