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Full Idea
There are tools like a hammer used by one person, and there are tools like a steamship which require cooperative activity; words have been thought of too much on the model of the first sort of tool.
Gist of Idea
Language is more like a cooperative steamship than an individual hammer
Source
Hilary Putnam (Meaning and Reference [1973], p.156)
Book Ref
'Meaning and Reference', ed/tr. Moore,A.W. [OUP 1993], p.156
A Reaction
This clear thought strikes me as the most fruitful and sensible consequence of Wittgenstein's later ideas (as opposed to the relativistic 'language game' ideas). I am unconvinced that a private language is logically impossible, but it would be feeble.
| 9168 | I can't distinguish elm trees, but I mean by 'elm' the same set of trees as everybody else [Putnam] |
| 5817 | Language is more like a cooperative steamship than an individual hammer [Putnam] |
| 5818 | If water is H2O in the actual world, there is no possible world where it isn't H2O [Putnam] |
| 5819 | Conceivability is no proof of possibility [Putnam] |
| 9169 | A statement can be metaphysically necessary and epistemologically contingent [Putnam] |
| 5820 | 'Water' has an unnoticed indexical component, referring to stuff around here [Putnam] |
| 9170 | We need to recognise the contribution of society and of the world in determining reference [Putnam] |