Topics Philosophers

Question What was Wittgenstein's contribution to philosophy? He is considered to be one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, and besides his unique use of truth-tables, what was his contribution? Perhaps his vague writing simply gave opportunities for other philosophers to place their own thoughts? What I mean to say is, does it seem likely that 'Wittgenstein' is nothing more than a vague writer and became famous because a lot of talented minds tried to figure out what he was trying to say, and in the process made his writings vastly more insightful than they really were?

Accepted:
January 4, 2010

Comments

There are many ways to answer this question, and hopefully panelists with specialized knowledge of Wittgenstein and the history of 20th Century philosophy will chime in with more specific details. From my position as an interested reader of Wittgenstein, two things stand out: (1) the beauty and blazingly-hot insight of his Tractarian system, and especially his version of the picture theory of meaning and his use of the concept of logical form; (2) the thorough-going critique of his own earlier views in the Investigations and other works.

So, I disagree that Wittgenstein's writing is marked by vagueness -- his writing style is eccentric, to be sure, but I consider it really engaging and insightful, and I consider the Tractatus one of the greatest systematic works of philosophy of the 20th Century. In addition, I find Wittgenstein's willingness to critique himself and revise his views so forcefully--and also with so much insight--to symbolize an aspect of philosophical inquiry that I value greatly.

For more on Wittgenstein's substantive influence on other philosophers, see the first volume of Scott Soames' history of twentieth century philosophy:

Soames, Scott, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Volume 1: The Dawn of Analysis. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003) http://books.google.com/books?id=sS_lToqtGrIC.

(Soames' discussion of Wittgenstein has been hotly contested by specialists, and too find that several of his analysis aren't as reliable or as sympathetic as I'd ideally like to see in a book that may emerge as the standard history of analytic philosophy, but even so I think his long discussion of the Tractatus shows why that work is celebrated--and was influential--because of its substantive achievements.)