Language-Game-Object

Authors: Wang X

DOI: 10.23880/phij-16000228

Volume 5, Issue 1

Abstract

Wittgenstein, in his Philosophical Investigations, shows how language as a human phenomenon manifests in our everyday lives. He uses the idea of language-games to present language as a kind of human activity. In this essay, I focus on the roles of individual words in these language-games. I refer to them as language-game-objects, in order to emphasize words as roles that take part in language-games. I show how by being part of the language-games used in everyday lives, language-gameobjects (and thereby concepts and ideas) are shaped by language-games, but also have a role in shaping language-games (and thereby human activities) themselves. I conclude in the last part of the essay by synthesizing this idea with Heidegger’s phenomenological analysis of language and being from his Being and Time and History of the Concept of Time in order to show how language-games and language-game-objects are fundamental parts of human lives. 

Keywords: Language-games; Heidegger’s; Phenomenology; Wittgenstein

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