The Concept Of "Grammar" In Wittgenstein's Philosophy

"Grammar" is a key concept in Wittgenstein's philosophy. The clarification of this concept is a significant task concerning not only the understanding of Wittgenstein's philosophy, but also the understanding of the linguistic turn in twentieth century's philosophy, and furthermore, the understanding of the nature of philosophy.This essay deals mainly with three questions about Wittgenstein's "grammar".The question discussed in the first chapter is "Is Wittgenstein's'grammar'the grammar in the ordinary sense?" According to G.E. Moore's restatement, it seems that Wittgenstein claimed himself as using the word "grammar" in the ordinary sense. Started by reconstructing the debate between Moore and Wittgenstein on the use of "grammar", this essay illustrates Baker&Hacker's defense of the so-called Wittgenstein's idea, Harris's and Garver's critique from the perspective of linguistics, and Forster's middle course in sequence. Based on a detailed analysis of Wittgenstein's original texts, the author then clarified Wittgenstein's response to Moore's doubt and criticized Baker&Hacker's misreading of Wittgenstein's words. The conclusion of this chapter is that Wittgenstein is not intended to make a positive claim that his "grammar" is exactly the same as ordinary grammr, but to emphasize in a negative sense that his "grammatical rules" and the rules of ordinary grammar are the same kind of rules in that they are not statements about empirical facts.The question discussed int the second chapter is "Is Wittgenstein's'grammatical rule'really a kind of rule?" Language is usually seen as a rule-governed activity. Wittgenstein's "grammatical rules" are usually thought as the rules determining sense and non-sense. And speaking meaningfully is therefore looked as an act following the grammatical rules. However, it is just the "rule-following paradox" propouded by Kripke that makes the occurrance of "the meaning scepticism". This situation in turn makes it necessary for us to make a close look at the nature of grammatical rules. After illustrating the debates on the "rule-following" problem between Kripke, Baker & Hacker, and Malcolm, the author keeps his eye largely on their real intentions behind the debates and concludes that they are concerned with different problems under the same theme. The problems of Kripke and Malcolm are such like "How rule-following (normativity) is possible?", "How language (meaning) is possible?" and the problems of Baker & Hacker are such like "Where does the harmony between language and reality come from?", "How is it possible for language to represent reality?". The very reason for this confusion is that they all treat Wittgenstein's "grammatical rules" as rule simpliciter. Language is surely a normative practice, but it is not totally the same as chess which is a "rule-governed activity". Speaking a language is not an act following the pre-established grammatical rules. Wittgenstein's "grammatical rule" is not a kind of rule-entity but a functional concept which provides us with criterion when we have disagreement on the understanding of language use. And it is because of this kind of normative function that we might call this criterion of language use as a "rule".The question discussed in the third chapter is "Is Wittgenstein's'grammar'a kind of depth grammar?" Wittgenstein's "grammar" is always called as "depth grammar" due to a famous remark he made in Philosophical Investigations (PI§664). But apart from this remark, Wittgenstein almost never used this term and even showed his disgust at such expressions like "beneath the surface" on other places. Understanding this term appropriately is of great importance in helping us figure out not only the difference between philosophical grammar and ordinary grammar, but also the difference between Wittgenstein's "grammar" and other philosophers' "depth grammar". This essay illustrates the interpretations of Wittgenstein's "depth grammar" made by Pitcher, Hacker, Hunter, and Baker, Tsu-Lin Mei's critique of "depth grammar" and Chomsky's discussion of "deep structure". The author then makes his own comments on the conception of "depth grammar" in two parts. The first part deals with the question:"In what sense is the philosophical grammar a kind of 'depth grammar'?" The conclusion of this part is that philosophical grammar is a kind of depth grammar, not because it is more complete than ordinary grammar, but in that it has its own interests different from ordinary grammar. Ordinary grammar is interested in language itself, but philosophical grammar is interested in thought(reason, understanding) which has a intimate relation with language. The second part discusses the difference between Wittgenstein's "depth grammar" and the other kind of "depth grammar" whose aim is to dicover the hidden rules of language. The conclusion of this part is as follows:The latter kind of "depth grammar" is a sentence-based depth grammar, while Wittgenstein's "depth grammar" is a word-based depth grammar, which is actually a kind of conceptual investigation in the aim of clarifying certain misunderstandings. This kind of grammatical investigation, whose existence is dependent on certain philosophical problems, is not intended to provide us with new knowledge to solve these problems, but to reveal new dimensions of looking at these problems. As far as this conception of philosophical grammar is concerned, philosophy is by and large, after the linguistic turn, not a cognitive discipline, but a humanisitic discipline.