Experiencing words, secondary meaning and poetry. About the idea of a properly human language in Wittgenstein

Abstract

Between 1946 and 1949, having concluded his long-term work on the fi rst part of Philosophical Investigations (1929-1945), Wittgenstein repeatedly comes to deal with topics related to two notions he coined as «experience of a word» (Worterlebnis) and «secondary meaning» (sekundäre Bedeutung). The present article has the following objectives: to expose, distinguish and interrelate the expressions «experience of a word» (or «experience of meaning») and «secondary meaning» (sections 2, 3 and 4); to question a dominant interpretation according to which the so called «meaning-blindness» (Bedeutungsblindheit) amounts to the incapacity to perceive the subtleties of poetic language and to suggest alternatively that the author is pointing to the idea of a specifi cally human language (sections 5 and 6); to clarify the relation between secondary meaning and metaphor (section 7); and to explain what can all this mean with respect to poetry as a language game (section 8).