Quotation
Last reviewed:
“A philosophical problem has the form: I don't know my way about.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein · Analytic philosophy · Modern · 1953
What does it mean?
A philosophical problem has the form: I don't know my way about. The trouble is not a missing fact so much as a loss of bearings in our own language. A rival reading says this shrinks philosophy to linguistic discomfort and ignores problems that are really about the world, including justice. He is diagnosing a class of problems that look factual and are produced by a picture. He is not denying that people suffer, or that science finds things out. Another reading treats the remark as a confession of personal confusion, a mood.
Did Ludwig Wittgenstein really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Anscombe's English of Ich kenne mich nicht aus. The form of the problem is disorientation, not ignorance of a hidden fact. The remark is a diagnosis of philosophical puzzlement.
Where it comes from
Philosophical Investigations §123, in G. E. M. Anscombe's translation
Approximate date: 1953.
How to use it
A dispute in a law firm in Bristol feels like a deep question about 'consent' and is partly two uses of the word that no longer meet. Asking where you lost the way is his question. Sometimes the answer is a real gap in the statute, and then you are no longer in §123. Telling those apart is the skill. The remark does not do it automatically.
A mindset reading
Disorientation is not ignorance of a secret. Philosophers who respond only by building a larger theory may, on this view, be furnishing the place they are lost in. The view can be wrong about a given problem. It is still the view.
Understand the philosophy
Section 123 is a short remark with a long method behind it. Anscombe's 'I don't know my way about' is standard. The German is ordinary. The ordinariness is the point, and it is easy to over-translate into jargon he was avoiding.
- knowledge
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
A philosophical problem has the form: I don't know my way about. The trouble is not a missing fact so much as a loss of bearings in our own language. A rival reading says this shrinks philosophy to linguistic discomfort and ignores problems that are really about the world, including justice. He is diagnosing a class of problems that look factual and are produced by a picture. He is not denying that people suffer, or that science finds things out. Another reading treats the remark as a confession of personal confusion, a mood.
Did Ludwig Wittgenstein really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Anscombe's English of Ich kenne mich nicht aus. The form of the problem is disorientation, not ignorance of a hidden fact. The remark is a diagnosis of philosophical puzzlement.
Which work is it in?
Philosophical Investigations §123, in G. E. M. Anscombe's translation Approximate date: 1953.