KANCHANA NATARAJAN Breath in Bhogarís 7000. English Rendering by Layne Little 27. Though Pokar says he is Chinese, his name is found in the list of Tamil siddhas. 28. PS700, Kanda iv Verses 996-999, p. 640 29. Zvelebel Kamil V, The Poets of the Power (Rider and Company, London, 1973), p.132 30. Translation is mine. PS7000, Kanda 1, Verse 173 p. 28. 31. PS7000, Kanda 2, Verse 654 p. 266 32. Zvelebil, Kamil.V, The Siddha Quest for Immortality (Oxford, 1996), p. v 33. PS7000, Kanda 1,Verse 6, p. 2 34. See ìDivine Semení and Alchemical Conversion of Iramatevar, p 262 35. According to Gordon White, Pokar taught alchemy to a ruler in China by name Kong. The Alchemical Body, p 61 36. PS7000, Kanda 7, Verse 282 p. 845 37. Ibid., kanda 2 Verse 800p. 288-89 38. Ibid., kanda 2 Verses 281-84, p. 206 39. PS7000, kanda 3 verse 486, p.398 40. Ibid., kanda 3 Verses 50711, p. 401 41. Translation is mine. PS7000, kanda 2 Verse 524, p. 245, 42. Ibid., kanda 3, Verses 203-227, pp.353-57 43. PS7000, kanda 3 , Verse 230 p. 357 44. See ëDivine Semení The Alchemical Conversion of Iramatevar p266 45. PS 7000, Kanda 1, Verse, 39, p 7, Translation Layne Little. 46. Ibid., Verse 33 47. Ibid., Verses 307-321, p. 50-52 48. See Zvelebil Kamil.V., The Poets of The Powers, (Rider and Company, London, 1973), pp. 50-51 49. PS7000, Kanda 1,Verse 322, p. 51 50. In some texts like Sattaimuni suttiram, the human body is regarded as the earth and the sublimated semen is muppu the primordial salt. See R.Venkataraman, A History of The Tamil Siddha Cult, pp 131-132 51. PS7000, kanda 2, Verses 682-707p. 270-73 52. Ibid., kanda 2, Verses 160-188 pp. 186-91; & kanda 1, Verses 817-20 p. 187, etc. 53. See Gordon White, op. cit., p. 277 54. PS7000, kanda 1, verses 817-820, p.13 55. See Gordon White, op. cit., p 40 WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE: A NON-FOUNDATIONAL NARRATION Enakshi Mitra For later Wittgenstein, language cannot be founded upon something more primordial than language itself, something that has a definite origin and boundary that marks it off and yet has a magical power of pulling the entire corpus of language to come to rest on it. None of the usually proposed foundations ñ universals, physical ostension, mental images, verbal rules, nervous excitements, brain-patterns, or even forms of life, can be claimed to have a pre-linguistic or extralinguistic character that can serve as the desired origin and justification of language. Later Wittgensteinís engagement with the foundations of language is an exercise of dissolving this putative cleavage, of weaving the foundation and the founded into an indissoluble whole. In this paper we have tried to catch some glimpses of this enormous philosophical labour carried out by him the labour of flattening out the hidden depths of language (proposed by classical philosophers) into an open expanse ñ into an unimaginably rich and complex plethora of uses, ever indeterminate and ever incomplete.1 We need to start with his account of concept formation and family resemblances as an effective strategy to grapple with this vexed program of foundationalism. To say the least, it is an explicit attack on the classical foundations of language and conception ñ the eternal and timeless universals of Plato 166 ENAKSHI MITRA and Aristotle, and Merkmal definitions cased in necessary and sufficient conditions, supposedly shared by all the defined items. Wittgenstein often describes the process of concept-formation in terms of fibers ëoverlapping and crisscrossingí, ëcommon featuresí that ëappearí and ëdrop outí, features that he characterises as ëfamily-resemblancesí. (PI 66, 67) The account is often prone to certain misinterpretations, its deeper implications not always effectively worked out. We shall, however, consciously start with a minimalist interpretation of the notion of family resemblance and the ìfibre-on-fibreî account of concepts. Ironically this leaves us with a multiplicity of temporary and short-ranged features which might be called local foundations in lieu of classical ëuniversalsí. This would retain the overworn dichotomy between particulars and properties, and perhaps also a cumbrous version of the Augustinian model of concept-formation, the model that Wittgenstein has rejected both in detail and in principle. In fine, the theory of concept-formation that apparently emerges from Wittgensteinís texts will turn out to be nothing but an uninspiring dilution of the classical foundationalism. We shall attempt to work our way out of this impasse, through an extensive critique of the Augustinian model. We shall have to focus particularly on the dubious transparency of ostensive and verbal definition and the false dichotomy between simple and complex ñ the myths that forge a false cleavage between language and reality ( i.e., the foundation and the founded), ultimately claiming to bridge the two in an isomorphic relation. We hope to end this paper with a rough idea of Wittgensteinís vision of language, as to how the foundational mechanisms of ostension, rules, descriptions on the one hand and the external reality on the other penetrate into each other into an open and endless flow of uses. WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 167 The minimalist interpretation of family-resemblances It is both customary and convenient to start with the concept of games, an ingenious choice to dissipate our notion of a fixed and unitary essence lying beneath the usage of all general words. Wittgenstein cites the examples of boardgames, card-games, ball-games and Olympic games. The features we consider important in the board-games like throwing dice, moving counters on the board manifestly drop out in the card-games and others appear. These again start dropping out in ball-games. Obviously we have to look for certain other commonalties of apparently a broader range ñ like amusement, competition, winning and losing, skill and luck. Bull-fight and boxing often involving bloodshed and casualties do not satisfy the amusement condition. Moreover, the kind of amusement we find in chess drops out from noughts and crosses; another fiber ñ let it be called ëamusementí again reappears, which will again drop out from the next kind of game we come across. Winning and losing ñ the element of competition (an apparently invariable feature in all games) do not feature in patience. Considering the fact that skill in chess is so different from skill in tennis, we cannot posit skill as a recurring feature of all games. Moreover, skill in a very general sense is altogether dropped out from games like ring-a-ring-a roses. ë[W]e see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and crisscrossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detailí. (PI 66) In PI 67 Wittgenstein further observes: ëAnd we extend our concept of number as in spinning a thread we twist fiber on fibre. And the strength of the fibre does not reside in the fact that some one fibre runs through its whole length, but in the overlapping of many fibresí. The talk of overlapping fibre on fibre naturally leads to the following picture most commonly used by Wittgensteinís commentators. 168 ENAKSHI MITRA ABC CDE DEF FGH g1 g2 g3 g4 Fig. 1 (Using small ëgí for games and capital letters for the overlapping features like ëamusementí, ëwinning and losingí, ëskill in chessí, ëskill in tennisí etc.) The particulars that we call ëgameí do not even share a common necessary condition, not to speak of a common sufficient condition. Nor can we construct a subset from the given set of overlapping features and claim it to be the necessary and sufficient conditions of any game whatsoever. The fibres go on overlapping in an ever-expanding horizontal line, never converging to a single point. There is also no reason to suppose that all persons start with the same set of fibres, with exactly the same sets mediating between in the same order. Different languageusers would spin concepts in different lines like ñ HFA AEB BCG CGD g1 g2 g3 g4 Fig. 2 and also in many other conceivably alternative tracks. Wittgenstein has not only challenged the notion of a unitary essence but also of a fixed essence. The process of old fibres disappearing and new fibres cropping up is one of continuous expansion, and not a permutation and combination of a pre-given finite set. Wittgenstein describes these overlapping features or fibres as ëfamily-resemblancesí. (PI 67) Large families where we can survey a number of siblings and cousins, their parents, grandparents and their offsprings together, clearly exhibit WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 169 how features like build, shape of the eyes and nose, structure of the jaws, curve of the lips, colour of the eyes, gait, temperament, etc., overlap and crisscross in the same way. None of the above features at any point can be attributed to all the members in common. Thus though starting with the instance of game, Wittgenstein privileges the case of family as well, as an exemplary case to understand how other concepts, i.e., concepts other than game too, are spun through overlapping and crisscrossing fibres, and not on the basis of a putative set of necessary and sufficient conditions. And a family expands for ever, its new members continually being born, and old members passing away, generating new features to be added to the network and old features dying out. Since Wittgenstein warns us not to think that there must be a singular identity behind all uses of general words and instead wants us to ëlook and seeí, we cannot now just stop with two examples ñ we have to examine some simple and familiar concepts, specially those which unlike ëgameí, and ëfamilyí, do seem to have an essence in common. To take the example of ëgoldí ñ a neat, scientific concept, dressed up in a complete set of necessary and sufficient conditions.2 A definite spectral line, a certain atomic number (79), a certain atomic weight, a characteristic odour, a certain degree of malleability, a certain melting point, and entering into certain chemical combinations and not others. Suppose something occurred with the same atomic number but was not yellow but purple, not malleable, had a different melting point, and produced a different series of spectral lines. Many chemists who take the atomic number itself to be the sole defining characteristic still call it gold. Others who consider each of the above conditions to be necessary cannot call it by the same name ñ a position rather dubious in view of the fact that an isotope has a different weight from that normally characterising the element, yet chemists call it ëXí (X, but an isotope of X), as long as it has other 170 ENAKSHI MITRA characteristics of X. And we can stretch our imagination a little further to the emergence of different metals, each with a different set of ëgoldishí fibers, overlapping and crisscrossing, but not a single fiber commonly running through all of them. Conceived in this way one cannot rule out the possibility of newer and newer samples of gold with newer and newer fibers, hitherto unrecorded. This is one reason why one cannot posit a ëdisjunctive propertyí shared in common by all particulars of the same name ñ whatever fibers you may have incorporated in that disjunctive set, you cannot ever put a last member. On the other hand, speaking of such common properties a disjunctive set with an indefinite number of elements ñ is only ëplaying with wordsí. ëOne might just as well say: ìSomething runs through the whole thread ñ namely the continuous overlapping of those fibersîí. (PI 67) These are the kinds of philosophical sophistries that we find parodied in nonsense prose like Alice in Wonderland, where the King, hearing that Alice knew nothing whatever about a theft, noted down ëNothing Whateverí as a very important evidence.3 With a little stretch of imagination we can even dispense with a common starting point ñ a minimal necessary condition of something being a sample of gold ñ viz. itís maintaining a definite size at a given time, its availability to stable and continued perception etc. Such conjectures are designed not to evoke a sense of amusement or perverse excitement, but to break through a certain fetishised notion of conception, understanding and communication. To have a concept (that is, to identify a group of particulars as falling under it), or to understand the meaning of the relevant term, or to communicate that meaning to others, we need not and cannot have a precise set of defining characteristics ready at hand, that once for all sets the mind at rest. Besides, redefining a term ëfor a special purposeí (PI 69) virtually puts the word out of circulation, i.e., out of general use, leaving a few exceptional circumstances. Suppose we want WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 171 to re-define the length of the corridor in our university department (which we know to be X meters), in terms of how many paces it takes to walk through. For this ëspecial purposeí we define one pace as 75 centimeters and match up the two definitions as X meters = Y paces (PI 69). But apart from serving this very special purpose it cannot be made to put an absurd demand on everybodyís pace to measure up exactly to 75 centimeters every time they walk, thus making the very concepts of ëpaceí and ëwalkí unusable. Delimiting, loosening, adding or dropping fibres, shuffling or reshuffling, whether conscious or unconscious, idiosyncratic or pragmatic, has a significant sociological dimension4. This becomes specially palpable when a person or a particular community, under the influence of specific needs, interests, or of a particular history, culture, or physiology, may identify same objects (i.e., what other people call ësameí object) under different concept. Secondly, he / they can identify ëdifferentí objects (i.e., what other people call ìdifferentî objects) under the ësameí concept. A very interesting example given by Bambrough may profitably be used to clarify these points. He asks us to imagine a tribe ñ the ëSouth Sea Islandersí, whose island is thickly clad with a rich variety of trees, and for whom trees are of greatest importance in their life and work5. Their ways of classifying trees do not conform to the botanistsí principle of classification. They do not classify trees as orange trees, date-palms or cedars, but as ëhouse-building treesí, ëboatbuilding treesí, or in terms of their height, thickness, or maturity ñ features that are specially relevant to the necessities of their life. Here of course as in all other cases, the botanist identification of, say, ëmango treeí and the islanderís classification of ëboat-building treesí work, not with a unitary essence, but with overlapping fibres. But while the botanistsí fibers of classification either go undetected, or are deemed irrelevant by the islanders, similar charges will apply to us or the botanist. The South-sea islander assimilates 172 ENAKSHI MITRA the same trees (say mango) under different concepts; say one mango tree he calls a boat-building tree, another mango tree he classifies under house-building trees, and so on. On the other hand, he also assimilates different trees (mango, pine, and oak) under the same concept of a boat-building tree. At any point of time, an existing network of concepts is already invaded, or rather made intricate, by more and more tracks and features. It should be clear that the fibers do not only move through a horizontal track of time, jumping from tree1 to tree2 , from preceding moments to successive ones. There is, as already stated, a complicated network of fibres that both overlap and crisscross, a network that has no point of origin, where games cannot be numbered in an ordinal series of 1, 2, 3, . . . , and each individual at any moment is a crosssection of many fibres simultaneously crossing over each other. The following figure may be taken as a rough indication of what this network is like and how it expands: Fig. 3 Here again we take ëgí for individual games, houses or trees (this time without being numbered); A, B, C as features; and the dotted lines as some of the possible modes of expansion. g g g g g RUV RQD FGE ARE ABC ESU g WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 173 We do not always have to imagine a remote island with a remote way of life to appreciate the diverse modes of concept formation. Modern society with its widely ramified professions, technologies, and industries, offer ample examples on the issue. Animals are divided in one way by the zoologist, another by fur-industry, still in another way by the leather-industry. Houses are identified in one way by the architect, in another way by the gas-inspector, and in still another by the fire-department. We may now concentrate on more unfamiliar examples cited by Wittgenstein himself on different modes of concept formation. In RFM V 42, he imagines a person or a group of persons who observe a surface only as coloured red, white, and blue, and does not observe that it is also red. A kind of colour-adjectives were used for things that are partially red, partially blue, and partially white ñ they are said to be ëbuí. And someone can be trained to observe that it is ëbuí, and not to observe whether it is also red, blue or white. Such a man could only report ëbuí and ënon-buí. Here Wittgenstein invites us to imagine that the ëobservation happens by means of a psychological sieve, which for example only lets through the fact that the surface is blue-white-red (the French tricolour) or that it is notí. Here the person obviously misses out the distinction between separate fibres, he assimilate the three distinct colours, red, white, and blue under one colour concept ñ ëbuí; he obfuscates the distinction between the other colours, and calls each of them as ënon-buí. Perhaps Wittgenstein is suggesting that the person is thoroughly indoctrinated in a single and indissoluble ideal of French revolution and assimilates red, white and blue under a single concept, while all other colours fall out as irrelevant. The situation is somewhat like the South sea islanders who considered three different kinds of trees ñ mango, pine, and cedar to be the same. They assimilate the separate fibres like the shape of the trunk, or the quality of the wood under the same fibre, say ëmaturityí, and identify the three different trees under the same class-name. 174 ENAKSHI MITRA It is time to take a pause and reflect a bit on this foregoing account with its rather excess of examples. Several questions prop up at this juncture. (a) Are these fibres ëcommon featuresí of a different status ñ temporary and of a smaller range, unlike the eternal and ubiquitous universals of the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy? Unfortunately on a few occasions, Wittgensteinís phrases do provide some fuel for this kind of interpretation. ëNow pass to card games... many common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to ball-games, much that is common is retained, but much is lostí. (PI 66, italics mine). The metaphor of physical overlapping of one fibre on another, transferred to the context of concept formation (PI 67) may also have some misleading suggestions. On a fragmentary reading of Wittgensteinís texts the notorious ontology of common features, over and above the individuals and identically shared by them, remains unscathed. (b) Is Wittgenstein putting forth a sociological or anthropological theory of language whereby people are socially determined to hold particular sets of beliefs, by selecting / rejecting, permuting/ combining from a repertoire of real features given out there? To put it more precisely, Wittgensteinís account might give the impression that there are bare featureless identities in the shape of either bare particulars or bare universals that can only be named, and these form the primordial and presocial basis of all alternative modes of description. I.e. when one conceives a chair or a tree under several alternative modes one is only combining these bare identities in various combinations.6 A proper appreciation of Wittgensteinís view would need us to nullify each of these questions. The Augustinian model This myth of detachable common identities, whether eternal or temporary, one or many, all-pervasive or restricted, is appended with another myth ñ the Augustinian model in which all language, all signs are supposed to work. According WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 175 to this model or theory each sign reaches out to its corresponding object in reality, which is its reference, and stamps a label on it. Laying out the basic points of the theory we shall find that most classical theories of language adhere to it in principle, in spite of their internal differences7: (a) Linguistic expressions can be roughly divided into proper names and common-names (descriptions). Proper names pick out unique individuals, common names like ëtableí pick out definite properties like tablehood etc. from among other properties. While for Plato, the word ëTableí picks out an Ideal Tablehood from the third realm, for Aristotle it refers to a property immanent in all individual tables in the mundane world. (b) While for Russell proper names pick out bare particulars and universals directly, for Frege they need the mediation of a definite property uniquely belonging to that individual, for reaching out to their corresponding reference.8 (c) For the British empiricists too the sign ëtableí would either be the name of an abstract mental image or a logically abstractable essence, or on the most noncommittal Nominalist version, it would still name ñ not a single individual, but a single group of individuals arbitrarily selected, which professedly do not share any common characteristics. (d)Words pin down their meanings either directly, or through physical ostension, mental image, silent speech, or verbal rules phrased in definite descriptions. The crux of the Augustinian model that Wittgenstein seeks to dismiss is the mutual externality of language and reality ñ an idea which all the above schools of philosophy share in common. If one wishes to graft the model into a sociological theory of language, the theory would roughly come to this: All levels of identification ñ whether it is identifying a bare particular or a bare property are pre-social; it is at the level 176 ENAKSHI MITRA of permuting/ combining, selecting/ rejecting from the real features that the process of socio-cultural conditioning comes into play. Wittgensteinís Critique of the Augustinian model A short exposition of Wittgensteinís reactions to the supposed sanctity of verbal rules will be an effective prelude to this critique extensive in its purview and graphically detailed in its analysis. Failure of verbal definitions Can a common name say, ëdogí including the term ëquadrupedí in its standard definition, be able to hook on unfailingly to a single, detachable feature of fourleggedness commonly shared by all the dogs? We have to detail out our definitions, introduce sharper rules in terms of the specific shape of the legs, the structure of the bones, the texture of the hair on its legs, in order to demarcate the fourleggedness, say of a Dalmatian from that of a Doberman. But even then, the respective bones Dalmatian1 and Dalmatian2 may have different kinds of dents or undulations, the texture of the hair in their legs may have different degrees of smoothness or varying shades of colour The bonestructures of Dalmatian1 and Dalmatian2 have to be further analysed and specified as being similar in respect of another feature or identity, say a common angle of bent at the midjoints, which again when shown to exhibit further individual variations has to be analysed and specified to be similar in respect of another identity, say ëYí. Whatever rules we may specify, however we may detail out the features of similarity, words will lead to words and to further words. This often gives the impression that while reality itself is neat, round, and smoothly bounded, it is language that is inadequate to capture reality. Language is full of holes, cracks and crevices, whatever words we use to plug these holes and cracks, WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 177 themselves have fresh cracks ñ and so on. This way of looking at things have naturally led philosophers to rely on ostensive definitions as the last resort. Failure of Ostensive Definitions It is with very simple examples that ostensive definitions start losing their sanctity. Pointing to a pencil, I may say ëThis is toveí (BB p 2) (Wittgenstein deliberately chooses a fictitious word which does not have a lexical meaning). This ostensive definition can be variously interpreted to mean: This is pencil This is round This is wood This is one This is hard, etc. This is the angle of light To go back to our example of Dalmatians, how can I point to their common coat apart from the individual spot-patterns that each Dalmatian has? How can I point to the common texture of their hair apart from the varying degree of softness or roughness? Suppose there are two or more Dalmatians sitting in a sun-room, in different positions and postures, the sun falling at different angles, and making a different filigree of light and shade on the body of each. How will an ostensive procedure be able to cut out their common Dalmatian coat, except perhaps by being backed up by such phrases like ìDo not look at the size, shape, number, or configuration of black spots, just note that the dogs are all white with black spots?î ìDo not look at the light and shade effect on their body; just feel the texture of their hair.î Now is there only one way of taking the words ëcolourí, ëlengthí, or ëtextureí, ëblack and white spotsí, ëcoatí, or ëhairí? (PI 29). To take ëcolourí for instance, I point to a transparent green glass on the table and then to the same glass painted 178 ENAKSHI MITRA in a picture on the wall, and say ëThis colour is greení. What do I mean by ëcolourí in this case? Do I mean the colour in the transparency, or the opaque green as painted on a wooden door or as a pigment on the palette? On the first alternative, the colour of the green glass and that of the painted glass will not be the name, for it is the complex of colour-patches that depicts the glass in the picture that is its colour. The second alternative too has no greater prospect of presenting a pure opaque green colour as a single object of ostension. (Remarks on Colour, I 18) Colour takes different dimensions, depths and hue depending on the thing that has the colour and depending on its environment; one cannot find a self identical saturated sample of green, or white that can be captured by ostension. As Wittgenstein observes in ROC I 61, ëWe are inclined to believe the analysis of our colour concepts would lead ultimately to the colours of places in our visual field, which are independent of any spatial or physical interpretation; for here there is neither light nor shadow, nor highlight, etc., etc. ...í Of the two Dalmatians, I may see one as being white with black spots, and the other black with white spots, putting black and white alternatively in the background and foreground. Lights falling on their body at different angles and different intensity will produce tonal variations of white and grey on the different parts of the body. There will be intractable variations if the light happens to filter through curtains of different colours. Difference in the sitting postures, movement of muscles too cause subtle redistribution of shades. A painter who depicts each of these dogs in his characteristic posture and position with the individual light and shade pattern of his body, has to use a different combination of colours on his palette for each of them. The ostensive definition along with the explanatory phrase ìLook at the common white and black coatî will be of little help to him. Similar remarks would apply to the alternative modes of identification with even stronger force. How would the WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 179 islander pick out the characteristic feature of the boatbuilding trees, say, the maturity of wood, girth of the trunk in isolation from the colour of the wood, its thickness or texture? To take Wittgensteinís own example in PI 47, how can one alternately point to two exclusive features of the tree ñ first to its broken outline composed of straight bits and then to the complexity of its colours? Any ostensive technique that may be adopted would lead to words, and words to further ostension, and neither can be privileged as the originary foundation. Opacity of Acts of Ostension The myth of bare particulars or of self-identical detachable features out there in reality, waiting to be captured by proper names, needed another myth of there being uniform acts of putting labels on to each of these entities. On this view, each of the acts identifying colour as opposed to shape, or shape as opposed to number or the angle of light exhibits a characteristic essence. It just needs a little introspection to expose the absurdity of such suppositions. We sometimes attend to the colour by putting our hand up to keep the outline from view, or by not looking at the outline of the thing; sometime by staring at the object and trying to remember where we saw the colour before. We identify the shape sometimes by screwing up our eyes so as not to see the colour clearly, and in many other ways. And even if there were a characteristic process of attending to the shape ñ say, following the outline with oneís finger or eyes, this by itself would not constitute what we call identifying the shape in contrast to its colour. (PI 33) It is weirder to talk of a single act of identifying the common black and white coat of a Dalmatian ñ an act which brushes away the variant effects of light and shade, variant sizes and shapes and configurations of their spots. Can it possibly be by screwing our eyes to have a blurred image of black and white, which will, so to speak abstract from individual variations in colour and spot-patterns? 180 ENAKSHI MITRA Such a blurred image which has rather stronger potentials to throw out similarity-relations in numerous directions has still less chance of catching a single detachable correlate. Wittgenstein had further argued in PI 85 ñ ëDoes the sign-post leave no doubt open about the way I have to go? Does it shew which direction I am to take when I have passed it; whether along the road or the footpath or cross-country? But where is it said which way I am to follow it; whether in the direction of its finger or (e.g.) in the opposite one? ñ And if there were not a single sign-post, but a chain of adjacent ones or of chalk-marks on the ground ñ is there only one way of interpreting them?í There is not a single way of interpreting a single act of pointing with the finger. I cannot only read in the direction of the wrist to finger, or from the finger to the wrist, but also in the direction in which his knuckles move (i.e., upwards) ñ the direction in which a sliver of sunlight falls on his palms, or even the direction in which the hair stands on his arms. And whatever corrective techniques he may adopt ñ rubbing his knuckles, flattening out the bristles of his hair, patting my back every time I do it in the ërightí way, putting a cross in the ëwrongí direction ñ all these pictures are again available to innumerable ways of reading. All ostensive procedures of identification are pictures that are ruptured from within, they disseminate into an unending flow of more and more words, and more and more pictures. Failure of inner ostension For the Augustinians, the fact that verbal language and gesture-language fail to capture a unique meaning only shows that we need something stronger, something ëdeeperí or ëinnerí, to effect the correlation between the word and its self-identical meaning. They find it in the mental imageries and internal acts of ëmeaningí or ëunderstandingí. For them, while physical icons or acts of ostension may miss WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 181 its target a mental ostension gets unfailingly hooked on its unique meaning. Here the Augustinians are obviously saddled with a mental picture as a ësuper-likenessí or a super-picture which makes it an image of this and of nothing else. (PI 389) They need to appreciate the fact that like the physical picture, a mental picture too, say of a white dog-skin with black spots can be read in many different ways, it cannot by itself get hooked on to its unique meaning-entity, the unique Dalmatian coat, so to speak. Nor is there a mental act of meaning or intending as a conscious process running concurrently with the physical process of speaking. It may at best reduce to an array of unspoken words, mouthed silently, which plainly cannot have any magical quality to perform a feat that a physically uttered sentence cannot. We cannot hold up a single act or occurrence ñ whether mental or physical ñ a characteristic ëfeelingí of meaning, a sincere tone of voice, or an earnest facial expression ñ as a plausible agent to do the trick. Reference and Meaning: A Grammatical Interplay It might be objected that the foregoing account shows a failure of various devices in fixing meaning, not a failure of ostensive definition in fixing reference. Pointing or ostending, which by its very nature pins down a simple object, cannot possibly pin down a complex property, a configuration or arrangement of simples. Features like common texture of hair, degrees of softness or roughness, broken outline composed of straight bits, arrangement of colour-patches, girth of wood, maturity of trunk, (marks of a tree alluded to in a previous section) are on ultimate analysis configuration of simples that are duly available to sophisticated version of ostension (say Russellian acquaintance.) To whatever extent Wittgenstein may experiment with deviant modes of conception, he can at best introduce newer and newer 182 ENAKSHI MITRA modes of configuration; he cannot outgrow the logical demands of ultimate simples underlying all possible modes of deviance. The way Wittgenstein breaks through this classical divide between reference and description may be condensed under the following points: i) The difference between reference and description consists in an interactive play ñ where the referring game is the mere preparatory move (like putting pieces on the board) and descriptions comprise of more elaborate and complex activities. ii) However, learning the games of referring are by no means achieved through a transparent encounter with putatively given objects. This simple or elementary character of the referring games is relative ñ relative to that particular simple/complex interplay in which it is embodied. The elementary move of referring in one game can figure as quite a sophisticated and complex move of description in another game. iii) In other words simplicity and complexity are not absolute in Wittgensteinís philosophy. The constant metamorphosis of simple into complex and vice versa also breaks through the claims of unique analysis and ultimate terminus of analysis popularized in logical atomism. iv) Thus reference is constructed in and through the uses, the referred object does not pre-exist as a given chunk to make the referring use possible We shall try to argue that even within each of these naming-describing interplays the reference never pre-exists but fleshes out in and through each description. Wittgenstein points out that the Augustinian model of reference and description stands on a par with taking each letter of a script to stand for a particular sound, or as signs of emphasis or marks of punctuation. On this conception the particular language or script turns out to be merely a WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 183 description of sound-patterns along with their various modes of intonation and punctuation. Or to take another example: a person completely innocent of the intricate mechanism of a locomotive will equate all the levers ñ the switch, crank, brake, pump with their external projections jutting out from various parts of the cabin and all looking alike.( PG 20, also PI 4) So far as the builderís assistant simply fetches specific building materials viz. slab, blocks etc., at the call of the builder ( PI 2), so far as he does not know how to operate with the inner structure or composition of each of the building stones, or to integrate them into a continuous structure, he is at the rudiments of the entire process of building. The operations of all these persons will not go beyond passive assortments of the parts (of language, machine or the building). Wittgenstein himself has mentioned these games as referringñgames along with a few others: i. The teacher utters the words in the course of ostensive teaching, pointing alongside to the relevant objects. ( PI 6) ii. The teacher calls out names like ëchairí, ëtableí, ëplateí, ësofaí, ëchessboardí and the child is taught to touch the relevant object. (We construct this game on the model of the above.) iii. One memorises words and their meanings. (PI 47) iv. A word is uttered and the subject is asked to recall the image of the corresponding object. (PI 6) v. Putting pieces on the board before playing. (PI 49) The point of these examples is to harp on the preparatory or rudimentary character of reference vis a vis the complex activity of description with the all important reminder that they are not preparations for a passive combination into descriptions. Thus the flaw in the Augustinian model of language is exposed to be on the same footing with such 184 ENAKSHI MITRA theories that envisage language-speaking or other activities as comprising of two primary functions ñ first the elementary move of gathering materials, and second, the act of passively assorting these inert chunks. It is strange why Wittgenstein seems to be quite content in characterizing the Augustinian model of language as merely an error of omission. ëAugustine, we may say, does describe a system of communication; only not everything that we call this language is this system...it is appropriate, but only for this narrowly circumscribed region... .í It is like defining ëgameí as consisting in moving objects about on a surface according to certain rules, thus restricting oneself only to board-games leaving out the others.(PI 3, also see 2, 4. ) In PG 19, (p. 57) he qualifies the simplicistic nature of Augustinian model: ëSo it could be said that Augustine represents the matter too simply; but also that he represents something simpler.í The first move would be like restricting oneself only to say, board-games, the second move would be like stopping short at putting pieces in the board. It is quite evident that these game of putting the pieces on board, fetching building materials, linking each letter with only denoting a sound in so far as they have no tendency to move to the actual steps of playing, to the intricate stages of construction, or to using a set of signs as representing not sound-patterns but full-bodied reality they cannot even be called simpler games in any sense. The simplicity of these so-called simple moves can only be appreciated in so far as they do not remain as truncated fragments but are seen as incorporated into the full-fledged games. And the way the simple is incorporated into the complex, or reference is incorporated into description is obviously not through a passive assortment but in a dynamic interplay of an extremely complex nature. To grow out of this passive assortment or linear combination-model is to grow out of the absolute distinction of the simple and the complex and purportedly unique WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 185 modes of analysis popularized by Logical Atomism.(PI 4649) A chair can be seen as made of bits of wood, or of atoms and molecules, or (normally) as composed of a back-rest and seat propped up on four legs, or as a unitary design resisting any analysis (PI 47). The visual image of this tree can be looked upon as a complex of colour patches, or as a broken outline composed of straight bits. A curved line can be said to be composed of an ascending segment and a descending segment. A chessboard is normally seen as a unique composition made out of thirty two white and thirty two black squares. But we can also see it as colours black and white and a schema of squares. There is no inherent simplicity in the respective elements of each mode of complexity, say, of the chessboard. ëIs the colour of a square of a chessboard simple, or is it composed of pure white and pure yellow? And is white simple or does it consist of colours of the rainbow? Is this length 2 cm simple or does to consist of 1 bit 3 cm long and one bit 1 cm long measured in the opposite direction?í (PI 47). ëIs it unimaginable for someone to see the group | | | | | (e.g.) as the group | | || | | with the two middle strokes fused, and should accordingly count the middle stroke twice? (True, it is not the usual case)í (RFM I 168). ëThe question ìIs what you see composite?î makes good sense if it is already established what kind of complexity that is, which particular use of the word is in question.í Asking ìIs the object composite?î outside a particular language-game is like asking whether the verb ëto sleepí meant something active or passive. (PI 47). The phenomenon of seeing a tree for example in different ways can be accounted for in two ways: Either we are baptising the entire tree say by the proper name ëTerryí in which case ëTerryí can internalize its reference in so many different ways (two of which we have already cited). On the other hand we can also say that we are not baptising the tree, but baptising each of its so-called elements. To take another example: Suppose there are some squares of different 186 ENAKSHI MITRA colours like red, green, white and black arranged like a chessboard. We can have the words, R, G, W, B corresponding to these squares and a sentence say ëRRBGGGRWWí describing an arrangement of this sort (PI 48). Here the sentence above is a complex of names and thus a description of the configuration of the squares. But none of the squares which figure as names in this usage is inherently simple, in other language-games each of them can be said to be a composite, consisting perhaps of two rectangles, colours and shapes. Thus what is a name ëRí in this context, may well be a description or a sentence describing the configurations of two rectangles, in another context. To say that we cannot define or describe certain elements but simply name them will only mean a limiting case where a complex consists of one square. Here its description seems to give the illusion of being the name of the colored square. Similarly the above expression RRBGGGRWW can embody a preparatory referring move in a game where the entire figure taken as a single unit enters into certain relations or interactions with other similar figures. Adopting this track of argument it will be easy to appreciate that the block, pillars, slabs etc. can be looked upon as a complex of colour-patches (where the sub-atomic cohesion into a hard impenetrable chunk is kept out of the purview), or as pattern of light and shade, and so on. So the builderís assistant in playing out the referring game of fetching the building-blocks in the customary fashion is only exercising a simplicity that is relative in at least two senses. First, playing this referring-game the assistant is already R R B G G G R W W WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 187 embedded (though in an imperfect and incomplete fashion)into the activity of building which opts out of the other two kinds of games just mentioned. Playing the referring ñ games in the other two modes for instance would have incurred different modes of activity ñ scraping it into layers of different chromes and lumping them together in a single compact pile, and placing each block in the same relative position with the sun and the shadow. (These referring games will throw up the more complex games of descriptions say of comparing two stones in terms of the variety of shades that each comprises of, or uniting one light and shade pattern with another.) On similar lines, the customary referring game of the builderís assistant can be recast into an appreciably complex, sophisticated and elaborate game of description the assistant taking note of how each utterance of the builder hits on his ears, tracing the movement of his limbs in lifting the slab, the configuration of his arms and the building materials, pattern of muscular tension in carrying the materials. Such activities form the assumed backdrop and not the substantial content of the referring game played by the assistant. As Strawson9 pointed out, stating that one is making a referring use or stating the conditions under which he is making it, forms no part of the significance of referring-games. However, when the simple game of the assistant is recast in a complex game of describing (in the manner indicated), some suitably simple move of referring ( i.e. referring to oneís limbs, muscles, etc) crops up to even the balance. The relation between reference and description is a pattern of contrastive interplay where though there is a constant switch-over of roles, it perhaps never permits a disturbance in the basic requirement of a dual tension. One can undertake similar exercises of transforming the other games of referring narrated in (i) to (v) into descriptions and thus recasting the pattern of each simple-complex interplay. 188 ENAKSHI MITRA Reference as ëShowní in multiple fashions Reference turns out not to be a singular pre-semantic encounter with a simple object lying out there, nor is meaning or understanding achieved by a compact set of statements drawing from the supposed transparency of verbal rules and definite descriptions. Both these phenomena spread out in a plethora of linguistic and non-linguistic activities, spilling over the present to ëa variety of actions and experiences of different kinds before and afterí. (BB p. 145 and also PI 35). We have seen that while with reference these activities recede to the background, meaning spreads out in explicit statements and explanations. Wittgenstein says that the referring game of ostension cannot take off unless the ëoverall role of the word in language is clearí. (PI 30) One cannot offer or respond to an ostensive definition, say of a chess-piece unless one is already initiated into games, the specific variety of boardgames, the conventions of moving the pieces around the board. The sortals that often come to accompany ostensive definitions, like ëcolourí, ëshapeí, ëlengthí indeed show the ëgrammarí, the ëpost at which we station the wordí.(PI 29) But this does not imply that grammar is uniquely ëshowní as the reference presupposed by all actual and possible descriptions, in the manner that the unique and ultimate logical form of all language was claimed to be ëshowní in the Tractatus. (4.121, 4.1212, also NB p107) The later Wittgensteinís leanings towards multiple ways of shownness surface in such statements that there is no ëone way of taking the word ìcolourî or ìlengthî í, and any attempt to disambiguate them through definitions will go on ad infinitum.(PI 29) .Similarly there is no one way in which the alternative grammars of a chessboard or the tree are to be taken. Alternative or deviant grammars do not entail but themselves flesh out bit by bit through deviant descriptions just as in the case of the normal ones. WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 189 The idea of a pre-linguistic, primordial referent that foreshadows all possible descriptions is indeed hard to resist. Kripke says that baptism captures the necessary identity of a particular as originating from a particular stuff ñ the material stuff like the specific pieces of wood in case of a table, and the eggs and sperms of the parents in case of a human individual10. Now the question is what the referential identity of the parents is, and the gametes which according to Kripke are supposed to recur in all counterfactuals stipulated about the referent? Any attempt to pin it down by ostension or further definite description would launch a patently indefinite regress. And the identityñconditions cannot hark back on the original reference (the human individual in question) on pain of obvious circularity. This clearly shows that each renewed recognition of an individual as the same reference of the proper name is not linear addition to the given transworld identity; rather each preceding stage of the individual is reshaped and enriched by the subsequent ones11. Equipped with these fresh insights we can now venture a more imaginative treatment of PI 66. The examples of ëgamesí and ëfamilyí were strategically deployed to show how the phenomenon of external ruptures gives way to internal ruptures. Let us recall the statement: ëLook at the parts played by skill and luck; and at the difference between skill in chess and skill in tennis.í It does not merely show how a property viz. skill gets replaced by the property of luck, or how the property of ëskill in chessí drops out to make way for ëskill in tennisí, but how the property of skill itself breaks open to dissolve the very dichotomy between a property and a particular, i.e., between description and reference. This is another way to see similarity or resemblance in a new light ñ not as grounded upon non-relational ërespectsí or features or identities that foreshadow different routes of similarityrelations. To learn the reference or meaning of a particular word, through ostension or definition, one has already gone 190 ENAKSHI MITRA through a vast, complicated and indefinite network of relations ñ similarity relations without a non-relational respect. Shorn of these ërespectsí, i.e., ostensible common features, and also of unique and unfailing acts of ostension, the concepts used in our language, as well as the concept of language itself turn out to be a motley of language-games, behaviours and practices, without any common structure or content. ëInstead of producing something common to all that we call language, I am saying . . . that they are related to one another in many different ways. It is because of this relationship, or these relationships, that we call them all ìlanguageîí. (PI 65) The italic emphasis on ërelatedí is indeed designed to wean us away from the non-relational identity, the foundational core of relations. Failure of measurement as ostending to a quantitative identity Do all these reference/description patterns rest on a uniform quantitative boundary? Is there a single chunk of an object on which we play out all these modes of simplecomplex interactions? Wittgensteinís examples on various modes of simplicity (and the further contrivances we have attempted in those lines) seek to swerve from such constraints. Yet some of Wittgensteinís statements in connection with the teaching of words like ëslabí are a bit problematic: ëThis ostensive teaching of words can be said to establish an association between the word and the thingí... [I]t may mean various things: but one very likely thinks first of all that a picture of the object comes before the childís mind when he hears the word.í(PI 6, italics mine) Also in the course of dissipating any putative essence shared by the acts of ostension, Wittgenstein says: ëOnly think how differently we learn the use of words ìto point to this thingî, ìto point to that thingî, and on the other hand ìto point to the colour, not the shapeî, ìto mean the colourî and so on.í (PI 35) Is Wittgenstein dismissing a global essence supposedly WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 191 shared by all acts of ostension (pointing to things, colour, shape etc.) at the cost of admitting a local essence shared by all acts of pointing to a thing? Does this mean that pointing to one thing as distinct from others harks back on a readily available quantitative chunk of an object which is absent in pointing to colours or shapes? Now we may argue that instead of suggesting a quantitative identity easily available for reference Wittgenstein is suggesting that the numerical identification of things is not simply given, but a game we have to learn through an elaborate ostensive programming. One cannot point to a piece in a game as a piece in a game, similarly one cannot point to a thing as a countable object numerically distinct from another through a single and transparent act of ostension. Nor can reference be determined through measurement. A little reflection will show that a measuring scale fares no better than physical or inner ostension. Any attempt to pin down a fixed originary moment of complete identification ñ be it with ostension, or rational intuition, or measurement ñ will produce an endless regress of origins. In the first place let us recall that to identify an object say as ëblueí through ostension, we must already have identified it as having some feature, coloured, shaped, or hard, etc. Similarly to put the measuring scale against the object one needs to identify the two points within which the object lies, i.e., to have already determined its quantity. Secondly, we also need to identify the beginning and end-point of the measuring scale, which cannot be further decided by another scale without repeating the problem. Similarly we also need to conceptualise the ostensive procedure itself ñ as an act of pointing with the finger, or a movement of the eye-ball, or a mental image. Thirdly, the comparison between the measuring device and the measured object can no more be decided by measurement, than the comparison between the ostender and the ostended be decided by ostension. Whether the act of pointing be matched up with the table 192 ENAKSHI MITRA lying in the direction of the finger, or with the bed lying in the direction of the wrist, or whether the mental image of the ashtray be matched up with purple colour of the actual ashtray lying in front, or with its oval shape, cannot be passed over to further ostensious. Measurement too would involve at least two more identifications ñ (a) Coinciding the left end of the object with that point of the scale from which the markers begin, and (b) Determining the two marks of the scale between which the right end of the object lies.12 Thus the limits of an object, the coincidence of points, their relative position ñ in short reference ñ is presupposed and not decided by measurement. It seems that Wittgenstein does not want to retain the quantitative identity of the thing on which the different games are built, or the different modes of understanding are effected. Rather it may reasonably be held that his view of the dialectic interplay between the simple and complex also breaks through absolute distinction between the small and the large ñ of determinate quantitative boundaries where the large is supposed to be built out of the small static units through a process of linear addition. Wittgenstein points out that expressions like ëdivision of a line by a point outside ití, and ëcomposition of forcesí clearly show that sometimes we tend to look upon a greater area as composed by a division of the smaller and a smaller area as composed of greater area. (PI 48) The second example brings an interesting analogy between matter and meaning into play. Neither matter nor meaning should be looked upon as a composite, tightly packed up with hard little balls or absolute, simple elements. Matter is to be conceived as a swarm of electrical particles, widely separated from each other and rushing about in great speed ñ thus creating a network or field of forces. The particles are not inert little balls, resting smugly in an equally inert, external and empty space. They are forces which can be said to occupy space only by buffeting away anything that tries to enter. Thus they are not in space, WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 193 they create space, they are space. And in this sense they create a ëcomposition of forcesí, where the smaller area can be said to be composed out of greater areas. One cannot look upon matter or meaning as assorted out of smaller elements inertly adding up to progressively larger ones, for the smaller can only be understood as exploding into or creating bigger space. Reference does not hark back on an inert, simple quantitative identity underlying all modes of descriptions; but the way in which that putative identity is invaded by its other ñ the space of description. Language, Behaviour and Reality What we have been trying to appreciate is that reference, meaning and understanding consist in a plethora of activities, which cannot be conceived in any fashion unless they are seen to incorporate the reality into themselves, very much in the same fashion as the mechanisms of a locomotive absorb their seemingly external projections. (PG 20, PI 4) The acts of uttering marks, writing signs or moving oneís limbs traditionally presuppose an immaculate object waiting out there to be somehow linked, manipulated or maneuvered by these acts. The Nyaya-Vaisesikas conceive behaviour or actions as a cause of conjunction or disjunction ñ say the act of my walking away from this room to the next causes a disjunction from one part of space and conjunction with another part13 (space figuring as an eternal and allpervading substance for this school). On this theory behaviors or actions are envisaged as bridges conjoining the agent with the object ñ the two entities lying external to each other. For Wittgenstein on the other hand behaviour does not connect signs with the signified by making a bridge through a supposed empty space in between. We have to appreciate how it constructs the sign and the signified into a new space. Conceiving the chair and my body in the normal fashion amounts to bridging them up in the usual way ñ sticking out 194 ENAKSHI MITRA my limbs to it or fixing a plank between the two. But if I conceive a chair as an amalgamation of pieces bereft of its normal function it may be loosened up into a horizontal chain reaching up to my body. Again to conceive the chair as an assortment of streaks or colour-patches is to create another new space ñ a spread of wooden strips, each with a different streak or a different shade. Conceiving both my body and the chair as certain designs or as composition of forces will invoke newer bridges creating newer spaces. Indeed to build a bridge literally between the two banks of the river is to carve out a new space, it does not fill up the supposed empty space yawning between the two pre-given banks so to speak. The new space that our bridge creates serves our purpose best, but it has no theoretical power to block other constructs. The multiple ways of bridging do not follow from a specific conception of the object, but in each case the object is fleshed out in and through the bridge. The next step is to realize how the non-linguistic behaviours ( absorbing our body and objects into a new space) get sophisticated and extended into linguistic behaviours, viz. the action of uttering sounds by different parts of our speech-organ. Dead phonemes and their combinations do not constitute language, it is the active utterances of these sounds, the movement of the speechorgan, movement of facial muscles, gestures with our eyes and limbs ñ all imbued with images and feelings ñ that our non-linguistic behaviours extend to. Once language is seen as an extension of non-linguistic behaviours it can be seen as internalizing reality in the way behaviours do. Initially it will be easier to trace out pain-language as an extension of pain-behaviour before we can readily appreciate language in general as an extension of nonlinguistic behaviours. Pain-expressions are neither names nor descriptions of pain-sensations delinked from common public space with common public coordinates. Any expression purporting to name, directly or indirectly (i.e., WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 195 through an intermediary of a private description) a private referent i.e., a private feeling of pain has to invoke words from the public vocabulary i.e., use a public bridge or link to the putatively private sensation. But a private feeling claimed to reside on the other side of the public bridge cannot retain its professed privacy. Thus pain-behaviors, whether overt or covert, are not external manifestations, but exhaust the entire substance of our ëinnerí feelings and emotions ñ nothing of our inner world remains as an irreducibly pure content untouched by actual behaviors. (PI 243-315)14 We deliberately refrain from invoking ëpossibleí behaviours in this context for a sensation resting on unrealized possibility of behavioural manifestation lapses into the same absurdity Wittgenstein is trying to avoid. This view also steers clear of the behaviourist position and demonstrates pain-language as not a description, but an extension of pain-behaviour. Interestingly behaviorism itself turns out to be a version of the Augustinian model taking signs and physical behaviours as mutually external ñ words being names of behavioral items, which are combined into sentences or descriptions. Further, behaviourism itself fails to make the desired connection between language (the word ëpainí) on the one hand and pain-behaviours on the other (the purported meaning of signs.) The bridge of physical ostension which for the behaviourists is the only resource available, does not withstand the critique of Augustinian model. For Wittgenstein, language does not name or describe behaviour but itself is behaviour, it does not represent meaning but is itself the meaning. This equation of language and behaviour will be patently opposed to the Fregean standpoint where understanding or speaking is to apprehend non-sensible thoughts residing in the third realm thoughts that just happen to get clothed in the sensible garb of signs. Frege will put signs, behaviours or actions as physical events in the first realm. Meaning for Frege involves an ëintention to representí (i.e., intention to 196 ENAKSHI MITRA be true of) which can conceivably belong only to thought. Behaviours and actions cannot perform this function of meaning, it is the thought viz. ëThese behaviours and actions represent this reality (truly or falsely)í that needs to be invoked to account for meaning and communication.15 For Wittgenstein on the other hand, there are no preinterpretive and absolute ëthoughtsí in the third realm that enters into the sensible garb of signs or generate the nonlinguistic behaviours. Rather it is the non-linguistic instinctive behaviours that get their sophisticated extension and replacement into the utterance of signs and sets the pattern of a thought.(Z, 541,545)16 This internal blend of language, behaviour and reality get effectively reinforced in Wittgensteinís reflections on the notion of understanding. For him understanding cannot take us from signs to extra linguistic reality (Russell), or from signs to transparent sign-independent thoughts in the third realm (Frege). Understanding is rather moving from a relatively strange set of signs to an easily surveyable symbolism.(PG p 40) In understanding a musical piece we are never expected to learn or be able to say what it is all about, what is crucially involved is rather understanding why these bars should be played in this way, why the pattern of variation of loudness should be just like this. Understanding music is translating a musical picture to a picture in another medium. Similar remarks apply to understanding a proposition which is virtually understanding a picture. (PG p 41) The difference between understanding a picture and not understanding it is internal to the picture itself. To survey these two cases of ënot understanding a pictureí a. I do not understand the pictureí. ñ I say this when I am not able to envisage the flat colours as going out of itself to represent anything. b. ëI do not understand the pictureí. I say this when WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 197 though I am able to see it in its representational aspect I am not able to identify what reality it is supposed to represent. In neither of the above cases the failure to understand the picture is the failure to go beyond the picture to an external reality. Likewise, the success in understanding the picture is also internal to the picture. Similarly the failure or success in understanding a proposition is internal to the sign-system that constitutes the proposition. (PG p 42 ) Had signs been an inessential garb of reality and understanding been a passage from one to the other, then one could easily have replaced any word in a sentence by any other. E.g. ëI see a black patch thereí can successively be replaced by a, b, c, d, e, f. ( PG p 44) The fact that we cannot make this substitution shows that the meaning of ëIí is not a piecemeal entity which previously linked with the isolated phonetic content of ëIí now needs to be linked to another sign. It shows that ëIí has spilled over its phonetic bounds to absorb other words and contexts into a full-fledged reality. As the replacement of ëIí by ëaí cannot replace these rich layers of association ë[we] cannot think the sense of the above sentence straightaway in the new expressioní. This relentless and tortuous grapple with foundations rules out all possibility of reading Wittgenstein as presenting a theory of socio-cultural relativism, where different modes of conception are different ways of permuting and combining a given set of pre-social identities. While the talk of ëcustomsí, ëinstitutionsí and ëforms of lifeí (PI 198199,205,337, RFM I-63 ) temporarily shifts the focus to sociocultural factors, they are in the long run, strategic reminders that one cannot find a starting point or origin where all explanations end, but that one can only spread out the whirl of organism in a progressively enriched and full-bodied expanse. On ultimate analysis, language, behaviour and reality 198 ENAKSHI MITRA cannot be externalized from and yet expected to entail each other through a logical mechanism. Such foundationalist ambitions may be paralleled with that of freezing the oceanwaves a moment before they break and then professing to extract the crushed expanse of the foams of its frozen reservoir. It is extremely important to realize that behaviour itself as a pure reference severed from all uses and behaviours ironically lapses into the ghostly fragment ñ an iron rod severed from the entire mechanism, ëwhen language is like an engine idling, not when it is doing work. (PI 132) While meaning cashes out into linguistic and non-linguistic behaviours, behaviour itself is not a pre-behavioral chunk given out there. Thus in fine language and behaviour forge a non-foundational blend that internalizes and does not represent the supposedly extra-linguistic reality. NOTES 1. The abbreviations used for Wittgensteinís texts are as follows: The Blue and the Brown Books (BB), Notebooks (NB), Philosophical Investigations (PI), Philosophical Grammar (PG), Remarks on Colour, (ROC), Remarks on Foundations of Mathematics (RFM), Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (TLP), Zettel (Z). 2. I have been obliged to borrow many examples from John Hospers, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis for their wonderful variety and simplicity. 3. Lewis Caroll, Aliceís Adventures in Wonderland, Wordsworth Classics, Great Britain, 2001, p 136. 4. We shall have to submit at the end that Wittgenstein is not offering a sociological foundation of language. 5. See R. Bambrough, ëUniversals and Family Resemblanceí, George Pitcher (ed.), Wittgenstein: The Philosophical Investigations, pp. 202 ñ 203. 6. This theory is propounded by Russell in his Philosophy of Logical Atomism, Logic And Knowledge, R.C.Marsh (ed.) Routledge And New York, 1994. 7. I acknowledge the influence of Baker and Hackerís treatment of this issue (Baker and Hacker, 1980, volume 1, p. 33, p. 45 ñ 59) 8. Frege states this quite explicitly in ëSinn und Bedeutungí, ëThe Thought: A Logical Enquiryí in Michael Beaney (ed), The Frege Reader. 9. ëOn Referringí, in R. Ammerman (ed), Classics of Analytic Philosophy. 10. Naming and Necessity, Lecture III, p 112 ñ 114. WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE 199 11. Kripke holds that the concept of reference or reality is too rich to be specified in terms of anything else (ostension or definite description) and thus all circularities or regresses involved in specifying the identityconditions of an individual only shows the inadequacy of language in capturing reality. This view as we have noted is flatly opposed to Wittgensteinís. On the other hand, Kripkeís emphatic rejection of a tertium quid (ostension or definite description) for reaching out to reference brings him closer to Wittgenstein in certain respects. However, for Kripke the referent causes the usage of rigid designators and repeats itself as a unique transworld identity in all descriptions. For Wittgenstein on the other hand, language internalizes reference in inexhaustively different ways. 12. This analysis of measurement is derived largely from R.S. Jones, Physics as Metaphor, pp. 18 ñ 30. 13. Prasastapada Bhasyam, Part I,5. 14. I am greatly indebted to C.E.M. Dunlopís ìWittgenstein on Sensation and Seeing Asî in Synthese for the treatment of pain. 15. Frege, Gottlob, ëThe Thought: A Logical Enquiryí. 16. Norman Malcolmís article ëThe Relation of Language to Instinctive Behaviourí has helped me shape up this line of argument. BIBLIOGRAPHY Wittgenstein, Ludwig Texts Remarks on Colour, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe, (trans.: Linda. L. McAlister and Margaret Schattle), Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1950. Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, ed. G.H. Von Wright (trans.: G.E.M. Ascombe), Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1956. Notebooks 1914 ñ 1916, ed. G.H. Von Wright and G.E.M. Anscombe (trans.: G.E.M. Anscombe), Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1961. The Blue and The Brown Books, ed. R. Rhees, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1975. Zettel, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. Von Wright (trans.: G.E.M. Anscombe), Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981. Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (trans.: C.K. Ogden), London