Analytic Philosophy and the Linguistic Turn: Wittgenstein, Quine, Kripke (private language argument, indeterminacy of translation, rigid designator, causal theory of reference)
Western Philosophy for Indian Students: Ten Lectures by Tanmoy Bhattacharyya
Tenth Lecture
by
Thanmy Bhattacharyya
The analytic tradition begins with a single, devastating realization: most of traditional philosophy is not false; it is meaningless. The task is therefore no longer to discover the nature of Being, Mind, or Value, but to clarify the logical syntax of language and to dissolve pseudo-problems arising from the misuse of ordinary and technical terms.
This last lecture is the final, merciless descent into the entire apparatus of twentieth-century analytic philosophy at the highest technical level: sense and reference, definite descriptions, logical atomism, the picture theory, the say/show distinction, language-games, family-resemblance, rule-following, private-language argument, two-dogmas empiricism, ontological relativity, gavagai, indeterminacy of translation, rigid designation, trans-world identity, causal-historical chains, a posteriori necessity, and the quiet burial of metaphysics.
Every rare and exact term is used in its original, strict sense: Sinn/Bedeutung, Eigenname, definite Beschreibung, logisch eigenname, Tatsach, Sachverhalt, elementarer Satz, logischer Raum, Sprachspiel, Regelbefolgung, Lebensform, Privatsprachenargument, analytisch/synthetisch a priori, Inscrutability of reference, Ontologische Relativität, starre Designator, transworld identity, essentialismus, Kausal-historische Kette, etc.
1. Gottlob Frege (1848–1925): The Foundations of Modern Logic and Semantics
Begriffsschrift (1879) and Sinn und Bedeutung (1892)
- Invention of quantificational logic: multiple generality, the ancestral, the entire modern predicate calculus.
- Distinction between Sinn (sense, mode of presentation) and Bedeutung (reference). Example: “Abendstern” and “Morgenstern” have different Sinn but same Bedeutung (Venus).
- Functions and arguments replace subject-predicate: “Socrates is mortal” becomes Mortal(s).
- Proper names are abbreviated definite descriptions or rigid singular terms.
- Numbers are objects, not concepts; “the concept horse” paradox reveals the limits of natural language.
2. Bertrand Russell (1872–1970): Logical Atomism and Definite Descriptions
On Denoting (1905) and Principia Mathematica (1910–1913, with Whitehead)
- Theory of definite descriptions: “The present king of France is bald” is false, not meaningless. Formalization: ∃x [(King-of-France(x) ∧ ∀y (King-of-France(y) → y=x)) ∧ Bald(x)] This eliminates ontological commitment to non-existents.
- Logical atomism: the world consists of simple objects (logical atoms) known by acquaintance. Complex propositions are truth-functions of atomic propositions.
- Types theory solves the paradoxes (Russell’s paradox, Grelling’s paradox).
- Knowledge by acquaintance vs knowledge by description.
3. Ludwig Wittgenstein I: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921)
The most perfect and terrifying book in philosophy.
- 1 The world is everything that is the case.
- 2 What is the case, the fact (Tatsache), is the existence of atomic facts (Sachverhalte).
- 2.0211–2.0212 Logical space: atomic facts are independent; the world is the total space of possible configurations.
- Picture theory: the proposition is a logical picture (logisches Bild) of a possible state of affairs. Elementary propositions (Elementarsätze) share logical form with the facts they depict.
- 4.003–4.5 Truth-functional composition: all non-elementary propositions are truth-functions of elementary ones.
- 6.53 The correct method in philosophy is to say nothing except what can be said (i.e., natural science).
- 6.54 The ladder: my propositions are elucidatory; whoever understands me recognizes them as sinnlos. One must throw away the ladder after climbing it.
- The unsayable (ethics, aesthetics, the mystical, the meaning of life) shows itself.
4. Ludwig Wittgenstein II: Philosophical Investigations (1953)
Complete reversal: meaning is use.
- §1–§140 Critique of the Augustinian picture: language is not naming objects.
- Sprachspiele (language-games): primitive and full-blown forms of language embedded in Lebensformen.
- §243–§315 The private-language argument: a) A sign cannot get its meaning from a private ostensive definition. b) There is no criterion of correctness for “the same sensation again” without public criteria. c) Therefore a purely private language is impossible. Consequence: sensations, rule-following, and intentionality are normatively constituted by communal practice.
- Family-resemblance (Familienähnlichkeit): concepts like “game” have no common essence, only overlapping similarities.
- Rule-following paradox (§201): “no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made to accord with the rule.” Solution: rules are grounded in shared practices, not interpretations.
5. W. V. O. Quine (1908–2000): The Two Dogmas and Ontological Relativity
Two Dogmas of Empiricism (1951)
- Rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction: no statement is immune to revision (Duhem–Quine thesis).
- Meaning holism: our statements face the tribunal of experience not individually but as a corporate body.
- Inscrutability of reference and indeterminacy of translation: “Gavagai!”: the native may mean “rabbit,” “undetached rabbit part,” “rabbit-stage,” or something else. No fact of the matter determines which manual of translation is correct.
- Ontological relativity: “No entity without identity.” To be is to be the value of a bound variable, but what objects exist is relative to the background theory or manual of translation we adopt.
6. Saul Kripke (1940–): Naming and Necessity (1972/1980)
The most important work in philosophy of language since Frege.
- Proper names are rigid designators: they designate the same individual in every possible world in which that individual exists.
- Contrast: definite descriptions (“the inventor of bifocals”) are non-rigid.
- A posteriori necessary truths: “Water is H₂O” is necessary (true in every world containing water) but discovered empirically.
- Essentialism rehabilitated: natural-kind terms have essential properties (molecular structure) discovered a posteriori.
- Causal-historical chain theory of reference: a name is introduced by an initial baptism, then passed along a chain of communication. No description fixes reference; reference is secured by historical connection.
7. The Quiet Death of Metaphysics
From Russell’s “the king of France” to Quine’s “Pegasus” to Kripke’s “Aristotle might not have been Aristotle”:
- Traditional metaphysics is either meaningless (early analytic), dissolved into language-games (late Wittgenstein), or reduced to empirical science plus modal logic (Kripke).
- The grand questions (What is Being? What is the Good? What is Mind?) are either pseudo-problems or matters for physics, neuroscience, or ordinary language.
Key Technical Vocabulary (strict original usage)
Frege
- Sinn / Bedeutung
- Begriff / Gegenstand
- Eigenname / bestimmte Beschreibung
- Funktion und Argument
Russell
- Definite description
- Knowledge by acquaintance / description
- Logical atomism
- Theory of types
Early Wittgenstein
- Sachverhalt / Tatsache
- Elementarsatz
- Logischer Raum
- Sagen / Zeigen
- Das Mystische
Late Wittgenstein
- Sprachspiel
- Lebensform
- Familienähnlichkeit
- Regelbefolgung
- Privatsprachenargument
Quine
- Analytic/synthetic distinction
- Indeterminacy of translation
- Inscrutability of reference
- Ontological relativity
- “To be is to be the value of a variable”
Kripke
- Rigid designator / non-rigid
- A posteriori necessity
- Essentialism
- Causal-historical chain
- Trans-world identity
Study Questions (doctoral-level)
- Explain why Frege needs both Sinn and Bedeutung for identity statements, and why Russell’s theory of descriptions fails to account for cognitive significance.
- Reconstruct Wittgenstein’s private-language argument (§258–§271) and show why it does not depend on behaviorism.
- Using only Two Dogmas, demonstrate why Quine believes no statement is immune to revision, even “2+2=4.”
- How does Kripke’s distinction between epistemic and metaphysical possibility allow necessary a posteriori truths?
- If Quine is right about indeterminacy of translation and Kripke is right about rigid designation, is there still a fact of the matter about what our words refer to?
This completes the ten-lecture arc from Thales to Kripke: from the first question about the ἀρχή to the final realization that the question itself may have been a misuse of language.
The history of Western philosophy is now closed before you. You have traversed every major epoch with the most difficult and precise vocabulary in the tradition. Nonetheless, we shall discuss further to show that the concept of ‘West’ is a misconception, and there is no such thing as the West, and therefore Western philosophy is nothing more than a discrete collection (διακριτική συλλογή) of non-Vedic thoughts developed by those who once migrated from India and settled in the present-day Greece and Europe.
