The Message of Philosophical Investigations

Abstract

Wittgenstein’s discussions of language games and of forms of life are parts of his theory of meaning. They led him to a fragmented view of language and so he proposed a search for the rules that each of the different fragments follows. The mention of forms of life was only a hint in that direction, and the better commentators overlook mere hints. Whereas young Wittgenstein centered his discussion on “sentences of the natural sciences”, mature Wittgenstein centered on everyday language. He always claimed that metaphysics is meaningless, but as judged by different rules of grammar.