Quotation
Last reviewed:
“What is your aim in philosophy? To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein · Analytic philosophy · Modern · 1953
What does it mean?
The aim of philosophy, in this remark, is to show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle. A picture has held us captive, and the way out is seeing that the picture was optional. A rival reading hears contempt, philosophers as insects, or a claim that philosophy should stop. He thinks philosophical problems have the form of not knowing one's way about, and that the cure is a perspicuous view of our language, not a new doctrine to replace the confusion. Another reading turns the bottle into self-help: exit your limiting beliefs.
Did Ludwig Wittgenstein really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Anscombe's English. She prints a dash between the question and the answer. The aim is therapeutic: a picture holds the fly captive. The remark is not a joke about philosophers being insects, though it is willing to be rude.
Where it comes from
Philosophical Investigations §309, in G. E. M. Anscombe's translation
Approximate date: 1953.
How to use it
Someone in a seminar in Edinburgh has been circling one sentence for an hour, convinced a hidden object must correspond to a noun. Showing the way out is showing that the demand for the object was the bottle. It is not telling them to stop reading. A workplace 'growth mindset' poster that uses the fly has left §309 for a different building.
A mindset reading
Therapy, in this book, is not comfort. It is the removal of a requirement language was supposed to meet and does not. If you still want a theory at the end, you may be asking the fly to build a nicer bottle.
Understand the philosophy
Section 309 is late in the Investigations. It gathers the method. Read it with §123, not knowing one's way about, and with §109, the battle against bewitchment. The three remarks are a method, not three posters.
- knowledge
- mind
- meaning
FAQ
What does it mean?
The aim of philosophy, in this remark, is to show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle. A picture has held us captive, and the way out is seeing that the picture was optional. A rival reading hears contempt, philosophers as insects, or a claim that philosophy should stop. He thinks philosophical problems have the form of not knowing one's way about, and that the cure is a perspicuous view of our language, not a new doctrine to replace the confusion. Another reading turns the bottle into self-help: exit your limiting beliefs.
Did Ludwig Wittgenstein really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Anscombe's English. She prints a dash between the question and the answer. The aim is therapeutic: a picture holds the fly captive. The remark is not a joke about philosophers being insects, though it is willing to be rude.
Which work is it in?
Philosophical Investigations §309, in G. E. M. Anscombe's translation Approximate date: 1953.