![]() Instead, Wittgenstein wants us to recognize that there is nothing beneath this surface. Wittgenstein says that the purpose of these investigations is not to bring to light any complex or hidden theories that underlie and explain the surface features of language. The boundaries that determine the meanings of words are not sharp. The relationship between various uses of the word "game" is like the relationship between various members of a family: a resemblance exists, but we cannot give this resemblance any rigid definition. No definition of the word "game" can include everything that is a game and exclude everything that is not a game. If we examine how words are used, we will see this is not the case. Talking about "the meaning of a word" misleads us into thinking that there are fixed boundaries and strict definitions that determine our use of a word. Meaning is not fixed by the relationship between words and things, but by how words are used. We would not say the words in a four-word language between builders, consisting of "block!" "pillar!" "slab!" and "beam!" are names of objects, because they can only be understood as such in contrast to names of colors, prepositions, adjectives, and the like. This relationship can only be seen to exist once a great deal of the machinery of language, context, and usage are already in place. The trouble arises when we take this connection between word and thing as the fundamental relationship that fixes language to the world. It appears that there is nothing wrong with saying that words name things and that we teach people the meanings of words by pointing to the objects that they name. ![]() Augustine's Confessions, which describes the process of learning language in terms of learning the names of objects. ![]() The Investigations open with a quote from St.
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