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Articles

A Nice Knock-Down Argument

by Peter Williams (after Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking Glass’)

The notion of ‘language-games’, often cited and discussed in my lectures at University, has become something of a pet hate with me. The concept comes originally from Wittgenstein, who asked us to “think of words as instruments characterised by their use.” The general idea is that the meaning of language is dependent upon the user, and words only have meaning within a particular context of use called a ‘language-game’. Some have argued that religious language, for example, should be recognised as a distinctive language-game. This implies that philosophical questions about religious matters, or matters in any ‘language-game’, should be restricted to questions about the role played by words in that particular game; philosophy is prevented from saying anything about the validity of the game itself.

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