Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Linguistic Horizon

“What is the intention or aim in your philosophy? – To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.”

To put you into Context: Ancient Western Philosophers were so conceptual and metaphysical that they concentrated on the primordial matter and substantial form. Thus they insisted only on conceptual knowledge, and failed to clarify the problems of daily life. They had different theories on language with regard to words, sentences and reality. Contrastingly, Wittgenstein initiated the notion of language games that endowed with rules, norms and principles for the better use of language as a tool in meaningful communication. The aim of his philosophy is to find linguistic expression meaningfully.

Incarnation: Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was born Vienna, Austria on 26^th April, 1889 in a well to do family as the youngest of five brothers and three sisters; parents were Karl Wittgenstein a Jewish industrialist and mother Leopoldine Kalmus, a Catholic woman. As a boy he was passionate about engineering and aeronautics which in fact had a great influence in his thinking and philosophy. In the contemporary period his contribution to linguistic analysis was outstanding with his concepts of private language, picture theory and language games. His philosophy is so unique that he connects language and its grammar to the life and its norms.

The Advent of a Linguistic Legend: It was the threshold of the 18^th century where the invention and advancement of science and culture was rampant. It was the time of Renaissance of culture and a time of scientific revolution; where Wittgenstein was the one who initiated a trend of philosophy making Language as the object of his philosophical investigation and enquiry. He completely drowned the presumptions and presuppositions of the ancient and medieval philosophical jargon and conceptual dilemmas. Thus he set a trend where the traditional philosophy needs a therapy to heal from the metaphysical and conceptual jargons which in fact added more confusion instead of solving the problems. Therefore, his philosophy was also called as a therapeutic philosophy.  

Wittgenstein out of his quest for philosophical knowledge and learning read the philosophies of Aristotle, Plato and Spinoza and discovered that their language was imperfect with some defects and ambiguities. Therefore, for him, the function of philosophy should be clarifying the confusion created rather than adding more confusion. He introduced a new method to solve the problem by analysing sentences, and the use of words. This he called as a therapeutic method which aims to solve philosophical problems, puzzles and ambiguities. He considered philosophical problems as a mental cramp to be relieved or a knot in our thinking to be united. He argued that such problems arise due to the misinterpretation of the forms of language.

The Works to His Credit: Wittgenstein is popular for his enormous writings and philosophical works. To his credit there are two major works which influenced the entire linguistic philosophy. His early work is known as the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) and the later part of his work is known as Philosophical Investigations (1949). And all the important works published after his posthumous books are Philosophical Grammar, Blue and Brown Books, Writings on Philosophy of Psychology and On Certainty. Interestingly when he was asked to publish his works he was rather unwilling. Because he thought, despite his intellectual calibre, he feared that he would be misunderstood. This was one of the reasons why he was unwilling to publish his works. Once, just a day before his death he told his Friend Mr Bevan, that he had wonderful life and wished to communicate the same to all his friends. Finally this great philosopher breathed his last on 29^th April, 1951 at Cambridge, England.   

His Contribution: In the linguistic analysis it is Wittgenstein who contributed the most through his philosophical and significant works. If critically analyse his philosophical journey, we see him first stepping into very negative philosophical wing while initiating a Private Language concept which itself is a wrong premise. Thus he gradually makes a path for Positivism and Analytical Philosophy while associating with some of the renowned philosophers of the 18^th Century like Schopenhauer, Russell and Moore.  

Significance:  The early Wittgenstein made language as a personal object through his concept of Private Language and Picture Theory. The emphasis of Private Language is that there cannot be anything in common but subjective. Thus he made a mistake by establishing language and feelings as subjective products of experience and knowing. Contrasting to his early premise, later Wittgenstein introduced a new way of investigating language with a new concept of words as tools in the language; where language is like a Chess game in which each pawn has meaning in a particular context in a particular move. In this context he said that words contain the potentiality of doing not only one function but many other functions just like any tool that we use for different purposes. Thus he established a descriptive method of philosophy contrasting all other theoretic, explanatory and conceptual methods of past.

 Linguistic Insights: It is fascinating to understand the linguistic insights of Wittgenstein. He said that, the phenomenon of language has been considered as the vehicle of thinking and therefore language belonged together to an inexplicable phenomenon of human life. For example, the child first learns the names of the objects or people and gradually learns to associate the names and words to the thoughts. Thus language becomes a linguistic activity that indwells thinking and learning which unveils the scope for the communal activity and mutual sharing by which communication leads to communion. Even to the post-modernism of Derrida’s concept of Deconstruction have roots in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy.