Wittgenstein and myths of meaning

Ludwig Wittgenstein's most renowned statement on the topic of meaning occurs in the Philosophical Investigations: "...the meaning of a word is its use in the language...." This can look like---and is often taken to be---the beginnings of a theory of meaning. Yet Wittgenstein rejected all philosophical theories, so how ought we to understand what he has offered?;In the first chapter of my dissertation, I survey interpretations of Wittgenstein's remarks on meaning. There is no consensus. In my second and third chapters, I turn to the Investigations itself and show how Wittgenstein's remarks on meaning do not lead towards a theory of meaning. An important theme of the opening (§§ 1--43) of the Investigations is Wittgenstein's resistance to providing answers to questions about meaning. Later (§§ 511--568), he emphasizes that we have reasons for using words as we ordinarily do and that these are important when we make claims about the meanings of our words.;My fourth chapter begins with a survey of Wittgenstein's work, 1932--1936. While different from the later Investigations, this work does nonetheless anticipate some of its key tendencies. Further, an analysis of the various compositional stages of the Investigations (1936--1945) serves to confirm my reading. In the final chapter, I evaluate interpretations by Garth Hallett and by P. M. S. Hacker, which each ultimately fail by ascribing to Wittgenstein too substantial a view of meaning.