Philosophical Investigations

Philosophical Investigations is one of Ludwig Wittgenstein's two greatest works, the other being the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Wittgenstein had worked on the book for many years and it was published posthumously in 1953, originally in German (as Philosophische Untersuchungen). A 2002 English edition, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe, is available as ISBN 0631231277.

Method

Considered by many to be one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century, if not of all time, the Philosophical Investigations is unique in its approach to philosophy. Most philosophical texts read as histories of philosophy, summaries of philosophizing which has already occurred, a completed report on thought. Wittgenstein's book treats philosophy as a lab science, instructing the reader to undergo various thought experiments and do the actual work of philosophy. Rather than relying on the thinking of others, it insists that the readers do their own thinking. Wittgenstein asks the reader to imagine various worlds, and then to attempt to test the boundaries of that world, the advantages, the problems, etc. It is through these thought-experiments that the reader comes to philosophical conclusions by himself, rather than simply being told what philosophers have already discovered.

Rules of language

Wittgenstein seemed to be convinced that many indirect arguments makes understanding his project difficult.

Language games and the word "game"

A closer examination of one of the most influential sections of the book that deals directly with meaning and use reveals a far more complex view of language than is represented in the simple slogan above. As is common in the Wittgenstein's later works, he begins by asking the reader to perform a thought experiment. First he asks the reader to come up with a definition of the word "game". While this may at first seem a simple task, he then goes on to lead us through the problems with each of the possible definitions of the word "game". Any definition which focuses on amusement leaves us unsatisfied since the feelings experienced by a world class chess player are very different than those of a circle of children playing duck duck goose. Any definition which focus on competition will fail to explain the game of catch, or the game of solitaire. And a definition of the word game which focus on rules will fall on similar difficulties. The essential point of this exercise is often missed. Wittgenstein's point is not that it is impossible to define game, but that we don't have a definition, and we don't need one.

Everybody understands what we mean when we talk about playing a game, and we can even clearly identify and correct inaccurate uses of the word. All without reference to any "definition".

Family resemblances

How exactly does this work? Why is it that we are sure a particular activity -- Olympic target shooting -- is a game while a similar activity -- military sharp shooting -- is not. Wittgenstein's explanation is tied up with a important analogy. How do we recognize that two people we know are related to one another? We may see similar height, weight, eye color, hair, nose, mouth, patterns of speech, social or political views, mannerisms, body structure, last names, etc. If we see enough matches we say we've noticed a family resemblance. It is perhaps important to note that this is not always a conscious process -- generally we don't catalog various similarities until we reach a certain threshold, we just intuitively see the resemblances. Wittgenstein suggests that the same may be true of language. Perhaps we are all familiar with enough things which are games, and enough things which are not games that we can instantly categorize new activities intuitively.

This brings us back to Wittgenstein's reliance on indirect communication, and his reliance on thought-experiments. If many philosophers are confused, it is because they aren't able to see the family resemblances. They've made mistakes in understanding the vague intuitive rules language uses (which Wittgenstein calls the rules of the language game), and have thereby tied themselves up in philosophical knots. He suggests that an attempt to untangle these knots requires more than simple deductive arguments which point out the problems with their particular position. Instead Wittgenstein's larger goal seems to be to try to divert them from their philosophical problems long enough to indirectly re-train their intuitive ability to see the family resemblances.

Private language

Perhaps the most celebrated argument put forward in the Philosophical Investigations is what is called the Private Language Argument, in which Wittgenstein asks if it is possible for us to have a language that nobody else can understand. Would such a language make any sense to me? How could I be sure that I had used the correct term to describe a sensation or object? Supposing I have a sensation S and mark it down every time S occurs, how can I subjectively be sure that I am relating the present S to the previous S? Wittgenstein says that is like buying a hundred copies of the same newspaper to check that the first copy was correct.

The argument relies on the subjective nature of a possible private language, and essentially calls into question its objectivity. Once again Wittgenstein here calls on us to take language as it is used, but more substantially he raises many epistemological questions regarding the possibility of self knowledge and the nature of knowledge as a social phenomenon.

Wittgenstein's analysis of psychological phenomena

The second part of Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein moves outward from human language behavior and towards an examination of more general psychological issues.

In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein gives a deconstruction of where he went wrong in the Tractatus with respect to human language. In remark #23 of Philosophical Investigations, he points out that human language is more complex than the simplified views of language that have been held by people who want to explain or simulate human language by means of some formal system. Wittgenstein goes on to present many examples of how what we are consciously aware of when we think about human language is just the tip of an iceberg. Our unconscious mental processes do most of the work and present our conscious minds with just a very small slice of the whole complex story of how our brains produce human language behavior.

Wittgenstein constructed many sentences that can be interpreted in more than one way. One of the most famous is, "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." Does this mean:

1. that philosophers use language to combat bewitchments, or
2. that philosophers battle bewitchments caused by language itself?

In addition to such ambiguous sentences which can be understood in more than one way, Wittgenstein discussed figures which can be seen and understood in two different ways. One example Wittgenstein used was the "duckrabbit". What is going on in your brain when you first see it as a duck then see it as a rabbit?

These two examples (above) illustrate that sensory inputs are ambiguous, but typically our brains effortlessly resolve these ambiguities and present our conscious minds with "the meaning" of any particular sensory input. Think about all of the huge amount of work that a brain does to match sensory inputs to our memories and present our conscious minds with meanings. You really have to force yourself to think about it because it seems effortless. It seems effortless because all the work is done by the unconscious part of our brains. Wittgenstein tried mightily to find ways to get his fellow philosophers to see the huge importance of the unconscious. Many people have never learned this lesson and so they continue to think that introspection can reveal more about the functioning of a human mind than is in fact the case.