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Quote by Abhijit Naskar

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Either Civilized or Phobic: A Treatise on Homosexuality

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Abhijit Naskar

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“Philosophical confusions of the sort Wittgenstein is talking about here are not due to the mere transgression of some grammatical rule. Rather, they are due to the tacit hovering between different forms of use - uses that by themselves are perfectly all right. Now in order to treat such confusions, grammatical rules can be quite useful, despite - or even precisely because of - their circular character. For the use of these rules in such cases is not to prescribe particular uses and proscribe others. Indeed, such attempts at prescription and proscription would be counterproductive: for the problem is not that there are correct and incorrect ways of using the relevant words. Rather, the trouble is that two different uses are being conflated - so what we need is to get clear about the differences between them. What we need rules for is to capture the relevant patterns of use, describe them, and thereby make it clear that the confusion is due to an attempt to play two different games at the same time. This requires entering precisely into the sort of dialogue that Hacker's conception of grammatical rules seems to prevent, or at least make unnecessary - a dialogue that does not presuppose that the relevant 'pieces' and 'games' have already been identified but is genuinely open to the possibility of using language in a multitude of meaningful ways.”

LanguageMeaningGameMultitude
Book:The Logical Alien: Conant and His Critics
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