Aravind Sesagiri Raamkumar

Wittgenstein’s Language-game and Ontology in

Linked Data

Who is Ludwig Wittgenstein?Why is Wittgenstein’s work part of this

presentationOverview of Wittgenstein’s major worksLanguage-game concept and its usesIntroduction to Linked Data and OntologyRelationship between Language-games and

OntologyDiscussion

Agenda

Austrian-English 20th century philosopher (1889 – 1951)

Regarded as one of the most influential philosophers of the 2oth century

Main Themes: Language and Mathematics

Main Works: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Philosophical Investigations

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Fought in World War I &

II

Worked as a

teacher for

“The main job of Philosophy lies in clarifying concepts”

Coz it was suggested by

Also because I wanted to explore the philosophical origins of Linked Data particularly Ontologies

Possibly in trying to critique it!

Why Wittgenstein?

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)

Rationalistic ThinkingDeconstructing

LanguageCriticizes his own mentor Bertrand

RussellMain Topics: Language

and Picture theory, Ethics

Philosophical Investigations (1953)Pragmatic ThinkingUnderstanding LanguageCriticizes St Augustine and DescartesMain Topics: Language-game, Private languages, Family Resemblance, Rules

Wittgenstein’s Major Works

LANGUAGE

Earlier Wittgenstein on Language

Language

Sentences Propositions

Words

True False

Elemental Logical

Propositions

Mutually exclusive

Propositions Propositions

Elemental Logical

Propositions

John is a bachelor

John is a manJohn is

unmarried

Logical Proposition

Logical Proposition

Question: What is the source for these propositions?

Picture and its various forms

vs

Logical Picture

Thought

Drawing

Motion

Symbolicor

Physical

Refuting St.Augustine on his assumptions about Language1) Language is uniform 2) The meaning of words are taught by means of

ostentation 3) All words have object as their meaning

Buildup to Language-game

Wittgenstein’s examples for language-games

Builders game Children’s primitive language

Giving orders and obeying them

Language has different application areas

Different language-games in different areas

Different types of sentences – Commands, Assertions, Questions and so on…

“Language is an activity pursued by us, one with purpose”

Why the term ‘language-game’? -> Family Resemblance

GAMESLANGUAGE

Different classifications of language-game 1) Pure and impure language-games (George

Pitcher) Pure -> Only wordsImpure -> Non-linguistic activities activities are

essential Refuted!

2) Primary and Secondary Language games (Hintikkas) Primary - Essential and self-sufficient language gamesSeconadary - Parasitic on primary language-games

Imagine “cause and effect” situations

Language-games mined…

Language-games and rulesRules are not necessary for all language games

Formal vs Factual aspect of language

Language-games and forms of life"The basic form of language-game is the one that we act“

Forms of life can refer to activityA form of life is constitutive of the meaning or life of signs.Its non-linguistic form gives linguistics signs a place in the

“marketplace”

Normative nature of language-gamesNot bothered about the symbols but the grammar of

expression and its intention

Language games and its associations

To tackle and solve language related philosophical problems – “Tool for deconstructing language”

To refute the claim that we learn meanings of words by their definition but by their usage – “Practice makes a man perfect”

To construct “Objects of comparison” to look at language

To showcase the essentiality of language in our daily lives – “a conclusive remark”

Purpose of language-games

Therefore….

Language-games

Forms of life

Non-linguistic activities

Linguistic expressio

ns

Rules

Grammatical

Surveyability

Time-out from ‘out of box’

Artificial Intelligence“We are going to make the computer intelligent enough to do all our work”

Semantic Web“We are going to make the computers understand real world objects so that they really answer our search queries

Linked Data“Let’s just link the data inside the documents”

Here comes Linked Data…

Tacit knowledgeand machines?

Linked Data contd…son of

lives inco-authored

co-authored

born in

of type

Web of Documents

Web of Data

Ontologies ?

Ontology

model the communication inside a particular domain

model the domain itself

ponders about

is friends

with

is at odds with

fears

Different Types of Ontologies?

FOAF

Open Graph Protocol

Language-games and Ontologies

1) Ontology (or vocabulary) of a particular domain comprises of one or more language games used in that domain

2) The class hierarchy in ontologies are similar to the language deconstruction from TLP – slight digression from lang-games

3) The rules in language games are similar to the rules that can be built on top of ontologies to make inferences

4) Since Language games operate at a abstract level, they can be used to compare two linguistic activities similarly ontologies help in comparing domains

5) Language games in some sense, can be seen to represent our discussions in natural languages through formal language, Ontologies do the same, since machines can understand only formal languages

Language-game and Ontology- any similarities? (Discussion)

Major Issues Who decides the rules? Universality aspect Issue with currency Truth aspect Issue with homonyms in a conversation Rules or certain parts of them can be

only partially explicated -Case for intransitive understanding

Verbal explication of rules may lead to incorrect interpretation (Johannessen)

Tacit knowledge articulation? Issue with completeness and autonomy

Common Issues with both Language-games and Ontologies (Discussion)

Minor Issues Expert vs Amateur modeling Versioning issue How can computers ‘practice’ which is

the most important thing in rule following?

German to English translation issue with Wittgenstein’s writing – Possible!

(Ondrej) mentions the problems associated with constructing language-games in literature meaning ontologies constructed over literature may not be the best option

Another Wittgenstein needed to philosophize about human-computer communication?

Language is very important in life as its mastery is related to :- Understanding our own emotions (recognition), Playing a part in a team, convey things meaningfully and Finally in deciding the rules of the game!

Deciding the boundary of language-game might be difficult with the interwoven nature of current realities How granular and how expansive can a language-game

be?

Echoing other scholar’s opinion that language games are one of the best tools in solving philosophical problems related to language

Why isn’t “Communication” thought of being an essential characteristic of language?

Personal Insights (Discussion)

End of the presentation language-game!

Lets head over to the post-presentation Q&A language-game

Appendix…

Preparatory studies for future regularization of language*

Purporting a new theory for language

Constructing language models with essential (common) characteristics

Implying games that are just for lollygagging

What language-games don’t imply

Aaberge, T. (2007). The Semantic Web in a philosophical perspective. From The ALWS Archives: A Selection Of Papers From The International Wittgenstein Symposia In Kirchberg Am Wechsel, 0. Retrieved from http://wab.uib.no/ojs/agora-alws/article/view/953/602

Aaberge, T., & Akerkar, R. (2012). Ontology and Ontology Construction: Background and Practices. IJCSA, 9(2), 32–41.

Beran, O. (2007). Language games of literature. From The ALWS Archives: A Selection Of Papers From The International Wittgenstein Symposia In Kirchberg Am Wechsel, 0. Retrieved from http://wab.uib.no/ojs/agora-alws/article/view/961

Bienert, R. F. (1996). Wittgenstein's concept of a language-game. University of Toronto (Canada)). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, , 327 p. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/304328297?accountid=12665. (304328297)

Frohmann, B. (2004). Deflating Information: From Science Studies To Documentation. University of Toronto Press. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=rQhgnaGsohsC

Garrett, B. (2001). Wittgenstein's Private Language Arguments. From The ALWS Archives: A Selection Of Papers From The International Wittgenstein Symposia In Kirchberg Am Wechsel, 0. Retrieved from http://wab.uib.no/ojs/agora-alws/article/view/815/328

Johannessen, Kjell S. (1992): "Language, Computer Sciences and Tacit Knowledge". In: Wittgenstein and Contemporary Theories of Language. Edited by Paul Henry and Arild Utaker. Working Papers from the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen 5. pp. 28-44.

Tejedor, C. (2011). Starting with Wittgenstein. Bloomsbury. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=ZrHoHgAACAAJ

Zöllner-Weber, A. (2007). Utilizing OWL for Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. From The ALWS Archives: A Selection Of Papers From The International Wittgenstein Symposia In Kirchberg Am Wechsel, 0. Retrieved from http://wab.uib.no/ojs/agora-alws/article/view/959

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