Akademik

To have a word, or a picture, or any other object in one's mind seems to be one thing, but to understand it is quite another. A major target of the later work of Wittgenstein is the suggestion that this understanding is achieved by a further presence, so that words might be understood if they are accompanied by ideas, for example; Wittgenstein insists that the extra presence merely raises the same kind of problem again. The better suggestion is that understanding is to be thought of as possession of a technique, or skill, and this is the point of the slogan that ‘meaning is use’. The idea is congenial to pragmatism and hostile to ineffable and incommunicable understandings. See also meaning, private language, verstehen .