Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein, 1958), relies on reference to a non-philosophical language and resistance to any form of ideal language. The claim is repeatedly made that philosophical problems arise from detaching language, so that it is not being used in its normal productive way. Philosophy is extra-ordinary in a negative way. It comes about from interruption of ordinary language. This results in the creation of illusions. The positive part of philosophy is the therapy that enables a return to language, as communication freed of philosophical concerns with: scepticism, foundations, abstract definitions, super-orders of super-concepts. Systematic philosophy is extra-ordinary and therapeutic philosophy returns us to the ordinariness of language. Since Wittgenstein starts with philosophy in order to expose it, he must write with an extra-ordinary language. Could there be an ordinary language? Does not philosophical language show us something about language? Does Wittgenstein's dissolution of philosophical language refer to ordinary language? The critique of philosophy even extends to excluding the concept of the identity of the word, or thing, with itself (§ 216¹): '"A thing is identical with itself."-There is no finer example of a useless proposition, which is yet connected with a certain play of the imagination [Vorstellung]. It is as if in imagination [Vorstellung] we put a thing into its own shape and saw that it fitted' (84-85). This example is notable for rejecting what might be considered a common sense claim, that a thing must be identical with itself, on the grounds that it leads to referenceless philosophical diversion from the functions of language. The statement of self-identity is, however, given some legitimacy in the reference to 'fitting'. 'Fitting' is opposed by Wittgenstein to 'property', property is associated with metaphysical properties, while fitting is associated with the following of rules. The following of rules, illustrated by language games, is Wittgenstein's model of language and meaning, which is intended to be outside the illusions of metaphysics. Wittgenstein reaches the point of 'fitting' with reference to Vorstellung: representation, image or imagination. This is strictly distinguished in Wittgenstein from a picture (see § 301 and discussion below). The discussion of representation, in Wittgenstein, aims to take it away from 'pictures in the mind'. This can be done with reference to the discussion of following rules (beginning in § 218), which follows the discussion of identity above. The criticism of identity talk also, therefore, connects with the critique of mental representations talk; and with the aim of showing that rule following is the proper model for language and the solution of philosophical problems.

Wittgenstein assumes a return to something like 'common sense', from the artificial nature of philosophy. Like other philosophers who have claimed this, such as Berkeley² and Bergson³, this requires denying 'common sense'. Berkeley uses the 'common sense' belief that something exists, if we can perceive it, to support the claim that nothing exists outside what can be perceived; and that therefore nothing exists apart from spirits and ideas. Bergson uses the 'common sense' belief that what we perceive is something outside our self, to support the claim that the 'image' precedes the mind-body split as what constitutes the whole universe. Both claim that counter-intuitive conceptualizations are rooted in common sense.⁴

Wittgenstein claims to remove the strangeness and illusion of metaphysics and philosophical fictions, according to a parallel strategy, which we may suspect is open to the same criticisms. Paradoxes appear in language, because the 'common sense' categories of grammar are misleading. We see something substantial in what is only a grammatical locus, so that for 'I' we believe there is a metaphysical subject (§398):

"But when I imagine [vorstelle] something, or even actually see objects, I have got something which my neighbor has not."-I understand you. You want to look about you and say: "At any rate only I have got THIS."-What are these words for? They serve no purpose [Sie taugen zu nichts].-Can one not add: "There is here no question [nicht die Rede] of a 'seeing'-and therefore none of a having-nor of a subject, nor therefore of 'I' either"? Might I not ask: In what sense [wiefern] have you got what you are talking about and saying that only you have got it? Do you possess it [Besitzt du es]? You do not even see it [du siehst es nicht einmal]. Must you not really say that no one has got it? And this too is clear: if as a matter of logic you exclude other people's having something, it loses its sense to say that you have it. (120)

Wittgenstein criticizes the claim that it is possible to label something as being uniquely "my" possession. This involves illusions in relation to the unique "this"; and in relation to "I". These items of language are being misused under the influence of a desire for logical necessity. The philosophy of logical necessity leads us to believe that there is something which I can have, which could not possibly belong to somebody else. This relies on a notion of the absolute possession of the privacy of the subject; and of the thing properties of the subject. Such a notion is illusory according to Wittgenstein, a subject or thing is what necessarily has the possibility that it can be public. What is named as 'this' can only give sense to 'this', if the thing could be observed by other subjects and if this can be understood by other subjects. The contents of the consciousness of the subject of any "I" can be communicated, if they exist. The ordinary usage of language apparently does not commit us to any such illusions.

But the fact that language includes 'I' and 'my' is surely what allows such 'illusions'. A point accepted by Wittgenstein elsewhere (§109): 'Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language [unsere Sprache] '⁵ (47). The particular target of this discussion is Russell's claim that 'this' and 'that' are logically proper names (§38):

'But what, for example, is the word "this" the name of in language game (8) or the word "that" in the ostensive [hinweisenden] definition "that is called…."?-If you [man]⁶ do not want to produce confusion you will do your best not to call these words names at all [ist am besten, man sagt garnicht, daß diese Wörter etwas benennen].-Yet, strange to say, the word "this" has been called the only genuine name; so that anything else we call a name was one only in an inexact, approximate sense.' (18-19)

'Ostensive' terms like 'this' and 'that' should not be regarded as names. As shown below, in the context of Philosophical Investigations, that suggests that they do not get a meaning from their bearer. The application of 'this', 'that' or 'I' is necessarily contextual and variable. Absurdities result when they are defined as having a meaning from their bearers. The illusion of logically proper names connects with the common illusion that there is an absolutely private 'I', with absolutely private things as its unique proper, connecting with Wittgenstein's rejection of the language of 'property' in favor of the language of 'fitting'. Despite the aim taken at Russell and implicitly on the whole history of philosophical discussion of concept possession, sensation possession and conceptual necessity, we may also sense an unease with 'ordinary' language. Surely such systematic illusions have some origin in 'ordinary' language, which must refer to abstractions and be open to the use of 'indexicals' in an abstracted way. What Wittgenstein engages in, in an unstated way, is the critique of natural grammar: he explicitly refers to philosophical grammar in a positive way, even if resting on assumptions of natural certainty. This leaves us with a critique of ordinary language, and a remaining 'philosophical' language of some kind.⁷ Wittgenstein refers sometimes to a critique of language as such, but this is always in tension with a project of the return to 'ordinary' language cleansed of philosophical abstractions (§ 116): 'When philosophers use a word-"knowledge". "being", "object", "I", "proposition", "name"-and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language-game [Sprach] which is its original home?-What we do is bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use' (48).⁸

Paradoxes appear in Wittgenstein from the over extension of concepts which appear in ordinary language. This includes the tendency to confuse the name with the object it names. It is necessary to understand that rules govern the place of the name, not a metaphysical connection of name with object. Since the burden is transferred to rules from concepts, the question arises of what justifies rules. Rules cannot be justified, according to Wittgenstein, without getting into an infinite regress of conceptual metaphysics.⁹ Rules just are what is followed, as the result of a decision. This leaves a heavy burden on the decision. That burden itself may be transferred to 'forms of life', what comes 'naturally' in certain circumstances. Either decision or form of life will now have a heavy burden to absorb what had been metaphysics. The language games come in to show how decisions or forms of life work. This itself must be an artificial reduced way of looking at language. They are presented as illustrative devices, but that choice of illustration regiments language in certain way, defining what is ordinary in extra-ordinary ways, in the suspension of 'common sense'. The notion of identity itself, which might be considered essential to common sense, is questioned by Wittgenstein. To say that an object is identical with itself is to add something to the object; and to divide the object between itself and what it is identical with. If all statements with metaphysical aspects are abolished ordinary language will become extra-ordinary, itself revealed as permeated with the fictions and paradoxes of metaphysics.

Rule following is the model of language, which avoids the illusion of meaning as pictures in the mind. It is the picture model which allows metaphysical entities, because meaning is explained as the grasp of an object appearing in a mental picture. Rules do not suggest an object of reference, they suggest an activity of following rules (§140): 'What is essential is to see that the same thing can become before our minds [vorschweben]¹⁰ when we hear the word and the application still be different. Has it the same meaning both times? I think we shall say not' (55). At this point the activity of rule following is referred to as application, which takes us away from the position that a word means one thing defined by a representation in our mind.

Wittgenstein could be open to two interpretations: language as ordinary is free from metaphysical illusions and can be analyzed in the language games, which dispel illusion; or language is embedded with metaphysical illusions and paradoxes, which can be removed with the aid of the Wittgenstinian therapy of language games. In either case, he is locked into the ideal of a language without metaphysical commitments, as what is 'ordinary', or what is language at work. There are certainly moments of resistance to such a reductive program (§130): 'Our clear and simple language games are not preparatory studies for a future regularization of language-as it were first approximations, ignoring friction and air-resistance. The language-games are rather set up as objects of comparison which are meant to throw light on the facts [Verhältnisse]¹¹ of our language by way not only of similarities, but also of dissimilarities' (50). The trouble with this denial is that it implicitly admits what is denied; if the Investigations are not open to the denied interpretation, why even mention it? There is a program of the reduction of philosophical problems to regularized language, according to the language games which are in no way random or accidental in form.

According to Wittgenstein, philosophy has a tendency to create fictions (§307): 'If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction' (103)'. In particular, there is a temptation to regard all words as names and conjure non-existent things into existence, as the objects of philosophy. The Philosophical Investigations criticizes the notion of simple elements of the universe or language, particularly with regard to any philosophy which defines meaning of words as naming elements (§ 40): 'Let us first discuss this point of the argument: that a word has no meaning if nothing corresponds to it.-It is important to note that the word "meaning" is being used illicitly if it is used to signify the thing that 'corresponds' to the word. That is to confound the meaning of a name with the bearer of a name' (20).¹²

The tendency to create fictional objects is strengthened by philosophical discourse of a systematic kind, as this requires a systematic classification of philosophical objects, which will be fictional objects according to Wittgenstein. An interrogative, fragmented style is used to resist the tendency towards the systematization of super truths and invented objects. Fictions are created, known as language games, in order to emphasis that truths are linked to the rules of usage in language, rather than reference to metaphysical entities. Abstract fictions of metaphysical entities are counter posed to mini-narratives, or scenarios, about the use of words in certain circumstances. This is their normal usage, as opposed to the misleading definitions of philosophy. Wittgenstein has recourse to "ordinary" language to overcome metaphysical fictions. This still leaves the question of what is "ordinary"; and why we should consider Wittgenstein's language games as ordinary. The language games cannot be outside or before Wittgenstein's philosophical claims, but it seems as if Wittgenstein would like to create an immunized philosophy, which claims to be the continuation of ordinary language and therefore irrefutable as a philosophical thesis. Certain presumptions exists about what 'ordinary' language is for Wittgenstein, which refer to language as performative, pragmatic and utilitarian.

Ordinariness appears in the practical aspects of language, how we can do things with language for Wittgenstein. The early sections of the Philosophical Investigations first uses examples of buying things and the context of a building site. It then moves on to chess games and names for squares of color. These examples, and others, are united by the idea of the 'language game', itself suggesting a limited world of rules, commands and defined actions, though the idea of a language game itself denies definition. It refers to what can be grouped together through a set of shared qualities, with not all members of the group sharing qualities with every other member of the group. Instead of a general theory of language, Wittgenstein establishes a series of overlapping parts of language. Nevertheless, it is not possible to avoid some basic concepts in this program. There are rules, orders and following an order at the basis of the discussion of language games.

These ideas are put forward partly as a reaction against Russell's attempts to avoid metaphysical fictions. The point of 'On Denoting' (Russell, 1956) is to avoid: fictional objects such as 'The Present King of France', impossible objects like the golden mountain, contradictory objects like the round square (Russell, 1956: 96). Russell suggests that the absurdity of assuming such things exist, if we can construct a sentence mentioning them, comes from the belief that a name refers to an object. Russell's solution to resulting absurdities and paradoxes, is that the name should be understood as the substitute for a denotative phrase, a description attributed to x, with no assumption that x exists (Russell, 1956: 103).¹³ There is no acquaintance with an object, only the constituent parts of the denotative phrase (Russell, 1956: 104-105). There is a clear underlying aim to show that metaphysical entities can be abolished in philosophy, through a correct logical analysis of propositions. The trouble with this, for Wittgenstein, is that it relies on non-ordinary formal language and turns the demonstratives 'this' and 'that' into the names of strange entities, which would be the return of metaphysics. It is therefore another philosophical fiction.

Wittgenstein extends Russell's concern with fictional objects, in the theory of descriptions, to suggest that the properties of a name are a list of properties of indefinite length. Names are labels with no metaphysical connection with what they name, because there is no definite description which links names to things. Wittgenstein argues for this in the context of the building site (§15):

The word "to signify" is perhaps used in the most straightforward way when the object signified is marked with the sign. Suppose that the tools A uses in building bear certain marks. When A shows his assistant such a mark, he brings the tool that has that mark on it. It is in this and more or less similar ways that a name means and is given to a thing.-It will often prove useful in philosophy to say to ourselves: naming something is like attaching a label to a thing.' (7)

Wittgenstein does not put forward the philosophical claim that the name is a label, he suggests that it may be useful to think of this or similar things to avoid philosophical illusion. The form of labeling referred to is linked to an act, and the order, which results in the act. The paradigm of naming is a label, which can be used to give an order for something to be done in the context of work.

Language is identified as a tool to be utilized for specific pragmatic ends. Various examples of language games appear, but they are all marked by the concern with following orders (leading to the question of what it is to follow a rule); and producing a practical result. General definitions are still regarded with great suspicion, so that it is suggested (§ 53) that rules are used differently in different cases. At the extreme, the philosophical question might be entirely dissolved into questions of contextual pragmatics, with no account of general principles. An indefinite series of examples exists in language games, which can be used to keep us away from the idea that naming is a metaphysical-philosophical thing or process. In this evasion of metaphysical illusion there is a persistent reference to the tools of language and the concepts embedded in language. How can we see what belongs to language, it seems defined by the contradiction of two necessary extremes of language: the language games of contextual pragmatics and the illusions of metaphysical abstraction.

The idea of 'belongs' (gehört) is itself questioned with reference to 'fitting' (paßt) (§§136-139). The goal is to avoid the distinction between essence and accidents. Philosophical questions are discussed with reference to rules, rather than description. Rules are not justified as justification leads to an infinite regress. The decision and acts of following a rule are what happens without being explained. The rules are not absolute, as there are many in many different situations. They provide a non-pictorial schema for concepts. That is concepts have reference to reality in the appearance in rule governed behavior. Meaning comes from following rules, not inner states or metaphysical description. There is no absolutely inner usage of words, nor is there any concept of identity, as this creates the contradiction of a single thing becoming double: itself and what is in it which gives it identity with itself. Philosophical questions are examined with reference to their grammar: the underlying rules which governs the usage of the words concerned. Paradoxes in philosophy can only arise, from ignoring the way that concepts are governed by rules and do not refer to metaphysical reality (§182):

The criteria which we accept for 'fitting', 'being able to', 'understanding', are much more complicated than might appear at first sight. That is the game with these words, their employment in the linguistic intercourse that is carried on by their means, is more involved-the role of these words in our language other-than we are tempted to think. (This role is what we need to understand in order to resolve philosophical paradoxes. And hence definitions usually fail to resolve them; and so, a fortiori does the assertion that a word is 'undefinable'). (73-74)

What are the effects of Wittgenstein's program? Language is itself made both transparent and obscure. Philosophical obscurity should be clarified by looking at the workings of language, but the philosophical questions are loaded onto the work of language in its rules, games, decisions and acts. A model appears of behavior which demonstrates the following of a rule, itself based on the rule as order, therefore making language essentially about orders, just as previous philosophy has made it essentially about logical or metaphysical reference.¹⁴

The relation between the abstraction of a concept and the concreteness of action is defined by the rule, which must therefore be a place of connection, identity and differentiation. The rule connects concept and action, as what is necessary for the concept to be applied in practice i.e. ordinary language. The place of mediation is where there is a join between elements considered different, even opposite to each other. The heterogeneous becomes one in identification, however, the connection must also be what defines the difference. As it is where concepts and ordinary language come together, it must also be the dividing line between meaning and usage. A distinction which Wittgenstein introduces with a caution that might threaten distinctions which seem parallel, or include, or be included by this one (§43): 'For a large class of cases-though not for all-in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer (20-21)'.

Meaning is usage in most cases, the only named exception is where we can point to the bearer of the name, the possibility of ostention which has, however, been undermined (§ 30): 'So one might say: the ostensive [hinweisende] definition explains the use-the meaning-of the word when the overall role of the word in language is clear' (14). Ambiguity about the scope of usage appears. Usage appears to refer to all the tool-like and rule-bound aspects of language, as 'ordinary' language, which does something, apart from get tied up in philosophical illusion. In that case, we would expect Wittgenstein to claim that 'meaning is usage'. Such a generalization is qualified, by the suggestion that naming can have its meaning from the bearer. The implied account of naming as ostenstion has already been rejected though. It has been suggested (§182) that we can eliminate paradoxes if we think in terms of fitting, not property. A word fits with something according to the rules of language, rather than belonging to a concept. At the point of maximum generalization about languages, there is some uncertainty though about making the assertion that all words can be defined through usage (rules and fitting).

A possible paradox enters Wittgenstein's own philosophy. The contradictions, which Wittgenstein hopes to exclude, threaten to return in this and other instances. How can there be a discussion of rules unless there are general and foundational rules?¹⁵ There is a contradiction necessary, and even definitive, for Wittgenstein's philosophy, since it always hovers at the limit between pure actions and general rules. Wittgenstein raises this question and tries to defuse it (§201ff). The paradox is mentioned that rule following relies on interpretation and that there is no end to the interpretations of interpretations, so that our actions are not the following of rules. Wittgenstein's escape is to define obeying a rule as a practice.¹⁶ One problem with this, as an answer, is that it looks like an attempt to avoid an answer. Despite the apparent clarification of language and meaning through the discussion of rules, Wittgenstein himself soon drifts back to the mystery of language (§203): 'Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and know your way about; you approach the same place from another side and no longer know your way about.' (82). A little later Wittgenstein (§206) goes on to look at language in terms of the strangeness of a new language for an explorer. Here we could also consider the early discussion (§18) which has already led us back to the question of rules, orders and interpretations:

Do not be troubled by the fact that languages (2) and (8) consist only of orders. If you want to say that his shows them to be incomplete, ask yourself whether our language is complete;-whether it was so before the symbolism of chemistry and the notation of the infinitesimal calculus were incorporated in it; for these are, so to speak, suburbs of our language. (And how many houses or streets does it take before a town begins to be a town?) Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses. (8)

This could symbolize Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations, the mixture of clarity and obscurity, rules and paradox. Again language seems mysterious and lacking in a clear framework. Some bits may be open to clear exposition but many, in fact the central, parts of the 'old town' are not open to clarification. This has the effect of both putting the language of orders, and rules, at the center and at the margin. The suggestion that the dominance of orders, in Wittgenstein's first illustrative language games, just happen to be one part of language which Wittgenstein is referring to, seems extremely slippery. Rhetoric is being used to familiarize the reader (dich, the familiar German you, as opposed to Sie the formal you), or Wittgenstein's imaginary interlocutor, or even himself, with the idea that orders are the essence of language. The suggestion in that paragraph is that orders are part of the clean new suburbs, anything else belongs to the mysteries of language. Since the idea is being insinuated that orders are the essence of language, this should be where the ancient mystery and vagueness is to be found. There is a paradox (§ 201), which deals with orders and should belong or fit with the labyrinthine aspects of language.

Contradictions are given a positive role in philosophy at certain places (§ 125): 'The civil status of a contradiction, or its status in civil life: there is the philosophical problem' (50). The section as a whole suggests that contradiction arises from the entanglements of the rules of our language. We cannot predict the consequences of these rules, as they are not part of a deductive system. The appearance of contradictions and the need to sort them out clarifies the situation leading up to the contradiction. Wittgenstein distances himself from the resolution of .contradictions through logico-mathematical method. Contradiction is not a purely logical problem, it leads us to refine the rules of the language games through we which we understand language. This itself connects with Wittgenstein's thoughts about pluralism in method (§ 133): 'There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods like different therapies' (51). Philosophical method consists not of a final method or system, but of a number of ways of easing the compulsion to make an error: the errors are plural depending on different games and rules. It seems that the application of rules, and taking part in games, will always involve some tangle from the over-extension of the concepts, given by rules or wrong moves in the game. Applying rules always allows misapplications and games always allow the wrong move, if it is possible to apply the rule or make a move in the game at all. Wittgenstein emphasizes that there are no deductive definition of the propositions in which we give definitions (§ 135): 'Asked what a proposition is we shall give examples and these will include what one may call inductively defined series of propositions' (52). The proposition is itself not understood by a single definitive proposition, but by the totality of its examples.

The problem for Wittgenstein, here, must be that the totality of propositions must come from the application of a rule or rules, which already begins to looks like a limited set of elements for a proposition. Wittgenstein suggests an experimental method for philosophy which allows for the pluralism of philosophy, but experiments themselves must be founded on clear assumptions about their method. And indeed we can find Wittgenstein resorting to strong naturalism, as a substitute for a finite set of philosophical elements and rules (§ 142): 'The procedure of putting a lump of cheese on a balance and fixing the price by the turn of the scale would lose its point if it frequently happened for such lumps to suddenly shrink or grow for no obvious reason' (56). In the end logical syntax or metaphysics or mental images are rejected, but replaced by the unchanging and regular nature of the experienced natural world, as a foundation for meaning, which means a foundation for philosophy.

The pluralism of philosophical method appears in the use of a technique of fragmentation and dialogue, in the Philosophical Investigations. The dialogue familiarizes by using the informal you. This has the possible effects of subjectivizing the philosophy, making philosophy a perpetual debate or incorporating 'you' the reader in Wittgenstein's implicit philosophical system. This engages with philosophy as rhetoric or reason, and also with Wittgenstein's own concern with the order. The Investigations may be a long series of orders about: how to think about language and the philosophical problems embedded in certain forms of language use. The ordinariness of the dialogue is, however, defamiliarizing, not just for philosophy, but for language. The 'ordinary' conversational tone of the Investigations leaves it very uncertain where the dialogue is located, in the sense of who is speaking and to whom. It also leaves unclear the location of the argument: is it a part of a possible conversation or is a long worked out philosophical argument?

It looks like there are two opposing poles in Wittgenstein's language. If there is a central constitutive contradiction that may undermine Wittgenstein's claims in some aspects. This is not because Wittgenstein is claiming to create a contradiction free philosophy, such a project is treated with suspicion. It is because the centrality of the contradiction will get us back to the metaphysical philosophical tradition Wittgenstein challenges. At the other pole, Wittgenstein refers to language as an extension of the structure of an order that looks like the underlying model of language informing everything else. At another pole, there is what looks like another metaphysical system of categories, since all that can be referred to is what is in language, we have the appearance of the object-in-language. Since all that can be known is what can be represented in language, we are back with the puzzles of scepticism, representation and idealism. 'Practice' and 'forms of life' should prevent this, but maybe they can only confirm it. In Wittgenstein we can see how the opposition infects every word and proposition. In this way, he may not have overcome the metaphysical inheritance, but perhaps he has opened it up to self-reflection and the necessary embedding of philosophical questions in questions about language, rules and practice.

Barry Stocker
Yeditepe University
Istanbul

1. In this paper, references to Wittgenstein are all to Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein, 1958) and all quotations or references are from that text. Numbers between brackets like so (x) in the main text refer to section numbers in the Philosophical Investigations, numbers in brackets following quoted text refer to page numbers in the Philosophical Investigations. Where appropriate, parts of the original German appear in square brackets; where the difference between the German and Anscombe's translation is judged to be philosophically significant, a foot note is attached to discuss the relevant point. The distinction, in the Blackwell editions of Wittgenstein, between German pages with plain numbering and translated pages, where the page numbers are followed by a superscript 'e', is ignored as superfluous in this context.

2 E.g. 'The Third Dialogue' from 'Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous':
HYLAS. Ask the first man you meet, and he shall tell you , to be perceived is one thing, and to exist is another.
PHILONOUS. I am content, Hylas, to appeal to the common sense of the world for the truth of my notion. Ask the gardener, why he thinks yonder cherry-tree exists in the garden, and he shall tell you, because he sees and feels it; in a word, because he perceives it by his senses. Ask him, why he thinks an orange-tree not to be there, and he shall tell you, because he does not perceive it. What he perceives by sense, that he terms a real being, and saith it is, or exists; but that which is not perceivable, the same, he saith, hath no being. (Berkeley, 1975: 185).

3. E.g. Matter and Memory, Chapter 1:
The truth is that the point P, the rays which it emits, the retina and the nervous elements effected, form a single whole [forment en tout solidaire]; that the luminous point P is a part of this whole; and that it is really in P, and not elsewhere, that the image of P is formed and perceived.
When we represent things to ourselves in this manner, we do but return to the simple convictions [la conviction naive] of common sense. We all of us began by believing that we grasped the very object, that we perceived in itself and not in us. (Bergson, 1991: 43 [1939: 41])

4. Kripke recognizes something like this in Wittgenstein On Rules and Private Language: Berkeley's stance is not uncommon in philosophy. The philosopher advocates a view apparently in patent contradiction to common sense. Rather than repudiating common sense, he asserts that the conflict comes from a philosophical misinterpretation of common language - sometimes he adds that the misinterpretation is encouraged by the 'superficial form' of ordinary speech. He offers his own analysis of the relevant common assertions, one that shows that they do not really say what they seem to say. (Kripke, 1982: 65)

5. Why does Anscombe ignore the emphasis on our language? Maybe she thinks it too relativistic.

6. Anscombe unfortunately runs together German 'du' and 'man' as 'you' in English.

7. Cavell illuminates the source of this paradox in The Claim of Reason:
But forms of life, he says, are exactly what have to be "accepted"; they are "given" (p226). Criteria were to be the bases (features, marks, specifications) on the basis of which certain judgements could be made (non-arbitrarily); agreement over criteria was to make possible agreement about judgements. But in Wittgenstein it looks as if our ability to establish criteria depended upon prior agreement in judgements. (Cavell, 1979: 30)
Cavell suggests here that Wittgenstein has difficulty escaping from circularity in the question of criteria and judgement. This is a motivation for Wittgenstein's naturalistic tendencies discussed below. This will still leave open the question of the criteria and judgements of the natural, and which of them might be considered natural. Wittgenstein pushes back from the grammar of language to forms of life, to natural order in precisely the kind of unsatisfied regression he criticises in other philosophy.

8. It seems strange that Anscombe translates the bare 'Sprach' in Wittgenstein as language-game. Does this suggest a philosophical predilection for empirical language games over language as such in Anscombe?

9. According to Baker and Hacker, we should just accept rules as irreducible:
The concept of following a rule is complex and many-faceted. This is hardly surprising in a concept so central to so many distinctively human activities. The guiding principle for attempts to clarify it is to refrain from digging beneath it in the hope of uncovering more basic concepts upon which it rests and to which it is reducible. The network of normative concepts is to be clarified by tracing its reticulations, the pattern of internal relations, not by delving beneath it in search of foundations. Following a rule is a basic concept which we use in clarifying a myriad of other important concepts ranging from metaphysics to the laws of logic, from mathematics to morals. (Baker and Hacker, 1988: (180-181)
A similar point is made in Baker, 'Following Wittgenstein: Some Signposts for Philosophical Investigations 143-242' (in Holtzman and Leich, 1981). These views on Wittgenstein are eloquently presented and rooted in scrupulous scholarship, but are also sustained exercises in evasion. If we cannot get beneath rules, we must at least be able to say what they are. For Baker and Hacker, they just are description: ('The Flatness of Philosophical Grammar') 'Whereas arithmetic consists of rules of grammar, metaphysical propositions might be more accurately described as hiding rules of grammar; platitudes about the uses of expressions are the only thing that can be refined out of this ore. Otherwise it is simply worthless' (Baker and Hacker, 1988: 264-265). But the question must arise: Description of what? And what philosophical, metaphysical and ontological claims are at stake? Counter-arguments to Baker and Hacker can be found in the Holtzman and Leich collection from Christopher Peacocke, 'Reply: Rule-Following: The Nature of Wittgenstein's Arguments'; and Crispin Wright: Rule Following and the Theory of Meaning'.

10. There is no explicit reference to mind here, but Anscombe chooses to translate 'vorschweben' as 'before the mind'. This is not absolutely incorrect, but again seems to suggest a preference for empiricist interpretation of Wittgenstein.

11. 'Facts' is not the most obvious translation of 'Verhaltnisse'. This might be best translated as circumstances, distinguishing it from Tatsachen or Sachverhalt which after all play a rather notable role in the Tractatus. Strange that Anscombe invites confusion between the description of language, or syntax, in the Tractatus and the Investigations.

12. Discussion of what reality claims, if any, exist in the later Wittgenstein can be found with regard to the philosophy of mathematics in: Conant (1987) and Dummett (1978).

13. Similar motivations were present in Frege's 'Sense and Meaning' (Frege, 1984) and were later developed by Quine in 'On What There Is' (Quine, 1980). Both these classic contributions must therefore be open to similar Wittgenstinian criticisms.

14. Cavell, The Claim of Reason:
The philosophical appeal to what we say, and the search for our criteria on the basis of which we say, are claims to community. And the claim to community is always a search for the basis upon which it can or has been established. I have nothing more to go on than my conviction, my sense that I make sense. It may prove to be the case that I am wrong, that my conviction isolates me from all others, from myself. That will not be the same as a discovery that I am dogmatic or egomaniacal. The wish and search for community are the wish and search for reason. (Cavell, 1979: 20)
Cavell, himself, attempts to continue the Wittgenstinian form of philosophical language and not simply comment on it from the outside.

15. For Hacker (including his collaborations with Baker), there is no problem with the status of rules or orders in Wittgenstein. If Kripke thinks there is a problem of justifying rules, Kripke has simply failed to understand that rules are descriptive, with no metaphysical commitments, or any skeptical commitments with regard to the justification of rules. In particular, see Insight and Illusion (Hacker, 1997) Chapter IX, 'Criteria, Realism and Anti-Realism'. In this context, it should be noted that if Wittgenstein is trying to establish philosophy before metaphysics, he is repeating Kant's aim in transcendental philosophy. There are many clues, throughout Wittgenstein's philosophical development, to suggest that he was deliberately, or otherwise, doing this.

16. Kripke's Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (Kripke, 1982) has drawn attention to this as the possible center of the Philosophical Investigations and has itself been the center of an enormous quantity of discussion. For example: John McDowell, 'Meaning and Intentionality in Wittgenstein's Late Philosophy' (McDowell, 1992); 'McDowell, 'Wittgenstein on Following a Rule' (1984); Elizabeth Anscombe, 'Critical Notice of Saul A. Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (Anscombe, 1985); Colin McGinn, Wittgenstein on Meaning (McGinn 1984), Chapter 2; Crispin Wright, 'Critical Notice of Colin McGinn, Wittgenstein on Meaning (Wright, 1989); Arthur Collins, 'On the Paradox Kripke finds in Wittgenstein' (Collins, 1992); Edward Minar, Philosophical Investigations # 185-202: Wittgenstein's Treatment of Following a Rule (Minar, 1990), Chapters 1 and 4; Peter Winch, 'Facts and Super-facts (Saul A. Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language)' (Winch, 1984); George M. Wilson, 'Semantic Realism and Kripke's Wittgenstein' (Wison, 1988).

Baker, G. P. and P. M. S. Hacker. Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity (Volume 2 of an Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations) (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988)

Bergson, Henri. Matter and Memory (Zone, 1988)

Berkeley, George. Philosophical Works, ed. M. R. Ayers (London: Dent, 1975)

Cavell, Stanley. The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979)

Collins, Arthur. 'On the Paradox Kripke Finds in Wittgenstein', Midwest Studies in Philosophy XVI (1992): 74-88.

Conant, James. 'On Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Mathematics', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. XCVII, (1987): 195-222.

Dummett, Michael. Truth and Other Enigmas (London: Duckworth, 1978)

Frege, Gottlob. Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy, ed. Brian McGuiness (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984)

Hacker, P. M. S. Insight and Illusion: Themes in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1997)

Kripke, Saul A. Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: An Elementary Exposition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982)

Holtzman, S. H. and C. H. Leich, Wittgenstein: To Follow a Rule (London: RKP, 1981)

McDowell, John. 'Wittgenstein on Following a Rue' Synthese 58 (1984): 325-363.

-------. 'Meaning and Intentionality in Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy', Midwest Studies in Philosophy XVIII (The Wittgenstein Legacy) (1992): 40-52.

Colin McGinn. Wittgenstein on Meaning (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984)

Minar, Edward. Philosophical Investigations #185-202: Wittgenstein's Treatment of Following a Rule (New York: Garland Press: 1990).

Quine, Willard Van Orman. From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980)

Russell, Bertrand, Logic and Knowledge, ed. R. C. Marsh (London: Allen & Unwin, 1956)

Wilson, George M. 'Semantic Realism and Kripke's Wittgenstein', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LVIII (No. 1), (March 1998): 99-122.

Winch, Peter. 'Facts and Super-facts (Saul A. Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language)', The Philosophical Quarterly 33 (1984): 398-404.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations (with Philosophische Untersuchungen in facing text), trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1958)

Wright, Crispin. 'Critical Notice of Colin McGinn, Wittgenstein on Meaning', Mind 98 (1989): 289-305.

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