Wittgenstein’s philosophy argues that the meaning of language is not fixed, but rather fluid, depending on the context and rules in which it is used. He emphasizes that language is not just a system of symbols, but acquires its meaning in a social context, and that private language cannot have meaning. It is based on the forms of life shared by language speakers.
“The philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein can be divided into the early and late periods. The former is represented by the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, while the latter is represented by the Philosophical Investigations. He believed that philosophical problems stem from the ambiguous use of language, and he sought to solve them by analyzing, criticizing, and clarifying language. For this reason, his philosophical thought is centered on language.
In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein held the position that language is a mirror that accurately reflects the world. In this book, he explains the role of language through picture theory, which states that language reflects the state of the world, and that the structure of language must correspond to the structure of the world. This position reflects his early philosophical belief that language has an objective, fixed meaning.
However, in his later years, he criticized his early philosophy and tried a new approach. In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein makes a different argument from his biography, based on his critical stance toward the picture theory advocated in the Tractatus. In picture theory, words in language name objects, and sentences are combinations of these names; in other words, the meaning of a word is determined by the object to which it refers. In his later philosophy, however, Wittgenstein argues that, in contrast to the picture theory, the meaning of a word lies in its use. He made the new claim that the meaning of a word is not fixed, but is determined by the context and rules of its use.
This claim is based on the fact that words in a language can fulfill a variety of functions, and according to him, this variety is not fixed but fluid. Therefore, the meaning of a language can vary depending on the situation and context, which means that language cannot be explained by a fixed logical structure. This shift marks an important turning point in how Wittgenstein understood the relationship between language and the world.
In relation to the meaning of words, Wittgenstein presents the concept of family resemblance. Family resemblance is an application of the resemblance between family members to language, which implies a complex web of overlapping and intersecting similarities. For example, the word “play” can refer to a variety of things, including playing cards, hide-and-seek, charades, soccer, and baseball. There are no properties that are common to all of them, but rather a set of properties that partially overlap and intersect with each other. If a common quality could be found in all the objects that play can refer to, it would be a fixed meaning of the essence of play. But there is no such essence, only relationships between parts that are related in countless different ways. Therefore, the word play does not have a single essential meaning, but is used in a variety of ways depending on the context and rules.
Wittgenstein likened language to play and came up with the concept of linguistic play, which refers to the totality of language and the acts in which it is intertwined. His idea was to emphasize that speaking a language is part of an activity, a form of life, and that it is based on a form of life. Language is not just a set of signs or symbols, but rather a system of symbols that are used in practice in a social context. This emphasizes that language does not have a fixed meaning on its own, but rather gains meaning in the interaction between people.
According to him, linguistic plays disappear and emerge, varying in type and function, and while different linguistic plays do not have a common essence, they form a family resemblance, consisting of language and the behaviors associated with it. For example, when someone says “Hammer!” on a construction site, the word is not used to refer to a hammer that is lying around, but to hand over a hammer. He argues that if we only know that hammer in this context refers to the object, a hammer, we cannot engage in the language play that is going on in the context of the construction site. Language play is only possible when we know the context and rules and act accordingly.
Wittgenstein explains that the rules of a language are based on a form of life, a style or way of life of the people who speak it. As such, they are public, and if there is no activity in language play that follows the rules, it cannot be called a language. He characterizes language without regularity as private language.
According to him, private language is incomprehensible to others because it lacks regularity, and it cannot be understood accurately by oneself, making language play impossible. Wittgenstein sees the unity of the life forms of language speakers as the premise upon which the rules of language operate. This means that for language to be a tool of communication, it requires not only unity of definition, but also unity of judgment. Unity of definition refers to the unity of definitions of words, while unity of judgment refers to the unity of the way words are applied, ultimately the way we react to and view something. For example, in order for “red” to be a tool of communication, we need to know the definitions of the word, and those definitions need to be consistent with each other, as well as with the reactions we have when we use it.
If we say “red” to describe the color of something, but the reactions are not consistent with each other, then “red” cannot be used as a communication tool. Congruence in life forms also means congruence in definitions and judgments. In other words, congruence in language use indicates that people share the same life forms.
The fact that unity of life forms is a prerequisite for the operability of language rules implies that private language cannot exist. Private language is the language of the infantilistic world that takes my consciousness as its starting point. The realm in which the rules of language can operate is not the infantilistic world of my consciousness, but the world of community, the world of our lives, including you, me, and others. This suggests the falsity, for Wittgenstein, of the philosophical sanctions that take my consciousness as a starting point that imply the possibility of private language. His later philosophy emphasizes community and interaction as an important basis for philosophical thought in this respect, opening the way to a new way of understanding philosophical problems. This emphasizes the need for philosophy to move away from the analysis of abstract concepts and to explore meaning in real life and the use of language.
