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Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes

Philosopher

Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, renowned for his profound contributions to language, logic, and philosophical methods. His ideas have had a significant impact on the development of analytic philosophy and philosophy of language.

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Famous Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes

“The form is the possibility of the structure.”

Form Possibility Structure

Book:The Tractatus According to Its Own Form

Source: The Tractatus According to Its Own Form

“What has to be accepted, the given, is - so one could say - forms of life .”

Form Given Accepted

Book:A companion to Wittgenstein's

Source: A companion to Wittgenstein's

“Man feels the urge to run up against the limits of language. Think for example of the astonishment that anything at all exists. This astonishment cannot be expressed in the form of a question, and there is also no answer whatsoever. Anything we might say is a priori bound to be nonsense. Nevertheless we do run up against the limits of language. Kierkegaard too saw that there is this running up against something, and he referred to it in a fairly similar way (as running up against paradox). This running up against the limits of language is ethics.”

Thinking Men Way Feels Might Running Form Language Answers Saws Example Limits Ethics Bounds Nonsense Urges Paradox Nevertheless Astonishment

Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein

“A picture whose pictorial form is logical form is called a logical picture.”

Form Language Logic Logical Pictorial

Book:Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Source: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

“All philosophy is a 'critique of language' (though not in Mauthner's sense). It was Russell who performed the service of showing that the apparent logical form of a proposition need not be its real one.”

Needs Real Philosophy Form Language Philosophical Logical Propositions Critique Real Ones

Book:Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Source: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

“Here the term 'language-game' is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, of a form of life.”

Facts Form Games Language Term Activity Prominence

Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us.”

Philosophy Use Form Fighting Expression Fascination

Book:Preliminary Studies for the

Source: Preliminary Studies for the

“A philosophical problem has the form: I don't know my way about.”

Knows Way Problem Form Philosophical My Way

Book:Philosophical Investigations

Source: Philosophical Investigations

“And to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.”

Form Language Imagine

Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Language disguises the thought; so that from the external form of the clothes one cannot infer the form of the thought they clothe, because the external form of the clothes is constructed with quite another object than to let the form of the body be recognized.”

Body Form Language Objects Clothes Disguise

Book:Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: German and English

Source: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: German and English

“If anyone is unwilling to descend into himself, because this is too painful, he will remain superficial in his writing. . . If I perform to myself, then it’s this that the style expresses. And then the style cannot be my own. If you are unwilling to know what you are, your writing is a form of deceit.”

Ifs Knows Writing Form My Own Style Painful Deceit Superficial Unwilling

Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein

“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.”

Believe Children Doe Form Lying Belief Bits Obvious Host Convincing Liable

Book:On Certainty

Source: On Certainty

“Our civilization is characterized by the word "progress." Progress is its form rather than making progress being one of its features. Typically it constructs. It is occupied with building an ever more complicated structure. And even clarity is sought only.”

Form Progress Building Civilization Structure Complicated Clarity Features Constructs

Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein

“It is obvious that an imagined #‎ world , however different it may be from the real one, must have something - a form - in common with it.”

World May Different Real Form Common Obvious Real Ones

Book:Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Source: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

About the Author

Born: April 26, 1889
Died: April 29, 1951
Known for: Philosopher
Quotes: 391

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Philosophy Ifs Language Philosophical World Thinking Logic Doe Way Knows Mean Use Philosopher Propositions Form Men Problem Should Facts Believe

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Books & Sources

Tractatus Logico-PhilosophicusRelated source material

Philosophical InvestigationsRelated source material

Notebooks, 1914-1916Related source material

On CertaintyRelated source material

Philosophical Occasions, 1912-1951Related source material

A companion to Wittgenstein'sRelated source material

Tractatus Logico PhilosophicusRelated source material

Culture and ValueRelated source material

The Tractatus According to Its Own FormRelated source material

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: German and EnglishRelated source material

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