Nedorozumění

The text concerns the question of misunderstanding in the context of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Misunderstanding is analysed in the first place as a language-game situation having “external criteria” – incapacity to adopt the whole habitus (“life-form”) of someone who is a stranger to me, or to orientate in it. A detailed attention is paid to the importance of the emancipation of “external” criteria with respect to “inner” process understood as accessible only indirectly, with difficulty, or not at all. A particular problem is then represented by the language game of lying/pretending, where the situation of misunderstanding is intentionally produced. The philosophical analysis of the concept “pretending” (linking it to its outer criteria – detectability) is shown to contradict the basic motivation usually connected with the language game of pretending (to block the correct understanding).