On the other hand we can perfectly well adopt the expression “this body feels pain”, and we shall then, just as usual, tell it to go to the doctor, to lie down, and even to remember that when the last time it had pains they were over in a day. “But wouldn't this form of expression at least be an indirect one?” ‒ ‒ ‒ Is it using an indirect expression when we say “Write ‘3’ for ‘x’ in this formula” instead of “Substitute 3 for x”? (Or on the other hand, is the first of these two expressions

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the only direct one, as some philosophers think?) One expression is no more direct than the other. The meaning of the expression depends entirely on how we go on using it. Let's not imagine the meaning as an occult connection the mind makes between a word and a thing, and that this connection contains the whole usage of a word as the seed might be said to contain the tree.

(2015–) Wittgenstein Source Bergen Nachlass Edition (WS-BNE). Edited by the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen under the direction of Alois Pichler. In: Wittgenstein Source, curated by Alois Pichler (2009–) and Joseph Wang-Kathrein (2020–). (N) Bergen: WAB.