ABSTRACT
Wittgenstein now reverts to his examination of names and naming. After a few general remarks about learning language, he turns his attention to the process of defining words using phrases like This is ...’ or This is called “...’”. (See §6 for the difference between ostensive definition and ostensive teaching.)
Section 26
We are inclined to think, as Augustine thought (see §1), that ‘learning language consists in giving names to objects. Viz, to human beings, to shapes, to colours, to pains, to moods, to numbers, etc.’. But, as we have seen, ‘not everything we call language is [a] system [of this sort]’ (§3). Naming is not merely a matter of uttering words in the presence of objects; it is more ‘like attaching labels to things’. (Recall §15: ‘It will often prove useful in philosophy to say to ourselves: naming something is like attaching a label to a thing’.) What is unclear is only the sense in which naming is indeed like labelling.
