Ludwig Wittgenstein, who introduced this idea, famously said that "philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday". He meant that words and sentences only mean something in a particular context. So they may not mean the same thing if one wanders from one context to another. We therefore cannot totally rely on absolutely uniform correspondence of what a particular word means.
A typical example is the difference between what might be said in a religious sermon compared with a trade union meeting. A word with different meanings might be "action".
Without going into Wittgenstein's theory, we can easily think of many examples of different language games. Here are a few that come to my mind.
| Academic situations | Technical situations | Commercial situations | Artistic situations | Political situations | Social situations | Leader/follower situations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Specialty presentation | User manuals | Board meeting | Art criticism | Formal debate | Friendly chatter | Parent-child |
| Mathematical proofs | Brainstorming | Marketing meeting | Literary cricicism | Committee stage | Competitive chatter | Teacher-pupil |
| Formal logic | User feedback | Financial review | Drama criticism | Foreign relations | Storytelling | Doctor-patient |
| Grant application | Experimenting | Budget preparation | Music criticism | Electioneering | Complaining | Boss-employee |
| Ethics committee | Sales pitch | Dramatic dialogue | Playing a sport | Priest-lay person | ||
| Case studies | Shareholder meeting | Poetry | Provider-customer | |||
| Theology | Consultant report | Fiction | Bureaucracy-member of public | |||
| Advertisement | Wine tasting | Interviewer-interviewee | ||||
There are a number of words which seem to have so many shades of meaning (depending largely on context) that discussions using those words become fairly pointless. The four examples that I use in my Plover presentaton are:
| Freedom | Culture | Soul | Truth |
I wince when I hear any of them!
For some examples of different meanings of 'freedom', see relevant extract from my highlights of John Gray's "Marionettes" book.
In my opinion, the three biggest practical dangers that arise from confusing language games are:
As an afterword, I think a quote from a poem in 'Through the Looking Glass' by Lewis Carroll is appropriate:
"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax, Of cabbages — and kings ..."
Well, Lewis Carrol's Walrus and Carpenter might get into philosophical problems if they didn't keep the five language games apart.
The links below lead to the other components of PLOVER
| Philosophy | Language | Ontology | Value | Evolution | Religion |
Links to other parts of this website
| Back to Language A | PLOVER index page | Back to Roger's home page | Back to tagg.org website |
Some of these links may be under construction – or re-construction.
This version updated on 22nd