This is a puzzling book on the face of it. Ostensibly, it is a collection of aphorisms, published posthumously. However, the aphorisms have a coherence to them. Wittgenstein is still concerned with language, the meanings of words, and how individuals use language to communicate between one another. The book also gets at what Wittgenstein really believes philosophy is all about in the first place. One doesn’t always know when Wittgenstein is making a profound statement and when he is not being entirely serious with the reader. Each aphorism requires time and meditation and one still cannot help but feel that one has not come away with all that there is to offer. Wittgenstein asks himself rhetorically, “What is your aim in philosophy? - To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.” But he makes this no easy task. The reader is asked to go on a journey with him that is not straight and, in fact, may contain numerous dead ends or, at least, side trips. In fact, Wittgenstein admits early on, “I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own.”
The book’s aphorisms are about what Wittgenstein does not say as much as it is about what he does. He questions the nature of our shared reality- our space, our language, our feelings, our thoughts, our customs, our culture. Much of Wittgenstein’s time is spent on language and the meaning of words. “Our language can be regarded as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, of houses with extensions from various periods, and all this surrounded by a multitude of new suburbs with straight and regular streets and uniform houses.” And later, “the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.” He spends much time on language as a tool for communication as well as language as a tool for thought. Both uses of language play into the meanings that we ascribe to words and to the ideas that they generate. “We may indeed imagine naming to be some remarkable mental act, as it were the baptism of an object.” He goes on about the power of naming, ““what the names in language signify must be indestructible, for it must be possible to describe the state of affairs in which everything destructible is destroyed. And this description will contain words; and what corresponds to these cannot in that case be destroyed, for otherwise the words would have no meaning.” I must not saw off the branch in which I am sitting.” Wittgenstein is leading us, without telling us. This method leads the mind to wander, but often into fertile territory of one’s own.
Wittgenstein is often concerned with the rules: rules of language, rules of philosophy, and, even, the rules of life. “Thought, language, now appear to us as the unique correlate, picture, of the world. These concepts: proposition, language, thought, world, stand in line one behind the other, each equivalent to each.” He is always dancing around the nature of philosophy. “Philosophy just puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything. - Since everything lies open to view, there is nothing to explain. For whatever may be hidden is no interest to us. The name “philosophy” might also be given to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.” It is hard to tell whether Wittgenstein is describing the challenges of philosophy or its underlying simplicity when done correctly. “When we do philosophy, we are like savages, primitive people, who hear the way in which civilized people talk, put a false interpretation on it, and then draw the oddest conclusions from this.” He seems to view the doing of philosophy, in many ways, as a uniquely private affair. At best, one can seek some guidance, but the heavy lifting must be one’s own. True philosophical thinking is methodical and painstakingly precise. “Philosophy only states what everyone concedes to it.” Wittgenstein’s aphorisms often take the form of riddles. “Does everything that we do not find conspicuous make an impression of inconspicuousness? Does what is ordinary always make the impression of ordinariness?” One cannot simply read each aphorism and breeze along. His statements must be wrestled with and chewed over. This is a book from which two readers are bound to come away with two very different impressions, because the reader is forced to do so much of the work himself.
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