On Wittgenstein: The Language-Game And Linguistics

Abstract

Wittgenstein was not the "anti-philosopher" he is so often characterized as having been. this short paper points out inadequacies in some of the traditional views of wittgenstein's philosophy. it then suggests a more positive view of what wittgenstein believed the object of philosophy ought to be: in short, the language-game conceived as human activity, object and linguistic sign, mediated by the rules of grammar. finally, to provide an example of one of the ways in which philosophy might proceed, i discuss elementary notions in the theories of benjamin whorf and noam chomsky.