Thursday, January 2, 2014

Constructivism and Language-Games

Wittgenstein's choice, in #2 of the Investigations, of the example of a building activity, as an introductory illustration of his concept of Language-Game, may be more than arbitrary.  For, preceding this phase of his transition from the Logicism of the Tractatus, he explicitly breaks with Russell regarding the structure of Mathematical Propositions--that they are 'Synthetic', rather than, like those of Logic, 'Analytic', in Kantian terms.  Furthermore, like Cassirer, he recognizes in the concept of Synthetic Propositions potential Constructivism, e. g. "the mathematician is an inventor, not a discoverer", from I, 168, of Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics.  But, 'Constructivist' can apply to more than Propositions--all human activity can be interpreted as governed by that principle, i. e. can be classified as what has here been called 'Artifactual', signifying that it is an expression of an active 'second nature', rather than as given as derived from 'Natural' or 'Supernatural' sources.  So, the image of building, in #2, can be appreciated as not merely a familiar simple example of a human activity, but as a symbol of all Language-Games.

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