Introducing Wittgenstein

A very readable collection of his thoughts on culture, the arts, history and religion is Culture and Value

A friendlier collection of his remarks is Philosophical Investigations, B. Blackwell, Oxford 1958.

Wittgenstein was fond of J. W. von Goethe’s saying, “In the beginning was the deed.” It is not knowledge but primitive actions and reactions that are vital for concept-formation and the later development of knowledge.

child, for example, has to participate in an activity, a language game, before it can use words like “know”, “believe” and “be certain”.
A child fetches books and sits in chairs long before it can understand whether or not these things exist and whether it can be certain.

The basic propositions we have been discussing are called river-bed propositions. They are taken for granted in ordinary conversation and create the framework of our ordinary behaviour. They express the stable but not fixed background on which the practices of questioning and learning depend.

f a person is hurt by unkind words, intrigued by subtle points, has a sense of humour, is touched by sad stories, fears death, then we might say he has “a soul”.
Shared human reactions and gestures underlie the language game connected with “soul talk”.

If when someone “smiled”, he had only five positions of his face, and when it changed it snapped straight from one position to another, then we might not be able to respond to him as TO do to a smile, and we might then wonder if he had a soul.

The meaning-blind person has lost touch with language as an expressive medium.
He can say what he intends to say but cannot experience the meaning of the gestures which are an essential part of the expression of our experience.
He is condemned to an impoverished inner life.

My attitude to him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the OPINION that he has a soul… The human body is the best picture of the human soul.

meaning-blind person lacks neither a kind of sense experience nor mastery in speaking and giving explanations, but a sensibility. He cannot experience meaning.

If I compare the coming of the MEANING into one’s mind to a dream, then our talk is ordinarily dreamless. The “meaning-blind” man “would then be one “who would always talk dreamlessly.

Thus a child may first respond to pain by saying “Ow", but later it learns to call pains “throbbing", “piercing”, “like needles” and so on.
Taking words that are appropriate on a certain occasion and giving them a new use is important in characterizing our feelings.
Poetry depends greatly on this ability. A meaning-blind person cannot ap

The sound of words, their associations, their “look” and history are all important in expressing meaning.
Take the words “friend”, “comrade”, “mate”, “pal”, “buddy”. They all have a similar meaning but have a very different “look”. It would sound strange if the Queen in a speech referred to her “friend” as a “buddy”.
The fact that we can experience the meaning of words enables us to use language creatively.
When a word is used outside its usual context, then new meanings are created.