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Ludwig Wittgenstein
Edited by Edmund Dain (Providence College)
About this topic
| Summary | Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was an Austrian philosopher whom many regard to have been the most important philosopher of the twentieth century. His work is often divided into two distinct periods, early and later, with the division occurring at some point shortly after his return to Cambridge in 1929 following a period of self-imposed exile as, among other things, a village school-teacher, monastery gardener, and architect. Wittgenstein wrote extensively on many topics including the philosophy of language, logic, mathematics and mind though he published little during his lifetime. His work is distinctive particularly for his claim that philosophy is for the most part nonsense, his aim being to bring to light the confusions that give to it the appearance of sense. |
| Key works | Wittgenstein’s most important works are the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (first published in English in 1922) and the Philosophical Investigations (first published posthumously in 1953). The nature and extent of the continuity between these two works is a matter of great controversy, with one extreme representing them as offering fundamentally opposed philosophies and another treating the differences as largely stylistic. Among the many other works produced from his manuscripts and notebooks, Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, compiled from notes made in the two years before his death, is sometimes regarded as his third “masterpiece”. |
| Introductions | There are many good introductions to Wittgenstein's thought. Monk 2005 and Hacker 1999 are both short and accessible. More in-depth, but still engaging, are Child 2011, Kenny 1973, and Sluga 2011. Dean Jolley 2010 contains a good selection of essays on central topics. McGinn 2006 and McGinn 2013 provide in-depth introductions to the Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations, respectively. |
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- G. E. M. Anscombe (182)
- J. L. Austin (289)
- A. J. Ayer (274)
- C. D. Broad (640)
- Rudolf Carnap (1,488 | 369)
- Roderick Chisholm (282)
- Donald Davidson (1,019)
- Daniel Dennett (0)
- Michael Dummett (1)
- Paul Feyerabend (463)
- Jerry Fodor (0)
- Philippa Foot (12)
- Gottlob Frege (2,656 | 143)
- Nelson Goodman (413)
- Paul Grice (22)
- Saul Kripke (11)
- Thomas Kuhn (972)
- Imre Lakatos (417)
- David Lewis (468)
- G. E. Moore (698)
- Derek Parfit (29)
- Karl Popper (2,077 | 7)
- Hilary Putnam (10)
- W. V. O. Quine (1,446)
- Frank Ramsey (2)
- John Rawls (2,679)
- Bertrand Russell (3,612)
- Gilbert Ryle (283)
- Wilfrid Sellars (744)
- Susan Stebbing (2)
- P. F. Strawson (451)
- Alfred Tarski (288)
- Judith Jarvis Thomson (0)
- Bernard Williams (757)
- Logical Empiricism (628)
- 20th Century Analytic Philosophy, Misc (378)
Contents
9119 found
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| 1 — 50 / 9119 |
- What is Spoken of when We Speak about Being.Niel Bezrookove - manuscriptτὰ ὄντα ἰέναι τε πάντα καὶ μένειν οὐδέν: Another look at being, asking what a interlocutor means to show by saying they feel themselves to be something. An ambiguity of the verb "to be" is disambiguated to reveal that it can be meant to show what something is and a process of being something. The relationship between being and essence is made by describing engagement through the encounter, giving us a non-exhaustive account of something's essence. Practice is then understood as (...)
- On the exhaustion criterion of difficulty, with Wittgenstein, Robert Graves, and Kripke.Terence Rajivan Edward - manuscriptThe philosopher and builder Ludwig Wittgenstein remarks that architecture is more difficult than philosophy. He suggests an exhaustion criterion for how difficult a discipline is: a field is more difficult the more exhausting it is. I make a case against this claim. There was once a demand to prevent the Greek myths from establishing themselves in the curriculum by means of “our own rival myths.” It is difficult to compete with a renowned Greek myth, but if one does produce a (...)
- Does the persistence of genius depend on social obstacles? Troubles with displacing Wittgenstein on The Golden Bough.Terence Rajivan Edward - manuscriptThis paper considers the debate between teams of skilled contributors versus a genius by focusing on a specific case: a team project to overturn some remarks by Wittgenstein on Frazer’s The Golden Bough. In theory, there can be a team which does this, but in actual practice, such a team seems unlikely to arise.
- On Philomatics and Psychomatics for Combining Philosophy and Psychology with Mathematics.Benyamin Ghojogh & Morteza Babaie - manuscriptWe propose the concepts of philomatics and psychomatics as hybrid combinations of philosophy and psychology with mathematics. We explain four motivations for this combination which are fulfilling the desire of analytical philosophy, proposing science of philosophy, justifying mathematical algorithms by philosophy, and abstraction in both philosophy and mathematics. We enumerate various examples for philomatics and psychomatics, some of which are explained in more depth. The first example is the analysis of relation between the context principle, semantic holism, and the usage (...)
- Intention and self knowledge: Wittgenstein's bequeathal A first draft.Les Jones - manuscript
- Sobre los juicios de valor relativo en Wittgenstein.Emilio Méndez Pinto - manuscript
- Showing Certainty: An Essay on Wittgenstein's Response to Scepticism.Anne Newstead - manuscriptCoping with everyday life limits the extent of one’s scepticism. It is practically impossible to doubt the existence of the things with which one is immediately engaged and interacting. To doubt that, say, a door exists, is to step back from merely using the door (opening it) and to reflect on it in a detached, theoretical way. It is impossible to simultaneously act and live immersed in situation S while doubting that one is in S. Sceptical doubts—such as ‘Is this (...)
- (1 other version)Phenomenal Concepts and Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument.Martina Prinz & François-Igor Pris - manuscript
- Pragmatism and Legal Reasoning.Narve Strand - manuscriptRemove from this listExport citation
Bookmark - Wittgenstein’s analysis on Cantor’s diagonal argument.Chaohui Zhuang - manuscriptIn Zettel, Wittgenstein considered a modified version of Cantor’s diagonal argument. According to Wittgenstein, Cantor’s number, different with other numbers, is defined based on a countable set. If Cantor’s number belongs to the countable set, the definition of Cantor’s number become incomplete. Therefore, Cantor’s number is not a number at all in this context. We can see some examples in the form of recursive functions. The definition "f(a)=f(a)" can not decide anything about the value of f(a). The definiton is incomplete. (...)
- Wittgenstein and deconstruction.Nick Gier - manuscriptforthcoming in Review of Contemporary Philosophy 6 (2007).
- Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics.Victor Rodych - unknown - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Wittgenstein And Alice's Dreams.Fulya Alıç - unknown - Yeditepe'de Felsefe (Philosophy at Yeditepe) 8.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- The Impact of Wittgenstein on Theology.Rasul Bergisian - unknown - Kheradnameh Sadra Quarterly 51.The present paper deals with Wittgenstein's influence on theology considering the concept of "logical atmosphere", which connects his earlier and later philosophical ideas.It reveals that the concepts underlying his earlier and later philosophies have had numerous impacts upon theology. Accordingly, they have been discussed under two groups of actual and potential ones.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- The Wittgensteinian Paradox.Matt Campbell - unknown - Proceedings of the Heraclitean Society 18.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- »the Greatest Jewish Thinker Is Only A Talent. « Wittgenstein’s Revoked Judaism.Donatella Di Cesare - unknown - Phainomena 74.In the latest studies on Wittgenstein, the interest for his life has raised a question that had remained in the shadow: the question of his »Judaism«. This essay acknowledges Steven S. Schwarzschild’s suggestion, according to which Wittgenstein could be seen as an »alienated Jew«. Contrasting those who consider Wittgenstein’s Judaism as a negligible, if not insignificant, detail of his biography, it tries not to claim a Jewish identity for Wittgenstein, but rather to evaluate the effects elicited on his philosophy by (...)Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- A Comparison Of Logical Form In Russell And Wittgenstein.Philip May - unknown - Eidos: The Canadian Graduate Journal of Philosophy 2.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Wittgenstein's Understanding Of The Subject.Çetin Türkyılmaz - unknown - Yeditepe'de Felsefe (Philosophy at Yeditepe) 8.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- With factualist friends, Kripke's Wittgenstein needs no enemies: On Byrne's case for Kripke's Wittgenstein being a factualist about meaning attributions.John Humphrey - manuscript_Private Language_ is that it almost universally sees KW as offering, in his sceptical solution, an account of meaning attributions (i.e., statements of the form, "X means such-and-so by 's'"; hereafter, MAs) which takes their legitimate attribution to be a function of something other than facts or truth conditions. KW is almost universally read as having rejected any account of meaning attributions which takes them to be stating facts or corresponding to facts. In a word, KW is understood as offering (...)Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Meta-Ethical Quietism? Wittgenstein, Relaxed Realism, and Countercultures in Meta-Ethics.Farbod Akhlaghi - forthcoming - In Jonathan Beale & Rach Cosker-Rowland (eds.), Wittgenstein and Contemporary Moral Philosophy.Ludwig Wittgenstein has often been called a quietist. His work has inspired a rich and varied array of theories in moral philosophy. Some prominent meta-ethicists have also been called quietists, or ‘relaxed’ as opposed to ‘robust’ realists, sometimes with explicit reference to Wittgenstein in attempts to clarify their views. In this chapter, I compare and contrast these groups of theories and draw out their importance for contemporary meta-ethical debate. They represent countercultures to contemporary meta-ethics. That is, they reject in different (...)
- (1 other version)El futuro de la filosofía después de Wittgenstein.Gómez Alonso & M. Modesto - forthcoming - Daimon: Revista Internacional de Filosofía.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein.B. Anat & M. Anat - forthcoming - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Catch Me If You Can – Wittgenstein on the Ineffability of Logical Form.Pavel Arazim - forthcoming - Logic and Logical Philosophy:1-15.Logical form and logical analysis as the search for it have been introduced during the development of logic and analytical philosophy and are still widely considered as key tools or methods for the solution of philosophical puzzles. It is instructive to have a look at a criticism of these presupositions and I present Wittgenstein as the author who provides such a criticism. I present a development of his view of logical form which went from the thesis of the ineffability of (...)
- Wittgenstein on Proof and Concept-Formation.Sorin Bangu - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.In his Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Wittgenstein claims, puzzlingly, that ‘the proof creates a new concept’ (RFM III-41). This paper aims to contribute to clarifying this idea, and to showing how it marks a major break with the traditional conception of proof. Moreover, since the most natural way to understand his claim is open to criticism, a secondary goal of what follows is to offer an interpretation of it that neutralizes the objection. The discussion proceeds by analysing a (...)
- Wittgenstein and Contemporary Moral Philosophy.Jonathan Beale & Rach Cosker-Rowland (eds.) - forthcomingRemove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- From Pictures to Employments: Later Wittgenstein on 'the Infinite'.Philip Bold - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.With respect to the metaphysics of infinity, the tendency of standard debates is to either endorse or to deny the reality of ‘the infinite’. But how should we understand the notion of ‘reality’ employed in stating these options? Wittgenstein’s critical strategy shows that the notion is grounded in a confusion: talk of infinity naturally takes hold of one’s imagination due to the sway of verbal pictures and analogies suggested by our words. This is the source of various philosophical pictures that (...)
- A Cave Allegory.Philip Bold - forthcoming - Philosophy and Literature.A retelling of Plato's famous cave allegory. Inspired by Dōgen, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein.
- Jewish Philosophical Conceptions of God.Gabriel Citron - forthcoming - In Yitzhak Melamed & Paul Franks (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Philosophy. Oxford University Press.There is no single Jewish philosophical conception of God, and the array of competing conceptions does not lend itself to easy systemization. Nonetheless, it is the aim of this chapter to provide an overview of this unruly theological terrain. It does this by setting out ‘maps’ of the range of positions which Jewish philosophers have taken regarding key aspects of the God-idea. These conceptual maps will cover: (i) how Jewish philosophers have thought of the role and status of conceiving of (...)
- Philosophical Progress, Skepticism, and Disagreement.Annalisa Coliva & Louis Doulas - forthcoming - In Maria Baghramian, J. Adam Carter & Rach Cosker-Rowland (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Disagreement. Routledge.This chapter serves as an opinionated introduction to the problem of convergence (that there is no clear convergence to the truth in philosophy) and the problem of peer disagreement (that disagreement with a peer rationally demands suspending one’s beliefs), and some of the issues they give rise to, namely, philosophical skepticism and progress in philosophy. After introducing both topics and surveying the various positions in the literature we explore the prospects of an alternative, hinge-theoretic account.$280.00 new (collection) View on Amazon.comRemove from this list Direct downloadExport citation Bookmark 2 citations
- Types Categories and Nonsense.J. W. Cornman - forthcoming - Studies in Logical Theory, American Philosophical Quarterly.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Wittgenstein’s Interpretations of Essences: Both in Tractatus & Philosophical Investigation.Sagarika Datta - forthcoming - International Journal of Philosophy.Wittgenstein in his early work viz. Tractatus argued that there is a common, essential, underlying structure that links logic, language and the world. He also argued about the need for an analysis of ordinary language in terms of a perspicuous symbolism that would display a one to one relationship between a proposition and a fact – when both of them are broken down to their simplest components – viz. to atomic propositions and atomic states of affairs. All propositions are ultimately (...)
- A Marxist reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein: Making the case for social and political change.Marc James Deegan - forthcoming - Philosophy and Social Criticism.This article offers a Marxist reading of Wittgenstein and juxtaposes his famous dictum that philosophy ‘leaves everything as it is’ with the idea of transformative action. I seek to align the later philosophy of Wittgenstein with Marx’s 11th thesis on Feuerbach. I advance an unorthodox view interpreting Wittgenstein as an advocate for social and political reform. Wittgenstein’s philosophy encourages us to imagine alternatives and contemplate concrete possibilities for changing the world. The debate operates within the philosophy of education and draws (...)
- Wittgenstein, antyesencjalizm i definicja sztuki.Terence J. Diffey - forthcoming - Estetyka I Krytyka 9 (9/10):76-92.
- Murdoch on Heidegger.Matt Dougherty - forthcoming - Philosophers' Imprint.This paper presents an account of Iris Murdoch's engagement with the work of Martin Heidegger. It covers her early discussions and evaluations of him in The Sovereignty of Good, through to her late Heidegger manuscript, covering both his early and late work. It details the significant changes that occur in her evaluation of him, as well as the key sympathies identified and criticisms developed in the late manuscript. The focus is on her insistence that only 'the Good', and not Heidegger's (...)
- (1 other version)The Later Wittgenstein on Expressive Moral Judgements.Jordi Fairhurst - forthcoming - The Philosophical Quarterly.This paper shows that Wittgenstein's later explorations of the meaning of expressive moral judgements reach far deeper than has so far been noticed. It is argued that an adequate description of the meaning of expressive moral judgements requires engaging in a grammatical investigation that focuses on three interwoven components within specific language-games. First, the ethical reactions expressed by moral words and the additional purpose they may fulfil. Second, the features of the actions which are bound up with moral words and (...)
- Wittgenstein and Gadamer on private language.Ghasem Fazli - forthcoming - Philosophical Investigations.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- 43rd International Wittgenstein Symposium proceedings.Alfredo Roque Freire & V. Alexis Peluce (eds.) - forthcomingRemove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Limits of intelligibility: Issues from Kant and Wittgenstein, edited by Jens Pier, New York and London, Routledge, 2023, pp. xii + 308, £108.00 (hb), ISBN: 9780367689629. [REVIEW]Francesco Gandellini - forthcoming - British Journal for the History of Philosophy.The essays collected in this volume discuss, in different styles and to various extents, a relatively neglected theme in philosophy. This theme is the limits of intelligibility or, in the editor’s...
- Wittgenstein and the ABC's of Religious Epistemics.Axtell Guy - forthcoming - In Pritchard Duncan & Venturinha Nuno (eds.), Wittgenstein and the Epistemology of Religion. Oxford University Press.This paper continues my development of philosophy of religion as multi-disciplinary comparative research. An earlier paper, “Wittgenstein and Contemporary Belief-Credence Dualism” compared Wittgensteinian reflections on religious discourse and praxis with B-C dualism as articulated by its leading proponents. While some strong commonalities were elaborated that might help to bridge Continental and Analytic approaches in philosophy of religion, Wittgenstein was found to be a corrective to B-C dualism especially as regards how the psychology and philosophy of epistemic luck/risk applies to doxastic (...)
- The Truth Table Formulation of Propositional Logic.Tristan Grøtvedt Haze - forthcoming - Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy.Developing a suggestion of Wittgenstein, I provide an account of truth tables as formulas of a formal language. I define the syntax and semantics of TPL (the language of Tabular Propositional Logic), and develop its proof theory. Single formulas of TPL, and finite groups of formulas with the same top row and TF matrix (depiction of possible valuations), are able to serve as their own proofs with respect to metalogical properties of interest. The situation is different, however, for groups of (...)
- (3 other versions)Kripke’s Wittgenstein and Ginsborg’s Reductive Dispositionalism (In Persian).Ali Hossein Khani - forthcoming - Metaphysics (University of Isfahan).Kripke in his famous book on Wittgenstein’s later philosophy argues, on behalf of Wittgenstein, that there can be no fact of the matter as to what a speaker means by her words, that is, no fact that can meet the Constitution Demand and the Normativity Demand. He particularly argues against the dispositional view, according to which meaning facts are constituted by facts about the speaker's dispositions to respond in a certain way on certain occasions. He argues that facts about dispositions (...)
- Blackburn’s Wittgenstein: The Quasi-Realist.Ali Hossein Khani - forthcoming - In Ali Hossein Khani & Gary Kemp (eds.), Wittgenstein and Other Philosophers: His Influence on Historical and Contemporary Analytic Philosophers (Volume I). Routledge.
- Quine, Naturalism and First-Person Epistemology (In Persian).Ali Hossein Khani - forthcoming - Iranian Institute of Philosophy (IRIP) Publishing.The book will discuss and criticize the objections from Blackburn, Searle and Glock to Quine's arguments for the indeterminacy of translation, i.e., that these arguments result in a denial of first-person authority, as well as Hylton’s solution to these objections. The book argues that these objections, as well as Hylton's solution, all rely on a misconstrual of Quine, among other things, that there can be a distinction between meaning and translation for Quine. I will then offer a Strawsonian-Wittgensteinian account of (...)Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- (1 other version)A Critical Review of the Mainstream Reading of Kripke’s Wittgenstein: On Misunderstanding Kripke’s Wittgenstein (In Persian).Ali Hossein Khani - forthcoming - Journal of Philosophical Investigations at University of Tabriz.In this paper, I will argue against certain criticisms of Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s sceptical argument and sceptical solution, made especially by Baker and Hacker, McGinn, and McDowell. I will show that their interpretation of Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s view is misplaced. According to Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s sceptical argument, there is no fact as to what someone means by her words. For Kripke, this conclusion, combined with Classical Realist view of meaning, leads to the Wittgensteinian paradox, according to which there is no such thing as (...)
- (3 other versions)Kripke's Wittgenstein: The Meaning Sceptic.Ali Hossein Khani - forthcoming - In Ali Hossein Khani & Gary Kemp (eds.), Wittgenstein and Other Philosophers: His Influence on Historical and Contemporary Analytic Philosophers (Volume I). Routledge.
- Wittgenstein and Other Philosophers: His Influence on Historical and Contemporary Analytic Philosophers (Volume I).Ali Hossein Khani & Gary Kemp (eds.) - forthcoming - Routledge.This edited volume includes 36 Chapters, each of which discusses the influence of a philosopher's reading of Wittgenstein in his/her philosophical works and the way such Wittgensteinian ideas have manifested themselves in those works.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Wittgenstein and Other Philosophers: His Influence on Historical and Contemporary Analytic Philosophers (Volume II).Ali Hossein Khani & Gary Kemp (eds.) - forthcoming - Routledge.This edited volume includes 49 Chapters, each of which discusses the influence of a philosopher's reading of Wittgenstein in his/her philosophical works and the way such Wittgensteinian ideas have manifested themselves in those works.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Extended Rationality: A Hinge Epistemology, By Annalisa Coliva. [REVIEW]Michael Hymers - forthcoming - Analysis:anx030.Extended Rationality: A Hinge Epistemology by Annalisa Coliva, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. xii + 222 pp. £60.00.
- Review of Floyd and Mühlhölzer on Wittgenstein's Annotations to Hardy. [REVIEW]Juliette Kennedy - forthcoming - Philosophia Mathematica.
- (1 other version)Wittgenstein and Die Meistersinger: The Aesthetic Road to a Sceptical Solution of the Sceptical Paradox.Vojtěch Kolman - forthcoming - Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics 57 (1):44-63.Starting with Wittgenstein’s remark about his allegedly frequent visits to the performance of Wagner’s _Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,_ the paper presents Wagner’s opera – being explicitly an opera about rules and rule-following – as a possible stimulus for the later Wittgenstein’s thinking about language. Besides Wittgenstein’s systematic interests in parallels between music and language, the paper draws on the choice of terminology (such as the comparison of rules to rails) and on Wittgenstein’s own examples of rule-following. More speculatively, the phrasing (...)
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