Real problems or confusions
On the axis: The point of philosophy · philosophical problems
Are the great philosophical problems real questions, or knots of language to be dissolved rather than solved, at the risk of throwing out the questions that matter?
Justification
Against the idea that philosophy would discover truths or build theories, Wittgenstein holds it, early and late, to be an activity: not a doctrine but an activity of clarification. Philosophical problems are not solved but dissolved, as one is cured of a bad spell of language, by showing the fly the way out of the bottle. It leaves everything as it is: it changes nothing in the world or in ordinary usage, only our understanding.
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 109
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.111-4.112, 6.53-6.54 · Philosophical Investigations, §§109, 116, 124-133, 255, 309
Justification
The young Wittgenstein took the meaning of a name to be the object it stands for; the later Wittgenstein overturns this "Augustinian picture" of language: a word gets its meaning from the role it plays in a rule-governed practice, a . Yet Wittgenstein keeps his caution: he does not make it a general theory of meaning, "for a large class of cases, though not for all", faithful to his refusal of theses.
The meaning of a word is its use in the language.Philosophical Investigations, §43
Philosophical Investigations, §43; §7, §23 (language-games); §§65-67
Anchors: Wittgenstein · Carnap
leads to: The meaning of words