Quotation
Last reviewed:
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein · Analytic philosophy · Modern · 1921
What does it mean?
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Proposition 5.6 belongs to a technical claim about logic and about what can be pictured, not to a plea for vocabulary-building. A rival reading, the motivational one, says learn more words and your world gets bigger. That cousin can be useful in a classroom. It is not what 5.6 proves. Another reading, sceptical, thinks the proposition traps each person in a private limit.
Did Ludwig Wittgenstein really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Proposition 5.6, standard English. It belongs to a technical claim about the limits of logic and of what can be pictured. It is not, in the book, a plea for vocabulary-building.
Where it comes from
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 5.6
Approximate date: 1921.
How to use it
If you have no words for a distinction at work in a Leeds call centre, you will struggle to handle it. That practical cousin is worth having. Do not tell yourself that Wittgenstein proved it, or that a longer glossary would refute 5.6. The proposition is about the form of representation.
A mindset reading
Quoting 5.6 as a study tip is how a limit-theorem became a poster. The proposition leads toward the silence at proposition 7. Without that movement it is a costume of depth.
Understand the philosophy
The Investigations will later say that meaning is use in a form of life, which changes what a limit of language could be. The two books do not say the same thing. A reader who needs them to agree has not started.
- knowledge
- mind
- meaning
FAQ
What does it mean?
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Proposition 5.6 belongs to a technical claim about logic and about what can be pictured, not to a plea for vocabulary-building. A rival reading, the motivational one, says learn more words and your world gets bigger. That cousin can be useful in a classroom. It is not what 5.6 proves. Another reading, sceptical, thinks the proposition traps each person in a private limit.
Did Ludwig Wittgenstein really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Proposition 5.6, standard English. It belongs to a technical claim about the limits of logic and of what can be pictured. It is not, in the book, a plea for vocabulary-building.
Which work is it in?
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 5.6 Approximate date: 1921.