Abstract

The synoptic view of language constitutes the basis of Wittgenstein's critique of traditional philosophical thinking. He shows that philosophy is a kind of mythology arising out of a peculiar attitude towards language which can be detected in various forms of human activities. It is on this basis that Wittgenstein launches his attack on philosophers of mathematics and on Freud's theory of psychoanalysis. Philosophical understanding is now seen to consist in seeing connections, noting differences, and noting proto-phenomena. The first gives rise to Wittgenstein's idea of family resemblance and the language-game method. The second leads to his drawing the distinctions between surface grammar and depth grammar, between symptom and criterion, and between grammar and experience; it is also the basis of his critique of reductionism. The third brings forth the recognition that scepticism and the craving for an ultimate explanation of things are groundless and that human values lie in man's spontaneous response to the ultimate meaning of life and the world. Wittgenstein's Weltanschauung is characterized by his insight that what constitutes the ultimate foundation of all human activities is man's unconditional acceptance of various kinds of proto-phenomena. ;Once the basic change is grasped, the focal point of attention has to be directed to Wittgenstein's critique of the phantasms behind the Tractatus doctrines. For when Wittgenstein combats the Tractatus, what are brought under critique are not so much the Tractatus doctrines per se as the phantasms behind them. Such phantasms are fully uncovered in his treatment of the problems of logic and private language. In the case of logic, what Wittgenstein tries to dispel are the phantasms that lead to the Tractatus view that logic is a kind of ultra-physics describing the logical structure of the world which we perceive through a kind of ultra-experience. The Tractatus views of analysis, generality, logical inference, and logical necessity are all shown to be illusory. Analysis and generality are now stripped of their material sense; it is now seen that logical inference is merely the transformation of signs according to rules, logical necessity a subtle form of human agreement in form of life, and logic part of the apparatus of language. As regards private language, the four theses in which it is rooted are completely undermined. These four theses are: naming is the sole basis of language; language is used according to strict rules; meanings are mental accompaniments to verbal expressions; and sensations are private objects. The whole idea of a private language is shown to result from a mere grammatical illusion. ;A sine qua non for understanding the later Wittgenstein is to grasp what actually prompts him to abandon the Tractatus. The popular "doctrinal" interpretation that takes Wittgenstein's later philosophy as arising from a doctrinal reconstruction of the Tractatus view of logic masks the basic change between his two philosophies. The basic change consists in his abandoning the Tractatus mode of thinking, a mode of thinking characteristic of traditional philosophy. And this change is brought about by his realizing the real characters of philosophical problems as well as the phantasms behind the Tractatus mode of thinking. As a result, the later Wittgenstein comes up with a new way of thinking and avers that philosophical problems have to be treated in an entirely different way. What lies at the core of this new way of thinking is the notion of a synoptic view , which designates the goal of philosophical inquiry, marks the form of representation, brings forth a new kind of philosophical understanding, and exhibits a new way of looking at things