Friday, January 3, 2014

Dialogicism and Language-Game

While presenting his concept of Language-Game as Pluralistic, Wittgenstein does not seem to consider the possibility that some Games are more comprehensive than others, and, thus, that some might be contained in others, as well as determined by them .  For example, if the builder and the assistant in #2 of the Investigations are father and son, then that particular Builder-Assistant Game may be one episode in, and determined by, a Father-Son Game.  Likewise, some will argue, any Builder-Assistant interaction is a function of more general economic conditions, and, thus, varies under Feudalism, Capitalism, and Socialism, for example.  Indeed, a Marxist, following Hegel, would likely argue that all human society is governed by a Dialectical principle, on the basis of which, therefore, the concept of Language can be called 'Dialogicism'.  Thus, while Russellian Logicism is easily classified as one among many Language-Games, Dialogicism is, by implication, the fundamental universal Language-Game, i. e. in which every verbal exchange is a moment in an overarching Dialectical development.  But, if so, the concept of Language-Game is Monistic, a thesis that Wittgenstein could not challenge without confirming it, or by remaining silent.

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