Lecture 8

Question 1

How can you understand social action?

➢ Wittgenstein
➢ Winch
➢ Hollis

Answer 1

➢ Wittgenstein: ‘language games’ and ‘forms of life’.
➢ Winch: by way of the rules of a practice (form of life).
➢ Hollis: rules do not provide complete understanding.

Question 1

Can you understand social action?

Answer 1

➢ Wittgenstein: ‘language games’ and ‘forms of life’.
➢ Winch: by way of the rules of a practice (form of life).
➢ Hollis: rules do not provide complete understanding.

Question 2

What are Hermeneutical approaches?

Answer 2

Hermeneutical approaches to the use of the insider perspective

Question 3

What are Naturalistic approaches?

Answer 3

Naturalistic approaches to the use of the outsider perspective

Question 4

How is it possible to understand social action by a empirical-analytical method?

Answer 4

• Ideals of positivism (detached view, causal relationships, functional explanations)
• Processes (causes)
• Spectator’s perspective (outsider)
• Knowledge production: based on unambiguous and instrumental language
• Early Wittgenstein

Question 5

How is it possible to understand social action by Hermeneutics method?

Answer 5

• Looking for internal coherence and
  meaning (rules, norms)
• Events (reasons)
• Participant’s perspective (insider)
• Knowledge production: analysis of the uses of language and meaning
• Later Wittgenstein

Question 6

Who are the two Wittgenstein periods?

Answer 6

A early Wittgenstein: “Picture theory of language”

A Later Wittgenstein: “Language games”

Question 7

Early W. and the picture theory of language

Answer 7

• Assume there is a correspondence
  between names and objects.
• A correspondence thereby links
  elementary propositions with different
  states of affairs.
• Knowledge is produced by connecting
  elementary propositions.
• Example – how does the sentence “the
  cat is on the mat” get meaning?
• The only function of this sentence is that it gives a description of reality.
• The sentence is meaningful because it depicts a state of affairs in reality

Question 8

What is Tractatus by Wittgenstein

Answer 8

The only function of language is that it gives a description of reality.

To find the limits of world, thought, and language; in other words, to distinguish between sense and nonsense

• Propositions have meanings because they represent states of affairs in reality.