See the axis · The point of philosophy

Argument

Dissolving pseudo-problems

Philosophy delivers no truths about the world: it clarifies thought, and shows that many of the great problems are knots of language to be dissolved rather than solved.

Supports

Wittgenstein · Philosophical Investigations, §109, §309 · 1953

  1. The sciences discover facts; what remains proper to philosophy? Not a further domain of facts, but a work on our concepts, our ways of speaking and reasoning.
  2. Now many problems reputed insoluble are born of a misuse of language: one spins out a metaphor, one treats a word as if it named a thing, and one gets locked in a question with no way out. 'Philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday.'
  3. The task, then, is not to settle these questions but to dissolve them: show where the confusion comes from, and the problem vanishes, like a knot undone, 'to show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle'.

Therefore So philosophy brings not more theses but clarity: it teaches us to think, and is measured by the illusions it dispels, not by the doctrines it builds.

How far does this reasoning convince you?

Not at all
Entirely