He Fa on Wittgenstein

Imagine someone pointing at my clothes and saying, put that in there. I have the patch breast pocket of a rough-textured jacket, and the V-shaped opening of the knit beneath. What that is and where it should go may not be clear from one sentence alone. Wearing Wittgenstein's outfit, I want to leave an instruction that sounds simple beside an action not yet completed.

We readily attribute a failure to understand to the listener's slowness. Yet what is familiar to the speaker may be entirely new to the listener, and the same put it in can lead to different actions at a post office, in a kitchen or in a rehearsal room. Adding a definition sometimes helps; sometimes it merely explains unfamiliar words with more unfamiliar words. Trying it once often reveals the missing conditions more clearly.

He Fa's lowered eyelids make this pause look a little slow-witted, and I am willing to let it remain. Understanding need not announce itself with an immediate nod, and a question should not first pay the price of seeming unintelligent. What actually needs checking is whether both sides can identify where the previous step differed, rather than who repeats the original sentence faster. The jacket's rounded, blunt lapels suit this well: they do not urge every edge to be sharp.

Actions can also mislead. A demonstrator may do something once, and the learner may happen to copy the posture correctly without understanding when not to do it. An explanation therefore needs limits and counterexamples as well: what if the pocket is full, what if the object is too large, and who may take it out? Actual use gradually gives shape to a short sentence; there is no need to pretend the sentence contained every case from the start.

For now, I hold the unnamed small object in imagination and leave the breast pocket empty. Asking once more will not stop the world from working. Admitting that this step has not yet connected makes it more likely that the next put it in can actually be completed.