This is one point almost anyone would agree on:
Wittgenstein does not give a theory of language. In his
words, he says nothing about language. If one takes him to
say something, he will find out that Wittgenstein's
assertions are meaningless. Here comes his distinction
between "saying" and "showing", and it seems to me that his
later distinction between "describing" and "explaining" is
somehow related with this. Wittgenstein says that he is
only showing something with respect to language or, in
other words, that he is only describing the phenomenon of
language (not entirely and systematically, of course).
Somewere in Vermischte Bemerkungen, he says that he is
showing to his students portions of an infinite painting
(he says something similar in the introduction to Philosophische
Untersuchungen).
I take language to be this painting. One can, of course,
extract from his examples some basic concepts and rules,
because not even Wittgenstein is immune to that "craving
for generality" which he criticizes so much. But all these
concepts and rules have not a theoretical status, but
rather a mnemonic role.
In short, the solution, to explain how is he allowed
to speak of language but no theory of language can exist,
lies in the distinction saying / showing.
Note: I do not feel very
confortable with this distinction and I think that
there is something wrong with it, but I have
not succeeded yet to find out where the mistake lies.
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