The Analytic Fly-Bottle

To assert, as Wittgenstein does, that the 'meaning' of a word' is its 'use', is to equate Meaning and Purpose.  Now, with a shift in method, from micro-analysis to macro-interpretation, it can be argued that the ultimate purpose of Language is Communication, and, furthermore, that the ultimate purpose of human communication is to promote the growth of the species.  On that basis, it follows that the meaning of every specific utterance is, at bottom, the growth of the species, a perhaps relatively uninteresting result that, nevertheless, reveals the contemporary Anglo-American fascination with Philosophy of Language to be due more to methodology than to substance.  So, Wittgenstein's concept of Meaning shows a way out of the Analytic Fly-Bottle, though he himself seems to prefer to remain inside it with Russell, as his comments at the end of #51 of the Investigations suggest.