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Philosophical Investigations QUOTES

Philosophical Investigations QUOTES

1 " A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

2 " The problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have known since long. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

3 " Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

4 " If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: 'This is simply what I do. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

5 " The face is the soul of the body. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

6 " So in the end, when one is doing philosophy, one gets to the point where one would like just to emit an inarticulate sound. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

7 " Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and know your way about; you approach the same place from another side and no longer know your way about. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

8 " What people accept as justification shows how they think and live. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

9 " In this sort of predicament, always ask yourself: How did we learn the meaning of this word ("good", for instance)? From what sort of examples? In what language-games? Then it will be easier for you to see that the word must have a family of meanings. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

10 " Review the multiplicity of language-games in the following examples, and in others:

Giving orders, and obeying them—
Describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements—
Constructing an object from a description (a drawing)—
Reporting an event—
Speculating about an event—
Forming or teasing a hypothesis—
Presenting the results of an experiment in tables and diagrams—
Making up a story; and reading it—
Singing catches—
Guessing riddles—
Making riddles—
Making a joke; telling it—
Solving a problem in practical arithmetic—
Translating from one language into another—
Asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying.

—It is interesting to compare the multiplicity of the tools in language and of the ways they are used, the multiplicity of kinds of word and sentence, with what logicians have said about the structure of language. (Including the author of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.) "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

11 " If a lion could speak, we could not understand him. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

12 " the meaning of a word is its use in the language. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

13 " Remember that we sometimes demand explanations for the sake not of their content, but of their form. Our requirement is an architectural one; the explanation a kind of sham corbel that supports nothing. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

14 " a nothing will serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

15 " Think, for example, of the words which you perhaps utter in this space of time. They are no longer part of this language. And in different surroundings the institution of money doesn’t exist either. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

16 " A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

17 " Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.

For it cannot give any foundation either.
It leaves everything as it is. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

18 " The fact that we cannot write down all the digits of pi is not a human shortcoming, as mathematicians sometimes think. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

19 " 303. "I can only believe that someone else is in pain, but I know it if I am."—Yes: one can make the decision to say "I believe he is in pain" instead of "He is in pain". But that is all.——What looks like an explanation here, or like a statement about a mental process, is in truth an exchange of one expression for another which, while we are doing philosophy, seems the more appropriate one.
Just try—in a real case—to doubt someone else's fear or pain. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations

20 " For philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday. "

― Ludwig Wittgenstein , Philosophical Investigations