Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Parting Shot

Here are a few snippets from A.C. Grayling's Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2001).  For more, why not check out the book, or go straight to Wittgenstein?

. . . language is woven into all human activities and behaviour, and accordingly our many different uses of it are given content and significance by our practical affairs, our work, our dealings with one another and with the world we inhabit -- a language, in short, is part of the fabric of an inclusive "form of life" (p. 79).  

We use language to describe, report, inform, affirm, deny, speculate, give orders, ask questions, tell stories, playact, sing, guess riddles, make jokes, solve problems, translate, request, thank, greet, curse, pray, warn, reminisce, express emotions, and much else besides (p. 83). 

These are "language games," the games people play in communicating with one another, and each type of game or use has "rules" (pages 83, 89).  "A rule stands there like a signpost" (p. 93) and is a custom presumably subject to change over time. "[T]o follow a rule correctly is to conform to established practices of the community" (p. 96). Language and communication is essentially a public form of life, not a private one (pages 97-99).

Finally (for now) . . . "truth, reality, knowledge, moral value . . . are our truth, our reality . . . they are not absolute but relative; they are parochial to us, even to the slice of history we happen to occupy; and . . . therefore there are as many versions of 'truth', 'reality', and 'value' as there are different conceptual schemes or 'forms of life' "(p. 119).

As for the latter, one can probably see the usefulness of Wittgenstein's ideas for anthropology and history, fashion, art, labor studies, aesthetics and all sorts of other "fields of understanding." Formal human slavery, for instance, was widely accepted, practiced and justified for thousands of years, but public 'forms of life' can change or be changed, and formal slavery could be abolished, and was in time -- but it could also make a comeback. 

Today's Rune: Defense.