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Philosophical Investigations

Philosophische Untersuchungen

Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1953 · Medium

4.3 from 3 reviews

Meaning & languageAnalytic
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What it is

Published two years after Wittgenstein's death, this book is made up of numbered remarks rather than continuous chapters. It opens with a passage from Augustine describing how a child learns words by pointing, and argues that this picture, in which words name objects and meaning is what they stand for, distorts how language works. In its place Wittgenstein offers the idea of language-games and the claim that, for a large class of cases, the meaning of a word is its use in the language. Later remarks introduce family resemblance, examine what it is to follow a rule, and argue against the possibility of a private language for one's own sensations. The second part, added by the editors, includes discussions of seeing-as.

Why read it

It overturned the author's own earlier philosophy and changed how philosophers think about meaning, mind and the nature of philosophical problems themselves.

Where to start

Read sections 1 to 88 in order before skipping ahead, and do not expect each remark to state a thesis.

Talking about Ludwig Wittgenstein

Reviews

  1. Tomasz Szewczak

    As a logician I find it maddening and indispensable. Wittgenstein refuses to give theses, which is exactly what I want from a philosopher. But the rule-following remarks, roughly sections 138 to 242, contain some of the deepest questions about what it means to apply a formal system at all. I keep arguing with them.

  2. Claire Dubois

    Translators should read this. The idea that meaning is use explains why a dictionary equivalent so often fails: you have to know the game the word is playing. I read it in German and English side by side, which itself became a lesson in language-games.

  3. Pieter van Dijkhuizen

    Strange to read as someone who trains language models, which learn meaning from patterns of use and nothing else. Some remarks read almost like design notes. I am not sure Wittgenstein would be pleased, since for him use belongs to a form of life, and that is exactly what our models lack.