Great Ideas of Philosophy

Lecture Forty-EightWittgenstein and the Discursive TurnScope: Suppose one tried to give meaning to statements in a world with no other occupant. It’s impossible.Meaning is discursive: It arises from conventions that presuppose not only a social world but one in whichthe meaning-bearers share the interests and aspirations of those whom they would engage. Accordingly, allwe can know or express must bear the stamp of culture, context, and a given shared form of life.This is the conclusion forced on contemporary philosophy by the penetrating, often enigmatic andaphoristic writings and sayings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, perhaps the most influential of 20 th -centuryphilosophers. Meaning (thus, knowledge and conduct) is now stripped of abstract, once-and-for-all featuresand is seen as entirely constructed.OutlineI. In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein answers the question “What is your aim in philosophy?” bysaying: “To show the fly the way out of the bottle.”A. One of the most influential 20 th -century philosophers, Wittgenstein tended to express himself in homileticor aphoristic ways, leaving it to others in the philosophical world to plumb them for their deeper meaningand significance.1. Wittgenstein changed the way we understand the very problems in philosophy.2. Indeed, if he is right, there are no “problems” as such, only misunderstandings and puzzles arisingfrom errors in using the logic and grammar of language itself.B. His only book published in his lifetime bears the daunting title Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, knownsimply as his Tractatus.1. The problem of knowledge must ultimately be rooted in how we describe the world, then link thesedescriptions in such a way as to arrive at correct accounts of “the case” at hand.2. “The case” at hand must be part of the world, because that is the realm in which any and every caseoccurs.3. To state the case is to offer a proposition, a picture of reality. To give the essence of a propositionmeans to give the essence of all description and, thus, the essence of the world.4. The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.C. This sort of approach clearly will not work, because there is little in the propositions that convey any sortof picture at all.1. The “picture theory” of meaning is one that Wittgenstein could not retain.2. However, the Tractatus sets the stage for a more penetrating examination of the role of language.II. Who was Ludwig Wittgenstein?A. He was born in Vienna in 1889, the youngest of eight children in a wealthy family. Three of his fourbrothers were suicides, and Ludwig himself had a lifelong problem with depression and anxiety.B. In 1908, Wittgenstein enrolled in the engineering program at Manchester, England. Exposure tomathematics drove him to question the very foundations of mathematics.C. Wittgenstein moved on to Cambridge, where Bertrand Russell was engaged in pioneering work inmathematical logic.D. After serving on the Austrian side in World War I, Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge. His Tractatus wasthe result of his years with Russell.E. Regarding the book as having solved all of philosophy’s “non-problems,” Wittgenstein simply dropped allscholarly projects and took a position in Austria teaching children in elementary school.32©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership