Premium
Seeing the Stove as World: Significance (Bedeutung) in the Early Wittgenstein
Author(s) -
Balaska Maria
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
philosophical investigations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.172
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 1467-9205
pISSN - 0190-0536
DOI - 10.1111/phin.12218
Subject(s) - stove , relation (database) , meaning (existential) , value (mathematics) , space (punctuation) , epistemology , philosophy , linguistics , history , computer science , archaeology , database , machine learning
What is it to see a stove as world (als Welt) and why does the early Wittgenstein use such a curious example to describe what it means to see something as significant (bedeutend)? I argue that Wittgenstein's odd choice can be best understood in the light of a conceptual relation between value and semantic meaning. To that purpose, I draw attention to his use of the word Bedeutung to denote value, and to the direct connection he draws between seeing as world and seeing with the whole logical space. To see a stove as bedeutend , I conclude, is to see it against the background of the propositional contexts in which a stove figures meaningfully.