The Austrian thinker Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) wrote two main works in his life: the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) and the posthumously printed Philosophical Investigations (1953). With Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein directly constructed on and contradicted his earlier work, arguing that the that means of language wasn’t in its relationship to actuality (as he’d argued within the Tractatus) however in its huge net of crisscrossing usages – a ‘language sport’, as he known as it, wherein all persons are engaged. Additional, he stated, any try to step exterior this language sport was doomed to fail as, within the human thoughts, considering and language are inseparable. On this video from 1987, the celebrated UK broadcaster and philosophy populiser Bryan Magee (1930-2019) discusses Wittgenstein’s intricate concepts with the US thinker John Searle (1932-). Highlighting how Wittgenstein twice upended the philosophy of language – as soon as by disagreeing together with his personal earlier views – Searle factors to the thinker’s extensive affect, and what he perceives because the strengths and limits of his life’s work.
