Wittgenstein's View Of Heidegger's "way To Language"

Would Wittgenstein approve of Heidegger’s “Way to Language”? Written by: critical (on pdfcoke.com) April 1996 The meaning of terms beyond our normal language games is just as far as we need to go.

To think there is a need to go beyond these simple practical

understandings that we gain is a false assumption. Going beyond our understandings derived from everyday life experience is simply just wrong-headed thinking. In doing otherwise we are enmeshed in problems that exist because of a missunderstanding a grammatical error. The essence of language; that place we cannot go. To seek out the essence of language is a theoretical journey. The goal is just as theoretical as the journey and just as insubstantial as a ghost. Wittgenstein would be very much in agreement with the spirit of Heidegger's 'Way' as it involves a journey that takes place through language itself. Heidegger's 'Way' does not treat language as a thing that can be studied objectively, it is a part of our everyday lives it is indeed a part of our very selves and thus we can never separate ourselves from it to study it as an object. 'Essence' from the Houghton Mifflin Canadian Dictionary: 1. The quality or qualities of a thing that give it its identity; the intrinsic or indispensable properties of a thing: "Government and Law, in their very essence, consist of restrictions on freedom" (Betrand Russell). A politically loaded definition to say the least. Yet, a definition which beautifully delimits the theoretical underpinnings of the word in question. The essence of language is what H hopes to uncover in his Way-making of language, but he does not ask the question that might readily come to W's mind from the beginning -- how is the essence of language an important question at all? Essence as a means of grappling with a thing or idea is an attempt to reduce observations about that thing to a simple readily understandable model. We use the term 'essence' to help us understand what is most salient or most important about a

given object or group of things. Thus the essence becomes a model that can be played with and observed in motion (so to speak). This model allows us to test ideas and make further observations that would not have been possible because of the immensity or complexity of the thing being studied. This reduction of a thing to its essence is something we do all of the time everyday and as such we do not think about it as a process of simplification for the purposes of observation. We think of this process not at all. One of the hints of the reality of this is that we now find ourselves in a way of life of language games that uses essence as an everyday word, a word we use without question as a means of analyzing the world around us. To divine the essence of something is to fabricate a theory about that thing based on whatever we consider to be the most relevant features of its identity or its most salient properties. The reason we might want to readily accept the line of questioning that Heidegger explores in his Way-making of language is because we are unaware of the immensely theoretical nature of the application of ideas like essence. Heidegger does not knowingly tread into this theoretical realm anymore than Wittgenstein does but concepts like induction and essence are inherently unreflexive to us.

Through a careful study of the language games in which our community

everyday takes part we may heighten our awareness of the hidden assumptions that are an inescapable part of everyday language and are thus almost completely unobservable and inherently unquestionable (p113W).

Here I make the analogy

between W's description of induction and our use of 'essence'.

It is not that

theoretical frameworks like 'essence' are inherently bad they are merely dangerous because we are not fully aware of the assumptions we make when using them. H is clearly aware of the dangers of grasping language theoretically as a particular instance of this or that universal as a general notion like energy, activity etcetera (406H). He, as can be seen from the quote below, is also clearly aware of the realities of our language as inherently representational.

To bring language as language to language... Our proposed way to language is woven into a speaking that would like to liberate nothing else than language, liberate it in order to present it, giving utterance to it as something represented--which straightway testifies to the fact that language itself has woven us into its speaking (398H). The representational taste to his formula for this Way-making of language is cited as evidence that we are deep within the Weft that is language. Despite the inescapable representational identity of our language H is confident that his path will steer clear of this very pitfall. This is an important point at which I believe W would take great issue with H. W's concerns would be to ascertain just how it is that H will avoid the pitfall to which he here alludes and nevermore mentions. Language evolved from use and our language has an underlying theoretical framework of which we are not always aware -- to these things both H and W agree. Just as induction is a part of our everyday and unreflexive awareness so too are other pervasive theoretical frameworks that permeate our language (p113W). Wittgenstein is very careful about these hidden assumptions that arise from the evolution of our language and continually uses this knowledge as an important tool in divining important mistakes of thought. The primitive forms of our language - noun, adjective and verb - show the simple picture to which it tries to make everything conform (p278). Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language (p282W). This as I have said before is certainly not outside of H's thoughts as he undertakes his Way to language but he does seem to think that his undertaking somehow avoids

this 'bewitchment' that W so sternly warns about.

If we are on the trail of language as language,... We can no longer root about for general notions like energy, activity, labour, force of spirit, view upon the world, or expression, under which we might subsume language as a particular instance of this or that universal. Instead of explaining language as this or that, and thus fleeing from it, the way to language wants to let language be experienced as language. True in the essence of language, language is grasped conceptually; but it is caught in the grip of something other than itself (406H). How is it that notions like energy and activity are excluded as a means of grasping language yet essence is not? This thing 'other than itself' of which language is in the-grip-of with respect to essence is unclear here and only becomes clear much later in the text. Bear with me as I follow in H's footsteps. Such way-making brings language (the essence of language) as language (the saying) to language (to the resoundng word) (418H). It seems as though every attempt to represent language needs the learned knack of dialectic in order to master the tangle. However, such a procedure, which the formula formidably provokes, bypasses the possibility that by remaining on the trail--that is to say, by letting ourselves be guided expressly into the way-making movement--we may yet catch a glimpse of the essence of language in all its simplicity, instead of wanting to represent language (419H). This path no longer is merely a formula for deriving the essence of language representationally for this is an impossible venture that requires "the learned knack of dialectic in order to master the tangle". Instead, the path reveals itself to be the

form within which the essence of language 'makes its way' upon the back of propriation (419H).

So, this point is the ultimate transformation of the way to

language. Finally H heeds advice, (not unlike the advice W would have given), that the journey on the way to language is now a Way-making and it is to be followed as a path that is already made -- no longer do we clear the path ourselves. Here, finally we can see how it is that the 'essence' of language differs so much from the other concepts of grasping language as one universal or another. It is the Way-making in the grasp of propriation which is "The Saying" that the essence of language comes forth. This does not mean that the path up until now was fruitless or wasted words it is only through this path that the clearing was revealed -- allowing us to hear "the Saying". ... one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language game which is its original home (283W)? H has even departed from the common language games of Language. According to W, the simplicity of our language is not the most dangerous pitfall that we must avoid -- for H does manage to avoid the simplicity of seeing language as a thing or object represented (at least in the final estimation). It is the vagueness of our language that entails the true danger to our intelligence (278-9W). Thus when H (finally) avoids the pitfall of representation in his 'Way' to language he steps right into another pitfall -- otherwise known as "The Saying". The true danger of our language is that to overcome primitive modes of thought we may believe it necessary to illicit transformations of simply wrong concepts into fantastic phantasms of fancy (p278-9). Though my language appears to strongly judge H as merely a writer of fancy, a poet, it is only his path not his conclusion that W would find amiss.

H

concludes that the essence of language is not clearly shown. While, W believes that the essence of language is "its function, its structure, ... something that already lies open to view and that becomes surveyable by a rearrangement" (p280W).

This

conclusion to which H arrives is accomplished through a means that W would not have found acceptable. H's path is based on an understanding of the essence of language that is irreconcilably different from W's.