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Philosopher

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Ludwig Wittgenstein

1889–1951 · Analytic philosophy · Modern

Ludwig Wittgenstein published the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in his lifetime and left the Philosophical Investigations to appear after his death. They do not say the same thing. The Tractatus tries to draw the limit of what can be said. Its first sentence, that the world is all that is the case, is machinery, and its last sentence orders silence.

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Proposition 6.54 tells the reader to throw the ladder away. The Investigations treats meaning, for a large class of cases though not for all, as use in a language, and it treats a philosophical problem as not knowing one's way about. G. E. M. Anscombe translated the Investigations. Pears and McGuinness are the English named here for the Tractatus.

Ogden's earlier English is real and different. A numbered remark is not a proverb, even when it is short enough to look like one. He was Austrian, wrote in German, and worked in Cambridge. The biography is extraordinary. The biography is not the argument. Quoting him without a number is how the two books get stirred into one mood of depth.

Start here

The Tractatus, slowly, through 6.54 and 7, in Pears and McGuinness. Then Investigations §§1–43.

You need the ladder before you hear it being thrown away, and you need the builders' language before 'form of life' becomes a cultural slogan.

Quotations

“For a large class of cases — though not for all — in which we employ the word 'meaning', it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein · Analytic philosophy

knowledgemeaningmind
Paraphrase or translation
Meaning & application
“What is your aim in philosophy? To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein · Analytic philosophy

knowledgemindmeaning
Paraphrase or translation
Meaning & application
“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein · Analytic philosophy

knowledgemindmeaning
Paraphrase or translation
Meaning & application
“Most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein · Analytic philosophy

knowledgemeaningmind
Paraphrase or translation
Meaning & application

Key ideas

  • Limit

    The Tractatus draws a limit to saying. Ethics shows itself. Proposition 7 is the ending, not a rule of politeness.

  • Use

    In the Investigations, meaning is use for a large class of cases, not for all.

  • Form of life

    To imagine a language is to imagine the activities in which the words are at home.

  • Therapy

    The aim is to show the fly the way out of the bottle, not to build a nicer bottle.

Major works

  • Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921)

    Numbered propositions. Pears and McGuinness, or Ogden.

  • Philosophical Investigations (1953)

    Posthumous. Anscombe's translation is the classic English.

Influences

Influenced

Common misreadings

  • 'Meaning is use' drops the clause 'though not for all'. The clause is the remark.
  • Proposition 7 is not advice to be quiet in an argument. It is the book's conclusion about saying.
  • The two books are not one view that matured smoothly. The later work criticises the picture the first one built.

Famous lines Ludwig Wittgenstein never said

None of the lines this library files for Ludwig Wittgenstein is marked Questionable or Misattributed. That is only a fact about these cards. It is not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.

FAQ

What is the best book to start with?

The Tractatus, slowly, through 6.54 and 7, in Pears and McGuinness. Then Investigations §§1–43. You need the ladder before you hear it being thrown away, and you need the builders' language before 'form of life' becomes a cultural slogan.

What is the most famous quote?

This library does not measure fame, and it does not rank lines by how often they are shared. The first line it files for Ludwig Wittgenstein that is not marked Questionable or Misattributed is “The world is all that is the case.” (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, proposition 1, Paraphrase or translation).

What is the most misquoted line?

None of the lines this library files for Ludwig Wittgenstein is marked Misattributed or Questionable. That is a fact about these cards, not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.

What is one key idea, in a sentence?

Limit: The Tractatus draws a limit to saying. Ethics shows itself. Proposition 7 is the ending, not a rule of politeness.