Today’s blog is my concluding blog on career through the lens of philosophers series and although not intentionally planned, links appropriately with the previous three perspectives on questioning, types of assumptions, knowledge, fairness and conditions to equal access and our final blog on language, its logic, use and meaning.
Although these philosophers (Socrates, Kant, Rawls and Wittgenstein) had distinctly different perspectives, they all strived to achieve genuine understanding of self, knowledge (particularly its limits) and co-existing in environments of conflict and uncertainty
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889), Vienna, Austria
Wittgenstein was a truly fascinating thinker within the realms of linguistics and language, dedicating his philosophy career to usage and meaning of language.
Wittgenstein spent his years in and out of academics, publishing only one complete work, Tractatus, and then spending the second half of his life disagreeing with it. The latter, Philosophical Investigations was incomplete and posthumously published because of his penchant for perfection.
“Puzzles arise because of misuse of language”
Early work – Tractatus: language, logic and limits
Wittgenstein’s primary purpose in Tractatus was to limit the role of Philosophy by arguing that there are no philosophical problems just linguistic ones and in this way both define and limit language.
Wittgenstein saw language in a logical sense with clear logical rules where confusion only arises when one confuses their sentences or cannot see their language. In this latter sense Wittgenstein discouraged us from even talking about them.
Content such as ethics, religion and the problems of life lie outside the world – outside the realm of facts and their constituent state of affairs – nothing can be said about them…they fall into nonsense.
He regarded propositions of language as final and authority, whereas sentences about propositions can be numerous. Secondly, that propositions consist of a subject and a predicate, and that language and the world connect with picturing.
This pictorial form is important to understanding Tractatus; regarding a picture being made up of correlating elements that in its complete form are laid against reality like a ruler, claiming that we cannot use language to talk about language because they are not structural propositions – consequently, feelings from the senses, such as pain, also fall into this category.
“The lure of logical (calculous) for language is appealing but ultimately flawed”
Tractatus was a bold and original attempt at defining the limits on language but suffered flaws. It ignored other usages of language such as questions and made universal assumptions about names and facts. Wittgenstein himself understood the paradoxical nature of Tractatus by regarding that understanding of it must include using nonsense language that he referred to as using a ladder and then discarding it. Because Wittgenstein said anything that wasn’t an object or picture wasn’t able to be spoken about Tractatus lacked illustrative examples.
Later Work: language games and Philosophical Investigations
Wittgenstein spent the second half of his life trying to disprove much of the Tractatus by advocating that there is no single logic to language and that it is used in multiple different ways and practices, emphasising the importance of meaning and use.
“The meaning of a statement is its method of verification“
According to later Wittgenstein, what constitutes the rules of language are ultimately its collective use, which in itself require agreement, custom and training in order to be established and that private or individual language cannot exist because of this. The former consequently becomes a form of life that is embedded within a community, its learning, outlook, assumptions and practices. These community languages are referred to by Wittgenstein as language games.
Sensations and emotions
Although Wittgenstein had acknowledged their existence he considered them beyond the reach of language and provided illustrations. Even within language games it is impossible to use words like doubt or pain in a truly precise sense, attributing them to a primitive sensation inappropriately put into words (substratum or scaffolding of our ordinary beliefs).
Meaning and use are also considered differently in Investigations – i.e. we may know the meaning of a word without usage or vice versa and that language games rely heavily on speech-acts in that intention and expression are used to determine meaning.
“If I am in pain, only I truly know whether I am really in pain”
As we can see, Wittgenstein, made a turn in the opposite direction between Tractatus and Investigations; going from a single unitary theory of language based on logic and underlying mathematical principles to an understanding (I would call it an appreciation) for a plethora of localised forms of language based on agreement from community to community.
Sadly, Wittgenstein died before fully completing Investigations.
Relevance and Value to Careers Practice
Language and the impossible?
One element of Tractatus that struct me immediately after a careers appointment is one of the most common questions we are asked as practitioners: tell me what career I can or should do?
Let’s not focus too much on the definitions of the question at this point. Let’s imagine they are asking what job would be a good match for them.
We don’t need Wittgenstein to tell us that this is impossible (and unethical) to answer. We also know our training instructs us to collaborate with the client by using tools and questions to get closer to an answer using a rational approach to get there. I also imagine Wittgenstein would say desires are not objects and so can’t be defined.
This is an apt point to make and elicits thoughts of the man-made context of employment and the almost pre-ordained expectation that many clients have to find the one. Can you imagine one of Genghis Khan’s generals putting in his notice to become an HR Officer, as a natural calling?
Back to practice; employment and types of occupations are dependent on context and a particular prefix of time on the one hand, with the circumstances, characteristics and attributes of the person on the other. Resultantly, making the best decision in response to the said question (based on something we cannot see or prove) is achievable, making the perfect decision is impossible.
Learning language and good career practice?
I find this part of my role as a practitioner fascinating and takes us full circle to my thoughts on careers through the lens of Socrates. In order to make any conversation with conclusions or valid instruction one must ensure that the practitioner and client understand each other. Contracting is the first point to make sure each party has a mutual understanding of language and purpose. Going back to our previous question on impossible thinking, before venturing beyond contracting it would be necessary to establish the meanings of:
- Career?
- I can do?
- Should I do?
Wittgenstein himself says that agreement and taking action on the agreement of a particular language game are essential. Last week during an appointment a client used the word ‘proper’ to describe employment expectations. I explored the meaning of proper further and was fascinated to hear conflicting definitions by: the client, the client’s peers; and, the client’s parents, all with clearly different meanings and influences. How can a decision be made based on at least three conflicting definitions?
In the wider context its also important to consider that other related parties involved in career decision-making will have their language games too, particularly in relation to definitions, concepts, terminology, use and expression. This will definitely include recruiters, recruitment techniques, occupational languages and cultures, family, peers, academics, practically everyone!
Creating new language?
To my mind, careers practitioners actively interpret the language games of others, mediate and where necessary create new language games with others in the pursuance of progress.
Wittgenstein spoke about the importance of relativity and language game understanding, i.e. enough commonalities to understand and make use. Going back to the student I met using ‘proper’, this was an opportunity for her to define it on her own terms and for me to understand enough to integrate it back into the appointment and to use as part of her next explorations.
Very early on in my practice I had a conversation with another more experienced practitioner on the meaning of words in career interventions, which in hindsight, gave me another dimension in own thinking. The discussion was about the importance of clarifying as much of language as possible (much of what I have discussed above) used in an appointment to decide whether to leave as unpractical, identify the meaning to use further or, create a new shared meaning.
One example in my recent practice that illustrates this was the use of the word ‘functions’ to replace and encompass skills, knowledge, experience, duties and requirements of an occupation. The students regarded the previous dichotomy as stifling the quality of answer and their ability to match a recollection with a number of name/labels. Resultantly, functions was a concept that we agreed on together for ease of learning and teaching immediately showing encouraging engagements.
In my mind, careers practitioners actively interpret the language games of others, mediate and where necessary create new language games with others in the pursuance of progress.
Personal thoughts on Wittgenstein’s explorations in language
Personally, I can resonate within aspects of Tractatus and particularly Investigations when it comes to understanding myself and world around me. Investigations has led me to conclude that language is dynamic, varied and changeable, much like Wittgenstein. Its strengths are its weaknesses when it comes to localising it and certainly still plays a big role in unnecessary exclusivity and bias when it comes to social mobility and access to opportunity. Consequently, meaning is as much within ourselves and our communities as it is outside them, like two tectonic plates perpetually colliding.
My reading of Wittgenstein and experience of language (games) provokes me speculate our roles are; if we are merely custodians of a small parcel of language that is used and recycled with different expressions and meanings. For me this throws into question the overall longevity of language (perhaps, even this blog), other than that the medium will prevail.
The journey: where ends meet beginnings and beginnings meet ends…
Whether you’ve stuck the course and read all four blogs or merely accessed this one, I do hope they’ve given you something to think about and an inspiration to draw your own connections between your practice, thoughts and the ideas of others, then returning back to your own again!
The point is, your connections don’t have to be about Philosophy anymore more than mine are about The Line of Duty. Every hypothesis is open to opinion and theory – career practice is no exception. In fact, the multi-disciplined nature of theorists and theoretical cornerstones that it draws from, I think, makes extrapolation a necessary part of what we do. This is because careerists seek application and explanation within the context of our field; most of the so-called classics one encounters during training are a strong indicator of this.
Paradoxically, we could say bodies of work that represent career are caught between seeking careerist; (a) authenticity; (b) identification; and, (c) diversification: for me this feels a healthy and natural state of things that creates a panacea of ideas and perspectives to explore. This is our strength in a way that other disciplines could not dream of for cries of academic heresy!
For these reasons it is important to stress that I am not trying to be right and the fleeting objective part of my self sees this work as taking risks, from a purists point of view downright mutilation of propositions that were not ever intended (or even thought of) to be used within the context of career practice. However, a broad concept of career incorporates concepts of self, congruence, understanding, observations, communities, life stages, life roles and reflexivity, inter alia – so, regardless of the writers’ intentions, any work about people has a relationship with the list above, intended or otherwise.
With that in mind, be conscious and willing to see the petri dish that we live in and its connections to our identities, our self-expressions and our inventiveness!
Picking pebbles on the beach...explorations in career practice! 