What is it about?
The paper challenges Wittgenstein's behaviourist explanation of how his language-games can have meanings. Since the bulk of natural language is about absent things, Wittgenstein's rejection in the PI of imaginability (Vorstellbarkeit) as necessary ingredient of linguistic meaning is untenable.
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Why is it important?
This challenge is important because Wittgenstein's definition of linguistic meaning as use entails that use does not include our non-verbal mental projections of linguistic aboutness. The consequence of which is that Wittgenstein's theory of linguistic meaning only applies to a portion of natural language instead of to the total of language, as claimed in the literature.
Perspectives
The paper is part of my theorization of natural language via what I have termed the "Imaginability Thesis of Natural Language". The basis of this thesis has its roots in Aristotle's homoiomata, in Locke, Kant, and in Husserl's phenomenology, with a special emphasis on Husserl's not yet translated Nachlass volumes on language and intersubjectivity.
Horst Ruthrof
Murdoch University
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This page is a summary of: Mending Wittgenstein via Peirce: On the Aboutness of Language-Games, March 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004708723_004.
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