Rules of the Games

A feature of most, if not all, 'games' is that they can be 'won', though Wittgenstein, in his analogizing of Language and Game, never seems to explain what 'winning' a 'language-game' might consist in. What, instead, seems most significant to him about games is that they are rule-governed, and, in particular, that their rules are invented, and are consensually or conventionally adhered to. Such a notion of 'rule' provides him with a substantive counter to the constraint that is at the heart of the Logistic theory of Language--objectively necessary law, e. g. the essence of the axioms and universal formulas of Mathematics and Logic, the pre-eminent forms of Language, according to that theory. Still, the inessential features of the Game metaphor run the risk of transfixing Wittgenstein's trapped 'fly' with confusion. In contrast, the Pragmatist, i. e. from Peirce and Dewey, alternative to Logicism--that the fundamental propositions of Mathematics and Logic are instrumental, experimental, hypotheses, accomplishes the liberation that Wittgenstein purports to be aiming for, but without the clutter. Furthermore, minus its attention to games, the Investigation still formidably itself advances an Instrumental theory of Language, while what it does contain about games is insufficient for an independent theory of Games. It lacks, e. g., as has been proposed here, a thesis of Humanity as Homo Ludens, a definition of 'Play', a derivation from the latter of a definition of 'Game', and, only then, a classification of 'Language' as a species of Game, with examples such as Poetry, crossword puzzles, etc. that would make a more compelling case for his 'language-game' model.