Research on Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Language in the Later Period

Abstract

Wittgenstein puts forward two different theories of language in his philosophical career. This paper discusses the transformation from early Wittgenstein's theory to later Wittgenstein’s theory, and analyzes and evaluates the latter. Early Wittgenstein still adopted the western traditional philosophy’s mode of thinking , based his theory on ontology and language’s image theory, and constructed an ideal artificial language to describe facts in the form of proposition. However, such theories and mode of thinking faced many difficulties and challenges, and the necessity and rationality of constructing an ideal language are questioned. Later Wittgenstein realized the countless ways in which language is used in daily life, and believed that each use of language in life should be regarded as a "language game". Given that, the proposition discussed in the earlier theory is just one of the countless "language games". Therefore, Wittgenstein’s early theory seems to oversimplify the use of language. Later Wittgenstein believed that in order to explore the meaning of language, we should not search for the essence from a metaphysical perspective, but should search for the form of human life and the daily use of language. This is the core of notion “meaning is usage” . The endless debate of philosophers for thousands of years, therefore, results from the fact that philosophers have been trapped in the dilemma of language and have vainly tried to overcome the upper limit of their mind. Later Wittgenstein thus classify the use of language into misuse and normal use, and reminded human to always reflect on their use of language. Although his theory seems to disobey the traditional mode of thinking of Western philosophy, it should be regarded as a great and valuable idea.