Ludwig Wittgenstein
Show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.
Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian-born philosopher, trained as an engineer and for many years a teacher at Cambridge, whose work turns on the relation between language, logic and the world. His Tractatus sought the limits of what can be meaningfully said; his later writings, published after his death, treat meaning as use within shared practices and philosophy as the patient clarification of conceptual confusion.
What can be said clearly, and what can only be shown?
Biography
Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian-born philosopher, trained as an engineer and for many years a teacher at Cambridge, whose work turns on the relation between language, logic and the world. His Tractatus sought the limits of what can be meaningfully said; his later writings, published after his death, treat meaning as use within shared practices and philosophy as the patient clarification of conceptual confusion.
02 /Philosophy
A proposition represents a possible state of affairs by sharing a logical form with it; its sense is fixed before we know whether it is true or false.
03 /Reading guides
Original introductions to enter the works, discover their central questions and take the reflection further.
04 /Bibliography
Works, testimonies and further readings are distinguished. Dates refer to composition or first publication, as specified in each entry.
A first reading.
The limits of language
Follow the numbered propositions of the Tractatus from facts and pictures to the silence of its final line.
Tractatus Logico-PhilosophicusMeaning and use
Test language games, family resemblance and the remarks on rules against examples drawn from everyday speech.
Philosophical InvestigationsCertainty and doubt
Examine how Wittgenstein answers Moore and the skeptic by asking what has to stand fast for doubt to make sense.
On Certainty