Wittgenstein's Philosophy: Ethics and Language Analysis

Wittgenstein's Philosophy: Language and Ethics

The Role of Philosophy in the *Tractatus* and *Philosophical Investigations*

According to Wittgenstein, philosophy encourages the clarification of propositions and aims to avoid misleading forms of common language. It is not a science; philosophical propositions, being meaningless, are created by the misunderstanding of language. The method is to "say nothing except what can be said, and whenever someone would say something metaphysical, to demonstrate that he has not given meaning to certain signs." These statements are meaningless as they attempt to exceed the limits of language and the world, and nothing can be said about the world in its entirety. Silence on this field sets the stage for the mystical. Scientific language is the only one with sense and is considered a model and ideal, but there is scope for the private, mystical, beyond language, in which reside the real problems of human existence. Between these two areas, philosophy is defined as a critical activity of language. But it does not reject the realities that lie beyond; something being inexpressible does not mean that it cannot be shown or understood, and that reality is precisely the most important. Therefore, the role of philosophy is to study language games to eliminate the false problems that arise from their complex use. It has two functions: descriptive (to know and describe the facts) and therapeutic (identifying the misuse of language that creates these philosophical pseudo-problems (metaphysical)).

Ethics in Wittgenstein's Thought

In the *Tractatus*, we read that "there can be no ethical propositions." However, Wittgenstein offers another view of the question in his *Lecture on Ethics*, where he has stopped believing that general descriptions of propositions can be truth-functional. He discusses two senses of the word "good":

• In a relative sense, "good" means that something satisfies a predetermined standard.
• In an absolute, ethical sense, it cannot be easily defined, as our words can only convey natural senses, facts, and ethics, if anything, is supernatural.

That does not happen as things happen to which we refer with relative judgments. To speak of it, we have to use examples, similes, and metaphors; if we examine them, we see that behind these facts, nothing exists. Wittgenstein describes three ethical experiences: astonishment, security, and guilt. They are clearly supernatural experiences that seem real but indescribable. He sees no logical sense because that lack of sense is their very essence; they seek to go beyond language, beyond the mere experience of the facts. So, they add nothing to human knowledge, but they are a trend in the human spirit.