第231集...维特根斯坦晚期作品——语言游戏

大家好，我是史蒂文·韦斯特。这里是《哲思此刻》。Patreon.com/philosophizethis。在Substack上也有《哲思此刻》的哲学文章。

Hello, everyone. I'm Steven West. This is Philosophize This. Patreon.com/philosophizethis. Philosophical writing on Substack at Philosophize This on there as well.

希望你们喜欢今天的节目。如今，在有些人称之为网络辩论圈的地方，流行着一种策略。有人会在对话一开始就要求对方先定义当天要讨论的确切概念。听起来大概是这样的——‘为了开始今天的讨论，你能先给出你对上帝的定义吗？’

I hope you love the show today. So there's a tactic that's become pretty popular in what some people would call the debate space of the Internet these days. There's a trick someone will do where at the very beginning of the conversation, they'll ask the other person to define the exact thing that they're gonna be talking about that day. Well, sound kinda like this. Just to start out today, can you please give me your definition of God?

‘能否请你定义一下堕胎、叛乱或正义？无论今天讨论什么主题。’这时对方通常会上钩，尝试给出自己的理解。比如可能说‘叛乱是一群人试图推翻某种权威’。然后提问者就会反问：‘按你的定义，监狱暴动也算叛乱吗？’

Can you give me a definition of abortion or insurrection or justice, whatever it is that day? Then the other person will usually take the bait. They try to give their take on it. Maybe they'll say an insurrection is when a group of people try to overthrow some form of authority out there. Then the other person will say back to that, well, based on your definition, is a prison riot an insurrection then?

‘这也是人们在推翻权威啊。如果工会开除骚扰员工的经理，这算叛乱吗？要是我两个小孩同时踢我小腿呢？这算叛乱吗？如果你连今天要讨论的概念都定义不清，你真有资格参与讨论吗？’

That's people overthrowing an authority. If a union fires a manager that's harassing employees, is that an insurrection? How about if my two kids both kick me in the shins at the exact same time? Is that an insurrection? I mean, if you can't even define what it is we're supposed to be talking about today, are you even qualified to be here?

与此同时，提问者通常能赢得围观辩论的群众支持。毕竟如果对方连讨论本质都抓不住，我们到底在讨论什么？这个场景其实与哲学史上你们熟悉的某个桥段很相似——有位先贤也常这么做，不过他是出于善意且避免诡辩。他叫苏格拉底。

All the while, this person's usually winning points with the crowd that's watching the debate. I mean, if the other side can't get to the essence of what we're talking about, then what are we even talking about? This scene actually isn't too far away from something a lot of you'll be familiar with from the history of philosophy. There's a guy that used to do something like this, although he did it in good faith and was trying to avoid rhetoric while he did it. His name was Socrates.

记得吗？他会走到市集里向路人索要定义，比如‘正义’。当对方给出定义后，他会拆解这个定义，指出所有漏洞，证明有些正义案例明显超出既定逻辑框架。‘要不要换个正义定义再试试？’他这么做是因为相信这是触及事物本质的必经之路。但万一真相并非如此呢？

Remember, he'd go out into the public square with people shopping and walking around, and he'd ask them to give him a definition of something like justice. When they gave him this definition, he'd rip it apart, point out all the limitations in it, point out how there's examples of justice that clearly fall outside of the rational protocol you've just set up there. Would you like to try again with another definition of justice perhaps? And, again, he did all this because he thought this was necessary to get closer to an understanding of the essences that must be at the root of all these things. But what if all this is not what it seems?

万一这不是定义偏差问题，而是人们在同时进行两种截然不同的语言游戏？甚至哲学家们千百年来在认识论或形而上学领域的困惑，当今政治宗教讨论中常见的鸡同鸭讲现象——有没有可能这些都源于对语言运作方式的根本误解？

What if this is not people misunderstanding definitions and trying to get to better ones, but people playing two very different language games at the same time? In fact, what if most of the problems philosophers seem to have puzzles that have stumped them for centuries when it comes to knowledge or metaphysics? What if even? How common it is these days for people to be talking past each other in political or religious conversations and debates. What if all this is actually just a misunderstanding about the way that language works?

本期节目最后，我们将理解维特根斯坦后期著作中关于语言的终极论述，以及为何他认为这个看似疯狂的解释可能更接近真相。需要说明的是，当维特根斯坦批判前人对语言的所有认知时，他并非刻薄——这是他后期思想，因为早期撰写《逻辑哲学论》时，他自己也陷入了后来所批判的那种思维陷阱。

By the end of this episode, we'll understand Ludwig Wittgenstein's later work where he explains the final case he ever made for language in his life and why he thinks what we're talking about here isn't too crazy of an alternative story. It should be said, when Wittgenstein sets out to critique basically every human before him that has ever looked at language, He's not doing this stuff trying to be mean to anyone. Remember, this is his later work. And that's because in his earlier work, when he was writing his book, The Tractatus, he fell into the exact same trap that he thinks many others are falling into as he's writing his later work. Here's where he's coming from.

多数语言理论都会追问：词语的意义从何而来？我们说出或写下的任何词语为何具有意义？细想其实很不可思议。若要回应节目开头那位‘辩论高手’对完美定义的执念，就必须弄清定义的源头。维特根斯坦遗作《哲学研究》开篇就讨论了他所谓的‘奥古斯丁语言理论’——源自圣奥古斯丁的学说。

Most theories of language at some point ask the question, where do words get their meaning from? How is any word that we say or write down on a piece of paper meaningful at all? It's kinda crazy that it is if you think about it. And if we ever want to answer that question from the debate master from the beginning of this episode, if we want perfect definitions of things, it's going to be helpful to know where these definitions come from. Wittgenstein's last book called Philosophical Investigations published after his death opens with him talking about what he calls the Augustinian theory of language, a reference to Saint Augustine in his work.

他认为这个污染了大众语言认知的理论是这样的：假设某人写下一句话（书中以店主为例）——‘约翰有五个红苹果’。

Now this theory is a very common way of thinking about language that he thinks has polluted the way that most people think about how words work. It goes like this. Say that somebody writes a sentence. Wittgenstein uses the example of a shopkeeper in the book. So let's say John has five red apples.

这就是我们的句子。奥古斯丁会将那里展示的词语本质上视为仅仅列举了一系列名称，意味着一个句子实际上就是宇宙中可被指出的各种事物名称的列表。约翰可以被指出，数字五、红色以及苹果也都能被指出。维特根斯坦正在解释奥古斯丁对这一切的思考——这里的每个词都代表着外部世界的某个对象。

That's our sentence. Augustine would refer to the words on display there as essentially just stating a list of names, Meaning a sentence is quite literally a list of the names of various things that can be pointed to out in the universe somewhere. John can be pointed to, the number five, the color red, and apples can all be pointed to as well. And a Wittgenstein explaining how Augustine's thinking about all this. Every word here stands for some object out there.

其隐含之意是，当我们用词语交流时，是通过他所谓的实指定义来实现的。这个花哨术语仅意味着词语指向某物，词语之所以获得定义和意义，是因为它们对应着真实存在且可被指认的事物。若要将此延伸至探讨如苹果本质的概念——即让所有形态各异的苹果仍被统称为苹果的共同特质——这仍是个待探索的问题。对奥古斯丁而言，只要我们足够努力，或许仍能揭示这些事物的本质。但更关键的是：若该理论成立，你便能构想一幅描绘语言作为人类活动最初如何诞生的场景。

And the implication is that when we communicate with each other using words, it works by what he calls ostensive definition. It's It's a fancy term that just means a word points to something, that words get their definitions and meanings because they correspond to something that really exists that can be pointed to. Now if you want to extend this to talk about the essence of something like an apple, you know, the common trait that makes all very different looking apples still all apples, well, that's still a matter of exploration. To Augustine, we can probably still do the work and ultimately discover the essences of these things if we try hard enough. But the bigger point here is if this theory is true, you can imagine the scene you could paint of the origins of how language as a human activity may have gotten off the ground in the first place.

语言的诞生源于某人找到苹果并指向它，众人随即约定'我们称此为苹果'，继而匆忙将其记入词典。维特根斯坦认为，这种想象禁锢了我们对语言的理解（他在书中如是说）。该理论的一大问题在于——这也将波及其他类似奥古斯丁路径的语言理论（这类理论为数众多）——

Language is created when someone goes out, finds an apple, points at it, and then everyone agrees, let's call this an apple. Quick, quick. Write that down in the dictionary. Wittgenstein thinks this image is a picture that holds us captive, he says in the book, when it comes to our understanding of language. One of the big problems with it for him, and this will extend to other theories of language that resemble this approach from Augustine, which is a lot of them.

一个显著缺陷是：这些理论通常试图为每个词语寻找某种隐藏本质，或某个个体可指认并藉此解释词义的洞见。倘若世界果真如此运转，能为辩论大师提供完美定义固然美妙。但对维特根斯坦而言，词语并不存在仅凭苦思就能参透的本质。语言始终是持续进行的复杂群体活动，这意味着没有谁能独自为世间某物命名。他将论证：这些理论往往忽视了词语在群体语境中使用时功能的重要性。

One glaring problem is that these theories are usually looking for some hidden essence to each and every word or some insight that an individual person can point to and arrive at that explains what the meaning or the definition of the word is. Now it'd be wonderful if the world were like this if we wanted to give the debate master a perfect definition. But for Wittgenstein, words don't have some essence that can be figured out if we just think about them really hard. Language is always for him a complex community activity that is constantly going on, meaning no one person just points to something in the world and gives it a name. And what he'll argue is that what these theories tend to neglect is just how important the function of a word is when it's used in a community setting.

任何词语的意义始终需要底层语法或一套群体生成的规则与实践来提供语境。这些规则源于我们在所处语言社群中与他人密集互动所受的训练。换言之，我们不能仅指着红色消防车，告诉正在学语的婴儿'这是红色'，就指望婴儿完全理解所指。因为若如此，婴儿根本无法辨别红色是指颜色、卡车本身、警笛声，还是泛指所有交通工具。

That the meaning of any word always requires a grammar or a set of community generated rules and practices underneath that give it context. And these are rules that we've been heavily trained on by all the interaction we've had with other people in the linguistic community we're speaking in. Put another way, we can't just point to a red fire truck, tell a newborn baby that's trying to learn a language that this is red, and expect that the baby will know exactly what we're talking about. Because if you were to do that, that baby would have no way of knowing whether red is a color, is red the truck itself, is red the sound the firetruck's making. Does the word red represent all forms of transportation?

他们是在讨论这个吗？还有数百种其他可能性。要让婴儿真正理解我们的具体所指，必须依赖其所在语言社群提供的深层语境。维特根斯坦在此提请我们关注词语意义的真正来源——重申一次，那是群体生成的、前理论性的规则与实践体系。

Is that what they're talking about? And hundreds of other examples. For that baby to ever figure out what we're specifically talking about, it will need a deeper context that is informed by the linguistic community it lives in. Wittgenstein's drawing attention here to an important place that the meanings of our words are coming from. Again, it's a community generated, pre theoretical set of rules and practices.

这些规则未被书面记载，且对维特根斯坦而言，它们之所以有效，仅因当下有人遵循。换言之，所有这一切都将随社群的变迁而改变。这些规则与实践逐渐结晶为他所谓的语法，而语法正是判定任何陈述是否连贯的基准。虽然实际情况比这更复杂些，但我们已接近核心。

These are not written down anywhere. And these are things that themselves to Wittgenstein only really serve this purpose they do because there are people currently going along with them. In other words, all of this is subject to change as the community changes. These rules and practices sort of crystallize into what he calls a grammar, and that grammar becomes the thing that makes any statement anyone ever makes seem coherent or not. Now it gets slightly more complicated than this, but we're almost there.

请再耐心听一分钟：维特根斯坦还希望我们思考，这些塑造语言的规则与实践并非凭空产生。毕竟作为人类，我们具有某些与生俱来的倾向，这些倾向至少部分地影响着我们所有试图表达的意义。他在书中称这些为'生活形式'，并希望我们予以深切尊重。

Bear with me for one more minute or so because Wittgenstein would also want us to consider that these rules and practices that inform our language don't just materialize out of thin air. We are human beings after all. There are certain natural tendencies we have just as creatures, and those tendencies will always be at least a piece of anything that we ever wanna say that's meaningful. Wittgenstein calls these forms of life in the book. And these are things that he'd want us to respect deeply.

它们是我们彼此建立共识的源泉。他要我们务必记住：这些因素始终在某种程度上推动着我们前行——关爱亲友、求生欲望、相互戏谑、哀悼逝者等人性特质，总在我们决定交流的内容及认可的规则实践中留下暗涌的印记。若有助于理解（他本人并未如此阐述），作为视觉型思考者，在考量他解释的词语意义生成全过程时，你可将'生活形式'视作这个进程的根基。

They're a source for us finding common ground with each other. He'd want us to just make sure we remember these things are always driving us forward to some extent. Human things like caring for loved ones, the desire to survive, joking around with each other, mourning for the dead. There's always an undercurrent of our own humanity that has an impact on the things we ever decide to communicate and what rules and practices make sense to us. Now, if it helps you, he doesn't lay it out this way, but if it helps you and you're a visual person, when it comes to thinking about this whole process he explains about the meaning of a word and how it arises, you could think of the base of this process as those forms of life we just talked about.

这些生活形式向上延伸，与集体涌现的规则实践相互协作。规则实践最终结晶为判定连贯性的语法。而最终对维特根斯坦而言，词语的意义仅当某人在群体场景中公开言说和使用时才真正浮现。恕我再次强调：这非源于某种本质，亦非来自对某物的指认与定义。

Those ladder up into and collaborate with the rules and practices that collectively emerge. The rules and practices crystallize into a grammar of what makes anything coherent. And then finally, after all that, the meaning of a word only arises for Wittgenstein when a person decides to speak it and use it publicly in a community setting. At the risk of redundancy here, again, this doesn't come from an essence. This doesn't come from pointing at something and giving it a definition.

词义是动态发生的。当语言共同体以特定方式使用某个词时，其意义便在实时中被创造与重塑。这正是维特根斯坦后期著作中'词义源于使用'的真谛。我保证稍后会回到这个话题，但眼前就有个绝妙的反驳案例——这实际上能帮我更好地阐明本期节目要探讨的某些细节观点。

The meaning of a word happens. It is created and recreated in real time when it is used by people in a particular way within a linguistic community. And this is what is meant when people say in Wittgenstein's later work that the meanings of words come from their use. Now I promise we'll come back to this, but there's an obvious juicy rebuttal to all this so far. That's gonna really help me make his point for the rest of the episode about some of the details here.

你瞧，有人听完上述观点可能会质问：那三角形呢？难道三角形的定义也取决于人们的口头约定？假如一群妄想症患者集体认定三角形只有两条边，我们就该听之任之吗？拜托——这可是宇宙间先验的客观事实啊。

You know, someone could hear what's been said so far and say, well, what about triangles? Is the definition of a triangle something that only makes sense when some person says it? And if there are a bunch of delusional people that all came along and decided triangles only have two sides, we're supposed to listen to them. I mean, look. This is an a priori fact of the universe.

三角形是由三条边和三个内角构成的多边形。任何偏离此定义的用法都是对这个词的误解。维特根斯坦在原则上会认同这些说法，但他会引导提问者注意一个关键：用术语来说，此人正在进行的是一种与我们日常概念讨论完全不同的'语言游戏'——更准确地说，是欧几里得几何学的语言游戏。

A triangle is a polygon with exactly three sides and three interior angles. To use the word in any other way than that is to misunderstand what the word is. Wittgenstein would agree with basically all of this in spirit, but he wanna bring this person's attention to something that they're doing there. In his terminology, this person's playing a totally different language game than we typically do when we talk about everyday concepts. More specifically, this person's operating in the language game of Euclidean geometry.

还记得那些最终结晶为语法规则的实践吗？正是这些语法决定着何为逻辑自洽。几何学恰恰拥有其独特而严密的规则体系：答案必须能在系统规则内演算，术语必须基于共享定义或公理，证明过程才是几何命题成立的唯一依据。

Remember those rules and practices that ultimately crystallize into a grammar and how that grammar determines the criteria for what makes anything coherent or not? Well, geometry has a very specific set of these rules and practices that are distinct to it. For example, answers have to be calculable within the rules of the system. Terms have to be grounded in shared definitions or axioms. Proof is the primary thing that makes something justifiable in geometry.

这些规则与实践完全不同于日常对话的准则。请注意，这套特殊语法同样植根于共同体认可的标准——正如所有规则之所以成立，仅因有人愿意遵循。换言之，几何学是个精妙的封闭规则系统，让特定群体能使用专属语法进行交流。若将这种语言游戏应用于生活其他领域，其严苛语法反而会导致功能失调。不妨想象国际象棋爱好者——另一个经典封闭规则系统的信徒——试图用棋局逻辑处理日常事务的荒诞场景。

Now these rules and practices are different than the ones we use when we have conversations about more ordinary things. And notice how everything about this different grammar is similarly grounded in a practice of communally agreed upon criteria and how all these rules only hold up because there are other people that are willing to go along with them. In other words, geometry is an absolutely beautiful closed system of rules that allows for certain people willing to use this grammar to speak in a particular way to each other while operating in the community of geometry. These are people playing a very different type of language game that has a very different kind of grammar, where if it was applied to many other areas of our life, it would make it almost impossible to still be functional. I mean, just to illustrate this, imagine someone that's a big fan of chess, another great closed system of rules.

原来他们如此痴迷国际象棋，以至于决定将象棋规则套用到自己的约会生活中。兄弟，你约会怎么样？哦，还不错。她问了我一个很难的问题，但我对她用了西西里防御，兄弟。兄弟，你觉得她喜欢你吗？

They're such a big fan of chess, it turns out, that they decide they're gonna transpose the rules of chess onto their dating life. Bro, how was your date? Oh, it was good. She she asked me a really tough question, but I used the Sicilian defense on her, bro. Bro, do you think she likes you?

我...我不知道。我觉得她喜欢我，但我希望等所有棋子都让开后，我们能进行王后侧易位。像这样生活简直是愚蠢。而维特根斯坦的故事，在哲学史上其实反复上演过无数次。数学家转型为哲学家这种特定原型经常出现。

I I don't know. Like, I think she does, but I'm hoping we can castle queenside once all the pieces get out of the way. It's like you'd be an idiot to live your life in this way. And of Wittgenstein, this really is a story that's gone on over and over again throughout the history of philosophy. There's a certain archetype that pops up a lot of the mathematician turned philosopher.

他们想探寻万物的真理，对数学那种看似能带给人们的确定性和精确性深感着迷。无论是柏拉图、笛卡尔、斯宾诺莎，这些人的探索之所以失败，不是因为他们愚蠢，而是因为他们实际上在尝试不可能完成的任务——他们将一种语言游戏的核心语法套用到完全不同的另一种语言游戏上。顺便说，这就是为什么剧集开头辩论大师的修辞策略如此有效：你给对手布置不可能完成的任务，这个任务在完全不同的语言游戏里才有意义。

They wanna find out the truth about everything, and they're really intrigued by the kind of certainty and precision that math seems to provide to people. So whether it's Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, whoever it is, these are people whose projects came up short, not because they're stupid, but because they're literally trying to do the impossible. They're applying a grammar that lies at the heart of one language game to a completely different language game. This is why, by the way, this is such an effective rhetoric tactic by the debate master at the beginning of the episode. You're giving your opponent an impossible task, something that makes sense in a totally different language game.

然后你就可以悠闲地坐着，在他们慌乱寻找答案、人们开始质疑其认知时，指出所有例外情况。看，当我们用更日常的语言讨论事物时，并不存在适用于所有情况的单一静态定义。它使用的是一种完全不同的语法，比几何或象棋这类事物开放得多。像'叛乱'、'正义'这样的概念，维特根斯坦说在日常语言中都有模糊边界，没人能给出滴水不漏的明确定义。

And then you can just sit back, relax, and point out all the exceptions to it as they scramble for answers and people start to doubt their knowledge. See, whenever we talk about something with more ordinary language, there is no singular static definition of a thing that's going to apply to all the cases. It uses a completely different kind of grammar, far more open ended than something like geometry or chess. Concepts like insurrection, justice, whatever it is, Wittgenstein says concepts have blurred edges in ordinary language. They're not these clear cut things someone can just lay out an airtight definition of.

他说，我们审视一个概念时，最多只能获得对复杂事物的一系列不同解读，这些解读具有某种家族相似性。让我们解释下他的意思：他在书中用的例子是提问'什么是游戏？'想想所有不同类型的游戏——跳房子、扑克、井字棋、使命召唤、石头剪刀布。

At best, what we have whenever we look at a concept, he says, are a bunch of different takes on something complicated that bear a sort of family resemblance, as he says. Let's describe what he means by that. The example he uses in the book is to ask the question, what is a game? Think of all the different kinds of games there are. Hopscotch, poker, tic tac toe, Call of Duty, rock paper scissors.

这些都是游戏，许多人试图在这些例子间寻找某种共性，某种使它们成为游戏的本质。但维特根斯坦的观点是，无论你如何努力构建一个关于游戏的完美定义，最终都是在犯范畴错误。为了避免节目中途被打断，我要感谢所有帮助今天节目赞助商的人。想要无广告体验，请访问patreon.com/philosophize this。本期节目由ZocDoc赞助。

All of these are games, And the temptation by a lot of people is to try to find something similar between all these examples, some essence to them that makes all of these games. But Wittgenstein's point is that no matter how much work you do trying to craft the absolute perfect definition of a game, you're ultimately committing a category error. And just so we don't gotta interrupt the show at any point beyond this, I wanna thank everybody that helps the sponsors out of the show today. For an ad free experience, patreon.com/philosophize this. This episode sponsored by ZocDoc.

我之前谈过找到合适的治疗师有多重要。这不仅仅是找附近或有空的人，而是找到真正能与你产生共鸣的人。也许他们有相似的背景，说你的语言，或者刚好提供你方便的时间，又或者就是懂你。

You know, I've talked before about how important the right fit is when it comes to a therapist. It's not just about finding someone nearby or available. It's about finding someone you really connect with. Maybe they share your background, speak your language. Maybe they just offer the right hours for you or just get you.

无论是什么，ZocDoc让这个过程变得简单多了。ZocDoc是一个免费应用和网站，你可以搜索并比较网络内的医生，并立即预约。他们有超过10万名高质量的跨专科医生，不仅是心理健康，还有牙科、初级护理、紧急护理等。你可以按保险、地点、性别、可用性甚至虚拟预约来筛选，选择对你最重要的。找到合适人选后，可以看到他们的实际可用时间，选择时间并立即预约。

Whatever it is, ZocDoc makes that process so much easier. ZocDoc is a free app and website where you can search and compare in network doctors and instantly book an appointment. They got more than a 100,000 high quality doctors across specialties, not just mental health, but dental, primary care, urgent care, and more. You can filter by insurance, location, gender, availability, even virtual appointments, whatever matters most to you. Once you find the right fit, you can see their actual availability, pick a time, and book it instantly.

通过ZocDoc预约很快，许多在24到72小时内就能完成，有时甚至当天就能约上。我自己就用这个，你也应该试试。别再拖延看医生了，现在就去zocdoc.com/philo寻找并立即预约一位高评分医生。网址是z o c d o c点com斜杠philo。

Appointments through ZocDoc happen fast, many between twenty four and seventy two hours, and sometimes even same day. I use this. You should too. Stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zocdoc.com/philo to find and instantly book a top rated doctor today. That's z o c d o c dot com slash philo.

Zocdoc.com/philo。必须的音效。接下来，本期节目由Quintz赞助。你知道，我经常回购Quince，因为他们的基础款实至名归，穿起来很舒服。

Zocdoc.com/philo. Mandatory sound effect. Up next, this episode sponsored by Quintz. You know, Quince is a brand I return to often because their essentials actually live up to the name. They're clothes that feel good.

它们经久耐穿。我有一件他们的有机棉丝混纺 Polo 衫和一条欧洲亚麻短裤，很快成了夏天的常穿单品，无论是出去吃饭还是户外放松。他们的夏季系列涵盖了人们夏天真正需要的：透气层、高品质。他们甚至还有夏季旅行的行李箱。

They hold up over time. I got one of their organic cotton silk polos along with a pair of European linen shorts that quickly become go to items for the summer, whether I'm heading out for dinner or just relaxing outside. Their summer lineup covers what people actually want in the summer. Breathable layers, high quality. They even have suitcases for your summer travel.

你能得到高端品牌的风格和质量，却没有虚高的价格。这是因为Quince直接与顶级工匠合作，跳过了传统中间商。结果是优质服装却没有通常的加价。他们还在制作方式上用心，只与承诺安全、道德和负责任生产的工厂合作。如果你想升级衣橱，拥有舒适、价值和设计兼备的单品，我强烈推荐试试Quince。

You get the kind of style and quality you'd expect from high end brands just without the super inflated price tag. That's because Quince works directly with top artisans and skips their traditional middlemen. The result is premium clothing without the usual markup. They also take care in how things are made, partnering only with factories committed to safe, ethical, and responsible production practices. If you're looking to upgrade your wardrobe with items that deliver on comfort, value, and design, I highly recommend giving Quince a try.

坚持那些持久的经典，选择Quince的高级基础款。前往quince.com/pt享受订单免运费和365天退货。网址是quince.com/pt，获得免运费和365天退货。Quince.com/pt。最后，这是BetterHelp的广告。

Stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from Quince. Go to quince.com/pt for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. That's quince.com/pt to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/pt. Last up, this is an ad by BetterHelp.

社会对男性有一种无声的期待，要求他们始终保持坚强、专注、从不退缩。但事实是，美国每年有超过600万男性经历抑郁，许多人甚至从未谈论过。挣扎不是软弱的表现，而是人性的一部分。直面它，才是照顾自己和身边人的方式。

There's a quiet expectation placed upon men to always hold it together, to show up strong, stay focused, and never flinch. But the truth is, over 6,000,000 men in The US experience depression each year, and many never even talk about it. Struggling isn't a sign of weakness. It's part of being human. And facing it head on is how you take care of yourself and the people around you.

如果你现在背负的超过承受能力，寻求帮助吧。和你信任的人谈谈，开始一场能帮你前进的对话。或者你可以尝试找一位治疗师，BetterHelp让这部分变得更容易。拥有超过3.5万名持证治疗师和全球500多万用户，它是世界上最大的在线治疗平台。

If you're carrying more than you can manage right now, reach out. Talk to someone you trust. Start a conversation with a friend that helps you move forward. Or you could try a therapist, and BetterHelp makes that part easier. With over 35,000 licensed therapists and more than 5,000,000 people served globally, it's the largest online therapy platform in the world.

你能快速获得支持，直接用手机加入咨询，若匹配不佳，随时可以更换治疗师。没人会因此生气。而且它的评分也很高——我应该说，在App Store上有4.9分（满分5分），超过170万条评价。哇。

You can find support quickly, join a session right from your phone, and if it's not a good match, you can change therapists anytime. No one's gonna get mad at you. And it's it's highly rated too. 4.9 out of five in the App Store, I'm supposed to say, with over 1,700,000 reviews. Wow.

所以和BetterHelp聊聊吧。我们的听众首月可享9折优惠，访问betterhelp.com斜杠fill this。再说一遍：betterhelp.com斜杠fill this。本节目由BetterHelp赞助。现在回到播客内容。

So talk it out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash fill this. That's betterhelp.com slash fill this. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. And now back to the podcast.

当任何人用日常语言理解‘游戏’这个词时，他们的行为与其说是对这个词有完美定义，不如说像是在翻阅家族相册。你知道那种记录多年节日聚会的照片册吧？虽然我自己不弄这个，但如果有家人我会的——开玩笑啦。

Whenever someone, anyone out there has an understanding of the word game in ordinary language, what they're doing there is less analogous to having a perfect definition of the word, and it's more analogous to knowing your way around a family album. You know those books of photos people keep of when they've gotten together for the holidays over the years? I mean, I don't do it. But if I had a family, I would. Just kidding.

总之，理解语言游戏就像翻开相册说：‘这是格莱迪斯阿姨，她是肿瘤科医生’，‘那边那个是丹尼’。

I do know. Anyway, understanding the word game is like opening up one of those albums and saying, oh, there's aunt Gladys. She's a oncologist. And look over there. That that's Danny.

那是她妹妹的儿子。那边是比阿特丽斯外婆，依然精神矍铄。我们称为‘游戏’的事物，就像家族成员一样，具有或多或少的相似性，但照片里的人虽然都有某种相似，却没有某个单一特征或本质决定这种相似——边界要模糊得多。

That's her sister's son. That one right there is grandma Beatrice still hanging in there strong she is. What we call games, like people in a family, share a kind of family resemblance that can be more or less educated to spot. But despite the people in the photo album all bearing some kind of resemblance, there's no single characteristic about them or essence that makes that resemblance what it is. The edges are much more blurry than that.

这更像是一堆以不同方式相互重叠的维恩图。有些重叠得多，有些同属家族却几乎不相像。游戏概念或其他语言游戏中的概念也是如此。维特根斯坦在此不仅揭示了哲学家为何容易陷入虚假难题（当他们试图用硬边界理性统一概念时），也展现了人们为何容易各说各话。

It's a lot more like a bunch of Venn diagrams all overlapping each other in different ways. Some overlap more than others. Sometimes two of them, both still part of the family, don't resemble each other much at all. And so too with games or with any other concept we try to understand in this particular kind of language game. You can also see to Wittgenstein here not only why it becomes easy for philosophers to get lost in puzzles that don't actually exist, you know, when they try to rationally unify concepts down into things with these hard edges, but you can also see why it becomes so easy for people to be talking past each other.

举个现实例子：如果维特根斯坦是对的——我知道这是个敏感话题，但相信我始终秉持善意——性别认同完美展现了他所说的语言游戏后果。

Because consider how language games operate in a real world example if Wittgenstein is right here. And I know this is a charged example, but look, I hope I've earned enough respect as somebody that's writing these in good faith to be able to use this one. It's an absolutely perfect one to show what he thinks the consequences of these language games can be. Gender identity. I know.

一方可能说性别是生物事实，男女由XX或XY染色体决定，显微镜下就能明确区分。另一方则说：当我想象男女时，想的不是显微镜下的染色体，而是蓄胡须的男人或长发飘逸的女人。

One side of the table might say that gender is a biological fact, that male and female is either an XX or an XY chromosome situation. That I can look under a microscope and tell you exactly which one of these you are, male or female. Now the other side of this may say something like, look, when I think of male or female, I'm not thinking of chromosomes under a microscope. I don't think of XX or XY. I think of a mustachioed man or a woman with long flowing hair.

对后者而言，性别是社会规范集合，其意义由文化中男女角色的社会表演定义，边界更模糊，取决于群体实践标准而非生物学教科书。维特根斯坦认为这是两种人在使用不同的语言游戏——只要固守己方，就永远无法达成共识。

Point is to this person, gender is a community generated set of norms. Its meaning is defined by a social performance of the gender roles of either male or female within a culture, that the edges of those concepts are gonna be a bit more blurry, that and it's going to come down to a practice rooted in communal criteria rather than being able to read axioms out of a book about biology. Now to Wittgenstein, these are two people coming to the table using two very different language games. And as long as they remain rooted only in theirs, they will never see eye to eye on this stuff. The same world, in other words, can be seen through different grammars and different language games.

你使用的特定语言游戏能决定世界的哪些方面对你显现为有意义甚至可见。维特根斯坦会说：分类与感知相互交织。记得我们最近用鸭兔图做的节目吗？那个例子就来自他的《哲学研究》——当时我们用来说明现实的不同经验框架。

And the specific language game you're using can shape what aspects of the world stand out as meaningful or even visible to you. And for Wittgenstein, another way to put this would be to say that classification and perception interfold each other. And if you remember the recent episode we just did using the duck rabbit as an example, you may remember I was borrowing that example from the work of Wittgenstein. Well, here it is in philosophical investigations. On that episode, we were using it to describe different experiential framings of reality.

但维特根斯坦在此指出，并不存在某种能捕捉现实隐藏本质的单一语言游戏。世界上的相同事件、需要解决的相同问题，可以通过不同的语法体系来审视，由于我们所运用的规则和实践，会浮现出不同的明显解决方案。因此，无论你将某物视为鸭子还是兔子，将某事件视为抗议还是叛乱，将性别视为社会表演还是生物学事实，这与其说是你揭示了现实的隐藏本质，不如说取决于你正在参与的特定语言游戏。简而言之，维特根斯坦后期著作指出的、其他语言理论普遍缺失的两个关键要素，就是对于实践和差异的考量——实践指代那个被多数人忽视的基础语法结构，而差异则意味着词语间真实的家族相似性，那些模糊边界处并不存在辩论主持人要求你定义的明确本质。

But in this case, Wittgenstein is saying that there is no single language game that somehow captures the hidden essence of reality. The same events in the world, the same problems that need to be solved can be looked at through different grammars and different obvious solutions will emerge because of the rules and practices we're bringing to bear upon the moment. So whether you see a duck or a rabbit or whether you see an event as a protest or an insurrection or whether you see gender as a social performance or a biological fact, this has less to do with you uncovering the hidden essence of reality and more to do with the specific language game you're playing. Now to simplify all this so far, if you wanted two things that Wittgenstein's later work says is missing from many of the other theories of language, it's gonna be a consideration of the role of practice and difference. Practice meaning that underlying grammar that so many people ignore the importance of, and difference meaning the actual family resemblances of words with those blurry edges where they don't necessarily have some clear essence that we can define when the debate master asks you to.

值得一提的是，这本书问世后，众多哲学家作品中'实践'与'差异'二词使用频率的激增绝非偶然。如果用词频统计图来呈现，哲学领域这两个词的曲线在此之后会陡然攀升。现在你肯定猜到后续发展了——如果我们接受维特根斯坦的理论，那么相互竞争的语言游戏远不止两三种。不仅任何特定区域通常存在人们使用的多样化语言，更要想象每个人此刻都在天知道多少种语言游戏之间摇摆，且对这种交流运作机制的自我认知程度参差不齐。

And for whatever it's worth, it won't be a coincidence that so many philosophers after this book comes out will use the words practice and difference in their work so much more. If you had one of those etymology, like, usages of the word graph thing, it's it goes way up after this in philosophy. Now I'm sure you've guessed where all this is going. If we buy what Wittgenstein's selling here, then this isn't just gonna be two or three of these language games that are going on that are competing with each other. Not only is there usually a diversity of languages that people are speaking in any given area, but now imagine each person is now oscillating between God knows how many different language games with varying levels of self awareness that that's the way communication works.

想象一下那些正在进行中的、数量惊人的愚蠢且完全无法调和的争论。再想想其中有多少人坚信，只要在争论中再推进几步，对方就会转变立场。更深刻的是，如果维特根斯坦是对的，那么哲学家在这个新世界中的角色转变就非常耐人寻味——他们还有什么可做的？那种围坐阐释时间、心灵等宏大神秘概念的想法，开始显得相当妄想，因为当你接受他的前提后，这些看似重大的哲学问题不过是需要被澄清的语法错误。

Picture the sheer quantity, it's amazing, of just dumb, completely irreconcilable arguments that are going on between people. And think of how many of them believe that if they just push a little further in this argument they're having, the other person's gonna come around. More than that, if Wittgenstein's right here, then it's really interesting to consider how the role of a philosopher changes in this new world. I mean, what do they have left to do? The idea we're just gonna sit around explaining these huge mysterious concepts like time or mind, it just starts to seem pretty delusional because these things that seem like they're huge philosophical problems become after you accept his premises just mistakes of grammar that need to be clarified.

正如他在哲学中所言：'所有解释都必须消失，唯有描述能取而代之。'哲学家的职责由此变得近乎语言制图师——绘制地图、解读地图。哲学从人们苦思冥想构建宏大解释理论的活动，转变为更近似治疗的行为。让我解释其中深意，因为他认为哲学家应提供多种不同的治疗：当人们陷入鸡同鸭讲的困境时，若辩论主持人是执着追问事物本质的角色，那么哲学家就应当成为其反面。

As he says in philosophy, quote, all explanation must disappear, and description alone must take its place, end quote. The job of a philosopher then becomes something almost like being a cartographer of language, making maps, reading them. Philosophy turns from something where people are sitting around kind of tortured, trying to come up with these grand theories that explain big things, and it turns into something that more resembles a kind of therapy, he says. Let me explain what he means here because there's multiple different therapies he thinks philosophers should be providing. First of all, when people are talking past each other in the world, if the debate master is someone who's demanding the essences to things, then the philosopher should be something like the opposite of that.

如同制图师般，他们应当尽可能收集并考察词语的各种使用实例。在梳理词语的不同用法后，其职责是将这些用法并置展示，供人们观察比较。这种工作本身就具有治疗性，因为它为人们带来语境认知与谦逊态度，帮助他们理解语言的实际运作机制。用他的话说：'我提供的是表达式使用形态学。'

Just like a cartographer, they should be gathering and surveying as many examples of how a word is used as they can. And then once they survey the different usages of a word, their job is to lay them out side by side so that they can be observed and compared by people. This is therapeutic just because of the context and humility that it brings to people. It helps them understand how language is actually functioning. As he says, quote, what I give is the morphology of the use of an expression.

我展示了它有你未曾梦想过的多种用途。我让你明白，期待这个概念符合那些狭隘的可能性是荒谬的。现在你可以自由地观察这个表达的使用领域，并描述它的不同用途，引用结束。如果我们接受维特根斯坦的工作，哲学家现在要做的另一件事是花更多时间澄清那些支配我们语言运作方式的规则和实践。在他的著作中有许多时刻，他认为即使在语法层面进行微小的修正，也能解决一些看似最不可能的哲学问题。

I show that it has kinds of uses which you had not dreamed. I made you see that it was absurd to expect the concept to conform to those narrow possibilities. And now you're free to look around the field of use of the expression and to describe the different kinds of uses of it, end quote. Another thing a philosopher has to do now if we accept Wittgenstein's work is to spend more time clarifying those rules and practices that dictate so much about how our language works. There's tons of moments in his work where he thinks that even a slight correction that goes on at the level of grammar can solve some of the most seemingly impossible philosophical problems.

想想自由意志与决定论之间的经典辩论是如何开始消解的。一旦你和辩论对手不再孤立地看待词语，而是开始承认那些最初赋予这些词语意义的日常语境，比如‘能够’、‘原因’或‘责任’这样的词。对维特根斯坦来说，这些事物并没有隐藏的本质被写入宇宙，等待我们用某种理论来解释。更进一步，想想这如何适用于时间和心灵这样的概念，这两个更为宏大的概念让人们备受折磨。与其将时间视为宇宙中隐藏且神秘、需要我们解释的东西，不如试着思考‘时间’这个词在我们日常语言中实际是如何运作的。

Think about how the classic debate between free will and determinism starts to dissolve. Once you and whoever you're debating with stop treating words like they exist in isolation and start acknowledging the ordinary context that give those words meaning in the first place to you, words like can or cause or responsibility. To Wittgenstein, there's no hidden essence of these things written into the universe waiting for us to explain them with some kind of theory. And more than that, think of how this applies to things like time and mind, two more monolithic concepts that people torture themselves over. Instead of thinking of time as something that's hidden and mysterious about the universe that we have to explain, try thinking of the way the word time actually functions in our ordinary language about it.

例如，我们如何谈论‘计时’。与其将心灵视为笛卡尔需要通过某种宏大的二元论体系向我们解释的宇宙范畴，不如思考‘心灵’这个词对我们来说是如何起作用的。我们如何使用它？什么时候某物仅仅是大脑，而什么时候它变成了心灵？哲学家的职责是提醒人们那些最初让这些词语对我们有意义的日常语境和语法。

How we talk about keeping time, for example. Instead of mind being some category of the universe that Descartes needs to explain to us through some big dualistic system, instead, think of the way the word mind functions for us. How do we use it? When is something just a brain and when does it become a mind? A philosopher's job is to remind people of the ordinary context and grammar that allow for any of these words to make sense to us in the first place at all.

他说，哲学家应该做的另一种治疗是所谓的‘集结提醒和类比’。他的意思是尝试提出一些难忘的提醒，以阐明语言如何运作，从而引导人们走出困惑，就像他说的‘把苍蝇从捕蝇瓶中引出来’。这不仅仅是困惑。比如，有许多争论看似是人们多年来一直在争论的重大问题。但当他们停止对词语的抽象理论化，转而开始关注他们争论的词语的具体使用时，有时那些看似非常大的问题可能会因此完全消解。

Another type of therapy a philosopher should be doing, he says, is what he calls marshaling reminders and analogies. What he means by this is try to come up with memorable reminders that illuminate how language works and thus guides people out of confusion, leads the fly out of the fly bottle, as he says. And this is more than just confusion. Like, there's so many disputes out there that seem like they're huge issues that people have been arguing about for years between themselves. But when they get out of abstract theorizing about the words and instead start focusing on the concrete uses of the words that they're arguing about, sometimes problems that seem really big can just completely dissolve with that move.

正如他所说，如果误解源于我们语言的模糊性，那么当‘语言去度假’时，哲学问题就产生了，引用结束。如果哲学家或多或少地做了我今天在这一集中尝试做的事情，并提出实际向人们传达这些想法的方法，那么他认为这是另一种值得提供的治疗。现在有人可能会对这一切提出质疑。让我们为辩论大师扮演魔鬼代言人。维特根斯坦真的是在说没有空间去问某人对某事物的定义吗？

As he says, if misunderstandings result from the ambiguities of our language, then philosophical problems arise when, quote, language goes on holiday, end quote. If philosophers do more or less what I've tried to do on this episode today and come up with ways that actually communicate these ideas to people, then this is another kind of therapy he thinks that's worth providing as well. Now somebody could say back to all this. Let's play devil's advocate for the debate master. Is Wittgenstein really saying that there's no room for asking someone their definition of something?

我是说，鉴于日常词汇在外界有如此多的用法，阐明你所谈论的内容将成为任何有建设性对话的首要步骤之一。首先，这一点没错。维特根斯坦肯定会同意这个观点。但问题在于，当有人在辩论中做这类事情时，我们得问：他们是否像开头描述的那样，将其用作一种修辞策略？

I mean, it seems like with so many uses of ordinary words going on out there, clarifying what you're talking about is gonna be one of the first steps of any productive conversation. And first of all, that's right. Okay? Wittgenstein would certainly agree with that point. The question becomes, though, when someone in a debate does this sort of thing, we gotta ask, are they using it as a rhetorical tactic like it was described at the beginning?

要求给出定义，摆好架势准备挑刺，还是他们真心实意这么做？如果某人确实出于这种立场，问题的表述方式难道不该与常见形式有所不同吗？表达相同意图的另一种方式难道不该是说：嘿，首先我们能否明确在此语境下各自所说的‘暴动’指什么？我觉得这会有助于对话。

Asking for a definition, being poised, ready to poke holes in it, or are they doing it in good faith? And if somebody's really coming from this place, wouldn't the question be formulated a bit differently than it often is? Wouldn't another way of framing this same sentiment be to say, hey. First off, can we just clarify what each of us means by insurrection in this context? I think it would help the conversation.

这与常见做法是否略有不同？对维特根斯坦而言，关键在于找到在不同语法和语言游戏间协商意义的方法。这不是要击垮对手，也不是要让他们意识到自己在这件事上有多愚蠢。所有这些都预设了讨论中存在某种本质，而你作为个体拥有特权通道。

Isn't that a little different than what's often done? See, for Wittgenstein, it's about finding a way to negotiate meaning between different grammars and language games. It's not about destroying your opponent. It's not about making them realize how dumb they are about this particular thing. All of that just presupposes that there's some essence to the discussion that you as an individual have privileged access to.

真正通过对话协商意义是协作行为。因为一旦你承认词语的意义在于其使用方式，那么我们寻求的任何共同理解，唯一实现的途径就是通过对话和过程中的调整——绝非辩论大师式的压制。希望你们喜欢本期内容。感谢大家让这个播客和我家人的生活成为可能。

Truly negotiating meaning though through conversation is a cooperative thing. Because once you acknowledge that the meanings of words lie in the way that they're used, then any shared understanding we might seek to have with each other, the only way that that ever happens is through dialogue and adjustment along the way. Certainly not debate masters. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you all for making the podcast and my family's life possible.

新书进展顺利，就当是个进度更新吧。我觉得明年出版时你们会满意的。感谢收听，下次再聊。

Book's coming along good. Think it's just an update. I think you're gonna be happy with it when it comes out next year. Thank you for listening. Talk to you next time.