Solvej Hartmann

Contrary to readings of Wittgenstein which understand philosophical confusions as having no impact on every-day life, this essay wants to explore the possibility of confusions about forms of our life which show up within the forms of our life themselves. We first discuss Wittgenstein’s warning about taking words as depictions of extra linguistic objects (A), arguing that such a misunderstanding is bound to have lingering effects – such as taking scientific models to be real forces. We then argue for another aspect of epistemic confusion about words which happens when it is forgotten that they are gestures by someone (B). When it gets sufficiently complicated, for example when one language game is enacted as another language game, such as obvious lying being treated as a legitimate move to be countered by argumentation and unnecessary evidence gathering, participants may get confused about the forms of language involved. We argue that such confusion is not to be considered part of a language game, because it consists in a confusion about how language games relate, not in the type of being tricked or violated that happens within language games. Wittgenstein’s suggestion to imagine words replaced by instinctive noises and gestures could be fruitful in this context because it breaks the spell on us by remnant words from a forgotten situation.