Wittgenstein's Argument

Final Philosophy 201500119

Q1. “For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word 'meaning' it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.” (Philosophical Investigations, section 43).
In this quote, Wittgenstein challenges the picture theory of meaning. Evaluate Wittgenstein’s argument, and point out two criticisms that can be made against him.

A1. Evaluation:

It is very hard to criticise the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. This argument is the sort of argument that include two extremes “large class, though not for all”; it is like saying this model- meaning is use- works very often but not always. So how can i criticise a vaguely probabilistic proposition?
Assuming that his

And necessity as a proposition whose modal status is true in all possible worlds. Instead of the necessity-analyticity dilemma, the main concept that determines possibility is conceivability so Conceivality implies possibility. And so necessity is redefined the other way around not that what is analytic is necessary but that what is necessary is mostly analytic or better yet, independent of possible worlds or invariant. So we find kripke’s a posteriori necessity not just the a priori necessity which challenges the long held view that a priori or analytic is necessary. ”Since Kant there has been a big split between philosophers who thought that all necessary truths were analytic and philosophers who thought that some necessary truths were synthetic a priori. But none of these philosophers thought that a (metaphysically) necessary truth could fail to be a

Famously, Russell and Whitehead’s Logicism aimed to solve the problem of mathematical knowledge for empiricism (i.e. the idea that mathematics is not contingent on our empirical world). The solution was, simply, to regard mathematics as tautology. However, later empiricists rejected that solution (e.g. Quine). Why the “mathematics as tautology” formula does not amount for the ambition of an empiricist? And how can contemporary empiricists solve the problem of mathematical knowledge?

A4. Why the “mathematics as tautology” formula does not amount for the ambition of an empiricist?
Because if math is a tautology, reframings of universal truth, its truth will be more inclined to be independent of the world we live in, so it might form a problem for empiricist who consider that we learn through experience rather than sole rationale or pure thinking without experience.

how can contemporary empiricists solve the problem of mathematical knowledge?
The question assumes that they can solve it, which i consider as probably not going to happen once and for all, there will always remain a puzzle to solve because the foundations are ill defined.

References
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