Witti-Buch2 2001.qxd - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

PHILOSOPHY AS A GUIDE TO LIFE?
new philosophy of language and philosophy of mind suitable for serious academic study.
Perhaps the only practical advice given is a remedy for philosophical disquiet: To shew
the fly the way out of the fly bottle. (PI #309). As a contrast, Wittgenstein's early
writings, the Tractatus and Notebooks , show his deep religious feelings and mysticism.
In this period he talked about how man can be happy in a miserable world by accepting
everything with equanimity. Some of these thoughts could indeed console and inspire a
common man not worried by abstract philosophical problems.(Sanatani 1997).
The nature of philosophy
H.J. Glock writes : No philosopher since Kant has thought as hard about the nature of
the subject as Wittgenstein. His interest goes back to 1912, when he gave a paper "
What is philosophy ?" In the preface to the Tractatus he claimed to have provided a
definitive solution to the problem of philosophy. .. To the end of his career he insisted
that what mattered in his work was not its specific results, but its new way of
philosophising, a method or skill which would enable us to fend for ourselves. [Glock
1996]
To give a flavour of Wittgensteinian philosophy, we quote below some of his
sayings. Wittgenstein professed to have no doctrines, no deep-going theories regarding
the world and what may lie behind it, such as earlier philosophers had canvassed, but
rather only a method that would lay all such deep enquiries to rest, enabling the mind to
take repose in the recognition of plain facts ordinarily expressed, and in inferences of the
most banal ordinariness and obviousness. (Findlay 1984).
Thus spake Wittgenstein
Philosophy is wholly distinct from science, and its methods and products are not
those of the sciences. (NL)
The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thought.
Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.
A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. (T 4.112)
Philosophy is not a cognitive pursuit; there are no new facts to be discovered by
philosophy; only new insights. ((PR; PG 256)
Philosophy seeks to establish an order in our knowledge of the use of language
(PI #132)
What is your aim in philosophy?- To shew the fly the way out of the fly bottle.
(PI 309)
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