Page 28 - Critical and Cultural Theory

MEANING
less ones are pseudopropositions - quite typical of philosophy -
that appear well-formed but are not actually so. Meaningful
propositions are divided into atomic and molecular ones. Atomic
propositions are elementary statements whose meanings are
directly related to the world and cannot be analysed (i.e. trans-
formed into something more basic still). An atomic proposition
pictures a possible state of affairs: if this obtains, the proposition
is meaningful and if it does not, the proposition is meaningless.
Molecular propositions are compounds of atomic propositions
and can be broken down into their constituents. A proposition
such as The sun is the centre of the universe' could be described
as atomic: it pictures an elementary state of affairs. A proposition
such as 'We owe the discovery that the sun, not the earth, is the
centre of the universe to the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Coperni-
cus' is molecular. It can be broken down into atomic units that
picture various states of affairs: 1. 'Nicolaus Copernicus was a
Polish astronomer'; 2. 'He discovered that the sun is the centre of
the universe'; 3. 'The earth is not the centre of the universe'; and
so on.
In his later writings, Wittgenstein questions quite radically the
value of atomic propositions by arguing that they are not neces-
sary to meaningful communication. He no longer maintains that a
sentence must have a definite sense. Meanings, in other words, can
be blurred and still function as meanings. In Philosophical Investi-
gations (1953), Wittgenstein argues that it is pointless to look for
the essence of meaning, since linguistic phenomena do not share
universal principles. Language takes many forms. In each, the
same words may be used. However, different uses of the same
word do not make the word itself the same in all forms of langua-
ge.Wittgenstein explains this by recourse to the idea of family
resemblances. Words uniform in appearance are not uniform in
application: only certain overlapping traits (comparable to the
ones joining members of the same family) connect their different
usages. All we have is a multiplicity of diverse and interacting
language games, each governed by specific rules and linked - by
analogy - to other games (Wittgenstein 1973). In this perspective,
words and meanings are not, ultimately, judged according to their
correctness or incorrectness but according to their usefulness.
Meaning is the product of contingent situations.
The contingency of meaning constitutes a major aspect of the

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