Abstract
Wittgenstein's `language-games' constitute a forceful post-Cartesian, anti-foundationalist account of linguistic activity with meaning sustained across a network of customary practices or forms of life. This is a fertile picture of language but it depends upon a rigid, synchronic notion of linguistic rules and fails to account for the developmental and transformative dimensions to language. I suggest that Wittgenstein is unable to connect past to present language-games. Despite an obvious proximity of Gadamer to Wittgenstein (on the pragmatics of language) I argue that Gadamer's work on tradition, with its hermeneutical understanding of the indeterminacy of linguistic rules, exposes Wittgenstein's apparent blindness to the historical aspect of language.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.