David Peat

Language 83involve balls, bats, and a net. From there we can move to squash thathas no net, but still involves hitting a ball with a bat. In this way,through a series of relationships, one arrives at a whole network ofgames without ever needing an exhaustive definition of “game” or invoking“the class of all games.”What is true about the idea of a game is equally true about “truth,”“beauty,” “freedom,” “mind,” “consciousness,” and “God.” Trying to definethese terms or pin them down only leads us into endless difficultiesbecause it interferes with the essential freedom and creativity oflanguage. If you want to know what a term means, Wittgenstein suggested,then look at what it does. Look at the various ways it is used inlanguage.On other occasions Wittgenstein compared a word to levers in thecab of an engine. In one sense they are all levers. Yet each lever doessomething different. To know all about levers it is necessary to see howthe different levers are used.Problems in philosophy, Wittgenstein suggested, arise when twoor more people employ the same word but use it in subtly differentways. If they both use the word “freedom” or “consciousness” this doesnot mean that they are necessarily talking about the same thing. Eachwill be using the word in different ways and linking it to different aspectsof that word’s entire “family resemblances.” On the other hand, ifthey begin by defining the word, then other problems arise because theway language works means that the word in question is always slippingaway from its definition as it is being used in different ways.Language simply cannot be restrained and restricted. But thisdoesn’t mean that we should not be very careful about what we aresaying and pay great attention to the ways language is being used indifferent situations.Wittgenstein continued to investigate a host of problems involvingthe way we talk and the different ways in which we can mean something.For example, he looked at the way we talk about colors, andasked what it would mean if a dog could speak.Of philosophy Wittgenstein once said that it is as if a man findshimself trapped in a room. In vain he attempts to exit via the window