Abstract

There are two abiding problems in Wittgenstein's philosophy: the relationship between thought and reality, and the relationship between the self and the world. The former is consistently defined in terms of an understanding of the function and limits of logic; the latter in terms of the paradigmatic experience of the way one sees things. ;The strict separation between what can be said and what can only be shown, which was of fundamental importance for the Tractatus, collapses in the later philosophy. The discursive and epistemological issues of philosophy are now understood and solved only in light of the experiential and existential problems of life. There is no longer a strict separation between the way one sees things and way one conceives things. ;Post-Tractarian logic is no longer transcendent, independent, or invariant. It functions within and is determined by the grammar of the language game being played. Language has no singular end, purpose, or function. It does not require fixed, unambiguous, and exhaustively complete logical rules. Nor must there be an interpretive grasp or intuition of linguistic rules. ;In his later work Wittgenstein severs the presumed metaphysical connection between thought and reality. The relation between facts and concepts is reciprocal. An ubersichtlichen Darstellung gives a representative overview of the conceptual connections we make. It shows the 'possibilities of phenomena'. The self no longer occupies a place outside of the logical relations of things in the world, it is the self that makes connections and constructs relations between things. ;Wittgenstein never abandons the possibility of an unmediated, transcendent experience of the world. In the later philosophy, however, he comes to reject the idea that man can construct his own means of transcendence. The task of philosophy is no longer to construct a ladder by means of which we can see the world aright. Philosophy shows the means by which we see the world as we do, and thereby opens possibilities to see it in other ways