Ludwig Wittgenstein

Key ideas

1. Propositions as pictures. In the Tractatus a proposition is a picture of reality: it represents a possible state of affairs by sharing its logical form with it. The world is the totality of facts, not of things, and complex propositions are truth-functions of elementary ones.
2. Saying and showing. What can be shown cannot be said. The logical form that lets a proposition picture reality cannot itself be stated in a proposition, and Wittgenstein held that ethics cannot be expressed either, so the book ends by recommending silence about what cannot be said.
3. The ladder. The Tractatus calls its own propositions elucidations, to be thrown away like a ladder once climbed. Readers still disagree whether it thereby points at ineffable truths or only exposes nonsense.
4. Meaning as use. In the Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein rejects the picture of words as names of objects. For a large class of cases, he writes, “the meaning of a word is its use in the language”.
5. Language-games and family resemblance. Speaking a language is part of an activity or form of life, which he calls a language-game. Cases of a word such as game share no single essence but are linked by overlapping similarities, a family resemblance.
6. Rules and private language. A rule alone cannot fix what counts as following it, since any course of action can be made out to accord with it. And a language whose words referred to what only the speaker can know, his private sensations, could not be a language: in the beetle-in-a-box image, what is in the box plays no part in the language-game.
7. Philosophy as clarification. Philosophical problems arise, on his later view, when words are taken out of the everyday uses that give them sense. The philosopher’s work is to assemble reminders of those uses, a kind of therapy and not a theory.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) was an Austrian-born philosopher, later a British subject, who changed the philosophy of logic and language twice. His Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) holds that propositions picture facts, and that what cannot be said must be passed over in silence. His Philosophical Investigations (1953), published after his death, ties meaning to use in language-games and treats philosophical problems as confusions to be dissolved. He is a central figure of analytic philosophy.

Who was Wittgenstein?

He was born in Vienna into one of Europe’s richest families and studied engineering in Berlin and Manchester. Interest in the foundations of mathematics led him to Frege and, on Frege’s advice, in 1911 to Cambridge, where he worked with Bertrand Russell. He joined the Austro-Hungarian army in 1914, finished the Tractatus in 1918 and spent nine months as a prisoner of war in Italy. He then gave away his inherited fortune and taught in Austrian village schools. In 1926 he struck an eleven-year-old pupil on the head and the boy collapsed; he resigned, and a legal inquiry followed, whose outcome is not known.

He returned to Cambridge in 1929, submitted the Tractatus as his doctoral thesis, examined by Russell and G. E. Moore, and in 1939 succeeded Moore in the chair of philosophy. He died of prostate cancer in Cambridge on 29 April 1951.

What is the picture theory?

The Tractatus begins: “The world is everything that is the case”, in C. K. Ogden’s translation, and it is “the totality of facts, not of things”. A proposition is a picture of reality: it represents a possible state of affairs by sharing its logical form. Elementary propositions combine names, and every other proposition is a truth-function of them. Logic itself says nothing; its propositions are tautologies. The picture theory of meaning builds on the logic of Frege and Russell.

What can be said, and what only shown?

“What can be shown cannot be said” (4.1212). The logical form that lets a proposition picture reality cannot itself be put into a proposition, and ethics cannot be expressed either (6.421). The book then turns on itself: whoever understands its propositions must “throw away the ladder” after climbing it (6.54), and its last proposition recommends silence about what cannot be said.

Scholars disagree about what this means. On the older reading the Tractatus points at ineffable truths of ethics and metaphysics that show themselves. On the “resolute” reading of recent decades it exposes such talk as plain nonsense. The Vienna Circle drew on the book’s account of logic as tautologous, but Wittgenstein was never a member, and his influence on the logical positivists is disputed.

Is meaning use?

Wittgenstein first believed that the Tractatus had solved the problems of philosophy. After 1929 he rejected many of its assumptions. The Investigations opens with a passage from Augustine that pictures language as names for objects, and then attacks that picture: for a large class of cases, he writes, “the meaning of a word is its use in the language”. He calls the activity in which a word has its place, with language woven into it, a language-game, and says that speaking a language is part of a form of life. Words like “game” have no single essence; the cases are joined by overlapping similarities, a family resemblance.

What are rule-following and the private language argument?

In a famous example, a pupil asked to continue ”+ 2” past 1000 writes 1000, 1004, 1008. Any course of action can be made out to accord with a rule, so a rule alone cannot fix what counts as following it. Wittgenstein concludes that no authority beyond the actual practice of applying the rule is needed or available. Interpreters disagree about what this shows.

The private language argument follows. A language whose words refer to what only the speaker can know, his private sensations, cannot be meaningful, since meaning needs public standards of correctness. In the beetle-in-a-box image everyone has a box that no one else may look into, and calls what is in it a “beetle”. Whatever is in the box, even nothing, plays no part in the language-game. The image bears on the problem of other minds.

On Certainty and philosophy as therapy

In his last eighteen months Wittgenstein wrote the notes published in 1969 as On Certainty, starting from G. E. Moore’s claim to know that “here is one hand”. Doubt, he argues, presupposes things that are not doubted: our questions turn on them as a door on its hinges. This changes how scepticism looks. Philosophy itself becomes clarification: problems arise when words are removed from the everyday uses that give them sense, and the philosopher’s work is to marshal reminders of those uses.

Influence and how to start reading

Ordinary language philosophy at Oxford drew on his later work. His student Elizabeth Anscombe translated the Investigations and edited it with Rush Rhees.

Read the Tractatus in Ogden’s translation on Wikisource, which includes Russell’s introduction: the Preface, the opening propositions, 4.01 and 4.1212, and 6.4 to the end. The Investigations is in copyright; begin with the first hundred or so sections of Part I. The UGC NET lists “Wittgenstein: Language and Reality, Facts and objects, names and propositions, the picture theory, critique of private language, meaning and use, forms of life”; UPSC Paper I has separate entries for the early and later Wittgenstein. See the UGC NET guide and the UPSC guide.