What is the relationship between meaning and context for Wittgenstein?

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For Wittgenstein, especially in his later work (Philosophical Investigations), meaning is inseparable from context—and specifically, from use in a particular form of life. His famous slogan captures this:

“The meaning of a word is its use in the language.” (PI §43)

Let’s unpack what this means and how context plays a central role in his thinking:

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🧩 I. Early vs. Later Wittgenstein: From Structure to Use

1. Early Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1921)

• Meaning is understood as logical structure or correspondence.

• A proposition has meaning if it pictures a state of affairs in the world.

• Context matters in terms of logical form, but not social or pragmatic context.

Example: “The cat is on the mat” is meaningful if there is a real-world situation it pictures.

This representational theory of meaning was later abandoned by Wittgenstein.

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2. Later Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations, 1953)

• Rejects the idea of meaning as fixed correspondence.

• Shifts to a pragmatic, use-based theory: words get their meaning from how they are used in concrete human activities.

• Emphasizes language-games: the diverse ways language functions (commanding, asking, joking, mourning, etc.).

• Each language-game is embedded in a form of life—a way of living, acting, responding.

Meaning is not something abstract or mental; it is situated, social, embodied, and contextual.

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🌍 II. Context as Form of Life

The term “form of life” (Lebensform) is crucial:

• It refers to the broader background of shared human practices, reactions, and activities that give words and actions their intelligibility.

• Language only makes sense within this fabric of life.

For example, the word “check” means very different things in chess, finance, casual speech, or American diners—but each use is meaningful within its specific practice.

Key idea:

Context is not added onto meaning; it constitutes meaning.
Trying to understand a word “in isolation” is like trying to understand a chess move without knowing the rules of chess.

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🗣️ III. Language-Games: Contexts of Use

Wittgenstein introduces the metaphor of language-games to show that:

• Language is an activity, like playing a game.

• Each game has rules, but they are internal to the practice, not imposed externally.

• We learn meaning by participation, not by internal contemplation or rigid definition.

“What is a question?” “What is an order?”—we understand these because we are trained into the practice, not because we learned definitions.

Context, then, includes:

• Who is speaking and to whom

• What they are doing

• The history and expectations of the situation

• Shared background knowledge

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🧠 IV. Consequences for Meaning, Knowledge, and Philosophy

1. No essence of meaning:

   • There is no single thing that makes all uses of a word “mean” something.

   • Instead, meaning is family resemblance: overlapping similarities without a fixed core.

2. Against private language:

   • Because meaning depends on public use and shared context, a truly “private language” (understood only by a single individual) is impossible.

3. Therapeutic approach to philosophy:

   • Philosophical problems arise when we take words out of context, assume fixed meanings, or misunderstand language-games.

   • The philosopher’s task is to show the fly the way out of the fly bottle—to dissolve confusions by returning language to its natural context.

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✍️ Summary Table

Concept	Early Wittgenstein	Later Wittgenstein
Meaning	Picturing reality	Use in context
Context	Logical structure	Form of life, language-game
Language	Abstract system	Embedded human practice
Understanding	Mental representation	Social, practical competence
Role of philosophy	Clarify logic	Clarify confusions in use

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🧶 Final Thought

For later Wittgenstein, context is not a container for meaning—it is the condition of meaning. To understand a word, you must understand the life in which it is spoken. Language is woven into our actions, expectations, and shared life. Pull it out of that context, and it ceases to mean anything.

Would you like this compared with Derrida, Gadamer, or ordinary language philosophers like Austin?