Wittgenstein’s life, as in the case of Kierkegaard, does not seem to be something secondary in relation to his philosophical work. Wittgenstein sought himself in life in the same way as he sought himself in philosophy, and therefore his biography and philosophical works complement each other. Wittgenstein was born in 1889 in Vienna to the family of steel magnate Karl Wittgenstein. He studied at school in Linz, then at the Higher Technical School in Manchester, England. At first, Wittgenstein worked for some time with Frege. Then, on Frege’s advice, in 1911 he went to Cambridge to Russell, whose teaching seriously interested him and with whom he managed (at least for some time) to establish the most friendly relations. 1913 was the year of the death of Wittgenstein’s father, when it turned out that the young philosopher had inherited a large fortune. Wittgenstein donated a significant portion of his inheritance to Austrian cultural figures (including Rainer Maria Rilke and Georg Trakl), and renounced the remainder of his inheritance in favor of his sisters and brothers.
Europe at that time was on the brink of disaster – the First World War. Like his two brothers, Wittgenstein considered it his duty to defend his homeland and in 1916 he volunteered for the Austrian army. Wittgenstein wrote his most famous work – the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus – during the war and completed it in 1918. In 1919, after his release from Italian captivity, Wittgenstein returned to Austria, where he immediately began negotiations with publishers. However, the publishers were in no hurry to publish such an extraordinary work. The first two editions were published only in 1921: first in German in Germany, then in English and with Russell’s preface in London. Wittgenstein himself was already far from the cities and intellectual bustle at that time – he went to a remote village in the Austrian Alps, where he got a job as an elementary school teacher. Wittgenstein worked as a teacher for about 5 years, until 1926. Then Wittgenstein had the desire to become a monk, then he worked as a gardener for some time, and finally took direct part in the construction of a house for his sister Margaret in Vienna, on Kudmangasse.
In 1927, Wittgenstein more or less regularly attended meetings of the Vienna Circle, for whose members he had already become a cult figure. However, his “professional” return to philosophy occurred only in 1929, when Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge, where he defended his dissertation that same year. Wittgenstein spent the last 20 years of his life in Cambridge, lecturing on philosophy. During this period of his work, Wittgenstein wrote a lot and published practically nothing. In 1934, he visited the Soviet Union. The purpose of the visit was as extraordinary as the philosopher’s entire lifestyle: he wanted to live and work in the country of the proletariat. It is known that Wittgenstein mastered Russian so well that he could read Dostoevsky in the original. He was well received in the Soviet Union, and was offered the chair of philosophy at Kazan University, but his desire to cultivate fields or stand at a machine tool was not satisfied. After returning from the Soviet Union, Wittgenstein never discussed his trip with anyone. To make Wittgenstein’s position at least somewhat understandable, we will add that Wittgenstein advised his best students at Cambridge to find work in some large store or firm where they could meet ordinary people and gain the necessary experience that remains inaccessible as long as a person is immersed in the “oxygen-free” environment of the university. During World War II, Wittgenstein worked as an orderly in one of London’s hospitals, since he considered it unworthy to teach philosophy at a time when the Germans were bombing the capital of England. Wittgenstein died of cancer on the night of April 29, 1951, telling the doctor’s wife who was on duty at his bedside: “Tell them that I have had a wonderful life.”
During Wittgenstein’s lifetime, only two of his works were published: the book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) and an article in the Transactions of the Aristotelian Society, Some Discourses on Logical Form. It is worth mentioning another “non-philosophical” work, the Dictionary for Public Schools, which was published in 1928 as part of the school reform in which Wittgenstein, along with representatives of the Vienna Circle, took an active part. All of Wittgenstein’s other works were published after his death. The most important of them, summing up Wittgenstein’s “late” philosophy, Philosophical Investigations, was published in 1953, two years after the philosopher’s death.
Wittgenstein not only received an excellent education, but was also a very well-read man. From his books, diaries, and the memoirs of his friends and colleagues, we know that he was interested in the works of Augustine, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Spengler, as well as Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Kant also had a certain influence on Wittgenstein’s philosophy. This is evidenced by his fascination with Schopenhauer and Frege, who rely on Kant’s philosophy in many of their arguments. It is also known that, while in Italian captivity, the Austrian philosopher read and discussed Kant with Ludwig Hansel. According to E. Stenius, the early Wittgenstein asks a question similar in form to Kant’s: Kant asked how judgment is possible, and Wittgenstein (in the Tractatus) asked how propositions are possible.
Early Wittgenstein – Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, the main work of the early Wittgenstein, marked an entire era in 20th century philosophy and, above all, in English-language philosophy. The ideas that were developed in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus were initially formulated in the works, notes, diaries and letters that Wittgenstein wrote between 1913 and 1921. Wittgenstein himself gave the manuscript the title Der Satz, i.e., “the proposition” or “the sentence”. The book received its Latin title (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus) shortly before publication – it was suggested by J. E. Moore, to whom Wittgenstein’s book reminded him of the works of Spinoza.
Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus became famous after its English edition, to which Russell wrote a preface. Despite the deep respect that Wittgenstein had for Russell, he was extremely dissatisfied with his preface, since it considered exclusively the logical, rather than the ideological aspects of the work. From Russell’s point of view, in the Tractatus Wittgenstein examines the conditions necessary for the construction of a logically perfect language and at the same time postulates the need for ordinary language to strive for this ideal. This idea is consistent with the content of the three-volume Principia Mathematica (1910-1913), written by Russell jointly with Whitehead.
Explaining the real purpose of writing the Tractatus, Wittgenstein wrote to his friend Ludwig von Ficker: “The purpose of the book is ethical… My work consists of two parts: the first part is presented here, and the second is everything that I have not written. The most important thing is precisely this second part. My book, as it were, limits the ethical sphere from within. I am convinced that this is the only strict way of limiting.” Thus, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, from the very beginning, based on the author’s own characterization, appears as an ambiguous book that provokes many interpretations and “hides” its main and fundamental ideas.
The task of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, as Wittgenstein himself says in the preface, is to “draw a line under the expression of thought,” and the meaning of the book could be formulated as follows: “what can be said at all can be said clearly, but what cannot be said must be kept silent.” It is not surprising why Russell, in the preface to the London edition, defines the general problem of the Tractatus as the problem of constructing a logically perfect language (or, more precisely, constructing a correct symbolic system that would make it possible to obtain a logically perfect language).
Thus, Wittgenstein explores in the Tractatus the possibilities of expressing knowledge about reality in language, or in other words, the conditions that allow any natural language to perform its functions in describing reality. However, before moving on to examining the main provisions of the Tractatus, it is necessary to note several important ideas that are consistently substantiated and revealed in the book. The first is that ontologically primary is the question not of being, existence or non-existence, but of expression (and its forms – depiction, showing, designation and endowment with meaning). This idea is fundamental, since the criterion of expressibility is the main one for delimiting the realm of the real and the mystical. According to the second idea, thinking is inseparable from language. Having set boundaries for language, it is therefore possible to simultaneously set boundaries for thinking. The third concerns the relationship between the world and language, or ontology and semantics: ontological (logical) and semantic (linguistic) concepts are mirror images of each other. Finally, fourthly, Wittgenstein pays special attention to the role of philosophy, which is reduced to the clarification of linguistic expressions and is not a teaching, but an activity. Thus, the main subjects discussed in the Tractatus are the world, language, logic and thinking. Clarification of their structure and relationship, according to Wittgenstein, allows us to draw boundaries to human knowledge. It is in this regard that Wittgenstein’s position must be recognized as critical. In the process of clarifying the boundaries of expression of thought or the boundaries of knowledge, the realm of the mystical as fundamentally inexpressible receives its status. The question of the functions and tasks of philosophy is of a dual nature, since philosophy turns out to be not only the philosophy to which the author of the Tractatus passes his verdict – the need to limit oneself to criticism of language – but also the entire content of the Tractatus as a philosophical work proper.
For the ontology of the Tractatus, the main concept is the “object” (Gegenstand). Objects, not things or subjects, constitute the substance (ontological basis) of the world. Things, subjects are what can be perceived by the senses. Note that Russell considered Wittgenstein’s “objects” to be “sense data”, but the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus does not provide grounds for such a point of view. Objects are not perceived by the senses and represent certain elementary forms that underlie the world. Since an object is simple, it does not have any properties and does not belong to the real world. Objects, further, have a logical character, since they exist in logical space. In this sense, objects only implement the requirement of Wittgenstein’s logical-semantic theory, constituting the limit of logical analysis of a sentence, and are intended primarily to solve the main logical problem – how is a meaningful (significant) language possible.
The next link in the ontological structure is the “event” or “state of affairs” (Sachverhalt). Objects are combined into states of affairs, i.e. certain elementary factual situations. What Wittgenstein calls a “fact” (Tatsache) is made up of structures of events (states of affairs). In this case, if objects in an event are related to each other in a certain way, then at the level of a fact, when it comes to the relationship of events, the principle of atomicity comes into play: events (states of affairs) can form complex configurations, but at the same time they remain completely independent.
The situation is more complicated with the “world” (Welt), which Wittgenstein defines as “reality in its entirety” (2.063). The fact is that the subject of knowledge, as follows from the content of the Tractatus, can only be various elements of the world, but not the world in its entirety, which already belongs to the realm of the mystical (6.44).
Let us now turn to the question of the relationship between ontology and linguistic reality. The main semantic function of objects is the meaning of names. Names are elementary signs, the limit of linguistic division of language. Names denote objects, i.e. an object is the meaning of a name. Names have meaning, but do not have sense. A set of names forms a sentence. Our knowledge of the world is based on elementary sentences – images of an elementary situation or event (state of affairs). Elementary sentences can form complex sentences together. Elementary sentences are functions of themselves, and therefore do not contradict each other. Complex sentences denote facts. Facts are best denoted by complex sentences of natural science, which have sense, i.e. they can be true or false. The realm of the meaningful is the realm of the logically possible. False sentences take us beyond the real facts, into another possible (from the point of view of logic, but not reality) world.
The adequacy of the “reflection” of the world in the linguistic and logical space is guaranteed by such a concept as “logical form” (logische Form). However, in order to understand the content and functional load that logical form carries, it is necessary to say a few words about another concept – “picture” (Bild), through which Wittgenstein introduces the principle of pictoriality. A picture is a “model of reality”, since there is a pictorial relationship between the elements of the picture and the elements of reality. In this case, kinship does not mean simple similarity, but a certain identity. A picture is able to depict reality due to the fact that in a certain respect it is identical to it, namely, it has the form of this reality, i.e. logical form. A proposition is a “picture of reality” (4.021). Propositions of natural science are an example of a picture or a picture in their pure form. What a picture depicts constitutes its meaning (2.201; 2.221). Sentences have meaning because they can be true or false, i.e. they can truly or falsely represent reality (events and facts). Sentences of logic have a special status. They do not mean anything, they are devoid of meaning, but they show the structure of language, show the boundaries of the world. Although logical sentences are devoid of meaning, it cannot be said that they are meaningless. Logical sentences cannot say anything about themselves, but they have a logical form that allows other sentences to correctly reflect the world.
The described concept of Wittgenstein is usually called “logical atomism”. The question arises, therefore, about the difference between this concept and Russell’s logical atomism. Russell believes that direct contact between the physical and the mental is possible (the concept of “sense data” and “knowledge-acquaintance”). According to Wittgenstein, a special kind of relationship is established between the world and our linguistic consciousness – sentences depict reality. The next difference is connected with the method of substantiating logical atomism: in Russell’s case, empirical substantiation has priority, in Wittgenstein’s case, it is a question of logical necessity. Finally, logical atomism is only a part of Wittgenstein’s philosophical teaching, over which the realm of the mystical is built, which is beyond logic and language. In Russell’s philosophy, there is no place for the mystical or its analogy.
Since the main task of the Tractate is to establish the boundaries of the thinkable, the original interpretation of the concept of the “subject” acquires special significance. The subject is characterized in the Tractate in two ways: as a metaphysical subject and as a willing subject. Both subjects are outside the world and cannot be described. We cannot say anything about the subject as a will, except that it exists. This subject has no relation to the world (6.374) and has only ethical attributes, which cannot be discussed (6.423). We will be primarily interested in the metaphysical subject.
Since the subject cannot be composite (5.5421), it cannot be treated as a collection of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Understanding the subject as something simple, we can assume that it is one of the objects, but the I is not part of the world (5.631, 5.632, 5.633, 5.641) and, therefore, cannot be an object. According to Wittgenstein, it is only legitimate to speak of the subject if we mean by the subject the “boundary of the world” (5.632).
To understand Wittgenstein’s special attitude toward the subject, two things must be kept in mind. First, Wittgenstein uses the notion of a “visual field” whose boundary is the eye as a model for thinking about the world in the first person. Second, Wittgenstein rejects the traditional division between subject and object.
By analogy with the “field of vision” that the eyes do not allow us to see, we cannot discover a metaphysical subject in the world (5.633). We have nothing to add to the definition of the subject as the “boundary of the world”. In other words, it is impossible to define the subject as such, without correlating it with the world; it is impossible to “isolate” the subject. When correlated with the world, the subject does not act as a part of the world, but as a point on its boundary (5.641). The subject as a boundary is closely connected with the understanding of the main task of philosophy. Philosophy must establish the boundaries of the thinkable, and they can only be established from within, that is, within what can be said. Since the essence of language is determined by its logical form, it is logic that establishes the boundaries of language. Language can only describe facts, but the subject is not a fact (since facts belong to the world, and the subject is not part of the world), and therefore cannot be described. Unlike the logical form, it also cannot be shown, but nevertheless exists as a boundary where the world and “my world” coincide.
According to Wittgenstein, solipsism implies that “the world is my world.” On the other hand, solipsism coincides with realism, since the subject “shrinks to an unextended point,” and when we speak of my world, we always speak of simply the world. Since the subject cannot be part of the world, it is either everything or nothing in relation to the world. Wittgenstein’s proposition that solipsism is realism shows that both solutions are equivalent. Indeed, one can say that everything is the subject, since the world is my world, but one can also say that everything is the world, since the subject outside the world is nothing (existent). Solipsism is also realism because the subject does not influence the facts of the world in any way, does not impart any personal character to it. The subject occupies as much place in my world as it occupies in the world in general. When we abandoned the thinking I, we simultaneously abandoned the dualistic interpretation of solipsism, when both the subject and the world are assumed to exist. Realism, for Wittgenstein, is a way of avoiding psychologism (the psychological subject) and speaking exclusively about reality (events and facts).
It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that Wittgenstein denies the existence of the subject, but not the soul, which is the subject of psychology (5.641). Since the world is divided into facts, the psychological I consists of facts, the constituent parts of which are thoughts, pain, desires, etc.
The purpose of the Tractatus was to establish the “limits of expression of thought” through an analysis of the logic of language. The limits of expression of thought, as we have found out, are simultaneously the limits of the world, so that the logic of language gives us a complete picture of the logic of the world. At the same time, Wittgenstein believes that the logic of the world should best be reflected by “sign language” – it will be free of the errors imposed by everyday language, which “dresses up thoughts”. Thus, the only logic of the world in the ideal (in principle feasible) corresponds to the only language that obeys “logical grammar” (3.325). If we add to this the concept of the subject (according to which the subject, although related to the world, does not change anything in it), then it becomes obvious that there is no place for epistemological questions in the Tractatus: it is not knowledge that is problematic, but its limits.
The realm of the mystical. The study of the relationship between language, logic and reality was not an end in itself for Wittgenstein. Language is an indicator of the world’s boundaries, a methodological means of understanding the world and showing what is common between reality and the known. But what is beyond the world? That which cannot be spoken of. Beyond language (the world of facts, science and logic) is the meaningless. This is the existential realm, the “mystical”, the realm of what is most valuable to man. Everything that pertains to the mystical is inexpressible with the help of meaningful sentences-pictures that display facts, but it shows itself (6.522). In Wittgenstein, the mystical, not represented as a fact, is the subject (5.631, 5.632, 5.633), God (6.432), the ethical and aesthetic (6.421, 6.422), as well as metaphysics, including the author’s own statements in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (6.54). Wittgenstein’s early intuitions concerning the world, will, metaphysical self, aesthetics and ethics, which are reflected in the Tractatus and Diaries, have their source in the corresponding ideas of Schopenhauer. Like Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein takes ethics beyond the world and separates it from reason. At this point, he completely departs from Kant, but follows the basic postulates of the philosophy of life. Such statements in the Tractate as “The world is my world” (5.641) and “The world and life are one” (5.621), as well as some others, are often interpreted in the light of Schopenhauer’s teaching.
There are different points of view on the relationship between the mystical and the meaningless in Wittgenstein. Thus, E. Stenius identifies these concepts. However, with such a solution to the problem, Wittgenstein automatically appears as a representative of logical positivism, since the mystical as meaningless in this case should be discarded, expelled from the sphere of knowledge. In favor of this position, paragraph 6.53 of the Tractatus is usually cited, which talks about the “only strict” (eizig streng) method in philosophy. But it is also necessary to take into account the following circumstance: “meaninglessness” in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is a characteristic of not one, but two classes of propositions – propositions of philosophy (6.54) and propositions of logic (6.124). The ability to say nothing about themselves, but at the same time show their essence, is another common characteristic of logic and philosophy (6.522, 6.124). The problem is that propositions of logic connect us with the world, and propositions of philosophy allow us to go beyond it. We involuntarily follow the first, because we live in the world, the second we must constantly “overcome”, otherwise they are simply not needed. The relationship between speaking and the existential change of worldview, accomplished in the wordless realm (the realm of silence), is expressed in the understanding of philosophy not as a teaching, but as an activity.
Late Wittgenstein – “Philosophical Investigations”. In the preface to “Philosophical Investigations”, the main work of the late Wittgenstein, published after his death in 1953, the author calls his book “philosophical notes” (philosophische Bemerkungen) and simply “an album” (Album), noting the extreme diversity of topics and the lack of unity in its short paragraphs. “Philosophical Investigations” grew out of notes that Wittgenstein made over 16 years. At first he tried to collect them together so that the thought would flow from one subject to another without interruption, but he never succeeded in achieving this.
According to Wittgenstein himself, the publication of an unfinished work could be explained, on the one hand, by a biased and incorrect interpretation of the ideas expressed by him in lectures, manuscripts and discussions, on the other hand, by a radical change in his “way of thinking” and a desire to correct “serious errors” that occurred in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, as well as a desire to “induce someone to his own reflections”.
Just as the work of the Austrian philosopher itself is ambiguous and contradictory, so are its general assessments among followers and commentators. Some believe that it marks a qualitatively new period in his philosophical work, and its joint publication with the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is seen as the author’s renunciation of the latter. Others, on the contrary, speak of the consistent development of Wittgenstein’s ideas, which continued throughout his life, which excludes the opposition of his two main books. The author’s position is called “Cartesian”, “behavioristic”, and “linguosemantic”, thereby, however, not exhausting the rich content of the “Philosophical Investigations”. The change in Wittgenstein’s general philosophical position is associated primarily with his appeal to the everyday language of communication. The change in attitude is believed to have occurred as early as 1930, i.e., much earlier than work on the “Philosophical Investigations” began. This is evidenced by the relatively recent (1980) publication of his Cambridge lectures of 1930-1932, in which grammar is understood no longer as a set of eternal and unchanging grammatical rules (not the pure grammar of the Tractate), but as the grammar of our everyday language.
In the Philosophical Investigations, the problem of how we know, i.e. the epistemological problem, comes to the fore. The study is still limited by the framework of language, but the place of “logic” common to all languages is taken by the “grammar of natural language”, and the place of “logical form” is taken by “forms of life”. If, say, in Aristotle, logic and grammar coincide, since the process of comparing and combining things according to common features is expressed primarily in language, in its grammatical categories, then in the late Wittgenstein, logic and grammar have different content, since grammar implies the deep grammar of natural language, which deals with “language games”, “forms of life”, and formal logic is one of the language games. Turning to natural language means at the same time rejecting the “monistic” position: we can speak of the world only as a collective of one hundred possible and actual “language games” and “forms of life”.
The meaningfulness of our lives depends entirely on the possibility of expressing them verbally. What does Wittgenstein mean by language in general? The phenomena that we call linguistic, and which we designate as a whole by the word “language”, have nothing in common that would make us use the same word for them all. However, they are related to one another in various ways: “It is precisely because of this interconnection or these interconnections that we call them ‘language'” (FI, §65). By the “interconnections” of linguistic phenomena Wittgenstein means “family resemblance” (FI, §67), which means, in relation to the concept of language, that in the phenomena that we call linguistic, various elements are constantly repeated, but none of them is common to all. Thus, there is no single definition of language that would be suitable for all languages, but there are necessary requirements for the functioning of words in a language. Among them are an understanding of meaning as use and the presence of rules of use. Thus, by language Wittgenstein means precisely the “working” language, the language that we use. In this language of our everyday communication there is no place for the concepts of “language”, “thought”, “world” as such, since the language game in which these concepts would be used is absent (FI, §96). Wittgenstein’s idea of language is directly connected with his idea of the functions and possibilities of philosophy. If the main task of philosophy is to describe language games and forms of life, then it cannot tell us more than these games themselves tell us, and, consequently, knowledge of the essence of language, thought and the world goes beyond the competence of philosophy.
Life plays the role of a “metaphysical limit” in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, and we come closest to life, a concept that defies any conceptualization, in the analysis of the concept of “life-forms.” The interaction of two primordial capacities inherent in man—the capacity for action and the capacity for linguistic expression—generates a pre-reflective field of primary human orientations, which Wittgenstein calls “life-forms.” Such interactions can be realized in various ways, so the number of “life-forms” is limited only by the relevance of their use. Life-forms are called upon to structure exclusively human life as a whole, to be its underlying basis; their function cannot be extended to more particular phenomena. Lacking explanatory power, life-forms cannot be used in the construction of sociological theories, which would inevitably impart to them a rationalistic character that is not inherent in them. Lebensformen are unique in the sense that, in contrast to the formal elements of mathematics and logic, they cannot be consciously understood, but only experienced and given in experience. This means that life forms can never be objects of Erkennen, i.e. knowledge, but only categories of Erleben. Therefore, Wittgenstein believes that we must treat them as data: they cannot be justified, rationalized or explained theoretically. It should be noted that in the later Wittgenstein’s doctrine of “language games” and “life forms”, the obvious influence of the philosophy of O. Spengler can be seen. For example, Spengler’s influence can explain Wittgenstein’s statement about the impossibility of understanding a foreign people, even if we have mastered their language. The problem of “foreign consciousnesses” was at the center of philosophical discussions in the 1960s. The justification for the existence of “other minds” in the Philosophical Investigations is contained mainly in the arguments from “private language”, which touch upon most of the concepts thematized by Wittgenstein. The question of the existence of a private language is as follows: is it possible for language to convey inner experience, immediate private sensations (PI, §243)? The impossibility of understanding this language by another person is taken as a necessary condition. The process of creating a private language at first glance seems quite simple: I am interested in one of my sensations, I focus my attention on it, invent a corresponding sign or word for it, and then use this word whenever I have this sensation. Sections 243–280 of the Philosophical Investigations are devoted to the analysis of private language, but most researchers are inclined to believe that the very formulation of the problem, and partly its solution, are embedded in both the preceding and following sections. The problem of “other minds” becomes one of the key themes for Wittgenstein precisely in the late period of his work, when epistemology comes to the fore.and the linguistic solipsism of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus develops into the methodological solipsism of the Philosophical Investigations. Methodological solipsism differs fundamentally from metaphysical and epistemological solipsism, since the I is primary for it only at a certain stage. Of course, the attitude towards other consciousnesses can only be mediated (which is confirmed by the analysis of third-person sentences), but the use of our language testifies to the fact that we have no doubt about their existence. On what is our right to make such judgments based?
Let us present some of the arguments refuting the existence of a personal language. (1) By analyzing natural language, Wittgenstein comes to the conclusion that the natural expression of sensations (a cry, a groan, etc.) during the acquisition of language is necessarily replaced (and not described) by a linguistic expression, which becomes possible only due to the essential similarity between the sensations of different people. Thus, the personal character of sensations should be spoken of primarily in the sense of the immediacy of their experience, and not in the sense of their difference from the sensations of other people. (2) Furthermore, the necessity of the external expression of sensations casts doubt on the existence of a personal language, since it makes possible the comparison of the words of this language with the corresponding behavior, which results in the understanding of the personal language by others. (3) In order to resolve the problem of the existence of a personal language, the key concept is precisely language, and not the personal character of sensations. When identifying a sensation, a person must distinguish between the correct and incorrect use of a word. But the rules of language are set by grammar and are observed by all members of the language community. It follows from this that in personal language there is no concept of a rule.
The method of philosophy, according to Wittgenstein, is descriptive – philosophy does not explain anything, but only describes. Description as a clarification of what is hidden in the ordinary way of using language cannot be immanent to this way and implies a change of attitude, or, in terms of phenomenology – an epoch, which thematizes ordinary language. In addition, it should be borne in mind that grammatical description in the philosophy of language has nothing in common with grammatical description in linguistics. Grammar, in Wittgenstein’s understanding, is “deep grammar” and must describe what is essential in language games, i.e. what connects language as a symbolic system with life. The result of such grammatical analysis is the identification of a whole series of concepts with the help of which the functioning of ordinary language is described. Such conceptualization, however, does not mean the creation of a complete and perfect model of language, which, according to Wittgenstein, is impossible. Having made everyday language the subject of his analysis, Wittgenstein sets himself the task of not leaving “solid ground” (FI, § 107), which actually happens with any attempt to formalize everyday language. Thus, the Austrian philosopher puts himself in a rather difficult position, when, on the one hand, it is necessary to find patterns, to highlight the essential, and on the other hand, to preserve, as far as possible, the language as it is, in its natural use. Wittgenstein solves this problem by recognizing the original ambiguity of language, which must remain untouched in any philosophical analysis.
In connection with the change in method, the concept of the I (subject) also changes in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. In the Philosophical Investigations, the subject is considered grammatically, not formally logically. The starting point for such an examination is the use of the personal pronoun “I”, as well as the linguistic actions of the speaker. The primary singular I of the Tractatus was an unextended point without content, a metaphysical condition of experience. The subject in the Philosophical Investigations becomes a grammatical condition: “I” is a word with a unique grammar.
As for the understanding of “consciousness”, in Wittgenstein’s late philosophy it has a critical character. The task that Wittgenstein set for himself was a harsh criticism of the theory of knowledge as part of philosophical metaphysics, from his point of view false and therefore ineffective. If we draw historical and philosophical parallels, then the criticism undertaken by Wittgenstein could be compared with the criticism of the concept of “I” in empiriocriticism and pragmatism, when this concept is recognized as nothing more than a “sign”, the use of which is perhaps appropriate in everyday practice, but in science it only gives rise to insoluble and illusory problems. But if in Avenarius or James criticism is carried out from the position of empirical descriptions, in the first case by means of reduction to sensations, and in the second – to states of consciousness, then Wittgenstein exposes philosophical and psychological concepts by means of criticism of language. Wittgenstein’s criticism of theoretical positions considered unshakable is supplemented by criticism of interpretations of psychological states from the standpoint of “common sense”. The source of errors in both cases is to be considered the forms of our everyday language, which are constructed in such a way that certain ideas seem natural and are therefore accepted as true, although they are not so in reality.
When considering the positive core of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mind, it is necessary first of all to pay attention to the fact that the concept of mind proposed by him is an integral part of the general conceptual approach to philosophical and scientific problems. In other words, the philosophy of mind, as it is presented in the “Philosophical Investigations”, is a natural development of the ideas laid down in the philosophy of language as a well-thought-out theoretical approach, and therefore, its adequate understanding is impossible without taking into account the broader context. In relation to mind, the immediate subject of study for Wittgenstein is the functioning of psychological concepts, i.e. the answer to the question of how exactly they work. Consciousness as an internal entity to which the subject has privileged access, according to Wittgenstein, simply does not exist. What we are accustomed to calling “consciousness” (as well as its various states and acts) is, first of all, a concept and therefore is always already contextual, included in one or another language game and associated with certain circumstances. Of course, a significant role in this conclusion is played by the transition from the internal to the external, expressed in language and realized in behavior. The latter served as the reason for classifying Wittgenstein as a representative of behaviorism. In the literature, this issue remains the subject of heated debate. Although all the main features of this position are present in Wittgenstein, his own point of view is determined by the “correction” for the creative construction of linguistic reality: behavior becomes meaningful only to the extent that it is measured against the language game, i.e., receives a linguistic interpretation.
The use of language, its signifying function, are social by nature, i.e. the character of sociality is inherent in them from the very beginning. The connection between thinking and language is also assumed to be original, and therefore any implication, any (assumed to be internal) mental act has the right to be called such only by virtue of its linguistic manifestation. The phenomena of understanding, supposing, willing, imagining, etc., from Wittgenstein’s point of view, do not represent isolated processes or functions of consciousness and, consequently, cannot refer to any unambiguous definition and explanation. As in the case of language, we are dealing only with “family similarities”: the phenomena of consciousness are classified not according to specific and generic features, which imply a final reduction to a common feature, but according to the multitude of language games in which they manifest themselves. The reality of the phenomena of consciousness, therefore, is the reality of the use of the corresponding concepts. In contrast to the reality of the meanings traditionally and at the same time unjustifiably attributed to them, the reality of their use reveals their true meaning. In this sense, language does not hide anything, however, a special methodology is required to trace the principles and features of its work, which, in fact, is what, as Wittgenstein believed, a worthwhile philosophy should do. The thesis on the sociality of language has a consequence of another kind. Having effectively removed the problem of solipsism, Wittgenstein nevertheless remains a pluralist, i.e. he defends the irreducibility of various “forms of life” (and the cultures corresponding to them) to each other. But where the common manifests itself only in the form of “family similarities”, a conversation about finding semantic equivalents, translating the meanings of one culture into another, becomes problematic. In other words, mutual understanding requires a common field, and, according to Wittgenstein, the search for such points of contact can not always lead to a positive result.
Wittgenstein’s concept of language games can thus be seen as an alternative to the psychological vocabulary of traditional philosophy of mind. The place that in subject-oriented philosophy of mind is occupied by the description of the process of cognition and understanding, in Wittgenstein’s philosophy is occupied by the description of language games, in the context of which (and nowhere else!) words and intentions acquire meaning. From another angle, we have returned to the previously stated thesis about the ban on definitions and generalizations in the field of psychology and philosophy of mind – any meaning attributed to concepts (words) outside of the language game turns out to be empty or false.
The picture of the world constructed in accordance with the philosophy of language of the late Wittgenstein has nothing in common with the picture of the world in which language represents existing objects and states of affairs or events. In fact, the idea of the correlation of language and the world in the late Wittgenstein differs not only from the ideas of the “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus”, but also in general from the paradigmatic picture of the world for European philosophy. Language games do not reflect or describe the world, but create the world, cutting it out according to the standards of their primordial basis – the “form of life”. In fact, the activity and the area of the unspeakable, when the question is posed in this way, determine this or that “givenness” of the world, but remain outside its boundaries. The world turns out to be that which has been comprehended or, what is the same, on which the stamp of language lies.
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