Wittgenstein on Thought and Will by Teichmann Roger

Author:Teichmann, Roger [Roger Teichmann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317432234
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

He goes on to remark that it may not be very clear-cut what are to count as symptoms and what as criteria, this very often being a matter for decision or stipulation; such vagueness or indeterminacy in language “need not be a deplorable lack of clarity”, having to do with the practical nature of language-use. If we don’t need precise boundaries for some concept, it is fine for that concept to lack them. This is a familiar Wittgensteinian theme.

In so far as some statement does count as giving criteria, and not symptoms, it is akin to a definition, or a “loose definition”. The word “loose” here is not just pointing to the sort of vagueness or indeterminacy we have just mentioned. For there is another aspect of the practical nature of language-use which is embodied in the notion of criteria, namely defeasibility. In learning the concept of fear you must come to see certain sorts of behaviour, etc. as giving grounds for saying “X is afraid”, such as running away, or screaming, or shaking—especially where these are embedded in a situation in which something can be taken as threatening X, such as a ferocious animal, or a fire. (Such a situation constitutes the “surroundings” of the behaviour.) It is a necessary truth that X’s running away and screaming count as good grounds for saying “X is afraid”, given that X is a human being. But “good grounds” doesn’t mean “sufficient conditions”, and the necessity just referred to doesn’t yield an entailment. For of course X could be pretending, or acting in a play, or doing it for a bet, or indeed manifesting some other psychological state, such as hysterical effervescence (in which case, the running probably isn’t running away). Certain things will then count as defeating the original statement, “X is afraid”, such things as X’s collapsing in a fit of giggles and our finding out that he’d just been let out of school for the summer holidays.

It is tempting to think that we must in principle be able to list the set of possible defeating conditions, as also the set of possible behaviours and situations, in such a way as to arrive at a proper definition of “afraid”—a proper definition being one that gives necessary and sufficient conditions. But this temptation has its source in a simplistic picture of language and its purpose. A good antidote to that picture is the reflection that there is often very good practical sense in taking as one’s default position that circumstances are normal, where what constitutes normality is of course dependent on the context; and that there will thus be full warrant in saying or doing something without one’s having first ruled out those possible defeating circumstances which would render the situation abnormal—for you need only cross bridges when you come to them. These remarks apply to human practices, like buying and selling: buying a pair of socks would become unfeasible if you first had to establish that the socks were the

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