Language and Philosophy: Ludwig Wittgenstein

             Ludwig Wittgenstein is undoubtedly one of the most important analytic philosophers of the early 20th century. His two main works – the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921-22) and Philosophical Investigations (1953) – have significantly influenced two generations of analytic philosophers.

The center of Wittgenstein's philosophical reflection is language – either in its logical structure (early Wittgenstein) or in its ordinary practice (later Wittgenstein) – as a way to resolve what he calls "philosophical (pseudo-)problems." Philosophy, for Wittgenstein, is exclusively an activity of clarification.

In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein's main thesis is that almost all the problems that have animated traditional philosophy (e.g., does the world make sense?) are pseudo-problems because they are based on a misunderstanding of the logic of our language. The strategy he employed in the Tractatus to support this thesis consisted of showing under what logical conditions the propositions of our language make sense and when they do not.

The early Wittgenstein posited that propositions of our language make sense when they are pictures of facts, i.e., when they assert the existence or non-existence of possible situations in the world. It is by virtue of this that they can be true or false. Consequently, only empirical propositions, those that can be verified (i.e., ascertained), describe possible situations and can be true or false.

The meaning of the names that appear in sentences is made up of the objects present in the world. The meaning of the simplest propositions is represented by possible situations in the world. All other propositions make sense if they can be logically traced back to the simplest propositions. Between language and the world, there is a commonality of form (isomorphism): they share the "logical form."

The meaning of a proposition, by virtue of the fact that the world is made up of objects and shares the same form with language, coincides with its truth conditions. This has a radical consequence for the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus: if only empirical propositions make sense, then the only sensible propositions are those found in natural science. As he writes: "The totality of true propositions is all natural science" (T 4.11).

Natural science, however, does not touch on the problems of life. There is something ineffable (the "Mystical"), something that cannot be said but can only be shown, related not to how the world is, but to the fact that it is. The "Mystical" demands silence, because about what one does not know, one must remain silent.

The Philosophical Investigations maintain the idea that philosophy is a clarification activity (it involves clarifying language to heal from the "mental illness" of philosophy), but they also represent a radical contestation of the theory of meaning (the theory of the representation of language) proposed in the Tractatus. According to later Wittgenstein, it is now a question of looking not at the logical structure of language, but at the uses we make of language in our life practices.

Main points of dispute of the Tractatus model are

a) It didn't account for the whole phenomenon of language, since the descriptive one is only one of the possible uses we can make of language.

b) It risked pushing most of our ordinary language into insignificance, with which we actually understand each other. For example, "Pass me the pen!", "Do you understand me?", "Greetings!"

c) It does not take into account the "real" nature of language, which is always linked to an activity. Even ostensive learning (at the basis of ostensive definitions) would be a form of training – precisely an activity.

d) The representational theory is consequently not an original theory, but rather a derivative theory of language. The meaning of words and sentences resides in their "use."

Language as a "game":

Wittgenstein uses the expression "language games" to refer to the multiple uses we can make of language. Speaking a language means playing certain language games; understanding it means having the ability to play them. Language is also always embedded in a life practice; you learn it and use it always participating in a "form of life."

Problems and the task of philosophy:

Despite the substantial revision of the Tractatus, Wittgenstein radicalizes his judgment regarding the problems of philosophy, which he now defines as mental illnesses from which one must heal. Philosophers would remove the words of ordinary language from their respective language games and place them in artificial contexts, creating false problems. The task of philosophy should be to clarify the meaning of words by describing their legitimate use in appropriate language games. Thus, the problems of philosophy will dissolve, and philosophy will have been a sort of "therapy."

Paradoxes and questions:

The concept of a language game does not aim to reveal the essence of language – given that there would not be an essence of the game, but just different similarities between games – but in reality, it does, since Wittgenstein himself defines the whole of language as a language game. It is not clear why the uses that philosophers make of the words of ordinary language cannot be considered legitimate language games.

Philosophy as pathology or physiology:

Is philosophy truly a pathology, a mental illness from which we must heal, as the later Wittgenstein suggests, or does it not rather constitute the physiology of human reason? The question of meaning that man not only has but embodies as a rational being is ineradicable. Is it not more appropriate to follow the natural trajectory of human reason rather than stubbornly trying to deny it, de facto believing that it is necessary to eliminate the question of meaning that constitutes us as humans? The real "problems" cannot be resolved by denying their existence.