Introductory lectures to Wittgenstein’s ideas?

What is Wittgenstein’s approach to language?

In his work Philosophical Investigations (1953), Ludwig Wittgenstein regularly referred to the concept of language-games. Wittgenstein rejected the idea that language is somehow separate and corresponding to reality, and he argued that concepts do not need clarity for meaning.

What did Wittgenstein believe?

Philosophers, Wittgenstein believed, had been misled into thinking that their subject was a kind of science, a search for theoretical explanations of the things that puzzled them: the nature of meaning, truth, mind, time, justice, and so on.

What did Wittgenstein propose?

Starting with a seeming metaphysics, Wittgenstein sees the world as consisting of facts (1), rather than the traditional, atomistic conception of a world made up of objects. Facts are existent states of affairs (2) and states of affairs, in turn, are combinations of objects.

What was Wittgenstein trying to argue about language?

Wittgenstein argues, in his later work, that this account of private language is inconsistent. If the idea of a private language is inconsistent, then a logical conclusion would be that all language serves a social function. This would have profound implications for other areas of philosophical and psychological study.

What was the main idea of Wittgenstein’s philosophy?

Two general themes dominate the Tractatus. First is the nature of representation, the relation between thought, language, and reality, and the limits of thought and representation. Second is the nature of logic and logical truth. The two are intimately interwoven, since logic is conceived to be a condition of sense.

What was Wittgenstein’s point?

Wittgenstein’s aim seems to have been to show up as nonsense the things that philosophers (himself included) are tempted to say. Philosophical theories, he suggests, are attempts to answer questions that are not really questions at all (they are nonsense), or to solve problems that are not really problems.

What was Wittgenstein’s contribution to philosophy?

Wittgenstein made a major contribution to conversations on language, logic and metaphysics, but also ethics, the way that we should live in the world. He published two important books: the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (1921) and the Philosophical Investigations (1953), for which he is best known.

What is one conclusion that Wittgenstein in his later philosophy comes to?

Wittgenstein’s later philosophy represents a complete repudiation of the notion of an ideal language. Nothing can be achieved by the attempt to construct one, he believed. There is no direct or infallible foundation of meaning for an ideal language to make transparent.

What type of philosophy is Wittgenstein?

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (/ˈvɪtɡənʃtaɪn, -staɪn/ VIT-gən-s(h)tyne; German: [ˈluːtvɪç ˈjoːzɛf ‘joːhan ˈvɪtɡn̩ʃtaɪn]; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.

What is a simple Wittgenstein?

What does it mean to say that an object is simple? One thing Wittgenstein seems to mean is that it cannot be analyzed as a complex of other objects. This seems to indicate that if objects are simple, they cannot have any parts; for, if they did, they would be analyzable as a complex of those parts.

What are the basic ideas of logical positivism?

logical positivism, also called logical empiricism, a philosophical movement that arose in Vienna in the 1920s and was characterized by the view that scientific knowledge is the only kind of factual knowledge and that all traditional metaphysical doctrines are to be rejected as meaningless.

What is the necessity for introducing names according to Wittgenstein in Tractatus?

The theory of naming in the Tractatus.
Wittgenstein postulates the existence of simple objects as references for the names so as to guarantee the reference and meaningfulness of language. It is essential to names that they are not analyzable any further, that they are indefinible.

What does Wittgenstein mean by form of life?

The ‘form of life’ that individuals share encompasses the concepts that they organise the world into, and the language they use to communicate, as well as their cultural practices and values and so if Wittgenstein is a relativist he has to be a relativist on both the cultural and cognitive counts.

What is logic according to Wittgenstein?

According to Wittgenstein, logic is not a body of propositions, nor is it an axiomatic system. Logic represents the architectural structure of reality. Logic in itself does not say anything, nor does it tell us anything about the world. Rather, it determines the form taken by things in this world.