Wittgenstein Essays

Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein The connections between Ludwig Wittgenstein and Soren Kierkegaard as philosophers are not at all immediately obvious. On the surface, Wittgenstein deals with matters concerning the incorrect use of philosophical language and Kierkegaard focuses almost exclusively on answering the question 'how to become a Christian'. But this account belies deeper structural similarities between these men's important works. Thus, this paper suggests that their methods, rather than

of the Tractatus. Because The Tractatus is such a complex and cryptic book, and because Wittgenstein can be quite vague in his explanations, readers interpret it in many different ways and take different meanings from it and so objections and also defenses can be based on underlying misconceptions. In "Wittgenstein's Picture Theory of Language", David Keyt remarks that it is difficult to see how Wittgenstein meets some of the common objections to his Picture Theory. Because of this it is difficult

own view as advantageous to the alternatives. In response to this reason, Ludwig Wittgenstein claimed that one of the most important aspects of communication in philosophical standpoint is grammar. It is in view of the thought that Grammar

Ludwig Wittgenstein once believed that language's function was to name objects and the meaning of language was found in the objects for which it stands. He later rejected this and centred on how language works and is used, believing that problems of religious language come from misunderstanding its usage. Wittgenstein was no longer concerned with the truth or falsity of language but the way it is used and the functions that it performs, as he said 'Don't ask for the meaning

“Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life.” This was the last words of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who had been one of the most influential philosophers of human history. In Ray Monk’s biography Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, it is shown how wonderful Wittgenstein’s life was. Not that it was especially happy. It was full of personal suffering, which were mostly self-imposed. There was the fact of his Jewish ancestry, which weighed on him, and there was his strained relationship to his own sexuality

In Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, he discusses and develops his view on the nature and relation of the world, fact, atomic fact, object, simplicity and complexity. Wittgenstein starts with asserting what the world is, and then builds each concept. In this paper, I will expound upon each concept and what I believe he is expressing with each one. “The world,” he claims, “is everything that is the case… [it] is the totality of facts, not of things,” (Ogden translation, 1-1.1). Things are existing in

A response to the sceptic’s argument is the central point of discussion in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. Wittgenstein is aware of the complexity and variance of the skeptic’s argument and tailors his response accordingly, criticizing his colleague G. E. Moore for not recognizing the point of the skeptic in saying: Now, can one enumerate what one knows (like Moore)? Straight off like that, I believe not. For otherwise the expression “I know” gets misused. And later on he notes: We just do not see

While Heidegger and Wittgenstein agree that our own death is not an event in our lives, they come to radically different conclusions about what this concept entails. We constantly live with death and that we are constantly 'dying' in a metaphoric sense, Heidegger says, whereas Wittgenstein implies the opposite and [basically] says that death is not our business; that death belongs to the dead and "eternal

For my research paper, I will be writing about the author Ludwig Wittgenstein and his writing, “On Certainty”. First, I will give a brief summary of the arguments that the Ludwig Wittgenstein presents for his main conclusion: On Certainty begins by discussing Ludwig Wittgenstein's response to "A Proof of the External world", by G.E. Moore. Where in it, Moore speaks that there is a world external our own senses one example that he shows is that he holds out his hand and says "here is a hand". It

Investigations is an inherently pedagogical work. Wittgenstein claims throughout his later writings to be teaching a method and this method is both philosophical and pedagogical. It is the claim of this paper that if we do not take Wittgenstein's methodological claim seriously, we do not engage with the text in the manner for which it was written. Consequently, we begin and end in the wrong places and the text becomes (in the words of Wittgenstein) 'variously misunderstood, more or less mangled and

The Concept of Intelligence ABSTRACT: Gilbert Ryle’s dispositional analysis of the concept of intelligence makes the error of assimilating intelligence to the category of dispositional or semi-dispositional concepts. Far from being a dispositional concept, intelligence is an episodic concept that refers neither to dispositions nor to ‘knowing how,’ but to a fashion or style of proceeding whose significance is adverbial. Being derivative from the function of the adverb ‘intelligently,’ the concept

of Language What is Wittgenstein claiming in the passage? Wittgenstein is claiming that words and signs originating from private language cannot be defined in any meaningful manner, since the words and signs didnt come from common language (the language that has shared meaning among the masses), thus no definitive meaning can be derived and should not be used. Having decided on the nature of Wittgenstein’s claim, what are the grounds (reasons) for it that Wittgenstein provides? He supports

Considered by many to be one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. Ludwig Wittgenstein was a man of many thoughts and emotions. His works in language and logic are his most famous, his philosophy and opinions have left a mark in philosophy was we know it. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was a book he claimed that solved all questions in life, yet he wrote another book, Philosophical Investigations, taking a similar yet different route. Now his works have left a lasting impact even outside

Wittgenstein states: “Philosophy must not interfere in any way with the actual use of language, so it can in the end only describe it. For it cannot justify it either. It leaves everything as it is” (Philosophical Investigations §124). The same goes for Heidegger

leaving a cryptic note: “Don’t waste my time.” This helps Will finally realizes what Henry meant all along, and was able to understand and comprehend his private language and personal code philosophized as discussed by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In the movie In Time Will Salas is a low income factory worker who lives

A Philosophical Examination of Language "Philosophy is language idling." —Ludwig Wittgenstein   Language and philosophy have an intimate connection to one another; without a philosophical examination of the meanings and structure of language, we cannot easily ascertain the objective truth of the statements we make, nor can we usefully discuss abstract concepts. The philosophy of language seeks to understand the concepts expressed by language and to find a system by which it can effectively

The argument from analogy is an inductive argument that focuses on the problem of other minds and aims to show that we are justified in inferring the existence of other minds. British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, describes the argument from analogy as follows: “The behaviour of other people is in many ways analogous to our own, and we suppose that it must have analogous causes. What people say is what we should say if we had certain thoughts, and so we infer that they probably have these thoughts

Reflections on the Analytic/Continental Divide My friends in the English department often ask me to explain the difference I so often talk about between analytic and continental philosophy. For some odd reason they want to relate our discipline with theirs in an effort, maybe, to understand both better. Thus, I welcome the opportunity offered by Schuylkill's general theme this year to give a very general and un-rigorous presentation on Philosophy, intended for the University Community at large

philosophical analysis of an idea presented by Ludwig Wittgenstein in On Certainty Introduction Countless philosophers, from centuries ago to modern times, have investigated the concept of inherited ideas. Some of the more daunting questions on the subject seem to be: From where do these ideas originate? Can we trust them? Do they serve as an objective foundation for the rest of our judgments, or are they in fact mere judgments themselves? Ludwig Wittgenstein addresses such questions in his written work

Modality and the Iron Triangle Analytic philosophy had major influences on theories of meaning and the discussion of language. In this paper, I will discuss some of the most significant people in this period and analyze the success or lack of success for each theory in the period of analytic philosophy. The names of discussion are Bertrand Russell, Alfred Ayer, and Saul Kripke. While other influencers of analytic philosophy certainly exist, I will focus on these authors. Each writer was a founder