Questions tagged [wittgenstein]
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher, professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge (1939-1947). He worked in foundations of mathematics and on mathematical logic, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He played a central, if controversial, role in 20th-century analytic philosophy.
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How do Anscombe and Wittgenstein view psychology?
G. E. M. Anscombe wrote this at the beginning of Modern Moral Philosophy where she claimed that one should not do moral philosophy today:
...that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an ...
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Difference between the correspondence and the picture theory of meaning/language
Was Wittgenstein's picture theory of meaning/language, as posited in the Tractatus, and which was closely aligned with his analytic realism/logical atomism, simply an elucidation and elaboration of ...
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How does contemporary analytic philosophy reply to the late Wittgenstein's injunction against theory?
In the In Our Time episode on Wittgenstein philosopher Ray Monk says the following:
It's a central view of the later Wittgenstein that there can be no such thing as a philosophical theory. I think ...
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What could be "Wittgenstein's strong disapproval of Russell's introduction to the book [Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus]"?
In the page 536 of von Wright's Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Biographical Sketch in The Philosophical Review, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Oct., 1955), he tells:
The author of the Tractatus thought he had solved all ...
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Are Wittgenstein's propositions about death incompatible with momentariness?
Are Wittgenstein's propositions about death incompatible with momentariness?
I think mean that death, which is a cessation that is not lived through, cannot change life, and we are immortal outside ...
user38026
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Does something permanent really need to accompany private sensations in Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument?
Ludwig Wittgenstein discusses at length the argument against the coherence of a private language throughout his published works. My question is, are there any objections to the argument that work ...
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Why should we consider Wittgenstein a Schopenhauerian idealist?
About the Tractatus, while explaining the similarities and differences between Wittgenstein and Kant with regard to the metaphysics, on the one hand (both track limits, according to which we cannot ...
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What are the arguments in favor of scepticism today?
It seems that today the common opinion is that Wittgenstein "killed" philosophical skepticism with his Philosophical Investigations (PI) and his private language argument.
After PI, the number of ...
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Is mysticism a confusion of language?
Is mysticism a confusion of language, in Wittgenstein's sense? You'd have thought it was, especially if it makes any positive claims. But does it not ever "show" things, ever?
user66760
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What was Wittgenstein's view on happiness?
I was wondering whether Wittgenstein is a proponent of happiness being central to a life well lived. Generally, from Ronald Suter's article and what I've read about him, Id wager the answer is yes. ...
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Was Wittgenstein a cognitivist?
It is a common misconception to think that Wittgenstein was anti-theoretical in his Philosophical Investigations. There's simply too much evidence that doesn't support that conclusion.
At first I ...
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Using solipsism's incoherence with doubt as proof of the external world?
I have the following rough outline of utilizing solipsism as a proof by contradiction to the goal of asserting an epistemological proof of the external world.
A solipsist (Wittgenstian) lives in a ...
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Has any consensualists written on Wittgenstein?
"This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a
rule, because any course of action can be made out to accord with the
rule" - Wittgenstein
This paradox is purported to call ...
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If logical propositions aren't tautologies (a la Wittgenstein), then what could they be?
This is a historical question about philosophical views. I believe I understand the claim made by Wittgenstein and others that logical propositions are tautologies. I'd like to know what other views ...
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Does the Private Language Argument (PLA) succeed in showing that some form of public extra mental world exists?
Quoted from http://www.iep.utm.edu/solipsis/:
One might even say, solipsism is necessarily foundationless, for to make an appeal to logical rules or empirical evidence the solipsist would ...
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What if we could only "surmount" propositions with lower order properties as their object
This link nicely explains the difference between lower order and higher order properties
First-order properties and relations are those that can only be instantiated by individuals. For example, ...
user6917
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According to Wittgenstein, why are the laws of logic valid?
According to Wittgenstein's tractatus,
A fact is composed of atomic facts.
An atomic fact corresponds to an elemental proposition. (Picture theory)
A proposition is a series of elemental propositions ...
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Is private language argument against absolute idealism?
Wittgenstein famously proposed that private language is an incoherent notion. Does this refute some version of idealism which claims that the reality is totally mind-dependent ?
For me an argument ...
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Review articles on the rule-following paradox
Except for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) article on private language, I am having a hard time finding review articles (or book chapters) on the rule-following paradox.
What review ...
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What, if anything, has post-positivism left standing as the legacy of Frege’s Begriffsschriftis, Russel’s Principia, and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus
The goal of both Russel’s Principia (1910) and Frege’s Begriffsschriftis (1879) ["a formula language, modeled on that of arithmetic, for pure thought."] was essentially to defend the ...
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Confidence margin for logical verification
I'm starting to read Wittgenstein and I keep circling around a problem, which I'll lay out with the following ideas:
a. Logical space is the totality of external reality.
b. A proposition is logical ...
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Wittgenstein. The sense of the world must lie outside the world
I would be grateful if someone could recommend a book, or an article that really tries to get to the bottom of the above statement. Again "The sense of the world must lie outside the world".
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What are the "Simples" Wittgenstein discusses in Philosophical Investigations?
I first came across this term in §39 of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, wherein he writes
[O]ne is tempted to make an objection against what is ordinarily called a name. It can be put ...
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How exactly Wittgenstein "inspired two schools of thought [logical positivism/logical empiricism and analytic/linguistic movement/Cambridge School]"?
In the page 527 of von Wright's Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Biographical Sketch in The Philosophical Review, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Oct., 1955), he tells:
It has been said that Wittgenstein inspired two ...
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What was Wittgenstein's argument against Cantor's transfinite numbers and where did he make his objection?
G. E. M. Anscombe had this to say about propositions in Wittgenstein's Tractatus: (page 137)
It seems likely enough, indeed, that Wittgenstein objected to Cantor's result even at this date, and ...
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Can I use "nomothetic" to refer to the calculus correctness perspective in the Tractatus?
I'm doing a comparison between the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus and the Philosophical Investications.
I want to remark the difference between the solid formal edifice built in the former, in ...
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According to Wittgenstein, what is the relationship between "concept" and "definition"? What are the differences between the two?
I'm having trouble understanding the difference. I felt that concept can be reduced to definitions.
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