1 Dewey, Wittgenstein, and Linguistic Instrumentalism My paper ...

“language is primarily a mode of action” (LW 1: 160). Dewey means social action of
which teaching is a fine example. Elsewhere, Wittgenstein writes, “words are deeds”
(CV 46). The word “deed” is especially cordial for pragmatists (pragma in ancient Greek
meant “deed”). Below, I will use words like action, activity, deed, operation, and
practice interchangeably with behavior. 11
Wittgenstein and Dewey (Heidegger as well) assert the primacy of social practice
as the context for linguistic practice. Wittgenstein maintains that “the term ‘language-
game’ is meant to bring into prom inence the fact that the speaking of language is part of
an activity, or of a form of life” (PI § 23). Meanwhile, Dewey insists, “we have to be able
to re-state the whole social context which alone supplies the meaning” (LW 1: 160).
Most philosophers are familiar with what we might call the builders' language-game
early in the Investigations. In this game, language enables communication between a
builder A and an assistant B. They are building with blocks, pillars, slabs, and beams. B
has to pass the materials in the order in which A needs them (PI § 2). One possible
move in this game involves the request: “Bring me a slab” (PI § 19 ff.). Now compare
Wittgenstein’s slab game to the following example of what we might call Dewey’s
flower game:
A requests B to bring him something, to which A points, say a flower. There is an
original mechanism by which B may react to A's movement in pointing. But
natively such a reaction is to the movement, not to the pointing, not to the object
pointed out. But B learns that the movement is a pointing; he responds to it not in
itself, but as an index of something else. His response is transferred from A's
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