Philosophy
Wittgenstein's language games and why we talk past each other
12 min
Wittgenstein's later argument that meaning comes from use, and that many philosophical disputes are tangles in language rather than real disagreements — a lens on why so many debates go nowhere.
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Show notes
Meaning is determined by how words are used in human life rather than fixed mental images.
Language functions like a tool kit where words act as hammers or saws for specific tasks.
Concepts like games are defined by overlapping family resemblances instead of one single master definition.
A word like water changes meaning depending on whether it is a request or a warning.
Language goes on holiday when words are isolated from their practical use in social life.
Intellectual conflicts often arise when people mistakenly apply rules from two different language games.
In this episode
- 1Intro1 min
- 2The Augustinian Trap and the Search for Essence2 min
- 3Language as a Game: Rules and Use3 min
- 4Family Resemblances and Blurry Edges3 min
- 5When Language Goes on Holiday3 min
- 6Outro1 min
Sources
- Episode 231 - Transcript — Philosophize This!
- Language game (philosophy)
- A Wittgensteinian take on moral vs. deep disagreements
- Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations - A Basic Introduction
- Wittgenstein and the Utility of Disagreement
- Language game (philosophy)
- Wittgenstein, Mouffe and the Depth of Political Disagreement
- How playing Wittgensteinian language-games can set us free - Aeon
- Wittgenstein and Meaning as Use - by William Crooks
- The Illusion of Understanding - by Stephanie Shen - Mosaics
- Wittgenstein, Clarification, and the Augustinian Conception of Language
- Augustine and Wittgenstein - Colin McGinn
- Wittgenstein on the Way We Make Meanings with Language - New Learning Online
- Philosophical Investigations
- Wittgenstein: From the Tractatus to the Investigations — Limits of Language and Language-Games | Philosophy in Summary — Thinkers & Syntheses
- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus | Wittgenstein, Content, Structure, Logical Atomism, Picture Theory, & Facts | Britannica
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann (1889–1951) - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Philosophy of language - Wittgenstein, Semantics, Pragmatics | Britannica
- LANGUAGE GAMES AND PRIVATE LANGUAGE Lars Hertzberg
- "Meaning is Use" and Wittgenstein’s Treatment of Philosophical Problems | Nordic Wittgenstein Review
- (PDF) Wittgenstein's Critique of the Augustinian Picture of Language
- Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein G E M Anscombe z-liborg[25]
- Wittgenstein on the Augustinian picture (Chapter 15) - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language
- Periódicos - UFT | Acta Semiótica et Lingvistica
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