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Cato Wittusen
Wittgenstein’s Distinction between
Primary and Secondary Sense Reconsidered
1. Introduction
The topic for this essay is Wittgenstein’s suggestion that we may speak of a distinction
between a word’s primary and secondary sense. The distinction is also described in terms of a
difference between a word’s primary and secondary use (cf. Wittgenstein 1992: 216). Instead
of coming to see the clarifying purpose of the distinction and the way it resonates with other
central problems in his writings, many commentators have attempted to work out the
distinction in terms of a supplement to a general theory of sense that they take Wittgenstein to
have developed in his later writings.1 In discussing the distinction, I will argue for the
relevance of extending the context in which it figures. Wittgenstein speaks explicitly of the
distinction only at two junctures in his work. In addition to the passage in part II of the
Investigations, there are also a few sections in Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology
in which the two terms of clarification are featured. Throughout his works on the philosophy
of psychology there are passages that should be considered related to his explicit discussions
of the phenomenon. Besides these works, I also consider parts of the Brown Book and Eine
philosophische Betrachtung to be of interest on this score. By attending to these works, I hope
to show how his suggestion of a distinction between a word’s primary and secondary sense
has bearing on central issues in his discussions of rule-following in part one of the
Investigations. By my lights, this has not been fully recognized in the standard literature. In
dealing with problems that pertain to the ‘constitution of correctness’ and to the concept of
‘going on in the same way’ we are liable to ignore the contexts and surroundings of our
words. Thus, instead of attending to language in use, we fall prey to a kind of dogmatism with
regard to how language must be used in order for us to make sense.
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2. Some Obstacles to a Proper Understanding of ‘Secondary Sense’
I want to start by focusing on readings that explore the phenomenon by contrasting secondary
uses with metaphors. On the face of it, Wittgenstein is indeed saying that secondary senses
should not be reduced to metaphors in remarking that ‘the secondary sense is not a
“metaphorical” sense’ (Wittgenstein 1992: 216). Let us attend to Wittgenstein’s own wording:
Given the two ideas ‘fat’ and ‘lean’, would you be rather inclined to say that
Wednesday was fat and Tuesday lean, or vice versa? (I decline decisively towards the
former.) Now we have “fat” and “lean” some different meaning here from their usual
one?—They have a different use.—So ought I really to have used different words?
Certainly not that.—I want to use these words (with their familiar meanings) here.—
Now, I say nothing about the causes of this phenomenon. They might be associations
from my childhood. But that is a hypothesis. Whatever explanation, —the inclination
is there.
Asked “What do you really mean here by “fat” and “lean” —I could only explain the
meanings in the usual way. I could not point to the examples of Tuesday and
Wednesday.
Here one might speak of a “primary” and “secondary” sense of a word. It is only if the
word has the primary sense for you that you use it in the secondary one.
The secondary sense is not a “metaphorical” sense. If I say “For me the vowel e is
yellow” I do not mean: ‘yellow’ in a metaphorical sense, -- for I could not express
what I want to say in any other way that by means of the idea “yellow”.
(Wittgenstein 1992: 216)
A natural response to Wittgenstein’s account of the phenomenon might be to take secondary
uses as instances of live metaphors. In fact, Wittgenstein’s own example of a metaphorical use
seems to support this line of reasoning. It would to some extent be pertinent to describe a
secondary use as a case of applying a metaphorical expression, he argues. Yet as he goes on
to stress, the relationship between primary and secondary uses is not on a par with the
connection between expressions such as ‘cutting off a thread’ and “cutting off someone’s
speech’ (cf. Wittgenstein 1982: §§798-99).2 Here one can obviously do without the figurative
expression. But this claim is anything but controversial. Hardly anyone would argue that one
would sustain a loss of expressive aptness by being denied this kind of metaphorical
expression. An expression like this, some may argue, is so worn out that we cannot even think
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of it as a metaphorical expression anymore. The attraction of taking secondary uses of words
as vivid metaphors notwithstanding, the outcome of this interpretation is perhaps not
particularly gratifying—leaving aside the possibility that Wittgenstein is directing our
attention to a phenomenon that the focus on metaphors may prevent us from seeing. On the
other hand, one problem about interpretations aiming at a strict differentiation between
secondary uses and metaphors is that they tend to construe the phenomenon of secondary uses
in a way that seems to be concurrent with commonplace conceptions of metaphor, which
makes it equally difficult to capture any original feature of the phenomenon.
In assuming, for example, that the interesting aspect of Wittgenstein’s invoking a
distinction between primary and secondary sense is that he points out significant differences
between metaphors and secondary uses as regards the extent to which they are amenable to
paraphrase or replacement, many commentators indeed wind up ascribing assumptions about
how metaphors work which are not widely defended at present (cf. for instance Tilghman
1984: 163; Hark 1990: 188; Schulte 1990: 108; Johnston 1993: 121). Looking closer at many
of the interpretations, it seems that metaphorical meaning in these commentaries is reduced to
the literal meaning of a simile or comparison. A metaphor is grasped as a shortened simile. In
this conception, metaphorical meaning is something that can be easily rendered in paraphrase.
Secondary meaning, on the other hand, is thought of as not being susceptible to paraphrase, at
least not without a significant loss of meaning. This way of construing the phenomenon of
secondary senses seems to be fairly congenial to theories of metaphor that emphasize a kind
of shift of meaning when a given expression is used metaphorically. Due to some kind of
interaction between meanings a new meaning supervenes.3 The meaning thus expressed is
moreover regarded unique and utterly dependent on the context of interaction. This is why
one is apt to depict secondary senses as not being susceptible to any kind of replacement
without sustaining a loss of meaning.
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Also Cavell thinks that there is a central distinction between metaphorical senses and
secondary senses. He argues, however, that we are here faced with uses of expressions that
‘cannot be assured or explained by an appeal to its ordinary language games (in this, these
uses are like metaphorical ones)’ (Cavell 1979: 36).4 This last comment about their likeness
in this respect seems indeed to run counter to the standard understanding of a strict division
between metaphors and secondary senses. I think, however, we should feel free to
characterize some of his examples on this score as metaphorical expressions, if only we are
aware of the difference that he stresses between figurative expressions that we feel we have
to use and those that are dispensable (Wittgenstein 1982: §§798-98).5 According to Ted
Cohen, metaphors are very often aimed at inducing a form of intimacy between the speakers.
Metaphors require a form of engagement on part of hearer: ‘The hearer is induced to join the
speaker in a particular intimacy, probably a selective intimacy, not available to everyone; end
already thus engaged, the hearer is nudged into the further intimacy of joining speaker in
feeling’ (Cohen 2004: 238). I think it might be relevant to focus on this kind of intimacy
when we grapple with the phenomenon of secondary sense as well.
Let us for the moment go back to the passage in the Investigations where we are
explicitly introduced to the distinction. Wittgenstein starts out by asking us whether one
would feel most disposed to find Wednesday fat and Tuesday lean or the other way around.
Due to the strangeness of such experiences, or perhaps more specifically, the expressions of
them, one might think that ‘fat’ and ’lean’ must have taken on a meaning different from the
usual one—the one we are supposedly most familiar with, for instance in describing a
person’s body. One striking aspect about this little exchange is the confessional tone of voice
in which it is pitched. The impression is made that someone is doing something wrong, using
the words incongruously. I think we are expected to sympathize with the suspicion that a
kind of change in terms of meaning must, at this point, have taken place, and that
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consequently the person should have expressed himself differently. We are supposed to feel a
temptation to insist that a person with such experiences should have expressed himself
differently lest his words be refused as inaccurately combined. This is the response the
example has been designed to evoke in us. To begin with, we are meant to feel ill at ease
with these expressions. Pressing the question of whether the person in the example really
should have expressed himself differently is something we are supposed to find reasonable at
this point. But what could ‘differently’ possibly mean in this context? What gives us the right
to assume a kind of incongruity in this case? These are questions that tend to be overlooked
or done away with too quickly.
In discussing the phenomenon of secondary sense, Wittgenstein focuses chiefly on
utterances that appear to be internally flawed. He is not elaborating on utterances that we
tend to consider pragmatically ill-suited, for instance ‘asking’ the booth clerk on the subway
for a slice of pizza instead of a token.6 Thus, even though the uses of ‘fat’ and ‘lean’ are
palpably different from the familiar ones, it is not clear in what sense we could rightly argue
that the word must have taken on a new meaning. This problem seems even more pressing
against the backdrop of various variants of ascribing a use-theory of meaning according to
which meaning is considered constituted by use. In this view, meaning is viewed as a
function of intersubjectively shared practices.7 Our regular practices are taken to create the
logical space of our concepts. Consequently, when the use of a word has been changed, the
meaning too will be modified or changed. Under the pressure of such a use-theoretical
approach to Wittgenstein, it seems safe to conclude that a word used in what appears to be a
completely new way cannot preserve its meaning. From this point of view, therefore, an
urgent question is whether this must be said to pertain to secondary uses as well.
Interestingly, according to many commentaries, Wittgenstein is getting at a level of meaning
that, as it were, transcends the primary and rule-based meaning of a word. He is portrayed as
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making gestures at a level of meaning that is beyond the primary (and rule-accredited)
meaning of a word. In fact, secondary sense is often taken—as opposed to primary sense—to
be a more subjective phenomenon. In contrast to a word’s primary sense, a secondary sense
is supposedly something that has to be experienced or felt. As ter Hark contends: ‘He
[Wittgenstein] seriously calls this secondary meaning a ’meaning’, yet this ’meaning’ seems
to be more private, more subjective, and more an experience than the primary, rule-guided
use’ (Hark 1990: 162). Whereas Alois Rust puts it thus: ‘How we feel here varies from
person to person. When we speak thus we are not expressing an experience that is accessible
to everyone’ (Rust 1996: 165, my translation).8
I think it is safe to say that Wittgenstein is often being credited with a two-tiered
conception of meaningfulness in language. Take for instance Johnston’s discussion the
phenomenon (Johnston 1993). According to Johnston, Wittgenstein is concerned to give an
account of how we manage to express our most personal feelings and perceptions in
language. He finds it mind-boggling that so many of the utterances in this area are not
learned, but spontaneous. By his lights, they are not shared in the same fashion that rulegoverned practices are, a fact that—according to Johnston—renders it a mystery how we get
to understand one another in this dimension at all (Johnston 1993: 123). Johnston goes on to
argue that philosophers are apt to concentrate on language as a system of rules. In his view,
though, the role of language is much more complex than that (Johnston 1993: 131). I have no
difficulty with this claim. Yet, when he proceeds with his interpretation I become less sure
about his target of the criticism: ‘In relation to the Inner, what matters is not the correct
application of linguistic rules, but the rule-free use of language; people communicate not
because they share rules, but because what one is inclined to say strikes a chord in another’
(Johnston 1993: 123). In speaking of rule-free use of language he wants us to contrast this
kind of use with the ordinary rule-governed practices. His discussion at this point seems to
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revolve around the idea that in regular use, that is, in using language to express the ‘Outer’,
we actually communicate and make sense on the basis of shared rules that in a sense are prior
or external to the concrete use. When we understand each other in this mode, therefore, we
do this via rules (see Johnston 1993: 131). Moreover, these are uses wherein we can
coherently speak of correct or incorrect applications of the words.
As an example of an utterance that cannot be justified in terms of rules, Johnston
alludes to an example from Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, §125 where
Wittgenstein speaks of the feeling of the unreality of his surroundings. The point here,
according to Johnston, is that we were not originally taught to use the word ‘unreal’ in this
way. Such a use allegedly warrants his contention that: ‘Here language seems to operate in a
vacuum and yet, despite the absence of rules and justification, it still seems to function’
(Johnston 1993: 101). He then goes on to point out the nonsensicality of such utterances:
‘Although strictly speaking our utterances are nonsensical, they still seem to say something,
indeed, something which can often be very important’ (Johnston 1993: 101). However, for
this to happen, we must be sensitive to the secondary sense that one of the expressions has
taken on. Our words in such contexts have to be thought of as gestures: ‘we need to go back
to the idea of a gesture, for understanding gestures does not involve learning rules but
directly responding to the gesture itself’ (Johnston 1993: 123).
An important reason why several commentators come to think in terms of such a twotier conception of language is that the use-theoretical conception that often gets ascribed
Wittgenstein makes language too public. This conception threatens to empty out our own
contribution in speaking. Stanley Cavell has given voice to a kind of frustration that many
commentators are apt to feel when engaging Wittgenstein’s work. In discussing his intuition
concerning Wittgenstein’s view of language Cavell writes: ‘it is felt that Wittgenstein’s view
makes language too public, that it cannot do justice to the control I have over what I say, to
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the innerness of my meaning’ (Cavell 1979: 36). Cavell is alluding here to a conception of
language in which repetitive and reproductive aspects are given undue prominence. 9 In his
view, though, the really astonishing fact about our language is that the agreement is as
pervasive and intimate in character as it is, notwithstanding the absence of a meaningdetermining framework. That is to say; Cavell wants to call attention to the fact that we, in a
sense, agree without agreeing beforehand. As he contends; ‘nothing is deeper than the fact, or
the extent, of agreement itself’ (Cavell 1979: 32). By eliciting our criteria and rules we
demonstrate the pervasiveness of this agreement in language. We put our agreement into
words. Yet this is not giving a philosophical explanation of meaning; that is, locating its
normative basis in substantial terms. According to Cavell, Wittgenstein’s aim was not—
contrary to what standard readings portray him as doing—to provide such explanations, it
was rather to question the very usefulness or intelligibility of such general explanations in
philosophy.
Taking my cue from Cavell’s thoughts on this issue, I construe Johnston as claiming
that rule-governed speaking falls short of accommodating our need for ‘innerness of
meaning’. This style of interpreting Wittgenstein’s discussions of rule-following misses an
important aspect of what Wittgenstein is getting at in discussing rules and language. I venture
to say that these readings fail to recognize the descriptive role of rules and grammar in
Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Perhaps one would have to take the basic ideas in the substantial
use-oriented style of reading into consideration to really understand the motivation for this
understanding of Wittgenstein. Take for instance Meredith Williams. In defending the socalled ‘practice view’ against the ‘interpretive view’, she writes that her reading, that is, the
‘social view’, relieves the individual of the burden of sustaining the normative contrast ‘in a
never-ending series of self-legislations and interpretations of the world and others’ (Williams
1999b: 14). In giving a social explanation of meaning and rule-following, the unbearable
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burden is removed from our shoulders. I think it is under the pressure of the ‘social view’
that many commentators succumb to the temptation of looking for responsibility and
Innerness in language uses that are taken to transcend our supposedly regular and sensefixing (social) practices. Informing many interpretations of Wittgenstein’s distinction, I
suggest, is an urge to bring the individual back into language.
Many of the examples Wittgenstein invites us to examine on this score describe
situations in which confidence in standard uses of a word is not sufficient to secure a
common understanding between two speakers. At one juncture Wittgenstein remarks that
many people would not understand questions such as ‘what colour is the sound a for you?’ or
‘does the letter a strike you as yellow or white?’ For this reason he moves on to ask whether
in such a case we would be right in saying that such a person could not speak the language
(had no command of the language), that he in effect didn’t master the meanings of the words,
in this case, of ‘colour’, ‘sound’, etc. Wittgenstein’s response is clear: ‘On the contrary: it’s
when he has learnt to understand these words that he can react to those questions “with
comprehension” or “uncomprehendingly”’ (Wittgenstein 1980: §16).
This suggests that the fact that two interlocutors are both familiar with standardized
uses of a word doesn’t ensure agreement as to whether a given projection makes sense. Nor
is it exactly clear what one is missing on occasions when agreement fails, when he doesn’t
get his mind around someone’s projection, i.e. doesn’t manage to get in tune with him.
Delving into this condition we may come to have a feeling of being thrown back on the
contingencies that are involved in understanding one another. This calls to mind Cavell’s
invigorating and frequently quoted passage from his essay ‘Must we mean what we say?’
where he reprovingly takes issue with the attempt to explain language by means of rules. In
fact, according to Cavell, it is not exactly clear what the philosopher endeavors to explain:
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We learn and teach words in certain contexts, and then we are expected, and expect
others, to be able to project them into further contexts. Nothing ensures that this
projection will take place (in particular not the grasping of universals nor the grasping
of books of rules), just as nothing insures that we will make, and understand, the same
projections. That on the whole we do is a matter of our sharing routes of interests and
feeling, modes of response, senses of humor and of significance and of fulfilment, of
what is outrageous, of what is similar to what else, what a rebuke, what forgiveness,
of when an utterance is an assertion, when an appeal, when an explanation—all the
whirl of organism Wittgenstein calls “form of life”. Human speech and activity,
sanity and community, rest upon nothing more, but nothing less, than this. It is a
vision as simple as it is difficult, and as difficult as it is (and because it is) terrifying.
To attempt the work of showing its simplicity would be a real step in making
available Wittgenstein’s later philosophy (Cavell 1976: 52).
It is easy to misrepresent the condition that Cavell here describes. Dismayed at the alleged
bleakness of the situation we may set out looking for fundamental explanations that can
alleviate the terrifying feeling that our speech has no foundation. My suggestion is that we
should try to keep Cavell’s vision in mind when we try to come to terms with Wittgenstein’s
distinction.
3. In Full Waking Dream: What Do You Really Mean?
I will now return to the phenomenon of secondary meaning and discuss it more explicitly. In
the Investigations, just before arriving at the primary-secondary distinction, there is a seminal
section that we should not ignore: ‘When I pronounce this word while reading with
expression it is completely filled with its meaning’ (Wittgenstein 1992: 215). In this context
Wittgenstein is canvassing phenomenological aspects of language. We do, for instance,
sometimes say that we have a feeling for a given word—that we can sense its surface, as it
were. Words can have an intrinsic value, some of us would say. In a similar vein, we are also
prone to speak of meaning as something that can be experienced or felt. However, as to the
just-cited expression, our response could also be to declare this a weird employment of the
word. Here is Wittgenstein: ‘—“How can this be, if meaning is the use of the word?” Well,
what I said was intended figuratively. Not that I chose the figure: it forced itself upon me.—
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But the figurative employment of the word can’t get into conflict with the original one’
(Wittgenstein 1992: 215).
It is easy to overlook the discussion Wittgenstein is embarking on here. He is at this
juncture examining the way in which consolidated forms of speaking (applications that we
are wont to use) tend to prevent us from recognizing particular aspects of the phenomena that
we are concerned with in doing philosophy. Here, Wittgenstein is alluding to a particular use
of ‘meaning’, as something we take to be tightly interwoven with a word’s use. Throughout
the Investigations he stresses the importance of seeing the phenomenon in connection with
use. When we explain a word’s meaning we often give the rules for its use. We are thus
inclined to say that the meaning of a word is the way it gets used—and for this reason must
be something that can be described and attended to. Speaking of a word being filled with its
meaning, on the contrary, seems to be in conflict with its normal use. However, as
Wittgenstein hurries to declare, the word is used figuratively. At once, this seems to ease him
of the burden of having to come up with an explanation, to find something that can exculpate
his peculiar use. Yet, as he goes on, and this gets the problem going, he admits that he did not
choose the figure. It was rather that it forced itself upon him. This complicates matters. If we
could easily replace the use of the expression ‘meaning’, the conflict would sort itself out.
We could then say that we were not really speaking of meaning after all, but of something
else. Harmony would be restored. Nevertheless, as Wittgenstein admonishes us, we should
still be wary about speaking of conflict in such cases. If a figurative use (or a secondary use)
conflicts with a primary use, does this render the expression unintelligible? Or should we
rather say that understanding it figuratively, that is, in this mode, already testifies to its
intelligibility? It is easy to put too much pressure on “conflict” in this situation. In my view,
it looks as if one of the things Wittgenstein is questioning at this point is the idea that the
original employment (or what is recognized as such) of a word—in advance as it were—
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draws up the boundaries of how a word has to be used lest the meaning get changed. It is a
particular picture of how language works that holds us captive and that Wittgenstein is
succinctly warning us against throughout his writings.
In the section before we are introduced to the examples of describing Tuesday and
Wednesday in terms of fatness and leanness, Wittgenstein picks up again on the alleged
illegitimate and troublesome use of ‘meaning’:
But the question now remains why, in connexion with this game of experiencing a
word, we also speak of “the meaning” and of “meaning it”.—This is a different kind
of question.—It is the phenomenon which is characteristic of this language-game that
in this situation we use this expression: we say we pronounced the word with this
meaning and take this expression over from that language game.
Call it a dream. It does not change anything (Wittgenstein 1992: 216).
At §57 of Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology we find a variant of this remark. In
the subsequent sections he poses the question of whether the use in this situation is owed to a
misunderstanding. Whereupon he contends that the word in this case is not used for
something else. In fact, the problem would not be posed if at this point I were simply
speaking of two different things (cf. Wittgenstein 1982: §64). Yet, it goes without saying that
the situation here is different from the usual one. Going back to the just-quoted passage from
the Investigations, we might ask what the statement ‘This is a different kind of question’ is
supposed to mean. Possibly what Wittgenstein is driving at here is that the question is not
clear or coherently phrased. We are thus confused about what we take ourselves to be
looking into in this connection. Finding the question pressing about what actually entitles us
to speak of meaning in this fashion is connected to a particular frame of mind in which
meaningfulness is taken to be critically related to going on in the same way. In this frame of
mind we are, for example, liable to think of meaningfulness as something conditioned by
standards or criteria transcending the particular situations of saying or judging that we are
doing the same. Thus, the common surroundings of the phenomena we are investigating are
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gone, and this makes us more vulnerable to philosophical impulses that may give rise to
philosophical problems. We are here liable to think of the meanings of our words as being
delimited in advance—independent of our using them. In this atmosphere, speaking of
‘meaning’ as something we sometimes experience is easily taken as a peculiar and
bewildering use of the word that for the sake of clarity should be avoided.
In accenting the fact that he is not using the word (‘meaning’) for something else he
asks us to conceive of a person who in speaking of his dream says ‘In my dream I knew’ (cf.
Wittgenstein 1982: §57). This seems to be a peculiar use of the word ‘know’. However, in
this case one does not feel like saying that ‘knowing’ refers to something different from what
it usually does. But this begs the question; why we do call something in a dream ‘knowing’.
Yet this response actually misrepresents the case. Saying that ‘I knew in my dream’ doesn’t
mean that I have called anything knowing in my dream: ‘We don’t call anything knowing in
a dream; rather we say “In my dream I knew…’’’(Wittgenstein 1982: §63).
In the Blue and Brown Books Wittgenstein asks us to consider the following situation.
B has been initiated into the practice of telling objects apart according to their lightness and
darkness. He masters the use of ‘lighter’ and ‘darker’. Demonstrating his adeptness at using
the concepts, the student suddenly goes on to arrange vowels according to their lightness (u,
o, a, e, i). We ask him why he does so, whereupon he rejoins: “Well, o is lighter than u, and e
lighter than o”. We can conceive of various natural responses to this last move. Some might
think that the student is getting at something, while others are apt to dismiss this change of
use as unintelligible and abnormal. Some others again would perhaps be prone to find an
explanation for the irregular use, for instance by suggesting that B actually has a sense that
registers lightness and darkness – which we don’t have. Anyhow, we are confident that
“lighter” is here used in a sense that differs from ours (the so-called standard sense).
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However, we ought to proceed carefully. We have to be clear about what kind of difference
we have in mind. As Wittgenstein puts it:
Are you distinguishing between the sense in which he used the word and his usage of
the word? That is, do you wish to say that if someone uses the word as B does, some
other difference, say in his mind, must go along with the difference in usage? Or is all
you want to say that surely the usage of “lighter” was a different one when he applied
it to vowels? (Wittgenstein 1958: 139)
In insisting that B must have understood it differently we betray our determination to look at
the phenomenon in a particular way. We have a prejudiced opinion about what could count
as using a word in the same way in this situation, that is to say, what it is to use it (‘light’)
correctly in this case. In response to B’s claim that both bodies and noises (i.e. vowels) can
be classified in terms of their lightness, the interlocutor (A) insists that this cannot be in the
same sense, since physical objects can been seen, voices not: whereupon B counters him by
declaring: ‘”I am not saying that I can see the noises, or that I can put them on the table, but
only that they also are lighter and darker”’(Wittgenstein 1989: 211, my translation).10 This
last remark is akin to the example of ‘In my dream I knew…’.
Borrowing some expressions from Cora Diamond, I think we could say that
Wittgenstein is urging us to be careful about viewing phenomena such as ‘using the word in
the same sense’ as a kind of ‘logical doing’, as a thing ‘which is either there or not’
(Diamond 2004: 215). The problem concerns the way we tend to overlook the circumstances
when we attend to these phenomena. In a sense, we forget to regard them as something open
to view.
In going back to our puzzlement we should attempt to be more specific about what
kind of question it is that is here being pressed (cf. Wittgenstein 1992: 216). Obviously, the
normal occasion is lacking. That is the fact that has to be accepted. Hypotheses in terms of
why we feel inclined to use words in this way are of no interest to us.11 In fact, there seems to
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be something dreamlike about these uses. It is as if we are faced with an illusion of meaning.
In crisscrossing the phenomenon, Wittgenstein repeatedly tells us to call it a dream if this
facilitates our acknowledgment of the fact. There is something paradoxical about the
situation. In speaking of ‘meaning’ as something being filled with meaning, we take it for
granted that this use departs from what we consider to be an ordinary use. This seems to
suggest that we speak of a figment of our imagination. Still, we take it to accommodate our
expressive needs at this point. Moreover, and it is at this point that a paradoxical moment
surfaces: we say it. We say that a word is filled with its meaning (and not only ‘it is filled
with meaning’): ‘Call it a dream. It does not change anything’ (Wittgenstein 1992: 216).
4. Attempt at Transforming a Problem
As already suggested, the distinction between primary and secondary uses should be seen in
connection with problems about normativity and the problem of rule-following. As we have
come to see, a particular problem on this score regards the way we talk about ‘meaning’. We
are tempted to think that we cannot really mean what we are saying. As we remember, in
Investigations the following question comes up: ‘What do you really mean here by “fat” and
“lean”?” (Wittgenstein 1991: 216) A great deal of the problem in connection with the
distinction has turned on the following dilemma. We are faced with usages that seem
incoherent to some of us. Lest one find oneself out of agreement with the new projection, one
is tempted to insist that there must be a more literal use beneath the figurative one. This is
what Wittgenstein wants us to examine carefully.
Having discussed at length a number of extraordinary employments in The Blue and
Brown Book and Eine Philosophische Betrachtung that are akin to those of the
Investigations, Wittgenstein suggests that the questions that have been considered so far
should be seen in connection with the problem of correctness that arises in the discussion of
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rule-following (Wittgenstein 1958: 141): ‘All the questions considered here link up with this
problem: [...].’12 We are presented with an example reminiscent of the one at §185 in the
Investigations featuring a deviant child that refuses to go on in the same way as we do. The
point of the parable is, among other things, to open our eyes to the way we are tempted to
look in the wrong place when we discuss these issues. We are, for instance, prone to assume
that an act of insight is necessary for there to be an objective difference between following
the rule correctly and incorrectly. The problem, of course, is why we think we have to leave
out of consideration the whole swirl of life that makes it possible to judge at this point. In
lieu of that, we regard our ordinary ways of describing and telling whether someone is
following the rule correctly as deficient. In other words, we aspire to get an external
standpoint on language. We incoherently think we need an insight (intuition) into contexttranscendent features. As a therapeutic move against this pull, Wittgenstein asks us to put
side by side the following two sentences: ‘”Surely it is using the rule “Add 1” in a different
way if after 100 you go on to 102, 104, etc.” and “Surely it is using the word “darker” in a
different way if after applying it to coloured patches we apply it to vowels”.’ (Wittgenstein
1958: 143) Wittgenstein’s response to this claim is that the issue has to be seen to rest on
what one in this context takes ‘different way’ to mean. We have to attend to what our use of
“doing the same” looks like in our lives. A few sections above we were asked whether we
would take the relation between a lighter and darker bit of material to be different from the
relation between darker and lighter vowels. This speaks to the fact that we are liable to judge
without heeding the circumstances: ‘Under certain circumstances we shall in these cases be
inclined to talk of different relations, under certain others to talk of the same relation: One
might say, “It depends on how one compares them”’(Wittgenstein 1958: 140).
As to the distinction between a word’s primary and secondary sense, we should be
careful not to argue that a word used in a secondary (or less common) way necessarily
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changes its meaning. We have to be clear about what we want to argue. We recognize and
are faced with a relation between two (or more) uses of the same word that are not
homonymic (cf. Wittgenstein 1982: §79). We feel sure that the use we are confronted with
deviates from the usual one. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t draw rash conclusions as to whether
the meaning has been changed. Pace standard substantial readings of the distinction; we
could actually think of it more in terms of a makeshift distinction with a therapeutic end.13
Let us pick up again on the seminal passage in the Investigations: ‘Now have “fat”
and “lean” some different meaning here from the usual one?—They have a different use.—
So ought I really to have used different words? Certainly not that’ (Wittgenstein 1992: 216,
my emphases). Perhaps we could say that the ‘I’ of this little drama is fighting his own battle
against a particular idea about how language is supposed to work, of what it is that secures
the meaning of his words. By my lights, traditional accounts stop short of coming to terms
with this level of the discussion. Instead, they too quickly wind up eliciting general claims
about language.
When Wittgenstein introduces the distinction: ‘Here one might speak of…’ he is not,
in my view, making gestures at an elusive sort of meaning. Yet there are differences
involved, namely in terms of use. This is a difficult point. If Wittgenstein’s concern with use
is taken in a substantial manner, as a kind of use-theoretical approach to the phenomenon of
meaning, one easily gets into trouble at this point. When the use of a word gets changed, so
will its meaning, although in a way that makes it amenable to paraphrase. This seems to be
an unavoidable impasse. But Wittgenstein’s concern with use should rather be thought of in
terms of an austere attitude to both sense and nonsense. So, as to the differences involved, the
only way to cope with them is to pay painstaking attention to variances of use and
circumstances. As I have been trying to show in this chapter, contrary to what most
commentators think Wittgenstein is doing with the distinction between primary and
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secondary sense, we should look into the problems that give his descriptions in this
connection their purpose. We are, for instance, to attend to the surroundings of concepts such
as ‘doing the same’ or ‘doing something differently’:
“Surely it is using the word ‘darker’ in a different way [in einem anderen Sinn] if
after applying it to coloured patches we apply it to vowels” – I should say: “That
depends on what you call a ‘different way’”
[…] But I should certainly say that I should call the application of “lighter” and
“darker” to vowels ‘another usage of the words’; [Aber ich sage auch, Laute seien “in
einem andren Sinn ‘heller’ und ‘dunkler’, als farbige Gegenstände]14 and I should
also carry on the series ‘Add 1’ in the way 101, 102, etc., but not—or not
necessarily—because of some justifying act. (Wittgenstein 1958: 143)
I take it that Wittgenstein wants us to realize how important it is to recognize the complexity
of the matters that we are here engaging. Our judgments about correctness depend on a
number of circumstances, for instance on what we call a ‘different way’, which is easy to
forget. With regard to the example above, however, there seems to be no question as to
whether the uses are different. This aspect, of course, pertains to the examples of Tuesday
and Wednesday as well. Hence, in insisting that a person is here using the word fat in a
different way, that is, that he is not going on in the same way as is usual, one had better start
clarifying one’s meaning here of ‘different way’ (which of course would have to be done
with reference to the examples). Contrary to what seems to be taken for granted in the
commentary, Wittgenstein doesn’t deny that a great many things can be pointed out on this
score. The following passage is instructive:
It certainly is easy to point out differences between that part of the game in which we
applied “lighter” and “darker” to coloured objects and that part in which we applied
these words to vowels. In the first part there was comparison of two objects by lying
them side by side and looking from one to the other, there was painting a darker or
lighter shade than a certain sample given; in the second there was no comparison by
the eye, no painting, etc. But when these differences are pointed out, we are still free
to speak of two parts of the same game (as we have done just now) or of two different
games. (Wittgenstein 1958: 139)
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On my understanding, this passage to have bearing on the problem of how his talk about the
weekdays’ fatness and leanness is to be dealt with. If someone is inclined to say that Tuesday
is fat, a person who does not share his inclination might point out that one cannot see or
measure the fatness of Tuesday or other weekdays. The person so inclined might
countenance the correctness of this, but still insist on speaking of Tuesday in terms of
‘fatness’. Upon this answer we can then imagine the disinclined person rejoining with the
words: “So, what then made you use the word fat in this situation? There seems to be nothing
that justifies this kind of use!” Such a reaction, though, betrays a determination to view the
phenomenon in the light of a particular picture of language; there must be something in
common between the way weekdays and physical objects are fat that is to be located
independent of our uses. The person is craving something independent of use that could
make licit or justify such a projection, be that a mental state, something located in a Platonic
realm or a grammatical framework. In this mood, one feels sort of put out by the
circumstance that understanding here seems to rest only on our having the same inclinations.
This fact is not taken to suffice to accommodate real understanding. Of course, if we
dispense with the rest of the surroundings that are involved—so as to take the concept of
inclination to provide us with the full story of what it is to understand one another in such a
case, understanding starts to look like an illusion.
The puzzlement here arises out of an inhospitality toward such painstaking
registrations of circumstances and slight changes of projective directions. The purportedly
tough and defeating question ‘What do you really mean here by “fat” and “lean”?’ may lose
some of its pressure as a result of one’s sensitivity toward the various uses of these words.
We are likely to be confused by the kind of hyperbolisation that is involved here. I think
Wittgenstein wants us—for a short moment—to feel that in such a situation we are to pin
down a definition of what meaning the word fat has for us in this context. Yet the problem is
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that we don’t feel that we have something like this to offer our inquisitive interlocutor at this
point. I like to use the word “fat” with its ordinary meaning (not the ordinary meaning)—
although at the same time I would have no difficulties in admitting that the way Tuesday is
fat differs from the way a body can be fat. In the last case I can for instance not gauge or see
the fatness. Nevertheless, it might facilitate matters to adduce other examples that seem
similarly extraordinary with respect to the uses that everyone is expected to be familiar with.
Perhaps I am likewise inclined to speak of some stories as ‘fat’ or that speaking of ‘fatness’
sometimes accommodates my expressive needs in appraising my own or others’ plans.
Maybe the lost attunement between myself and the interlocutor can be restored trough some
of these examples. Or maybe not. We might reach a point where I find my self inclined to
say: ‘But don’t you see…?’ (Wittgenstein 1958: 141) and ‘This is simply what I do’
(Wittgenstein 1991: §217).
It is worth taking into consideration the way ‘really’ is meant to trouble us on this
score. The question goes like this: ‘Asked “What do you really mean here by “fat” and
“lean?””’ In my view, the alleged need for a justificatory explanation at this juncture is not
clear. This is to say, asked thus, it seems that we take ourselves to have understood what the
other person is saying. We understand the expression ‘Tuesday is fat’, that is, we understand
what it is about, namely about Tuesday being ‘fat’. The concept of ‘fat’ is discerned on the
surface of ‘fat’. And we now want a justification for this new use. We want a justification for
something that we don’t think makes sense (how can this be, that Tuesday is fat, if ‘being fat’
is something that only can be said of bodies or physical extended things?)15 Let me rephrase
Wittgenstein’s question a bit differently to clarify my point. Conceive of a situation where
the interlocutor reacts with the words: ‘What do you mean here by “fat” and “lean?”’. In this
case, the person takes it that the other person is attempting to say something about Tuesday
(understood as a weekday). Yet what ‘fat’ and ‘lean’ are supposed to mean in this context is
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anything but transparent to him. So, this means that rephrased in this fashion we would be
faced with a different story, not involving any substantial claims about language or
fundamental conditions of sense.
Speaking often involves making innovative moves. Moreover, the success of
communication in such cases depends heavily on the listener’s flexibility and sensitivity.
Sometimes, a person who wants to understand must, as it were, let the other’s utterance teach
him new ways of making sense. Words often ask for a form of intimacy. I think it is
rewarding to read Wittgenstein’s distinction between primary and secondary sense as
addressing the vulnerability of our intelligibility when we speak and attempt to make
ourselves understood. In this paper I have also laboured to show that the distinction between
primary and secondary should, among other things, be taken as a response to a particular
puzzlement. In speaking of the phenomenon of meaning in a way that diverges from our
more common notion, there seem to be things that we can say, but not really mean (cf.
Wittgenstein 1992: 201). This is puzzling. Wittgenstein’s response is that we, in such cases,
should describe the situation thoroughly. The problem here, we may say, might be solved ‘by
looking into the workings of our language’ (Wittgenstein 1992: §109). Wittgenstein’s
distinction of a word’s primary and secondary sense is to be considered part of such a
describing and clarifying enterprise.
NOTES
1
According to this theory, rules do not functions as descriptions of language called upon on different occasions,
for instance for clarifying purposes. Instead, rules are taken to be prescriptive in the sense of delineating the
limits of meaningful uses of language. From this perspective, meaningful uses are delimited by a framework of
rules. A central contention of this essay is that such a conception of rules and practices constitutes an obstacle to
understanding the distinction between primary and secondary senses in a fruitful way.
2
In Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology Wittgenstein writes: ‘the secondary use consists in applying
the word with this primary use in new surroundings’ (Wittgenstein 1982: §797). Interestingly, in this respect
metaphors and so-called secondary senses are similar. As Wittgenstein puts it in the next section: ‘To this
extent one might want to call the secondary meaning metaphorical.’ Thus, we should feel free to think of this
similarity as long as we don’t forget what he then says in the next section ‘But the relationship here is not like
the one between “cutting off a piece of thread” and “cutting off someone’s speech”, for here one doesn’t have to
use the figurative expression.’ I take this to mean that he regards at least some secondary uses to be figurative
expressions.
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Max Black’s talk of interaction of different systems of associated commonplaces in the act of interpreting a
metaphor is well-known (Black 1962). Paul Ricoeur in commenting on modern theories of metaphor discusses
the replacement of the classical theory of substitution by a modern theory that has been put forth by people like I.
Richards, M. Beardsley and Black. Those theories focus on the interaction between semantic fields. He himself
seems to be endorsing a modified version of the interactional view (Ricoeur 1981: p. 170).
4
Toward the close of ‘Excursus on Wittgenstein’s Vision of Language’ in The Claim of Reason, Cavell
discusses the idea that Wittgenstein with his talk of secondary uses moves to areas of language where intimacy
and delicacy is more predominant than is normally the case. There are uses that cannot be assured by pointing to
more familiar applications of the words. As to the phenomenon of projecting a word, we usually expect it to
proceed naturally. However, with figurative or metaphorical expressions the situation is somewhat different.
The projection or transfer is here ‘unnatural: it breaks up the established, normal direction of projection (Cavell
1979, 190).’ That a transfer can be unnatural speaks to the circumstance that such utterances often fall short of
answering our expectations as far as use is concerned. This means that we can have a hard time accepting them.
I think the same goes for many of Wittgenstein’s examples of secondary uses where he is concerned with a kind
of hardness that is involved when language transfers unnaturally: ‘Tuesday is fat’, ‘In my dream I knew’, ‘i is
lighter than o’, etc. Of course, we could easily think of contexts in which there would be no question about the
sense of these utterances—where we would traffic with them smoothly. But this is not the point here. It is the
hardness that resides on the surface of his examples he likes to pursue and get us to grapple with. Wittgenstein
takes interest in situations where our attunement ostensibly is put to the test. He thereby prompts us to ponder a
number of questions such as: what is a tolerant projection of a word – what is not? What is just an illusion of
sense, what is going on in the same way?
3
5
Also Cora Diamond, whose work on Wittgenstein has be been very influential as far as my understanding of
Wittgenstein’s work goes, stresses the distinction between metaphors and secondary senses. She says in fact
that a secondary use ‘is in a sense metaphorical, provided we are aware of the difference’. In her paper
“Secondary Sense” (1966-67) she argues that the difference between them should be seen in connection with
what kinds of explanations we can offer Diamond argues: ‘What is being excluded when he says that the
secondary sense is not a metaphorical sense? Certain sorts of explanation. This does not mean that I cannot say
what I said in other words: if someone asks me what I mean when I say Wednesday is fat. I might reply that I
meant corpulent. What is being excluded is the sort of explanation we can give of dead or deadish metaphors
like “they were deluged with applications” and the rather different sort of explanation we can give of live ones
like “man is the cancer of the planet. […] Such explanation is impossible when an expression is used in a
secondary sense (Diamond 1991a: 227)’. I do not think that there is enough textual evidence to support this
reading. By my lights, Wittgenstein gives only examples of what Diamond describes as deadish metaphors.
Diamond also says (in discussing an instance of live metaphor): ‘If I use the metaphor “man is a cancer” I think
that what is happening to the planet can perhaps be put this way, but what I think is happening is independent of
there being such thing as cancer’ (227). Well, my worry here is that many actually would say that what they
think very often hinges on finding the right expression, e.g. a metaphor that help them clarify what they think.
Moreover, by making such a distinction between metaphors and secondary senses on the basis of what kinds of
explanations that are available, Wittgenstein is portrayed as laboring to present us with two strict definitions of
figurative ways of speaking. This seems to overshadow the therapeutic purposes of introducing the distinction
in the first place. The question I want to ponder is: to what is the distinction meant to be a response? Yet we
should note that neither Cavell’s nor Diamond’s construal is informed by the problematic view of rules and
intelligibility touched upon above. My issues with their relatively old readings primarily concern the way they
fall short of seeing the therapeutic purposes of the distinction. Ironically, one might say that I am relying on
Cavell’s and Diamond’s readings of later Wittgenstein when I argue that their readings of the distinction
between primary and secondary in some respects misfire.
6
It is important to stress that I am not arguing for the view that utterances have a (a literal) sense apart from the
pragmatic determination that can be moved around in different contexts.
7
Meredith Williams’ community reading is an clear example. She makes use of a problematic notion of rules on
which rules are taken to constitute bounds of sense: ‘Insofar that meaning is use, the use of words must occur in
the context of ongoing practices. […] In short, the actual use of an expression creates the space for the concept.
That we share judgments about what is obvious and what must be the case creates the logical space for the
concept’ (Williams1999a: 223 and 231).
8
Rust formulates this point in the following way: ‘In these, language itself becomes an object of subjective
experience. For the expression to the effect that one finds ‘Tuesday’ lean, Wednesday fat, relates, if to anything
at all, to the word or sound shape and not to the weekday’ (Rust 1996: 165, my translation).
9
Von Savigny’s reading of Wittgenstein provides a clear example: ‘Fundamentally, then, the capacity of
following rules is a social capacity; mastering a language, far from consisting in the authority to endow its words
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with meanings, consists in adapting one’s utterances to how others are wont to take them. […] we ought to give
up a misconception of the individual personality. Being self-controlled means being able to adapt to the reaction
of others; having one’s own mental states means standing in complex social relations’ (von Savigny 1991: 8384). The vision of language that is expressed in this quote seems to support a view of speaking in terms of
repetitive acts, where what Cavell describes as ‘my innerness of meaning’ is not present. On Cavell’s view, as I
take it, the emptiness of speech is something that looms in the background when we entertain explanations of
meaning in this style.
10
Wittgenstein’s reworking and translation of the Brown Book into German differs from the original at this
point.
11
Wittgenstein writes: ‘I imagine that a psychological explanation of this strange phenomenon has been found.
Now we see how the illusion came about. For then what sometimes occur in the brain is the same thing that
occurs when....Joyous excitement: Now we understand why everybody always said...! And when the
explanation has been given, when the riddle has been solved – where does that leave us? It has only cleared up a
question we weren’t interested in, and we are left with the fact that we use that expression, that picture, or want
to use it, when the normal occasion for its use is lacking’ (Wittgenstein 1982: §77).
In the Blue and Brown Books and Eine Philosophische Betrachtung Wittgenstein doesn’t explicitly speak of a
primary-secondary distinction. However, it is clear that his examples on this score pertain to the passage in the
Investigations. For instance he speaks of the fact that some people are able to distinguish between fat and lean
days of the week. As he puts it ‘…their experience when they conceive a day as fat one consists in applying this
word together perhaps with a gesture expressive of fatness and a certain comfort’(Wittgenstein 1958, 137).
13
We should keep in mind that Wittgenstein introduces the distinction with some reservation: ‘Here one might
speak of a “primary” and secondary sense of a word’ (Wittgenstein 1991: 216).
14
Wittgenstein 1989: 216.
15
See ‘When I pronounce this word while reading with expression it is completely filled with its meaning.—
“How can this be, if meaning is the use of the word?”’ (Wittgenstein 1991: 215).
12
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Cohen, T. (2004), ‘Metaphor, feeling, and Narrative’, in E. John and D. M. Lopes (eds.),
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