THE MEANING OF INTENTIONAL EXPRESSIONS IN WITTGENSTEINS LATER PHILOSOPHY

The issue of intentionality occurs in Wittgenstein's later philosophy in at least two contexts. In the first one, the author of the 'Philosophical Investigations' approaches the classical problem of thoughts referring to reality, showing that the relationship between thought and reality is a matter of grammar. The second context concerns the concept of intention connected with human actions, both verbal and nonverbal. According to Wittgenstein intention is not a psychological or mentalistic category, since it is 'embedded in its situation, in human customs and institutions'. On the basis of 'On Certainty' the authoress considers the issue of the relation between the philosophical intention of making knowledge claims and the rules of epistemic language games. On the basis of Moore-type propositions (the scheme: 'I know that p'), Wittgenstein points out the existence of a hiatus between how Moore wants to use an expression, i.e. what he wants to say, and how he can use it, i.e. what can meaningfully be said in given circumstances. Considerations on this subject can be formulated as the issue of how the feature of intentionality is related to the meaningfulness of expressions.