May 6

2010
Insights into
Wittgenstein &
Curriculum

In this paper I attempt to show Wittgenstein’s connection

between language and meaning via his masterpiece: Searching
Philosophical Investigations. As previously demonstrated
by Wittgenstein, until his theory made print, the past had for Clarity
strictly followed the Aristotelian scheme of learning
through westernized logic. Even though Wittgenstein had
and
previously made note that what cannot be shown we must Meaning
pass over in silence, he eventually reconsidered his original
theory. What resulted was the culmination of over twenty through
years of radical evolutionary thought that led to his Language
seminal work: Philosophical Investigations.
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It appears to some educational philosophers that Wittgenstein’s last

philosophical publication Philosophical Investigations, reconceived a

curriculum that until then had appeared rather narrow in scope and which

offered a more limited means of attaining knowledge and meaning.

If there was any contribution to the field of curriculum, Wittgenstein’s

concept of language-games was his contribution. Wittgenstein's earlier work

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was concerned primarily with logical form and

his insistence that what cannot be said clearly or shown we must pass over

in silence. Eventually, Wittgenstein decided that it needed to be revised and

hence his final work: Philosophical Investigations.

According to Wittgenstein’s work in Philosophical Investigations, curriculum

should be re-conceived as an act of language-play. In Philosophical

Investigations Wittgenstein attempts to describe how language and the

world relate. By doing this he is indirectly raising questions about the

assumptions we’ve made about curriculum.

Wittgenstein asserts that curriculum scholars should reconsider the process

of how we learn by rejecting the representational view that language acts as

scaffolding connecting the external environment with the human mind.

Instead Wittgenstein suggests that learning is related to our everyday use of

language and that we learn indirectly through activities in which we engage

language with every day life.

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Other scholars believe that those who take the challenge of teaching

seriously must pay closer attention to the pedagogical language employed in

the classroom. As part of the curriculum educators don’t always want to

recognize the conceptual relationship between the language used by

teachers as well as the language used by students.

For example, Wittgenstein saw classroom activity as a way in which the

meaning of words evolve from the way students and teachers use language

in the classroom. What I found most interesting was Wittgenstein’s

intellectual pedagogy that lent itself to a new radical approach in human

thinking and understanding. Peters and Marshall (1999) found Wittgenstein’s

later philosophy to be pedagogical in nature (175). According to

Wittgenstein, most of the philosophical problems until his time were

somehow imbued with language confusion and linguistic entanglement.

Shortly after completing the Tractatus Wittgenstein realized that his picture

theory of meaning was ill conceived and didn’t really correspond with the full

breath and scope of language possibilities and meaning. A hint of his new

understanding and revealed so in Philosophical Investigations was that we

should note in what context words are taught and under what rule making

scenarios.

Wittgenstein’s primary concern was how meaning is ascribed to words and in

particular what setting it occurs under. His contribution to linguistic

philosophy helped construct a better understanding of language and

meaning that really didn’t rely on a strict logical approach. In a primitive

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setting such as a child learning his native language, rudimentary object/word

connections denote a form of learning we traditionally called perceived

knowledge. What’s important about language games is that they represent

for Wittgenstein a different view concerning knowledge and language and

their implications for learning and teaching.

What is so extraordinary and what I found particularly intriguing was his

pedagogical style: using pictures, analogies, drawings, similes, jokes, and

dialogues with himself.

It’s as though he wants us to escape from our previous imprint of

understanding and to relinquish the picture theory and its hold on us.

Many modern day philosophers have used Wittgenstein’s technique of

language-games to help clarify muddled or confusing terms used in

association with movements within the field of education itself.

In particular, analytical educational philosophers have been at the forefront

in bringing clarity to key concepts in education. This field has proven to be

most effective in helping to untangle linguistic conundrums and confusion

associated with complex and abstractual concepts. In this regard,

Wittgenstein’s insights into the nature of learning and meaning have shown

to be quite useful.

Many theorist have used Wittgenstein’s techniques to help improve the

educational landscape of language. Jardine (1992) used Wittgenstein’s

theory of language-games and family resemblances within a particular

framework to reconceptualize the relationship between human beings,

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knowledge and understanding. MacMillan (1998) illustrated an important

use of the concept; language-games helped educators to better understand

why students sometimes fail to learn. Other noted authors such as

Fleener,Carter and Reader (2001) in a very similar fashion to MacMillan have

used Wittgenstein’s notion of language-games to better understand the

levels of “language play” between fourth grade teachers and their students.

I think that the key to understanding Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language-

games stems from the fact that he was once an elementary school teacher.

According to Bartley (1974) Wittgenstein’s experience as an elementary

school teacher led him to abandon the notion that a direct formal

relationship between language and the world can be found.

Instead Wittgenstein came to believe that meaning and our understanding of

meaning was derived from the various discourses of language-games

employed in the classroom. According to Bartley (1974), his understanding

emerged from the experience of human engagement and the fact that

meaning and understanding is a function of the multitude of practices that

teachers and students engage in.

In Investigations, Wittgenstein makes a radical conceptual leap from the

traditional and conventional outlook on learning and its relationship to

language to a far more different understanding of this exact same process.

One of the key tenants of Investigations suggest that teaching should be

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viewed as an indirect activity in which students are helped to understand the

multi-various language-games that are part of their every day lives.

In Investigations Wittgenstein points out that students should learn in a

synoptic manner in which students learn about various resemblances that

exist among concepts. Why is this point so important? In my opinion it is

due to the fact that a teacher is often confronted with a multitude of

backgrounds and nationalities in the classroom.

As a result, many teachers without realizing it develop and teach in an

indirect manner a unique form of language-games that is inherently built

into the linguistic code of the classroom. Teachers that truly inspire and

make a profound connection with their students play the language-game

very well.

So often I have found myself creating a situation of understanding and

meaning when I allow the students to learn in a synoptic manner and not in

the more conventional manner of logical sequence and causality.

In such instances I often find myself creating an atmosphere of engagement

and learning when I effectively show the varied resemblance of concepts to

my students. When one looks deeply into Wittgenstein’s methodology and

pedagogy one sees how he was trying to elucidate that by teaching in an

indirect manner, one sees that there is no one preferred way of learning.

The traditional westernized way of learning in a logical and sequential

manner is often a constraint placed on many teachers and students.

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Whether Wittgenstein is correct or not can be debated. However, in my own

experience with urban youth of different backgrounds and cultural diversity I

find that language-games revolving around conceptual resemblances and

contextual utterances offer greater degrees of learning and success.

A case in point, one of my students walks into class sporting a new tattoo

along with a facial piercing. Constructing a dialogue with him concerning the

tattoo in question and facilitating at the same time with an example on the

board provides instant meaning and context as opposed to following a

ritualistic pedagogical lesson plan with no intrinsic value to the student.

Whether it’s the music in the classroom, or the conversation were having on

his tattoo, instructional learning can occur and does occur when his world

and my world merge and create a language-game that abides by the rules of

the linguistic code of the school, his culture, my outlook, his outlook, and the

rules of discourse in my classroom.

Wittgenstein (1979) had a very good point when he said “you cannot lead

people to what is good; you can only lead them to some place or other. The

good is outside the space of facts.”

What strikes me as relevant to this quote is that there is no one right way to

teach one method. We cannot make explicit conclusions and believe that

the student will always discover the proverbial “good.” Instead Wittgenstein

insinuates that we should not restrict the student to one possibility, but
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instead lead them to a variety of possibilities that can emerge from the

activity of the language-game.

What his forms of life and language-games helped to create can only be

expressed as a complete shake down of our theoretical understanding

between the realm of language and the realm of meaning. I believe that his

insights bring greater clarity to the issues of previous theoretical discourse,

chiefly language and understanding.

As Wittgenstein cleverly illustrated through his pedagogy; a more precise

understanding of language-games and an a more precise understanding of

the difference between his philosophy and previous philosophical thought is

the case of logical discourse.

Logic like other concrete discourses is firmly rooted in our minds as giving

total meaning to our world. He makes a point of noting that logic has shown

to be “ideal” and “unshakeable in that the “strict and clear rules of logical

structure…must be found in reality.” Wittgenstein (1953).

I think that what Wittgenstein is pursuing here might be similar to Kant’s

metaphysical “rose tinted spectacles.” I think that in a sense their concept

of spectacles is different in that Kant relates his metaphor to metaphysical

origins and Wittgenstein is referring more to epistemological origins.

Epistemological in the sense that logic has a way of making us see the world

through a pair of spectacles that roots our beliefs in its methodical way of

knowing.
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Wittgenstein states that these spectacles offer a more methodized way of

viewing the world. I tend to see a more complex and comprehensive

relationship between language and being than just imagining that building

knowledge sequentially and linearly offers the only way.

As such Wittgenstein’s later philosophy turns out to be more of a proposal to

understand teaching as an indirect activity rather than directed activity.

Janik and Toulmin (1973) point out that he felt that it “does no good” for the

teacher to draw conclusions for his pupils. The only thing important here

was that the teacher lead students to a variety of possibilities that could

emerge from their learning activities.

Referencing back to an earlier passage in which I described Wittgenstein’s

use of the analogous spectacles I would like to point out that his radical

construction of how we learn (indirectly) is specifically tied to his

commentary on the “pair of glasses.” According to Wittgenstein the purpose

of the spectacles is to remove any sense of vaugness that has led us to

believe that there is such a thing as a perfect construction of language.

By using these logical spectacles we are by default to always believe that

there is only one correct way of learning. Wittgenstein’s philosophy can be

extremely difficult to follow. I can’t say that I can completely agree with him

on every point of his philosophical masterpiece. But, I must admit that the

only reason is because I haven’t taken the time to digest it and reflect on the

essential points he makes.

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It is quite an archaic thicket of logical possibilities that leaves the reader

bewildered as to how he intends to get to the end result. Wittgenstein’s

work reminds me of Spinoza’s in the sense that if one can decipher some of

their archaic language code one can reap the possibilities of enlightenment.

However, his way of thinking was so radical that it reminds me of another

favorite radical thinker; Albert Einstein. Just questioning the methodology of

how we teach and learn is one thing. However, to make a convincing

argument philosophically is quite another.

Language-games is such a comprehensive and radical approach to

classroom learning that to not consider it would be an educational mistake.

His refutation of the logical spectacles was an eye opening experience that

begged to ask: Must we always teach in the same sequential manner as we

have over the preceding 2500 years? There is no doubt that he made an

about-face with respect to his original masterpiece: The Tractatus. There is

no way to know what made Wittgenstein reconsider and then reconceive his

lifelong philosophy.

Yes, he was in search of complete clarity per se, but not through the

introduction of a rigid and sterilized thicket of logic. I believe Wittgenstein

wanted us to unlearn the standard method of learning, from an old way of

thinking to a new and more insightful way. I think that what Wittgenstein

wanted more than anything was for us to use our imaginations when it came

to language.
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Teaching for Wittgenstein meant that the teacher was a participant but not

totally responsible for ascribing meaning to a word. The connection or

meaning was established in the given form of life. Culture, style, utterances,

environment, conversation, sight, smell, demonstration of relational concepts

are all part of the indirect method and all are intertwined in Wittgenstein’s

world of language games.

References

Bartley, W. (1974). Wittgenstein (pp. 98, 126-129). London: Quarter Books.

MacMillan, C. J. B. (1995). How Not to Learn: Reflections on Wittgenstein and

Learning in Philosophy of Education: Accepting Wittgenstein’s

Challenge, ed. Paul Smeyers and James Marshall Boston: Kluwer

Academic Publishers.

Marshall, J. and Peters, M. (1999). Wittgenstein: Philosophy, Postmodernism,

Pedagogy (pp.175). Westport, CN: Bergin & Garvey

Jardine, D. (1992). Speaking with a Boneless Tongue Bragg Creek, Alberta:

Makyo Press.

Fleener,M. Carter, A. and Reed, S. Language-Games in the Mathematics

Classroom: Learning a Way of Life in Journal of Curriculum Theorizing.

Janik, A. and Toulmin, S. (1973). Wittgenstein’s Vienna (pp. 228). New York,

New York: Simon and Schuster.

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Waismann, L. (1979). Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle (pp. 117).

Oxford, England: Basil Blackwell Publisher.

Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical Investigations (pp. 39). Oxford,

England: Blackwell Publishing LTD.