Language
Logic
Conceptanalysis
Description of a language
Three creators of the Modern Conceptanalysis
Scheme of languages
Scheme of abstractions
Scheme of a ´Possible world´
2-level theory of science´s language
Review to the history of Conceptanalysis
Views of History
... and many other interesting topics!
Ludwig Wittgenstein
(1889-04-26 - 1951-04-29)
The debate against metaphysics in detail, philosophers of the Vienna Circle concluded, was a complete waste of time: if one metaphysician says "Reality is the Absolute" and another that "Reality is a plurality of spirits", the empiricist need not trouble himself to reply to their arguments. He need only say to them - "What possible experience could settle the issue between you? To this question metaphysicians have no answer; and from this follows, according to the verifiability principle, that their assertions are quite without meaning. It is equally senseless, on this view, to say that "Reality is not
the Absolute" as to say "Reality is the Absolute"; because neither assertions can be verified. Thus metaphysical disputes are wholly pointless.
The picture above is representing Wittgenstein and von Wright at Gambridge in 1949 by
Knut Erik Tranöy.
Cover of Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations".
Validations
Site Search (Alt-S)
Sources:
THE CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY
ISBN 0-521-63722-8.
Ilkka Niiniluoto
Johdatus tieteenfilosofiaan, Käsitteen- ja teorianmuodostus,
(An introduction to the philosophy of science, Forming a theory and a concept)
ISBN 951-1-05435-X.
John Passmore
A Hundred Years of Philosophy
ISBN 0-14-02.0927-1.
The principle of verifiability too, the logical positivists thought, they had
derived from Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Now, certainly Wittgenstein wrote there that "to
understand a proposition means to know what is the case, if it is true". However, it
is quite a step from that almost platitudinous dictum to the identification of a
proposition's meaning with its method of verification. According to Wittgenstein, the
positivists misunderstood remarks he had let drop in conversation. "I used at one time to
say", he is reported as remarking, "that, in order to get clear how a certain proposition
is used, it was a good idea to ask oneself the question: How would one try to verify such
an assertion? But that's just one way of getting clear about the use of a word or a
proposition... Some people have turned this suggestion about asking for the verification
into a dogma - as if I'd been advancing a theory about meaning."
A collection of Wittgenstein's books in my home library.
Cover of Wittgenstein's "Prototractatus, an early version of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" including a facsimile of author's manuscript.
Edited by B. F. McGuinness, T. Nyberg and G. H. von Wright.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
(1889-04-26 - 1951-04-29)
The aim of the philosophical analysis is make clear indistinct concepts and obscure
thoughts. Ludwig Wittgenstein expressed this idea of philosophy's duty in his work Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus as follows:
Most propositions and questions which have been
written about philosophical matters are not false,
but senseless. We cannot, therefore, answer questions
of this kind at all, but only state their senselessness.
Most questions and propositions of the philosophers
result from the fact that we do not understand the logic
of our language.
(They are of the same kind as the question whether the
Good is more or less identical than the Beautiful.)
And so it is not to be wondered at that the deepest
problems are really not problems.
(4.003)
The philosophy is, according to Wittgenstein, "criticism of a language"
(4.0031) - it is not a doctrine but activities whose object is a language and as a result
making clear thoughts and propositions (4.112).
