Wittgensteinian Semantics (original) (raw)
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Family resemblance and semantics: the vagaries of a not so new concept
2015
Family resemblance is said to characterize a category when its members need not share common features in virtue of which they are so categorized. When prototype theory was exported to linguistics, family resemblance became a key descriptive tool of cognitive semantics. The present post explores the sources of the family resemblance concept, and briefly shows what became of it in cognitive semantics. This historical sketch challenges the view that family resemblance would run counter to the philosophical tradition and would be a decisive innovation. The motivation for writing this post is twofold: first, there is still something to be said about the origins of the notion of family resemblance and its application to semantics, most notably in the version of prototype theory which has gained currency in cognitive linguistics; second, exploring this genealogy puts us in a position to dispel an illusion. This is the illusion that cognitive semantics is an innovative approach, especially ...
A Critical Study of Two Conceptions of Wittgenstein's "Family Resemblance"
Journal of philosophical Investigations , 2023
In the Blue Book (pp. 17-18) and in the Philosophical Investigation (§ § 66-67), Wittgenstein offers the idea of 'family resemblances' to explain the relation between some 'things'. This paper first explores two accounts of this idea, one by Renford Bambrough and the other by Ilham Dilman. This reveals that there are at least two different accounts of 'family resemblances'. Secondly, the paper sets out a critical assessment of both accounts so as to suggest that they both fail at what they claim to do.
Papers on Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology and Pedagogy, 2018
After stressing the importance of the notion of similarity for the theories of meaning, the author discusses the definition of similarity as 'feature matching' and proves it inadequate, offering another operational definition of similarity derived from late Wittgenstein’s idea of 'family resemblances'. Similarity is understood as a 'perceived' pattern of relation correspondences that precedes the abstraction of common features and cannot be reduced to it.
A critical relation between deduction and family resemblances in Wittgenstein’s philosophy
2018
Family resemblance is the concept described in the analytical tradition of Wittgenstein who exercised this concept in order to understand the nature of language. He said that language is like a game i.e. chess, having its rules and family resembling items. If we take the form of language similar to the game, we could find common things which resembles each other like; player, out, not out, strike, non strike, etc. Every game has its own rules. The rules of one game won’t correspond to others that is why Wittgenstein used the idea of family resemblance. He was known of the fact that languages have same logical form but resembles and match up different things diversely.
In this paper we extend Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblance to translation, interpretation, and comparison across traditions. There is no need for universals. This holds for everyday concepts such as green and qing 1 青, philosophical concepts such as emotion(s) and qing 2 情, as well as philosophical categories such as form(s) of life and dao 道. These notions as well as all other concepts from whatever tradition are family resemblance concepts. We introduce the notion of quasi-universal, which connects family resemblance concepts from a limited number of traditions. The possibility and necessity of extending family resemblance concepts across traditions dissolves the false antinomy of universalism versus relativism. keywords family resemblance, FR-extension, quasi-universals, pseudo-homonyms, hybrids
Family Resemblances A Thesis about the Change of Meaning over Time
Kriterion, 2004
Abstract I argue that close examination of Wittgenstein's remarks on family resemblances (PI 65-67) shows that he is proposing a theory about the development of language over time. According to this theory, a concept is enlarged to a newly discovered object when it is similar to other objects falling under this concept. However, being empirical, theories of language-development cannot be regarded as philosophical positions. I therefore argue that Wittgenstein puts forward this theory only for therapeutical reasons. He thereby wants to bring the metaphysical question "Why do we call all games ‘games’ ?" back to its everyday use.
An Impossibility Result on Semantic Resemblance
dialectica, 2008
It is shown that a set of prima facie plausible assumptions on the relation of meaning resemblance – one of which is a compositionality postulate – is inconsistent. On this basis it is argued that either there is no theoretically useful and distinct notion of semantic resemblance at all, or that the traditional conception of the compositionality of meaning has to be adapted. In the former case, arguments put forward by Nelson Goodman and Paul Churchland in favor of the concept of meaning resemblance are defeated. In the other case, it must be possible to account for “degrees of compositionality” or other refinements of compositionality that are compatible with meaning resemblance.
Overall Similarity, Natural Properties, And Paraphrases
I call anti-resemblism the thesis that independently of any contextual specification there is no determinate fact of the matter about the comparative overall similarity of things. Anti-resemblism plays crucial roles in the philosophy of David Lewis. For instance, Lewis has argued that his counterpart theory is anti-essentialist on the grounds that counterpart relations are relations of comparative overall similarity and that anti-resemblism is true. After Lewis committed himself to a form of realism about natural properties he maintained that anti-resemblism is true about the relations of overall similarity that enter his counterpart theory and his analysis of counterfactuals. However, in this article I argue that Lewis’s account of degrees of naturalness for properties combined with his modal realism entails that anti-resemblism is false. The Lewisian must amend Lewis’s system if she aims to benefit from the alleged virtues of anti-resemblism. I consider two ways of amending it, neither of which is a free lunch.
Wittgenstein and Family Concepts
In this paper, I examine the three interpretations of sections 65-67 in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, where he answers the question " do we call different things by the same word because of a common feature? " Interpretation A holds that we call different things by the same word because of overlapping similarities between them; Interpretation B adopts a socio-historical reading, where concepts evolved and extended historically on the basis of some similarities; and interpretation C includes aspects of the first two interpretations, but sees similarities as just one of several kinds of relations and affinities between concepts which explain why we call different things by the same word. Through an investigation of Wittgenstein's answer and the objections made to interpretation A, I argue that interpretation C, although not prominent in the secondary literature, provides better answers to the objections raised.