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فتجنشتين
لودفيج فتجنشتين ( 1951-1889) فيلسوف عجيب في فلسفته وفي حياته أيضًا. شكل بطرافة أفكاره الموضوعات الأساسية لجانب كبير من الفلسفة المعاصرة، وبخاصة فلسفة اللغة، وفلسفة العقل، وفلسفة المنطق، وفلسفة الرياضيات. وستجد في هذا الكتاب إجابات دقيقة وعميقة لأسئلة من قبيل: كيف نحلل اللغة؟ وكيف نحلل العالم؟ وكيف ترتبط اللغة بالعالم؟ وكيف نستعمل اللغة؟ وكيف نفهم التصورات العقلية؟ وما الفائدة من دراسة الفلسفة؟
استمتع بفكر فيلسوف صاحب تعمق يقول عن نفسه : "حيث يمر الآخرون مرور الكرام، تراني لا أزال واقفًا". وبسبب جدة أفكاره، فإنها لا تزال تشغل الباحثين حتى الآن، ولا يدانيه من حيث المناقشة والنقد سوى فلاسفة مثل هيدجر وكولين ورولز.
من مقدمة المترجم.
استمتع بفكر فيلسوف صاحب تعمق يقول عن نفسه : "حيث يمر الآخرون مرور الكرام، تراني لا أزال واقفًا". وبسبب جدة أفكاره، فإنها لا تزال تشغل الباحثين حتى الآن، ولا يدانيه من حيث المناقشة والنقد سوى فلاسفة مثل هيدجر وكولين ورولز.
من مقدمة المترجم.
272 pages, Paperback
First published June 28, 2011
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November 22, 2025
من الفردية المطلقة المحلقة إلى الجمعية القبلية الصارمة
نلعب لغات
كلمة تصنفنا.. كلمة توصفنا.. كلمة تجمعنا.. كلمة تفرقنا
كلمة تنطبق على الجميع وتمنحهم هوية
كلمة تلغي الهوية وتنفي حقيقتهم
ألعاب اللغة
نلعبها أم تلعبنا
صديقي العزيز
قد تزعم أنك تعرف نفسك وتعرف الآخر
قد تحب شخصا لأنك وضعت عليه سمات المحب
قد تكره شخصا لأنك استلبته الجماليات التي احتفظت بها لنفسك
لا تتعجل في أحكامك وتوجيه انفعالاتك
تخلص من وهم الحمولة الدلالية التي أضفتها التصورات الاجتماعية على الكلمات
نحن لم نر العالم بعد
إننا نجمده في ثلاجة الخضار
داخل أكياس ملونة
نضع عليها كلمة ليصبح من السهل علينا استعماله
الجديد عند فتجنشتين هو ألعاب اللغة
من يستخدمها يحاول السيطرة بها على الدنيا
يحاول أن يحصل على ماديات العالم بكلمات عاطفية
يستحوذ على مدركات الناس حين يجعلهم يفكرون بكلماته
وكثير من الناس في حاجة إلى أطر
والكلمات أطر
ترمي ورقة فتفرض عليه أن يدخل لعبتك
هذا ما اكتشفه ثعالب أدب اللامعقول
الذين حاول بعضهم تحرير عبثية المنطق الخادع
بعبثية صادمة فيها مفارقة مع الخمول الفكري الذين تستكين إليه الأوهام
أدرك أدباء اللامعقول أن العقول ضعيفة ومنقادة في تصنيفات خادعة
الإنسان أنت وهم ونحن
لكننا لا نعرف من هو أقرب الناس لنا
نمنحه فقط تصورا ما نحتويه به
كثيرا ما نكتشف وهمنا
بخاصة حين يتمسك هو بوهمه ويحاول أن يجرنا إليه
يفشل الحب والزواج والصداقة
ويتخاصم الأصدقاء والأحبة
حين يكتشفون متأخرا جدا
أنهم صنفوا الآخر في خانة ليست له
وأن اللغة هي بنك الحظ
الذي نجمع فيه خسارات كثيرة
وقليلا من المكاسب التي أدركتها العقول
بعد أن تخلصت من هيمنة التماثل
وسحر التشبيهات والاستعارات
التي تلغي التفكير كنظرة من تظنه حبيبا قديما
يشغلك بها ليسرق حافظة نقودك في زحام مترو الأنفاق
نلعب لغات
كلمة تصنفنا.. كلمة توصفنا.. كلمة تجمعنا.. كلمة تفرقنا
كلمة تنطبق على الجميع وتمنحهم هوية
كلمة تلغي الهوية وتنفي حقيقتهم
ألعاب اللغة
نلعبها أم تلعبنا
صديقي العزيز
قد تزعم أنك تعرف نفسك وتعرف الآخر
قد تحب شخصا لأنك وضعت عليه سمات المحب
قد تكره شخصا لأنك استلبته الجماليات التي احتفظت بها لنفسك
لا تتعجل في أحكامك وتوجيه انفعالاتك
تخلص من وهم الحمولة الدلالية التي أضفتها التصورات الاجتماعية على الكلمات
نحن لم نر العالم بعد
إننا نجمده في ثلاجة الخضار
داخل أكياس ملونة
نضع عليها كلمة ليصبح من السهل علينا استعماله
الجديد عند فتجنشتين هو ألعاب اللغة
من يستخدمها يحاول السيطرة بها على الدنيا
يحاول أن يحصل على ماديات العالم بكلمات عاطفية
يستحوذ على مدركات الناس حين يجعلهم يفكرون بكلماته
وكثير من الناس في حاجة إلى أطر
والكلمات أطر
ترمي ورقة فتفرض عليه أن يدخل لعبتك
هذا ما اكتشفه ثعالب أدب اللامعقول
الذين حاول بعضهم تحرير عبثية المنطق الخادع
بعبثية صادمة فيها مفارقة مع الخمول الفكري الذين تستكين إليه الأوهام
أدرك أدباء اللامعقول أن العقول ضعيفة ومنقادة في تصنيفات خادعة
الإنسان أنت وهم ونحن
لكننا لا نعرف من هو أقرب الناس لنا
نمنحه فقط تصورا ما نحتويه به
كثيرا ما نكتشف وهمنا
بخاصة حين يتمسك هو بوهمه ويحاول أن يجرنا إليه
يفشل الحب والزواج والصداقة
ويتخاصم الأصدقاء والأحبة
حين يكتشفون متأخرا جدا
أنهم صنفوا الآخر في خانة ليست له
وأن اللغة هي بنك الحظ
الذي نجمع فيه خسارات كثيرة
وقليلا من المكاسب التي أدركتها العقول
بعد أن تخلصت من هيمنة التماثل
وسحر التشبيهات والاستعارات
التي تلغي التفكير كنظرة من تظنه حبيبا قديما
يشغلك بها ليسرق حافظة نقودك في زحام مترو الأنفاق
December 27, 2016
الكتاب فعلا ممتاز . . ولكن ظني إنه مينفعش مقدمة أبدًا
هانس سلوجه أسلوبه وعقليته بديعة
د.صلاح المترجم، بنظرة سريعة على مؤلفاته فهو متخصص في فلسفة اللغة والعقل
ولذا كانت مقدمته جميلة جدًا . . وله كتاب آخر -من ترجمته- عن فتجنشتين تحت الطبع
كما له عدّة دراسات جيدة جدا في فلسفة سيرل وفتجنشتين.
طريقة معالجة سلوجا لفتجنشتين تبدو غريبة قليلا على غير المتمرس، فهي تتطلب خلفية قويّة
حتى كتاب ماري ماجين فتجنشتين والبحوث الفلسفية
يبدو أسهل منه بكثير وأفضل منه كمقدمة حتى لو لم يكن يغطي كل جوانب فكر فتجنشتين . .
ولكن كتاب سلوجا في العموم بديع فعلا
April 14, 2023
مقدمة رائعة لترجمة اختصاصية متميزة
April 8, 2018
This is a long awaited book from Hans Sluga. Sluga has been teaching and studying Wittgenstein's work for decades, inspiring countless students (including me). Sluga is himself an historicist, and the historicism is out front here, both on the scale of Wittgenstein's own development from the Tractatus through to On Certainty, and also on the broader scale, pointing to the influences of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Mauthner, and others.
The first three chapters of the book trace the first period of Wittgenstein's thought, the Tractatus and Notebooks. Sluga weaves biographical details into his analysis, treating his subject from the beginning as someone haunted by questions rather than by answers. Wittgenstein's recurring retreats from philosophical activity now paint a picture of someone drawing back and rethinking, returning to the same questions with fresh thoughts fed by the limitations he now sees in his previous approaches.
Sluga's treatment of the Tractatus reads as a test, for Wittgenstein, of the very idea of logical atomism. Logical atomism succeeds on its own terms ("Logic takes care of itself. . . "), but it fails as a metaphysics. In other words, in the end, there simply is no bridge between logic, the logical structure of language and thought, and the structure of reality. Logical structure cannot be said to mirror reality, and the primitives of logic cannot be mapped to the primitives of reality. Logic isn't part of reality -- it is "transcendental."
At the same time, the Tractatus sets up, by its exclusion of the "transcendental" from theoretical treatment, the questions of the relation of self to world, self to other, self to language and language to world, the themes that will provoke Wittgenstein's thinking throughout his life.
The second period of Wittgenstein's thought, in Sluga's treatment, is that of the Blue and Brown Books. Here the limitations of the Tractatus become clear to Wittgenstein, and the diversity of language and fluidity of meaning become apparent. Sluga ties Wittgenstein's realizations during this period to Nietzsche's essay "On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense", breaking down the basis of concepts into simile, a likening of what is distinct through similarities rather than a discovery of an underlying essential sameness. This notion of simile flows forward into Wittgenstein's own notion of "family resemblance" that ties instances into concepts, thus abandoning the fixity of essentialism for a potential perspectivism, in which different resemblances can be featured in order to provide a fluid sorting and resorting of conceptual structure.
The third and final period in Sluga's Wittgenstein is the "late Wittgenstein" from the late 1930s on to Wittgenstein's death in 1951. As Sluga concedes, this last period contains some diverse strains of thought. The Philosophical Investigations could arguably be called the "mature" philosophy of Wittgenstein. The Investigations provide what seems to be Wittgenstein's most complete removal from philosophy as theory for the sake of philosophy as therapy. We get the definitive exposure of how our language may mislead us when we take it for more than it is (e.g., when we take its structure for that same "mirror of reality" rejected earlier in the test of logical atomism).
Then On Certainty takes up more explicitly than any other of Wittgenstein's writings questions of how practices of language really do compose or permit a structure of knowledge about the world. G.E. Moore's "Proof of an External World" provides a perfect starting point to examine and dismantle any notion of straight-forward epistemological foundationalism, in which complex knowledge is built on the basis of more primitive knowledge, like a Cartesian game of blocks.
The one slightly odd aspect of the book is Sluga's insertion of questions of social and political philosophy into each of the larger discussions in the book. Wittgenstein was even more silent about such questions than he was about ethics -- at least he did deliver the one "Lecture on Ethics" and the provocative remarks on ethics and "the problem of life" in the closing propositions of the Tractatus. I think the explanation for Sluga's interest is that we are in effect reading the preface to a future work of his own on social and political philosophy, with a grounding in themes from Wittgenstein -- in particular, Wittgenstein's anti-theoretical philosophical stance, what Sluga calls the "unsurveyability of our condition." I'm looking forward to it.
The first three chapters of the book trace the first period of Wittgenstein's thought, the Tractatus and Notebooks. Sluga weaves biographical details into his analysis, treating his subject from the beginning as someone haunted by questions rather than by answers. Wittgenstein's recurring retreats from philosophical activity now paint a picture of someone drawing back and rethinking, returning to the same questions with fresh thoughts fed by the limitations he now sees in his previous approaches.
Sluga's treatment of the Tractatus reads as a test, for Wittgenstein, of the very idea of logical atomism. Logical atomism succeeds on its own terms ("Logic takes care of itself. . . "), but it fails as a metaphysics. In other words, in the end, there simply is no bridge between logic, the logical structure of language and thought, and the structure of reality. Logical structure cannot be said to mirror reality, and the primitives of logic cannot be mapped to the primitives of reality. Logic isn't part of reality -- it is "transcendental."
At the same time, the Tractatus sets up, by its exclusion of the "transcendental" from theoretical treatment, the questions of the relation of self to world, self to other, self to language and language to world, the themes that will provoke Wittgenstein's thinking throughout his life.
The second period of Wittgenstein's thought, in Sluga's treatment, is that of the Blue and Brown Books. Here the limitations of the Tractatus become clear to Wittgenstein, and the diversity of language and fluidity of meaning become apparent. Sluga ties Wittgenstein's realizations during this period to Nietzsche's essay "On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense", breaking down the basis of concepts into simile, a likening of what is distinct through similarities rather than a discovery of an underlying essential sameness. This notion of simile flows forward into Wittgenstein's own notion of "family resemblance" that ties instances into concepts, thus abandoning the fixity of essentialism for a potential perspectivism, in which different resemblances can be featured in order to provide a fluid sorting and resorting of conceptual structure.
The third and final period in Sluga's Wittgenstein is the "late Wittgenstein" from the late 1930s on to Wittgenstein's death in 1951. As Sluga concedes, this last period contains some diverse strains of thought. The Philosophical Investigations could arguably be called the "mature" philosophy of Wittgenstein. The Investigations provide what seems to be Wittgenstein's most complete removal from philosophy as theory for the sake of philosophy as therapy. We get the definitive exposure of how our language may mislead us when we take it for more than it is (e.g., when we take its structure for that same "mirror of reality" rejected earlier in the test of logical atomism).
Then On Certainty takes up more explicitly than any other of Wittgenstein's writings questions of how practices of language really do compose or permit a structure of knowledge about the world. G.E. Moore's "Proof of an External World" provides a perfect starting point to examine and dismantle any notion of straight-forward epistemological foundationalism, in which complex knowledge is built on the basis of more primitive knowledge, like a Cartesian game of blocks.
The one slightly odd aspect of the book is Sluga's insertion of questions of social and political philosophy into each of the larger discussions in the book. Wittgenstein was even more silent about such questions than he was about ethics -- at least he did deliver the one "Lecture on Ethics" and the provocative remarks on ethics and "the problem of life" in the closing propositions of the Tractatus. I think the explanation for Sluga's interest is that we are in effect reading the preface to a future work of his own on social and political philosophy, with a grounding in themes from Wittgenstein -- in particular, Wittgenstein's anti-theoretical philosophical stance, what Sluga calls the "unsurveyability of our condition." I'm looking forward to it.
July 7, 2013
Fantastic interpretation of Wittgenstein's early, middle, and late philosophy. Sluga is one of a few who attempts to relate Wittgenstein's later work with modern political theory (although, Wittgenstein would've repudiated the idea of a 'political theory'). Sluga does show, however, how the ideas of family resemblance and language games can be of serious consequence when attempting to understand politics and human society.
As an introduction to Wittgenstein's work, this is quite obviously historicist. Sluga's main aim is to show Wittgenstein as a thinker situated within a historical tradition. Wittgenstein, for Sluga, is very much a person whose ideas are shaped by the historical circumstances that he finds himself living in. This sort of introductory method is contrasted with the 'problem centered' or 'idea centered' sort of introduction which aims to understand a thinker solely through understanding his or her ideas or the problems which he or she aimed to solve. Sluga does show a hint of this method in some areas of the book (mostly in his chapter on family resemblance) - but the majority of the book exhibits a commitment to the historicist methodology. Coming from Hans Sluga, this is hardly surprising.
As an introduction to Wittgenstein's work, this is quite obviously historicist. Sluga's main aim is to show Wittgenstein as a thinker situated within a historical tradition. Wittgenstein, for Sluga, is very much a person whose ideas are shaped by the historical circumstances that he finds himself living in. This sort of introductory method is contrasted with the 'problem centered' or 'idea centered' sort of introduction which aims to understand a thinker solely through understanding his or her ideas or the problems which he or she aimed to solve. Sluga does show a hint of this method in some areas of the book (mostly in his chapter on family resemblance) - but the majority of the book exhibits a commitment to the historicist methodology. Coming from Hans Sluga, this is hardly surprising.
April 18, 2015
Ludwig Wittgenstein has been a hero of mine since my college days. Even before I read several of his later works or knew much about the content of his thinking, I knew that he was courageous. Here was a man who boldly presented one strong philosophical view (in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus) and then, after a long hiatus, turned around and spent much of the rest of his life critiquing that view (most famously in the Philosophical Investigations), even as he stayed focused on many of the same (or similar) philosophical questions. This book provides a fine overview of the trajectory of his thinking. I never read the Tractatus, but I’ve read enough now about it to know that it’s hard to breathe in that austere world. Thus, the early chapters of Sluga’s book were thus necessarily rough going for me. Still, I think he does a good job in presenting it. When we move to the later philosophy -- to language games, family resemblances, what it means to follow rules, the varieties of interpretation, and other ordinary areas of life and experience that interest Wittgenstein in his later philosophy -- things got for me much more interesting and exciting. Here especially I felt that Sluga does an outstanding job.
September 4, 2019
عن هذا الكتاب ونصيحة للمقبلين على قراءة كتب الفلسفة (الغربية)؛
لطالما جذبتني فلسفة اللّغة بسحر ألغازها و أسرارها المرتبطة بحقيقة المعاني والمفاهيم والعقل البشري، و إن أول أسم يرد في ذاكراتي عند ذكر هذه الفلسفة هو الفيلسوف #لودفيج_فيتجنشتاين ! فيلسوف مغترب، وعبقري لاحقته الفلسفة حتى تمسكت به وأصبح رائداً في حقولها. حتى الآن قرأت التقديم والذي يوحي بإنه مناسب لمن هم في المستوى المتوسط والمتقدم في قراءة كتب الفلسفة.
بشكل عام ترجمة الأعمال الفلسفية للغة تختلف عن لغة الأصل وغير مشتقة أو قريبة منها أمر صعب جداً جداً، ويشكر د.صلاح إسماعيل على مجهوده بوضع المصطلحات الفلسفية المتقدمة باللغة الإنجليزية بجانب المصطلح المترجم للعربية.
نصيحة لكل مهتم بقراءة كتب الفلسفة الغربية وبالأخص المتقدمة والمعقدة، اذا كان ملم باللغة الأم للفيلسوف أو لغة تكون متفرعة وقريبة منها أن يطلع على المصادر التي تشرح ولو بإختصار هذه الفلسفة، هذه الطريقة ساعدتني كثيراً في تجاوز عقبات التعقيد وصعوبة متابعة سير الأفكار والمصطلحات المترجمة والتي تكون في أغلب الأحيان غير دقيقة في المضمون. لكن لا أقول إن اللغة العربية حاجز في فهم الفلسفة الغربية، بل يستطيع كل شخص ملم إلماماً واسعاً باللغة أن يفهمها دون إشكالية، وهنا على كل من يرغب بالإقبال على ��تب الفلسفة الغربية أن يكون ملم إلماماً كافياً باللغة العربية، وحبذا لو ركز كل جهده على معرفة وإنماء المصطلحات الفلسفية المتخصصة والمهتمة بفروع الفلسفة الغربية، والأهم من ذلك هو كما ذكرت في البداية، الإطلاع المسبق لمصادر تشرح النقاط الأساسية للنظرية أو الفلسفة المراد قراءتها. فلا تقرأ لفيلسوف ما قبل أن تُحضر تحضيراً مسبقاً لما أنت مقبل عليه. ولكل من له باع طويل في قراءة الكتب الفلسفية أن يبدي بنصائحه حتى تعم الفائدة.
لطالما جذبتني فلسفة اللّغة بسحر ألغازها و أسرارها المرتبطة بحقيقة المعاني والمفاهيم والعقل البشري، و إن أول أسم يرد في ذاكراتي عند ذكر هذه الفلسفة هو الفيلسوف #لودفيج_فيتجنشتاين ! فيلسوف مغترب، وعبقري لاحقته الفلسفة حتى تمسكت به وأصبح رائداً في حقولها. حتى الآن قرأت التقديم والذي يوحي بإنه مناسب لمن هم في المستوى المتوسط والمتقدم في قراءة كتب الفلسفة.
بشكل عام ترجمة الأعمال الفلسفية للغة تختلف عن لغة الأصل وغير مشتقة أو قريبة منها أمر صعب جداً جداً، ويشكر د.صلاح إسماعيل على مجهوده بوضع المصطلحات الفلسفية المتقدمة باللغة الإنجليزية بجانب المصطلح المترجم للعربية.
نصيحة لكل مهتم بقراءة كتب الفلسفة الغربية وبالأخص المتقدمة والمعقدة، اذا كان ملم باللغة الأم للفيلسوف أو لغة تكون متفرعة وقريبة منها أن يطلع على المصادر التي تشرح ولو بإختصار هذه الفلسفة، هذه الطريقة ساعدتني كثيراً في تجاوز عقبات التعقيد وصعوبة متابعة سير الأفكار والمصطلحات المترجمة والتي تكون في أغلب الأحيان غير دقيقة في المضمون. لكن لا أقول إن اللغة العربية حاجز في فهم الفلسفة الغربية، بل يستطيع كل شخص ملم إلماماً واسعاً باللغة أن يفهمها دون إشكالية، وهنا على كل من يرغب بالإقبال على ��تب الفلسفة الغربية أن يكون ملم إلماماً كافياً باللغة العربية، وحبذا لو ركز كل جهده على معرفة وإنماء المصطلحات الفلسفية المتخصصة والمهتمة بفروع الفلسفة الغربية، والأهم من ذلك هو كما ذكرت في البداية، الإطلاع المسبق لمصادر تشرح النقاط الأساسية للنظرية أو الفلسفة المراد قراءتها. فلا تقرأ لفيلسوف ما قبل أن تُحضر تحضيراً مسبقاً لما أنت مقبل عليه. ولكل من له باع طويل في قراءة الكتب الفلسفية أن يبدي بنصائحه حتى تعم الفائدة.
January 14, 2021
I tend think of philosophy as the closest thing to religion for scientists and skeptics. Knowing he was an engineer himself, I knew I wanted to read Wittgenstein's work someday.
In my (very limited) experience of trying to study philosophy, I've found that the more I respect the philosopher and his personal journey, the more I appreciate his ideas. Which is why this book was an ideal starting point, since the book/is more about Wittgenstein and his life, seen through the different stages of his philosophical works.
I appreciate that this book didn't try to paint Wittgenstein as a revolutionary genius, but as a man with many ideas, who thought deeply and changed his mind many times throughout his life. It talks about his ideas in the modern context which was a fascinating aspect of the book to me.
This read definitely begs the question of whether I'm going to pick up Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus or Philosophical Investigations any time soon? Honestly, probably not. I'm not ready for it just yet, but this book has me convinced that I will read it someday!
In my (very limited) experience of trying to study philosophy, I've found that the more I respect the philosopher and his personal journey, the more I appreciate his ideas. Which is why this book was an ideal starting point, since the book/is more about Wittgenstein and his life, seen through the different stages of his philosophical works.
I appreciate that this book didn't try to paint Wittgenstein as a revolutionary genius, but as a man with many ideas, who thought deeply and changed his mind many times throughout his life. It talks about his ideas in the modern context which was a fascinating aspect of the book to me.
This read definitely begs the question of whether I'm going to pick up Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus or Philosophical Investigations any time soon? Honestly, probably not. I'm not ready for it just yet, but this book has me convinced that I will read it someday!
July 25, 2019
A decent overview of Wittgenstein's thought that helps clarify a number of tricky issues: e.g., the relationship between early/middle/late Wittgenstein, the nature of things like "family resemblance concepts" and language games, and some interesting thoughts on Wittgenstein's influences (in particular, Frege and Schopenhauer). Nevertheless, the book seemed more like a set of lecture notes (for a class I wouldn't mind taking!) than an in-depth introduction to W's thought. Among other things, I would have loved to see a deeper examination of what a Wittgensteinian political philosophy might look like, Sluga's thought on the Kripke rule-following argument, etc. (These things all come up, but Sluga moves a bit too quickly through them for my taste).
January 3, 2019
Author obviously knows the topic as a specialist, but for a non-specialist intro, I found it a little dense. I want to review it again to try to understand better. If anyone else knows a good book to better appreciate the thought of Wittgenstein, please let me know.
October 14, 2017
clear, interesting, right to the point with an additional fascinating discussion on Wittgenstein's contribution to political theory.
September 13, 2020
I don't understand why philosophy took a "linguistic turn" in the Twentieth Century. Language is a subject for science. You can take measurements, formulate theories, collect data. Why philosophers be interested or useful in linguistic investigations?
As I understand it, Wittgenstein asserted in the Tractatus that most philosophical questions arise from misuse of language. I don't recall ever actually hearing an example of this, so I'll venture to make one up.
When something happens in our lives, we can ask "why did that happen?" Thus when we hear about the big bang, we are inclined to ask of this "why did that happen?" However, because the big bang represents a theoretical singularity beyond which it is impossible to extrapolate, it is outside the scope of things about which it is sensible to ask after its cause. Thus any attempt to explain why the big bang happened, will immediately descend into metaphysical nonsense.
So why would philosophers be interested in langauge? Because it's a tool for debugging philosophy. Philosophical discourse necessary passes through language. By understanding language's underlying forces, we can predict where philosophical trajectories will be blown off course.
I have objections. Why is the focus on language per se rather than cognitive psychology? What we care about here is how the brain processes data. Not all data processing is done via language (e.g., thinking to oneself). And not all language processes data (e.g., saying "hi"). The online LessWrong considers the first step of a philosophical education to be learning about cognitive biases. Why didn't the mid-Twentieth Century analytic philosophers focus on that? Is it because the idea of cognitive psychology didn't exist yet, let alone any substantive results? And language was the closest thing? Was linguistic philosophy an incubator for aspects of cognitive psychology?
Sluga's Wittgenstein didn't clarify this much for me.
As I understand it, Wittgenstein asserted in the Tractatus that most philosophical questions arise from misuse of language. I don't recall ever actually hearing an example of this, so I'll venture to make one up.
When something happens in our lives, we can ask "why did that happen?" Thus when we hear about the big bang, we are inclined to ask of this "why did that happen?" However, because the big bang represents a theoretical singularity beyond which it is impossible to extrapolate, it is outside the scope of things about which it is sensible to ask after its cause. Thus any attempt to explain why the big bang happened, will immediately descend into metaphysical nonsense.
So why would philosophers be interested in langauge? Because it's a tool for debugging philosophy. Philosophical discourse necessary passes through language. By understanding language's underlying forces, we can predict where philosophical trajectories will be blown off course.
I have objections. Why is the focus on language per se rather than cognitive psychology? What we care about here is how the brain processes data. Not all data processing is done via language (e.g., thinking to oneself). And not all language processes data (e.g., saying "hi"). The online LessWrong considers the first step of a philosophical education to be learning about cognitive biases. Why didn't the mid-Twentieth Century analytic philosophers focus on that? Is it because the idea of cognitive psychology didn't exist yet, let alone any substantive results? And language was the closest thing? Was linguistic philosophy an incubator for aspects of cognitive psychology?
Sluga's Wittgenstein didn't clarify this much for me.
August 9, 2023
This book has many merits but it often feels like it's floating from a viewpoint that isn't made very clear. This definitely isn't a beginner's introduction to Wittgenstein, but certainly worth a read for those already familiar with him.
October 12, 2020
A very readable concise explanation of the profound an influential body of thought.
abandoned
December 4, 2022Terminato il terzo capitolo ho deciso di abbandonare la lettura di questo libro. L'autore non si impegna a rendere il testo accattivante.
Noioso.
Noioso.
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