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Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes

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Famous Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes

“Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries.”

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Book:Tractatus Logico-philosophicus: The German Text of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung
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“Ask yourself whether our language is complete--whether it was so before the symbolism of chemistry and the notation of the infinitesimal calculus were incorporated in it; for these are, so to speak, suburbs of our language. (And how many houses or streets does it take before a town begins to be a town?) Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses.”

LittlesDoeAsksHouseSpeakLanguageCitiesStreetsPeriodsTownsAncientVariousChemistrySquaresUniformsMultitudesSuburbsSymbolismMazesCalculusOld And New
Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein
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“The feeling of an unbridgeable gulf between consciousness and brain-process:When does this feeling occur in the present case?It is when I (for example) turn my attention in a particular way on to my own consciousness, and, astonished, say to myself: THIS is supposed to be produced by a process in the brain!--as it were clutching my forehead.”

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Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein
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“Suppose someone follows the series "1,3,5,7, ..", and in writing the series 2x+1; and he asked himself "But am I always doing the same thing, or something different every time?" If from one day to the next someone promises: "Tomorrow I will give up smoking", does he say the same thing every day, or every day something different?”

IfsGivingWritingDoeDifferentScienceNextTomorrowPromiseOne DayGiving UpMathematicsSeriesSmokingGiving Up Smoking
Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein
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“What do I know about God and the purpose of life? I know that this world exists. That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field. That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning. This meaning does not lie in it but outside of it. That life is the world. That my will penetrates the world. That my will is good or evil. Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world.The meaning of life, i.e. the meaning of the world, we can call God. And connect with this the comparison of God to a father.”

KnowsWorldDoeEyeLife IsLyingPurposeEvilFatherFieldsThis WorldConnectedMeaning Of LifeVisualsGood And EvilComparisonPurpose Of LifePenetrate
Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein
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“The child learns to believe a host of things. I.e. it learns to act according to these beliefs. Bit by bit there forms a system of what is believed, and in that system some things stand unshakeably fast and some are more or less liable to shift. What stands fast does so, not because it is intrinsically obvious or convincing; it is rather held fast by what lies around it.”

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Book:On Certainty
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“Where does our investigation get its importance from, since it seems only to destroy everything interesting, that is, all that is great and important? (As it were all the buildings, leaving behind only bits of stone and rubble.) What we are destroying is nothing but houses of cards and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they stand.”

DoeImportantSeemsHouseLanguageBitsInterestingBehindsBuildingStonesImportanceLeavingCardsDestroyingInvestigationClearingRubbleHouse Of Cards
Book:Philosophical Investigations
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