Philosophy Now Forum

Peter Hacker is the leading Wittgenstein scholar at Oxford. Li Hong asked him about Wittgenstein and analytic philosophy.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/58/Peter_Hacker

Philosophy Now wrote:Peter Hacker is the leading Wittgenstein scholar at Oxford. Li Hong asked him about Wittgenstein and analytic philosophy.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/58/Peter_Hacker

Li Hong: 'So, Mr. Hacker, can you tell me a bit about Wittgenstein?'

Peter Hacker: 'Why, yes *cough cough cough hrmh!* He's dead.'

In the Tractatus he [Wittgenstein] held that the investigation into the essence and nature of things is to be conducted through the logical analysis of language.

This would appear to be an assumption and an unjustified one at that. And all that follows is also unjustified.

However an unjustified assumption is acceptable if its logical implications prove to be interesting. But this is not the case here. No one, not even Wittgenstein himself, could take the ideas of Tractatus and develop them into something more. So Tractatus stands as an isolated monolith, an historical oddity that leads nowhere.