Language Games

Wittgenstein’s Investigations proposed an egalitarian view about language games, emphasizing their plurality (“language has no downtown”). Uses of words depend on the game one is playing, and may change when playing another. Furthermore, there is no privileged game dictating the rules for the others: games are as many as purposes. This view is pluralist and egalitarian, but it says little about the connection between meaning and use, and about how a set of rules is responsible for them in practice.
Brandom’s Making It Explicit attempted a straightforward answer to these questions, by developing Wittgensteinian insights: the primacy of social practice over meanings; the idea that meaning is use; the idea of rule–following to understand participation in social practices. Nonetheless, Brandom defended a non–Wittgensteinian conception of discursive practice: language has a “downtown”, the game of “giving and asking for reasons”. This is the idea of a normative structure of language, consisting of advancing claims and drawing inferences. By means of assertions, speakers undertake “commitments” that can be challenged/defended in terms of reasons (those successfully justified can gain “entitlement”). This game is not one among many: it is indispensable to the very idea of discursive practice.
In this paper, my aim will be that of exploring the main motivations and
implications of both perspectives.

במאמר מוצג המושג "כללי המשחק" בהקשריו הפוליטיים, מתוך כוונה להתמודד בעזרתו עם השאלה האם וכיצד שינוי בשדה הפוליטי הוא מן האפשר. בְּעולם משולל עוגנים טרנסצנדנטיים. החשיבה על המשחק
(game/play)
מסייעת לי להציג מודל שבו שלושה טיפוסי משַחקים השונים זה מזה ביחסם אל כללי המשחק; יותר מכך – היא מאפשרת לי להראות עד כמה פרומים ועמומים הגבולות שקיימים לכאורה בין הטיפוסים האנליטיים השונים של המשַחקים.
שאלת היתכנותו של שינוי חברתי מעסיקה את ג'ודית בטלר בספרה "טענת אנטיגונה". עבור בטלר, אנטיגונה היא מופת למי שמצליחה לא רק לקרוא תיגר על חוקי המשחק של הסדר הסמלי, אלא גם לפרוץ מגרש חדש ותקדימי – שכן על אף שהיא מתה, "המעשה שלה נחקק בשפה". במאמר אני מבקשת להרחיב את דיונה זה ולהאירו באמצעות מושג המשחק, כפי שפוּתח בכתיבתם של הפסיכואנליטיקאי דונלד ויניקוט ושל הפילוסוף לודוויג ויטגנשטיין.
אף שהתחום החברתי-פוליטי הוא לא בהכרח המגרש הביתי של שני הוגים אלה, לטענתי יכולה להיות לכתיבתם על משחק תרומה חשובה לסוגיה שמעסיקה את בטלר ורבים אחרים. בין תחומי המחקר של ויטגנשטיין וויניקוט ישנו לכאורה מרחק רב, אך העיון בדיוניהם על אודות מושג המשחק מגלה כי לשניהם משותפת העמדת רעיון ההסכמה בבסיס החיים החברתיים. במאמר משורטט הקשר בין רעיונות אלה לבין רעיון הפרפורמטיביות של בטלר, אשר על פיו כל ניסיון לפעול על פי כללי המשחק הוא ניסיון פרשני שמקבל את מובנו מההקשר שבו הוא מתבצע. כפי שאני מראה במאמר, לתפיסה זאת יש השלכות מרחיקות לכת לגבי שאלת היתכנותו של שינוי פוליטי ולגבי היחס בין גישות שונות לכללי המשחק.
התרומה המיוחדת של המפגש הלא טריוויאלי בין בטלר לבין ויניקוט וויטגנשטיין טמונה בין השאר באפשרות להאיר כך את הנקודה העיוורת אצל השניים האחרונים לגבי משחק ומשמעות, המביאה אותם להתעלם מההיבטים האלימים הפוטנציאליים של המשחק; תרומה נוספת היא ההזדמנות להעמיק כך בסוגיית החריגה מכללי המשחק, ולנסח באופן פורה את האפשרות לחריגה שעדיין מצליחה להישאר באזור הגבול העמום של כללי המשחק, ושמאפשרת – כדברי בטלר – "לכתוב אותם מחדש או אפילו לכתוב אותם לראשונה".

(2008)
This article reports the findings of an investigation in which students were exposed to tabletop role playing games as part of the ESL curriculum and compares their performance to those of students who were not exposed to said games. The first section of the article talks about the purpose and justification of the investigation. The review of literature looks at tabletop role playing games as interactive narrative and ties their content to current ESL acquisition theory. The final part of the article talks about the methodology used and presents the findings and conclusions. The findings suggest that using tabletop role playing games in the ESL classroom may enhance student academic performance. These results have implications especially for language teachers and curriculum designers. Suggestions on further studies are to investigate the effects of tabletop role playing games on students.

Wittgenstein’s “grammatical method” analyzes multiple uses of language across contexts of use, with the aim of identifying differences and dissolving conceptual confusion. This paper uses Wittgenstein’s method to undermine Jorge L. A. Garcia’s volitional account of racism. Garcia claims that his theory accommodates the ordinary use of terms like “racist belief.” However, he did not consider whether such terms might have multiple uses/meanings. My paper identifies three uses of “racist belief” that escape Garcia’s analysis. Consequently, philosophers should take Wittgenstein’s advice to heart: do not assume that target-terms have a single use, but “look and see” whether they do.

The article is available here: https://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=soctheorpract&id=soctheorpract_2017_0999_2_8_3

Verbal reasoning game for children. Instructions:
One word in each sentence is wrong. Which one? Rearrange the letters to form the correct word. This is an anagram exercise which is suitable for most children aged 10 or 11 (Primary School).
Also useful as a warm-up exercise.
Alternatively, treat each sentence as a proof reading exercise.

Mes mots résonnent dans ma tête et vibrent comme une corde
à l’intérieur d’un piano pour former la mélodie de ma pensée.
D’où me viennent-ils ? De quoi sont-ils l’écho ? Sont-ils bien à moi
ou suis-je livré à eux ? M’appartiennent-ils ou me possèdent-ils
comme une voix qui ne serait pas la mienne ? Pour comprendre
d’où vient la musique, j’aimerais simplement soulever le couvercle
et voir la mécanique à l’oeuvre : faculté d’abstraction, modèle
de catégorisation, représentation mentale, fonction symbolique.
Je me penche sur la question, mais l’origine de ma parole reste
obscure. Je n’arrive pas à comprendre comment j’ai appris à
jouer de mes mots.
Le mystère s’éclaircit quand on filme comment le langage passe
d’une génération à l’autre dans l’intimité de nos vies. C’est en
effet des adultes que les enfants apprennent le sens de leurs mots.
Suivre l’enchaînement des jeux de langage par lesquels notre
langue maternelle devient un air connu procure une compréhension
de nos mots en donnant à voir les connexions de nos expressions
dans leur usage de tous les jours.
Tout bien réfléchi, le livre que vous avez entre les mains s’avère
n’être qu’un film. Le point de vue grammatical qu’il adopte n’a
pas d’autre ambition que de faire voir l’évidence que nous avons
toujours eue sous les yeux.

Here I bewail the slapdash and confusing way in which philosophers bandy about the word ‘incoherent’ (and ‘incoherence’ and ‘incoherently’).  To some it appears to mean: inconsistent; to others: pragmatically self-defeating; and to yet others: nonsensical, i.e. meaningless.  And often one is left guessing.

Even though there is an ineluctable abyss between Analytic and Continental Philosophy, it is not hard to argue that in his later works Ludwig Wittgenstein draws a closer philosophical attitude to the latter in terms of that the notions developed by him, such as language-games, family resemblances, meaning-in-use or rule-following, apart from his earlier nomological approach to language, leave room for various understandings and uncertainty in language. In the present work, my primary task is to concentrate on the close relationship between the Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblances and Gadamer’s idea of the fusion of horizons. But both philosophers, coincide in criticizing the authority of the Cartesian subject and private language and in allowing different understandings and uncertainty in language. Starting from this point of view, the linguistic turn, I will turn my remarks on the question how we learn color concepts since the structure of these concepts radically differs from the words that are able to subject to ostensive definitions. This last section will also offer a hermeneutical reading of Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblances.

W artykule niniejszym omawiam kilka klasycznych sposobów podejścia do problemu intencjonalności. Zaczynam od ogólnego naszkicowania problemu. Następnie przechodzę do konkretnych propozycji. Najpierw omówiona zostanie ogólna postać teorii wprowadzającej byty zapośredniczające typu Fregowskiego, następnie teoria przedmiotów intencjonalnych, tak jak występuje ona u Brentana, Ingardena czy Meinonga, a także w wersji operujących ontologią światów możliwych. Kolejnym podejściem będą „przysłówkowe” teorie treści mentalnych, teorie kauzalne, teorie funkcjonalistyczno-reprezentacjonalistyczne oraz teorie behawiorystyczno-funkcjonalistyczne, głoszące pierwszeństwo intencjonalności językowej. Artykuł pomyślany jest jako wprowadzenie do problematyki, i w związku z tym nie znajdą się w nim ani wszystkie istotne zagadki ani też pełne i precyzyjne wersje argumentacji. Starałem się jednak pokazać podstawowe problemy oraz wewnętrzną logikę preferowania tych czy innych podejść.

Thomas Nagel in ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ suggests that we don’t yet have much idea of how mental entities could be identical with physical ones (though he wisely stops short of accusing physicalists of not meaning ANYTHING WHATSOEVER by their identity-claims).  Colin McGinn goes further by suggesting that we may forever remain in this state of ignorance and incomprehension because of the inherent limitations of the human intellect.  I argue that the mere possibility that McGinn is right shows that it is over-hasty to conclude from philosophy’s failure to solve its problems that there must be something wrong with the problems themselves.  I also try to relate Nagel’s and McGinn’s view to David Stove’s response to philosophy’s apparent failure to make much progress.  He seems pessimistic about whether we will ever fully understand what is wrong with some philosophical claims.

This research aims at developing language games to teach speaking for the students joining English Study club as extra-curricular program at one of the State Islamic Senior High Schools in Gresik, Indonesia. It tries to develop the suitable speaking games and to investigate the students' responses toward the developed games. This research and development (R&D) is conducted by adapting Thiagarajan's (1974) model called 4D which consists of Defining, Designing, Developing, and Disseminating. The data were gained through interview and questionnaire, and observation checklist. The interview is conducted to study the front-end, specifying instructional objectives, and learner analysis. The questionnaire is employed to do task-concept analysis, to get the students' responses, and to submit the experts' appraisal. Meanwhile, the checklist is used to conduct development testing. Finally, the product of the study is in the form of a handbook entitled ―A Library of Games‖ which comprises 3 units and 50 kinds of games for teaching speaking skill.

This paper reconsiders understandings of Tractarian ethics by proposing to recontextualize it within the anthropological bent that runs through Wittgenstein’s philosophy and culminates in the Philosophical Investigations. More specifically, the claim is that this recontextualizing of the Tractarian vision of value, ethical propositions as nonsense, and ethics as transcendental shows how these are actually instantiated within the anthropological frame of Wittgenstein’s vision of meaning as use, language-games, rule-following, and forms of life from Philosophical Grammar to Philosophical Investigations. The significance of the paper is that it offers a study of Wittgenstein’s moral thought positioned between traditionalist and resolute readings which offers the possibility of new avenues of dialogue with other moral philosophers. (This is a shortened version of the paper submitted to the International Ludwig Wittgenstein Symposium. That paper is a revision of the author's BA thesis.)

La résilience est une notion qui connaît un succès important, en particulier depuis son entrée dans le champ de la santé mentale. Objet de controverses, elle reste cependant peu étudiée par les sciences sociales. Cet article vise à proposer une analyse des usages de la résilience à partir d’une part des ouvrages de Boris Cyrulnik et d’autre part des réactions que ses écrits ont pu susciter chez les lecteurs cherchant à se mesurer à l’aune de la notion. En l’étudiant comme une attitude face à la contingence, l’article montre d’abord comment la résilience est utilisée pour qualifier et évaluer le malheur et la réaction à celui-ci. Il questionne ensuite les raisons du succès de cette façon de réagir au malheur qui valorise l’action au détriment de la passion, en étudiant son inscription dans avec un contexte social et culturel où l’autonomie individuelle est devenue une attente commune.

This article offers a social science analysis of the resilience concept's success and common sense uses. Based on a sample of letters from the readers of the French author Boris Cyrulnik's self-help bestsellers , the article first depicts the characteristics of the attitude of the letters' authors towards Cyrulnik and what they expect from him. Second, it proposes to understand resilience as a language game used to communicate about suffering and then analyses why certain readers feel resilient while others don't. It concludes that this way of reacting to adversity (i. e., tapping one's inner resources, never giving up) is particularly desirable in a context where autonomy has become more prestigious. «Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker»: eine soziologische Analyse der Verwendungen des Konzept der Resilienz. Der Fall von Boris Cyrulniks Lesern Zusammenfassung: Der vorliegende Artikel analysiert sozialwissenschaflich die alltägliche Verwendung des Konzept der Resilienz. Basierend auf einer Stichprobe von Briefen der Leser der Selbsthilfe-Bestseller des französischen Autors Boris Cyrulnik zeigt der Artikel erstens, welche Einstellungen die Verfasser der Briefe gegenüber Cyrulnik haben und was sie von ihm erwarten. Zweitens regt der Artikel an, Resilienz als ein Sprachspiel zu verstehen um über Leiden zu sprechen und analysiert dann wieso sich gewisse Leser resilient fühlen und andere nicht. Der Artikel folgert, dass diese Reaktionsstrategie gegenüber Widrigkeiten (die inneren Ressourcen anzuzapfen, nie aufzugeben) in einem Kontext in dem individuelle Autonomie an Prestige gewinnt, besonders wünschenswert ist. Schlüsselwörter: Resilienz, Selbsthilfebücher, Autonomie, Leiden, Sprachspiele « Tout ce qui ne me tue pas me rend plus fort » : une analyse sociologique des usages du concept de résilience. Le cas des lecteurs de Boris Cyrulnik

In this paper, we present the ongoing development of CALLIG – a web system that uses improvisation games in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). Improvisation games are structured activities with built-in constraints where improvisers are asked to generate a lot of different ideas and weave a diverse range of elements into a sensible narrative spontaneously. This paper discusses how computer-based language games can be created combining improvisation elements and language technology. In contrast with traditional language exercises, improvisational language games are open and unpredictable. CALLIG encourages spontaneity and witty language use. It also provides opportunities for collecting useful data for many NLP applications.

This article explores personhood and its constitution within the backdrop of the rules of the infrastructures in Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. By choosing human clones as the oppressed, Ishiguro challenges humanistic legacies of personhood at deep and complex levels, and thus locates the discrimination not in the marked bodies but rules and language-games that go beyond such discernable differences. Never Let Me Go aims to unmask the fallacious definitions that establish the bedrocks of the modernized forms of life. Drawing upon Wittgenstein's notions of rules, meaning, and language-games and complementing them with Marya Schechtman's mapping of self-constitution in the person-space, this article claims that the features of personhood are not to be found in the contents of the body, but within the forms defined by the rules of the infrastructure of personhood. NLMG exposes the deception of the forms that create the illusion of content in the most foundational norms and pra...

The aim of this contribution is to emphasize the stage as a paradigm to look more closely at Wittgenstein’s method. The reversibility between language games and theatrical performances allows us here to explore the human voice in three steps : the stage enables to enlighten the expressiveness of human language, to display the heuristic dimension of language games and the plasticity of the inner/outer distinction.

This article explores personhood and its constitution within the backdrop of the rules of the infrastructures in Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. By choosing human clones as the oppressed, Ishiguro challenges humanistic legacies of personhood at deep and complex levels, and thus locates the discrimination not in the marked bodies but rules and language-games that go beyond such discernable differences. Never Let Me Go aims to unmask the fallacious definitions that establish the bedrocks of the modernized forms of life. Drawing upon Wittgenstein's notions of rules, meaning, and language-games and complementing them with Marya Schechtman's mapping of self-constitution in the person-space, this article claims that the features of personhood are not to be found in the contents of the body, but within the forms defined by the rules of the infrastructure of personhood. NLMG exposes the deception of the forms that create the illusion of content in the most foundational norms and practices of humanistic discourse.

The X Game of Language: Decrypting Heidegger’s Ready to Hand
by Ricardo Sanín Restrepo • 20 October 2018

Cuevas de las Manos (CC BY-SA 3.0 Src)

We feel as if we had to repair a torn spider’s
web with our fingers.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein (PI, 106)

Description of the game
Imagine that tomorrow every single written sign of every written language is transformed into the letter “x” (all scripts become the extensive combination of x´s). This includes all written words everywhere. The x “changeling” also applies to every written sign ever recorded. A total collapse of the written word. All written signs disappear but not our ability to remember them and their connection to sound (phonetics), we have no trouble remembering and speaking our name, our address, or the position of every single letter on a keyboard; in short, the memory of the written word remains intact. If we type the letter r on the old keyboard, a letter x would appear. A total collapse of the written word. As if everything ever written was written in the sand and the “Great Wave of Kanagawa” washed it all away in an instant.

Chapter on long-standing Native Hawaiian struggles for land and place in a US state legal system of contract law that disallows claims from symbolic sources like stories, poems, and myths as inferior "language" games.  These are the language forms claiming the connection of the Hawaiian chiefs to the ocean of shark gods and the native agricultural land of taro.

Traditional teaching and learning process referring to chalk-and-talk has become outdated in lessons. Teachers and learners are exposed to various task-based process to encourage a better participation among learners throughout the lesson. One of the most common and preferred teaching strategies is the use of language games to aid the teaching of various skills. The growth of digital learning tools and web applications being used in lessons taking the use of language games to a modern and advanced platform for learners to engage in lessons. The use of interesting and suitable materials along with the various approaches when conducting language games during lessons helps to cater to learners' needs and interests on the subject-matter especially in learning grammar in context. Many researches have used various language games to show its effects on learners ' knowledge, competency and motivation in learning a language, focusing on different targeted language areas and skills such as grammar. Therefore, this paper, based on reviews of past literature, will explore the use of language games in teaching and learning grammar, with reference to second language (ESL) learners. The findings indicate the beneficial usage of language games to teaching and learning of grammar in for ESL learners. This study is useful to prove the importance of language games as a teaching strategy to help enhance learners ' English grammar acquisition.

A partir d'une lecture de "Interpréter ou décrire" de Jean Bazin (Des clous dans la Joconde), on propose de soustraire les études littéraires à la mission qui devrait leur incomber d'interpréter le texte et d'y trouver la règle de son fonctionnement. Contre toute tendance à une spécialisation herméneutique des études littéraires, et à partir de la critique wittgensteinienne de la règle et du langage privé, il est loisible et judicieux de se contenter de décrire, en ethnographe ou en historien, les jeux de langage littéraires, tels qu'ils sont inscrits, au contact des jeux de langage ordinaires, dans des formes de vie. Le sens des actes littéraires n'apparaîtra pas moins.

In this paper, I discuss the similarity between Wittgenstein’s use of thought experiments and Relativity Theory. I begin with introducing Wittgenstein’s idea of “thought experiments” and a tentative classification of different kinds of thought experiments in Wittgenstein’s work. Then, after presenting a short recap of some remarks on the analogy between Wittgenstein’s point of view and Einstein’s, I suggest three analogies between the status of Wittgenstein’s mental experiments and Relativity theory: the topics of time dilation, the search for invariants, and the role of measuring tools in Special Relativity. This last point will help to better define Wittgenstein’s idea of description as the core of his philosophical enterprise.

Nous comparons les notions d’usage et de signification chez Ludwig Wittgenstein et Martin Heidegger. Contrairement à Jocelyn Benoist, nous pensons que l’analogie entre Wittgenstein et Heidegger n’est pas superficielle. La métaphysique de Heidegger explicite certaines présuppositions implicites de la seconde philosophie de Wittgenstein. Le pragmatisme naturaliste de Wittgenstein peut être théorisé. Notamment la notion wittgensteinienne d’usage, ou de jeu de langage, peut être comprise comme une pratique à la fois naturelle et normative régie par des règles.

There are passages in Wittgenstein where he compares his method to psychotherapy and one or two where he seems to suggest that the ‘patient’ has the last word on his ‘illness’ and ‘cure’.  This paper tries to take these seriously, especially in connexion with the idea that victims of philosophical confusion talk nonsense.

Philosophical accusations of talking nonsense made in a polemical spirit are bound to fail, since the only way one can effectively criticise another’s utterance is by attaching some meaning to it.  But if the other acknowledges the possibility that his puzzlement arises from his having been taken in by nonsense, then perhaps a co-operative investigation of this suggestion might be fruitful.  Indeed self-diagnosis ought in principle to be possible.  Ought it not to have happened at least once in the history of philosophy if philosophical nonsense has ever been exposed? 

But there are difficulties.  For example:
a) We must ask whether or not philosophical nonsense, when exposed as such, is supposed to lose all appearance of meaningfulness.  Either answer is problematic.
b) The acknowledged similarity of the methodology under investigation to that of psychoanalysis exposes it to many of the familiar objections to the methodology of psychoanalysis, especially those that draw attention to the misleading influence of suggestion by an authority-figure.
c) The proposal that relentless cross-questioning of a suspected nonsense-talker will eventually lead her to ‘dry up’ (if she really is talking nonsense) seems to involve a version of the so-called Socratic Fallacy.

This thesis undertakes a comparative study of the philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Ludwig Wittgenstein to elaborate three related problems in what in Deleuze calls, ‘transcendental empiricism’. The first chapter deals with the problematic of the dimension of sense in language, and culminates in a concept of the event. The second details the immanence of stupidity within thought and culminates in a practice of showing through silence. The third investigates the consequences of aesthetics for the theory of Ideas, and culminates in the concepts of ‘late intuition’ and of a form of life. Each argues for a new way of broaching the subject of realism.

Preview of the final chapter of the forthcoming bicentennial first release of the five-volume work that first coined and incomparably defined the notion of 'ideology'. If you're (ab)using that word regularly, as the Delphic oracle said - Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

.Taking as my starting-point Cora Diamond’s paper ‘What nonsense might be’, I extend her ‘austere’ conception of nonsense to encompass the talking of nonsense.  We need to focus on the utterer as well as the utterance.  This brings out how difficult it is going to be to DIAGNOSE the talking of (philosophical) nonsense, without falling into the ‘sense that is senseless’ trap (PI, I, 500).  It is not clear to what extent Diamond sees the problem here.  I suggest that if there is a way round the difficulty, it will involve adopting a therapeutic approach.

This paper presents an analysis of the Tagalog "G-word" ludling and addresses its implications in Tagalog phonology. It is shown that the G-word ludling is best analyzed as an iterative infixal ludling, where the sequence of-Vg-is inserted after every onset, rather than infixation of-gV-. Crucially, the G-word ludling reveals constraints on Tagalog phonology that otherwise would be difficult to observe: *C1VC1V, hiatus avoidance, and iambic stress. Furthermore, our analysis of the G-words raises an important issue in Tagalog phonology: the possible emergence of the disyllabic "perfect prosodic word" in the G-words. Taken together, this paper offers another case study supporting the important role that ludlings play in phonological theory.

Stereotypes and language games in television advertising—illustrated by an analysis of the Türk Telekom Mobile advertising

Advertising generally draws the attention of consumers to certain products. Its aim is to influence the behavior of consumers and to persuade them to buy the advertised products. To achieve this goal,
advertising has been persuasively designed and includes several sub-functions such as the ‘attention and interest activating function,’ the ‘reminder function,’ and the ‘attractiveness function.’ Moreover, advertisements often use stereotypical representational and assessment patterns in order to affect consumer mindsets. The aim of this article is to show how stereotypes and language games used by
advertisers fulfill desired advertising functions. The object of investigation is a Türk Telekom Mobile advertisement (2011) which aired on Turkish television channels in Germany and was primarily directed at Turks living in Germany or German Turks. The article consists of a theoretical section, which gives an overview of the functions of advertising language and stereotypes, and an applied section, in which the Türk Telekom Mobile advertisement is analyzed in terms of linguistic
and filmic aspects. In the third section, the results of the analysis are evaluated. The analysis shows how different cultures, genders, and themes are presented through different stereotypes and how cultural, genre-specific, and linguistic stereotypes, as well as language games, can be effectively employed to create a compelling advertisement.

https://doi.org/10.17875/gup2018-1086

The most popular form of poetry in Dhivehi (an Indo-Aryan language of the Maldives) before the twentieth century, raivaru, utilizes the scrambling of syllables as a poetic device. Scrambling harnesses processes typically associated with language games. Yet, while players of language games transform words according to rigid processes, Maldivian poets scramble syllables in response to six poetic constraints. Two broad forms of scrambling may be distinguished: intraword vs. long-distance. One factor that may influence the poet's decision to scramble syllables in particular ways is the recitation melody.

This paper proposes the notions of “antinomies”, “balance between opposites” (Pierre-Joseph Proudhon), and “analogies” (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Paul Ricoeur and Jean-Claude Passeron), as well as some crosswise instruments of sociology in dialogue with philosophy’s “game of knowledge”. Using these tools, the three dimensions of sociology’s
“game of knowledge” are then explored: the ontological, epistemological and theoretical. This reflexive and forward-looking research is part of current efforts to reconstruct global frames in social sciences, different from the totalizing endeavors but without yielding to “postmodern” fragmentation.

The conference is dedicated to Wittgenstein's understanding of culture and to "the missing part of the Tractatus" that Wittgenstein did not write down to mark the centenary of the treatise, which was first released in 1921. One of the questions that will interest us is the connection between the first and the second part of the book and what Wittgenstein has to tell us about the meaning of life and the world we inhabit.

This essay is an attempt at thinking through Wittgenstein's philosophy in order to clarify some aspects of what people call "religion." Central to it is an exploration of the polarity between belief and practice, and an attempt to reframe that polarity in terms of the mutually interconnected processes of being and learning. It seeks to address the old question of persuadibility, of what makes for conviction and effective critique, particularly in relation to faith in God and in 'another world.' It then attempts to apply Wittgenstein's insights to fundamental disagreements in the Islamic tradition over the proper understanding of apparently contradictory representations of God in the Qur'an. Finally, it takes up the question of what Wittgenstein called "the craving for generality," and thus the part abstraction plays in the progressive thrust of our secular, capitalist form of life.
تستعين هذه الدراسة بفلسفة فتغنشتاين للنظر في الدين وتوضيح بعض جوانبه، وهي
استكشاف للتقاطب بين الاعـتـقـاد والـمـمـارسـة، ومـحـاولـة إلعـادة تأطير ذلـك التقاطب باعتباره
عمليتين متشابكتين من الكينونة والتعلم. وتسعى الـدراسـة إلـى مقاربة الإقناعية، وهـي مسألة
قديمة تتعلق بالإيمان والنقد الفعال، وبخاصة الإيمان بالله، وبوجود »عالم آخر«. ثم تحاول
تـطـبـيـق رؤى فـتـغـنـشـتـايـن عـلـى خـلافـات أسـاسـيـة فـي الـتـقـلـيـد الـخـطـابـي الإسـامـي حــول الـفـهـم
الصحيح لصفات الله وأسمائه المتعارضة في ظاهرها. وفي النهاية، تتناول الدراسة ما يسميه
فتغنشتاين »الرغبة في التعميم«، ومن ثم الدور الذي يؤديه التجريد في القوة التقدمية الدافعة
لشكل حياتنا العلماني الرأسمالي.
كلمات مفتاحية: الأسباب الدينية، التقليد، الممارسة، التجريد، العلماني.