David Chandler

Does Ludwig Wittgenstein offer us a theory of meaning in his later masterpiece, the Philosophical Investigations? This thesis proposes to answer this question in the negative (i.e., there is no such theory to be found therein) through a close reading of the text. Such a reading considers three related sub-issues. The first of these sub-issues is whether the opening inclusion of a passage from Augustine’s Confessions was intended to establish a theoretical target for the criticisms that follow, with this target belonging to Augustine himself. Contrary to some commentators, I argue that Wittgenstein was not interested in a particular theory that was defended by Augustine, but rather, in a possible (mis)understanding that could arise out of (mis)reading his words. On Wittgenstein’s interaction with Augustine, the second sub-issue that I address is whether the remarks on meaning and use contained in the former’s criticisms of the latter amount to the statement or defence of a use-theory of meaning. I strive to show that the idea that Wittgenstein was offering some kind of general definition of meaning as use collapses in on itself once we recognise that these remarks are problem-relative, being intended only to resolve a specific philosophical confusion. But the resolution of such confusions consists not in the explanation of how language works at a deeper level; instead, the task is to describe what is already open to view—it is this preference for description that lies at the heart of the later Wittgenstein’s proclaimed aversion to philosophical theorising. And so, the final chapter of this thesis endeavours to make this aversion clear through the re-orientation of Wittgenstein’s conception of his own later philosophy as not a logical investigation but a grammatical one.