Wittgenstein's PragmatismAuthor(s): Robin HaackSource: American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1982), pp. 163-171Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of North American PhilosophicalPublicationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20013953Accessed: 01/04/2010 22:29

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American Philosophical Quarterly

Volume 19, Number 2, April 1982

V. WITTGENSTEIN'S PRAGMATISM ROBIN HAACK

So I am trying to say something that sounds like

pragmatism. Here I am being thwarted by a kind of

Weltanschauung.

(Wittgenstein, On Certainty. Section 422)

It will be seen...that pragmatism is not a

Weltanschauung but is rather a method of reflection

having for its purpose to render ideas clear.

(Peirce, Collected Papers, 5.13)

TT HOUGH Wittgenstein would never have -** described himself as a pragmatist, those

familiar with the work of Peirce, James, Dewey, Mead, Schiller and Ramsey can hardly fail to see

many pragmatist strands in his later work. And

linking Wittgenstein with the pragmatist tradition

gives a useful perspective from which to approach both the interpretation and the evaluation of his work.

So far as I know, there is no evidence that Witt?

genstein read Peirce, Dewey, or Mead. He did,

however, read James extensively. According to

Anscombe1, Wittgenstein read James'

Psychology: The Briefer Course, and according to

A. C. Jackson2 he also read James' Principles of

Psychology, which was, for some time, the only

philosophical work to be found on his

bookshelves. (The former work became known as

"Jimmy," to distinguish it from the sturdier paren? tal "James.") Drury recalls3 that Wittgenstein also

read and greatly admired The Varieties of

Religious Experience, sympathizing, no doubt, with its rejection of an essence of religion and its

suggestion that religious experiences share family resemblances. And Britton reports4 that Wittgen? stein was familiar with F. C. S. Schiller's Mind

paper, "The value of formal logic;"5 surprisingly,

Wittgenstein described this paper?in which

Schiller defends naturalistic views of meaning and

logical necessity?as philosophical "nonsense." (It

happens sometimes that initial disagreements

become, on perhaps subconscious reflection,

agreements.)

Wittgenstein also conversed with Russell and

Ramsey, both of whom were acquainted with

some of Peirce's work. In his last years Ramsey

was, as he remarked himself,6 moving in the direc?

tion of pragmatism; it is highly likely that Witt?

genstein came to know about Peirce's views on

meaning, his distinction between types and

tokens, his definition of belief as a habit of action

and his theory of inquiry from his discussions with

Ramsey.7

The concern of the present paper, however, is

not so much the known and likely direct influence

of the pragmatists, as the marked similarities be?

tween Wittgenstein's later works and some

characteristically pragmatist views.8 If anything of

generality can be said about Wittgenstein's later

philosophy, it is that it is naturalistic. The

pragmatists were also naturalists. There are strik?

ing similarities between what Wittgenstein says and what the pragmatists say about meaning, behaviour and justification. But there is also an

important difference: Witgenstein's naturalism is

descriptive, whereas the pragmatists' naturalism is

explanatory. To entertain a thoroughly ex?

travagant thought: we could, at least initially, view Wittgenstein's naturalism as standing to the

pragmatists' as Kepler's descriptive work on

planetory motion stands to Newton's explanatory

theory of gravitation. Section 1 characterizes naturalism and

distinguishes its descriptive and explanatory varieties. Section 2 compares Wittgenstein's and

163

164 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

the pragmatists' naturalism about meaning, trac?

ing first their agreement on the intimate connec?

tion between meaning and behavior and the

dependence of meaning on context and then the

contrast between the pragmatists' stress on the role

of meaning in inquiry with Wittgenstein's purely

descriptive account. This contrast is the basis for

the argument, in Section 3, that the difficulties in

Wittgenstein's naturalistic account of meaning derive precisely from its purely descriptive

character, and could be avoided by an explanatory naturalism such as pragmatism offers.

I. Naturalism.

The pragmatists are naturalists in much the

same way that Hume was. Hume's naturalism has

two main components. First, Hume attempted to

use the methods of the natural sciences in the

sciences of logic, morals, criticism and politics.

(More specifically, Hume tried to explain the

observed facts of human nature in terms of a small

number of associationist principles, in much the

same way as Newton explained the behavior of

bodies in terms of principles of motion and

gravitation.) Second, Hume held that the sciences of man must begin with descriptions of human

nature (natural beliefs, associations, propensities,

sympathies, passions, emotions, customs).9 The

pragmatists reiterate, and indeed extend, both of

these naturalistic themes. They contend that scien?

tific methods are the only reliable methods for

ascertaining the truth on any subject; and they also stress the importance of natural behavior

(which, unlike Hume, they try to give a biological and evolutionary base) and emphasize the propen?

sity to agreement as an indicator of truth or war?

ranted assertibility. The pragmatists are also

naturalists in a third sense, the sense used by

Quine when he characterizes naturalism as the

"abandonment of the goal of a first philosophy,"10 that is, as the rejection of the idea that philosophy

must supply the foundations of science.

Now Wittgenstein is a naturalist in the second

and third of these senses. He stresses the impor

tance of agreement in judgements and in

behavioral and linguistic conventions; he rejects the idea of philosophy as providing a foundation

for all the sciences, and he does not think of his

methods as "supra-scientific." But Wittgenstein is not a naturalist in the first sense, at least, not if the

goal of using scientific methods is explanation.

(Early on, he was tempted by the view of Hertz

and others that science itself is descriptive rather

than explanatory.) For Wittgenstein does not

think it is the proper business of philosophy to

propound general theses or explanatory theories.

It is no accident that O.K. Bouwsma, who was

strongly influenced by Wittgenstein, explicitly at?

tacks11 the pragmatists' view that scientific

methods are the only reliable methods for any in?

quiry. In what follows I shall be comparing and

contrasting Wittgenstein's with the pragmatists' naturalism with respect to their view about mean?

ing. Naturalism is also a pivotal notion around

which comparisons of other, related topics such as

mind and behavior, justification, and theory ver?

sus practice could also be made; but these are out?

side the scope of the present paper.

II. Meaning.

2.1 Meaning and behavior.

Both Wittgenstein and the pragmatists associate

meaning closely with behavior.

For Wittgenstein the meaning of an expression is constrained by its roles in language games; and

language games are linguistic activities. For

Peirce, the meaning of a concept is the conceivable

effects which the truth of sentences involving that

concept would have on our behavior; for James, the meaning of a sentence is the conceivable dif?

ferences it would make to our behavior to add

either that sentence or its negation to our stock of

beliefs. Wittgenstein's remark that at least for a

large number of cases the meaning of an expres? sion is its use in a language has close affinities with

Dewey's observation that "Meaning...is primarily a property of behavior."12

A distinction can be made here between relating

WITTGENSTEIN'S PRAGMATISM 165

meaning to particular behavior in particular con?

texts, and relating it to general types of behavior,

types which may be rule governed or institu?

tionalized. This distinction is associated with

another: that between regarding language basical?

ly in terms of speech episodes, and regarding it as

a system or structure. Dewey regards both aspects

as equally important. Hardwick sees, here, a dif?

ference between Dewey and Wittgenstein, who, he

holds, "is only interested in language considered as

speech activity."13 But this is not correct. Witt?

genstein thinks of rules for the use of expressions as general practices ?a linguistic rule cannot be

applied only once ?and stresses that there must be

agreement in judgments and behavior if language

is to serve as a means of communication. It is true,

of course, that Wittgenstein did not view language as an abstract system dissociated from linguistic

activity; for him, although a language is a set of

rules, the rules are general practices in the use of

the language. But Dewey didn't think of natural

languages as abstract systems of rules, either. Wit?

tgenstein and Dewey would agree that the syntax

and semantics of natural languages cannot be

understood in abstraction from the pragmatic

dimension, their use.

2.2 Meaning and context.

Another striking similarity is that both Witt?

genstein and Dewey emphasize that the context, verbal and non-verbal, of an expression can con?

tribute to its meaning. In Wittgenstein's work, this theme emerges in

his discussions of language games. A language

game is some activity involving the use of

language, and language games differ from one

another with respect to the amount and kind of

language which is used, and the purpose for which

it is used. If we look at Wittgenstein's examples of

language games:

Giving orders and obeying them

Describing the appearance of an object, or giv?

ing its measurements

Constructing an object from a description (a

drawing)

Reporting an event

Speculating about an event

Forming and testing a hypothesis

Presenting the results of an experiment in tables

and diagrams

Making up a story; and reading it

Play-acting

Singing catches

Guessing riddles

Making a joke and telling it

Solving a problem in practical arithmetic

Translating from one language into another

Asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying14

we can see that while some language games, e.g.

giving orders, use only a small fragment of a

language, others, e.g., translating from one

language to another, use a large fragment or even

the whole of a language. Because language games

differ in the breadth of language they encompass,

there is no general answer to the question of the

size of context which determines meaning.

Dewey also stresses the influence of context on

meaning. And what Dewey means by a

"context" ?"a body of beliefs and institutions and

practices allied to them"15 ?seems close to what

Wittgenstein means by a "form of life," the broad

range of activities against the background of

which linguistic behavior takes place. In both Dewey and Wittgenstein the thesis of

the dependence of meaning on context is intended to combat both narrowly atomistic, and com?

prehensively holistic, theories of meaning.

Wittgenstein's discussions of language games

emphasize the following contextualist themes:

(1) There are many different kinds of use of words

and sentences; and our language may change in

unforeseen ways, with new uses coming into being and old ones dropping out. What holds for one

language game need not hold for the language as a

whole.

(2)Essentialism ?in the form of the thesis that the

meaning of a predicate can be specified by condi?

tions which are, as a matter of logical necessity,

necessary and sufficient for its application ?is the

result of an illicit extrapolation from the language

game of logic and mathematics to language as a

166 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

whole.16 (Though actually Wittgenstein doubts

that the essentialist picture is correct even for logic and mathematics.)

(3) From the context supplied by a language game we can determine the characteristic use of an ex?

pression in that context ?its "logical grammar."

(E.g., in the slab-beam language game terms

which are usually descriptive have an imperative

use.) Philosophical perplexity arises when we fail

to notice that an expression which has a

characteristic use in one context may not have this

use when imported into another context. An ex?

ample would be thinking of time as something which flows, like a river. Philosophical

"problems" arise from linguistic misuses, and can

be dissolved by a description which returns the err?

ing expression to its "home" language game.

(4) The contextualist model is incompatible with

the idea that there is a single core concept, truth

conditions, for instance, in terms of which the

meaning of all the sentences of the language can

be explained. There is no one language-game,

assertion, for instance, in terms of which all other

language games can be understood.

(5) Wittgenstein does not reject the distinction be?

tween conceptual and empirical truth altogether. But Wittgenstein's conceptual truths are not

timelessly true, nor are they independent of em?

pirical truths. The conceptual truths are those

revision of which would radically change the

language game in which they figure. For example, in the language game of physics, if "F = ma" were

rejected in favour of a (nontrivial) alternative, this

would entail widespread changes in Newton's

theory, possibly transforming it out of all recogni? tion. Insofar as the notion of sense is bound up

with the notion of conceptual truth, Wittgenstein is relativizing sense to a context.

(6) If a group of people's language activities are

radically different from ours this may make it

hard for us to interpret their activities. There are

extreme cases where the language activities and the

beliefs associated with them are so different from

ours that communication may fail. (Wittgenstein does not maintain as a general thesis that people who differ in their language games or forms of life

can never communicate. To interpret him in this

way would be to ignore his strictures on

philosophers' "craving for generality.")

(7) For Wittgenstein the justification of the use of an expression is internal to a linguistic practice or

context. Wittgenstein says very little about exter?

nal justification, the justification of the practices themselves. (This will be a main theme of the

critical discussion in Section 3.) Dummett fears that the fourth of these contex?

tualist themes requires that one reject the notion

of sense altogether:

...Wittgenstein may be taken...as rejecting the

whole idea that there is any one key concept in

the theory of meaning: the meaning of each sentence is to be explained by a direct

characterization of all the different features of its use; there is no uniform means of deriving all

the other features from any one of them. Such an account would have no use for any distinc?

tion between sense and force; while it could ad?

mit some rough classification of sentences, or

particular utterances of sentences, according to

the kinds of linguistic act affected by means of

them, it could cheerfully regard the totality of

such types of linguistic act as unsurveyable ?as

Wittgenstein does ?and would not need to in?

voke the classification of linguistic acts in its ac?

counts of the meanings of particular sentences.17

The sense of an expression consists of those

aspects of its meaning which contribute to its truth

or falsity; its force, of those aspects which deter?

mine its characteristic use or function. But the

contextualist model can quite well accommodate

this distinction, in the case of some if not all kinds

of linguistic act. (It will not, however, take asser?

tive utterance types as the primary vehicle of sense

in all contexts.) Dummett is also mistaken in

thinking that the contextualist model will "not

need to invoke the classification of linguistic acts

in its account of the meanings of particular

sentences"; in fact, the contextualist stresses just such a classification in order to explain how an

understanding of the different kinds of linguistic act appropriate to certain contexts can contribute

WITTGENSTEIN'S PRAGMATISM 167

to the meanings of expressions used in those con?

texts.

Dummett also doubts that a contextualist

theory can "do justice to the way in which the

meanings of sentences are determined by the

meanings of the words which compose them."18

But this fear, too, is ill-founded. The productivity or constructivity of language can be manifested in

a range of contexts; often, all the restriction to a

particular context will do is to cut down the range of relevant vocabulary. Consider, e.g., the

language game of weather prediction: the

meteorologist will know the meaning of a stock of

expressions from climatology, geography,

physics, chemistry and mathematics, and from

these and some less esoteric lexical items, plus

grammatical rules, he can generate an indefinite

number of sentences germane to the language

game. For a language to be productive it is not

necessary for it to be wholly generated from a base

of a single lexical and/or grammatical type. And

in cases in which a language game is performed

predominantly with one type of grammatical con?

struction, e.g., imperatives, it is possible to con?

struct principles for generating new constructions

of that type using instructions in that mood.

Dummett suggests another interpretation which

represents Wittgenstein, not as rejecting the idea

that there is a single key concept in the theory of

meaning, but as taking that concept "not to

lie....on the side of the grounds for an utterance,

as do the concepts of truth, verification, confir?

mation, etc., but rather, on that of its cons??

quences."19 But I do not believe that Wittgenstein saw himself as propounding a consequentialist or

any other theory of meaning. He certainly never

held Dummett's absurd view that the construction

of a theory of meaning is a necessary prerequisite to progress in philosophy. True, he thought that

mistakes about meaning led to philosophical

perplexity; but it is one thing to appeal to

piecemeal judgements about meaning in order to

diagnose philosophical errors, and quite another

to hold that the whole of philosophy depends on

the theory of meaning.

Wittgenstein has also been criticized for not giv

ing a more precise characterization of a linguistic context or language game. He would have replied that language games just do not have a precise characterization, though there are, of course, various family resemblances among them. He

would stress that language games are delineated by means of the purposes of users of the language. And here we can see an important difference from

Dewey; for unlike Dewey, who gives pre-eminence to problem-solving activity,20 Wittgenstein does not give any particular activity a special place. 2.3 Meaning and Inquiry.

Although Dewey contends that "the topic of

meaning is certainly one of the most important in

contemporary philosophical discussion" the study

of meaning serves a subsidiary role in his

philosophy. It is important only insofar as it aids

the solving of particular problems and the

understanding of general features of scientific and

philosophical inquiry. We see this in a preliminary way from Dewey's discussion of meaning and essence. Essences, for Dewey, are not the timeless

references of expressions, but the "codified"

meanings of expressions as contrasted with their

"proximate" meanings, their use on particular oc?

casions; and they may change. This accords with

Wittgenstein's rejection of Platonic essences and

his recognition of meaning change when he speaks of "the fluctuation of scientific definitions" and

comments that "what today counts as an observed concomitant of a phenomenon will tomorrow be

used to define it."21

But from here the differences emerge. Reflec?

tive thought for Dewey is fundamentally con?

cerned with the resolution of problems. Problem

solving is analyzed in the following stages:

(a) Suggestion Initial doubts and possible solutions

(b) Problem The problem is articulated

(c) Hypothesis The choice of a means of resolution

(d) Reasoning Thinking about how to test the

hypothesis

(e) Testing If the tests are successful the prob?

lem is resolved.

An indeterminate situation or state of doubt has

been transformed into a determinate situation or

state of belief. If the tests are not successful, one

168 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

should return to stage (c) and choose another

hypothesis, or check the formulation of the prob?

lem, the reasoning, or the testing. The doubt-belief theory of inquiry, in both

Peirce and Dewey, has a biological and evolu?

tionary base. The irritation of doubt is distressing, and motivates persisting attempts to relieve it by

attaining settled opinion or belief. These se?

quences of feeling and activity are built into man's

biological constitution.

How are Dewey's views about meaning related

to his theory of inquiry? For Dewey, propositions are proposals, hypotheses about what would settle

inquiry or would be a means to its settlement.

They are the content of sentences intermediate in

inquiry. Propositions are distinguished from

judgments, which, like legal judgments, state the

verdict or the settled outcome of an inquiry. Ideas

are meanings which are either elements in proposi? tions (hypotheses, conjectures) or are these

hypotheses or conjectures themselves. Ideas are

genuine only if they are "tools with which to

search for material to solve a problem."22 If an in?

quiry terminates in a settled outcome or judgment a predicate initially conjectured to be true of a

subject is then affirmed of that subject. It is in this

way that meanings are changed and extended.

Wittgenstein has nothing like Dewey's theory of

inquiry. He does suggest that scientific discoveries

may yield new criteria for the application of, and

hence extensions of the meanings of, old terms;

Dewey's theory would supply a scheme of stages

leading to the discovery of new criteria. And Witt?

genstein does stress our natural psychological

reactions; Dewey's theory would supply a

biological basis for this psychological naturalism.

Rorty23 has noted the similarities between

Peirce's view that the meaning of a concept is the

sum of its possible effects upon conduct, and

Wittgenstein's dictum "Don't look for the mean?

ing, look for the use." But when he says that the

two views reciprocally support one another he ig? nores the differences I have been discussing. Peirce's theory of meaning, like Dewey's, is firmly

placed in the context of his theory of inquiry, which is closely allied with scientific method. This

alliance is particularly evident from Peirce's

association of the pragmatic maxim with abduc?

tion, the logic of scientific explanation. It is true

that there are passages in Peirce which sound

closer to Wittgenstein, e.g.:

I also want to say that after all pragmatism shows no real problems. It only shows that sup?

posed problems are not real problems.24

That it was Peirce's intention to use the pragmatic maxim to eradicate psuedo-problems is clear. But

it is clear that the maxim was also intended to pave the way for the solution of genuine problems by the scientific method. In the passage quoted Peirce

is guilty of overstatement, because another func?

tion of his pragmatic maxim is to clarify the mean?

ing of "intellectual" (theoretical) concepts. Witt?

genstein, by contrast, is not offering a theory of

meaning at all (he is in effect saying: forget mean?

ing, direct your attention to use); he has no theory of inquiry; and he does not favour the use of

scientific method in philosophy. Wittgenstein's remarks about meaning are not intended as ex?

planations in any substantial sense.

III. Critical Evaluation.

There are, I shall argue, two areas of difficulty in Wittgenstein's philosophy which can be seen to

arise because his naturalism is descriptive rather

than, like the pragmatists's, explanatory. 3.1 Meaning change and "leaving everything as it

is."

Wittgenstein's discussion of meaning change is

not easy to reconcile with his therapeutic view of

philosophy.

Wittgenstein holds:

(1) Philosophy leaves everything as it is. The

philosopher does not contribute to scientific in?

quiry and discover,

but also:

(2) (In a large class of cases) the meaning of a

word is its use in the language.

Now it seems to follow from (2) that:

WITTGENSTEIN'S PRAGMATISM 169

(3) Changes in the use of words (in behavior) lead to changes in meaning, and changes in

meaning lead to changes in use (in behavior).

So:

(4) Insofar as the philosopher is concerned with

meaning, and if he accepts (2), he should con?

cern himself with the changing use of terms in

the evolution of scientific theories.

And given that:

(5) Many changes of meaning are intimately related to substantial changes, that is, to

changes in what is regarded as fact, evidence, reasonable theory, etc., and conversely

it follows that:

(6) The changes of meaning with which the

philosopher should concern himself may not

'leave everything as it is'.

No such tension arises for the pragmatists, since

their naturalism rejects (1). But it may be suggested that there is no genuine

problem for Wittgenstein, either, since he would

not accept (5). Certainly there are passages that

suggest a rejection of (5):

Philosophy may in no way interfere with the ac?

tual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.

The problems are solved, not by giving new in?

formation, but by arranging what we have

always known.25

This suggests that rearrangements of what we

claim to know do not constitute or yield new facts

to know. But surely the presentation of a stock of

information can affect the meaning of the content

that is presented. And, anyway, I think that accep? tance of (5) is the dominant view in Wittgenstein's later work, in view of remarks like:

Nothing is commoner than for the meaning of

an expression to oscillate, for the phenomenon to be regarded sometimes as a symptom, sometimes as a criterion, of a state of affairs.26

His remarks about the close relation between

perception and interpretation also accord with (5). But the tension might still be avoided if Witt

genstein were interpreted as maintaining (5) but at

the same time holding that the philosopher's in?

terest in meaning is only to record the uses and

changes of use of expressions, not to contribute to

those changes. (Compare the contrast between

descriptive and revisionary metaphysics.) Does

Wittgenstein view the philosopher, as this strategy

requires, as a kind of lexicographer of science?

The cases he uses to illustrate his views are rarely drawn from the history of science; they are usually

imagined or artificial: e.g. the people who sell

wood by the area it occupies. A great deal of Witt?

genstein's speculative anthropology was intended

to supply contrasts with natural anthropology in

order to remind us of natural practices and con?

ventions; the main exception here is Wittgenstein's discussion of mathematics, but even many of his

mathematical cases are fictional. Wittgenstein's later philosophy can only be appreciated against the background of traditional philosophical doc?

trines such as essentialism, platonism, atomism,

monism, and dualism ? views also rejected by the

pragmatists. His discussion of (2) is largely related

to words such as "reference," "name," "image,"

"private," and "simple" which figure in the for?

mulation of traditional philosophical doctrines.

However, that Wittgenstein himself confined his

attention largely to philosophical and to

hypothetical or imagined cases in no way suggests that he would have disparaged the project of ex?

amining changes in the uses of terms due to scien?

tific discovery and institutional change. In fact

some of the best philosophers influenced by Witt?

genstein, such as Hanson and Feyerabend, have

devoted themselves to describing the uses and im?

plications of the uses of scientific terms.

But even if we read Wittgenstein as advocating that the philosophers only record, and not recom?

mend, changes of meaning, a tension remains. If

therapeutic diagnosis and analysis of some tradi?

tional philosophical problems is successful it

should help to dissolve them ?and so not leave

philosophy as it was. For the pragmatists, by con?

trast, no such difficulty arises. Dewey, for in?

stance, attempted to reconstruct philosophy so

that it would be more adept at solving the pro

170 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

blems of men. True, Dewey, like Wittgenstein, was also concerned to dissolve some traditional

philosophical problems, notably those stated in terms of what he called "untenable dualisms"; but his naturalistic outlook was incompatible with a

thorough-going therapeutic view of philosophy.27 3.2 The justification of linguistic practices.

Wittgenstein's view that justification takes place within the context of a language game raises pro? blems. Might there not be linguistic practices which, in terms of his own philosophy, Wittgen? stein would want to criticize? Perhaps a game in

which words were given meanings by being made to stand for various objects would constitute such a practice. Or couldn't someone invent a language game which is philosophical, but has as its goal to

explain the nature of the world? (Actually, such a

linguistic practice doesn't have to be invented.

Lots of philosophers already participate in it

already.) On the one hand, Wittgenstein suggests that it is the business of philosophers simply to

describe linguistic practices; on the other, that

traditional philosophical problems arise from

misuses of language. Yet from a purely descriptive

point of view, all uses of language would be on a

par.

Wittgenstein's view that the justification of a

linguistic practice is internal to it has affinities with Hume's internal justification of inductive

practices. For Hume, we justify one prediction over another not because we can supply a

demonstration of one rather than the other from

necessarily true premises, but because the

favoured prediction accords with a past regularity, and this regularity has established a habit or

custom. Goodman's justification for preferring

"green" to "grue" hypotheses is also internal in this

way.28 But internal justifications such as these are

not without their problems. As Goodman himself

notes, Hume ignores the fact that some predic? tions based on regularities are acceptable and

others are not. What bedevils Goodman's general view is that some practices which a great many

people adopt are bad, and are known by others to

be so, and should not figure in Goodman's at?

tempt to achieve an equilibrium between the in

ductive rules we accept and the inductive practices we deem valid. For example, the gambler's fallacy of doubling the bet is a widely followed practice, but it is not generally an expedient one as it ac?

cords with a false belief. In the case of other prac?

tices, such as the use of the null hypothesis test of

significance in psychological experimentation, ex?

perts disagree about their legitimacy. It is difficult

to share Davidson's and Harman's confidence in

their answer to the question, "How can a logic of

natural language be verified?", which is, "Primari?

ly by deciding whether the arguments it declares to

be valid are all and only the arguments we in?

tuitively, or on reflection, deem valid."29 We must

decide which practices should legitimately be

taken into account in Goodman's balancing exer?

cise; and this poses a threat to the tenability of

Goodman's reliance only on internal justifica? tions. Equally, it poses a threat to Wittgenstein's reliance only on internal justifications of linguistic

practices. External justifications of practices are

sometimes required, and sometimes compelling.

Wittgenstein fails to discuss the possibility of us?

ing one linguistic practice to justify or criticize

another.

The pragmatists, on the other hand, because

they never entertained the thought that justifica? tions are only internal to a practice, were never

saddled with these problems. Peirce, for example, held that logical practices are ultimately based

upon ethical practices, and that ethical practices are ultimately based on aesthetic practices, where

"aesthetics" means "the science of goals or aims."

For the pragmatists practice is constrained by

theory, and conversely, whereas for Wittgenstein

theory and explanation, and with them the means

to make external evaluation of practices, are re?

jected. I hope to have gone some way toward showing

the strengths and weaknesses of Wittgenstein's later philosophy by comparing and contrasting his

work with that of the pragmatist tradition.

Whatever the weaknesses of this tradition, the

shortcomings of Wittgenstein's philosophy are not

among them.

University of Warwick Received October 14, 1980

WITTGENSTEIN'S PRAGMATISM 171

NOTES

1. Personal communication.

2. Personal communication.

3. M. O'C. Drury, "A Symposium: Assessments of the Man and the Philosopher" in Fann, K. T. (ed.), Wittgenstein, The Man

and His Philosophy: An Anthology, (New York, 1967), p. 68.

4. Karl Britton, "Portrait of a Philosopher" in Fann, K. T., op. cit., p. 58.

5. F. C. S. Schiller, "The Value of Formal Logic," Mind, vol. 41, (1932), pp. 53-71.

6. F. P. Ramsey, The Foundations of Mathematics, (London, 1931), pp. 155, 186, 194-203.

7. It is also likely that Wittgenstein was familiar with Ogden and Richard's The Meaning of Meaning, which owes much to

Peirce's emphasis on meaning and context. For interesting conjectures about the relevant influences see Thayer, H. S., Meaning

and Action: A Critical History of Pragmatism, Indianapolis, New York, 1968, part 3, ch. 2.

8. Other philosophers have noted certain similarities. See e.g.: John Passmore, A Hundred Years of Philosophy, (London, 1957),

p. 428; Richard Rorty, "Pragmatism, Categories and Language," Philosophical Review, vol. 70, (1961), pp. 197-223; Charles

Hardwick, Language Learning in Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy, The Hague, 1972; Alan, Pasch, "Dewey and the Analytical

Philosophers," The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 59, (1959), pp. 814-826; Max Black, "Dewey's Philosophy of Lanugage," The

Journal of Philosophy, vol. 59, (1962), pp. 505-23; A. A. Mullin, Philosophical Comments on the Philosophies of Charles

Sanders Peirce and Ludwig Wittgenstein (Electrical Engineering Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, Urbana, 1961).

9. On the relation between these two strands of thought, cf. Kemp Smith, "The Naturalism of Hume," Mind, vol. 14, (1905), pp.

149-73, 335-47.

10. W. V. O. Quine, "The Pragmatists' Place in Empiricism," to appear in Proceedings of the South Carolina Colloquium, 1975.

11. O. K. Bouwsma, "Naturalism," The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 45, (1948), pp. 12-22.

12. John, Dewey, Experience and Nature (New York, 1958), p. 179.

13. Charles S. Hardwick, op. cit., p. 65.

14. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, (Oxford, 1958), pp. 11-12.

15. Dewey, John, "Context and Thought," in Bernstein, Richard J. (ed.) On Experience, Nature and Freedom, (Indianapolis and

New York, 1969), p. 106.

16. Cf. Dewey, John, "Context and Thought," op. cit., pp. 93-95.

17. M. A. E. Dummett, Frege: Philosophy of Language (London, 1973), p. 361.

18. Dummet, loc. cit.

19. Dummet, op. cit.

20. John Dewey, How We Think, Lexington, Massachusetts, (1933), especially part II; Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, New York,

1938, especially ch. 6. Cf. Larry Laudan, Progress and Its Problems, (London, 1977).

21. Ludwig Wittgenstein, op. cit., pp. 37-8.

22. John Dewey, Logic, The Theory of Inquiry, (New York, 1938), p. 349.

23. Richard Rorty, op. cit., p. 198.

24. C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers, ed. Hartshorne, C, Weiss, P., and Burks, A., (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1931-58), 8.259.

25. Wittgenstein, op. cit., p. 49.

26. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, (Oxford, 1967), p. 77.

27. Cf. Richard Rorty, "Dewey's Metaphysics," in Cahn, Steven M. (ed.), New Studies in the Philosophy of John Dewey,

Hanover, New Hampshire, 1977.

28. Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast, (3rd edition, Indianapolis, New York, Kansas City, 1972), p. 64.

29. David Davidson and Gilbert Harman, (eds.), The Logic of Grammar, Belmont, California, 1975), p. 3.