TWENTIETH CENTURY
PHILOSOPHY:
Intellectual Heroes and Key Themes
LECTURES
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
The limits of language.
Death and authenticity.
The great community.
Making differences.
Social hope.
Communicative rationality.
I. THE LIMITS OF LANGUAGE
1. PHILOSOPHY AS AN ACTIVITY
How to conceive of philosophy?
2. SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS
What is the relation between language and
reality?
3. ETHICS AND AESTHETICS
Are values of this world?
1. PHILOSOPHY AS AN ACTIVITY
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
BIOGRAPHICAL DATA:
 1889: Born April 26, in Vienna.
 1906-1908: Studies engineering at the
‘Technische Hochschule’ in Berlin.
 1908: Research student at the University of
Manchester.
 1912: Starts to study philosophy in Cambridge.
 1914-1918: Involved in World War I at the
Austrian-Hungarian side.
 1920-1926: Teacher at a primary school.
 1926: Gardener at a monastery.
 1926-1928: Builds a house for his sister
Margarete.
 1927: Contact with the so-called ‘Wiener Kreis’
(Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap and Friedrich
Waismann).
 1929: Wittgenstein back to Cambridge.
 1939: Becomes professor.
 1951: Died April 29, in Cambridge.
MAJOR WORKS
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921 [1918]).
Philosophische Bemerkungen (1969 [1929-1930]).
The Blue Book (1958 [1933-1934]).
The Brown Book (1958 [1934-1935]).
Bemerkungen über die Grundlagen der
Mathematik [1937-1944]).
Zettel (1981 [1945-1948]).
Bemerkungen über Farben (1958 [1951]).
Philosophische Untersuchungen (1953).
Über Gewißheit (1969 [1951]).
WITTGENSTEIN I & II
Because Wittgenstein criticizes in his later
work explicitly his early work, scholars speak
in terms of Wittgenstein I & II.
Wittgenstein I > Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus.
Wittgenstein II > Philosophische
Untersuchungen.
Important question: what are the
(dis)continuities between Wittgenstein I & II.
At least there is a discontinuity of style.
STYLES OF PHILOSOPHY
TRACTATUS
UNTERSUCHUNGEN
Formalistic language
Ordinary language
Monologue
Dialogue
Results
Roads
LANGUAGE AS MEDIUM AND
OBJECT
 Philosophers saw words generally as spectacles we look
through, not at.
 Mostly they perceived language as something that hinders
a direct and therefore truthful understanding of the object
of research.
 John Locke > language as “a mist before our eyes.”
 Nowadays philosophers see language not only as a
medium, but as an object of research.
 Linguistic turn in philosophy > language becomes the
object and tool to clarify and solve philosophical problems.
 Philosophers question the meaning of linguistic signs.
THE TRIANGLE OF MEANING
MENTAL ACTIVITIES
LANGUAGE
Example: “Berlin is the capital of Germany”
REALITY
AN OVERVIEW OF THE THREE
PARADIGMS
ONTOLOGICAL MENTALISTIC PRAGMATIC
PARADIGM
PARADIGM
PARADIGM
Domain Being
Consciousness
Object
Mental activities Sentences,
utterances
All that there is
Language
Starting Amazement
point
Doubt
Confusion
Initial
What is?
question
What can I
know?
What can I
understand?
CONFUSION
Language is often the source of confusion and
misunderstanding.
Continuity between Wittgenstein I and II >
philosophers should clarify and solve problems.
‘Tractatus’ > “Philosophy aims at the logical
clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body
of doctrine but an activity.” [TLP 4.112].
‘Untersuchungen’ > “Philosophy is a battle against
the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of
language” [PI 209].
HEURISTIC VALUE
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Mathematical Logic (Bertrand Russell amongst others).
Philosophy of science (Peter Winch amongst others.).
Sociology (Aaron Cicourel amongst others).
Psychology ( Eleanor Rosch amongst others).
History of science (Thomas Kuhn amongst others).
Aesthetics (Nelson Goodman amongst others).
Political philosophy (Hannah Pitkin amongst others).
Philosophy of language (Jaakko Hintikka amongst others).
Music (Steve Reich amongst others).
Literature (Ingeborg Bachmann amongst others).
Fine arts (Eduardo Paolozzi amongst others).
2. SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS
SENSE AND REFERENCE
 The mathematician, logician and philosopher Gottlob Frege (18481925) makes a distinction between the sense (Sinn) and the reference
(Bedeutung) of linguistic signs.
 Although the sense of ‘the morning star’ and ‘the evening star’ is
different, the referent is identical > both denote the same planet,
namely Venus.
 The expressions ‘the morning star’ and ‘the evening star’ refer to
Venus, but they express different ways of conceiving of this planet.
 Important questions:
Should the language of science (dedicated to the truth) as much
as possible get rid of the sense and concentrate on the reference?
Is the meaning of linguistic signs only a question of reference?
 Whereas Wittgenstein I concentrates on the reference of linguistic
signs, Wittgenstein II emphasizes the fact that people use linguistic
signs in many different ways.
PICTURING THE WORLD
 Wittgenstien finished the manuscript of the ‘Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus’ already in 1918.
 Although everybody uses the Latin title (a suggestion
of G.E. Moore) of the book, Wittgenstein himself spoke
consequently about the ‘Logisch-Philosophische
Abhandlung’.
 Written between 1912 and 1917 it was published in
1922 with a preface of Bertrand Russell.
 Tractatus > unfolds a picture theory of language.
 The reader of it should “throw away the ladder, after he
has climbed up on it.” [TLP 6.54].
THE PICTURE THEORY OF LANGUAGE
 The book is constructed around seven basic sentences,
numbered by natural numbers, with a lot of paragraphs
numbered by decimal expansions:
1. The world is all that is the case.
2. What is the case – a fact – is the existence of a state of
affairs.
3. A logical picture of facts is a thought.
4. A thought is a proposition with sense.
5. A proposition is a truth-function of elementary
propositions.
6. The general form of a truth-function is [p, ζ, N (ζ)].
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in
silence.
DIFFICULTIES
 There are different reasons why a reader will have to deal
with some difficulties when her or she wants to understand
the book:
1. Although Wittgenstein states that the decimal
expansions give expression to the logical weight of the
sentences, he is not consistent. For instance, the
importance of the following sentence is not expressed
by the number given to it: “All philosophy is a 'critique
of language‘” [TLP 4.0031].
2. Wittgenstein’s pretention was to combine philosophical
and aesthetical aspirations: “Die Arbeit ist streng
philosophisch und zugleich literarisch, es wird aber
doch nicht darin geschwafelt” (from a letter to Ludwig
von Ficker).
THE STRUCTURE
 The Tractatus is structured around 8 related topics:
1. Ontology (TLP 1 – 2.063) > important because the relation
between thought/language and reality is isomorphic .
2. Picture (TLP 2.1 – 3.5) > exploration of a subset of all that is:
sentences, i.e. facts that represent other facts.
3. Philosophy (TLP 4 - 4.2) > in contrast to science it expresses the
logical form that language and reality share.
4. Theory of logic (TLP 4.2 – 5.641, 6.1 – 6.13) > shows that
logical sentences are tautological.
5. Mathematics (TLP 6 – 6.031, 6.2 – 6.241) > is an aspect of
logical operations.
6. Science (TLP 6.3 – 6.372) > provides concepts to describe the
world.
7. Mysticism (TLP 6.373 – 6.522) > ethical and aesthetical values
cannot be expressed.
8. Throw away the ladder (TLP 6.53 – 7) > the Tractatus tries to
show the limits of language.
WORLD-THOUGHT-LANGUAGE
The world is represented by thought, i.e. a
proposition with sense.
World, thought and proposition share the same
logical form > thought and proposition can be
pictures of the facts.
The world consists of facts, i.e. existent states of
affairs.
States of affairs are combinations of objects.
The object’s internal properties determine the
possibilities of its combinations with other objects,
i.e. its logical form.
THE WORLD
The totality of states of affairs (actual and
possible) makes up the whole of reality.
The world > those states of affairs which exist.
“The picture is a model of reality” (TLP 2.12).
The logical structure of the picture (made up of
elements combined in a specific way) represents
the logical structure of the state of affairs which
it pictures.
Every proposition is either true or false.
The limits of world, thought and language >
what can/should and cannot/ should not be said.
IDEAL LANGUAGE
Can we justly apply logic just as it stands
straightaway to ordinary propositions?
‘Tractatus’: yes > “In fact, all the propositions
of our everyday language, just as they stand, are
in perfect logical order” (TLP 5.5563).
A logically perfect language has rules of syntax
which prevent nonsense, and has single symbols
which always have a definite and unique
meaning.
TAUTOLOGY
Wittgenstein was interested in propositions of logic.
Focus > propositions of logic seen from the
perspective of the essence of reference.
Language and reality share the same logical form.
Wittgenstein argues that propositions of logic are
tautological > they don’t say anything about the
reality.
“…in fact all the propositions of logic say the same
thing, to wit nothing” [TLP 5.43].
In contrast to propositions of logic > ordinary
propositions picture possible state of affairs.
PHILOSOPHIES OF LANGUAGE
The main goal of the philosophy of language > to
clarify and solve problems via the analysis of
language.
Ways to do that:
1. To use a formal language (mathematical logic) to
clarify and solve the problems induced by
ordinary language > Tractatus.
2. To concentrate on ordinary language >
Philosophical Investigations .
In the preface of the Philosophical Investigations he
states that the Tractatus consists of ‘huge mistakes’
(schwere Irrtümer).
THE NONSENSE OF THE IDEAL
OF EXACTNESS
Wittgenstein criticizes in Philosophical
Investigations the ideal of exactness.
The ideal of exactness is senseless, because no
statement we might analyze acutally possesses
such precision (PI 70).
No conceivable purpose requires it (PI 80).
Ordinary language is in order as it is, not because
wonderful precision and constancy lie beneath its
surface, but because such ideal qualities are
irrelevant to the actual purposes of speech.
AUGUSTINE’S CONCEPTION OF
LANGUAGE
 Wittgenstein starts his Philosophical Investigations
with a critique on Augustine’s conception of language.
 This conception of languages is based on five
presuppositions:
1. Every single word has a meaning.
2. All the words are names, i.e. they stand for objects.
3. The meaning of a word is the object for that it
stood.
4. The connection between words (names) and their
meanings (objects) is the outcome of a ostensive
definition that triggers a mental association
between word and object.
5. Sentences are connections of names.
IMPLICATIONS OF AUGUSTINE’S
CONCEPTION OF LANGUAGE
 Augustine’s conception of language has two
implications:
1.The only function of language is to
represent reality: words refer and
sentences describe.
2.A child must have already a private language
before it understands the public language,
because it learns a language by making
associations between words and objects.
 These implications are the object of
Wittgenstein’s criticism.
LANGUAGE-GAMES AND FORMS OF
LIFE
 The study of language-games and thus forms of life helps
Wittgenstein to criticize Augustine’s conception of language.
 Linguistic signs don’t have meaning in virtue of being a picture (as
Augustine suggests), but in virtue of the way they are used within a
specific language-game.
 Language-games are rule-bound ways of using linguistic signs.
 They are based upon rules with a conventional and public character.
 Wittgenstein conceives language as a game to stress its rule-bound
character, its embeddings in communities and the connection between
linguistic and non-linguistic activities > it is a form of life.
 In order to grasp the meaning of linguistic signs one should not look
for objects they refer to, but should study the diversity of their use in
language-games.
 Wittgenstein presents language as a tool bag > like a hammer, square
and gluepot words have a multiplicity of different uses.
CONTRA METAPHYSICS
Wittgenstein relates semantics (study of the
meaning of linguistic signs) and pragmatics (the
study of the use of linguistic signs).
This helps him to overcome metaphysics, i.e. the
believe that “the essence is hidden from us” (PI
92).
Targets of the ‘Tractatus’ > precision and essence.
Wittgenstein aks: “If there is no essence why do
we use the same word to all these things?”
LOOKING FOR AN ESSENCE
A number of philosophical problems are closely
related to the essence issue > questions of
abstraction and mental representation; the possibility
of definition; the distinction between symptoms and
criteria.
Once we observe the structure of a concept like
language we see “that phenomena have no one thing
in common which makes us use the same word for
all, - but that they are related to one another in many
different ways. And it is because of this relationship,
or these relations, that we call them all ‘language’”
(PI 65).
FAMILY RESEMBLANCE
 Wittgenstein introduces the concept of family resemblance
in order to get rid of any form of essentialism.
 Elements that are often subsumed under a general concept,
don’t need to have something in common > “they form a
family the members of which have family likeness. Some
of them have the same nose, others the same eyebrows and
others again the same way of walking; and these likenesses
overlap. The idea of a general concept being a common
property of its particular instances connects up with other
primitive, too simple, ideas of the structure of language”
(from the Blue Book).
 Wittgenstein did not deny merely that games or statements
have something in common.
 He wants to eliminate a priori generalizations.
THE MOTIVE TO DISCUSS THE
IDEA OF A PRIVATE LANGUAGE
‘Private language’ is a new notion introduced by
Wittgenstein.
What is the motive to introduce this notion?
A not articulated reliance on the possibility of a
private language is arguably essential to
mainstream epistemology, philosophy of mind
and metaphysics from Descartes to versions of
the representational theory of mind which
became prominent in cognitive science.
PRIVATE LANGUAGE
A private language is not a personal code.
It is also not a language of one person.
“The individual words of his language are to refer
to what can only be known to the person speaking;
to his immediate private sensations” [PI 243].
One can follow a rule privately.
A language conceived as necessarily
comprehensible only to its single originator
because the things define its vocabulary are
necessarily inaccessible to others.
PRIVATE SENSATIONS
In fact Wittgenstein criticizes the
mentalistic paradigm founded by Descartes.
Basic mentalistic idea: “Sensations are
private” [PI 248]
Mentalistic paradigm > presupposes that
sensations are like things in a box.
Wittgenstein shows that one cannot grasp
these sensations via ostensive definitions
and that the criteria for the right use of
words to describe them cannot be private.
TWO ARGUMENTS AGAINST A
PRIVATE LANGUAGE
 Wittgenstein formulates two arguments against
the idea of a private language:
1.Ostensive definitions don’t make sense >
there is no possibility for corrections,
questions and answers to exclude
misunderstanding.
2.We need criteria to talk about the rightness
of an action > a public control is not
possible.
“S”
“Let us imagine the following case. I want to keep a diary about the
recurrence of a certain sensation. – I will remark first of all that a
definition of the sign cannot be formulated – But still I can give
myself a kind of ostensive definition. – How? Can I point to the
sensation? Not in the ordinary sense. But I speak, or write the sign
down, and at the same time I concentrate my attention on the
sensation and so as it were, point to it inwardly. – But what is this
ceremony for? For that is all it seems to be! A definition surely serves
to establish the meaning of a sign. Well that is done precisely by the
concentrating of my attention; for in this way I impress on myself the
connexion between the sign and the sensation. – But “I impress it on
myself” can only mean: this process brings it about that I remember
the connexion right in the future. But in the present case I have no
criterion of correctness. One would like to say: whatever is going to
seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we can’t talk
about ‘right’” [PI 258]
3. ETHICS AND AESTHETICS
THE GOOD LIFE
 Wittgenstein triggered many debates about ethics and
aesthetics, i.e. the good life.
 Wittgenstein I: one can only speak about ethical and
aesthetical issues form the perspective of eternity (sub
specie aeternitatis).
 “Das Kunstwerk ist der Gegenstand sub specie aeternitatis
gesehen; und das gute Leben ist die Welt sub specie
aeternitatis gesehen. Das ist er Zusammenhang zwischen
Kunst und Ethik” (TGB 178).
 “It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is
transcendental. (Ethics and aesthetics are one and the
same.)” [TLP 6.421].
WHAT CANNOT BE SAID
 Wittgenstein’s ethical reflections have an autobiographical
background: the struggle to be decent, i.e. overcoming
vanity and dishonest.
 ‘The Gospel in brief’ (1890) written by Leo Tolstoy (18281910) inspired Wittgenstein very much.
 Tolstoy criticized nihilism and the church with its rituals >
concentration on the innermost being.
 Wittgenstein > ethics and aesthetics don’t belong to this
world.
 “Ethics, if it is anything, is supernatural and our words will
only express facts”.
 The distinction between saying and showing > beyond
what can be said in sensical propositions there are things
that can only be shown [TLP 4.1212].
LIMITS
Ethics is running up the limits of language,
because of the attempt to say something that
cannot be said.
Wittgenstein distinguishes in his ‘Lecture on
Ethics’ (1929) two kinds of statements:
1. Relative statements > can be justified by
referring to facts which inform these
judgements.
2. Absolute statements > “no statement of fact
can ever be, or imply, a judgment of
absolute value”.
DUTY TO ONESELF
Wittgenstein argues that the meaning of life
cannot be found in the external world, but in
the internal world.
Mysticism > the soul is more important than
the body.
“Don’t be dependent on the external world
an then you have no fear of what happens in
it… It is x times easier to be independent of
things than to be independent of people. But
one must be capable of that as well.”
ART
 Wittgenstein is also inspired by
Tolstoy’s ‘What is Art?’.
 Good art gives expression to the
feelings and esthetical convictions of
a certain way of life.
 Respect for the common man > art
should be intelligible to everyone.
 Wittgenstein’s aesthetical ideal >
clarity.
 Example > the house he developed
and build for his sister Margarete.
THE WAY ART IS EMBEDDED IN A
FORM OF LIFE
 The perception of art is related to a form of life, i.e. a
specific culture.
 Every form of life makes you see some things.
 However, it makes you also to a certain extent blind.
 Wittgenstein’s ideas about aspect-seeing are not only
important for aesthetics, but also for a philosophy of
culture.
 There are two possible answers to the question: what do
you see?
1. I see that > a description.
2. I see it as > a resemblance.
ASPECT-SEEING
 The figure can be seen
under more than one
aspect: as a duck and as a
rabbit.
 One will see always the
same line > the picture
and the visual impression
didn’t change.
 An aspect is not an
attribute of the object.
BLIND SPOTS
A person who always sees a duck is blind for an
aspect that one can see.
Philosophers are interested in blind spots.
Wittgenstein introduced the concept aspectblindness.
Aspect-blindness:
- is not insensibility to optical impressions.
- it is the inability to understand optical
impressions > loss of associations
between optical sensations and what they
signify.
UNDERSTANDING WORKS OF ART
Wittgenstein raises the question: what is it to
understand a work of art?
Understanding art
- is not a question of specific mental activities.
- is not a question of a particular perception of the
attributes of piece of art.
It is a question of talking and writing in a certain
way about works of art > drawing the attention on
certain aspects.
For instance, if one says “You have to phrase it
so…” or “If you see it so, you would…”
THE LAYMAN AND THE ART
CONNOISSEUR
In order to see an aspect of a work of art it is
important to contextualize it.
The layman who doesn’t understand a lot of art
only uses predicates like ‘beautiful’ or ‘gorgeous’,
whereas the art connoisseur knows how to
enlighten certain aspects of a work of art.
Both are into different language-games.
Understanding art depends on certain rule-bound
language-games.
RECOMMENDED
1. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical
Investigations.
2. Ray Monk, Wittgenstein. The Duty of
Genius.
3. Derek Jarman, Wittgenstein [Movie].