The Philosophical Investigations Essay - 4634 Words

The Philosophical Investigations ABSTRACT: The Philosophical Investigations is an inherently pedagogical work. Wittgenstein claims throughout his later writings to be teaching a method and this method is both philosophical and pedagogical. It is the claim of this paper that if we do not take Wittgensteins methodological claim seriously, we do not engage with the text in the manner for which it was written. Consequently, we begin and end in the wrong places and the text becomes (in the words of Wittgenstein) variously misunderstood, more or less mangled and watered-down.  §1 is philosophically and pedagogically complex. It presents the philosophical problems to which Wittgenstein will respond in the text which follows and it also,†¦show more content†¦Consequently, we begin and end in the wrong places and the text becomes (in the words of Wittgenstein) variously misunderstood, more or less mangled and watered-down (PI xe). (3) An examination of  §1 provides an introduction to the philosophical and pedago gical complexity of Wittgensteins Investigations. Wittgenstein begins the Investigations with a quotation from Augustines Confessions. Augustine writes: When they (my elders) named some object, and accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that the thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it out. Their intention was shewn by their bodily movements, as it were the natural language of all peoples: the expression of the face, the play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of the body, and the tone of voice which expresses our state of mind in seeking, having, rejecting, or avoiding something. Thus, as I heard these words repeatedly used in their proper places in various sentences, I gradually learnt to understand what objects they signified; and after I had trained my mouth to form these signs, I used them to express my own desires (PI 1). According to Wittgenstein these words give us a particular picture of the essence of human language; a picture in which individual words name objects and sentences are combinations of such names. In this picture ofShow MoreRelatedEssay on Ludwig Wittgenstein1509 Words   |  7 Pagespublished in 1921, provided new insights into relationships between the world, thought, language and the nature of philosophy by showing the application of modern logic to metaphysics via language. His later philosophy, mostly found in Philosophical Investigations, published posthumously in 1953, controversially critiqued all traditional philosophy, including his own previous work. 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