Cogency v2 n2

COGENCY Vol. 2, N0. 2, Spring 2010
point that Wittgenstein is trying to make here, and in similar places throughout
the later works, is just that it is a mistake to understand the semantics of
any particular word in terms of a rigid and necessessitarian ontology associated
with it. Were we to do so we would be, as he says, “mistaking a psychological
compulsion for a logical one”.
It would be tempting to take from this the lesson that pictures and words
are on a par with one another, but Wittgenstein’s remarks here and elsewhere,
as we shall see, make clear that this is a mistake. Words may be like
pictures in that they do not of themselves force a use, but the similarity ends
there. Whereas rules and communal criteria of meaning keep us from falling
into humpty-dumptyism with language, there are no such checks on
picturing, or if there are, their effectiveness falls far short of those accompanying
our usage of language.
3.2. PI 422-427
These passages occur in the context of Wittgenstein’s examination of the
language used to talk about states of consciousness, the vocabulary he sometimes
describes as “psychical” and that some commentators have called the
intentional vocabulary. As we shall see, they support the view of pictures
developed in 193(b) and 194. Begin by considering the text of 422-3:
422. What am I believing in when I believe that men have souls? What
am I believing in, when I believe that this substance contains two carbon
rings? In both cases there is the picture in the foreground, but the sense
lies far in the background; that is, the application of the picture is not
easy to survey.
423. Certainly, all these things happen in you.–And now all I ask is to
understand the expression we use. –The picture is there, and I am not
disputing its validity in any particular case. –Only I also want to understand
the application of the picture. (Wittgenstein 1968: 126)
In terms of pictures, 422 continues the notion of 193-4. Pictures, unlike
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