Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) produced two commonly recognised stages of thought in 20th century analytic philosophy, both of which are taken to be central and fundamental in their respective periods. His early philosophy in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, first published in 1921, provided new insights into relationships between the world, thought, language and the nature of philosophy by showing the application of modern logic to metaphysics via language. His later philosophy, mostly found in Philosophical Investigations, published posthumously in 1953, controversially critiqued all traditional philosophy, including his own previous work. In this essay I will explain, contrast and evaluate both stages of his philosophy, highlighting strengths and weaknesses and concluding that Wittgenstein’s late philosophy has provided an interesting explanation for the meaning of language.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus evolved as a continuation of and reaction to Bertrand Russell and G Frege’s conceptions of logic, which Russell has left unexplained. Wittgenstein developed a theory of language that was designed to explain the nature of logical necessity. For Wittgenstein, a factual proposition is true or false with no third alternative. He endorses a ‘picture’ theory of meaning: propositions are meaningful insofar as they ‘picture’ facts or states of affairs: if their structure mirrors the structure of the world. The book addresses the central problems of philosophy which deals with the world, language and thought, and proposes a solution to these problems which is grounded in logic and in the nature of representation. Language, thought and reality share a common logical structure, so understanding the structure of the language allows u...

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...ingful, this point in his late work forms one of the main contrasts between the two periods. All of the afore rejected claims are now said to have their own language games and therefore some of the problems that philosophy faces are due to mere conceptual confusion and misunderstanding. So the philosophical examination of religion becomes the examination of the religious language-game. This view has evolved the way in which 20th century philosophy now examine words and meaning out of their everyday context.

Works Cited

Pears, D. ‘Wittgenstein’, in The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy.

(http://cfh.ufsc.br/~mafkfil/pears.htm)

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/

http://cfh.ufsc.br/~mafkfil/pears.htm

http://gormendizer.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Ludwig.Wittgenstein.-.Philosophical.Investigations.pdf

http://users.rcn.com/rathbone/lw21-30c.htm