INTRODUCTION 1129
Thirty-five years later, he still maintained this philosophical position: “Philosophy
is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.”*
But despite this theme, Wittgenstein developed two different ways to under-
stand language. The early Wittgenstein created a “picture theory of meaning” that
held that language consists of statements or propositions that picture the world.
Just as a picture has something in common with that which it pictures, so language
has a logical form in common with the world it pictures. This logical form is usually
obscured by ordinary language, so the philosopher’s job is to clear up ordinary lan-
guage by crafting a language that more perfectly pictures the world. This perfected
language will have to exclude many propositions (such as those in ethics, meta-
physics, or religion), consigning them to silence. Our selection from the Tractatus,
translated by D.F. Pears and B.F. McGuiness, presents this early theory.
Wittgenstein’s early theory was adopted and modified by Moritz Schlick and
his “Vienna Circle.” This group developed a philosophy that came to be called
“logical positivism.” Like Wittgenstein, they worked on an ideal language, free
from the ambiguities of ordinary discourse, that would clearly exhibit its logical
form. They also held that such a language would exclude the propositions of
ethics, metaphysics, and religion.
The early Wittgenstein, and the logical positivism that adapted many of his ideas,
profoundly impacted the philosophy of the mid-twentieth century. But Wittgenstein
himself moved to a different understanding of language: a “language game” theory.
This theory found the earlier picture theory too narrow; a perfected language is nei-
ther possible nor desirable. As he explains in our selection from the Investigations,
given here in the G.E.M. Anscombe translation, there are many kinds of meaningful
sentences that share certain characteristics, but not others. Just as there is no one
characteristic common to all games, so there is no one theory to explain all language
uses. The proper way to understand a sentence is not to break it down into its con-
stituent parts and analyze its logical form. Instead, we should examine the “forms of
life” out of which the sentence arises, to see what “game” it is playing. “The mean-
ing of a word,” Wittgenstein wrote, “is its use in the language.”
The later Wittgenstein was not interested in creating a perfect language. He
sought rather to expose the underlying assumptions of language and the forms of
life out of which our sentences arise. By understanding language in terms of the
social environment that gives it birth, the later Wittgenstein encouraged a socio-
logical understanding of language. Accordingly, Wittgenstein argued against the
idea of a private language—a language apart from communal interactions.
The influence of Wittgenstein’s early work peaked in the 1950s. But his later
understanding of philosophy and his lifelong conception of philosophy as activity
are still influential, particularly in the English-speaking world. For example, fem-
inist philosophers have used Wittgenstein’s insights to show how patriarchal lan-
guage both influences and is influenced by social structures, and theologians have
tried to understand the language of sacred texts by exploring their historical con-
texts. Wittgenstein’s belief that the aim of philosophy is to dissolve problems—
“To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle”—has continued to impress, or, as
critics would say, to depress, philosophy.
*Ludwig Wittgenstein,Philosophical Investigations(New York: Macmillan, 1958), no. 109, p. 47.