Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgensteinwas an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Wittgenstein taught at the University of Cambridge. During his lifetime he published just one slim book, the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, one article, one book review and a children's dictionary. His voluminous manuscripts were edited and published posthumously. Philosophical Investigations appeared as a book in 1953, and has since come to be...
NationalityAustrian
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth26 April 1889
CityVienna, Austria
CountryAustria
Is my understanding only blindness to my own lack of understanding? It often seems so to me.
Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.
A French politician once wrote that it was a peculiarity of the French language that in it words occur in the order in which one thinks them.
My aim is: to teach you to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense.
The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood.
We see, not change of aspect, but change of interpretation.
We find certains things about seeing puzzling, because we do not find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough.
Mathematics is a logical method. . . . Mathematical propositions express no thoughts. In life it is never a mathematical proposition which we need, but we use mathematical propositions only in order to infer from propositions which do not belong to mathematics to others which equally do not belong to mathematics.
One of the most misleading representational techniques in our language is the use of the word 'I.'
When I obey a rule, I do not choose. I obey the rule blindly .
Almost in the same way as earlier physicists are said to have found suddenly that they had too little mathematical understanding to be able to master physics; we may say that young people today are suddenly in the position that ordinary common sense no longer suffices to meet the strange demands life makes. Everything has become so intricate that for its mastery an exceptional degree of understanding is required. For it is not enough any longer to be able to play the game well; but the question is again and again: what sort of game is to be played now anyway?
The fact that we can describe the motions of the world using Newtonian mechanics tell us nothing about the world. The fact that we do, does tell us something about the world.
Man is the microcosm: I am my world.
Most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical.