The Business of Language

Wittgenstein's lists, in the Investigations, of the variety of Language-Games suffice as not merely a divergence from, but a disproof of Russell's statement, from his introduction to the Tractatus--"The essential business of language is to assert or deny facts."  But, while Wittgenstein's evidence pertains immediately to the attribution of 'essentiality', it bypasses the more telling weakness in Russell's formulation--the term "business", which is anomalous in the context of an exposition of Language.  In the absence of any other clarification, the inclusion of that term in the statement, instead of more rigorous terms, such as 'use' or 'function, for example, can be interpreted as an attempt to fortify the implication that 'language' possesses, as an inherent property, operations  of the assertion and the denial of facts.  For, in contrast, 'use' or 'function' in that place would imply that 'language' is a grammatical object, not a grammatical in the sentence, i. e. that asserting or denying facts is a purpose that Language serves, with a speaker as the implied grammatical subject.  So, it is easy to conclude that Russell, who is among the most careful speakers in the history of Philosophy, is, in that statement, attempting to obscure the groundless of a basic principle of his concept of Language--that independent of the context of interpersonal Communication, it is more than a concatenation of empty symbols.