Wittgenstein in a paragraph

[Phang]

please someone provide a summary of what the raving lunatic was actually on about such that I can impress others, preferably by tomorrow morning. Ta.

[ChubbyChecker]

I have no idea.

Cool name though.

[Marilyn Manson]

'Wittgenstein's poker'

[Nodrog]

Wittgenstein is awesome but you cant really summarise him in a paragraph

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

Wittgenstein is awesome but you cant really summarise him in a paragraph

Much like Inspector Gadget.

[Proteus]

Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

[Loz]

very clever.

[Cooling]

Originally Posted by Phang

please someone provide a summary of what the raving lunatic was actually on about such that I can impress others, preferably by tomorrow morning. Ta.

Shit idea, but you'd be well advised to read the 'brief' philosophical biography on the Stanford site.

Just read section 3, the Tractatus theory is a load of Positivist bollox, his later theory is much more 'interesting'.

I realise you could have just googled this; and could have done so before asking this forum to summarise it in a paragraph. But its there, its short(ish) and its outlined better than any internet random could do.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/

But if you really DO want the lollypop version, at least of his later work, it's easiest for me to copy and paste one paragraph from that site (saves you the hassle of looking, saves me the hassle of paraphrasing).

Originally Posted by Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Instead of these symptoms of the philosopher's "craving for generality", he points to ‘family resemblance’ as the more suitable analogy for the means of connecting particular uses of the same word. There is no reason to look, as we have done traditionally -- and dogmatically -- for one, essential core in which the meaning of a word is located and which is, therefore, common to all uses of that word.

We should, instead, travel with the word's uses through "a complicated network of similarities, overlapping and criss-crossing" (PI 66). Family resemblance also serves to exhibit the lack of boundaries and the distance from exactness that characterize different uses of the same concept

It is fairly simple, the positivist project is to create a language that is certain and absolute, so that there are no ambiguities and everything falls within specific and clear definitions. They claim they can create a language like this, Wittgenstein claims this is impossible, language is inherently vague and amorphous and this ISN'T such a great problem... for various reasons.

To make any sense of that you will probably need to tack on the references to grammar, syntax and language games, but that is essentially it in a nutshell.

Look at me, I can use the internet... etc

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Cooling

Shit idea, but you'd be well advised to read the 'brief' philosophical biography on the Stanford site.

Just read section 3, the Tractatus theory is a load of Positivist bollox, his later theory is much more 'interesting'.

This is true, but unless you are familiar with the viewpoints taken by the Tractatus, Positivists and "linguistic analysists', WIttgenstein's later writings will seem pointless. If you dont know the kind of thing which he is opposing, it will be difficult to understand why he is making the points he does, because they initially appear to be completely unrelated to philosophy (indeed Wittgenstein states that he is doing "one of the subjects which is heir to that which used to be called philosophy").

[roadrunner_0]

even for GD this is obscure

[Deepflow]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

This is true, but unless you are familiar with the viewpoints taken by the Tractatus, Positivists and "linguistic analysists', WIttgenstein's later writings will seem pointless. If you dont know the kind of thing which he is opposing, it will be difficult to understand why he is making the points he does, because they initially appear to be completely unrelated to philosophy (indeed Wittgenstein states that he is doing "one of the subjects which is heir to that which used to be called philosophy").

everyone should oppose positivists, if only because they took a really cool name and have really shit beliefs.

[Cooling]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

This is true, but unless you are familiar with the viewpoints taken by the Tractatus, Positivists and "linguistic analysists', WIttgenstein's later writings will seem pointless. If you dont know the kind of thing which he is opposing, it will be difficult to understand why he is making the points he does, because they initially appear to be completely unrelated to philosophy (indeed Wittgenstein states that he is doing "one of the subjects which is heir to that which used to be called philosophy").

I agrree, its just difficult to condense all that given that the initial goal was Wittgenstein in a paragraph