The term "Wittgenstein" means absolutely nothing to me, and I feel no obligation to research it.
Ludwig Wittgenstein was a philosopher and generaly a brilliant man of Austrian descent. He lived from 1889 to 1951 and ended up spending a lot of time in England becoming something of Bertrand Russell's protege. Wittgenstein's thought had a particularly significant impact in the philosophy of language. In his influential book
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus he said "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." Here's some background and insight into that quote:
quote:
In rough order, the first half of the book sets forth the following theses:
The world consists of independent atomic facts ” existing states of affairs ” out of which larger facts are built.
Language consists of atomic, and then larger-scale propositions that correspond to these facts by sharing the same "logical form".
Thought, expressed in language, "pictures" these facts.
We can analyse our thoughts and sentences to express ("express" as in show, not say) their true logical form.
Those we cannot so analyze, cannot be meaningfully discussed.
Philosophy consists of no more than this form of analysis: "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darber mu man schweigen" ("Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent").
Ludwig Wittgenstein - Wikipedia
I think Wittgenstein was quite an interesting man.
quote:
Considered by some to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein played a central, if controversial, role in 20th-century analytic philosophy. He continues to influence current philosophical thought in topics as diverse as logic and language, perception and intention, ethics and religion, aesthetics and culture. There are two commonly recognized stages of Wittgenstein's thought ” the early and the later ” both of which are taken to be pivotal in their respective periods. The early Wittgenstein is epitomized in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. By showing the application of modern logic to metaphysics, via language, he provided new insights into the relations between world, thought and language and thereby into the nature of philosophy. It is the later Wittgenstein, mostly recognized in the Philosophical Investigations, who took the more revolutionary step in critiquing all of traditional philosophy including its climax in his own early work. The nature of his new philosophy is heralded as anti-systematic through and through, yet still conducive to genuine philosophical understanding of traditional problems.
Ludwig Wittgenstein (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
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