Abstract

The two insights which Wittgenstein’s assertion provides and which I wish to suggest can make a fruitful contribution toward understanding art are, first, the world of art is an imposed world, and, second, artistic activity is related intrinsically or essentially to the world it imposes. If the limits of the language which I use does mean the limits of the world which I know, that language must impose itself upon this world. If the language which I use imposes itself upon my world this imposition must contribute to, or participate in, this world which I know because of it. That is, it cannot merely point to it, but actually must bring it about. It brings about what was not, and what could not be without it. Different languages must mean different impositions and different impositions must mean different worlds. It is because we have this language that we come to have this world, not before or after we use the language, but with and while we use it. The imposition is logical, not chronological. To assert that the limits of my language mean the limits of my world is to assert that language is not a coat or map which we make to fit some previously established limit but that it is an activity which is bound up with the development of these limits themselves.