Language Games

 

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian/British Philosopher. He was born on April 26th, 1989 in Vienna. He came from a very wealthy and large family. Wittgenstein was the youngest of eight children. He studied mechanical engineering in Berlin and then went to England to do research in aeronautics. After studying engineering, his interest led to mathematics which in turn, led him to think about philosophical questions. After years of studying mathematics and logic, he wrote Philosophical Investigations, which was published after he passed. In this book, it states “ For a large class of cases–though not for all–in which we employ the word “meaning” it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.” This brings us to our next point :

Language Games

Knowing the meaning of a word can involve many different things such as what part of speech it is, is it slang, or what objects the word refers to. Wittgenstein uses the word “is” as an example in his book. He states that it has two different meanings but its meaning is not its use. It has two distinct uses and meanings ( “water is clear” vs “water is H20” ). This video better explains the meaning of his logic:

Let's Play A Game :

What do you see in this picture? A rabbit? A duck? Both of these interpretations are correct but they vastly change how we interrupt the picture. Wittgenstein was trying to illustrate in his work that our preconceptions and our different definitions influenced our world and what we see. Without analyzing the core meaning, we can not really understand what we mean when we communicate which can cause miscommunication between individuals. We do not realize how important the meaning of our words really are, which is why I believe that misinterpreting someone can be likely. Wittgenstein's ideas can help us understand where our definitions come from and help us communicate as well.