not be the linguistic creatures as we are, and without which we could not even make
sense of what we say. So what is the point of Cavell’s pointing to the possibility of
the disassociation between what we say and what we mean by what we say? Or
what is the point of ordinary language philosophers’wish to“strike us dumb”with
the annoying question of“What do you mean?”?
We mayfind some clue to Cavell’s answer from the following passage:
But Wittgenstein is also concerned with forms of words whose meaning cannot be elicited
in this (ordinary) way—words we sometimes have it at heart to say but whose meaning is
not secured by appealing to the way they are ordinarily (commonly) used, because there is
no ordinary use of them, in that sense. It is not, therefore, that I mean something other than
those words would ordinarily mean, but rather that what they mean, and whether they mean
anything, depends solely upon whether I am using them so as to make my meaning...In
general, Part II of the Philosophical Investigations moves into this region of meaning. It is a
region habitually occupied by poetry. (Cavell 1976 , p. 271)
Ordinary language philosophers tend to ask:“What doyoumean by the words you
use?”Of course, in response, I may be able to answer by saying what I meant by
referring to the way they are ordinarily used. But being interested in forms of words
in which there is a chasm between what we say and what we mean by it, ordinary
language philosophers raise the question,“What do you mean?,”in aspecificway,
to which the (ordinary) response I have just given is not quite on target—very much
in the way that Plato’s Meno, when he gives to Socrates all the answers he knows to
the question,“What is virtue?,”is thrown by Socrates. The passage tells us that the
question raised by ordinary language philosophers,“What do you mean?,”can be
read to have a certain force in it, which gives us the impression that we are
supposed to have ourownmeaning in saying the words we use, as if weought to
have a special relation to the words we say. This relation may be of a kind that
could not be replaced by the conventional relation between using the words and
meaning what they say, as if Iought tointerfere between the two to create my own
meaning. What is surprising is that Cavell says above that this demand is not meant
to make us create a meaning for the words that is somehow other than what they
ordinarily mean; there is no other meaning for them. The demand is rather meant to
lead us to see the condition of what makes the words mean what they ordinarily
mean or of what makes them mean anything at all: that is, to understand my
capability in using words to say what I mean. But what does this mean?
As Cavell makes clear in the passage above, the moment when Ifind a disas-
sociation between using words and meaning what they say, which is as much as to
strike me dumb, is the moment when I am called upon to make myownmeaning of
the words, by intervening between the words I use and the meaning they have. But,
as Cavell also says, this meaning that is my own creation cannot be other than what
they ordinarily mean; in other words, there cannot be a special or private meaning
that only I can attach to the words I use. Then what is theuseof making my own
meaning of the words? I think that, even if the meaning of the words I use remains
the same, my relation to the words will be changed when I am able to make my own
meaning of the words I use. In other words, I am forced to establish a new relation
5 A Role of Doing Philosophy in a Humanistic Approach to Teacher... 77