Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (and this was actually his doctoral dissertation which was
subsequently published) during his lifetime. The Blue and Brown books which consisted of notes that he dictated to two of his students when his classes had gotten too big for him to be comfortable with and their partial reconstruction of his lectures and most of his work (Philosophical Investigations, Zettel and On Certainty) have been produced posthumously, as he was constantly revising it. There are volumes of bound photocopies and rolls of microfilm of his handwritten notes, not all of which have yet been exposed to critical scrutiny. The
Investigations is more of a focused extract of what he regarded as the ‘core’ of his thought: a
reflection of his inner dialogue. Wittgenstein is on record as saying that he would have liked to have the Tractatus and the Investigations printed together in one volume so that he “could publish those old thoughts and the new ones together: that the latter could be seen in the right light only by contrast with and against the background of my old way of thinking” (Wittgenstein, 1958, preface).
In considering Wittgenstein’s notion of philosophy, it is important to keep both works in mind, as those views that he espoused in the Tractatus are the very ones he cautions against
in the Philosophical Investigations. The Tractatus is in contrast to the philosophical notions embodied in the Philosophical Investigations. The former proposes an underlying theory to account for the logical forms of thought, language and the world, while the latter seeks to have no theory, by situating meaning in the social context.
Kenny (2006) is of the view that despite the differences between the Tractatus and the
Investigations there is continuity to be found in Wittgenstein’s views on the nature of
philosophy. Stroll, (2002, pp. 80-81) states that there is a continuity in Wittgenstein’s thinking from his early studies with Bertrand Russell, through to his final writings in 1951. Stroll (2002,) further states that the continuity is based on the presuppositions that the purpose of philosophy is to describe the world correctly towards understanding rather than reduced to scientific description. It is almost as if Wittgenstein is a kind of phenomenologist, perceiving direct engagement as more fundamental than indirect explanation, but without becoming an idealist. If these suppositions are taken to be correct, then there is a continuity of thought, from the Tractatus to the Investigations, which shows an evolution in thinking, where the latter differs quite considerably from the former, but where it is still possible to see how the latter evolved.
For the later Wittgenstein, the aim of philosophy is to provide clarity on why things mean what they do, as opposed to an explanation of what things are. He considers words as they are used in everyday use. He tries to give them proper descriptions of ordinary everyday use. Wittgenstein wants to describe the descriptions and organise them to see what the connections are between them, what the similarities and the differences are. Wittgenstein maintained that the problem is that people misunderstand aspects of language because they don’t reflect on it due to using it every day. The use of the word ‘explanation’ leads people to think of scientific matters, such as an explanation of the ‘mechanism’, by which something works. It is by wanting to describe things and by not explaining them, by not conducting empirical studies as is done in scientific studies, that Wittgenstein shows that philosophy is not like other sciences. Philosophy should not be regarded as the ‘Queen of Science’ (Kenny, 2006, p.182). Philosophy is not like science where there is large body of work which is constantly being built on by successive generations of scientists.
Sluga (2011, p. 74) states that Wittgenstein introduced a plurality of thinking, which stands in contrast to a tradition of philosophy and science that always acted in support of the ideal of unity. Words can refer to the world in only one way (ultimately based on factual state of affairs, or the Platonic ‘forms’). There is a tendency to develop a unifying theory, for example when it comes to whether it is about religion and having only one God or whether it
is a ‘big bang theory’. Unity as an ideal has shaped virtually everything that is thought about, from philosophy, to science, to society. Wittgenstein challenges this unifying principle and the assumption that words can refer to the world in only one way (ultimately based on factual state of affairs; or the Platonic ‘forms’ or ‘essences’). He tries to demonstrate meaning functions in different ways in different contexts, relative to the practical concerns of language users. Sluga (ibid.) has noted that Wittgenstein argues for diversity in the world. People have diverse world pictures (Weltanschauung) and systems. A unifying principle struggles to account for diversity and plurality. Wittgenstein moved from the Tractatus where he maintained that the world is the plurality facts, but that there was a singular, unitary underlying logic of the world. Wittgenstein replaces the mathematical logic that he used as the methodology in the Tractatus, which explains the world as atomic facts, with an everyday discourse describing everyday life. The later Wittgenstein is of the view that there is no one singular logic in the world, as he considers that there may be various relations between language forms and forms of life.
For Wittgenstein, the body of philosophical work over the past two and half millennia, and, in particular, the past three to four hundred years, has been constructed on a false basis. The result of which is philosophy enjoying greater esteem than the sciences because it is presumed to focus on ‘ultimate’ questions about the essences of things. Wittgenstein considered philosophy to be different to other disciplines. It has a unique set of problems. Philosophy is an activity of clarification, not of theory building. For Wittgenstein philosophy is all consuming, almost a way of life.
The descriptive and sometimes seemly-disjointed method used by Wittgenstein is reminiscent of the Socratic style, but as Stroll states, Wittgenstein’s method is wholly original. The purpose of the descriptions is to clarify the propositions to avoid confusions that may arise out of what is being said. The purpose of describing everyday life is, according to Stroll, to provide the background for that everyday life. It is this background that is associated with certainty and it is not “revisable or eliminable like scientific theory or historical conjecture”, (Stroll, 2002, p. 82).
4.2.2 Philosophy as therapy Kenny (2006, p.13) has noted that Wittgenstein sees the