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The Blue and Brown Books
s/t: Preliminary Studies for the Philosophical Investigations
These works, as the subtitle makes clear, are unfinished sketches for Philosophical Investigations, possibly the most important & influential philosophical work of modern times. The Blue Book is a set of notes dictated to Witgenstein's Cambridge students in 1933-34: the Brown Book was a draft for what eventually became the growth of the 1st part of Philosophical Investigations. This book reveals the germination & growth of the ideas which found their final expression in his later work. It's indispensable therefore to students of Witgenstein's thought & to all those who wish to study at 1st-hand the mental processes of a thinker who fundamentally changed the course of modern philosophy.
These works, as the subtitle makes clear, are unfinished sketches for Philosophical Investigations, possibly the most important & influential philosophical work of modern times. The Blue Book is a set of notes dictated to Witgenstein's Cambridge students in 1933-34: the Brown Book was a draft for what eventually became the growth of the 1st part of Philosophical Investigations. This book reveals the germination & growth of the ideas which found their final expression in his later work. It's indispensable therefore to students of Witgenstein's thought & to all those who wish to study at 1st-hand the mental processes of a thinker who fundamentally changed the course of modern philosophy.
208 pages, paper
First published January 1, 1935
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About the author
Ludwig Wittgenstein
260 books2,943 followersLudwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (Ph.D., Trinity College, Cambridge University, 1929) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.
Described by Bertrand Russell as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating", he helped inspire two of the twentieth century's principal philosophical movements: the Vienna Circle and Oxford ordinary language philosophy. According to an end of the century poll, professional philosophers in Canada and the U.S. rank both his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations among the top five most important books in twentieth-century philosophy, the latter standing out as "...the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations". Wittgenstein's influence has been felt in nearly every field of the humanities and social sciences, yet there are widely diverging interpretations of his thought.
Described by Bertrand Russell as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating", he helped inspire two of the twentieth century's principal philosophical movements: the Vienna Circle and Oxford ordinary language philosophy. According to an end of the century poll, professional philosophers in Canada and the U.S. rank both his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations among the top five most important books in twentieth-century philosophy, the latter standing out as "...the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations". Wittgenstein's influence has been felt in nearly every field of the humanities and social sciences, yet there are widely diverging interpretations of his thought.
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August 11, 2011These studies and the work they gave rise to, Philosophical Investigations, are commonly understood as a refutation of the author's previous major work, Tractatus Logic-Philosophic us. I didn't read the Blue and Brown Books as a refutation, as much as a correction, of the system of thought at work in the Tractatus.
That earlier work, as I read it, contained some troublingly bizarre implications and assumptions. It at times seemed to me that Wittgenstein was implying that linguistic information, being understood, could not be refuted- as if our ideas about things never change, or as if a statement could never be doubted- as if lying (on one hand) or misunderstanding (on the other) were not common occurrences, and if we shouldn't then, take such situations into consideration when interrogating the nature of communication and knowledge. The Blue and Brown Books brilliantly address such concerns about the line of thought at work in the Tractatus.
If we are to understand the workings of language, Wittgenstein argues, we must not ask “what does 'x' mean?” but rather “how does 'x' mean?” Signs, Wittgenstein asserts, can only operate according to the rules a linguistic system imposes. Unfortunately, the rules of our grammar have the effect of misleading us as to language's real nature. Our grammar constantly operates metaphorically. The metaphors are so omni-present that we speakers have come to take them as literal identifiers. The statement “I think of 'x',” implies that the sign is a translation of something in our heads that exists analogously to the sign. We users of language are thus led to believe there must be an intermediary step between thought and expression.
Thus, grammar leads us to believe that we can apply a term such as “similar” to what our very language designates as different. To use a simple example, Wittgenstein points out that what language designates as “different” colors- torqouis, ocean, blue-green, are commonly considered “similar” in that they are sub-categories of “blue.” This implies that there is a unifying concept of “blue” that exists in thought prior to expression. Language then, seeks to express the “thought”- the static, abstract truth that precedes it, and this manifests itself in the metaphysical impulse in philosophy.
In place of this inherently futile project, Wittgenstein prescribes replacing our concept of “thought” with the expression itself, the sign. Our statements, rather than attempts to give socialized form to some inner, spiritual truth, some inference to knowledge, are rather descriptions of knowledge. Words describe what can be known by revealing themselves. Of course, words have no concrete, changeless meaning. They demonstrate their meaning within their contextual use, just as the move of a chess piece across a board has one special significance within its context within an individual match. Thought, the use of language, can describe the way it functions but it can never explain why it functions the way that it does.
The question remains, however, how language, which demonstrates its functionality through its very implementation, can be used to intentionally mislead about things other than its own nature. Wittgenstein's radical response is that lying isn't altogether possible in the sense of completely misleading another person. A lye never completely misleads precisely because it is understood by the addressee, whether or not the addressee believes the statement to be true. No matter what the speaker's intention, they have necessarily revealed themselves to the addressee through the gesture of meaning that they perform. The speaker has made her/his “move.” To truly mislead the addressee, the speaker would have to adopt a private language- another inherently self-defeating project.
Still, the fact remains that the term “lying” can be successfully implemented. What can we be referring to by describing a statement as a lye other than the way we feel when we make a statement we consider to be “untrue” as opposed to what we feel when we make a statement we consider to be “true”? Such feelings, and the gestures and tonalities that sometimes accompany them, Wittgenstein calls “modes of expression.” But these “feelings” these “truths behind the lies” can only be conveyed through more words. What, then, of the private- the emotional and sentimental? Where is their place in thought? Of these topics, it appears, we must remain silent.
I rank the Books as a masterpiece of philosophical execution. They are magnificently inventive in their models. But I am not convinced that they are so groundbreaking. In switching his focus from the irrefutability of the understood to its implementation, it seems to me Wittgenstein presents a different perspective on the philosophical landscape of the Tractatus than an actually new landscape.
Also, Wittgenstein essentially argues that meaning is composed of arbitrarily applied signifiers that attain meaning only within the systematic play of context. This sounds, to me, a lot like the ideas expounded in Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, published twenty years prior to the writing of these studies. However, in providing a clear and level-headed response to the question, “If language is the source of all knowledge, can thought still conceivably precede expression?” in the form of “conceivably, but not necessarily,” Wittgenstein provides a model of how to approach the subject that makes unnecessary the theoretical bickering over how to follow the implications of Saussure's work that characterized much of the “structuralist vs. post-structuralist” controversies.
That earlier work, as I read it, contained some troublingly bizarre implications and assumptions. It at times seemed to me that Wittgenstein was implying that linguistic information, being understood, could not be refuted- as if our ideas about things never change, or as if a statement could never be doubted- as if lying (on one hand) or misunderstanding (on the other) were not common occurrences, and if we shouldn't then, take such situations into consideration when interrogating the nature of communication and knowledge. The Blue and Brown Books brilliantly address such concerns about the line of thought at work in the Tractatus.
If we are to understand the workings of language, Wittgenstein argues, we must not ask “what does 'x' mean?” but rather “how does 'x' mean?” Signs, Wittgenstein asserts, can only operate according to the rules a linguistic system imposes. Unfortunately, the rules of our grammar have the effect of misleading us as to language's real nature. Our grammar constantly operates metaphorically. The metaphors are so omni-present that we speakers have come to take them as literal identifiers. The statement “I think of 'x',” implies that the sign is a translation of something in our heads that exists analogously to the sign. We users of language are thus led to believe there must be an intermediary step between thought and expression.
Thus, grammar leads us to believe that we can apply a term such as “similar” to what our very language designates as different. To use a simple example, Wittgenstein points out that what language designates as “different” colors- torqouis, ocean, blue-green, are commonly considered “similar” in that they are sub-categories of “blue.” This implies that there is a unifying concept of “blue” that exists in thought prior to expression. Language then, seeks to express the “thought”- the static, abstract truth that precedes it, and this manifests itself in the metaphysical impulse in philosophy.
In place of this inherently futile project, Wittgenstein prescribes replacing our concept of “thought” with the expression itself, the sign. Our statements, rather than attempts to give socialized form to some inner, spiritual truth, some inference to knowledge, are rather descriptions of knowledge. Words describe what can be known by revealing themselves. Of course, words have no concrete, changeless meaning. They demonstrate their meaning within their contextual use, just as the move of a chess piece across a board has one special significance within its context within an individual match. Thought, the use of language, can describe the way it functions but it can never explain why it functions the way that it does.
The question remains, however, how language, which demonstrates its functionality through its very implementation, can be used to intentionally mislead about things other than its own nature. Wittgenstein's radical response is that lying isn't altogether possible in the sense of completely misleading another person. A lye never completely misleads precisely because it is understood by the addressee, whether or not the addressee believes the statement to be true. No matter what the speaker's intention, they have necessarily revealed themselves to the addressee through the gesture of meaning that they perform. The speaker has made her/his “move.” To truly mislead the addressee, the speaker would have to adopt a private language- another inherently self-defeating project.
Still, the fact remains that the term “lying” can be successfully implemented. What can we be referring to by describing a statement as a lye other than the way we feel when we make a statement we consider to be “untrue” as opposed to what we feel when we make a statement we consider to be “true”? Such feelings, and the gestures and tonalities that sometimes accompany them, Wittgenstein calls “modes of expression.” But these “feelings” these “truths behind the lies” can only be conveyed through more words. What, then, of the private- the emotional and sentimental? Where is their place in thought? Of these topics, it appears, we must remain silent.
I rank the Books as a masterpiece of philosophical execution. They are magnificently inventive in their models. But I am not convinced that they are so groundbreaking. In switching his focus from the irrefutability of the understood to its implementation, it seems to me Wittgenstein presents a different perspective on the philosophical landscape of the Tractatus than an actually new landscape.
Also, Wittgenstein essentially argues that meaning is composed of arbitrarily applied signifiers that attain meaning only within the systematic play of context. This sounds, to me, a lot like the ideas expounded in Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, published twenty years prior to the writing of these studies. However, in providing a clear and level-headed response to the question, “If language is the source of all knowledge, can thought still conceivably precede expression?” in the form of “conceivably, but not necessarily,” Wittgenstein provides a model of how to approach the subject that makes unnecessary the theoretical bickering over how to follow the implications of Saussure's work that characterized much of the “structuralist vs. post-structuralist” controversies.
May 12, 2009
Reading Wittgenstein put an end to my interest in philosophy. If philosophy is about the kinds of language games that Wittgenstein played, it wasn't worth my time.
June 9, 2010
The Blue Book opens with the question, "what is the meaning of a word?" When asking such general questions, we often define words by thinking of of solid, material objects, like pencils, chairs, and tables. These words can be defined ostensively, by pointing to the object they denote. We might then be tempted to think that the meaning of these words is the mental act of interpretation that connects the word with the thing it denotes. Wittgenstein asserts that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the meaning of a word is determined by its use in language. If these mental acts that supposedly determine meaning are simply a matter of operating with signs, we could just as well say that thinking and meaning can be done on paper, or with the voice box.
Wittgenstein introduces the idea of a language game, a more primitive form of language that helps us highlight certain features of our own language. We can construct a variety of different language games, each with distinctive features. Philosophers usually shun this approach out of what Wittgenstein calls a "craving for generality": they want to discuss the general features of language rather than its particulars. This craving encourages the misconception that every word has a single, fixed meaning.
We are tempted to think that a spoken word needs interpretation (we need to be told what it means), but that its meaning does not require any interpretation. This is false, just as it is false to think that while we need to follow a particular rule to behave in a particular way, we do not need a further rule to interpret that rule. There is no clear reason why every word must be connected to its meaning in our mind. Words are not inherently related to the things they denote.
Metaphysical claims often try to make general statements about the nature of things, like "everything is in flux." But the words "in flux" can only have meaning when contrasted with their opposite, "stable." If we say that everything is in flux, the term "in flux" loses its meaning. Wittgenstein talks about solipsism, the view that "only I exist." The solipsist encounters a problem in trying to make overall claims about the nature of experience. If she claims "only what I see is really seen," she empties the word "see" of meaning, because she uses the word incorrectly. Such a claim can only amount to an appeal for a new notation, a redefinition of the word "see." It cannot state any metaphysical discoveries about the nature of experience.
The first part of the Brown Book consists of a series of language games. Wittgenstein uses these games to highlight the different forms of expression, and to point out that although we may think all words share something in common because they can all be expressed as written signs, there actually have very little in common. For instance, the words "chair," "one," and "this," are not similar.
Throughout the Brown Book, Wittgenstein examines words like "recognize," "compare," "believe," "read," "understand," and so on, to show that there is no common feature of all the different uses of these words. Rather, there is a family resemblance. Certain uses of a word may share certain features with others, just as members of the same family might have certain features in common. This line of reasoning shows us that these words have no single fixed meaning, but only a number of loosely related uses.
If we accept that individual orders must be interpreted according to some sort of rule, we must also accept that rules themselves need to be interpreted. For instance, if in reading items from a printed table, I need to understand the rule that we correspond different columns by reading left to right, I may also need a rule to tell me how to correspond different columns by reading left to right, and so on. Sometimes I can read off a table without referring to any general rule about how to read tables. That rule needn't always be present in my mind.
There are many uses of the word "can," some of which refer to what someone has done, some of which only refer to a potential for future action. We should not be misled by grammar into thinking that the present tense of "can" denotes a state of the person we are talking about. Similarly, we should not be misled by grammar into thinking of the past and the future as things that have passed or are yet to come, and then puzzle about where the past goes to. Wittgenstein's discussion of "can" also leads to some reflections of reading and on the expression, "I can go on," in both cases showing that there is no distinct process that is present in all uses of these expressions.
Part II of the Brown Book focuses primarily on the idea of seeing something as something else, and on the idea that there must be a feeling of similarity when we use the same word in two different contexts. It makes sense to see a bunch of squiggles as a face, but it does not make sense to see a pencil as a pencil, because there is no real alternative.
We should not think that there is a single, paradigmatic use of a word that all other uses are compared to. If I talk about one vowel being "darker" than another vowel, I needn't be comparing vowels to colors. Similarly, there need not be a paradigmatic "feeling" that is present whenever I mean or believe what I say. The meaning of a word is simply a matter of how we use it, and not a matter of identifying it with other objects or paradigmatic cases. There is not a standard outside of language that language must compare itself to.
Wittgenstein introduces the idea of a language game, a more primitive form of language that helps us highlight certain features of our own language. We can construct a variety of different language games, each with distinctive features. Philosophers usually shun this approach out of what Wittgenstein calls a "craving for generality": they want to discuss the general features of language rather than its particulars. This craving encourages the misconception that every word has a single, fixed meaning.
We are tempted to think that a spoken word needs interpretation (we need to be told what it means), but that its meaning does not require any interpretation. This is false, just as it is false to think that while we need to follow a particular rule to behave in a particular way, we do not need a further rule to interpret that rule. There is no clear reason why every word must be connected to its meaning in our mind. Words are not inherently related to the things they denote.
Metaphysical claims often try to make general statements about the nature of things, like "everything is in flux." But the words "in flux" can only have meaning when contrasted with their opposite, "stable." If we say that everything is in flux, the term "in flux" loses its meaning. Wittgenstein talks about solipsism, the view that "only I exist." The solipsist encounters a problem in trying to make overall claims about the nature of experience. If she claims "only what I see is really seen," she empties the word "see" of meaning, because she uses the word incorrectly. Such a claim can only amount to an appeal for a new notation, a redefinition of the word "see." It cannot state any metaphysical discoveries about the nature of experience.
The first part of the Brown Book consists of a series of language games. Wittgenstein uses these games to highlight the different forms of expression, and to point out that although we may think all words share something in common because they can all be expressed as written signs, there actually have very little in common. For instance, the words "chair," "one," and "this," are not similar.
Throughout the Brown Book, Wittgenstein examines words like "recognize," "compare," "believe," "read," "understand," and so on, to show that there is no common feature of all the different uses of these words. Rather, there is a family resemblance. Certain uses of a word may share certain features with others, just as members of the same family might have certain features in common. This line of reasoning shows us that these words have no single fixed meaning, but only a number of loosely related uses.
If we accept that individual orders must be interpreted according to some sort of rule, we must also accept that rules themselves need to be interpreted. For instance, if in reading items from a printed table, I need to understand the rule that we correspond different columns by reading left to right, I may also need a rule to tell me how to correspond different columns by reading left to right, and so on. Sometimes I can read off a table without referring to any general rule about how to read tables. That rule needn't always be present in my mind.
There are many uses of the word "can," some of which refer to what someone has done, some of which only refer to a potential for future action. We should not be misled by grammar into thinking that the present tense of "can" denotes a state of the person we are talking about. Similarly, we should not be misled by grammar into thinking of the past and the future as things that have passed or are yet to come, and then puzzle about where the past goes to. Wittgenstein's discussion of "can" also leads to some reflections of reading and on the expression, "I can go on," in both cases showing that there is no distinct process that is present in all uses of these expressions.
Part II of the Brown Book focuses primarily on the idea of seeing something as something else, and on the idea that there must be a feeling of similarity when we use the same word in two different contexts. It makes sense to see a bunch of squiggles as a face, but it does not make sense to see a pencil as a pencil, because there is no real alternative.
We should not think that there is a single, paradigmatic use of a word that all other uses are compared to. If I talk about one vowel being "darker" than another vowel, I needn't be comparing vowels to colors. Similarly, there need not be a paradigmatic "feeling" that is present whenever I mean or believe what I say. The meaning of a word is simply a matter of how we use it, and not a matter of identifying it with other objects or paradigmatic cases. There is not a standard outside of language that language must compare itself to.
May 18, 2020
A value of reading these books is to have your head beaten over again and again with the idea that many traditional philosophical problems are vacuous. When people talk about Wittgenstein's work as not typical philosophy but rather a therapy, I now understand that to another degree; he doesn't offer many positive points, but rather tries to uproot our intuitions that certain positive points make sense. These books consist of Wittgenstein's applying his insight that semantic meaning is constituted by use (within a language game) to a series of examples. The application is pretty formulaic; by a third into the book, one can predict how it will go for all the other examples. From my memory, reading the Philosophical Investigations was much more exciting and illuminating; it had more diverse points and examples to make (I could be wrong about this though, it's only from my memory). But the repetition in the Blue and Brown books is very good for receiving Wittgenstein's edification. His view is radically new, and goes against all common philosophical intuition, so it takes much drilling to overcome these common intuitions. (After reading this, I know that I'll need a lot more time to think about philosophical problems differently, to really receive this message).
So Wittgenstein's overall points are: (1) Philosophical problems are presented linguistically; they identify certain phenomena and ask questions about them; (2) Such identification of phenomena amounts to reference to or description of those phenomena by using certain words, which are based in certain parts of speech, (3) Often, these parts of speech schematize our understanding of these phenomena in such a way as to give rise to certain problems or paradoxes, or certain kinds of questions, (4) These questions turn out to be vacuous or meaningless, once we realize that these parts of speech are based in certain language games; these parts of speech can be only accurately used under certain circumstances, to deal with only certain phenomena, based in those games.
For example, the mistake of transferring a schemata from its original home or language game into a foreign, philosophical context happens when philosophers ask "Does the future or the past exist?" This question presupposes that temporal tenses (future and past) are taken to be like physical objects, whose existence we can question. But this is inappropriate. Temporal tenses are nothing like physical objects in their nature; objects that are subject to the question of existence necessarily exist over temporal durations. Time is not an object, but a precondition for experience of objects. This kind of mistake is like asking what the weather is like inside a thought; or, whether an emotion has gone past its expiration date and is no longer edible. In other words, Wittgenstein criticizes philosophers for making category mistakes all the time. The questions that can be coherently asked about a given phenomenon are determined by our ordinary language and common experience with regard to that phenomenon. We ask about the weather when we are about to go outdoors; this question pertains to the outdoors, not to thoughts. Likewise, when we ask about whether something exists, this question pertains to objects, not to time.
Wittgenstein applies this insight about the context-relativity of meaning to an array of philosophical issues. Some highlights include questions about skepticism regarding other minds; what it means for something to possibly exist, or that something can happen (modality or possibility); what it means to will for something to happen (volition or agency); and what it means to grasp a meaning or understand a rule (learning). In all cases, Wittgenstein's approach and conclusions are the same, and it is highly repetitive, but for the good reason of letting the lesson really sink in.
I would recommend this to anyone who has read the Philosophical Investigations and wants to see the ideas introduced there play in more concrete detail. Those ideas are certainly made clearer here. But they are not really expanded on in any way; so if a reader feels that they've gotten the main ideas in that earlier work, I don't think there's real need to read the Blue and Brown books.
A side note about some concerns I have: after reading this, I finally realized that Wittgenstein's account of semantic meaning is not unique to language at all. Any physical artifact, bodily gesture, or object or event at all that is embedded in a practical activity (based in forms of life) has "semantic meaning" by virtue of the same considerations Wittgenstein raises with respect to linguistic meaning. For example, in Wittgenstein's case of builders, the foreman says "Slab!" to a worker, and in the context of this language game, this expression has the semantic meaning of "Bring me a slab." But likewise the slab itself has "semantic" meaning that it is to be used in making the building, that it is to be passed to the foreman, etc. Everything that humans encounter (linguistic utterances or physical objects) within the context of a practical activity gains meaning that is determined by conditions of that activity.
This is a concern because I had always assumed that Wittgenstein's insight is truly about language itself. His insight is rather about meaning more generally. The impression that it is rather about language is due to the fact that Wittgenstein's main purpose is to deflate philosophical problems, which are always presented linguistically. So all of his examples are about language. But the account he gives of linguistic meaning is inherently general or broad to such an extent that it does not pertain to language uniquely. The only reason why this concern matters to me is that I'm interested in thinking about where linguistic meaning uniquely comes from, not just meaning generally. To address that question, Wittgenstein gives you a starting platform, but does not take you anywhere further.
So Wittgenstein's overall points are: (1) Philosophical problems are presented linguistically; they identify certain phenomena and ask questions about them; (2) Such identification of phenomena amounts to reference to or description of those phenomena by using certain words, which are based in certain parts of speech, (3) Often, these parts of speech schematize our understanding of these phenomena in such a way as to give rise to certain problems or paradoxes, or certain kinds of questions, (4) These questions turn out to be vacuous or meaningless, once we realize that these parts of speech are based in certain language games; these parts of speech can be only accurately used under certain circumstances, to deal with only certain phenomena, based in those games.
For example, the mistake of transferring a schemata from its original home or language game into a foreign, philosophical context happens when philosophers ask "Does the future or the past exist?" This question presupposes that temporal tenses (future and past) are taken to be like physical objects, whose existence we can question. But this is inappropriate. Temporal tenses are nothing like physical objects in their nature; objects that are subject to the question of existence necessarily exist over temporal durations. Time is not an object, but a precondition for experience of objects. This kind of mistake is like asking what the weather is like inside a thought; or, whether an emotion has gone past its expiration date and is no longer edible. In other words, Wittgenstein criticizes philosophers for making category mistakes all the time. The questions that can be coherently asked about a given phenomenon are determined by our ordinary language and common experience with regard to that phenomenon. We ask about the weather when we are about to go outdoors; this question pertains to the outdoors, not to thoughts. Likewise, when we ask about whether something exists, this question pertains to objects, not to time.
Wittgenstein applies this insight about the context-relativity of meaning to an array of philosophical issues. Some highlights include questions about skepticism regarding other minds; what it means for something to possibly exist, or that something can happen (modality or possibility); what it means to will for something to happen (volition or agency); and what it means to grasp a meaning or understand a rule (learning). In all cases, Wittgenstein's approach and conclusions are the same, and it is highly repetitive, but for the good reason of letting the lesson really sink in.
I would recommend this to anyone who has read the Philosophical Investigations and wants to see the ideas introduced there play in more concrete detail. Those ideas are certainly made clearer here. But they are not really expanded on in any way; so if a reader feels that they've gotten the main ideas in that earlier work, I don't think there's real need to read the Blue and Brown books.
A side note about some concerns I have: after reading this, I finally realized that Wittgenstein's account of semantic meaning is not unique to language at all. Any physical artifact, bodily gesture, or object or event at all that is embedded in a practical activity (based in forms of life) has "semantic meaning" by virtue of the same considerations Wittgenstein raises with respect to linguistic meaning. For example, in Wittgenstein's case of builders, the foreman says "Slab!" to a worker, and in the context of this language game, this expression has the semantic meaning of "Bring me a slab." But likewise the slab itself has "semantic" meaning that it is to be used in making the building, that it is to be passed to the foreman, etc. Everything that humans encounter (linguistic utterances or physical objects) within the context of a practical activity gains meaning that is determined by conditions of that activity.
This is a concern because I had always assumed that Wittgenstein's insight is truly about language itself. His insight is rather about meaning more generally. The impression that it is rather about language is due to the fact that Wittgenstein's main purpose is to deflate philosophical problems, which are always presented linguistically. So all of his examples are about language. But the account he gives of linguistic meaning is inherently general or broad to such an extent that it does not pertain to language uniquely. The only reason why this concern matters to me is that I'm interested in thinking about where linguistic meaning uniquely comes from, not just meaning generally. To address that question, Wittgenstein gives you a starting platform, but does not take you anywhere further.
May 11, 2015
A fun & illuminating romp through logic, language, & philosophy—
It’s true, this is no easy read—some passages are awkwardly phrased and unnecessarily obscure, the flow from one topic to another is not always as smooth as you’d like it to be, and you wonder what Wittgenstein is trying to do with all those language games, what his overarching point is. But you sense him groping in the dark, trying to get at something important, and there are to be sure flashes of insight that will amaze you, or at least surprise you.
In both Blue and Brown Books, Wittgenstein’s focus is on language: he believes that philosophical problems arise when ordinary language is applied to cases and situations not meant to be handled by it, and so the way to solve them is to analyze how language is used and get clear about what it is the philosophical problems and their myriad answers are really saying: “To show a man how to get out you have first of all to free him from the misleading influence of the question” (Brown, 169). In this clearing-up process, he touches on not only applied linguistics and logic but cognitive psychology, philosophy of the mind, and metaphysics, while at the same time offering, in a haphazard way as far as I’m concerned, solutions t the intractable problems in philosophy like solipsism, the problem of personal identity, the meaning of a word, qualia among others.
Some of the insights found in these two notebooks are obscure and probably of no interest to the general public, but nonetheless interesting in their implications: the difference between logical and physical impossibility; the sort of philosophical observer effect where the observation of one’s own cognitive processes interfering with the processes themselves; the problem of rules (“is a rule incompletely explained if no rule for its usage has been given?” “We need have no reason to follow the rule as we do. The chain of reasons has an end” (Brown, 143).); the method of externalizing the cognitive processes to demystify what might be going on in the mind (a method used by Daniel Dennett in his seminal Consciousness Explained); and most importantly, the nature of generalization where no specific examples belonging to the same generalized/conceptual category share exactly the same attributes (e.g., “We find that what connects all the cases of comparing is a vast number of overlapping similarities, and as soon as we see this, we feel no longer compelled to say that there must be some one feature common to them all” (Brown, 87)).
For such a dense philosophical work, both notebooks are, comparatively speaking, a quick read. Or at least it’s a hell of a lot more accessible than his austere Tractatus, a book that’s basically impenetrable (but beautiful in is own mysterious/mystical way, especially the end) unless you figure out what all those technical terms Wittgenstein uses really mean (and for that you probably need a guidebook or a teacher to help you out).
One important feature of these notebooks is that it is in them that Wittgenstein’s celebrated “language games” appear for the first time. The Blue Book mentions them almost in passing, but in the Brown Book, they take on a prominent role in elucidating problems of language. He conjures up tribes and fantastic scenarios involving language use, turning the dials of premises ever so slightly each time to tease out facts and conclusions about language that may not be apparent at first. Most of them are bizarre and illuminating and actually fun to read (thus the name, “game” I suppose).
But the language games are just the result of the same obsession that pervades the Blue Book, too: analyzing and acknowledging subtle degrees and fuzzy boundaries. And so against those whose impulse is to argue for clear-cut definitions of words, he says in the Blue Book: “Many words…don’t have a strict meaning. But this is not a defect. To think it is would be like saying that the light of my reading lamp is no real light at all because it has no sharp boundary” (Blue, 27). It is in this spirit, too, that he pronounces again and again in both notebooks the difficulty of pinning down precisely one common difference between two concepts/words/meanings because none of them admits of clear-cut boundaries, and so concepts like “voluntary” action and “involuntary” actions or “believing” and “not believing” can be different and also similar in myriad ways under different circumstances: “the pair ‘believing’/‘not believing’ refers to various differences in different cases (differences forming a family), not to one difference, that between the presence and the absence of a certain mental state’” (Brown, 152).
In the same way language games stipulate intermediary cases to analyze language, the Blue and Brown Books sort of form intermediary steps in Wittgenstein’s philosophy between his earlier Tractatus and his mature and almost complete work, Philosophical Investigations.
Overall, as the blurb on the back promises, this is a good introduction to Wittgenstein’s later work. And I now feel more equipped to tackle his monumental Philosophical Investigations. Definitely recommended.
It’s true, this is no easy read—some passages are awkwardly phrased and unnecessarily obscure, the flow from one topic to another is not always as smooth as you’d like it to be, and you wonder what Wittgenstein is trying to do with all those language games, what his overarching point is. But you sense him groping in the dark, trying to get at something important, and there are to be sure flashes of insight that will amaze you, or at least surprise you.
In both Blue and Brown Books, Wittgenstein’s focus is on language: he believes that philosophical problems arise when ordinary language is applied to cases and situations not meant to be handled by it, and so the way to solve them is to analyze how language is used and get clear about what it is the philosophical problems and their myriad answers are really saying: “To show a man how to get out you have first of all to free him from the misleading influence of the question” (Brown, 169). In this clearing-up process, he touches on not only applied linguistics and logic but cognitive psychology, philosophy of the mind, and metaphysics, while at the same time offering, in a haphazard way as far as I’m concerned, solutions t the intractable problems in philosophy like solipsism, the problem of personal identity, the meaning of a word, qualia among others.
Some of the insights found in these two notebooks are obscure and probably of no interest to the general public, but nonetheless interesting in their implications: the difference between logical and physical impossibility; the sort of philosophical observer effect where the observation of one’s own cognitive processes interfering with the processes themselves; the problem of rules (“is a rule incompletely explained if no rule for its usage has been given?” “We need have no reason to follow the rule as we do. The chain of reasons has an end” (Brown, 143).); the method of externalizing the cognitive processes to demystify what might be going on in the mind (a method used by Daniel Dennett in his seminal Consciousness Explained); and most importantly, the nature of generalization where no specific examples belonging to the same generalized/conceptual category share exactly the same attributes (e.g., “We find that what connects all the cases of comparing is a vast number of overlapping similarities, and as soon as we see this, we feel no longer compelled to say that there must be some one feature common to them all” (Brown, 87)).
For such a dense philosophical work, both notebooks are, comparatively speaking, a quick read. Or at least it’s a hell of a lot more accessible than his austere Tractatus, a book that’s basically impenetrable (but beautiful in is own mysterious/mystical way, especially the end) unless you figure out what all those technical terms Wittgenstein uses really mean (and for that you probably need a guidebook or a teacher to help you out).
One important feature of these notebooks is that it is in them that Wittgenstein’s celebrated “language games” appear for the first time. The Blue Book mentions them almost in passing, but in the Brown Book, they take on a prominent role in elucidating problems of language. He conjures up tribes and fantastic scenarios involving language use, turning the dials of premises ever so slightly each time to tease out facts and conclusions about language that may not be apparent at first. Most of them are bizarre and illuminating and actually fun to read (thus the name, “game” I suppose).
But the language games are just the result of the same obsession that pervades the Blue Book, too: analyzing and acknowledging subtle degrees and fuzzy boundaries. And so against those whose impulse is to argue for clear-cut definitions of words, he says in the Blue Book: “Many words…don’t have a strict meaning. But this is not a defect. To think it is would be like saying that the light of my reading lamp is no real light at all because it has no sharp boundary” (Blue, 27). It is in this spirit, too, that he pronounces again and again in both notebooks the difficulty of pinning down precisely one common difference between two concepts/words/meanings because none of them admits of clear-cut boundaries, and so concepts like “voluntary” action and “involuntary” actions or “believing” and “not believing” can be different and also similar in myriad ways under different circumstances: “the pair ‘believing’/‘not believing’ refers to various differences in different cases (differences forming a family), not to one difference, that between the presence and the absence of a certain mental state’” (Brown, 152).
In the same way language games stipulate intermediary cases to analyze language, the Blue and Brown Books sort of form intermediary steps in Wittgenstein’s philosophy between his earlier Tractatus and his mature and almost complete work, Philosophical Investigations.
Overall, as the blurb on the back promises, this is a good introduction to Wittgenstein’s later work. And I now feel more equipped to tackle his monumental Philosophical Investigations. Definitely recommended.
November 28, 2013
Unlike most graduate students I maintained a four year teaching assistantship inclusive of summers, most of it with one fellow, Bill Ellos. Although I occasionally worked for others in the philosophy and linguistics departments, these were usually part-time, supplements to my association with Bill. Heck, I may have worked for or with him even during months when not formally assigned. I certainly worked far more hours for and with him than were mandated--not that I knew anything of any time limit until towards the end of those four years.
Bill was a Jesuit who never wore the garb, who didn't want to be identified as a priest. His primary interests in coming to Loyola University Chicago were Wittgenstein, the subject of his dissertation, and medical ethics. Other than editing some of his writing, most of what he had me do was read. Thanks to him I read all of Darwin's major works, Wallace's two most remembered books, a bunch of Scottish philosophers of the 18th century, some sociobiology and most of Wittgenstein. Although he had me take notes on topics of ostensible interest to him, I suspect a lot of this was constructive make-work. In any case, I enjoyed most of the work and was turned on to topics and persons I probably would not otherwise have so thoroughly studied.
This "book" is really just a bunch of class notes, substantially recorded by others, relevant to what came to be known as the Philosophical Investigations. Important to any Wittgenstein scholar, they are certainly not something to recommend to the general reader. For that, go to the texts the author intended for publication. (A number of philosophers have made their careers out of producing books based on such notes, on scribblings, on purported utterances of the great man--frankly, I never understood why he should have been taken so seriously except, of course, by way of self-interest and because he's pretty easy to follow.)
Ironically, although never greatly impressed by Wittgenstein, my only conference publication in a philosophy journal was about the development of his thinking, the result of Bill Ellos encouraging me to sign up for a conference and even helping me to find funding for the trip. Indeed, throughout my first four years at Loyola Bill was the one and only professor who took any substantial interest in promoting my career and for that I am ever grateful.
Bill was a Jesuit who never wore the garb, who didn't want to be identified as a priest. His primary interests in coming to Loyola University Chicago were Wittgenstein, the subject of his dissertation, and medical ethics. Other than editing some of his writing, most of what he had me do was read. Thanks to him I read all of Darwin's major works, Wallace's two most remembered books, a bunch of Scottish philosophers of the 18th century, some sociobiology and most of Wittgenstein. Although he had me take notes on topics of ostensible interest to him, I suspect a lot of this was constructive make-work. In any case, I enjoyed most of the work and was turned on to topics and persons I probably would not otherwise have so thoroughly studied.
This "book" is really just a bunch of class notes, substantially recorded by others, relevant to what came to be known as the Philosophical Investigations. Important to any Wittgenstein scholar, they are certainly not something to recommend to the general reader. For that, go to the texts the author intended for publication. (A number of philosophers have made their careers out of producing books based on such notes, on scribblings, on purported utterances of the great man--frankly, I never understood why he should have been taken so seriously except, of course, by way of self-interest and because he's pretty easy to follow.)
Ironically, although never greatly impressed by Wittgenstein, my only conference publication in a philosophy journal was about the development of his thinking, the result of Bill Ellos encouraging me to sign up for a conference and even helping me to find funding for the trip. Indeed, throughout my first four years at Loyola Bill was the one and only professor who took any substantial interest in promoting my career and for that I am ever grateful.
September 20, 2021
همانطور که گفته شد، کتاب قهوهای مکملیست بر مباحث کتاب آبی که از نظر من ناقص ماندهاند و بهشدت به مباحث پدیدارشناختی سارتر شباهت دارند. تفسیر تحلیلی از فلسفه و مسائل انسان، ما را به انحلال مسائل سوق میدهد؛ نه حلشان. انحلال مسائلی که از سویهی زبانیشان هیچ معنیای ندارند که دلایل مختلفی دارد: مثلا اینکه آیا ما به مفهوم معناییِ یک صورت مسئله (مثل عدد یا نشانه) آگاهیم یا نه، اینکه بر طبق نظر ویتگنشتاین ما قادر به تصور درست از چیزی که مصداق واقعیاش وجود نداشته باشد نیستیم، چه موضوعات و تجربیاتی بر درک ما از مفهوم معنای یک کلمه-زبان تاثیر گذاشتهاند و قس علی ذلک. برای درک این مفاهیم، خودم را مجبور به خواندن کتب کمکی یا کتبی که یادداشتها و سخنرانیهای ویتگنشتاین را در بر دارند احساس میکنم.
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July 17, 2025
January 27, 2021
This is quite a book. It's hard to know exactly what to make of it. Right away I felt it was obvious Ludwig Wittgenstein was a bright guy. And after finishing it I still feel this way. This is the only work of his I've read, so my opinion on the man is informed fully by The Blue and Brown Books.
These books explore philosophy in a way I've never seen it explored, but that seem important given the nature of philosophy and the basic problems of understanding anything we can claim to understand. Wittgenstein covers the philosophy of language, language games, the philosophy of mind, and I don't know how to classify the rest. But it's all fascinating, rigorous and comprehensive. He's looking at how we communicate, what we mean when we use certain expressions, how we should think about knowledge, the different forms of understanding, our sensations of pain and what we mean when we talk about it, how we make sense of the information we see when it takes on different forms (color, shape, how we interpret scribbles as random and senseless or as representing certain images or ideas or words), and much more. It's a dense study, with a lot to talk about.
The Blue book and the Brown book were considered preliminary studies for his work that later culminated in the Philosophical Investigations. That is a work I haven't read. However, the Blue and Brown Books, as they are, feel incomplete. This is a remarkable work in many ways, with a wealth of penetrating thought, but it at times feels like stream of consciousness, despite evidently having taken quite a bit of work and organization to put together. These books are based on lectures Wittgenstein gave to a handful of students, and so they are not as polished or coherent as they could be.
A few times, especially early on in the Blue Book, Wittgenstein says he's going to come back to a point or a topic to develop it further, and he never does. The footnotes even point out that he never returns to this thread. And other times he repeats himself, covering ideas he's already developed, although in such cases he might come at it from a slightly different angle. Both books end up feeling really smart, but really unorganized and poorly explained. It's not clear exactly what sort of use one is expected to get out of this.
That's ultimately where it falls down: Wittgenstein is clearly an intelligent, serious philosopher. But he isn't competent at communicating his philosophy in a way that makes it attractive, or that connects it to ideas that we would find benefiting from the philosophy. He seems to leave that as an exercise for the reader. And as a reader, I came away with many ideas of how his form of thinking could be applied to our understanding of, or interaction with, the world around us, but it wasn't always a sensible application to make or a useful one. I ultimately couldn't figure out the "why" behind much of Wittgenstein's philosophy, and he doesn't attempt to dive into it. As I said, it is very incomplete. Since these books comprise his 'preliminary studies' that led to what I assume is a fuller work, it's no surprise they feel incomplete. The ideas here are developed abstractly, theoretically, applied to basic examples for illustration, but without their author having a purpose for them. Maybe that purpose becomes clear in the Philosophical Investigations.
The Brown book introduces many dozens of thought experiments about language, thoughts, impressions, knowledge, and interpretations, which he calls Language Games. But they're still thought experiments, just directed at philosophical questions and investigations.
In his discussions of how we identify a leaf based on our understanding of what a leaf looks like, informed by having seen a bunch of different kinds of leaves, it got me thinking that Wittgenstein's work in philosophy could be seen as foundational to artificial intelligence, in a way. He discusses these concepts again, later on, regarding pencils, and how we would identify a pencil, and what features an object would require for us to classify it as one. Same with the leaf: If you've seen a thousand different kinds of leaves, how does your mind decide that object 1001 is also a leaf? What commonality is it identifying? Shape? Color? This is the sort of question we have to ask in image analysis and artificial intelligence, and then we have to answer it.
These concepts are expanded in discussing pictures that are entirely different except for one blotch of color. If we had to draw the similarity between these images, what would we draw? How would we define the similarity? Or if we look at dark blue and light blue, if we instead used different words for these colors, would we still say they have anything in common, and that the commonality is the color blue? He uses music and mathematics as examples throughout the work, such as asking what it means for someone to be able to know the next few notes in a melody, or how we could explain numbers to a tribe that are higher than those the tribe has ever counted to. Or how could we describe music without whistling it and without evoking some kind of common understanding?
He points out the misconceptions about music being defined by its ability to make us feel certain emotions, as thought the feeling of those emotions is the purpose and the defining trait of music, something exclusive to music -- which is not true. Despite making these acute observations nearly a century ago, the associated misconceptions persist. Implications of these various explorations turn out to be nearly infinite, and you can find yourself getting lost down these paths of thought.
These are simple examples of the sorts of studies Wittgenstein is taking us into. Many of them become much more involved, more complex and interesting, such as how we interpret the differences in drawn facial expressions, and what makes us agree the expressions are different even if the drawings themselves have barely any differences, or vice versa, with two drawn faces having significantly different orientations of lines and scribbles but the expressions appearing generally identical, or the games one can play with language or thought, and what we mean when we use certain phrases or words to communicate sensations, experiences, ideas. He's probing concepts in ways I don't think they had ever been probed before, and a lot of times it's really captivating even if sloppy and frustratingly obtuse.
In addition to artificial intelligence, it seems obvious Wittgenstein’s philosophy has a place in the study of linguistics and neuroscience, and it would be interesting to see how this work has been integrated or expanded upon (or rejected) by these fields.
It wasn't always clear to me what Wittgenstein was getting at with his nonstop barrage of ideas, even though they were clear to follow. I found that the introduction to this collection actually provided a lot of clarity that Wittgenstein himself was unable to provide, and so these were invaluable 16 pages that absolutely should be read for anyone hoping to make sense of the work as a whole. And as a whole, this body of work seems to me to have some analogues or applications to scientific thinking, in the strictest sense. This is where I see its value. I don't mean simply in application to scientific problems, but in application to any philosophical or intellectual problem, enabling one to think more like a scientist or a rigorous philosopher in the process.
On the surface many of the questions and language games and thought experiments and philosophy of mind Wittgenstein explores might seem frivolous or pedantic or useless, and the tireless way in which he keeps going, and going, and driving the point home and making piercing insight after piercing insight into the non-obvious questions can seem exhausting to someone not interested in this level of interrogation. I found it compelling and fascinating, for the most part, even when I was finding it a little bit useless.
Sometimes he would introduce ideas that I wasn't quite sure I understood the point of, but as I continued reading I would make projections based on the idea, and come up with thought experiments or examples of my own, which a few paragraphs or pages later Wittgenstein would then explicitly discuss. This led me to believe that I wasn't lost or missing anything, and that sometimes my boredom with the discussion was instead based on not seeing any value in it. This wasn't always the case, because many times (as in the application to artificial intelligence or to scientific thinking) I saw some immediate and practical value in the philosophy, as well as general intellectual value. But there were many times that he rode an idea into the dust without really making its purpose known. Even when I could come up with a purpose, it was evident the idea would need a lot more development before it became applicable to anything.
In the end, this is a nifty book, densely packed with profoundly thought provoking material from one of the most legendary philosophers of the last century. It doesn't always read well, it doesn't always seem salient, it's surprisingly messy, but for the abundance of fundamental insight it provides, the voyages of thought it forces you to take, and the thoughtful extrapolations it will let you make, it is undeniably important and good for serious cognitive development. I might like to reread it again in a few years, maybe if I ever read the Philosophical Investigations.
These books explore philosophy in a way I've never seen it explored, but that seem important given the nature of philosophy and the basic problems of understanding anything we can claim to understand. Wittgenstein covers the philosophy of language, language games, the philosophy of mind, and I don't know how to classify the rest. But it's all fascinating, rigorous and comprehensive. He's looking at how we communicate, what we mean when we use certain expressions, how we should think about knowledge, the different forms of understanding, our sensations of pain and what we mean when we talk about it, how we make sense of the information we see when it takes on different forms (color, shape, how we interpret scribbles as random and senseless or as representing certain images or ideas or words), and much more. It's a dense study, with a lot to talk about.
The Blue book and the Brown book were considered preliminary studies for his work that later culminated in the Philosophical Investigations. That is a work I haven't read. However, the Blue and Brown Books, as they are, feel incomplete. This is a remarkable work in many ways, with a wealth of penetrating thought, but it at times feels like stream of consciousness, despite evidently having taken quite a bit of work and organization to put together. These books are based on lectures Wittgenstein gave to a handful of students, and so they are not as polished or coherent as they could be.
A few times, especially early on in the Blue Book, Wittgenstein says he's going to come back to a point or a topic to develop it further, and he never does. The footnotes even point out that he never returns to this thread. And other times he repeats himself, covering ideas he's already developed, although in such cases he might come at it from a slightly different angle. Both books end up feeling really smart, but really unorganized and poorly explained. It's not clear exactly what sort of use one is expected to get out of this.
That's ultimately where it falls down: Wittgenstein is clearly an intelligent, serious philosopher. But he isn't competent at communicating his philosophy in a way that makes it attractive, or that connects it to ideas that we would find benefiting from the philosophy. He seems to leave that as an exercise for the reader. And as a reader, I came away with many ideas of how his form of thinking could be applied to our understanding of, or interaction with, the world around us, but it wasn't always a sensible application to make or a useful one. I ultimately couldn't figure out the "why" behind much of Wittgenstein's philosophy, and he doesn't attempt to dive into it. As I said, it is very incomplete. Since these books comprise his 'preliminary studies' that led to what I assume is a fuller work, it's no surprise they feel incomplete. The ideas here are developed abstractly, theoretically, applied to basic examples for illustration, but without their author having a purpose for them. Maybe that purpose becomes clear in the Philosophical Investigations.
The Brown book introduces many dozens of thought experiments about language, thoughts, impressions, knowledge, and interpretations, which he calls Language Games. But they're still thought experiments, just directed at philosophical questions and investigations.
In his discussions of how we identify a leaf based on our understanding of what a leaf looks like, informed by having seen a bunch of different kinds of leaves, it got me thinking that Wittgenstein's work in philosophy could be seen as foundational to artificial intelligence, in a way. He discusses these concepts again, later on, regarding pencils, and how we would identify a pencil, and what features an object would require for us to classify it as one. Same with the leaf: If you've seen a thousand different kinds of leaves, how does your mind decide that object 1001 is also a leaf? What commonality is it identifying? Shape? Color? This is the sort of question we have to ask in image analysis and artificial intelligence, and then we have to answer it.
These concepts are expanded in discussing pictures that are entirely different except for one blotch of color. If we had to draw the similarity between these images, what would we draw? How would we define the similarity? Or if we look at dark blue and light blue, if we instead used different words for these colors, would we still say they have anything in common, and that the commonality is the color blue? He uses music and mathematics as examples throughout the work, such as asking what it means for someone to be able to know the next few notes in a melody, or how we could explain numbers to a tribe that are higher than those the tribe has ever counted to. Or how could we describe music without whistling it and without evoking some kind of common understanding?
He points out the misconceptions about music being defined by its ability to make us feel certain emotions, as thought the feeling of those emotions is the purpose and the defining trait of music, something exclusive to music -- which is not true. Despite making these acute observations nearly a century ago, the associated misconceptions persist. Implications of these various explorations turn out to be nearly infinite, and you can find yourself getting lost down these paths of thought.
These are simple examples of the sorts of studies Wittgenstein is taking us into. Many of them become much more involved, more complex and interesting, such as how we interpret the differences in drawn facial expressions, and what makes us agree the expressions are different even if the drawings themselves have barely any differences, or vice versa, with two drawn faces having significantly different orientations of lines and scribbles but the expressions appearing generally identical, or the games one can play with language or thought, and what we mean when we use certain phrases or words to communicate sensations, experiences, ideas. He's probing concepts in ways I don't think they had ever been probed before, and a lot of times it's really captivating even if sloppy and frustratingly obtuse.
In addition to artificial intelligence, it seems obvious Wittgenstein’s philosophy has a place in the study of linguistics and neuroscience, and it would be interesting to see how this work has been integrated or expanded upon (or rejected) by these fields.
It wasn't always clear to me what Wittgenstein was getting at with his nonstop barrage of ideas, even though they were clear to follow. I found that the introduction to this collection actually provided a lot of clarity that Wittgenstein himself was unable to provide, and so these were invaluable 16 pages that absolutely should be read for anyone hoping to make sense of the work as a whole. And as a whole, this body of work seems to me to have some analogues or applications to scientific thinking, in the strictest sense. This is where I see its value. I don't mean simply in application to scientific problems, but in application to any philosophical or intellectual problem, enabling one to think more like a scientist or a rigorous philosopher in the process.
On the surface many of the questions and language games and thought experiments and philosophy of mind Wittgenstein explores might seem frivolous or pedantic or useless, and the tireless way in which he keeps going, and going, and driving the point home and making piercing insight after piercing insight into the non-obvious questions can seem exhausting to someone not interested in this level of interrogation. I found it compelling and fascinating, for the most part, even when I was finding it a little bit useless.
Sometimes he would introduce ideas that I wasn't quite sure I understood the point of, but as I continued reading I would make projections based on the idea, and come up with thought experiments or examples of my own, which a few paragraphs or pages later Wittgenstein would then explicitly discuss. This led me to believe that I wasn't lost or missing anything, and that sometimes my boredom with the discussion was instead based on not seeing any value in it. This wasn't always the case, because many times (as in the application to artificial intelligence or to scientific thinking) I saw some immediate and practical value in the philosophy, as well as general intellectual value. But there were many times that he rode an idea into the dust without really making its purpose known. Even when I could come up with a purpose, it was evident the idea would need a lot more development before it became applicable to anything.
In the end, this is a nifty book, densely packed with profoundly thought provoking material from one of the most legendary philosophers of the last century. It doesn't always read well, it doesn't always seem salient, it's surprisingly messy, but for the abundance of fundamental insight it provides, the voyages of thought it forces you to take, and the thoughtful extrapolations it will let you make, it is undeniably important and good for serious cognitive development. I might like to reread it again in a few years, maybe if I ever read the Philosophical Investigations.
October 2, 2025
Wittgenstein je te hais
May 11, 2025
Wittgenstein rejects an ideal language for meaning as use. That changes his philosophical method: he now dissolves puzzles by querying analogies, generalizations, essences.
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January 16, 2009These companion studies help with reading his more 'organized' Logical Investigations because they situate the reader with respect to the project. What I have to say about these studies is not terribly important and maybe even inappropriate. After all who reads the mood of a philosopher? But every effort at 'essential definition' seemed to bother LW a great deal. Such definitions were the sort of thing after which Socrates was always asking. But I cannot understand what it means when I am asked for that definition of a chair which produces every chair and does not miss one. There is nothing mysterious about the question at all. The mode of research simply does not mean anything to someone who is attentive to the grammar of the request. What one means by 'chair' is a matter of grammar. Grammar is usage. Grammar is what connects words together. does the sense of a sentence belong to grammar? Or does grammar run along behind naming the particularity of kind. 'Kind' and 'category' are great mysteries. And I wonder if such pronouncements irritate LW as unthinking? That he believes the mystery that belongs to language should be dismissed so as not to blind thinking to its proper task which is the working out of complexity. From what is simple to what is complex. From language games to language. It is as if he imagines that it is a failing of man that he is saddled with a way to be that is mystical or magical. All I mean is that when I ask you for an apple, I am speaking of apples. There is no grammar. LW is not kind to the original condition of language which is transparent. When language is most like what it is, it articulates what is there. Is that what he means by live language? Originally there is no such thing as a primitive language and so no such thing as a language game. There is only language. Does that matter?
May 27, 2013
Precursors to the more refined works published as the Philosophical Investigations, these Cambridge lectures (for a counterpoint, see his Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics) reveal Wittgenstein's constant struggle to formulate the body of thought known as "Wittgenstein II" (ie, all that which followed the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus). Fascinating reading for anyone who enjoyed the PI, although neither here nor in that later tome can the WII program be said to be "complete".
February 28, 2008
This is the perfect warm-up to the Investigations. I think a lot of the misunderstanding and lack of comprehension that a lot of people (including several published, "respectable" scholars) experience with PI is a direct result of their failure to start here. All the main concepts - language games, forms ogf life, etc. - are laid out in their earlier stages, and the break from his picture-theory stuff in the Tractatus is made explicit.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 15, 2020
Una exploración, o quizás más bien un deambular sin prisa entre los callejones y los barrios bajos de la metafísica del lenguaje, o como el propio Wittgenstein llama a su ejercicio, un "filosofar acerca del comprender". Por fortuna Wittgenstein (o al menos la traducción al español) no se extravía entre neologismos o abstracciones demasiado rebuscadas, y si bien por momentos resulta un poco reiterativo en su minuciosidad lingüística, al final uno parece entender que todo aquello lleva en sus entrañas la idea de que son la experiencia y el entorno social quienes nos hacen dar los significados que damos a las palabras, a las frases, a la forma de leer o de escuchar, de observar, a la manera en que leemos e interactuamos con la realidad.
June 18, 2025
fun in that it invites thinking. every thought is like a demand made on an autistic child. we are invited to cope again and again without respite, and left dangling. each task ends too quickly, but to think them through any longer is pathological. one couldn't think of this as a work of philosophy without being invested in those disputes which it encourages us to see through. if it is not a work of philosophy, it is just a series of constrained, singular puzzles without shape
January 31, 2022
I've always been interested in linguistics and the meaning of words beyond the grammar and vocabulary. Wittgenstein is one of the people whose ramblings make some sort of twisted sense to me, even if they could be more elegant than what he writes here. There's some touch of desperation as he tries to communicate that we can't really communicate. I'll come back and reread this one day, for sure.
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December 7, 2024o wittgenstein é o autor mais assustador que já li.
May 16, 2020
زبان شناسی به روایت ویتگنشتاین
کتاب های قهوه ای و ک��اب های آبی ، استعاره خوبی برای بیان مفهوم زبان هست. قرار گیری تضاد و اشتراک در کنار هم.
همانطور که مفهوم زبان شناسی می تواند تلفیقی از چند مفهوم متفاوت و مشترک باشد.
ویتگنشتاین را که در اغلب اوقات به دلیل دیدگاه ها و تالیف های بسیار خوب درباره مفهوم هنر ، فلسفه و زبان می شناسیم ، در این کتاب روایت هایی از مفهوم زبان شناسی روایت می کنه، کتابی که به نظرم برای دوستداران حوزه فلسفه و زبان شناسی بسیار میتونه مفید واقع باشه
کتاب های قهوه ای و ک��اب های آبی ، استعاره خوبی برای بیان مفهوم زبان هست. قرار گیری تضاد و اشتراک در کنار هم.
همانطور که مفهوم زبان شناسی می تواند تلفیقی از چند مفهوم متفاوت و مشترک باشد.
ویتگنشتاین را که در اغلب اوقات به دلیل دیدگاه ها و تالیف های بسیار خوب درباره مفهوم هنر ، فلسفه و زبان می شناسیم ، در این کتاب روایت هایی از مفهوم زبان شناسی روایت می کنه، کتابی که به نظرم برای دوستداران حوزه فلسفه و زبان شناسی بسیار میتونه مفید واقع باشه
April 14, 2016
These two books are difficult to read because Wittgenstein is unsystematic in his exploration. He is reaching towards a kind of functionalism -- but he lacks the conception or the language to cogently describe the structures he reaches towards.
For example, he introduces different cuts expecting that meaning should be somehow stabilized along the specific expressions. But then he demonstrates that meaning has no ontological necessity; in fact he highlights different modalities in which the sense of what is expressed is the same even if the units of expression are different. And in that way he confuses himself when he is able to show that there is no ontological correlation between the units of expression and the functional meaning that comes about.
Once we see that he is reaching towards a functionalist view, these books become difficult to assess. We have moved beyond Wittgenstein without really understanding Wittgenstein. In a similar way, Kant and Hegel are hard to read because they seek to express ideas we have already mastered but they lack the language and the concepts with which to express those ideas in ways that we could readily grasp. I suppose Wittgenstein is a genius in the sense that he is able to point out new cuts of meaning, new dimensions of how meaning can be constructed, considered and disseminated. Yet Wittgenstein is not a genius in the sense that he is unable to articulate/build a new modality to incorporate his observations, in part because he expects that meaning should be stabilized in some kind of correlation between what is expressed and the specific units of expression.
In that sense, Deleuze is correct to describe Wittgenstein and his followers as being "assassins of philosophy" because Wittgenstein ends up exploring different angles and rejecting any meaning if it isn't present with some kind of ontological consistency.
For example, he introduces different cuts expecting that meaning should be somehow stabilized along the specific expressions. But then he demonstrates that meaning has no ontological necessity; in fact he highlights different modalities in which the sense of what is expressed is the same even if the units of expression are different. And in that way he confuses himself when he is able to show that there is no ontological correlation between the units of expression and the functional meaning that comes about.
Once we see that he is reaching towards a functionalist view, these books become difficult to assess. We have moved beyond Wittgenstein without really understanding Wittgenstein. In a similar way, Kant and Hegel are hard to read because they seek to express ideas we have already mastered but they lack the language and the concepts with which to express those ideas in ways that we could readily grasp. I suppose Wittgenstein is a genius in the sense that he is able to point out new cuts of meaning, new dimensions of how meaning can be constructed, considered and disseminated. Yet Wittgenstein is not a genius in the sense that he is unable to articulate/build a new modality to incorporate his observations, in part because he expects that meaning should be stabilized in some kind of correlation between what is expressed and the specific units of expression.
In that sense, Deleuze is correct to describe Wittgenstein and his followers as being "assassins of philosophy" because Wittgenstein ends up exploring different angles and rejecting any meaning if it isn't present with some kind of ontological consistency.
February 8, 2015
And I always thought Wittgenstein was just a stuck-up rich kid.
This book changed my definition of what a philosopher's aim OUGHT to do be. Yes. I said it. OUGHT.
This is largely known as a revision or re-directing of his Tractatus, and it's interesting in a number of ways:
1) A glimpse of how one can (tends to?) modify one's philosophy throughout life - essentially changing it, but not abandoning the general framework.
2) Blue book is basically a less-complex transcript of a lecture series - Brown Book, a more rigorous treatment intended for text. Interesting to note the adaptations of style/language/depth with medium.
3)This book REALLY underscores the power/utility of 'plain language' philosophy.
Anyway, I'm glad to have read it. I'd like to revisit at some point.
This book changed my definition of what a philosopher's aim OUGHT to do be. Yes. I said it. OUGHT.
This is largely known as a revision or re-directing of his Tractatus, and it's interesting in a number of ways:
1) A glimpse of how one can (tends to?) modify one's philosophy throughout life - essentially changing it, but not abandoning the general framework.
2) Blue book is basically a less-complex transcript of a lecture series - Brown Book, a more rigorous treatment intended for text. Interesting to note the adaptations of style/language/depth with medium.
3)This book REALLY underscores the power/utility of 'plain language' philosophy.
Anyway, I'm glad to have read it. I'd like to revisit at some point.
May 15, 2007
Works with interesting concepts, and demolishes some very silly thinking about philosophy of language that people bring intuitively to the subject. On the other hand, he's a bit more than supportably behaviorist, and with annoying frequency he confuses something he can't find out with something Unknowable By Definition, ignoring that science has indeed taken what were once philosophical problems and turned them into experimentally answerable questions--cog sci, quantum physics and relativity being especially good on that front.
That said, it's a great intro to Wittgenstein, and you have to remember that there actually were people who thought the way that his seeming strawmen did.
That said, it's a great intro to Wittgenstein, and you have to remember that there actually were people who thought the way that his seeming strawmen did.
July 18, 2007
Some of the best descriptions of words ever.
"Many words in this sense then don't have a strict meaning. But this is not a defect. To think it is would be like saying that the light of my reading lamp is no real light at all because it has no sharp boundary."
He wrote the same thing in another elegant way in Philosophical Grammar. There he compares the usefullness of words to the warmth you feel from a stove. Maybe no real sharp boundary, but still really useful! The difference between the relation of the meaning of words to a feeling rather than a seeing seems significant to me as well, but I dont have any real clue as to what the significance could be.
"Many words in this sense then don't have a strict meaning. But this is not a defect. To think it is would be like saying that the light of my reading lamp is no real light at all because it has no sharp boundary."
He wrote the same thing in another elegant way in Philosophical Grammar. There he compares the usefullness of words to the warmth you feel from a stove. Maybe no real sharp boundary, but still really useful! The difference between the relation of the meaning of words to a feeling rather than a seeing seems significant to me as well, but I dont have any real clue as to what the significance could be.
January 9, 2015
Some intriguing ideas here about meaning & signs in language and thought, particularly the Blue book, though I wanted to like these books more than I did. Wittgenstein's thesis appears to be that language is a merely set of signs interwoven with our activity in the world, the meanings of which can only be defined by their use within the context and various associations of a language. Then he beats the premise to death with dozens of language games to explore the problems with language as a set of representative signs. Definitely worth a read but I can't help but continue to think a number of these insights were explored with more significance by Wittgenstein's contemporary, Heidegger.
Read
August 4, 2009Finished the Blue Book July 10th. It kind of blew a lot of other philosophy out of the water. I'm obsessed with words and exact meanings, though, and so is he. He just clarifies really well what we're really asking or feeling when we're philosophically puzzled.
I am not quite smart enough to understand a lot of this. But I think it's largely true.
edit 8/4/09: Decided to skip the Brown Book. You can only take so much of this stuff I suppose. Still, I just procured a copy of the Investigations; might give it a try soon.
I am not quite smart enough to understand a lot of this. But I think it's largely true.
edit 8/4/09: Decided to skip the Brown Book. You can only take so much of this stuff I suppose. Still, I just procured a copy of the Investigations; might give it a try soon.
June 30, 2019
«اشتیاق ما به کلیت سرچشمه ی مهم دیگری نیز دارد: تمایل ما به روش علم. مقصود من روش تقلیل تبیین پدیدارهای طبیعی به کمترین تعداد قانونهای طبیعی اولیه ی ممکن است؛ و در ریاضیات روش وحدت بخشی به تلقی ما از موضوعهای گوناگون با استفاده از یک تعمیم. فیلسوفان پیوسته روش علم را پیش روی خود می بینند، و به نحو مقاومت ناپذیری به شیوه پرسش و پاسخ علمی گرایش دارند. این گرایش سرچشمه واقعی متافیزیک است و فیلسوف را به تاریکی مطلق وارد می کند.»
July 28, 2011
I must be honest and say I did not finish this tome. But I believe that any serious student of philosophy should start with this book as it deals with the core issues of the language we must use in any philosophical discourse and how easily we can be led astray by our choice of words. At least this is how I saw it some 40 years ago.
December 12, 2013
I won't pretend to understand everything about Wittgenstein (add to that the fact that this is my bedside read, meaning that I might have failed to grasp a lot especially in the moments that I fall asleep), but I guess this is a good start for one who wants to understand the transition from early to late Wittgenstein.
July 5, 2007
this was an excellent rec from alex temple. never finished it, but what i read i completely loved. makes you think about thinking in an amazingly precise way. felt like a mathematician's thoughts (high praise from me).
August 6, 2016
This book is a gold mine of philosophical ideas and questions on language. The first part tackles the question, "If life has a meaning, what would it look like?"
I first read this in college but wasn't impressed by it until I really got into photography.
I first read this in college but wasn't impressed by it until I really got into photography.
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