John Searle on Ludwig Wittgenstein: Section 4

Really good talk about Wittgenstein, amazing!!! really good University of California Bercley Professor!!!

I'll add that it seems off for Searle to claim that Wittgenstein said that we cannot have a theory of language--he suggest it through many failures of attempts.

wow, I respect Searle very much, but his ending take on "not having a theory of language" is amazingly thick. It's almost as if he has forgotten the main point he has been trying to make thus far. It's not that W claims "WE CAN'T" because we are not smart enough. He's saying that "we can't" because of the nature of language. He would also say that we can't have a final theory of football for the same reasons...

damn, i'd love to hear searle on why the 'post-structuralists' misunderstood wittgenstein

(Cont'd) The subset cannot (for W., perhaps) subsume the whole. The local "game" of describing, classifying, explaining, etc., cannot account for or elucidate the nature of other local games like reciting poems, praying, and so on. He seems unhappy with the modern tendency to prioritize epistemic and scientific (pure and applied) tropes over the myriad of other significant ones that have a place in most lives. I could be off though.

He might say that. But even in the Tractatus (as you mention), W. said that the basis for words resembling states of affairs could only be shown, not explicated or explained in a theory. Such a theory would be circular (explaining language by means of language).
In his later period he might say theories of language would privilege the descriptive over the prescriptive and expressive aspects of language, e.g. explaining ethical talk scientifically. Theories are themselves subsets of language.

In response to Searle and amse (see below), Wittgenstein would assert that "general theories" in philosophy or even science for that matter are merely more sophisticated and robust language games themselves. In a similar light to the Tractatus, this phenomenon can can only be 'shown' to be the case. Thoughts?

Ok. But neither Searle nor Magee, in calling the book enigmatic, appears to remember that the Investigations was not written as a book, it was collated after W.'s death by E. Anscombe, from notes.




St. Johns, Oxford , UK.

This is an excellent segment. John Searle has a good head on his shoulders.