The Philosophical Significance of Secondary Uses of Language in Wittgenstein’s Late Philosophy

Abstract

This paper aims to provide an account of Wittgenstein’s employment of the distinction between primary and secondary uses. Against views that either dismiss secondariness as an uninteresting by-product of our rule-governed employment of words or circumscribe their relevance to aesthetics, ethics, or expressive uses of language, the paper shows that the distinction is primarily philosophically significant, as it is to be conceived – and it is effectively employed by Wittgenstein - as a powerful device to tackle different – often unrelated - philosophical confusions, among which the preconception according to which meaning is always to be seen as rule-governed use.

Keywords

• Wittgenstein
• Secondary Sense
• Meaning
• Rules