Wittgenstein’s Philsophical Investigations
Posted on February 10, 2008
Filed Under philosophy | Comments Off
The title of this blog comes from Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. In which he discusses the nature of language. I thought this quote was interesting particularly in the light of David Weinberg’s Every Thing is Miscellaneous, which calls for a rethink regarding our obsession with classification and hierarchy.
It will be possible to say: In language we have different kinds of word. For the functions of the word “slab” and the word “block” are more alike than those of “slab” and “d”. But how we group words into kinds will depend on the aim of the classification, and on our own inclination.
The types of associations and the members included in a group will depend on the ‘aim’ of this grouping. The classical model would suggest that we discover categories; they are in some way natural, necessary and objective. Wittgenstein challenges this model and encourages us to look at the context of the language use to understand the meaning of a categorisation.
For me this reinforces the point that any categorisation scheme is only really meaningful with consideration of its intended use and this is essentially what this blog is about.
« go back