Wittgenstein Quote on Language: Meaning Is Use

Quote

"For a large class of cases — though not for all — in which we employ the word 'meaning' it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language."

— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Section 43)

Historical Context

Section 43 of the Philosophical Investigations (1953) is the closest the book comes to stating a thesis, and it is the most cited sentence in later Wittgenstein. The Investigations was written after Wittgenstein's return to Cambridge in 1929 and published posthumously; it is a systematic critique of his own Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which had held that the meaning of a word is the object it stands for — that language works by naming things. By the 1930s Wittgenstein had come to see this as a profound distortion. His conversations with the economist Piero Sraffa — including Sraffa's famous Neapolitan gesture of brushing his chin with his fingertips, which carried a clear meaning without picturing anything — helped convince him that meaning is not a matter of reference at all. The Investigations develops the alternative: language is a motley of "language games," practices embedded in forms of life, and to know the meaning of a word is to master its role in those practices. Section 43 states the positive doctrine — meaning is use — with characteristic caution: it holds "for a large class of cases, though not for all."

Philosophical Interpretation

The use theory of meaning is the cornerstone of Wittgenstein's later philosophy of language. Its core claim is that we should stop asking what a word stands for and ask instead how it functions: what people do with it, what responses it elicits, what rules govern its employment. "Understanding a sentence," as Wittgenstein says, "is much more akin to understanding a theme in music than one might think" — it is knowing how the expression participates in a practice. Three consequences follow. First, meaning is not an occult entity: there is no need to postulate mental images, abstract objects, or Platonic forms behind words; the observable practice of use is sufficient. Second, meaning is essentially public: because use is shared and rule-governed, meaning cannot be private — this is the bridge to the private language argument of PI 243–315. Third, the theory dissolves the ancient assumption that all language is descriptive: the language game of commanding, thanking, promising, or joking does not "picture" anything, yet is perfectly meaningful. The caution in "for a large class of cases, though not for all" is characteristic: Wittgenstein refuses to make the use theory itself a universal thesis — some words, he allows, are genuinely explained by ostension or reference — and this refusal is part of his broader war against the "craving for generality" in philosophy. For the critical thinker, the doctrine is a powerful tool: when someone's argument turns on a word, the question "what is this word used to do here?" often exposes where the reasoning has gone astray.

Related Concepts

The use theory is developed in the Philosophical Investigations, where it is joined to the concepts of language games, family resemblance, rule following, and the private language argument. It is contrasted with the reference theory of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and with the formal semantics of Frege and Russell. The philosophy of language and analytic philosophy pages situate the doctrine, and the knowledge and truth topic connects it to questions of meaning and understanding.

Learning Path

1. Start with the thinker: Read the Ludwig Wittgenstein page for the transition from the early to the later philosophy.
2. Read the source: Sections 1–65 of the Philosophical Investigations build the language-game framework; Section 43 states the doctrine.
3. Contrast the early view: The reference theory the use theory replaces is in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
4. Explore the consequences: The private language argument and rule following, developed in PI 185–315, extend Section 43.
5. Apply the tool: Asking how a word is used is a core move in critical thinking about ambiguous or empty claims.