Juegos de lenguaje sociales y palabras que dañan. Un estudio sobre la interpretación aplicada de la obra del segundo Wittgenstein

Résumé

The main aim of this paper is to study in depth an applied interpretation of the later Wittgenstein’s work, developed by José Medina, Miranda Fricker and Peg O’Connor, among other authors. They equate the concepts of “language-games” and “forms of life”, understand the rules of the games as social norms and place Wittgenstein’s arguments in the socio-political field. Specifically, José Medina coins an argument against social language-games, which is the social version of Wittgenstein’s argument against private language-games. Secondly, I will analyse two cases: the different denominations of the Huichol Indians and the uses of the inclusive plural proposed by some feminists. The main interest of these cases is that both groups propose private meanings or particular uses of some terms, which seems to be valid just for them. I will ask whether these uses can be understood as social language-games and thus be criticised by Medina’s arguments. This case analysis is addressed to evaluate the accuracy, validity and the limits of this interpretation of Wittgenstein’s work.