Abstract
In this paper, I explore different ways of picturing language learning in philosophy, all of them inspired by Wittgenstein and all of them concerned about scepticism of meaning. I start by outlining the two pictures of children and language learning that emerge from Kripke’s famous reading of Wittgenstein. Next, I explore how social-pragmatic readings, represented by Meredith Williams, attempt to answer the sceptical anxieties. Finally, drawing somewhat on Stanley Cavell, I try to resolve these issues by investigating what characteristically happens to our view of language learning when we do philosophy. The focus throughout is on the relation between the individual (the learning child) and the community (usually represented by the parents), and how that relation is deformed when we operate with a certain philosophical notion of ground.
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Notes
“PI” followed by paragraph number for Part I and page number for Part II will throughout refer to Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein, 2003).
(Cavell, 1979, p. 172). This work, The Claim of Reason, will be abbreviated as “CR.” Cavell’s own interpretation of the quoted example is importantly different.
Versions of social pragmatism are quite influential in commentaries on Wittgenstein. In the following, Meredith Williams will be the figurehead of this kind of reading, as her interest in language learning is especially pertinent to my concerns (Williams, 1999, Part II).
Williams’ strategy here is akin to that of John McDowell (McDowell, 1996, pp. 94–95).
New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd Edition (McKean, 2005).
I am not saying that we cannot imagine such people; if we met them, we would perhaps succeed in understanding how this synthesis of “kitty” and “fur” fitted into their lives. Perhaps kitties had some special ceremonial function in relation to the flaying of animals.
I suspect that this is a quote, but I have not been able to find the source. Yet since that is typical of speaking as such, it will perhaps be excused in a text on language learning.
References
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