Philosophical Investigations

Ludwig Wittgenstein was a British philosopher of Austrian origin, one of the most original thinkers in 20th-century European philosophy, and the creator of a theory of constructing an artificial “ideal” language based on the language of mathematical logic. “In my writing, I did not seek to relieve others of the effort of thinking. I wanted something else: to encourage, if possible, independent thinking in someone,” Wittgenstein formulated his credo—clearly, concisely, and simply—in the preface to “Philosophical Investigations,” a work that has had a huge influence on both analytic philosophy and postmodernism.

In it, he attempts to develop ideas he set out in the “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,” and again chooses language—ordinary language of everyday communication—as his object of study. By describing the various strategies of a “language game” that all of us, consciously or not, use when trying to convince someone of something, to influence them in order to achieve some goal, or simply to express our thoughts and feelings, he analyzes this game and tries to understand its logic. Yet, paradoxical in many of his statements, Wittgenstein remains true to himself here too. If, according to Wittgenstein, the criterion of meaning is always and only logic, then what is the meaning of language, given that most of what a human says contradicts, to some degree, the laws of logic?