“Bring Me an Apple!”
Wittgenstein on Meaning, Customs and Training
Abstract
This paper explores remarks in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy that implicitly engage with contemporary reflections on habits, customs, and practices. It begins by presenting his idea that our diverse activities, ranging from following rules to playing chess, constitute customs that we learn through training, much like animals. It then traces how the theme of training emerges from the outset of the Philosophical Investigations, particularly in relation to meaning and language learning. As will be shown, for Wittgenstein, learning fundamentally rests not on understanding or explanation, but on training; yet training alone cannot fully account for how practices are learned. It is decisively shaped by both our individual and species-specific nature and is complemented by a ‘feeling’, refined through experience and education, that enables us to recognise when to modify, reinterpret, maintain, or abandon a learned rule, rather than follow it ‘blindly’.
Presentato: 31 Ottobre 2025 | Accettato: 05 Novembre 2025 | Pubblicato 10 Dicembre 2025 | Lingua: en
Keywords Meaning • Customs • Training • Wittgenstein • Learning
Copyright © 2025 Elena Valeri. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/Jolma/2723-9640/2025/02/009