Wittgenstein on the Experience of Meaning and the Meaning of Music

Abstract

On the basis of some ideas of Wittgenstein’s, an argument is presented to the effect that the ability to feel or to experience meaning conditions the ability to mean, and is thus essential to our notion of meaning. The experience of meaning, as manifested in the “fine shades” of use and behaviour, is central to Wittgenstein’s late conception of meaning. In explicating the basic elements involved here, I first try to clarify the notion of feeling and its relationship to meaning, emphasising its central role in music as explanatory of its use in language. The feeling of words, in this sense, is an objective feature of their meaning and use, and should be distinguished from feelings as psychological processes or experiences that may accompany the use of words. I then explain its philosophical significance by arguing that word‐feeling, and the “experience of meaning,” are basically instances of Wittgenstein’s general conception of aspect and aspect‐perception, which are important elements in his later conception of meaning and of thought. The nature of this experience is explicated in terms of grasping internal relations and relevant comparisons, which is manifested in a “mastery of a technique,” or “feeling at home” in a certain practice. In this sense, I argue, the ability to experience the meaning of a word is essential to the very intentionality of our thought and language. The ability to experience meaning is also a precondition for using words in a “secondary sense,” which is of great significance in itself. I conclude by pointing to the application of these notions of understanding, feeling and experience, as well as their explication in terms of comparisons, internal relations and mastery of technique, to music, where they are so apt and natural.

Intelligibility in microbial complex systems: Wittgenstein and the score of life

“…The experience of seeing something is converted in a perceptual experience, and thus regarded as indistinguishable from a thought (Bar-Elli, 2006). As Wittgenstein says, “-is it a case of seeing and thinking?…”

On Wittgenstein's Notion of Meaning‐Blindness: Its Subjective, Objective and Aesthetic Aspects

“…3 3 Bar‐Elli (2006, 223–224) argues that “the ability to experience the meaning of a word is an essential feature of the very intentionality of our thought and language.” I think he is right. The experience of meaning is not just a feature of “bizarre” and “high‐level” cases (p. 232).…”

“…It is more obvious in such cases, but it is present, more or less, and merely more subtle and implicit in meaning, use, and intentionality in general. Bar‐Elli (p, 243) also writes that the meaning‐blind person is “not only very different from us” but is “an incoherent idea.”…”

“…8 8 Bar‐Elli (2006) emphasises objectivity. For him, the experience of meaning “is not a psychological (subjective) attachment to the use of a word, but rather an objective feature of it” (p. 218; see also pp.…”

“…If we do, we will have the problem of explaining how we “grasp” the meaning of words, a problem Frege left to psychology. Bar‐Elli (2006, 218) writes: “The ability to experience it – to have this meaning‐experience – conditions the ability to grasp the soul and character of words.” This is true. However, the ability, the experience and the grasping should, I think, all be taken as subjective – of course, not as arbitrarily or totally subjective.…”