One aspect of this book that makes it highly significant is the concept of "language games." If language has the power to create reality, then different languages will inevitably give rise to different realities. In this book, the German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein developed the related idea of "language games," which are like isolated islands of language, each unique and not entirely translatable into another. He claims that each of us inhabits a specific language game, which influences how we perceive things, understand the world, and our place within it. Once again, language shapes meaning, understanding, and interpretation. The world is revealed to us through our particular language game. If we live in different language games, we will see different worlds. This concept implies, as philosopher Chantal Mouffe states, a critique of the rationalist view of the subject. It shows that the human mind, which is considered the source of linguistic meanings, cannot be so because it is through participation in different language games that the world is disclosed to us.

This is a serious challenge to the Modern conception of humans as rational beings who can bring about change in desired directions through the exercise of reason. Thus, reason does not enable us to see the world as it truly is and change it as we wish in a way that leads to progress. The concept of language games is crucial for many postmodern thinkers.

If we think through language and the use of language is thought itself, then what is perceived is indistinguishable from language use. The two cannot be separated because language governs interpretation, perception, and thought. To return to Wittgenstein's phrase, different people play and live in different "language games," meaning their languages cause them to see the world differently and conceptualize things differently from those in other language games. So, what does this mean for someone interested in politics?

In conclusion, this implies that whenever we attempt to understand the world, it is through language and interpretation because we cannot directly perceive reality outside of our language. This begins to suggest the possibility that one's own culture, society, or polity does not have universally "true" answers to the key questions of human existence. Our culture develops answers within its language game that make sense at a particular time for that culture. Everything is an interpretation of uncertain texts within different language games.

Certainly, this is a powerful argument. Many people disagree that language itself shapes our views of reality, and this argument must be taken seriously. Nevertheless, the idea of "language games," although just a small part of this book, is a thought-provoking concept that is well worth considering.

I can't rate it because although I was a Philosophy major, Wittgenstein was over my head!

Wittgenstein's work is known for its complexity and depth. His ideas often require a great deal of study and reflection to fully understand. As a Philosophy major, I thought I had a good foundation in the subject, but when it came to Wittgenstein, I found myself struggling.

His writings are filled with dense language and abstract concepts that are not easy to grasp. I tried to read his works, but I often found myself getting lost in the details. I would have to read a passage several times just to get a basic understanding of what he was trying to say.

Despite my difficulties, I still appreciate Wittgenstein's contributions to the field of Philosophy. His ideas have had a significant impact on modern thought and continue to be studied and debated by philosophers today. I just wish I could have a better understanding of his work.

I remember vividly when Iris Murdoch told me once about how she and Liz Anscombe managed to piece something together out of the chaos that Ludwig had handed them. It was quite an achievement on their part, and I would give them four stars for their efforts. However, for Ludwig, I would subtract two stars.

Later, out of curiosity, I asked Iris what Ludwig was like in bed. But to my surprise, she became all coy and wouldn't give me a straight answer. It was quite amusing to see her reaction. I guess some things are better left unsaid.

I wonder if Ludwig's behavior in bed was related to the mess he had created in other aspects of his life. Maybe there was more to the story than what Iris was willing to share. In any case, it was an interesting conversation that left me with more questions than answers.

**Title: Wittgenstein's Philosophical Insights on Language and Thought**

Ludwig Wittgenstein's work is filled with profound ideas about language and its relationship to thought and reality.

He states that imagining a language means imagining a form of life. This emphasizes the close connection between language and the activities and behaviors of a community.

Regarding the meaning of words, he challenges the idea that a word has no meaning if nothing corresponds to it. He argues that the concept of simplicity and complexity in relation to the constituent parts of reality is not as straightforward as it may seem.

The understanding of a game is also explored. One learns the game by watching others play, but distinguishing between mistakes and correct play can be a complex task.

Wittgenstein further examines the nature of understanding. He questions whether it is a mental process and emphasizes the importance of the circumstances in which we say we understand.

He also discusses the idea of a private language, which he argues is not possible as language is a social construct.

Overall, Wittgenstein's work forces us to think deeply about the nature of language, thought, and reality, and challenges many of our common assumptions.

I truly can't believe that I read this nearly 11 years ago. It seems like such a long time has passed since then. The memories associated with that reading experience are still somewhat模糊 in my mind. But as I think back on it now, I realize how much has changed in my life during these 11 years.

So much has happened, and yet, that moment of reading this particular thing still lingers in my consciousness. It makes me wonder how that one act of reading could have had such an impact on me, even if I don't fully remember all the details. Maybe it was the ideas presented, or the way the words were written. Or perhaps it was just the timing of it all.

Regardless of the reason, I'm glad that I have this memory. It serves as a reminder of how far I've come and how much I've grown. And it makes me look forward to the next 11 years and all the new experiences and memories that I will create.

I initially rated this three stars with the intention of appearing intelligent. However, a few days later, I must be honest. Even when read within the context of a reading group, with an abundance of secondary material, this was rather boring.

If I had tried to read it on my own, it would have been completely incomprehensible. I'm certain that it is truly brilliant and that I'm simply missing the essence. But Wittgenstein's concept of what philosophy should resemble holds no genuine allure for me.

Of course, I have no intention of allowing this to disrupt my plans to pen Wittgenstein/Foucault fanfiction. It's quite an interesting juxtaposition of my lack of interest in the actual philosophical work and my desire to create something fictional based on these two thinkers.

Perhaps through writing the fanfiction, I will gain a better understanding and appreciation of their ideas in a more unconventional way. Who knows? Maybe it will lead to a newfound interest in their philosophical musings.

Ponderous.

Is that simply a word or could it be considered a sentence in its own right? Does it still hold any meaning?

Perhaps the words employed in this review are rather arbitrary when seen outside the context of the Goodreads language-game.

But how could one go about describing 'ponderous' without relying on the use of even more words?

It seems like a bit of a conundrum.

Maybe one could try to convey its essence through actions or examples.

However, that might not be as straightforward as it seems.

For now, that's enough words to get us thinking about this curious concept of 'ponderous'.

Who knows what further exploration might reveal?

No one should read this book, whether by force or voluntarily.

It is not a book that is worthy of one's time and effort. Instead of delving into the actual text, it would be much more beneficial to find a summary or get the Cliff notes.

These summaries and Cliff notes can provide a concise overview of the main ideas and plot points of the book, without the need to wade through the entire text.

By using these resources, one can gain a good understanding of the book without having to endure the potentially tedious process of reading it from cover to cover.

So, do yourself a favor and skip reading this book. Opt for the summary or Cliff notes instead and save yourself some valuable time and energy.

Wittgenstein held the view that rules only permit a certain number of exceptions, which leads to the arbitrary interpretation of past words, thereby making the concept of following rules no longer valid.

As he described, language is unique to each speaker and refers to sensations that only they can perceive. However, later on, he refuted the possibility of the existence of such a solipsistic language, asserting that there is no difference between a person who truly adheres to a norm and one who seems to be following it.

Wittgenstein proposed that rules are merely a matter of practice and context established by us. The meaning of a word is only accurate when used within a network of other words that support each other. Language games and the meanings of words change accordingly.

Wittgenstein's solution to the paradox of following rules is that the rule for following rules is not an interpretation.

Consequently, Wittgenstein would probably contend that even a simple sentence demands a profound understanding of the physical world, human perception, and common sense knowledge, which cannot be accomplished solely through rule-based systems or statistical analysis.

Therefore, machines are unable to truly understand language.

To date, the most overrated work of 20th-century analytic thought (if one wishes to truly count the later Wittgenstein as an analytic) is Wittgenstein's work.

Written in a fragmentary style not seen in the traditional philosophical corpus since Spinoza, Wittgenstein often leaves the reader guessing at what he could possibly be referencing.

The work starts out quite strong as a critique of Russell and Moore, concerning their conceptions of language and its logic. However, as the work progresses, many philosophers mistakenly take the hermeneutical gap between the author and the reader to be a sign of Wittgenstein's genius. Instead, the proper and simpler idea is that Wittgenstein himself is working with a fragmentary mind.

Indeed, the fragmentary style allows many different thinkers to draw quite disparate conclusions from the same passages. I suspect the real reason everyone loves Wittgenstein is that he provides a means by which to buttress one's own theoretical predispositions. This overrating may prevent a more accurate and in-depth understanding of the true nature and value of his work.

**Expanded Review of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations**

(Review from my third read)
I once again delved into this work as part of a reading group. This time, I believe there might be a concise way to understand his sometimes puzzling claims. Some of his assertions might initially seem absurd or unjustified. However, we must distinguish between whether a claim pertains to the "methodology" or "metaphysics" regarding an explanandum. For instance, around the 500's - 600's, Wittgenstein makes dismissive remarks about the inquiry into the "meaning" of an emotion or emotional expression. Instead, he suggests that when we question the meaning behind an emotional assertion like "I fear his arrival," we should focus on the behaviors of the speaker that surround this utterance. This might make him appear as a behaviorist, but he isn't. His claims here are methodological in nature. He urges us that before asking about the meaning of an emotion, we need to consider whether the metaphysics presupposed in this question is true. It might be impossible to address these metaphysical issues; all we can do is strive for a clear, overall view of our language (as I summarized more in my previous "reviews" below). To achieve this, especially when it comes to understanding mental concepts, we are limited to examining our behaviors.

It is interesting how some people conclude from Wittgenstein that making positive "metaphysical" claims is a fruitless endeavor. The vast majority of metaphysical issues (such as: What is a universal or a concept? What is a red sensation?) rely on category errors. For these questions to make sense, it must be the case that the explanandum is physically manifest (in the manner of the paradigm of concrete, medium-sized objects we handle), but often this isn't so. So we should be "quietist" or "eliminativist."

I don't think this should be the takeaway. Instead, before asking a metaphysical question, we should be cautious, following Wittgenstein's model of extreme sensitivity to our ordinary language practices. With such ground-clearing, we have a chance of developing an ontology or metaphysical conception that is indeed appropriate for some explanandum. I've been pondering the "meaning" that emotion provides us in lived experience. For example, although drawing on Wittgenstein's methods, I'm arriving at a position where this "meaning" shouldn't be understood as a positive sentence/proposition/picture, but rather as consisting of a set of constraints that orchestrates or explains the particular mental activities and behaviors that occur when one has a certain emotion.

(Review from my second read)
Wittgenstein contends that traditional ways of thinking about linguistic meaning are misguided. He examines theories such as the idea that linguistic meaning is constituted by the objects to which individual words refer, that meaning is constituted by rules that tell us how to interpret individual words, and that meaning is constituted by mental images we have when using words. He presents creative and thought-provoking counterexamples to challenge these views. However, he doesn't offer much of a positive picture of linguistic meaning, which frustrates me. His positive view doesn't go beyond the general idea that the meaning of an expression lies in the ways an agent uses that expression within the context of a practical task or activity that the agent is performing.

Here are some scattered thoughts provoked by Wittgenstein's questions and my own lingering inquiries. They are roughly in chronological order according to the sections of the book.

Regarding Augustine’s picture of word meaning (§1): On this view, we learn language when an adult points to an object and utters its name; we associate the object with the name, so when the name is uttered in the absence of the object, we take it to mean or refer to the object. Implications of this include: (1) the meaning of a word is a concrete object referred to by the word, (2) the meaning of a sentence is the meaning that results from a combination of the referents of words. Problems with this picture: But when we hear a word, how do we know that it refers to anything at all, that it is a sign?

I think a solution to this is that everything we encounter from the very beginning is meaningful; there are no purely syntactical or empty forms. The very idea of this is a conceptual invention (perhaps based on our experience of being able to switch between seeing words as squiggles or spatial forms and apprehending them as we ordinarily do, as meaningful). So the only possibility of a purely syntactical form is apprehending things from a painterly perspective, as solely visual. But that is very unnatural for us; we are able to perceive words as meaningful from the start.

Could we preserve the reference picture of meaning if we allow not only “bare objects” (whatever that means) to be the referents but rather the various meanings that objects possess in a context (involving an immediate activity at hand, interests of the subjects, cultural backgrounds, etc.) — in other words, the affordances that objects have in perceptual experience? In the end, is there a significant difference between an anti-referent picture, like Wittgenstein’s use theory, and a referent picture on which affordances or complex meanings of objects may be referents?

The “slab” situation (§2, 19): I see that, in this context, it would be impossible to get “slab” to mean the object simpliciter (what does “the object simpliciter” even mean? An assertion that the object exists in the world?). Because the task is ongoing—the foreman and assistant both have their own roles, are aware of each other’s roles, and expect actions from themselves and each other. Anything said would be taken to be constructive or at least relevant to the activities needed to complete the task. So “slab,” depending on recent or present events, what the foreman and assistant mutually focus their attention on, and what other gestures they make, can mean many different things: “bring me the slab,” “that slab stands out; perhaps it is defective,” etc. Wittgenstein claims that meaning is “use”: the use to which we put an expression in a language game is the expression’s meaning. For example, when the foreman says “slab” to get the assistant to bring it over to him, the word “slab” means “bring me the slab.”

But what does this idea of “use” really mean? What range of things could it mean? Wittgenstein might answer: all the possible things we try to achieve by using language, as stated in his metaphor of tools and the range of them in a toolbox (§23). But I would like a more detailed account than this. The idea of “use” connotes action or activity; there is some goal or intended action, and we use things to accomplish it. Could we say that expressions are affordances, which enable us to engage in the activity that is part of this goal?

Is “use” supposed to be a first-personal or third-personal concept? For example, when I think about my use of my bicycle, I may understand this either in terms of my first-person experience of riding my bicycle or in terms of a third-person description of how I use my bicycle (which may involve scientific or physical concepts that definitely weren't part of my first-person experience). When Wittgenstein says meaning is use, which sense of “use” is he referring to?

How much can be included in the “use” of an expression? Does the foreman use “slab” to ask the assistant to “bring him the slab”; to “bring him the slab quickly”; to “bring him the slab quickly or else he will get angry”; or to “bring him the slab quickly or else he will get angry and punish him with a wage deduction”? Can we think of “use” like “attitude,” in contrast to “content”? It really seems that way in Wittgenstein’s writing at times (e.g., §22), in his discussion of how the same proposition can be asserted or asked. But Wittgenstein intends for his theory of use to account for the content itself…?

“The ordinary” (§124): Wittgenstein claims that it is impossible for philosophy to “interfere with the actual use of language”; it cannot justify things in language or create regimented languages. This is because philosophy can only be done within the framework of ordinary language. The ideal of philosophy would be to “map out the entire landscape” of concepts, which would allow us to see that when we encounter a philosophical puzzle, it is only that we are using concepts incorrectly (Wittgenstein doesn’t explicitly say that — is he that eliminativist?). What other ways are there to make this claim about the role of philosophy true?

What is Wittgenstein’s conception of understanding an utterance? The difference between our understanding a word the moment it’s uttered and the way we use the word over time (§138): It seems that this difference is based on our confusion in reconstructing what it means to understand a word the moment it’s uttered; it’s easy to model and talk about how we use a word over time, but it’s difficult to do phenomenology on real-time, absorbed understanding.

Does an image of a cube come to my mind when someone says “cube” (§139)? What is wrong with the mental picture or process view of making sense of meaning? (1) We need to interpret the picture to get meaning from it, (2) It is incompatible with the family resemblance theory of concepts, (3) It can’t account for rule-following, as in understanding a mathematical function and how the pattern would continue. We feel that there is an appropriate word, and we sometimes struggle to find it (§139). But this doesn’t mean that we must have a determinate picture for which we must find the right word. What tells us how to use a word if it’s not a picture or a rule? Should we base the use of a word on a mental picture that provides accuracy conditions for how to use the word? (§140)

I wonder whether this can be applied to explaining why I had trouble just now using Collingwood's expressionist theory to explain the aptness of words. Maybe there's something wrong with the underlying metaphors of expressionism or aptness; if we're creating or sculpting, then it seems there should be freedom, not aptness. Collingwood says there's an unconscious emotion that we're drawing on as materials; maybe there's a whole collection of motivations and interests that determine whether we feel satisfied with a certain expression. The feeling of satisfaction is not due to getting something that mirrors something that exists prior but is due to our ego being boosted, a curiosity being quenched, or an old song or phrase being repeated (an aesthetic satisfaction, like hearing familiar songs).

If something has to stand behind the utterance of the formula, it's the particular circumstances that warrant my saying that I can go on (§154). How consistent is this with Gibsonian affordances, that we perceive those? Must Wittgenstein be a behaviorist—or is there a way to make sense of our perceiving or experiencing something that grounds or sets constraints on use, as to define the use of a word and make its meaning possible? Wittgenstein might be okay with this as long as we don’t turn the perception of an affordance into a mental image. How should we think about this kind of perception to avoid the pitfalls that Wittgenstein identifies for mental images?

The moment when marks become words (§157): What goes on phenomenologically when this transition occurs? Wittgenstein doesn't want to acknowledge the significance of this question - to answer him I should describe the circumstances under which I typically ask this question. Wittgenstein might say this question is based on when we consciously, reflectively, deliberately focus on something; it's true that in pre-reflective experience things aren't determinate in the same way. But isn't there still something happening? But why does it matter to me that there's something going on in the head/world... is resigning to functionalism really so bad?

Wittgenstein speaks of our letting ourselves be guided by the letters (§170). What does it mean to be guided? There is a range of cases: being forced against one's will, trying hard to follow but it's difficult, opening oneself/being passive to be guided, as in dance (§172). Does this make a difference in how I understand affordances? Wittgenstein says that there’s no puzzle about the meaning of being guided because there is no ultimate meaning of this; there are only particular instances, which differ from one another (§175).

What does it mean to forget something but then remember (as in singing a tune) and then say “Now I know it!”? The song couldn’t have occurred in its entirety all of a sudden. This is interesting; it seems that the possibility of being able to do it underlies this judgment. This is probably one variant of the fundamental kind of presence in absence; being able to do something, the possibility of it unfolding, without acting on it (a muscular disposition as William James put it). Was the entire tune in there? This helps explain Collingwood's expressionism; the 'unconscious emotion' may perhaps be understood as the potentiality based on an embodied skill, and the expression/interpretation is the acting on that potentiality; but there is still genuine novelty, a topic outside of Wittgenstein’s project.

A machine as a symbol of its mode of operation (§193 - 194): “is the possibility (of movement) a shadow of the movement itself”? What is the model of presence Wittgenstein is working with, a concrete physical object we perceive? Why require that there be something (understood in accordance with that model) at all? Wittgenstein might be understood as disabusing us of believing this is required; but he also might be understood as still presupposing it, in only mentioning candidates that fit that model. Perhaps we could explore candidates that don't fit that model at all, like affordances, which still aren't encompassed by the idea of “use”.

(Review from my first read)
Wittgenstein's assessment of the impact of this work on readers is accurate: his writing is confusing and bewildering, but in a way that can stimulate the reader to think independently and arrive at the realizations that Wittgenstein has prepared for us. I read this work after the Tractatus, and it is fascinating to see the contrast. It seems that Wittgenstein took more seriously the distinction between that which is sayable and unsayable, established in the Tractatus -- as well as the criticism that the foundations of his picture theory of propositions are all unsayable (which I understand as entailed by the status of being a transcendental condition of the phenomena we can possibly experience). It seems that Wittgenstein thought long and hard about what we can know about these unsayables and concluded that they cannot be eternal, static facts of the world, given the undeniable contextuality of language and its plurality of functions.

In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein leads us through hundreds of fascinating hypothetical situations (e.g., try imagining a child's liveliness as the mechanics of an automaton) and questions (e.g., why can't we hear colors, but we can hear sorrow?). With so many examples and repetition (which doesn't become tiresome), we "practice" and develop a deep understanding of various lessons. Some lessons I especially noticed are: (1) The meaning of any linguistic item depends on its use, and thus the social and environmental context of use, (2) Truth conditions are not objective states of affairs in the world, but the possibility of truth or correctness depends on social norms; so it is impossible to determine whether you use a linguistic item (or follow any sort of rule for that matter) correctly independently of checking your use against the uses of others, and (3) We understand basic psychological concepts (e.g., thinking, perceiving; pain, feelings) based on conceptual schemes (language games) derived from knowledge of material objects and mechanical causation; and this understanding is fundamentally distorted.

I read Kripke's introduction before reading Wittgenstein, and I found this to be helpful. Also, I figured out two tricks that really helped me get through and understand this text. First, be aware that Wittgenstein constructs many strawmen, and many of the sections are articulations of these opposing views, rather than his own. Carefully monitor and determine which of these three moves Wittgenstein makes: Does he erect a strawman, attack that opposing view, or propose his own views?

Second, since many of the sections seem randomly strung together, it is crucial to identify the general topic Wittgenstein is discussing in any given section. If you explicitly identify these topics, it becomes easier to understand how the sections are connected, as well as, in any given section, the points he implicitly makes by raising strange scenarios and questions. Also, identify how these various topics fall under some more general lessons Wittgenstein presents, like the ones mentioned earlier in this review or the ones explicated by Kripke. By keeping track of all of this, reading this book is less taxing and more enjoyable. It can be exciting to gradually develop your own hypotheses and resolve the paradoxes he presents.

We do not philosophize to find easy answers to everything, but we philosophize to know how we should think about things.

Whoever claims that philosophy only investigates what we are ignorant of is necessarily ignorant, for philosophy investigates even what we are convinced of or think we are! And let my hair stand if there is something of this kind.

And a good example of this is this beautiful book. Wittgenstein has looked inside it and invited us to look inside ourselves too, to think about our perception, our logic, and our words that make up our language. Let us be patient with the snares of the mind and language and how we should ask rather than how we should answer.

What does it mean for something to happen in the mind? What is the relationship between what happened and what we call it and half of it in our language? What is the connection between the world, language, and mental images?

The author has investigated what we should first investigate before we drown in the metaphors of meaninglessness and delusion. He has presented his method in the form of what he calls "language games" that are very similar to the common games we know, where the language and its words are like parts in the playing field according to different mental hypotheses. He places himself in the place of the observer to try to deduce the laws that govern those games in order to arrive at what the word and the impression should express and to define its linguistic and psychological limits, and how the expression of what appears in the environment around us differs from the expression of what happens inside us.

The book is divided into two parts, and each part is also divided into numbered paragraphs. Some of them are grouped together to investigate one of the topics and then move on to another, and he may return to a previous topic or progress to another, which makes the reader feel that the paragraphs were a preparation for a disorganized book - and perhaps it was indeed so - but the idea becomes clear about something when finishing the book. And as I said, Wittgenstein's goal was not the answer but the formulation of the correct question and the correction of our perceptions about language and its limits, about the world, and the indication of the guiding paths in the process of research so that we can distinguish between meaning and meaninglessness.