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Questioning the Bounds of Language Language As an Assemblage Questioning the Bounds of Language Language as an Assemblage Eva Perez de Vega December 2012 Questioning the Bounds of Language Language as an Assemblage EXTERIORIZING LANGUAGE, WITTGENSTEIN AND DELEUZE p.1 1.1 Bounds of Language 1.2 Wittgenstein’s Shift in Conception of Language 1.3 Deleuze‐Guattari’s Conception of Language LANGUAGE AS AN ASSEMBLAGE p.6 2.1 Machines of Language 2.2 Theory of Assemblages 2.3 Language as an Assemblage CONCLUSION p.11 3.1 Objections to Language as an Assemblage Model 3.2 Final Remarks REFERENCES p.14 EXTERIORIZING LANGUAGE, WITTGENSTEIN AND DELEUZE This paper takes a look at Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, as a means to explore and ultimately support the notion of boundlessness of language, or extended theory of language. In this view, language is extended beyond the confines of the brain and can be conceived as part of a much larger system ‐an assemblage‐ that encompasses the brain, body and environment as well as the larger social context in which it is being used. To support this view, and allow an expansion of Wittgenstein’s social conception of language, the paper will explore assemblage theory as first put forth by Deleuze and further developed by DeLanda, to illustrate that what is important in the conception of language as boundless and social is the connections and relations between the parts, not the parts themselves. 1.1 Bounds of Language In many ways Gilles Deleuze and Ludwig Wittgenstein can be seen as two of the most irreconcilable thinkers, and there would initially seem to be no point of contact between the two philosophers. Deleuze famously expressed strong distaste for the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and his followers.1 And Wittgenstein is mysteriously absent in Deleuze’s large collection of philosophical writing. Similarly, it is not altogether unimaginable that Wittgenstein would not have had much patience with Deleuze’s approach to metaphysics and his creation of seemingly slippery terms. However, the overlap between Deleuze and Wittgenstein is pursued here in an examination of the questions of the boundlessness of language; its conception as extended beyond the confined of the brain and emerging instead from the larger social context. As such Deleuze’s concept of assemblage helps anchor Wittgenstein’s thoughts on language within a looser framework and, to some degree, illustrates that there is a deeper connection between the two thinkers than Deleuze would have cared to confess. The aim in the section that follows is to explore how Wittgenstein and Deleuze‐ 1 In the televised interview he gave with journalist Claire Parnet, L’Abécédaire, he refers to Wittgenstein and his school of thought as destructive and dangerous for philosophy. He also writes: “Wittgenstein's disciples spread their misty confusion, sufficiency and terror” in his book of that same year: The Fold, Leibniz and the Baroque, p76. Eva Perez de Vega 1 Guattari2, philosophers who are seldom mentioned in the same breath, both aimed to exteriorize language by rejecting the possibility of considering problems of meaning without also considering specific uses and social practices within which these are embedded. Indeed, in their very different philosophical styles, they both rejected the notion that language is brain‐ bound and instead supported the conception of language as inherently social and tied to the use which is made of it. 1.2 Wittgenstein’s Shift in Conception of Language In the Philosophical Investigations, we see a very different Wittgenstein from the young man who aimed to find a systematic categorization of language, conceiving of it as a mental system of representation bound by logical rules and describable almost as if a scientific entity.3 In his later philosophy he seems to be giving significance to language precisely for opposite reasons; because it is embedded with the unpredictability characteristic of our humanness, and as such it is imperfect and messy, yet rich and empowering, giving us the ability to communicate an infinite amount of possible things. While he is deeply engaged with investigating the nature of language, its structure and function, he questions and ultimately rejects the existence of an essence of language4. He criticizes the notion that there is an essence which lies beneath the surface of the words employed in language, arguing instead for what already lies open to view and is surveyable.5 “We are under the illusion that what is peculiar, profound and essential to us in our investigations resides in its trying to grasp the incomparable essence of language. That is, the order existing between the concepts of proposition, word, proof, truth, experience, and so on. This order is a super‐order between—so to speak—super‐concepts. Whereas, of course, if the words "language", "experience", "world", have a use, it must be as humble a one as that of the words "table", "lamp", "door””6 Thus, to understand the concepts of table, lamp, or door, we need not investigate the essence of tableness, lampness, or doorness ‐there is no such thing‐ but rather comprehend the 2 Most of the work on language is developed in the book that Deleuze wrote with Guattari: A Thousand Plateaus. 3 Gary Haggard suggests it is Wittgenstein ‘s background as an engineer that made him interested in logic, and informed his early scientific approach to the language problem 4 As with many topics raised in the Investigations, this is not an issue agreed on by all readers of Wittgenstein 5 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §92 6 Ibid., §97 Eva Perez de Vega 2 situation where there is a use for something like a table, lamp or door. We are not to look at the logical form of language, as Wittgenstein was doing in his earlier philosophy, because essentially there isn’t one. Words do not stand for objects as mere representations, what gives words ‐abstract signs on a paper or mere sounds from vocal chords‐ any life is the use we make of them; meaning is use. “For a large class of cases of the employment of the word “meaning” –though not for all – this word can be explained in this way: the meaning of a word is its use in the language”7 Further, Wittgenstein urges us not to just think about what something can mean, but rather to look around at the context in which the words and sentences are being deployed. He urges us to investigate meaning by ‘looking and seeing’ the variety of uses a word or sentence is being given, and to do so not in generalizing thoughts but by looking at the particular context of use of the particular instance.8 “look and see whether there is anything common to all, but similarities, affinities, and a whole series of them as that. To repeat: don’t think, but look!”9 It is this Wittgensteinian perspective on language as context‐sensitive that this paper will focus on. Indeed, this paper supports the claim that far from being introspective in his conception of language, for Wittgenstein the public is prior to the private, the social context is what gives language its meaning. If we read Wittgenstein this way we can see that it is unnecessary to have mental pictures of words, instead language requires one to have sensitivity towards how things actually are in the world‐ an understanding of the context in which language is being used. To exemplify this point is Wittgenstein’s introduction of the concept of private language.10 He explains that it can be seen as something that is internal to the speaker because it describes sensations, such as pain, that are internal to only the speaker. The sensation is prior to language; prior to being able to articulate it to others with words and sentences. We may 7 Ibid., §43 8 This approach is most often referred to as language‐games 9 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §66 10 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §243 Eva Perez de Vega 3 have physical manifestations of pain through groans and grimaces, but still be unable to describe the sensation with words. If we invented a word or sign to articulate it, this would be unintelligible to others, or our memory might fail us in trying to recall the sensation as associated with that sign. Thus such a private language cannot really exist as something intelligible. 11 Instead, we know the contents of our thoughts because we are part of a community and have the language of that community in order to be able to express them. As such, language is external to our mind, and intimately tied to the social fabric we are surrounded by. In Wittgenstein’s terms, language is first public rather than private. It emerges and is affected by the social context in which it is used. For instance, knowing how versus knowing that means that there is something practical about all theoretical knowledge and that learning how is prior to learning that. “If someone says, ‘I know that that’s a tree’ I may answer: ‘Yes that is a sentence. An English sentence. And what is it supposed to be doing?”12 Here we see that he envisioned language not as mere representation of reality, but as actually doing something; communicating and expressing something that is intelligible in the context of the material world it engages. There can be a myriad diverse uses of a single word, and depending on the context of use, its meaning can be quite different. Language is not monolithic; even the English language per se doesn’t really exist, as it is different depending on originating ethnicity, class structure, etc., there is no ‘English language ‘but rather many ‘Englishes’.13 It is constantly in flux and absorbing the different ways in which it is used by different social groups.
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