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Your opinion on Ludwig Wittgenstein. | ||
Tags: Philosophy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| FinnegansWake Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4436 days ago 10 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: French | Message 1 of 13 08 November 2012 at 6:34am | IP Logged | ||
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I would like to know your opinion on German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.
I have been studying 'Philosophical Investigations'. I have a strong feeling the man had great ideas but lacked the skill to clearly articulate them with words. I think this gradually formed a deep frustration in his mind, which ultimately led him into his philosophical journey. [He mentions he had been disappointed at the way people interpret his work] I can sort of feel this frustration, which manifests in me in the form of extreme intimidation and lack of confidence when trying to tackle my target language (French). Edited by FinnegansWake on 08 November 2012 at 6:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 13 08 November 2012 at 10:23am | IP Logged | ||
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I think he was an Asperger, who became somewhat more 'mellow' later in life. His first project was to codify philosophy almost as mathematical statements (which reminds me of Descartes and Bertrand Russell) - and he didn't solve this task, which left him deeply frustrated and vulnerable to criticism from people who didn't understand the details and who had other plans for philosophy (which didn't include a complete codification). And then he transmogryphed into a more mainstream philosopher with a less demanding project. Personally I find the 'first' Wittgenstein by far the most interesting of the two.
I can't see the relevance of Wittgenstein for language learning - except maybe insofar that he set himself an impossible task which he had to cut down to a manageable size. Edited by Iversen on 08 November 2012 at 10:26am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5566 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 3 of 13 08 November 2012 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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He was actually an Austrian (in fact, he went to the same school as Hitler).
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| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5566 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 4 of 13 08 November 2012 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I also don't personally agree that he lacked the skill to clearly articulate his ideas
with words (by the time of the PI most philosophers in his tradition wrote in symbolic logic in any case). It is possible to get a summary of the ideas in the PI and, from Wittgenstein's other writings, it is clear he could have written such a summary. However, his method in the Investigations is specifically reviving the old Socratic technique of trying to engage the reader dialectically in a game that reveals the philosophical problems - Nietzsche does similar things with his stories and aphorism. The PI is purposefully setting out to avoid giving the reader a passive 'dose' of philosophical argument - which makes it a hard text to read for the reader. But when one is critiquing the essentialist view of language (e.g. in the most simplistic terms the word 'car' refers to an object and all words in a language do the same) maybe this is what one needs I agree with Iversen about the lack of relevance for language learning - but I suppose the PI would probably suggest a communicative approach to language rather than go through word -picture lists. If you want a greater challenge - try reading Spinoza's Ethics... Edited by Elexi on 08 November 2012 at 1:31pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| FinnegansWake Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4436 days ago 10 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: French | Message 5 of 13 08 November 2012 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||
I forgot.... My bad. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 6 of 13 08 November 2012 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think Wittgenstein's greatest concept from the Philosophical Investigations is the 'Sprachspiel'. Words and meanings are not clearly defined as the analytical philosophy tries to tell us, but they're alway negotiad anew through the intersubjective discourse which defines the rules of language. This clearly contradicts Wittgenstein's earlier hypothesis that language is a direct representation of the world, which he uttered in the Tractatus logico-philosophicus.
In my opinion, the later Wittgenstein is much more interesting than the early one, because he moves away from Frege's and Russel's analytical philosophy and their desire to create a merely logical language and turns to a more descriptive view on how language really works. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Wittgenstein is one of the fathers of modern philosophy of language, which is closely related to linguistics. So, Wittgenstein might not be important for the language learning process itself but for any attempt to explain how language works. And those theories should have a space in this forum, too. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mahasiswa Pentaglot Groupie Canada Joined 4433 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi | Message 7 of 13 09 November 2012 at 4:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Josquin, das stimmt, you're bang on about the Sprachspiel ('language game'). I would also add that he was
as much a poetic philosopher as Nietzsche, by his claim that what he had not written was equally important to understand. Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen. That is, you must silence yourself from what you can't talk about. And you can't discount his plumbing abilities! However, rephrasing what you said into academese, he is certainly a forerunner of the 'linguistic turn in philosophy' (which is the key phrase students are apt to find further information on it via MLA or JSTOR, etc.). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 13 09 November 2012 at 9:59am | IP Logged | ||
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And the 'linguistic turn in philosophy' is precisely where I find that W's philosophy dropped back into mainstream loose babble. His first position was succinctly formulated as "Was sich überhaupt sagen läß, läßt sich klar sagen; und wovon man nicht reden kann, darüber muß man schweigen" (Tractatus, prologue). Realizing after the last page of Tractatus that his next book would have to consist of empty pages he cleverly realized that the things he said maybe didn't have to be a precise description of reality and that you actually couldn't know the reality 'in itself' (a conclusion already reached by Kant) ... and then you could just as well start babbling loosely,and then he dubbed that activity 'Sprachspiel'. As I said, he cut down on his impossibly high ambitions and adapted to the realities. And became more human, but also more bland and boring in the process. Those who took the narrow path of virtue became mathematicians rather than philosophers. Edited by Iversen on 09 November 2012 at 10:25am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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