Quotes About Wittgenstein

Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but senseless. We cannot, therefore, answer questions of this kind at all, but only state their senselessness. Most questions and propositions of the philosophers result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language.

The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts.   Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.   A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.   The result of philosophy is not a number of "philosophical propositions", but to make propositions clear.   Philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred.

That which has to be in common between the sentence and the fact cannot, so he contends, be itself in turn said in language. It can, in his phraseology, only be shown, not said, for whatever we may say will still

Facts which are not compounded of other facts are what Mr Wittgenstein calls Sachverhalle, whereas a fact which may consist of two or more facts is called a Tatsache: thus, for example, Socrates is wise is a Sachverhalt, as well as a Tatsache, whereas Socrates is wise and Plato is his pupil is a Tatsache but not a Sachverhalt. He compares

If Ave say Plato loves Socrates, the word loves which occurs between the word Plato and the word Socrates establishes a certain relation between these two words, and it is owing to this fact that our sentence is able to assert a relation between the person's name by the words Plato and Socrates. We must not say, the complex sign ' a R b' says 'a stands in a certain relation R to b' ; but we must say, that ' a' stands in a certain relation to 'b' says that a R b (3.1432)• Mr

The logical forms are anumerical. Therefore there are in logic no pre-eminent numbers, and therefore there is no philosophical monism or dualism, etc.

The sense of a truth-function of p is a function of the sense of p.   Denial, logical addition, logical multiplication, etc. etc., are operations.   (Denial reverses the sense of a proposition.)

The logic of the world which the propositions of logic show in tautologies, mathematics shows in equations.

The basic evil of Russell's logic, as also of mine in the Tractatus, is that what a proposition is is illustrated by a few commonplace examples, and then presupposed as understood in full generality.

when Logic congeals into all-encompassing and perfect-seeming theories, then it can actually become a very evil con trick. Wittgenstein has a point, you see: 'All the facts of science are not enough to understand the world's meaning!

Prior to taking up philosophy I had spent half a decade as an art student and I am quite sure that what persuaded me of the importance and veracity of these ancient ideas was my art school education. For art making is all about discerning and creating structures. When later, as a philosophy student, I read Wittgenstein's instruction to attend to the differences, I heard an echo of the art teacher's command to look at the gaps between objects and draw them also.

Russell suggested he write an essay during the vacation on any philosophical subject. He did so, and when Russell had read the first sentence, he was persuaded that Wittgenstein was a man of genius

In 1913, Wittgenstein decided to live for two years in Norway on his own to meditate and work on logic. Russell tried to dissuade him.

If I were asked to answer, in one sentence, the question 'What was Wittgenstein's biggest contribution to philosophy', I should answer 'His asking of the question "Can one play chess without the Queen?

One of the things that makes Wittgenstein a real artist to me is that he realized that no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism.

And he plainly disagreed with the reverence for Wittgenstein's idea that mathematics, like language, was merely a tool, a set of rules or a syntax that had no inherent meaning in itself.

What Genesis is, in fact, is philosophy written in a deliberately non-philosophical way. It deals with all the central questions of philosophy: what exists (ontology), what can we know (epistemology), are we free (philosophical psychology), and how we should behave (ethics). But it does so in a way quite unlike the philosophical classics from Plato to Wittgenstein. To put it at its simplest: philosophy is truth as system. Genesis is truth as story.

La mort n'est pas un évènement de la vie. La mort ne peut être vécue », avait écrit ce con de Wittgenstein.

I have not found in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations anything that seemed to me interesting and I do not understand why a whole school finds important wisdom in its pages.

Joyce saw perhaps what Wittgenstein felt—that 'Colours spur us to philosophize. [. . . They] seem to present us with a riddle, a riddle that stimulates us — not one that disturbs us.

It is questions with no answers that set the limits of human possibilities --> Pretty Wittgenstein like.

Although he was barely four years older than Gödel, Menger had become a sort of mentor to Gödel, and an almost fatherly friend. When he returned to Vienna, he and Gödel slowly drifted away from the Vienna Circle. To their taste, it had taken on too much of the flavor of Wittgenstein and of Neurath; there was too much of a cult about the former, and too much politics in the latter.

And eternity does not mean everlasting time but a moment without time. Wittgenstein saw it clearly: "If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, eternal life belongs to those who live in the present." So

The question is not: Can I write about Wittgenstein. The question is: Can I be Wittgenstein for one moment without destroying either Wittgenstein or myself… Wittgenstein is a summons to which I cannot respond... Thus, I do not write about Wittgenstein not because I can't write about him, but rather because I cannot answer him.