[ctw]

I think we're interpreting that in different ways. I'm assuming you read it as something like "words can't be used to communicate (knowledge)", which you're seeking to disprove by showing me that I only gained that knowledge through Wittgenstein's words. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

That's not what I meant though. I meant that words are like signs; they point at the real thing. We must be careful not to confuse the sign for the thing itself. We can't simply rearrange words and assume that what this new sign, this new combination of words points to, is "real". Not all words or sentences point to anything, or anything meaningful. And the trap we sometimes fall into (as philosophers especially?) is assuming that they always mean something.

Edit: First the thing exists, then we use a word to refer to it. The mistake is reversing that, by thinking that by creating new words or combinations of words, we can bring something into existence.

[sparsely]

This was a really clarifying comment for me, thank you.

It links nicely with the positivists' ideas about meaningful/non meaningful statements as well - which I believe were inspired by Wittgenstein.

[qqtt]

Just to put a button this excellent summary, the classic example of "rearranging words to form a sentence that we think has meaning" that Wittgenstein uses in Investigations is the question: "What is the meaning of life?"

We think intuitively that because we constructed this sentence with words, that it must have meaning, and must have an answer - as you say, it is flipping the causal relationship between starting with a sign and using language versus starting with language and trying to find a sign. This question is ultimately the latter.

[psychoslave]

>Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Would my opinion be that you are wrong, it would not imply that:

- I'm right about you being wrong;

- my own view is right and spread it would be an act of correction.

> I meant that words are like signs; they point at the real thing.

Nothingness doesn't point at anything real by definition.

> We must be careful not to confuse the sign for the thing itself.

Nor the sign with an interpretation act stimulated by some sign.

> We can't simply rearrange words and assume that what this new sign, this new combination of words points to, is "real".

Words don't exist outside some interpretation process, by the way.

>Edit: First the thing exists, then we use a word to refer to it.

That's a bit trickier. Because before someone use a word to refer to something, this word didn't exist. Naming things is a performative action. Through words, not only can you gain new knowledge that you can challenge through non-verbal actions, but they change the reality itself as it introduces new relationships in the world that where not present before there were used as a reference tool.