I have to say, I am intrigued by Wittgenstein. Obviously, as a writer, a philosopher with such a linguistic bent would intrigue me (and it excites me that, apparently, most philosophers at the time were like that). However, I think Wittgenstein gets at something I do not see other philosophers getting at: the nature of language. What, fundamentally, is language? Ironically, I have seen YouTube videos and other Internet sources getting at this, but not actual philosophers. I loved reading his section, and am glad to finally see a philosopher talking about this, since I think about it often.
I guess that Augustine did get at it first (LHP, p. 205). Apparently, he learned to speak by having adults name things around him. It seems that Augustine thought that language was primarily for naming objects. Wittgenstein, however, thought that language did not always name things. "It’s not that you don’t have a sensation. It’s just that, logically, your words can’t be the names of sensations." (LHP, p. 205). Wittgenstein thought that language was "overlapping resemblances", like those in a family (LHP, p. 203). An important thing I have heard many online talk about is how important it is to know what someone means when they say a certain word, and Wittgenstein believed that most philosophical problems came from a misunderstanding of the fundamental nature of language (LHP, p. 203-207). I think that is valid. Many arguments I have had started because we misunderstood what the other was actually saying.
I do not think that Myers-Briggs should be used, and frankly this skit is not actually that funny, but 1:41-2:01 kind of shows what I mean by knowing what someone means when they say a certain word:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwDSrMkNIvM
As does the first section of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdF8jEbzJV8
(Neither are the most intelligent of things I could have put in here, but I suppose that they work. Both are two of many videos that reference what I am talking about.)
Something that LHP does not really get into, but that I wish it did, is his view of the mind and how it's related to his view of language. It gets into it a little bit. "The point he was trying to make...was that the way we use words to describe our experiences can’t be based on a private linking of the experience with the word. There must be something public about it. We can’t have our own private language. And if that is true, the idea that the mind is like a locked theatre that no one else can get into is misleading. For Wittgenstein, then, the idea of a private language of sensations doesn’t make sense at all. This is important – and difficult to grasp too – because many philosophers before him thought that each individual’s mind was completely private." (LHP, p. 206). I have heard of the idea of a collective mind before. Did Wittgenstein believe in that? I want to read more of him to see if he gets into his view of the mind; however, considering his philosophical bent and that of his contemporaries, maybe he does not.
Wittgenstein is a well-known enough philosopher that information about him is not hard to find. Britannica has an article on him (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ludwig-Wittgenstein). It says a lot of the same things as LHP, but it includes many other things about him. It includes how he thought about his ideas: “What we find in philosophy is trivial; it does not teach us new facts, only science does that. But the proper synopsis of these trivialities is enormously difficult, and has immense importance. Philosophy is in fact the synopsis of trivialities.” (Monk, 2019). It also includes more about his philosophy and personal life, like how Weininger's idea that "Logic and ethics are fundamentally the same, they are no more than duty to oneself," influenced Wittgenstein as he joined the army in World War II. (Monk, 2019).
Up to this point, I am embarrassed to say, I have mainly talked about how I feel about Wittgenstein, not about whether or not I actually agree with him and why, like I have been instructed. I have thought about the fundamental nature of language. I do not know if the YouTube videos, websites, etc., that I have seen talking about this have originated these thoughts, because I tend to think about these kinds of things in general, but they have informed my thought about them. I am embarrassed to say that I haven't read much philosophy, only a little, but I suspect that I will read Wittgenstein over the summer. I love to read, but I primarily read fiction. Anyways, I would want to understand a little bit more of his philosophy before I decide to agree or disagree with him.
I want to read a lot of the philosophers from Little History of Philosophy, but especially Wittgenstein. Pardon me for going on more about how I feel about Wittgenstein.
References:
Monk, R. (2019). Ludwig Wittgenstein | British philosopher. In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ludwig-Wittgenstein
Warburton, N. (2012). A little history of philosophy. Yale University Press.
Your references were spilling into the left margin. Fixed it.
ReplyDeleteWittgenstein inspired generations of philosophers to make a "linguistic turn" (see Richard Rorty's eponymous book)... but some of them turned too far, forgetting that language is of philosophical interest to the extent that it illuminates all of life, not just itself. Some philosophers of language became fixated on language for its own sake and stopped asking larger questions about the world. This was true of many self-avowed logical positivists and meta-ethicists, for example. Much of mid-century Anglo-Saxon philosophy was smitten with linguistic philosophy. J.L. Austin is an example, with his "How to Do Things With Words"...
You'll want to read the new Anthony Gottlieb book: "Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy in the Age of Airplanes"