Whenever a discussion about Wittgenstein has come up in classes before, such as in the Philosophy of Language course (PHL 360 is what it used to be, although it seems to have disappeared from Schedule Builder...), the primary discussion point is language games. I had only ever heard about it in terms of the builder analogy, and not as moves in a game such as chess. As a result, I found myself very confused early on in "On Certainty" when he was beginning to talk about rules in a game, distinguishing between bad moves and erroneous moves and the like. The discussion we had in class was quite helpful in illuminating these points, and I feel more comfortable now with the concept of a language-game itself. However, I still find myself confused about how we go from rules like those in chess to rules that guide a language-game. The connection is not an obvious one, at least to my eyes. At first glance it seems that the connection to chess is in how we explain these rules; "the rook moves like 'this'; the bishop moves like 'that'". Thinking on it, however, this seems incorrect. It appears as though the rules of a game are just what we mean to do when we do something within the game. For instance, the bishop moves in such a way because that is what it "means" to move a bishop. The bishop cannot be moved in a different way because then you aren't moving the bishop, or you're moving the bishop incorrectly, or you're doing something to the bishop which you shouldn't be, etc. So when I speak English using certain words or sentences in the ways that I do, I am attempting to follow the rules of my language-game. There doesn't seem to be a guarantee that I am following these rules properly other than people giving me funny looks or asking, "what do you mean" when I say something that violates these rules, but there doesn't seem to be a way to rule out the improper use of words thus far. For instance, the Positivist would want Wittgenstein to tell us how we could know that metaphysical language is a violation of the rules of our language-game. There seem to be many ways of answering such a question. For instance, the language-game which would eliminate metaphysical talk might be a science which accepts the tenets of physicalism. This means that there might be games in which metaphysics is a meaningful point of discussion. Wittgenstein has yet to provide such a picture, however. Something that I have been wrestling with is what Wittgenstein might mean when he says things like "I do not know how the sentence... is to be used". For instance, in 258 (page 34), Wittgenstein says that he does not know how the sentence "I have a body" is to be used. But he doesn't say why, or at least not immediately so. Such sentences have been cropping up throughout the last hundred or so lines as well, each time with no substantial explanation of why. Is it because he doesn't think he can? I know that these are notes in a notebook and, as such, we are working through his thoughts as they come to him along with him, albeit we are far more in the dark on what he may intend with his words than we might like. My primary goal is to figure out why he might not believe he knows how it is to be used. Presumably, it does not align with particular kinds of rules. But rules of what kind? This remains unclear to me. How deeply should we expect this to tie into judgments, beliefs, and knowledge? ________________________________________________________________________________ Dilyn Corner (C) 2020-2022