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be possible too: mankind has never played any games; once, however, someone invented a game which no one ever played?"

14. If words are deeds and language in general is to be thought of as an activity then one might well ask "What sort of activity is language?" But this is precisely the point of the language-game. Language is not simply one activity. It can do many things. "Review the multiplicity of language-games" for there are many (23). Consider that "the German word for meaning is derived from the German word for pointing" (PG, p.56). Now compare this with what is said in the Philosophical Investigations 43: "the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer." Sometimes. And sometimes not?

15. What about the problem with the language game of PI 2 as a 'complete primitive language'?" But "it is easy to imagine a language consisting only of orders and reports in battle. Or a language consisting only of questions and expressions for answering yes and no. And innumerable others" (19).

16. What does this do to language, I mean "Imagine a language-game..."? Consider this example from Remarks on Colour: "A language-game: Report whether a certain body is lighter or darker than another" (1). Does this tell us that language-games are isolated or isolateable? Are these language-games "hermetically sealed?" Are the games in section 1 above with the basketball hermetically sealed?

17. "Well, perhaps not but it does mean that all these different games have different rules and these are isolated in some sense." This is a similar complaint to the one in 100: "But still, it isn't a game, if there is some vagueness in the rules." What is difficult here is to walk the very thin line between two extremes: both of which have been read into Wittgenstein. Extreme 1: There are no rules and we can use language willy nilly as we please making up all sorts of games. Extreme 2: Language is rule governed and the only way we get by in the world of language, the only way we communicate, is by acknowledging our common base of rules.

18. Part of what is going on here is a pointing to what is really involved in the notion of following rules. "We misunderstand the role of the ideal in our language" (100).

19. That language-games have "blurred edges" is not a plea for clearing up these blurs. The problem seems to arise precisely when we do this (but this is not an argument for unclear thinking). "Is an indistinct photograph a picture of a person at all? Is it even always

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